Re: [Taps] TAPS Transports and ICMP

[Joe Touch <[e-mail]>]

On 6/4/2015 11:15 AM, Pal Martinsen (palmarti) wrote:
> 
>> On 04 Jun 2015, at 17:43, Joe Touch <[e-mail]
>> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 6/4/2015 3:48 AM, Pal Martinsen (palmarti) wrote:
>> ...
>>> Does it make sense for the TAPS transports draft to add ICMP?
>>
>> ICMP is not a transport protocol.
> 
> Sure. And I agree. But it has the potential to influence how the various
> transport protocols behave. That interaction might be nice to have
> described in the transports draft.

Abstract APIs need to be described. These are part of that description.

>> The ways in which transport protocols either terminate or pass-through
>> ICMP messages is part of the transport protocol abstract API.
>>
>> E.g., for UDP and TCP see RFC1122.
>>
>> UDP passes all ICMP messages to the app.
>>
> No. Not unless the application specifically listens for it.

UDP passes all ICMP messages to the app. If the app doesn't listen for
it, that's the app's decision.

> Unfortunately how to do this varies from OS to OS:
> See https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-martinsen-tram-stuntrace-01#appendix-A.2 for
> examples.

You are confusing the OS and language-dependent implementation of the
API with the abstract API.

RFC1122 requires that UDP implementations make the ICMP signals
available to the application. It does not indicate by what mechanism.

> Listening for port unreachable can be nice to avoid spamming a host or
> application that recently crashed. Detecting fragmentation or max MTU is
> also a nice feature especially VoIP applications sending video can
> utilise to optimise their packet sizes. 

UDP is required to pass ALL ICMP messages to the app layer, as per RFC 1122.

>> TCP passes only dest unreachable types 0, 1, and 5, time exceeded and
>> parameter problem. All others it interprets or ignores internally and
>> it’s not clear it should pass up to the app.
> 
> That is exactly that kind of information I would find useful in the
> transports draft.

Well, yes - IMO, that's because it's part of the abstract API.

> Any pitfalls with ICMP when doing SCTP?

In many ways, SCTP subsumes similar requirements as TCP, but that's
probably buried in the SCTP docs.

Joe