Re: [multipathtcp] Single-ended Multipath TCP Proxy work item

[Joe Touch <[e-mail]>]

On 11/11/2016 10:01 AM, Olivier Bonaventure wrote:
> The key issue is the ability to signal addresses (mainly the server
> address) to the Proxy without adding delay to the connection
> establishment. This can be achieved by either :
> - adding options to the SYN (but we have to cope with the limited size
> of the TCP options field in the MPTCP SYN)
> - adding information in the payload of the SYN, this information would
> likely be encoded in a TLV format like the TCP/MPTCP options and
> should be compatible with the utilisation of TFO. 

> ...
>
> I don't think so. If we end up putting TLV information in the payload
> of the SYN, some parts of the SYN payload will not belong to the
> bytestream and this might affect the protocol semantics.

If you put options in the SYN payload, you don't have TCP anymore. TCP
allows the user to pick source and dest ports and addresses. There's no
way to fallback without resetting the pending SYN and that needs to be
followed by a wait (pref a TIME-WAIT equivalent). It's not TCP's
perogative to retry the connection with a new source port.

That was known when MPTCP was created. It was known when TCPM explored
the variety of alternatives to extending the SYN (including sending both
new and legacy SYNs at the same time, send a SYN and an "out of band"
message (EOS-SYN) and 4-way handshake). If you think you have an
approach that works, please review these docs (I'm updating EOS-SYN  and
the non-SYN EDO extension with more detail once the queue opens). Let's
not replicate that discussion here.

Joe