Re: [multipathtcp] MPTCP implementation feedback for RFC6824bis

[Alan Ford <[e-mail]>]

Hi Christoph,

Thank you for the feedback. Comments inline...

> On 27 Nov 2019, at 19:29, Christoph Paasch <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> as I mentioned during the meeting last week in Singapore, the team working on upstreaming MPTCP into the Linux Kernel has some feedback on RFC6824bis that would be good to be factored into the RFC before publication.
> 
> Here is the list of comments/changes the team is suggesting:
> 
> Section 3.1, page 19, "If B has data to send first,..."
> 
> The first phrase states that when A receives a DSS from B it indicates successful delivery of the MP_CAPABLE. However, it is not the DSS but rather the DATA_ACK that indicates this. Digging through some past e-mail exchanges I had with Alan I see that that was indeed the intention.
> 
> We are thus suggesting to change this text to:
> If B has data to send first, then the reliable delivery of the ACK+MP_CAPABLE can be inferred by the receipt of this data with a MPTCP Data Sequence Signal (DSS) option that includes a DATA_ACK (Section 3.3). Further, whenever A receives a DATA_ACK from B it is a signal of the reliable delivery of A's MP_CAPABLE. After this, A can send data to B with a regular DSS option.

That seems entirely logical clarification, and was the intention anyway. A developer probably infers the meaning but clarification is no bad thing.

> Section 3.3.1, page 32 & 33, "A data sequence mapping does not need..."
> 
> This paragraph states that it is permissive to send a mapping in advance. Late-mapping is specified a bit higher around the sentence 
> "Implementations MAY hold onto such unmapped data for a short while in the expectation that a mapping will arrive shortly"
> 
> This kind of early/late mapping announcements are difficult to handle in an implementation. The Linux Kernel implementation of multipath-tcp.org <http://multipath-tcp.org/> has always disallowed such kind of mappings. Meaning, whenever a DSS-option is received such that the range specified by the relative subflow-sequence number in the DSS-option and the data-length does not (partially) cover the TCP sequence number of the packet itself, the subflow will be killed with a TCP-RST. The problem around handling such early/late mappings is that it is unclear for how long the stack needs to remember these mappings (in the early-mapping case), or for how long he needs to hold on to the data (in the late-mapping case).
> 
> We thus suggest to change this to the following:
> Whenever a DSS-option is received on a packet such that the mapping of the subflow-sequence space does not partially cover the TCP-sequence number of  the packet itself, the host MUST discard this mapping and MAY destroy the subflow with a TCP-RST. It should be noted that a DATA_FIN that does not come with data has a relative subflow-sequence number of 0 and thus should be handled separately.

This one I do have an issue with:

- It is a technical change
- Wording to this effect has been in the document since pretty much the beginning
- It is a MAY which might as well say “there is no guarantee this would work”

Most importantly, the replacement text seems not to address this issue at all. If I read it correctly, it says that the data sequence mapping option MUST partially cover the subflow sequence space of the packet itself. But that has nothing to do with late or early mapping, both could partially cover the subflow sequence space and preceding data.

Can you clarify exactly what you want to permit and prevent, here?

Best regards,
Alan