CoRE Resource Directory Extensions

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction

This document pools some extensions to the Resource Directory [rfc9176] that might be useful but have no place in the original document.¶

They might become individual documents for IETF submission, simple registrations in the RD Parameter Registry at IANA, or grow into a shape where they can be submitted as a collection of tools.¶

At its current state, this draft is a collection of ideas.¶

2. Reverse Proxy requests

When a registrant registers at a Resource Directory, it might not have a suitable address it can use as a base address. Typical reasons include being inside a NAT without control over port forwarding, or only being able to open outgoing connections (as program running inside a web browser utilizing CoAP over WebSocket [RFC8323] might be).¶

[rfc9176] suggests (in the Cellular M2M use case) that proxy access to such endpoints can be provided, it gives no concrete mechanism to do that; this is such a mechanism.¶

This mechanism is intended to be a last-resort option to provide connectivity. Where possible, direct connections are preferred. Before registering for proxying, the registrant should attempt to obtain a publicly available port, for example using PCP ([RFC6887]).¶

The same mechanism can also be employed by registrants that want to conceal their network address from its clients.¶

A deployed application where this is implicitly done is LwM2M [citation missing]. Notable differences are that the protocol used between the client and the proxying RD is not CoAP but application specific, and that the RD (depending on some configuration) eagerly populates its proxy caches by sending requests and starting observations at registration time.¶

Req from [2001:db8:42::9876]:5683:
POST coap://rd.example.net/rd?ep=node9876&proxy=ondemand
</some-resource>;rt="example.x"

Req from other-address.rd.example.net:
GET coap://[2001:db8:42::9876]/.well-known/core

Request blocked by stateful firewall around [2001:db8:42::]

RD decides that proxying is necessary

Res: 2.04 Created
Location: /reg/abcd

Req: GET coap://rd.example.net/lookup/res?rt=example.x

Res: 2.05 Content
<coap://node987.rd.example.net/some-resource>;rt="example.x

Req: POST coaps+ws://rd.example.net/rd?ep=node1234&proxy=yes
</gyroscope>;rt="core.s"

Res: 2.04 Created
Location: /reg/123

Req: GET coap://rd.example.net/lookup/res?rt=core.s

Res: 2.05 Content
<coap://[2001:db8:1::1]:10123/gyroscope>;rt="core.s"

3. Infinite lifetime

An RD can indicate support for infinite lifetimes by adding the resoruce type "TBD2" to its list of resource types.¶

A registrant that wishes to keep its registration alive indefinitely can set the lifetime value as "lt=inf".¶

Registrations with infinite lifetimes never time out. Unlike regular registrations, they are not "soft state"; the registrant can expect the RD to persist the registrations across network changes, reboots, softare updates and that like.¶

Typical use cases for infinite life times are:¶

• Commissioning tools (CTs) that do not return to the deployment site, and thus can not refresh the soft state¶
• Proxy registrations whose lifetime is limited by a connection that is kept alive¶

Req: GET coaps+ws://rd.example.net/.well-known/core?rt=core.rd*

Res: 2.05 Content
</rd>;rt="core.rd TBD1 TBD2";ct=40

Req: POST coaps+ws://rd.example.net/rd?ep=node1234&proxy=yes&lt=inf
</gyroscope>;rt="core.s"

Res: 2.04 Created
Location: /reg/123

4. Limited lifetimes

Even if an RD supports infinite lifetimes, it may not accept them from just any registrant. Even more, an RD may have policies in place that require a certain frequency of updates and thus place an upper limit on lt lower than the technical limit of 136 years.¶

This document does not define any means of communicating lifetime limits, but explores a few options:¶

• Administrative channels.¶

  An RD that sees registrations with unreasonably long lifetimes can flag them for its operator to take further measures.¶

  While sounding tediously manual, this captures the observation that different components are configured in a softly incompatible way, and need operator intervention (because if there were automatic means, they obviously failed).¶

• General advertisement of preferred lifetimes.¶

  When the limitations on the lifetimes are not from authorization but from general setup, an RD could advertise that property in a to-be-created link target attribute of its registration resource. Different attributes could express preference or hard limits.¶

  This information is also available easily for registrants, which may then heed the advice if supported, and may notify their operators that they just started spending more resources than they were configured to.¶

  It is also available to tools that provision endpoints with their RD address (and parameters), as they can use the same lookup interface.¶

• Per-registration information.¶

  For soft limits, the RD can offer the endpoint additional metadata if it queries them post-registration. That query can use the endpoint lookup interface, or the extension of Section 11. This may require additional round-trips on the part of endpoint.¶

• Hard limits informed by error codes.¶

  An RD can reject registrations with overly long lifetimes if the endpoint is not authorized to use such long lifetimes with a 4.01 Unauthorized error. The mechanisms of [RFC9290], with a to-be-defined error detail on the permissible lifetime, can be used to propagate information back to then endpoint.¶

  This behavior is explicitly NOT RECOMMENDED, because devices may crucially depend on the RD's services -- this rejection may even be the reason why the device is not configured with the new settings that would contain a shorter lifetime.¶

5. Lookup across link relations

Resource lookup occasionally needs execute multiple queries to follow links.¶

An RD server (or any other server that supports [RFC6690] compatible lookup), can announce support for following links in resource lookups by announcing support for the TBD3 interface type on its resource lookup.¶

A client can the query that server to not only provide the matched links, but also links that are reachable over relations given in "follow" query parameters.¶

</temp>;if="core.s";rt="example.temperature",
</t-prot>;rel="calibration-protocol";anchor="/temp",
<http://vendor.example.com/temp9000>;rel="describedby";anchor="/temp",
</hum>;if="core.s";rt="example.humidity",
</h-prot>;rel="calibration-protocol";anchor="/hum",

Req: GET /rd-lookup/res?rt=example.temperature&follow=calibration-protocol&follow=describedby

<coap://node1/temp>;if="core.s";rt="example.temperature";anchor="coap://node1",
<coap://node1/t-prot>;rel="calibration-protocol";anchor="coap://node1/temp",
<http://vendor.example.com/temp9000>;rel="describedby";anchor="coap://node1/temp",

Req: FETCH /reef-lookup
Content-Format: application/template-coral+cbor
Payload:
#using core = <...>
#using reef = <...>
reef:content ?x {
  core:rt "example.temperature"
  calibration-protocol ?y {
    core:describedby ?z
  }
}

Res: 2.01 Content
Content-Format: aplication/coral+cbor
Payload:
reef:content <coap://node1/temp> {
    core:rt "example.temperature"
    calibration-protocol <coap://node1/t-prot> {
      core:describedby <http://vendor.example.com/temp9000>
    }
}

6. Lifetime Age

This extension is described in [I-D.amsuess-core-rd-replication] Section 5.2.¶

The "provenance" extension in Section 5.1 of the same document should probably be expressed differently to avoid using non-target link attributes.¶

7. Zone identifier introspection

The 'split-horizon' mechanism of [rfc9176] (that registrations with link-local bases can only be read from the zone they registered on) reduces the usability of the endpoint lookup interface for debugging purposes.¶

To allow an administrator to read out the "show-zone-id" query parameter for endpoint and resource lookup is introduced.¶

A Resource Directory that understands this parameter MUST NOT limit lookup results to registrations from the lookup's zone, and MUST use [RFC6874] zone identifiers to annotate which zone those registrations are valid on.¶

The RD MUST limit such requests to authenticated and authorized debugging requests, as registrants may rely on the RD to keep their presence secret from other links.¶

Req: GET /rd-lookup/ep?show-zone-id&et=printer

Res: 2.05 Content
</reg/1>;base="coap://[2001:db8::1]";et=printer;ep="bigprinter",
</reg/2>;base="coap://[fe80::99%wlan0]";et=printer;ep="localprinter-1234",
</reg/3>;base="coap://[fe80::99%eth2]";et=printer;ep="localprinter-5678",

8. Proxying multicast requests

Multicast requests are hard to forward at a proxy: Even if a media type is used in which multiple responses can be aggregated transparently, the proxy can not reliably know when all responses have come in. [RFC7390] Section 2.9 describes the difficulties in more detail.¶

Note that [I-D.tiloca-core-groupcomm-proxy] provides a mechanism that does allow the forwarding of multicast requests. It is yet to be determined what the respective pros and cons are. Conversely, that lookup mechanism may also serve as an alternative to resource lookup on an RD.¶

A proxy MAY expose an interface compatible with the RD lookup interface, which SHOULD be advertised by a link to it that indicates the resource types core.rd-lookup-res and TBD4.¶

The proxy sends multicast requests to All CoAP Nodes ([RFC7252] Section 12.8) requesting their .well-known/core files either eagerly (ie. in regular intervals independent of queries) or on demand (in which case it SHOULD limit the results by applying [RFC6690] query filtering; if it has received multiple query parameters it should forward the one it deems most likely to limit the results, as .well-known/core only supports a single query parameter).¶

In comparison to classical RD operation, this RD behaves roughly as if it had received a simple registration with a All CoAP Nodes address as the source address, if such behavior were specified. The individual registrations that result from this neither have an explicit registration resource nor an explicit endpoint name; given that the endpoint lookup interface is not present on such proxies, neither can be queried.¶

Clients that would intend to do run a multicast discovery operation behind the proxy can then instead query that resource lookup interface. They SHOULD use observation on lookups, as an on-demand implementation MAY return the first result before others have arrived, or MAY even return an empty link set immediately.¶

Req: GET coap+ws://gateway.example.com/.well-known/core?rt=TBD4

Res: 2.05 Content
</discover>;rt="core.rd-lookup-res TBD4";ct=40

Req: GET coap+ws://gateway.example.com/discover?rt=core.s
Observe: 0

Res: 2.05 Content
Observe: 0
Content-Format: 40
(empty payload)

Req: GET coap://ff05::fd/.well-known/core?rt=core.s

Res (from [2001:db8::1]:5683): 2.05 Content
</temp>;ct="0 112";rt="core.s"

Res (from [2001:db8::2]:5683): 2.05 Content
</light>;ct="0 112";rt="core.s"

Res: 2.05 Content
Observe: 1
Content-Format: 40
<coap://[2001:db8::1]/temp>;ct="0 112";rt="core.s";anchor="coap://[2001:db8::1]",
<coap://[2001:db8::2]/light>;ct="0 112";rt="core.s";anchro="coap://[2001:db8::2]"

9. Opportunistic RD

An application that wants to advertise its resources in Resource Directory can find itself in a network that has no RD deployed. It may be able to start an RD on its own to fill in that gap until an explicitly configured one gets installed.¶

This bears the risk of having competing RDs on the same network, where resources registered at one can not be discovered on the other. To mitigate that, such Opportunistic Resource Directories should follow those steps:¶

• The RD chooses its own Opportunistic Capability value. That integer number is an estimate of number of target attributes it expects to be able to store, where in absence of better estimates one would assume that a registration contains 16 links, and each links contains three target attributes each with an eight byte key and a 16 byte value.¶

  The Opportunistic Capability value is advertised as a TBD5-cap= target attribute on the registration resource.¶

• The RD chooses its own Opportunistic Tie-Break value. That integer number needs no other properties than being likely to be different even for two instances of the same device being started; numeric forms of MAC addresses or random numbers make good candidates.¶

  The Opportunistic Capability value is advertised as a TBD5-tie= target attribute on the registration resource.¶

• The Opportunistic RD, before advertising its resources, performs RD discovery itself, using at least all the discovery paths it may become discoverable on itself.¶

• If the Opportunistic RD finds no other RD, or if the RD it finds is less capable than itself, it can start advertising itself as a Resource Directory.¶

  An RD is called more capable than another if its TBD5-cap value is greater than the other's, or if its TBD5-tie value is greater than the other's if the former results in a tie. Absent or unparsable attributes are considered greater than any present attribute.¶

  In case an RD observes a tie even after evaluating the tie breaker, it may change its Opportunistic Tie-Break value if that was picked randomly, or reevaluate its life choices if it uses its own MAC address.¶

• A running Opportunistic RD needs to perform discovery for other RDs repeatedly. If it discovers a more capable RD, it stops advertising its own resources. It should continue to serve lookup requests, but refuse any new registration or registration updates (which will trigger the registrant endpoints to look for a new RD).¶

  An inactive Opportunistic RD will be notified of the highter capability RD's shutdown by the expiry of whatever it may be started to advertise that was now advertised there; see below for possible improvements.¶

• An RD that discovers an Opportunistic RD of lower capability may speed up the transition process by (not mutually exclusive) two ways¶

  • It can register its own (registration) resource(s) into the lower capability directory. That RD can take that as having discovered a higher capability RD and stop advertising.¶
  • It can expose resources and registrations of the lower capability directory using the methods described in [I-D.amsuess-core-rd-replication].¶
• An Opportunistic RD that yields to a more capable RD may ease the transition by attempting to register its active registrations at the more capable RD, taking the role of a CT. The lifetimes picked for those must not exceed the remaining lifetime of its registrations, and it must not renew those registrations.¶

Future iterations of this document may want to cut down on the possibilities listed above.¶

Some ideas are around for making the shutdown of a commissioned or otherwise high-capability RD more graceful, but they still have some problems¶

• Setting a commissioned or high-capability RD's Capability to zero in preparation of the shutdown may create loops in any distributed lookups.¶
• Asking the lower capability RD to register its registration resource (even though not otherwise advertised) at the higher capability RD still creates a situation where clients may find two RDs running simultaneously, and we can't expect clients to make any decisions based on TBD5 values.¶
• Asking the higher capability RD to register its registration resource with the lower capability RD contradicts the current recommendation for the passive Opportunistic RD to not accept registrations / renewals. Also, the deployed RD may not know that Opportunistic RDs are a thing.¶
• Advertising an almost-but-not-quite rt= value on passive registration resources may be an option, but needs to be thought through thoroughly.¶

Installations of Opportunistic RDs are at special risk of resource exhaustion because they are not sized with their actual deployment in mind, but rely on defaults set by the application that starts the RD. Opportunistic RDs should only be started if the application's administrator can be informed in a timely fashion when the RD's resources are nearing exhaustion; guidance towards installing a more capable RD on the network should be provided in that case.¶

10. Registrations that update DNS records

An RD that is provisioned with means to update a DNS zone and that has a known mapping from registrants to host names could use registrations to populate DNS records from registration base addresses.¶

When combined with Section 2, these records point to the RD's built-in proxy rather than to the base address.¶

This mechanism is not described in further detail yet as it does not interact well yet with how the base registration attribute interacts with the proxy announcements of [I-D.ietf-core-transport-indication].¶

11. Propagating server generated registration information

The RD can populate some data into the registration: The RD may pick the sector and endpoint name based on the endpoint's credentials, or (as introduced in this documents) reverse proxy names and soft lifetime limits can be added.¶

With the exception of sector and endpoint name, the registrant can query those properties through the endpoint lookup interface. However, this is cumbersome as it requires it to use both the registration and the lookup interface.¶

The architecture of [I-D.ietf-core-coap-pubsub] offers a different architectural setup: Applied to the RD, the registration would generate both a registration metadata resource (at which the registrant can set or query its registration's metadata) and a registration link resource (which contains all the links the registrant provides). Such a setup would make it easier for registrants to query or update registration metadata, including querying for an implicitly assigned endpoint name or sector.¶

Extending the RD specification to allow this style of operation would be possible without altering its client facing interfaces. Alternatively, using a new media type for operations on the registration resource and/or the FETCH and PATCH methods would enable such operations in a less intrusive way. While it would be tempting to add an Accept option to the registration request to solicit immediate information on the registration that was just created, the Accept option's criticality would render this incompatible with existing servers. The option can still be set if the new content format is advertised by the RD.¶

Without any media type suggested so far, this is what a registration could look like if the RD advertised that it provided content format TBD6 on the registration interface:¶

Req from [2001:db8::1]:5683:
POST coap://rd.example.net/rd
Accept: TBD6
Payload:
</some-resource>;rt="example.x"

Res: 2.04 Created
Location: /reg/abcd
Content-Format: TBD6
Payload:
Soft lifetime limit 3600, please update your registration in time.
Forward proxy services are offered at coaps+ws://rd.example.net and
coaps+tcp://rd.example.net.

Appendix A. Change log

Since -08:¶

• Add section on propagating server generated information.¶
• Reference transport-indication appendix as one reason why propagation can be relevant.¶

Since -07:¶

• Update references.¶

Since -06:¶

• Add sketch for DNS updates.¶
• Add sketch for forward proxying.¶
• Fix erroneous section numbers.¶

Since -05:¶

• Add section on Limited Lifetimes.¶
• Point out limitations to applications that use reverse proxying.¶
• Minor reference and bugfix updates.¶

Since -04:¶

• Minor adjustments:¶

  • Mention LwM2M and how it is already doing RD proxying.¶
  • Tie proxying in with infinite lifetimes.¶
  • Remove note on not being able to switch protocols: RDs that support some future protocol negotiation can do that.¶
  • Point out that there is no Uri-Host from the RD proxy to the EP, but there could be.¶
  • Infinite lifetimes: Take up CTs more explicitly from RD discussion.¶
  • Start exploring interactions with groupcomm-proxy.¶

Since -03:¶

• Added interaction with PvD (Provisioning Domains)¶

Since -02:¶

• Added abstract¶
• Added example of CoRAL FETCH to Lookup across link relations section¶

Since -01:¶

• Added section on Opportunistic RDs¶

Since -00:¶

• Add multicast proxy usage pattern¶
• ondemand proxying: Probing queries must be sent from a different address¶
• proxying: Point to RFC7252 to describe how the actual proxying happens¶
• proxying: Describe this as a last-resort options and suggest attempting PCP first¶

Appendix B. Acknowledgements

[ Reviews from: Jaime Jimenez ]¶

Section 4 was inspired by Ben Kaduk's comments from reviewing [rfc9176].¶

Author's Address