Re: [tcpm] Francesca Palombini's No Objection on draft-ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis-25: (with COMMENT)

[Francesca Palombini <[e-mail]>]

Thanks Ben, it does make sense that that would be the reason for not stepping up the SEQ. I will suggest to the authors to clarify a bit on the point of “occupying sequence number”, if they can, as it would have helped my understanding.

Francesca

From: Benjamin Kaduk <[e-mail]>
Date: Thursday, 30 September 2021 at 23:42
To: Francesca Palombini <[e-mail]>
Cc: The IESG <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Francesca Palombini's No Objection on draft-ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis-25: (with COMMENT)
Hi Francesca,

My confidence level is not as high on this point, but I believe that the
difference here is that the segment being sent still includes the SYN flag.
So, the combination of SEQ=100 with CTL=SYN means that "sequence number 100
is the SYN flag".  In this example of parallel open, the right-side peer
hasn't ack'd the left side's SYN, so the SYN needs to be resent in the
SYN|ACK, and so the segment's sequence number is set to reflect the
(unchanged) initial sequence number.

-Ben

On Thu, Sep 30, 2021 at 09:36:37PM +0000, Francesca Palombini wrote:
> Ben,
>
> Thank you for your reply. I did read “occupy sequence number space” as “the peer needs to increase the sequence number before sending”, which is why I was puzzled by the ACK getting sent with SEQ += 1 (might be worth to clarify).
>
> However I am still missing something: when I look at Figure 7 I see something similar to what happens in Figure 14, but this time with SYN:
>
>    2.  SYN-SENT     --> <SEQ=100><CTL=SYN>              ...
>
>    3.  SYN-RECEIVED <-- <SEQ=300><CTL=SYN>              <-- SYN-SENT
>
>    4.               ... <SEQ=100><CTL=SYN>              --> SYN-RECEIVED
>
>    5.  SYN-RECEIVED --> <SEQ=100><ACK=301><CTL=SYN,ACK> ...
>
> I am looking at lines 2 and 5. Peer A sends the SYN with SEQ 100, and then sends the SYN and ACK with the same SEQ 100. Making the parallel with what you say below, shouldn’t then in this case the SYN message occupy sequence number space, and the next message sent (line 5.) getting SEQ=101?
>
> Francesca
>
> From: Benjamin Kaduk <[e-mail]>
> Date: Thursday, 30 September 2021 at 22:12
> To: Francesca Palombini <[e-mail]>
> Cc: The IESG <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Re: Francesca Palombini's No Objection on draft-ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis-25: (with COMMENT)
> On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 02:19:17PM -0700, Francesca Palombini via Datatracker wrote:
> > 4. -----
> >
> > FP: This is surely me missing something but, in section 3.5 I see:
> >
> >    4.  ESTABLISHED --> <SEQ=101><ACK=301><CTL=ACK>       --> ESTABLISHED
> >
> >    5.  ESTABLISHED --> <SEQ=101><ACK=301><CTL=ACK><DATA> --> ESTABLISHED
> >
> > which is followed by:
> >
> >    Note that the sequence number of the segment in line 5 is the same as
> >    in line 4 because the ACK does not occupy sequence number space (if
> >    it did, we would wind up ACKing ACKs!).
> >
> > However, later on, in Figure 13:
> >
> >    2.  (Close)                                              (Close)
> >        FIN-WAIT-1  --> <SEQ=100><ACK=300><CTL=FIN,ACK>  ... FIN-WAIT-1
> >                    <-- <SEQ=300><ACK=100><CTL=FIN,ACK>  <--
> >                    ... <SEQ=100><ACK=300><CTL=FIN,ACK>  -->
> >
> >    3.  CLOSING     --> <SEQ=101><ACK=301><CTL=ACK>      ... CLOSING
> >                    <-- <SEQ=301><ACK=101><CTL=ACK>      <--
> >                    ... <SEQ=101><ACK=301><CTL=ACK>      -->
> >
> > I am confused why in this case, in line 3, ACK does in fact occupy sequence
> > number space. What am I missing?
>
> It is the FIN that occupies sequence number space, not the ACK.
>
> Both steps 2 and 3 show messages being sent "in parallel", i.e., the "..."
> in the respective column shows that the event is not currently occuring at
> that endpoint.
>
> So in (2), left sends SEQ=100,FIN, and right sends SEQ=300,FIN; since those
> sequence numbers are thus committed, in (3) left has to send SEQ=101 and
> right has to send SEQ=301.
>
> -Ben