Internet-Draft | RST Diagnostic Payload | April 2022 |
Boucadair | Expires 6 October 2022 | [Page] |
This document specifies a diagnostic payload format to be returned in TCP RST segments. Such payloads are used to share with the endpoints the reasons for which a TCP connection has been reset. This is meant to ease diagnostic and troubleshooting.¶
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A TCP connection [I-D.ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis] can be reset by a peer for various reasons, e.g., received data does not correspond to an active connection. Also, a TCP connection can be reset by an on-path service function (e.g., CGN [RFC6888], NAT64 [RFC6146], firewall) for several reasons. Typically, a NAT function can generate an RST segment to notify the peers upon the expiry of the lifetime of the corresponding mapping entry or because an RST segment was received from a peer (Section 2.2 of [RFC7857]). A TCP connection can also be closed by a user or an application at any time. However, the peer that receives an RST segment does not have any hint about the reason that led to terminating the connection. Likewise, the application that relies upon such a TCP connection may not easily identify the reason for a connection closure. Troubleshooting such events at the remote side of the connection that receives the RST segment may not be trivial.¶
This document fills this void by specifying a format of the diagnostic payload that is returned in an RST segment. Returning such data is consistent with the provision in Section 3.5.3 of [I-D.ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis] for RST segments.¶
This document does not change the conditions under which an RST segment is generated (Section 3.5.2 of [I-D.ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis]).¶
The generic procedure for processing an RST segment is specified in Section 3.5.3 of [I-D.ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis]. Only the deviations from that procedure to insert and validate an enclosed diagnostic payload is provided in Section 3. Section 4 provides a set of examples to illustrate the use of TCP RST diagnostic payloads.¶
This document specifies the format and the overall approach to ease maintaining the list of codes while allowing for adding new codes as needed in the future and accommodating any existing vendor-specific codes. An initial version of error codes is available in Table 1. However, the authoritative source to retrieve the full list of error codes is the IANA-maintained registry Section 5.2.¶
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119][RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
This document makes use of the terms defined in Section 4 of [I-D.ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis].¶
The RST diagnostic payload MUST be encoded using Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) Sequence [RFC8742]. The Concise Data Definition Language (CDDL) [RFC8610] for the diagnostic payload is as follows:¶
The RST diagnostic payload comprises a magic word that is used to unambiguously identify an RST payload that follows this specification. It MUST be set to the RFC number to be assigned to this document.¶
All parameters in the reason component of an RST diagnostic payload are mapped to their CBOR key values as specified in Section 5.1. The description of these parameters is as follows:¶
At least one of "reason-code" and "reason-description" parameters MUST be included in an RST diagnostic payload. It is RECOMMENDED to omit "pen" if a reason code from the IANA-maintained registry (Section 5.2) fits the reset case.¶
Malformed RST diagnostic payload messages that include the magic number MUST be silently ignored by the receiver.¶
A peer that receives a valid diagnostic payload may pass the reset reason information to the local application in addition to the information (MUST-12) described in Section 3.6 of [I-D.ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis]. That information may also be logged locally, unless a local policy specifies otherwise. How the information is passed to an application and how it is stored locally is implementation specific.¶
To ease readability, the CBOR diagnostic notation (Section 8 of [RFC8949]) with the parameter names rather than their CBOR key values in Section 5.1 is used in Figures 3, 4, 5, and 6.¶
Figure 2 depicts an example of RST diagnostic payload that is generated to inform the peer that the TCP connection is reset because an ACK was received from that peer while the connection is still in the LISTEN state (Section 3.10.7.2 of [I-D.ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis]).¶
Figure 3 depicts the same RST diagnostic payload as the one shown in Figure 2 but following the diagnostic notation.¶
Figure 4 shows an example of RST diagnostic payload that includes a free description to report a case that is not covered yet by the IANA-maintained registry (Section 5.2).¶
An RST diagnostic payload may also be reset by an on-path service function. For example, the following diagnostic payload is returned by a NAT upon expiry of the mapping entry to which the TCP connection is bound (Figure 5).¶
Figure 6 illustrates the RST diagnostic payload that is returned by a peer that resets a TCP connection for a reason code 1234 defined by a vendor with the private enterprise number 32473.¶
Figure 6 uses the Enterprise Number 32473 defined for documentation use [RFC5612].¶
IANA is requested to create a new subregistry titled "RST Diagnostic Payload CBOR Key Values" under the "Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Parameters" registry [IANA-TCP].¶
The structure of this subregistry and the initial values are provided below:¶
+--------------------+------+---------------+--------------+ | Parameter Name | CBOR | CBOR Major | Reference | | | Key | Type & | | | | | Information | | +====================+======+===============+==============+ | reason-code | 1 | 0 unsigned |[ThisDocument]| | pen | 2 | 0 unsigned |[ThisDocument]| | reason-description | 3 | 3 text string |[ThisDocument]| +====================+======+===============+==============+¶
The key value MUST be an integer in the 1-255 range.¶
The assignment policy for this registry is "IETF Review" (Section 4.8 of [RFC8126]).¶
This document requests IANA to create a new subregistry entitled "TCP Failure Causes" under the "Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Parameters" registry [IANA-TCP].¶
Values are taken from the 1-65535 range.¶
The assignment policy for this registry is "Expert Review" (Section 4.5 of [RFC8126]).¶
The designated experts may approve registration once they checked that the new requested code is not covered by an existing code and if the provided reasoning to register the new code is acceptable. A registration request may supply a pointer to a specification where that code is defined. However, a registration may be accepted even if no permanent and readily available public specification is available.¶
The registry is initially populated with the following values:¶
Value | Description | Specification (if available) |
---|---|---|
1 | Data lost. New data is received after CLOSE is called | Sections 3.6.1 and 3.10.7.1 of [I-D.ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis] |
2 | Still in LISTEN. Received ACK while the connection still in the LISTEN state | Section 3.10.7.2 of [I-D.ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis] |
3 | Malformed Message | [ThisDocument] |
4 | Not Authorized | [ThisDocument] |
5 | Resource Exceeded | [ThisDocument] |
6 | Network Failure. This code can be used by service functions such as translators. | [ThisDocument] |
7 | Connection Reset received from the peer. This code can be used by service functions such as translators. | [ThisDocument] |
8 | Destination Unreachable. This code can be used by service functions such as translators. | [ThisDocument] |
9 | Connection Timeout. This code can be used by service functions such as translators. | [ThisDocument] |
[I-D.ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis] discusses TCP-related security considerations. RST-specific attacks and their mitigations are discussed in Section 3.10.7.3 of [I-D.ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis].¶
In addition to these considerations, it is RECOMMENDED to control the size of acceptable diagnostic payload and keep it as brief as possible. Also, it is RECOMMENDED to avoid leaking privacy-related information as part of the diagnostic payload (e.g., including a description such as "user X resets explicitly the connection" is not recommended).¶
The "diagnostic payload" name is inspired by Section 5.5.2 of [RFC7252] that was cited by Carsten Bormann in the tcpm mailing list.¶
Thanks to Jon Jon Shallow for the comments.¶