Re: [dtn-interest] Review of draft-irtf-dtnrg-tcp-clayer-04

[Simon Perreault <[e-mail]>]

Le 2013-01-14 19:56, Elwyn Davies a écrit :
> c) Encode the reason in the flags bits. 3 reasons and another bit left
> incase we think of some other reasons?  Bit naughty but not a big issue.

Works for me.

> The initial delay SHOULD be at least 1 second but SHOULD be configurable
> and will be application and network type dependent.

Works for me.

> There is a DoS opportunity here in that s6.1 says we have to send the
> contact header (and implicitly complete the TCP setup).  OTOH, there is
> (to the best of my knowledge) no way to tell OS'es to ignore incoming
> SYNs from a particular address for a while.  Probably the best one can
> do is to hold off sending the contact header for a while.

Well, there is a range of things one can do:

a) Once accept() returns, close() the socket if the remote address is evil.

b) Instead of closing, keep the socket open but delay sending the 
contact header.

c) Send a SHUTDOWN as soon as possible.

d) Send a SHUTDOWN after a delay.

e) Combinations of the above...

I think everything is fine and it is up to the implementation to decide 
exactly what to do. It is especially important that it be considered 
legal to just close a TCP connection without sending a contact header. 
So how about simply adding text saying that a server MAY do this kind of 
thing for security purposes?

> One additional thing I had meant to say and forgot:
> The only mention of the ability to use a single TCP connection for
> bidirectional communication (in the sense of sending bundles from A to B
> and B to A on a single TCP connection is in a cryptic reference in s3:
>
>>     When acknowledgments are enabled, then for each data segment that is
>>     received, the receiving node sends an ACK_SEGMENT code followed by an
>>     SDNV containing the cumulative length of the bundle that has been
>>     received.  Note that in the case of concurrent bidirectional
>>     transmission, then ack segments may be interleaved with data
>>     segments.
>
> I would add an explanation of this to s3.. maybe a new subsection:
> 3.1.  Bidirectional Use of TCP Connection
>
> Since each message type used in the TCPCL protocol in association with
> sending a bundle is only sent in a specific direction (DATA_SEGMENT and
> LENGTH from bundle sender to receiver, ACK_SEGMENT and REFUSE_BUNDLE
> from receiver to sender) with the remaining messages (KEEPALIVE and
> SHUTDOWN) being associated with the connection rather than a particular
> bundle, a single TCP connection can be used bidirectionally to send
> bundles concurrently from either end to the other.
>
> Note that in the case of concurrent bidirectional transmission, ack
> segments may be interleaved with data segments.
>
> (and remove this sentence from prior occurrence in s3.)

Agreed. This is important.

Thanks,
Simon