Content Delivery Network Interconnection (CDNI) Footprint and Capabilities Advertisement Using Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) HFT Stuttgart - Univ. of Applied Sciences
Schellingstrasse 24 Stuttgart 70174 Germany +49-0711-8926-2801 jan.seedorf@hft-stuttgart.de
Yale University
51 Prospect Street New Haven CT 06511 USA +1-203-432-6400 yry@cs.yale.edu http://www.cs.yale.edu/~yry/
Ericsson
43 Nagog Park Acton MA 01720 USA +1-978-844-5100 kevin.j.ma.ietf@gmail.com
NeuStar
1800 Sutter St., Suite 570 Concord CA 94520 USA jon.peterson@neustar.biz
Tongji University
4800 Cao'an Hwy Shanghai 201804 China jingxuan.zhang@tongji.edu.cn
tsv ALTO ALTO The Content Delivery Networks Interconnection (CDNI) framework in RFC 6707 defines a set of protocols to interconnect CDNs to achieve multiple goals, including extending the reach of a given CDN. A CDNI Request Routing Footprint & Capabilities Advertisement interface (FCI) is needed to achieve the goals of a CDNI. RFC 8008 defines the FCI semantics and provides guidelines on the FCI protocol, but the exact protocol is not specified. This document defines a new Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) service, called "CDNI Advertisement Service", that provides an implementation of the FCI, following the guidelines defined in RFC 8008.
Status of This Memo This is an Internet Standards Track document. This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841. Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at .
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Table of Contents
  • .  Introduction
  • .  Terminology and Background
    • .  Terminology
    • .  Semantics of FCI Advertisement
    • .  ALTO Background and Benefits
  • .  CDNI Advertisement Service
    • .  Media Type
    • .  HTTP Method
    • .  Accept Input Parameters
    • .  Capabilities
    • .  Uses
    • .  Response
    • .  Examples
      • .  IRD
      • .  A Basic Example
      • .  Incremental Updates
  • .  CDNI Advertisement Service Using ALTO Network Map
    • .  Network Map Footprint Type: altopid
    • .  Examples
      • .  ALTO Network Map for CDNI Advertisements
      • .  ALTO PID Footprints in CDNI Advertisements
      • .  Incremental Updates
  • .  Filtered CDNI Advertisement Using CDNI Capabilities
    • .  Media Type
    • .  HTTP Method
    • .  Accept Input Parameters
    • .  Capabilities
    • .  Uses
    • .  Response
    • .  Examples
      • .  A Basic Example
      • .  Incremental Updates
  • .  Query Footprint Properties Using ALTO Property Map Service
    • .  Representing Footprint Objects as Property Map Entities
      • .  ASN Domain
      • .  COUNTRYCODE Domain
    • .  Representing CDNI Capabilities as Property Map Entity Properties
      • .  Defining Information Resource Media Type for Property Type cdni-capabilities
      • .  Intended Semantics of Property Type cdni-capabilities
    • .  Examples
      • .  Property Map
      • .  Filtered Property Map
      • .  Incremental Updates
  • .  IANA Considerations
    • .  application/alto-cdni+json Media Type
    • .  application/alto-cdnifilter+json Media Type
    • .  CDNI Metadata Footprint Types Registry
    • .  ALTO Entity Domain Types Registry
    • .  ALTO Entity Property Types Registry
  • .  Security Considerations
  • .  References
    • .  Normative References
    • .  Informative References
  • Acknowledgments
  • Contributors
  • Authors' Addresses
Introduction The ability to interconnect multiple content delivery networks (CDNs) has many benefits, including increased coverage, capability, and reliability. The Content Delivery Networks Interconnection (CDNI) framework defines four interfaces to interconnect CDNs: (1) the CDNI Request Routing Interface, (2) the CDNI Metadata Interface, (3) the CDNI Logging Interface, and (4) the CDNI Control Interface. Among these four interfaces, the CDNI Request Routing Interface provides key functions, as specified in :
The CDNI Request Routing interface enables a Request Routing function in an Upstream CDN to query a Request Routing function in a Downstream CDN to determine if the Downstream CDN is able (and willing) to accept the delegated Content Request. It also allows the Downstream CDN to control what should be returned to the User Agent in the redirection message by the upstream Request Routing function.
At a high level, therefore, the scope of the CDNI Request Routing Interface contains two main tasks: (1) determining if the dCDN (downstream CDN) is willing to accept a delegated Content Request and (2) redirecting the Content Request coming from a uCDN (upstream CDN) to the proper entry point or entity in the dCDN. Correspondingly, the Request Routing Interface is broadly divided into two functionalities: (1) the CDNI Footprint & Capabilities Advertisement interface (FCI) defined in and (2) the CDNI Request Routing Redirection interface (RI) defined in . This document focuses on the first functionality (CDNI FCI). Specifically, CDNI FCI allows both an Advertisement from a dCDN to a uCDN (push) and a query from a uCDN to a dCDN (pull) so that the uCDN knows whether it can redirect a particular user request to that dCDN. A key component in defining the CDNI FCI is defining the objects that describe the footprints and capabilities of a dCDN. Such objects are already specified in . However, no protocol is defined to transport and update such objects between a uCDN and a dCDN. To define such a protocol, this document specifies an extension of the Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) Protocol by introducing a new ALTO service called "CDNI Advertisement Service". discusses the benefits in using ALTO as a transport protocol.
Terminology and Background 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 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here. The design of CDNI FCI transport using ALTO assumes an understanding of both FCI semantics and ALTO. Hence, this document starts with a non-normative review of both.
Terminology The document uses the CDNI terms defined in , , and . Also, the document uses the ALTO terms defined in and . This document uses the following abbreviations:
ALTO:
Application-Layer Traffic Optimization
ASN:
Autonomous System Number
CDN:
Content Delivery Network
CDNI:
CDN Interconnection
dCDN:
Downstream CDN
FCI:
CDNI FCI, CDNI Request Routing Footprint & Capabilities Advertisement interface
IRD:
Information Resource Directory in ALTO
PID:
Provider-defined Identifier in ALTO
uCDN:
Upstream CDN
Semantics of FCI Advertisement defines the semantics of CDNI FCI, provides guidance on what footprint and capabilities mean in a CDNI context, and specifies the requirements on the CDNI FCI transport protocol. The definitions in depend on . Below is a non-normative review of key related points of and . For detailed information and normative specification, the reader should refer to these two RFCs.
  • Multiple types of mandatory-to-implement footprints (i.e., "ipv4cidr", "ipv6cidr", "asn", and "countrycode") are defined in . A "set of IP prefixes" can contain both full IP addresses (i.e., a /32 for IPv4 or a /128 for IPv6) and IP prefixes with an arbitrary prefix length. There must also be support for multiple IP address versions, i.e., IPv4 and IPv6, in such a footprint.
  • Multiple initial types of capabilities are defined in including (1) Delivery Protocol, (2) Acquisition Protocol, (3) Redirection Mode, (4) capabilities related to CDNI Logging, and (5) capabilities related to CDNI Metadata. They are required in all cases and, therefore, considered as mandatory-to-implement capabilities for all CDNI FCI implementations.
  • Footprint and capabilities are defined together and cannot be interpreted independently from each other. Specifically, integrates footprint and capabilities with an approach of "capabilities with footprint restrictions", by expressing capabilities on a per footprint basis.
  • Specifically, for all mandatory-to-implement footprint types, footprints can be viewed as constraints for delegating requests to a dCDN: a dCDN footprint advertisement tells the uCDN the limitations for delegating a request to the dCDN. For IP prefixes or Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs), the footprint signals to the uCDN that it should consider the dCDN a candidate only if the IP address of the Request Routing source falls within the prefix set or ASN, respectively. The CDNI specifications do not define how a given uCDN determines what address ranges are in a particular ASN. Similarly, for country codes, a uCDN should only consider the dCDN a candidate if it covers the country of the Request Routing source. The CDNI specifications do not define how a given uCDN determines the country of the Request Routing source. Different types of footprint constraints can be combined together to narrow the dCDN candidacy, i.e., the uCDN should consider the dCDN a candidate only if the request routing source satisfies all the types of footprint constraints in the advertisement.
  • Given that a large part of Footprint and Capabilities Advertisement may happen in contractual agreements, the semantics of CDNI Footprint and Capabilities Advertisement refers to answering the following question: what exactly still needs to be advertised by the CDNI FCI? For instance, updates about temporal failures of part of a footprint can be useful information to convey via the CDNI FCI. Such information would provide updates on information previously agreed to in contracts between the participating CDNs. In other words, the CDNI FCI is a means for a dCDN to provide changes and updates regarding a footprint and/or capabilities that it has previously agreed to serve in a contract with a uCDN. Hence, server push and incremental encoding will be necessary techniques.
ALTO Background and Benefits Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) defines an approach for conveying network-layer (topology) information to "guide" the resource provider selection process in distributed applications that can choose among several candidate resources providers to retrieve a given resource. Usually, it is assumed that an ALTO server conveys information that these applications cannot measure or have difficulty measuring themselves . Originally, ALTO was motivated by optimizing cross-ISP traffic generated by peer-to-peer applications . However, ALTO can also be used for improving the Request Routing in CDNs. In particular, explicitly mentions ALTO as a candidate protocol to improve the selection of a CDN surrogate or origin. The following reasons make ALTO a suitable candidate protocol for dCDN selection as part of CDNI Request Routing and, in particular, for an FCI protocol:
  • Application-Layer-oriented: ALTO is a protocol specifically designed to improve application-layer traffic (and application-layer connections among hosts on the Internet) by providing additional information to applications that these applications could not easily retrieve themselves. This matches the need of CDNI, where a uCDN wants to improve application-layer CDN request routing by using information (provided by a dCDN) that the uCDN could not easily obtain otherwise. Hence, ALTO can help a uCDN to select a proper dCDN by first providing dCDNs' capabilities as well as footprints (see ) and then providing costs of surrogates in a dCDN by ALTO cost maps.
  • Security: The identification between uCDNs and dCDNs is an important requirement (see ). ALTO maps can be signed and hence provide inherent origin protection. Please see for detailed protection strategies.
  • RESTful design: The ALTO Protocol has undergone extensive revisions in order to provide a RESTful design regarding the client-server interaction specified by the protocol. It is flexible and extensible enough to handle existing and potential future data formats defined by CDNI. It can provide the consistent client-server interaction model for other existing CDNI interfaces or potential future extensions and therefore reduce the learning cost for both users and developers, although they are not in the scope of this document. A CDNI FCI interface based on ALTO would inherit this RESTful design. Please see .
  • Error handling: The ALTO Protocol provides extensive error handling in the whole request and response process (see ). A CDNI FCI interface based on ALTO would inherit this extensive error-handling framework. Please see .
  • Map Service: The semantics of an ALTO network map is an exact match for the needed information to convey a footprint by a dCDN, in particular, if such a footprint is being expressed by IP prefix ranges. Please see .
  • Filtered Map Service: The ALTO map filtering service would allow a uCDN to query only for parts of an ALTO map. For example, the ALTO filtered property Map Service can enable a uCDN to query properties of a part of footprints efficiently. Please see .
  • Server-initiated notifications and incremental updates: When the footprint or the capabilities of a dCDN change (i.e., unexpectedly from the perspective of a uCDN), server-initiated notifications would enable a dCDN to inform a uCDN about such changes directly. Consider the case where -- due to failure -- part of the footprint of the dCDN is not functioning, i.e., the CDN cannot serve content to such clients with reasonable QoS. Without server-initiated notifications, the uCDN might still use a recent network and cost map from the dCDN and therefore redirect requests to the dCDN that it cannot serve. Similarly, the possibility for incremental updates would enable efficient conveyance of the aforementioned (or similar) status changes by the dCDN to the uCDN. The newest design of ALTO supports server-pushed incremental updates .
  • Content availability on hosts: A dCDN might want to express CDN capabilities in terms of certain content types (e.g., codecs and/or formats, or content from certain content providers). ALTO Entity Property Map would enable a dCDN to make such information available to a uCDN. This would enable a uCDN to assess whether a dCDN has the capabilities for a given type of content requested.
  • Resource availability on hosts or links: The capabilities on links (e.g., maximum bandwidth) or caches (e.g., average load) might be useful information for a uCDN for optimized dCDN selection. For instance, if a uCDN receives a streaming request for content with a certain bitrate, it needs to know if it is likely that a dCDN can fulfill such stringent application-level requirements (i.e., can be expected to have enough consistent bandwidth) before it redirects the request. In general, if ALTO could convey such information via ALTO Entity Property Map , it would enable more sophisticated means for dCDN selection with ALTO. The ALTO Path Vector extension is designed to allow ALTO clients to query information such as capacity regions for a given set of flows.
CDNI Advertisement Service The ALTO Protocol relies upon the ALTO information service framework, which consists of multiple services. All ALTO services are "provided through a common transport protocol; messaging structure and encoding; and transaction model" . The ALTO Protocol specification defines multiple initial services, e.g., the ALTO Network Map Service and Cost Map Service. This document defines a new ALTO service, called "CDNI Advertisement Service", which conveys JSON objects of media type "application/alto-cdni+json". These JSON objects are used to transport BaseAdvertisementObject objects defined in . This document specifies how to transport such BaseAdvertisementObject objects via the ALTO Protocol with the ALTO CDNI Advertisement Service. Similar to other ALTO services, this document defines the ALTO information resource for the CDNI Advertisement Service as follows. Note that the encoding of BaseAdvertisementObject reuses the one defined in and therefore also follows the recommendations of I-JSON (Internet JSON) , which is required by .
Media Type The media type of the CDNI Advertisement resource is "application/alto-cdni+json" (see ).
HTTP Method A CDNI Advertisement resource is requested using the HTTP GET method.
Accept Input Parameters There are no applicable Accept Input parameters.
Capabilities There are no applicable capabilities.
Uses The "uses" field MUST NOT appear unless the CDNI Advertisement resource depends on other ALTO information resources. If the CDNI Advertisement resource has dependent resources, the resource IDs of its dependent resources MUST be included into the "uses" field. This document only defines one potential dependent resource for the CDNI Advertisement resource. See for details of when and how to use it. Future documents may extend the CDNI Advertisement resource and allow other dependent resources.
Response The "meta" field of a CDNI Advertisement response MUST include the "vtag" field defined in . This field provides the version of the retrieved CDNI FCI resource. If a CDNI Advertisement response depends on other ALTO information resources, it MUST include the "dependent-vtags" field, whose value is an array to indicate the version tags of the resources used, where each resource is specified in "uses" of its Information Resource Directory (IRD) entry. The data component of an ALTO CDNI Advertisement response is named "cdni-advertisement", which is a JSON object of type CDNIAdvertisementData: object { CDNIAdvertisementData cdni-advertisement; } InfoResourceCDNIAdvertisement : ResponseEntityBase; object { BaseAdvertisementObject capabilities-with-footprints<0..*>; } CDNIAdvertisementData; Specifically, a CDNIAdvertisementData object is a JSON object that includes only one property named "capabilities-with-footprints", whose value is an array of BaseAdvertisementObject objects. It provides capabilities with footprint restrictions for the uCDN to decide the dCDN selection. If the value of this property is an empty array, it means the corresponding dCDN cannot provide any mandatory-to-implement CDNI capabilities for any footprints. The syntax and semantics of BaseAdvertisementObject are well defined in . A BaseAdvertisementObject object includes multiple properties, including "capability-type", "capability-value", and "footprints", where "footprints" are defined in . An equivalent specification in the ALTO-style notation (see ) creates a self-contained description of the BaseAdvertisementObject. As mentioned above, the normative specification of BaseAdvertisementObject is in . object { JSONString capability-type; JSONValue capability-value; Footprint footprints<0..*>; } BaseAdvertisementObject; object { JSONString footprint-type; JSONString footprint-value<1..*>; } Footprint; For each BaseAdvertisementObject, the ALTO client MUST interpret "footprints" appearing multiple times as if they appeared only once. If "footprints" in a BaseAdvertisementObject is null or empty or does not appear, the ALTO client MUST understand that the capabilities in this BaseAdvertisementObject have the "global" coverage, i.e., the corresponding dCDN can provide them for any Request Routing source. Note: Further optimization of BaseAdvertisementObjects to effectively provide the advertisement of capabilities with footprint restrictions is certainly possible. For example, these two examples below both describe that the dCDN can provide capabilities ["http/1.1", "https/1.1"] for the same footprints. However, the latter one is smaller in its size. EXAMPLE 1 { "meta": {...}, "cdni-advertisement": { "capabilities-with-footprints": [ { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": { "delivery-protocols": [ "http/1.1" ] }, "footprints": [ <Footprint objects> ] }, { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": { "delivery-protocols": [ "https/1.1" ] }, "footprints": [ <Footprint objects> ] } ] } } EXAMPLE 2 { "meta": {...}, "cdni-advertisement": { "capabilities-with-footprints": [ { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": { "delivery-protocols": [ "https/1.1", "http/1.1" ] }, "footprints": [ <Footprint objects> ] } ] } } Since such optimizations are not required for the basic interconnection of CDNs, the specifics of such mechanisms are outside the scope of this document. This document only requires the ALTO server to provide the initial FCI-specific CDNI Payload Types defined in as the mandatory-to-implement CDNI capabilities.
Examples
IRD Below is the IRD of a simple, example ALTO server. The server provides both base ALTO information resources (e.g., network maps) and CDNI FCI-related information resources (e.g., CDNI Advertisement resources), demonstrating a single, integrated environment. Specifically, the IRD announces nine information resources as follows:
  • two network maps,
  • one CDNI Advertisement resource without dependency,
  • one CDNI Advertisement resource depending on a network map,
  • one filtered CDNI Advertisement resource to be defined in ,
  • one property map including "cdni-capabilities" as its entity property,
  • one filtered property map including "cdni-capabilities" and "pid" as its entity properties, and
  • two update stream services:
    • one for updating CDNI Advertisement resources,
    • one for updating property maps
GET /directory HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Accept: application/alto-directory+json,application/alto-error+json HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 3531 Content-Type: application/alto-directory+json { "meta": { "default-alto-network-map": "my-default-network-map" }, "resources": { "my-default-network-map": { "uri": "https://alto.example.com/networkmap", "media-type": "application/alto-networkmap+json" }, "my-eu-netmap": { "uri": "https://alto.example.com/myeunetmap", "media-type": "application/alto-networkmap+json" }, "my-default-cdnifci": { "uri": "https://alto.example.com/cdnifci", "media-type": "application/alto-cdni+json" }, "my-cdnifci-with-pid-footprints": { "uri": "https://alto.example.com/networkcdnifci", "media-type": "application/alto-cdni+json", "uses": [ "my-eu-netmap" ] }, "my-filtered-cdnifci": { "uri": "https://alto.example.com/cdnifci/filtered", "media-type": "application/alto-cdni+json", "accepts": "application/alto-cdnifilter+json" }, "cdnifci-property-map": { "uri": "https://alto.example.com/propmap/full/cdnifci", "media-type": "application/alto-propmap+json", "uses": [ "my-default-cdni" ], "capabilities": { "mappings": { "ipv4": [ "my-default-cdni.cdni-capabilities" ], "ipv6": [ "my-default-cdni.cdni-capabilities" ], "countrycode": [ "my-default-cdni.cdni-capabilities" ], "asn": [ "my-default-cdni.cdni-capabilities" ] } } }, "filtered-cdnifci-property-map": { "uri": "https://alto.example.com/propmap/lookup/cdnifci-pid", "media-type": "application/alto-propmap+json", "accepts": "application/alto-propmapparams+json", "uses": [ "my-default-cdni", "my-default-network-map" ], "capabilities": { "mappings": { "ipv4": [ "my-default-cdni.cdni-capabilities", "my-default-network-map.pid" ], "ipv6": [ "my-default-cdni.cdni-capabilities", "my-default-network-map.pid" ], "countrycode": [ "my-default-cdni.cdni-capabilities" ], "asn": [ "my-default-cdni.cdni-capabilities" ] } } }, "update-my-cdni-fci": { "uri": "https://alto.example.com/updates/cdnifci", "media-type": "text/event-stream", "accepts": "application/alto-updatestreamparams+json", "uses": [ "my-default-network-map", "my-eu-netmap", "my-default-cdnifci", "my-filtered-cdnifci", "my-cdnifci-with-pid-footprints" ], "capabilities": { "incremental-change-media-types": { "my-default-network-map": "application/json-patch+json", "my-eu-netmap": "application/json-patch+json", "my-default-cdnifci": "application/merge-patch+json,application/json-patch+json", "my-filtered-cdnifci": "application/merge-patch+json,application/json-patch+json", "my-cdnifci-with-pid-footprints": "application/merge-patch+json,application/json-patch+json" } } }, "update-my-props": { "uri": "https://alto.example.com/updates/properties", "media-type": "text/event-stream", "uses": [ "cdnifci-property-map", "filtered-cdnifci-property-map" ], "capabilities": { "incremental-change-media-types": { "cdnifci-property-map": "application/merge-patch+json,application/json-patch+json", "filtered-cdnifci-property-map": "application/merge-patch+json,application/json-patch+json" } } } } }
A Basic Example This basic example demonstrates a simple CDNI Advertisement resource, which does not depend on other resources. There are three BaseAdvertisementObjects in this resource and these objects' capabilities are "http/1.1" delivery protocol, ["http/1.1", "https/1.1"] delivery protocol, and "https/1.1" acquisition protocol, respectively. GET /cdnifci HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Accept: application/alto-cdni+json,application/alto-error+json HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 1411 Content-Type: application/alto-cdni+json { "meta": { "vtag": { "resource-id": "my-default-cdnifci", "tag": "da65eca2eb7a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785" } }, "cdni-advertisement": { "capabilities-with-footprints": [ { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": { "delivery-protocols": [ "http/1.1" ] }, "footprints": [ { "footprint-type": "ipv4cidr", "footprint-value": [ "192.0.2.0/24" ] }, { "footprint-type": "ipv6cidr", "footprint-value": [ "2001:db8::/32" ] } ] }, { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": { "delivery-protocols": [ "https/1.1", "http/1.1" ] }, "footprints": [ { "footprint-type": "ipv4cidr", "footprint-value": [ "198.51.100.0/24" ] } ] }, { "capability-type": "FCI.AcquisitionProtocol", "capability-value": { "acquisition-protocols": [ "https/1.1" ] }, "footprints": [ { "footprint-type": "ipv4cidr", "footprint-value": [ "203.0.113.0/24" ] } ] } ] } }
Incremental Updates A benefit of using ALTO to provide CDNI Advertisement resources is that such resources can be updated using ALTO incremental updates . Below is an example that also shows the benefit of having both JSON merge patch and JSON patch to encode updates. At first, an ALTO client requests updates for "my-default-cdnifci", and the ALTO server returns the "control-uri" followed by the full CDNI Advertisement response. Then when there is a change in the "delivery-protocols" in that "http/1.1" is removed (from ["http/1.1", "https/1.1"] to only "https/1.1") due to maintenance of the "http/1.1" clusters, the ALTO server regenerates the new CDNI Advertisement resource and pushes the full replacement to the ALTO client. Later on, the ALTO server notifies the ALTO client that "192.0.2.0/24" is added into the "ipv4" footprint object for delivery protocol "https/1.1" by sending the change encoded by JSON patch to the ALTO client. POST /updates/cdnifci HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Accept: text/event-stream,application/alto-error+json Content-Type: application/alto-updatestreamparams+json Content-Length: 94 { "add": { "my-cdnifci-stream": { "resource-id": "my-default-cdnifci" } } } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Connection: keep-alive Content-Type: text/event-stream event: application/alto-updatestreamcontrol+json data: {"control-uri": data: "https://alto.example.com/updates/streams/3141592653589"} event: application/alto-cdni+json,my-cdnifci-stream data: { ... full CDNI Advertisement resource ... } event: application/alto-cdni+json,my-cdnifci-stream data: { data: "meta": { data: "vtag": { data: "tag": "dasdfa10ce8b059740bddsfasd8eb1d47853716" data: } data: }, data: "cdni-advertisement": { data: "capabilities-with-footprints": [ data: { data: "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", data: "capability-value": { data: "delivery-protocols": [ data: "https/1.1" data: ] data: }, data: "footprints": [ data: { "footprint-type": "ipv4cidr", data: "footprint-value": [ "203.0.113.0/24" ] data: } data: ] data: }, data: { ... other CDNI advertisement object ... } data: ] data: } data: } event: application/json-patch+json,my-cdnifci-stream data: [ data: { "op": "replace", data: "path": "/meta/vtag/tag", data: "value": "a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785acd42231bfe" data: }, data: { "op": "add", data: "path": "/cdni-advertisement/capabilities-with-footprints /0/footprints/0/footprint-value/-", data: "value": "192.0.2.0/24" data: } data: ]
CDNI Advertisement Service Using ALTO Network Map
Network Map Footprint Type: altopid The ALTO Protocol defines a concept called Provider-defined Identifier (PID) to represent a group of IPv4 or IPv6 addresses to which can be applied the same management policy. The PID is an alternative to the predefined CDNI footprint types (i.e., "ipv4cidr", "ipv6cidr", "asn", and "countrycode"). To leverage this concept, this document defines a new CDNI Footprint Type called "altopid". A CDNI Advertisement resource can depend on an ALTO network map resource and use "altopid" footprints to compress its CDNI Footprint Payload. Specifically, the "altopid" footprint type indicates that the corresponding footprint value is a list of PIDNames as defined in . These PIDNames are references of PIDs in a network map resource. Hence a CDNI Advertisement resource using "altopid" footprints depends on a network map. For such a CDNI Advertisement resource, the resource ID of its dependent network map MUST be included in the "uses" field of its IRD entry, and the "dependent-vtags" field with a reference to this network map MUST be included in its response (see the example in ).
Examples The following examples use the same IRD given in .
ALTO Network Map for CDNI Advertisements Below provides a sample network map whose resource ID is "my-eu-netmap". This map is referenced by the CDNI Advertisement example in . GET /myeunetmap HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Accept: application/alto-networkmap+json,application/alto-error+json HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 344 Content-Type: application/alto-networkmap+json { "meta": { "vtag": [ { "resource-id": "my-eu-netmap", "tag": "3ee2cb7e8d63d9fab71b9b34cbf764436315542e" } ] }, "network-map": { "south-france" : { "ipv4": [ "192.0.2.0/24", "198.51.100.0/25" ], "ipv6": [ "2001:db8::/32" ] }, "germany": { "ipv4": [ "203.0.113.0/24" ] } } }
ALTO PID Footprints in CDNI Advertisements This example shows a CDNI Advertisement resource that depends on a network map described in . GET /networkcdnifci HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Accept: application/alto-cdni+json,application/alto-error+json HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 736 Content-Type: application/alto-cdni+json { "meta": { "dependent-vtags": [ { "resource-id": "my-eu-netmap", "tag": "3ee2cb7e8d63d9fab71b9b34cbf764436315542e" } ] }, "cdni-advertisement": { "capabilities-with-footprints": [ { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": [ "https/1.1" ], "footprints": [ { "footprint-type": "altopid", "footprint-value": [ "south-france" ] } ] }, { "capability-type": "FCI.AcquisitionProtocol", "capability-value": [ "https/1.1" ], "footprints": [ { "footprint-type": "altopid", "footprint-value": [ "germany", "south-france" ] } ] } ] } }
Incremental Updates In this example, the ALTO client is interested in changes of "my-cdnifci-with-pid-footprints" and its dependent network map "my-eu-netmap". Considering two changes, the first one is to change footprints of the "https/1.1" delivery protocol capability, and the second one is to remove the "south-france" PID from the footprints of the "https/1.1" acquisition protocol capability. POST /updates/cdnifci HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Accept: text/event-stream,application/alto-error+json Content-Type: application/alto-updatestreamparams+json Content-Length: 185 { "add": { "my-eu-netmap-stream": { "resource-id": "my-eu-netmap" }, "my-netmap-cdnifci-stream": { "resource-id": "my-cdnifci-with-pid-footprints" } } } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Connection: keep-alive Content-Type: text/event-stream event: application/alto-updatestreamcontrol+json data: {"control-uri": data: "https://alto.example.com/updates/streams/3141592653590"} event: application/alto-networkmap+json,my-eu-netmap-stream data: { ... full Network Map of my-eu-netmap ... } event: application/alto-cdnifci+json,my-netmap-cdnifci-stream data: { ... full CDNI Advertisement resource ... } event: application/json-patch+json,my-netmap-cdnifci-stream data: [ data: { "op": "replace", data: "path": "/meta/vtag/tag", data: "value": "dasdfa10ce8b059740bddsfasd8eb1d47853716" data: }, data: { "op": "add", data: "path": data: "/cdni-advertisement/capabilities-with-footprints /0/footprints/0/footprint-value/-", data: "value": "germany" data: } data: ] event: application/json-patch+json,my-netmap-cdnifci-stream data: [ data: { "op": "replace", data: "path": "/meta/vtag/tag", data: "value": "a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785acd42231bfe" data: }, data: { "op": "remove", data: "path": data: "/cdni-advertisement/capabilities-with-footprints /1/footprints/0/footprint-value/1" data: } data: ]
Filtered CDNI Advertisement Using CDNI Capabilities Sections and describe the CDNI Advertisement Service that can be used to enable a uCDN to get capabilities with footprint restrictions from dCDNs. However, since always getting full CDNI Advertisement resources from dCDNs is inefficient, this document introduces a new service named "Filtered CDNI Advertisement Service" to allow a client to filter a CDNI Advertisement resource using a client-given set of CDNI capabilities. For each entry of the CDNI Advertisement response, an entry will only be returned to the client if it contains at least one of the client-given CDNI capabilities. The relationship between a filtered CDNI Advertisement resource and a CDNI Advertisement resource is similar to the relationship between a filtered network/cost map and a network/cost map.
Media Type A filtered CDNI Advertisement resource uses the same media type defined for the CDNI Advertisement resource in : "application/alto-cdni+json".
HTTP Method A filtered CDNI Advertisement resource is requested using the HTTP POST method.
Accept Input Parameters The input parameters for a filtered CDNI Advertisement resource are supplied in the entity body of the POST request. This document specifies the input parameters with a data format indicated by the media type "application/alto-cdnifilter+json", which is a JSON object of type ReqFilteredCDNIAdvertisement where: object { JSONString capability-type; JSONValue capability-value; } CDNICapability; object { CDNICapability cdni-capabilities<0..*>; } ReqFilteredCDNIAdvertisement; with fields:
capability-type:
The same as Base Advertisement Object's "capability-type" defined in .
capability-value:
The same as Base Advertisement Object's "capability-value" defined in .
cdni-capabilities:
A list of CDNI capabilities defined in for which footprints are to be returned. If this list is empty, the ALTO server MUST interpret it as a request for the full CDNI Advertisement resource. The ALTO server MUST interpret entries appearing in this list multiple times as if they appeared only once. If the ALTO server does not define any footprints for a CDNI capability, it MUST omit this capability from the response.
Capabilities There are no applicable capabilities.
Uses The same rules as for the "uses" field of the CDNI Advertisement resource apply (see ).
Response If the request is invalid, the response MUST indicate an error using ALTO Protocol error handling specified in . Specifically, a filtered CDNI Advertisement request is invalid if:
  • the value of "capability-type" is null;
  • the value of "capability-value" is null; or
  • the value of "capability-value" is inconsistent with "capability-type".
When a request is invalid, the ALTO server MUST return an "E_INVALID_FIELD_VALUE" error defined in , and the "value" field of the error message SHOULD indicate this CDNI capability. The ALTO server returns a filtered CDNI Advertisement resource for a valid request. The format of a filtered CDNI Advertisement resource is the same as a full CDNI Advertisement resource (see ). The returned filtered CDNI Advertisement resource MUST contain all the BaseAdvertisementObject objects satisfying the following condition: the CDNI capability object of each included BaseAdvertisementObject object MUST follow two constraints:
  • The "cdni-capabilities" field of the input includes a CDNI capability object X having the same "capability-type" as it.
  • All the mandatory properties in its "capability-value" is a superset of mandatory properties in "capability-value" of X semantically.
See for a concrete example. The version tag included in the "vtag" field of the response MUST correspond to the full CDNI Advertisement resource from which the filtered CDNI Advertisement resource is provided. This ensures that a single, canonical version tag is used independently of any filtering that is requested by an ALTO client.
Examples The following examples use the same IRD example as in .
A Basic Example This example filters the full CDNI Advertisement resource in by selecting only the "http/1.1" delivery protocol capability. Only the second BaseAdvertisementObject in the full resource will be returned because the second object's capability is "http/1.1" and "https/1.1" delivery protocols, which is the superset of "https/1.1" delivery protocol. POST /cdnifci/filtered HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Accept: application/alto-cdni+json Content-Type: application/cdnifilter+json Content-Length: 176 { "cdni-capabilities": [ { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": { "delivery-protocols": [ "https/1.1" ] } } ] } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 570 Content-Type: application/alto-cdni+json { "meta": { "vtag": { "resource-id": "my-filtered-cdnifci", "tag": "da65eca2eb7a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785" } }, "cdni-advertisement": { "capabilities-with-footprints": [ { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": { "delivery-protocols": [ "https/1.1", "http/1.1" ] }, "footprints": [ { "footprint-type": "ipv4cidr", "footprint-value": [ "198.51.100.0/24" ] } ] } ] } }
Incremental Updates In this example, the ALTO client only cares about the updates of one advertisement object for delivery protocol capability whose value includes "https/1.1". Thus, it adds its limitation of capabilities in "input" field of the POST request. POST /updates/cdnifci HTTP/1.1 Host: fcialtoupdate.example.com Accept: text/event-stream,application/alto-error+json Content-Type: application/alto-updatestreamparams+json Content-Length: 346 { "add": { "my-filtered-fci-stream": { "resource-id": "my-filtered-cdnifci", "input": { "cdni-capabilities": [ { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": { "delivery-protocols": [ "https/1.1" ] } } ] } } } } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Connection: keep-alive Content-Type: text/event-stream event: application/alto-updatestreamcontrol+json data: {"control-uri": data: "https://alto.example.com/updates/streams/3141592653590"} event: application/alto-cdni+json,my-filtered-fci-stream data: { ... filtered CDNI Advertisement resource ... } event: application/json-patch+json,my-filtered-fci-stream data: [ data: { data: "op": "replace", data: "path": "/meta/vtag/tag", data: "value": "a10ce8b059740b0b2e3f8eb1d4785acd42231bfe" data: }, data: { "op": "add", data: "path": data: "/cdni-advertisement/capabilities-with-footprints /0/footprints/0/footprint-value/-", data: "value": "192.0.2.0/24" data: } data: ]
Query Footprint Properties Using ALTO Property Map Service Besides the requirement of retrieving footprints of given capabilities, another common requirement for uCDN is to query CDNI capabilities of given footprints. Considering each footprint as an entity with properties including CDNI capabilities, a natural way to satisfy this requirement is to use the ALTO property map as defined in . This section describes how ALTO clients look up properties for individual footprints. First, it describes how to represent footprint objects as entities in the ALTO property map. Then it describes how to represent footprint capabilities as entity properties in the ALTO property map. Finally, it provides examples of the full property map and the filtered property map supporting CDNI capabilities, and their incremental updates.
Representing Footprint Objects as Property Map Entities A footprint object has two properties: "footprint-type" and "footprint-value". A "footprint-value" is an array of footprint values conforming to the specification associated with the registered footprint type ("ipv4cidr", "ipv6cidr", "asn", "countrycode", and "altopid"). Considering each ALTO entity defined in also has two properties: entity domain type and domain-specific identifier, a straightforward approach to represent a footprint as an ALTO entity is to represent its "footprint-type" as an entity domain type, and its footprint value as a domain-specific identifier. Each existing footprint type can be represented as an entity domain type as follows:
  • According to , "ipv4" and "ipv6" are two predefined entity domain types, which can be used to represent "ipv4cidr" and "ipv6cidr" footprints respectively. Note that both "ipv4" and "ipv6" domains can include not only hierarchical addresses but also individual addresses. Therefore, a "ipv4cidr" or "ipv6cidr" footprint with the longest prefix can also be represented by an individual address entity. When the uCDN receives a property map with individual addresses in an "ipv4" or "ipv6" domain, it can translate them as corresponding "ipv4cidr" or "ipv6cidr" footprints with the longest prefix.
  • "pid" is also a predefined entity domain type, which can be used to represent "altopid" footprints. Note that "pid" is a resource-specific entity domain. To represent an "altopid" footprint, the specifying information resource of the corresponding "pid" entity domain MUST be the dependent network map used by the CDNI Advertisement resource providing this "altopid" footprint.
  • However, no existing entity domain type can represent "asn" and "countrycode" footprints. To represent footprint-type "asn" and "countrycode", this document registers two new entity domains in in addition to the ones in .
Here is an example of representing a footprint object of "ipv4cidr" type as a set of "ipv4" entities in the ALTO property map. The representation of the footprint object of "ipv6cidr" type is similar. { "footprint-type": "ipv4cidr", "footprint-value": ["192.0.2.0/24", "198.51.100.0/24"] } --> "ipv4:192.0.2.0/24", "ipv4:198.51.100.0/24" And here is an example of the corresponding footprint object of "ipv4cidr" type represented by an individual address in an "ipv4" domain in the ALTO property map. The translation of the entities in an "ipv6" domain is similar. "ipv4:203.0.113.100" --> { "footprint-type": "ipv4cidr", "footprint-value": ["203.0.113.100/32"] }
ASN Domain The ASN domain associates property values with Autonomous Systems in the Internet.
Entity Domain Type The entity domain type of the ASN domain is "asn" (in lowercase).
Domain-Specific Entity Identifiers The entity identifier of an entity in an ASN domain MUST be encoded as a string consisting of the characters "as" (in lowercase) followed by the ASN as a decimal number without leading zeros.
Hierarchy and Inheritance There is no hierarchy or inheritance for properties associated with ASN.
COUNTRYCODE Domain The COUNTRYCODE domain associates property values with countries.
Entity Domain Type The entity domain type of the COUNTRYCODE domain is "countrycode" (in lowercase).
Domain-Specific Entity Identifiers The entity identifier of an entity in a COUNTRYCODE domain is encoded as an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code in lowercase.
Hierarchy and Inheritance There is no hierarchy or inheritance for properties associated with country codes.
Representing CDNI Capabilities as Property Map Entity Properties This document defines a new entity property type called "cdni-capabilities". An ALTO server can provide a property map resource mapping the "cdni-capabilities" entity property type for a CDNI Advertisement resource that it provides to an "ipv4", "ipv6", "asn", or "countrycode" entity domain.
Defining Information Resource Media Type for Property Type cdni-capabilities The entity property type "cdni-capabilities" allows defining resource-specific entity properties. When resource-specific entity properties are defined with entity property type "cdni-capabilities", the defining information resource for a "cdni-capabilities" property MUST be a CDNI Advertisement resource provided by the ALTO server. The media type of the defining information resource for a "cdni-capabilities" property is therefore: application/alto-cdni+json
Intended Semantics of Property Type cdni-capabilities The purpose of a "cdni-capabilities" property for an entity is to indicate all the CDNI capabilities that a corresponding CDNI Advertisement resource provides for the footprint represented by this entity. Thus, the value of a "cdni-capabilities" property MUST be a JSON array. Each element in a "cdni-capabilities" property MUST be a JSON object in the format of CDNICapability (see ). The value of a "cdni-capabilities" property for an "ipv4", "ipv6", "asn", "countrycode", or "altopid" entity MUST include all the CDNICapability objects satisfying the following conditions: (1) they are provided by the defining CDNI Advertisement resource, and (2) the represented footprint object of this entity is in their footprint restrictions.
Examples The following examples use the same IRD example given by .
Property Map This example shows a full property map in which entities are footprints and entities' property is "cdni-capabilities". GET /propmap/full/cdnifci HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Accept: application/alto-propmap+json,application/alto-error+json HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 1522 Content-Type: application/alto-propmap+json { "property-map": { "meta": { "dependent-vtags": [ { "resource-id": "my-default-cdnifci", "tag": "7915dc0290c2705481c491a2b4ffbec482b3cf62"} ] }, "countrycode:us": { "my-default-cdnifci.cdni-capabilities": [ { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": { "delivery-protocols": ["http/1.1"]}}] }, "ipv4:192.0.2.0/24": { "my-default-cdnifci.cdni-capabilities": [ { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": { "delivery-protocols": ["http/1.1"]}}] }, "ipv4:198.51.100.0/24": { "my-default-cdnifci.cdni-capabilities": [ { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": { "delivery-protocols": ["https/1.1", "http/1.1"]}}] }, "ipv4:203.0.113.0/24": { "my-default-cdnifci.cdni-capabilities": [ { "capability-type": "FCI.AcquisitionProtocol", "capability-value": { "acquisition-protocols": ["http/1.1"]}}] }, "ipv6:2001:db8::/32": { "my-default-cdnifci.cdni-capabilities": [ { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": { "delivery-protocols": ["http/1.1"]}}] }, "asn:as64496": { "my-default-cdnifci.cdni-capabilities": [ { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": { "delivery-protocols": ["https/1.1", "http/1.1"]}}] } } }
Filtered Property Map This example uses the filtered property Map Service to get "pid" and "cdni-capabilities" properties for two footprints "ipv4:192.0.2.0/24" and "ipv6:2001:db8::/32". POST /propmap/lookup/cdnifci-pid HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Content-Type: application/alto-propmapparams+json Accept: application/alto-propmap+json,application/alto-error+json Content-Length: 181 { "entities": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.0/24", "ipv6:2001:db8::/32" ], "properties": [ "my-default-cdnifci.cdni-capabilities", "my-default-networkmap.pid" ] } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Content-Length: 796 Content-Type: application/alto-propmap+json { "property-map": { "meta": { "dependent-vtags": [ {"resource-id": "my-default-cdnifci", "tag": "7915dc0290c2705481c491a2b4ffbec482b3cf62"}, {"resource-id": "my-default-networkmap", "tag": "7915dc0290c2705481c491a2b4ffbec482b3cf63"} ] }, "ipv4:192.0.2.0/24": { "my-default-cdnifci.cdni-capabilities": [ {"capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": {"delivery-protocols": ["http/1.1"]}}], "my-default-networkmap.pid": "pid1" }, "ipv6:2001:db8::/32": { "my-default-cdnifci.cdni-capabilities": [ {"capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", "capability-value": {"delivery-protocols": ["http/1.1"]}}], "my-default-networkmap.pid": "pid3" } } }
Incremental Updates In this example, the ALTO client is interested in updates for the properties "cdni-capabilities" and "pid" of two footprints "ipv4:192.0.2.0/24" and "countrycode:fr". POST /updates/properties HTTP/1.1 Host: alto.example.com Accept: text/event-stream,application/alto-error+json Content-Type: application/alto-updatestreamparams+json Content-Length: 339 { "add": { "fci-propmap-stream": { "resource-id": "filtered-cdnifci-property-map", "input": { "properties": [ "my-default-cdnifci.cdni-capabilities", "my-default-networkmap.pid" ], "entities": [ "ipv4:192.0.2.0/24", "ipv6:2001:db8::/32" ] } } } } HTTP/1.1 200 OK Connection: keep-alive Content-Type: text/event-stream event: application/alto-updatestreamcontrol+json data: {"control-uri": data: "https://alto.example.com/updates/streams/1414213562373"} event: application/alto-cdni+json,fci-propmap-stream data: { ... filtered property map ... } event: application/merge-patch+json,fci-propmap-stream data: { data: "property-map": { data: "meta": { data: "dependent-vtags": [ data: { "resource-id": "my-default-cdnifci", data: "tag": "2beeac8ee23c3dd1e98a73fd30df80ece9fa5627"}, data: { "resource-id": "my-default-networkmap", data: "tag": "7915dc0290c2705481c491a2b4ffbec482b3cf63"} data: ] data: }, data: "ipv4:192.0.2.0/24": { data: "my-default-cdnifci.cdni-capabilities": [ data: { "capability-type": "FCI.DeliveryProtocol", data: "capability-value": { data: "delivery-protocols": ["http/1.1", "https/1.1"]}}] data: } data: } data: } event: application/json-patch+json,fci-propmap-stream data: [ data: { "op": "replace", data: "path": "/meta/dependent-vtags/0/tag", data: "value": "61b23185a50dc7b334577507e8f00ff8c3b409e4" data: }, data: { "op": "replace", data: "path": data: "/property-map/countrycode:fr/my-default-networkmap.pid", data: "value": "pid5" data: } data: ]
IANA Considerations This document defines two new media types: "application/alto-cdni+json", as described in , and "application/cdnifilter+json", as described in . It also defines a new CDNI Metadata Footprint Type (), two new ALTO entity domain types (), and a new ALTO entity property type ().
application/alto-cdni+json Media Type
Type name:
application
Subtype name:
alto-cdni+json
Required parameters:
N/A
Optional parameters:
N/A
Encoding considerations:
Encoding considerations are identical to those specified for the "application/json" media type. See .
Security considerations:
Security considerations related to the generation and consumption of ALTO Protocol messages are discussed in .
Interoperability considerations:
N/A
Published specification:
of RFC 9241
Applications that use this media type:
ALTO servers and ALTO clients either stand alone or are embedded within other applications that provide CDNI interfaces for uCDNs or dCDNs.
Fragment identifier considerations:
N/A
Additional information:
Magic number(s):
N/A
File extension(s):
N/A
Macintosh file type code(s):
N/A
Person & email address to contact for further information:
See Authors' Addresses section.
Intended usage:
COMMON
Restrictions on usage:
N/A
Author:
See Authors' Addresses section.
Change controller:
Internet Engineering Task Force (iesg@ietf.org)
application/alto-cdnifilter+json Media Type
Type name:
application
Subtype name:
alto-cdnifilter+json
Required parameters:
N/A
Optional parameters:
N/A
Encoding considerations:
Encoding considerations are identical to those specified for the "application/json" media type. See .
Security considerations:
Security considerations related to the generation and consumption of ALTO Protocol messages are discussed in .
Interoperability considerations:
N/A
Published specification:
of RFC 9241
Applications that use this media type:
ALTO servers and ALTO clients either stand alone or are embedded within other applications that provide CDNI interfaces for uCDNs or dCDNs and supports CDNI capability-based filtering.
Fragment identifier considerations:
N/A
Additional information:
Magic number(s):
N/A
File extension(s):
N/A
Macintosh file type code(s):
N/A
Person & email address to contact for further information:
See Authors' Addresses section.
Intended usage:
COMMON
Restrictions on usage:
N/A
Author:
See Authors' Addresses section.
Change controller:
Internet Engineering Task Force (iesg@ietf.org)
CDNI Metadata Footprint Types Registry This document updates the "CDNI Metadata Footprint Types" registry created by . A new footprint type, which is listed in , has been registered. CDNI Metadata Footprint Type
Footprint Type Description Reference
altopid A list of PID names RFC 9241,
ALTO Entity Domain Types Registry This document updates the "ALTO Entity Domain Types" registry created by . Two new entity domain types, which are listed in , have been registered. Additional ALTO Entity Domain Types
Identifier Entity Identifier Encoding Hierarchy and Inheritance Media Type of Defining Resource Mapping to ALTO Address Type
asn See RFC 9241, None None false
countrycode See RFC 9241, None None false
ALTO Entity Property Types Registry This document updates the "ALTO Entity Property Types" registry created by . A new entity property type, which is listed in , has been registered. Additional ALTO Entity Property Type
Identifier Intended Semantics Media Type of Defining Resource
cdni-capabilities See RFC 9241, application/alto-cdni+json
Security Considerations As an extension of the base ALTO Protocol , this document fits into the architecture of the base protocol, and hence Security Considerations of the base protocol () fully apply when this extension is provided by an ALTO server. In the context of CDNI Advertisement, the following security risk scenarios should be considered:
  • Authenticity and integrity of ALTO information: an attacker may disguise itself as an ALTO server for a dCDN (e.g., by starting a on-path attack) and provide false capabilities and footprints to a uCDN using the CDNI Advertisement Service. Such false information may lead a uCDN to (1) select an incorrect dCDN to serve user requests or (2) skip uCDNs in good conditions. To address this risk, protection strategies in can be applied.
  • Potential undesirable guidance from authenticated ALTO information: a dCDN can provide a uCDN with limited capabilities and smaller footprint coverage so that the dCDN can avoid transferring traffic for a uCDN that they should have to transfer. To reduce this risk, the protection strategies in can be considered.
  • Confidentiality and privacy of ALTO information: footprint properties integrated with ALTO property maps may expose network location identifiers (e.g., IP addresses or fine-grained PIDs). To address this risk, the protection strategy for risk types (1) and (3) as described in can be considered.
  • For availability of ALTO services, an attacker may conduct service-degradation attacks using services defined in this document to disable ALTO services of a network. It may request potentially large, full CDNI Advertisement resources from an ALTO server in a dCDN continuously in order to consume the bandwidth resources of that ALTO server. It may also query filtered property Map Services with many smaller individual footprints in order to consume the computation resources of the ALTO server. To mitigate these risks, the protection strategies in can be applied.
Although protection strategies as described in should be applied to address aforementioned security and privacy considerations, two special cases need to be included as follows:
  • As required by ,
    All protocols that implement these capabilities and footprint advertisement objects are REQUIRED to provide integrity and authentication services.
    Therefore, the uCDN (ALTO Client) MUST be authenticated to the dCDN (ALTO Server). And the dCDN (ALTO Server) MUST support HTTP Digest Authentication and MAY also support TLS mutual authentication . The authentication method will need to be negotiated out of band and is out of scope for this document, as is the approach for provisioning and managing these credentials.
  • One specific information leakage risk introduced by this document cannot be addressed by these strategies. In particular, if a dCDN A signs agreements with multiple uCDNs without any isolation, dCDN A may disclose extra information of one uCDN to another one. In that case, one uCDN may redirect requests that should not have to be served by dCDN A to dCDN A. To reduce the risk, a dCDN SHOULD isolate full and/or filtered CDNI Advertisement resources for different uCDNs. It could consider generating URIs of different full and/or filtered CDNI Advertisement resources by hashing its company ID, a uCDN's company ID as well as their agreements. A dCDN SHOULD avoid exposing all full and/or filtered CDNI Advertisement resources in one of its IRDs.
References Normative References Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions -- Part 1: Country codes International Organization for Standardization Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels In many standards track documents several words are used to signify the requirements in the specification. These words are often capitalized. This document defines these words as they should be interpreted in IETF documents. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. BGP Support for Four-Octet Autonomous System (AS) Number Space The Autonomous System number is encoded as a two-octet entity in the base BGP specification. This document describes extensions to BGP to carry the Autonomous System numbers as four-octet entities. This document obsoletes RFC 4893 and updates RFC 4271. [STANDARDS-TRACK] Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) Protocol Applications using the Internet already have access to some topology information of Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks. For example, views to Internet routing tables at Looking Glass servers are available and can be practically downloaded to many network application clients. What is missing is knowledge of the underlying network topologies from the point of view of ISPs. In other words, what an ISP prefers in terms of traffic optimization -- and a way to distribute it. The Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) services defined in this document provide network information (e.g., basic network location structure and preferences of network paths) with the goal of modifying network resource consumption patterns while maintaining or improving application performance. The basic information of ALTO is based on abstract maps of a network. These maps provide a simplified view, yet enough information about a network for applications to effectively utilize them. Additional services are built on top of the maps. This document describes a protocol implementing the ALTO services. Although the ALTO services would primarily be provided by ISPs, other entities, such as content service providers, could also provide ALTO services. Applications that could use the ALTO services are those that have a choice to which end points to connect. Examples of such applications are peer-to-peer (P2P) and content delivery networks. The I-JSON Message Format I-JSON (short for "Internet JSON") is a restricted profile of JSON designed to maximize interoperability and increase confidence that software can process it successfully with predictable results. HTTP Digest Access Authentication The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) provides a simple challenge- response authentication mechanism that may be used by a server to challenge a client request and by a client to provide authentication information. This document defines the HTTP Digest Authentication scheme that can be used with the HTTP authentication mechanism. Content Delivery Network Interconnection (CDNI) Metadata The Content Delivery Network Interconnection (CDNI) Metadata interface enables interconnected Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to exchange content distribution metadata in order to enable content acquisition and delivery. The CDNI Metadata associated with a piece of content provides a downstream CDN with sufficient information for the downstream CDN to service content requests on behalf of an upstream CDN. This document describes both a base set of CDNI Metadata and the protocol for exchanging that metadata. Content Delivery Network Interconnection (CDNI) Request Routing: Footprint and Capabilities Semantics This document captures the semantics of the "Footprint and Capabilities Advertisement" part of the Content Delivery Network Interconnection (CDNI) Request Routing interface, i.e., the desired meaning of "Footprint" and "Capabilities" in the CDNI context and what the "Footprint & Capabilities Advertisement interface (FCI)" offers within CDNI. The document also provides guidelines for the CDNI FCI protocol. It further defines a Base Advertisement Object, the necessary registries for capabilities and footprints, and guidelines on how these registries can be extended in the future. Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words RFC 2119 specifies common key words that may be used in protocol specifications. This document aims to reduce the ambiguity by clarifying that only UPPERCASE usage of the key words have the defined special meanings. The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data Interchange Format JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a lightweight, text-based, language-independent data interchange format. It was derived from the ECMAScript Programming Language Standard. JSON defines a small set of formatting rules for the portable representation of structured data. This document removes inconsistencies with other specifications of JSON, repairs specification errors, and offers experience-based interoperability guidance. The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.3 This document specifies version 1.3 of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. TLS allows client/server applications to communicate over the Internet in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, and message forgery. This document updates RFCs 5705 and 6066, and obsoletes RFCs 5077, 5246, and 6961. This document also specifies new requirements for TLS 1.2 implementations. Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) Incremental Updates Using Server-Sent Events (SSE) The Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) protocol (RFC 7285) provides network-related information, called network information resources, to client applications so that clients can make informed decisions in utilizing network resources. This document presents a mechanism to allow an ALTO server to push updates to ALTO clients to achieve two benefits: (1) updates can be incremental, in that if only a small section of an information resource changes, the ALTO server can send just the changes and (2) updates can be immediate, in that the ALTO server can send updates as soon as they are available. An Extension for Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO): Entity Property Maps Informative References An ALTO Extension: Path Vector Sichuan University Samsung Nokia Bell Labs Yale University Tongji University This document is an extension to the base Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) protocol. It extends the ALTO Cost Map and ALTO Property Map services so that an application can decide which endpoint(s) to connect based on not only numerical/ordinal cost values but also fine-grained abstract information of the paths. This is useful for applications whose performance is impacted by specified components of a network on the end-to-end paths, e.g., they may infer that several paths share common links and prevent traffic bottlenecks by avoiding such paths. This extension introduces a new abstraction called Abstract Network Element (ANE) to represent these components and encodes a network path as a vector of ANEs. Thus, it provides a more complete but still abstract graph representation of the underlying network(s) for informed traffic optimization among endpoints. Work in Progress Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) Problem Statement Distributed applications -- such as file sharing, real-time communication, and live and on-demand media streaming -- prevalent on the Internet use a significant amount of network resources. Such applications often transfer large amounts of data through connections established between nodes distributed across the Internet with little knowledge of the underlying network topology. Some applications are so designed that they choose a random subset of peers from a larger set with which to exchange data. Absent any topology information guiding such choices, or acting on suboptimal or local information obtained from measurements and statistics, these applications often make less than desirable choices. This document discusses issues related to an information-sharing service that enables applications to perform better-than-random peer selection. This memo provides information for the Internet community. Content Distribution Network Interconnection (CDNI) Problem Statement Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) provide numerous benefits for cacheable content: reduced delivery cost, improved quality of experience for End Users, and increased robustness of delivery. For these reasons, they are frequently used for large-scale content delivery. As a result, existing CDN Providers are scaling up their infrastructure, and many Network Service Providers (NSPs) are deploying their own CDNs. It is generally desirable that a given content item can be delivered to an End User regardless of that End User's location or attachment network. This is the motivation for interconnecting standalone CDNs so they can interoperate as an open content delivery infrastructure for the end-to-end delivery of content from Content Service Providers (CSPs) to End Users. However, no standards or open specifications currently exist to facilitate such CDN Interconnection. The goal of this document is to outline the problem area of CDN Interconnection for the IETF CDNI (CDN Interconnection) working group. This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for informational purposes. Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) Deployment Considerations Many Internet applications are used to access resources such as pieces of information or server processes that are available in several equivalent replicas on different hosts. This includes, but is not limited to, peer-to-peer file sharing applications. The goal of Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) is to provide guidance to applications that have to select one or several hosts from a set of candidates capable of providing a desired resource. This memo discusses deployment-related issues of ALTO. It addresses different use cases of ALTO such as peer-to-peer file sharing and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and presents corresponding examples. The document also includes recommendations for network administrators and application designers planning to deploy ALTO, such as recommendations on how to generate ALTO map information. Request Routing Redirection Interface for Content Delivery Network (CDN) Interconnection The Request Routing interface comprises (1) the asynchronous advertisement of footprint and capabilities by a downstream Content Delivery Network (CDN) that allows an upstream CDN to decide whether to redirect particular user requests to that downstream CDN; and (2) the synchronous operation of an upstream CDN requesting whether a downstream CDN is prepared to accept a user request and of a downstream CDN responding with how to actually redirect the user request. This document describes an interface for the latter part, i.e., the CDNI Request Routing Redirection interface.
Acknowledgments The authors thank , , , and for their timely reviews and invaluable comments. Big thanks also to the ALTO WG Chairs ( and ), all the directorate reviewers, and the IESG reviewers (, , , , , , , and ), for their thorough reviews, discussions, guidance, and shepherding, which further improve this document. has been partially supported by the GreenICN project (GreenICN: Architecture and Applications of Green Information Centric Networking), a research project supported jointly by the European Commission under its 7th Framework Program (contract no. 608518) and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Japan (contract no. 167). The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the GreenICN project, the European Commission, or NICT. This document has also been supported by the Coordination Support Action entitled 'Supporting European Experts Presence in International Standardisation Activities in ICT' (StandICT.eu) funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Programme with Grant Agreement no. 780439. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the European Commission.
Contributors Huawei
2222 Newjinqiao Rd Shanghai 200125 China +86-15316812351 x.shawn.lin@gmail.com
Authors' Addresses HFT Stuttgart - Univ. of Applied Sciences
Schellingstrasse 24 Stuttgart 70174 Germany +49-0711-8926-2801 jan.seedorf@hft-stuttgart.de
Yale University
51 Prospect Street New Haven CT 06511 USA +1-203-432-6400 yry@cs.yale.edu http://www.cs.yale.edu/~yry/
Ericsson
43 Nagog Park Acton MA 01720 USA +1-978-844-5100 kevin.j.ma.ietf@gmail.com
NeuStar
1800 Sutter St., Suite 570 Concord CA 94520 USA jon.peterson@neustar.biz
Tongji University
4800 Cao'an Hwy Shanghai 201804 China jingxuan.zhang@tongji.edu.cn