Re: [tsvwg] draft-tuexen-tsvwg-sctp-zero-checksum-02 adoption

[[e-mail]]

> On 27. Apr 2023, at 09:31, Magnus Westerlund <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
>  Yes proposed change would address my issue.  Thanks
Hi Magnus,
I wanted to address this issue before submitting version -03 of the individual
draft, followed up by the -00 version of the WG document.

However, when drafting the text, I realized that this is more complex than
I initially thought.

Your suggestion is to allow zero checksum when using SCTP AUTH or CRYPTO.

One issue the related to the middleboxes and one could argue that when using
SCTP over UDP, middleboxes might not interfere with zero checksum. OK, we
can write that without make things more complex.

When using DTLS, all packets are protected. Requiring that packets containing
an INIT chunk is for backwards compatibility and is not specific to SCTP/DTLS
and would require to all other cases. The same applies to packets containing
an COOKIE ECHO or ASCONF chunk. This is for keeping implementations simple.

But there is a difference between SCTP/DTLS and AUTH or CRYPTO:
* For CRYPTO (as I understand it right now) does not protect packets handled
  in the front states.
* For AUTH, it protects only packets for which the AUTH chunk is the first one.

This means that the packets having an alternative protection depends on the
alternative method. How does the receiver know? How to specify it in a generic
way that it includes CRYPTO, for example, without referring to it?

One possibility would be to extend the Zero Checksum Parameter to contain an
uint32_t, which is an IANA registered value indicating the alternative method.
The document could define one for SCTP over DTLS, and one for using AUTH.
Then the CRYTO document could register another one for CRYPTO and provide
the rules.
However, I'm still contemplating whether this is worth doing. If middleboxes
check the CRC32c (which would kill zero checksum for AUTH and CRYPTO for
SCTP/IPv46), why shouldn't they do the same when SCTP is UDP encapsulated?
Assuming that they don't do it now, because SCTP over UDP is not used a lot
right now, does not extrapolate to the case where some specifications exist,
which require SCTP (with CRYPTO or AUTH) over UDP.

What do you think?

I submitted -03 of the individual document and the -00 of the WG document,
because I did not want to hold them up any longer. Once we have come
to a conclusion on the above discussion, I'll update the document accordingly.

Best regards
Michael


>  Magnus
>  On 2023-04-27, 00:13, "tsvwg" <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > On 18. Apr 2023, at 11:06, Magnus Westerlund <magnus.westerlund=[e-mail]> wrote:
> > > Hi Michael,
> >  I am slightly confused by your exclusion of UDP for the zero checksum. I would expect that IP/UDP/SCTP per RFC 6951 would actually make it across a network unless a firewall was present that actually checked the CRC on SCTP level with that encapsulation. Which would in fact be a bit surprising as the UDP payload can be a bit of anything unless the UDP port reveals the service and special rules exists.  
> Hi Magnus,
>  there is an IANA assigned UDP port number. So firewalls could use this. However, I don't know if
> any product does now or will do in the future.
> >  Thus, I would expect that SCTP zero checksum should be possible to deploy when RFC 6951 encapsulation occurs and the SCTP stack would be using SCTP-AUTH or CRYPTO chunk as alternative strong integrity verification.  So I think the zero checksum could actually be allowed for UDP encapsulated SCTP when using a strong integrity mechanism. Just want to ensure that the document doesn’t include unnecessary scoping which doesn’t have technical merit.
> I agree. Possibly we should be more precise:
>  * We should not talk about lower layers providing a protection at least as good as CRC32c, but talk about other
>   protocol mechanisms instead. These protocol mechanisms include lower layers like DTLS, but also AUTH or CRYTO.
> * We should consider two conditions, where the use of the feature is not appropriate:
>   (1) There is no other protocol mechanism to protect a packet at least as good as CRC32c.
>   (2) Middleboxes will interfere with SCTP packets containing an incorrect checksum of zero.
>  Then:
> * SCTP over DTLS is OK, since (1) and (2) are both not true.
> * SCTP over IP is not OK, since (1) and (2) is true.
> * SCTP using AUTH for all chunks over IP is not OK, since (2) is true.
> * SCTP over UDP over IP is not OK, since (1) is true. Whether (2) is true is not known to me.
> * SCTP using AUTH for all chunks over UDP over IP  might be OK, if (2) is not true.
> * SCTP using CRYTO is not OK, since (2) is true.
> * SCTP using CRPTO might be OK, if (2) is not true.
>  Would such a change address your issue?
>  Best regards
> Michael
> >  Cheers
> >  Magnus
> >    On 2023-04-12, 14:21, "tsvwg" <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > > On 11. Apr 2023, at 19:15, Nils Ohlmeier <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > > > Hello,
> > > > I’m supporting adoption of draft draft-tuexen-tsvwg-sctp-zero-checksum-02, because it is going to be useful for all WebRTC endpoints out there to have the option to skip the checksum step.
> > > > I also reviewed the draft. The only concern I found is this sentence:
> > > > "Since the lower layer of SCTP can not be IPv4 or IPv6 as specified in [RFC9260] or UDP as specified in [RFC6951], no problems with middle boxes expecting correct CRC32c checksums in the SCTP packets are expected.”
> > > > Which confuses me, because it sounds to me like this is trying to say that SCTP over IPv4 or IPv6 can not be done. Which obviously doesn’t make any sense. But I honestly fail to parse what this sentence is suppose to tell me (besides no problems with middle boxes is expected).
> > Would using
> >  One example of such a lower layer is the use of SCTP over DTLS as
> > described in [RFC8261] (as used in the WebRTC context). Counter
> > examples include:
> >  * SCTP over IPv4 or IPv6 as specified in [RFC9260].
> >  * SCTP over UDP as specified in [RFC6951].
> >  * The use of SCTP Authentication as specified in [RFC4895].
> >  Therefore using an incorrect zero checksum will not result in
> > problems with middle boxes expecting correct CRC32c checksums in SCTP
> > packets.
> >  be clearer?
> >  Best regards
> > Michael
> > > > Best
> > >  Nils Ohlmeier