Draft: draft-ietf-quic-transport

Commentary: Following on insight that disableactivemigration is a property of an address , not a peer , we simply need to say which address the TP applies to . This PR by scoping the definition of disableactivemigration to the handshake address only . This means that existing clients remain fully compliant , albeit slightly more conservative than necessary . While I find argument convincing that a server capable of using SPA is highly unlikely to be unable to handle migration , it would be trivial for a future extension to define an additional transport parameter carrying two bits that disable active migration for those addresses as well . 
 Offshoot from review . Servers behind a load balancer , and the load balancer is n't CID - aware . Each server gives out an IP : port per client in the parameter . If the client moves to the SPA , then future migration is fine -- it will continue to talk to the same server using the preferred address . If the client does n't move , those future migrations will break . There 's currently no way to set to " only if you do n't use my preferred address " . Similarly , if the primary connection is to an anycast address , if the client fails to move to the preferred address , subsequent migration will likely break . Should we blanket recommend that clients not actively migrate if they ignore / are unsuccessful in using the SPA ? Or should there be a way for the server to indicate that ? 
 Good question . This brings up a related question for me about disableactivemigration . Given a server can decide not to give out any additional connection IDs , does n't that give it a mechanism for disabling active migration ? Ironically , given recent decisions on connection CIDs and SPA , if an SPA is supplied , then the client always has a second connection ID it can use on any path , not just the SPA . So my suggestion of not giving out extra CIDs fails for the original path , but not the SPA . 
 What we ’ve said for this so far is that SPA is limited to offering a minimum of a single additional CID that needs to work in both places , the original server and the preferred server . As  says , the original server should not issue the client any more CIDs ( if you have some that are deployment specific ) until after they ’ve successfully migrated to the new endpoint , at which point the preferred server can handle that issuance . And as he notes , you still have to deal with the fact that there are two CIDs that the client could use , from any incoming address . It seems as though the full way to solve this is to define potentially disjoint sets of TPs that different servers could set to match their particular requirements ( around more than just migration ) . In that world , if you had an initial server that could n’t handle migration and a preferred server that did handle migration , you could set different TPs to indicate that . It goes well beyond that though , any other TP might have a different values for the original server and then have those be different with the preferred server . But that does feel an awful lot like something that goes with full server migration . In the limited form that we have now , if you want to be able to push someone off to a different server , there are some limitations that you need to deal with , like being able to set up enough of a shared configuration for the two that the same TPs work with both . In practice , I think this means we end up with the following situation : The client either moves to the requested address or it does n’t . If it does , then you ’re in good shape , in theory you gave it TPs that matched what the server wanted and everybody is happy . If it does n’t , then you ’re unhappy , since in theory you had a reason you asked it to move in the first place . You might choose to close it down more aggressively than you would on the preferred server to save resources , or give it smaller limits for flow control , etc . When you ’re in the “ client did n’t move ” state : If the client then tries to use the original 2nd CID that you gave , from the same IP address / port , then a non - CID aware load balancer should be fine . If the client then tries to use the original 2nd CID that you gave , from a different IP address / port , then a non - CID aware load balancer will not be happy . Of course , the problematic case is even narrower , since if the client is probing the new path they ’ll see it as though there is n’t any connectivity , just like they will if there ’s anything else on the new path that prevents their connection from working — this is always a risk when migrating , so they should be unsurprised and stick with their current path . If they ’re forced to move for whatever reason , then it will be just as though they did n’t have connectivity over the new path ( which they do n’t ) and whether or not you disable migration you ’ll see the same outcome — the connection is closed . Interestingly , I ’m not actually seeing a difference from the client ’s perspective in terms of outcome whether you let them try with that CID and fail or if you told them to not try . 
 In very much shorter terms : is n’t this a situation that all clients already need to be able to handle for other reasons ? 
 I do not like the first option , because IMO banning migration on the original address is going to be a premature optimization based on what we have now , has negative effect on what we would have in the future . My assumption is that the majority of the server deployments would be CID - aware , especially in the long term , especially in terms of traffic volume . Note that the volume of traffic is more important than the number of server deployments , as migration is about ( improving ) end - user experience . IMO there are two ways forward : ( a ) State that disableactivemigration TP only applies to the original address . Per - definition , server - preferred address is an address that is capable of receiving packets from any address . There is no need to prohibit clients doing migration when connected to SPA . ( b ) Do nothing . Clients are RECOMMENDED to implement SPA , and this issue is about a small fraction of deployments that rely on non - CID - aware load balancers . We can ignore the problem . 
 IIRC , we had that conversation when deciding whether to add in the first place . The short version is that taking this approach prevents the client from rotating CIDs on the primary path ; if we want the client to be able to rotate CIDs but not migrate , they need to be distinct signals . in a way you 're correct that clients will have to deal with the fallout regardless of what the server says . However , the actual use of is likely to trigger a little more than just " do n't do that " -- a client might PING more actively to prevent NAT rebindings , for example . I think it 's this hinting aspect that 's actually more valuable , since as you note , clients need to be prepared for attempted migrations to fail even with servers that tacitly support them . I do n't think this is necessarily true , though I agree that we 're talking about smaller and smaller fractions of server space . 
 Per - definition , server - preferred address is an address that is capable of receiving packets from any address . While I agree that it might not necessarily be true at the moment , I might argue that it is going to be true . The basis of the resolution for and ( both on consensus call ) is that servers using preferred address would not be using the server 's address for distinguishing between connections . We also know that a server can not use client 's address ( unless there is out - of - band knowledge ) , because clients are not required to use the same 2 - tuple when migrating to a different address ( and also because there are NATs ) . The outcome is that the server has to rely on CID when using SPA . And therefore I might insist that servers using SPA would always be capable of handling further migration . 
 So your suggestion is that disableactivemigration applies only to the original address and the SPA must always support active migration , because it has to use CID routing ? I do n't think that 'd be a problem for our use cases , but I 'm not sure about others . 
 Exactly . I think that that would be the correct thing to do , if we are to make changes . I agree that existing clients might be applying after migrating to SPA , and that they do not want change . But they can remain as they are , because the change in spec does not lead to interoperability issues . To paraphrase , I think making the aforementioned change is strictly better than doing nothing , because it would be an improvement to some , while not hurting anybody . 
 A truth table might help here . ... --- no preferred address preferred address Right now , our definition of disableactivemigration is a simple " do n't migrate " . But the argument here says that the server that provides a preferred address is probably capable of handling migrations on the basis that it has to support one . We might insist on the source address not change , but the fact is that some NATs ( those with address - dependent mappings ) will change the source address . Changing to a definition where disableactivemigration is instead " do n't move to a new address unless you use a preferred address " is a little more complicated , but doable . Is it worth the extra complexity this late in the process ? Is that complexity justified when it would be trivially possible to define another extension that said " I support migration on my preferred address " ? 
 I 'd like to minimize changes , but I believe the status quo is that disableactivemigration applies to both the original address and SPA . As such , all suggestions above seem like a change . There is a mechanism to disable migration on the SPA , which is do n't give out any more CIDs once they migrate . I do n't expect any hosts to support migration on the original path and not the SPA , so I do n't think that 's a use case worth supporting(or encouraging ) . 
 My proposal is that we defer the ability to signal " I support migration , but only on my preferred address " to an extension . 
 And leave the current behavior of disableactivemigration applies to both the original address and SPA ? I 'm a bit concerned that makes SPA somewhat useless . Is this issue a candidate for parking and we can come back to and see if we can live with the status quo ? 
 Which , again , not only disables migration , it disables the ability to rotate CIDs . That 's not something we want servers to be doing . argument is convincing that it 's improbable for something which supports SPA to not be able to uniquely identify connections ( whether by CID or because the SPA endpoint is unique ) . Therefore , I 'd support scoping disableactivemigration to the handshake address , and defer the ability to disable it on the SPA to an extension . Loosening this definition does n't make any current clients break , so I suspect it 's bearable despite the schedule . 
 If we 're going to make a change , I support and direction of scoping disableactivemigration to the handshake address . And I agree that I do n't expect this breaks many existing clients . 
 I personally find the proposed change confusing . I 'm not sure I find the use - case of " my original address does n't support migration but my preferred address does " compelling . Since this can be easily solved by an extension with no downside over it being in the core docs , I do n't see a reason to change the spec at this point in the process . 
 As this has sat here a while , I 'll reiterate my proposal again : we defer the ability to signal " I support migration , but only on my preferred address " to an extension . Which means that disableactivemigration applies to both the original address and SPA , so answer the question ( sorry  , I missed that ) . I realize that you could change the meaning of disableactivemigration to apply to the address the server uses in the handshake , but there are interesting corner cases and I do n't think we need to concern ourselves with those . For instance , if you connect over V4 and get disableactivemigration and serverpreferredaddress . If that SPA includes a V6 address you ca n't use , along with the same V4 address , what then ? Does the server really support migration ? I know that the current situation is unappealing , and I think that disableactivemigration is not good for the protocol . But it exists for very good reasons . Trying to limit the scope is admirable , but as we have n't seen a concrete proposal , I think we need to move on . 
 If this example is concerning , I 'd argue that is an issue that already exists , orthogonal to what we are discussing here . I am still not convinced that limiting the scope of disableactivemigration to just the original address is going to cause any new issue . That said , if nobody needs this change , I 'm more than happy to move on with status - quo . 
 I 've thought about this , and I do n't believe we need this change , but I also think the change suggested makes the current behavior better overall . A server that supports migration on the SPA(ie : unicast ) and not on the handshake address(ie : anycast ) will end up not disabling migration and hoping that most clients migrate to the SPA or do n't support migration of any sort . That seems like a plausible hope , though I 'm a bit leery of hope based protocol design . 
 Thinking about this more , a statement like : "  is never guaranteed to succeed . For servers that advertise a preferred address , it 's expected migration is more likely to be successful when using the preferred address than the handshake address . " 
 tl;dr : I 'm arguing for " do nothing " . This conversation has made it clear to me that an address , and not a server , is the thing that supports client migration . Which makes sense -- migration support at the server is entirely a question of routability , and it makes sense that it would be tied to the address in question and not the endpoint . So if we were to do anything , I think I would propose : scoping disableactivemigration to the handshake address , and adding two disableactivemigration flags to the preferredaddress TP , for the two addresses in the TP . That said , this is a clean enough extension . A new extension can define a new TP that provides this granular interpretation of the three server addresses . A server that wishes to support this can send both the SPA and this newSPA TPs , with the SPA TP ( with the current scoping of disableactivemigration applying to all server addresses ) providing cover for legacy clients . Also I expect that clients are likely to switch to using the SPA if provided . A server that has different routability properties for the two addresses can wait for some deployment and make decisions on whether to risk allowing migration based on data of what it sees as client behavior with SPA . I would argue for doing nothing now . Experience will teach us the right way forward . If necessary , this extension will be easy enough to do , and importantly , the current interpretation of disableactive_migration gives us the right kind of cover in the meantime . 
 I would rather not make the change in . It assumes that migration is more likely to succeed when attempted to the preferred address as opposed to the handshake address . While this assumption might hold in some server deployments , it is not a fact . I 'd rather we did n't bake this assumption into the core spec . I 'd prefer to see this feature as an extension . 
 Would you mind elaborating why a server , accepting connections on a preferred address , might not be able to disambiguate connections using CIDs ? As stated previously , when a client migrates to the preferred address , the client 's address port tuple can change due to the existence of NATs . A server using preferred address need to take that into consideration . That means that a server has to disambiguate connections based on the CID , which in turn means that the server would be possible to support migration . 
 Hmmm thanks for that note Looking at things under that light , I agree that the assumption I described above is already part of the protocol . Please disregard my comment above . 
 Seems fine . Thank you for the changes . I like editorial improvements , but even without them , I think we are ready .
Paragraph (version A):
A server in a deployment that does not implement a solution to
maintain connection continuity during connection migration SHOULD
disallow migration using the disable_active_migration transport
parameter.
Paragraph (version B):
A server in a deployment that does not implement a solution to
maintain connection continuity when the client address changes SHOULD
indicate migration is not supported using the
disable_active_migration transport parameter.  The
disable_active_migration transport parameter does not prohibit
connection migration after a client has acted on a preferred_address
transport parameter.
Paragraph (version A):
An endpoint also MUST NOT send packets from a different local
address, actively initiating migration, if the peer sent the
disable_active_migration transport parameter during the handshake.
An endpoint which has sent this transport parameter, but detects that
a peer has nonetheless migrated to a different network MUST either
drop the incoming packets on that path without generating a stateless
reset or proceed with path validation and allow the peer to migrate.
Generating a stateless reset or closing the connection would allow
third parties in the network to cause connections to close by
spoofing or otherwise manipulating observed traffic.
Paragraph (version B):
If the peer sent the disable_active_migration transport parameter, an
endpoint also MUST NOT send packets (including probing packets; see
probing) from a different local address to the address the peer used
during the handshake.  An endpoint that has sent this transport
parameter, but detects that a peer has nonetheless migrated to a
different remote address MUST either drop the incoming packets on
that path without generating a stateless reset or proceed with path
validation and allow the peer to migrate.  Generating a stateless
reset or closing the connection would allow third parties in the
network to cause connections to close by spoofing or otherwise
manipulating observed traffic.
Paragraph (version A):
The disable active migration transport parameter is included if
the endpoint does not support active connection migration
(migration).  Peers of an endpoint that sets this transport
parameter MUST NOT send any packets, including probing packets
(probing), from a local address or port other than that used to
perform the handshake.  This parameter is a zero-length value.
Paragraph (version B):
The disable active migration transport parameter is included if
the endpoint does not support active connection migration
(migration) on the address being used during the handshake.  When
a peer sets this transport parameter, an endpoint MUST NOT use a
new local address when sending to the address that the peer used
during the handshake.  This transport parameter does not prohibit
connection migration after a client has acted on a
preferred_address transport parameter.  This parameter is a zero-
length value.