| Network Working Group | C. Hopps |
| Internet-Draft | LabN Consulting, L.L.C. |
| Intended status: Standards Track | March 2, 2020 |
| Expires: September 3, 2020 |
IP Traffic Flow Security
draft-ietf-ipsecme-iptfs-01
This document describes a mechanism to enhance IPsec traffic flow security by adding traffic flow confidentiality to encrypted IP encapsulated traffic. Traffic flow confidentiality is provided by obscuring the size and frequency of IP traffic using a fixed-sized, constant-send-rate IPsec tunnel. The solution allows for congestion control as well.
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Traffic Analysis ([RFC4301], [AppCrypt]) is the act of extracting information about data being sent through a network. While one may directly obscure the data through the use of encryption [RFC4303], the traffic pattern itself exposes information due to variations in it's shape and timing ([I-D.iab-wire-image], [AppCrypt]). Hiding the size and frequency of traffic is referred to as Traffic Flow Confidentiality (TFC) per [RFC4303].
[RFC4303] provides for TFC by allowing padding to be added to encrypted IP packets and allowing for transmission of all-pad packets (indicated using protocol 59). This method has the major limitation that it can significantly under-utilize the available bandwidth.
The IP-TFS solution provides for full TFC without the aforementioned bandwidth limitation. To do this, we use a constant-send-rate IPsec [RFC4303] tunnel with fixed-sized encapsulating packets; however, these fixed-sized packets can contain partial, whole or multiple IP packets to maximize the bandwidth of the tunnel.
For a comparison of the overhead of IP-TFS with the RFC4303 prescribed TFC solution see Appendix C.
Additionally, IP-TFS provides for dealing with network congestion [RFC2914]. This is important for when the IP-TFS user is not in full control of the domain through which the IP-TFS tunnel path flows.
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 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.
This document assumes familiarity with IP security concepts described in [RFC4301].
As mentioned in Section 1 IP-TFS utilizes an IPsec [RFC4303] tunnel (SA) as it's transport. To provide for full TFC we send fixed-sized encapsulating packets at a constant rate on the tunnel.
The primary input to the tunnel algorithm is the requested bandwidth of the tunnel. Two values are then required to provide for this bandwidth, the fixed size of the encapsulating packets, and rate at which to send them.
The fixed packet size may either be specified manually or can be determined through the use of Path MTU discovery [RFC1191] and [RFC8201].
Given the encapsulating packet size and the requested tunnel bandwidth, the corresponding packet send rate can be calculated. The packet send rate is the requested bandwidth divided by the payload size of the encapsulating packet.
The egress of the IP-TFS tunnel MUST allow for and expect the ingress (sending) side of the IP-TFS tunnel to vary the size and rate of sent encapsulating packets, unless constrained by other policy.
As previously mentioned, one issue with the TFC padding solution in [RFC4303] is the large amount of wasted bandwidth as only one IP packet can be sent per encapsulating packet. In order to maximize bandwidth IP-TFS breaks this one-to-one association.
With IP-TFS we aggregate as well as fragment the inner IP traffic flow into fixed-sized encapsulating IPsec tunnel packets. We only pad the tunnel packets if there is no data available to be sent at the time of tunnel packet transmission, or if fragmentation has been disabled by the receiver.
In order to do this we use a new Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP, [RFC4303]) type which is identified by the IP protocol number IPTFS_PROTOCOL (TBD1).
The IPTFS_PROTOCOL payload content defined in this document is comprised of a 4 or 16 octet header followed by either a partial, a full or multiple partial or full data blocks. The following diagram illustrates this IPTFS_PROTOCOL payload within the ESP packet. See Section 6.1 for the exact formats of the IPTFS_PROTOCOL payload.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Outer Encapsulating Header ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ESP Header... . +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | ... : BlockOffset | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ : [Optional Congestion Info] : +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | DataBlocks ... ~ ~ ~ ~ | +---------------------------------------------------------------| . ESP Trailer... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Figure 1: Layout of an IP-TFS IPsec Packet
The BlockOffset value is either zero or some offset into or past the end of the DataBlocks data.
If the BlockOffset value is zero it means that the DataBlocks data begins with a new data block.
Conversely, if the BlockOffset value is non-zero it points to the start of the new data block, and the initial DataBlocks data belongs to a previous data block that is still being re-assembled.
The BlockOffset can point past the end of the DataBlocks data which indicates that the next data block occurs in a subsequent encapsulating packet.
Having the BlockOffset always point at the next available data block allows for quick recovery with minimal inner packet loss in the presence of outer encapsulating packet loss.
An example IP-TFS packet flow can be found in Appendix A.
+---------------------------------------------------------------+ | Type | rest of IPv4, IPv6 or pad. +--------
Figure 2: Layout of IP-TFS data block
A data block is defined by a 4-bit type code followed by the data block data. The type values have been carefully chosen to coincide with the IPv4/IPv6 version field values so that no per-data block type overhead is required to encapsulate an IP packet. Likewise, the length of the data block is extracted from the encapsulated IPv4 or IPv6 packet's length field.
It's worth noting that since a data block type is identified by its first octet there is never a need for an implicit pad at the end of an encapsulating packet. Even when the start of a data block occurs near the end of a encapsulating packet such that there is no room for the length field of the encapsulated header to be included in the current encapsulating packet, the fact that the length comes at a known location and is guaranteed to be present is enough to fetch the length field from the subsequent encapsulating packet payload. Only when there is no data to encapsulated is end padding required, and then an explicit Pad Data Block would be used to identify the padding.
In order to support reporting of congestion control information (described later) on a non-IP-TFS enabled SA, IP-TFS allows for the sending of an IP-TFS payload with no data blocks (i.e., the ESP payload length is equal to the IP-TFS header length). This special payload is called an empty payload.
[RFC4301] provides some direction on when and how to map various values from an inner IP header to the outer encapsulating header, namely the Don't-Fragment (DF) bit ([RFC0791] and [RFC8200]), the Differentiated Services (DS) field [RFC2474] and the Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) field [RFC3168]. Unlike [RFC4301] with IP-TFS we may and often will be encapsulating more than 1 IP packet per ESP packet. To deal with this we further restrict these mappings. In particular we never map the inner DF bit as it is unrelated to the IP-TFS tunnel functionality; we never IP fragment the inner packets and the inner packets will not affect the fragmentation of the outer encapsulation packets. Likewise, the ECN value need not be mapped as any congestion related to the constant-send-rate IP-TFS tunnel is unrelated (by design!) to the inner traffic flow. Finally, by default the DS field SHOULD NOT be copied although an implementation MAY choose to allow for configuration to override this behavior. An implementation SHOULD also allow the DS value to be set by configuration.
It is not the intention of this specification to allow for mixed use of an IP-TFS enabled SA. In other words, an SA that has IP-TFS enabled is exclusively for IP-TFS use and MUST NOT have non-IP-TFS payloads such as IP (IP protocol 4), TCP transport (IP protocol 6), or ESP pad packets (protocol 59) intermixed with non-empty IP-TFS (IP protocol TBD1) payloads. While it's possible to envision making the algorithm work in the presence of sequence number skips in the IP-TFS payload stream, the added complexity is not deemed worthwhile. Other IPsec uses can configure and use their own SAs.
While a user will normally configure their IPsec tunnel (SA) to operate using IP-TFS to start, we also allow IP-TFS operation to be enabled post-SA creation and use. This late-enabling may be useful for debugging or other purposes. To support this late-enabled operation the receiver switches to IP-TFS operation on receipt of the first ESP payload with the IPTFS_PROTOCOL indicated as the payload type which also contains a data block (i.e., a non-empty IP-TFS payload). The the receipt of an empty IPTFS_PROTOCOL payload (i.e., one without any data blocks) is used to communicate congestion control information from the receiver back to the sender on a non-IP-TFS enabled SA, and MUST NOT cause IP-TFS to be enabled on that SA.
Just as with normal IPsec/ESP tunnels, IP-TFS tunnels are unidirectional. Bidirectional IP-TFS functionality is achieved by setting up 2 IP-TFS tunnels, one in either direction.
An IP-TFS tunnel can operate in 2 modes, a non-congestion controlled mode and congestion controlled mode.
In the non-congestion controlled mode IP-TFS sends fixed-sized packets at a constant rate. The packet send rate is constant and is not automatically adjusted regardless of any network congestion (e.g., packet loss).
For similar reasons as given in [RFC7510] the non-congestion controlled mode should only be used where the user has full administrative control over the path the tunnel will take. This is required so the user can guarantee the bandwidth and also be sure as to not be negatively affecting network congestion [RFC2914]. In this case packet loss should be reported to the administrator (e.g., via syslog, YANG notification, SNMP traps, etc) so that any failures due to a lack of bandwidth can be corrected.
With the congestion controlled mode, IP-TFS adapts to network congestion by lowering the packet send rate to accommodate the congestion, as well as raising the rate when congestion subsides. Since overhead is per packet, by allowing for maximal fixed-size packets and varying the send rate we minimize transport overhead.
The output of the congestion control algorithm will adjust the rate at which the ingress sends packets. While this document does not require a specific congestion control algorithm, best current practice RECOMMENDS that the algorithm conform to [RFC5348]. Congestion control principles are documented in [RFC2914] as well. An example of an implementation of the [RFC5348] algorithm which matches the requirements of IP-TFS (i.e., designed for fixed-size packet and send rate varied based on congestion) is documented in [RFC4342].
The required inputs for the TCP friendly rate control algorithm described in [RFC5348] are the receivers loss event rate and the senders estimated round-trip time (RTT). These values are provided by IP-TFS using the congestion information header fields described in Section 3. In particular these values are sufficient to implement the algorithm described in [RFC5348].
At a minimum, the congestion information must be sent, from the receiver as well as from the sender, at least once per RTT. Prior to establishing an RTT the information SHOULD be sent constantly from the sender and the receiver so that an RTT estimate can be established. The lack of receiving this information over multiple consecutive RTT intervals should be considered a congestion event that causes the sender to adjust it's sending rate lower. For example, [RFC4342] calls this the "no feedback timeout" and it is equal to 4 RTT intervals. When a "no feedback timeout" has occurred [RFC4342] halves the sending rate.
An implementation could choose to always include the congestion information in it's IP-TFS payload header if sending on an IP-TFS enabled SA. Since IP-TFS normally will operate with a large packet size, the congestion information should represent a small portion of the available tunnel bandwidth.
When an implementation is choosing a congestion control algorithm (or a selection of algorithms) one should remember that IP-TFS is not providing for reliable delivery of IP traffic, and so per packet ACKs are not required and are not provided.
It's worth noting that the variable send-rate of a congestion controlled IP-TFS tunnel, is not private; however, this send-rate is being driven by network congestion, and as long as the encapsulated (inner) traffic flow shape and timing are not directly affecting the (outer) network congestion, the variations in the tunnel rate will not weaken the provided inner traffic flow confidentiality.
In additional to congestion control, implementations MAY choose to define and implement circuit breakers [RFC8084] as a recovery method of last resort. Enabling circuit breakers is also a reason a user may wish to enable congestion information reports even when using the non-congestion controlled mode of operation. The definition of circuit breakers are outside the scope of this document.
In order to support the congestion control mode, the sender needs to know the loss event rate and also be able to approximate the RTT ([RFC5348]). In order to obtain these values the receiver sends congestion control information on it's SA back to the sender. Thus, in order to support congestion control the receiver must have a paired SA back to the sender (this is always the case when the tunnel was created using IKEv2). If the SA back to the sender is a non-IP-TFS enabled SA then an IPTFS_PROTOCOL empty payload (i.e., header only) is used to convey the information.
In order to calculate a loss event rate compatible with [RFC5348], the receiver needs to have a round-trip time estimate. Thus the sender communicates this estimate in the RTT header field. On startup this value will be zero as no RTT estimate is yet known.
In order to allow the sender to calculate the RTT value, the receiver communicates the last sequence number it has seen to the sender in the LastSeqNum header field. In addition to the LastSeqNum value, the receiver sends an estimate of the amount of time between receiving the LastSeqNum packet and transmitting the LastSeqNum value back to the sender in the congestion information. It places this time estimate in the Delay header field along with the LastSeqNum.
The receiver also calculates, and communicates in the LossEventRate header field, the loss event rate for use by the sender. This is slightly different from [RFC4342] which periodically sends all the loss interval data back to the sender so that it can do the calculation. See Appendix B for a suggested way to calculate the loss event rate value. Initially this value will be zero (indicating no loss) until enough data has been collected by the receiver to update it.
In additional to normal packet loss information IP-TFS supports use of the ECN bits in the encapsulating IP header [RFC3168] for identifying congestion. If ECN use is enabled and a packet arrives at the egress endpoint with the Congestion Experienced (CE) value set, then the receiver considers that packet as being dropped, although it does not drop it. The receiver MUST set the E bit in any IPTFS_PROTOCOL payload header containing a LossEventRate value derived from a CE value being considered.
As noted in [RFC3168] the ECN bits are not protected by IPsec and thus may constitute a covert channel. For this reason ECN use SHOULD NOT be enabled by default.
IP-TFS is meant to be deployable with a minimal amount of configuration. All IP-TFS specific configuration should be able to be specified at the unidirectional tunnel ingress (sending) side. It is intended that non-IKEv2 operation is supported, at least, with local static configuration.
Bandwidth is a local configuration option. For non-congestion controlled mode the bandwidth SHOULD be configured. For congestion controlled mode one can configure the bandwidth or have no configuration and let congestion control discover the maximum bandwidth available. No standardized configuration method is required.
The fixed packet size to be used for the tunnel encapsulation packets can be configured manually or can be automatically determined using Path MTU discovery (see [RFC1191] and [RFC8201]). No standardized configuration method is required.
Congestion control is a local configuration option. No standardized configuration method is required.
When using IKEv2, a new "USE_IPTFS" Notification Message is used to enable operation of IP-TFS on a child SA pair. The method used is similar to how USE_TRANSPORT_MODE is negotiated, as described in [RFC7296].
To request IP-TFS operation on the Child SA pair, the initiator includes the USE_IPTFS notification in an SA payload requesting a new Child SA (either during the initial IKE_AUTH or during non-rekeying CREATE_CHILD_SA exchanges). If the request is accepted then response MUST also include a notification of type USE_IPTFS. If the responder declines the request the child SA will be established without IP-TFS enabled. If this is unacceptable to the initiator, the initiator MUST delete the child SA.
The USE_IPTFS notification MUST NOT be sent, and MUST be ignored, during a CREATE_CHILD_SA rekeying exchange as it is not allowed to change IP-TFS operation during rekeying.
The USE_IPTFS notification contains a 1 octet payload of flags that specify any requirements from the sender of the message. If any requirement flags are not understood or cannot be supported by the receiver then the receiver should not enable IP-TFS mode (either by not responding with the USE_IPTFS notification, or in the case of the initiator, by deleting the child SA if the now established non-IP-TFS operation is unacceptable).
The notification type and payload flag values are defined in Section 6.1.4.
An IP-TFS payload is identified by the IP protocol number IPTFS_PROTOCOL (TBD1). The first octet of this payload indicates the format of the remaining payload data.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- | Sub-type | ... +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
This specification defines 2 payload sub-types. These payload formats are defined in the following sections.
The non-congestion control IPTFS_PROTOCOL payload is comprised of a 4 octet header followed by a variable amount of DataBlocks data as shown below.
1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Sub-Type (0) | Reserved | BlockOffset |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| DataBlocks ...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
The congestion control IPTFS_PROTOCOL payload is comprised of a 16 octet header followed by a variable amount of DataBlocks data as shown below.
1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Sub-type (1) | Reserved |E| BlockOffset |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| RTT | Delay |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| LossEventRate |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| LastSeqNum |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| DataBlocks ...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | IPv4, IPv6 or pad...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| 0x4 | IHL | TypeOfService | TotalLength |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Rest of the inner packet ...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
These values are the actual values within the encapsulated IPv4 header. In other words, the start of this data block is the start of the encapsulated IP packet.
1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| 0x6 | TrafficClass | FlowLabel |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| PayloadLength | Rest of the inner packet ...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
These values are the actual values within the encapsulated IPv6 header. In other words, the start of this data block is the start of the encapsulated IP packet.
1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| 0x0 | Padding ...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
As discussed in Section 5.1 a notification message USE_IPTFS is used to negotiate IP-TFS operation in IKEv2.
The USE_IPTFS Notification Message State Type is (TBD2).
The notification payload contains 1 octet of requirement flags. There are currently 2 requirement flags defined. This may be revised by later specifications.
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |0|0|0|0|0|0|C|D| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
This document requests a protocol number IPTFS_PROTOCOL be allocated by IANA from "Assigned Internet Protocol Numbers" registry for identifying the IP-TFS payload.
This document requests IANA create a registry called "IPTFS_PROTOCOL Sub-Type Registry" under "IPTFS_PROTOCOL Parameters" IANA registries. The registration policy for this registry is "Standards Action" ([RFC8126] and [RFC7120]).
This initial content for this registry is as follows:
Sub-Type Name Reference
--------------------------------------------------------
0 Non-Congestion Control Format This document
1 Congestion Control Format This document
3-255 Reserved
This document requests a status type USE_IPTFS be allocated from the "IKEv2 Notify Message Types - Status Types" registry.
This document describes a mechanism to add Traffic Flow Confidentiality to IP traffic. Use of this mechanism is expected to increase the security of the traffic being transported. Other than the additional security afforded by using this mechanism, IP-TFS utilizes the security protocols [RFC4303] and [RFC7296] and so their security considerations apply to IP-TFS as well.
As noted previously in Section 2.5.2, for TFC to be fully maintained the encapsulated traffic flow should not be affecting network congestion in a predictable way, and if it would be then non-congestion controlled mode use should be considered instead.
| [RFC2119] | Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997. |
| [RFC4303] | Kent, S., "IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)", RFC 4303, DOI 10.17487/RFC4303, December 2005. |
| [RFC7296] | Kaufman, C., Hoffman, P., Nir, Y., Eronen, P. and T. Kivinen, "Internet Key Exchange Protocol Version 2 (IKEv2)", STD 79, RFC 7296, DOI 10.17487/RFC7296, October 2014. |
| [RFC8174] | Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May 2017. |
Below we show an example inner IP packet flow within the encapsulating tunnel packet stream. Notice how encapsulated IP packets can start and end anywhere, and more than one or less than 1 may occur in a single encapsulating packet.
Offset: 0 Offset: 100 Offset: 2900 Offset: 1400 [ ESP1 (1500) ][ ESP2 (1500) ][ ESP3 (1500) ][ ESP4 (1500) ] [--800--][--800--][60][-240-][--4000----------------------][pad]
Figure 3: Inner and Outer Packet Flow
The encapsulated IP packet flow (lengths include IP header and payload) is as follows: an 800 octet packet, an 800 octet packet, a 60 octet packet, a 240 octet packet, a 4000 octet packet.
The BlockOffset values in the 4 IP-TFS payload headers for this packet flow would thus be: 0, 100, 2900, 1400 respectively. The first encapsulating packet ESP1 has a zero BlockOffset which points at the IP data block immediately following the IP-TFS header. The following packet ESP2s BlockOffset points inward 100 octets to the start of the 60 octet data block. The third encapsulating packet ESP3 contains the middle portion of the 4000 octet data block so the offset points past its end and into the forth encapsulating packet. The fourth packet ESP4s offset is 1400 pointing at the padding which follows the completion of the continued 4000 octet packet.
The current best practice indicates that congestion control should be done in a TCP friendly way. A TCP friendly congestion control algorithm is described in [RFC5348]. For our use case (as with [RFC4342]) we consider our (fixed) packet size the segment size for the algorithm. The formula for the send rate is then as follows:
1
X_Pps = -----------------------------------------------
R * (sqrt(2*p/3) + 12*sqrt(3*p/8)*p*(1+32*p^2))
Where X_Pps is the send rate in packets per second, R is the round trip time estimate and p is the loss event rate (the inverse of which is provided by the receiver).
The IP-TFS receiver, having the RTT estimate from the sender MAY use the same method as described in [RFC4342] to collect the loss intervals and calculate the loss event rate value using the weighted average as indicated. The receiver communicates the inverse of this value back to the sender in the IPTFS_PROTOCOL payload header field LossEventRate.
The IP-TFS sender now has both the R and p values and can calculate the correct sending rate (X_Pps). If following [RFC5348] the sender SHOULD also use the slow start mechanism described therein when the IP-TFS SA is first established.
The overhead of IP-TFS is 40 bytes per outer packet. Therefore the octet overhead per inner packet is 40 divided by the number of outer packets required (fractional allowed). The overhead as a percentage of inner packet size is a constant based on the Outer MTU size.
OH = 40 / Outer Payload Size / Inner Packet Size OH % of Inner Packet Size = 100 * OH / Inner Packet Size OH % of Inner Packet Size = 4000 / Outer Payload Size
Type IP-TFS IP-TFS IP-TFS MTU 576 1500 9000 PSize 536 1460 8960 ------------------------------- 40 7.46% 2.74% 0.45% 576 7.46% 2.74% 0.45% 1500 7.46% 2.74% 0.45% 9000 7.46% 2.74% 0.45%
Figure 4: IP-TFS Overhead as Percentage of Inner Packet Size
The overhead per inner packet for constant-send-rate padded ESP (i.e., traditional IPsec TFC) is 36 octets plus any padding, unless fragmentation is required.
When fragmentation of the inner packet is required to fit in the outer IPsec packet, overhead is the number of outer packets required to carry the fragmented inner packet times both the inner IP overhead (20) and the outer packet overhead (36) minus the initial inner IP overhead plus any required tail padding in the last encapsulation packet. The required tail padding is the number of required packets times the difference of the Outer Payload Size and the IP Overhead minus the Inner Payload Size. So:
Inner Paylaod Size = IP Packet Size - IP Overhead
Outer Payload Size = MTU - IPsec Overhead
Inner Payload Size
NF0 = ----------------------------------
Outer Payload Size - IP Overhead
NF = CEILING(NF0)
OH = NF * (IP Overhead + IPsec Overhead)
- IP Overhead
+ NF * (Outer Payload Size - IP Overhead)
- Inner Payload Size
OH = NF * (IPsec Overhead + Outer Payload Size)
- (IP Overhead + Inner Payload Size)
OH = NF * (IPsec Overhead + Outer Payload Size)
- Inner Packet Size
The following tables collect the overhead values for some common L3 MTU sizes in order to compare them. The first table is the number of octets of overhead for a given L3 MTU sized packet. The second table is the percentage of overhead in the same MTU sized packet.
Type ESP+Pad ESP+Pad ESP+Pad IP-TFS IP-TFS IP-TFS
L3 MTU 576 1500 9000 576 1500 9000
PSize 540 1464 8964 536 1460 8960
-----------------------------------------------------------
40 500 1424 8924 3.0 1.1 0.2
128 412 1336 8836 9.6 3.5 0.6
256 284 1208 8708 19.1 7.0 1.1
536 4 928 8428 40.0 14.7 2.4
576 576 888 8388 43.0 15.8 2.6
1460 268 4 7504 109.0 40.0 6.5
1500 228 1500 7464 111.9 41.1 6.7
8960 1408 1540 4 668.7 245.5 40.0
9000 1368 1500 9000 671.6 246.6 40.2
Figure 5: Overhead comparison in octets
Type ESP+Pad ESP+Pad ESP+Pad IP-TFS IP-TFS IP-TFS
MTU 576 1500 9000 576 1500 9000
PSize 540 1464 8964 536 1460 8960
-----------------------------------------------------------
40 1250.0% 3560.0% 22310.0% 7.46% 2.74% 0.45%
128 321.9% 1043.8% 6903.1% 7.46% 2.74% 0.45%
256 110.9% 471.9% 3401.6% 7.46% 2.74% 0.45%
536 0.7% 173.1% 1572.4% 7.46% 2.74% 0.45%
576 100.0% 154.2% 1456.2% 7.46% 2.74% 0.45%
1460 18.4% 0.3% 514.0% 7.46% 2.74% 0.45%
1500 15.2% 100.0% 497.6% 7.46% 2.74% 0.45%
8960 15.7% 17.2% 0.0% 7.46% 2.74% 0.45%
9000 15.2% 16.7% 100.0% 7.46% 2.74% 0.45%
Figure 6: Overhead as Percentage of Inner Packet Size
Another way to compare the two solutions is to look at the amount of available bandwidth each solution provides. The following sections consider and compare the percentage of available bandwidth. For the sake of providing a well understood baseline we will also include normal (unencrypted) Ethernet as well as normal ESP values.
In order to calculate the available bandwidth we first calculate the per packet overhead in bits. The total overhead of Ethernet is 14+4 octets of header and CRC plus and additional 20 octets of framing (preamble, start, and inter-packet gap) for a total of 48 octets. Additionally the minimum payload is 46 octets.
Size E + P E + P E + P IPTFS IPTFS IPTFS Enet ESP
MTU 590 1514 9014 590 1514 9014 any any
OH 74 74 74 78 78 78 38 74
------------------------------------------------------------
40 614 1538 9038 45 42 40 84 114
128 614 1538 9038 146 134 129 166 202
256 614 1538 9038 293 269 258 294 330
536 614 1538 9038 614 564 540 574 610
576 1228 1538 9038 659 606 581 614 650
1460 1842 1538 9038 1672 1538 1472 1498 1534
1500 1842 3076 9038 1718 1580 1513 1538 1574
8960 11052 10766 9038 10263 9438 9038 8998 9034
9000 11052 10766 18076 10309 9480 9078 9038 9074
Figure 7: L2 Octets Per Packet
Size E + P E + P E + P IPTFS IPTFS IPTFS Enet ESP
MTU 590 1514 9014 590 1514 9014 any any
OH 74 74 74 78 78 78 38 74
--------------------------------------------------------------
40 2.0M 0.8M 0.1M 27.3M 29.7M 31.0M 14.9M 11.0M
128 2.0M 0.8M 0.1M 8.5M 9.3M 9.7M 7.5M 6.2M
256 2.0M 0.8M 0.1M 4.3M 4.6M 4.8M 4.3M 3.8M
536 2.0M 0.8M 0.1M 2.0M 2.2M 2.3M 2.2M 2.0M
576 1.0M 0.8M 0.1M 1.9M 2.1M 2.2M 2.0M 1.9M
1460 678K 812K 138K 747K 812K 848K 834K 814K
1500 678K 406K 138K 727K 791K 826K 812K 794K
8960 113K 116K 138K 121K 132K 138K 138K 138K
9000 113K 116K 69K 121K 131K 137K 138K 137K
Figure 8: Packets Per Second on 10G Ethernet
Size E + P E + P E + P IPTFS IPTFS IPTFS Enet ESP
590 1514 9014 590 1514 9014 any any
74 74 74 78 78 78 38 74
----------------------------------------------------------------------
40 6.51% 2.60% 0.44% 87.30% 94.93% 99.14% 47.62% 35.09%
128 20.85% 8.32% 1.42% 87.30% 94.93% 99.14% 77.11% 63.37%
256 41.69% 16.64% 2.83% 87.30% 94.93% 99.14% 87.07% 77.58%
536 87.30% 34.85% 5.93% 87.30% 94.93% 99.14% 93.38% 87.87%
576 46.91% 37.45% 6.37% 87.30% 94.93% 99.14% 93.81% 88.62%
1460 79.26% 94.93% 16.15% 87.30% 94.93% 99.14% 97.46% 95.18%
1500 81.43% 48.76% 16.60% 87.30% 94.93% 99.14% 97.53% 95.30%
8960 81.07% 83.22% 99.14% 87.30% 94.93% 99.14% 99.58% 99.18%
9000 81.43% 83.60% 49.79% 87.30% 94.93% 99.14% 99.58% 99.18%
Figure 9: Percentage of Bandwidth on 10G Ethernet
A sometimes unexpected result of using IP-TFS (or any packet aggregating tunnel) is that, for small to medium sized packets, the available bandwidth is actually greater than native Ethernet. This is due to the reduction in Ethernet framing overhead. This increased bandwidth is paid for with an increase in latency. This latency is the time to send the unrelated octets in the outer tunnel frame. The following table illustrates the latency for some common values on a 10G Ethernet link. The table also includes latency introduced by padding if using ESP with padding.
ESP+Pad ESP+Pad IP-TFS IP-TFS
1500 9000 1500 9000
------------------------------------------
40 1.14 us 7.14 us 1.17 us 7.17 us
128 1.07 us 7.07 us 1.10 us 7.10 us
256 0.97 us 6.97 us 1.00 us 7.00 us
536 0.74 us 6.74 us 0.77 us 6.77 us
576 0.71 us 6.71 us 0.74 us 6.74 us
1460 0.00 us 6.00 us 0.04 us 6.04 us
1500 1.20 us 5.97 us 0.00 us 6.00 us
Figure 10: Added Latency
Notice that the latency values are very similar between the two solutions; however, whereas IP-TFS provides for constant high bandwidth, in some cases even exceeding native Ethernet, ESP with padding often greatly reduces available bandwidth.
We would like to thank Don Fedyk for help in reviewing this work.
The following people made significant contributions to this document.
Lou Berger LabN Consulting, L.L.C. Email: lberger@labn.net