RFC 8804: Content Delivery Network Interconnection (CDNI) Request Routing Extensions
- O. Finkelman,
- S. Mishra
Abstract
Open Caching architecture is a use case of Content Delivery Network Interconnection (CDNI) in which the commercial Content Delivery Network (CDN) is the upstream CDN (uCDN) and the ISP caching layer serves as the downstream CDN (dCDN). This document defines extensions to the CDNI Metadata Interface (MI) and the Footprint & Capabilities Advertisement interface (FCI). These extensions are derived from requirements raised by Open Caching but are also applicable to CDNI use cases in general.¶
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
https://
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(https://
1. Introduction
The Streaming Video Alliance [SVA] is a global association that works to solve streaming video challenges in an effort to improve end-user experience and adoption. The Open Caching Working Group [OCWG] of the Streaming Video Alliance [SVA] is focused on the delegation of video delivery requests from commercial CDNs to a caching layer at the ISP's network. Open Caching architecture is a specific use case of CDNI where the commercial CDN is the upstream CDN (uCDN) and the ISP caching layer is the downstream CDN (dCDN). The Open Caching Request Routing Functional Specification [OC-RR] defines the Request Routing process and the interfaces that are required for its provisioning. This document defines the CDNI metadata object [RFC8006] and the CDNI Footprint and Capabilities object [RFC8008] that are required for Open Caching Request Routing:¶
This document also registers CDNI Payload Types [RFC7736] for these defined objects.¶
For consistency with other CDNI documents, this document follows the CDNI convention of uCDN (upstream CDN) and dCDN (downstream CDN) to represent the commercial CDN and ISP caching layer, respectively.¶
1.1. Terminology
The following terms are used throughout this document:¶
Additionally, this document reuses the terminology defined in [RFC6707], [RFC7336], [RFC8006], [RFC8007], and [RFC8008]. Specifically, we use the following CDNI acronyms:¶
- FCI
- Footprint & Capabilities Advertisement interface (see [RFC8008])¶
- MI
- Metadata Interface (see [RFC8006])¶
- uCDN
- Upstream CDN (see [RFC7336])¶
- dCDN
- Downstream CDN (see [RFC7336])¶
- RT
- Redirection Target. Endpoint for redirection from uCDN to dCDN.¶
- RR
- Request Router. An element responsible for routing user requests, typically using HTTP redirect or DNS CNAME, depending on the use case.¶
1.2. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
2. Redirect Target Capability
Iterative CDNI Request Redirection is defined in Section 1.1 of [RFC7336] and elaborated by examples in Sections 3.2 and 3.4 of [RFC7336]. A Redirection Target (RT) is defined in Section 2 of [RFC7975] for Recursive Request Redirection as:¶
The endpoint to which the User Agent is redirected. In CDNI, an RT may point to a number of different components, some examples include a surrogate in the same CDN as the request router, a request router in a dCDN, or a surrogate in a dCDN.¶
In this document, we adopt the same definition of the RT for the
Iterative Request Redirect use case. This use case requires the
provisioning of the RT address to be used by the uCDN in order to
redirect to the dCDN. RT addresses can vary between different
footprints (for example, between different regions), and they may also
change over time (for example, as a result of network problems). Given
this variable and dynamic nature of the redirect target address, it may
not be suitable to advertise it during bootstrap. A more dynamic and
footprint
Use cases:¶
The Redirect Target capability object is used to indicate the target address the uCDN should use in order to redirect a client to the dCDN. A target may be attached to a specific uCDN host, attached to a list of uCDN hosts, or used globally for all the hosts of the uCDN.¶
When a dCDN is attaching the redirect target to a specific uCDN host
or a list of uCDN hosts, the dCDN MUST advertise the
hosts within the Redirect Target capability object as
"redirecting
If the Redirect Target capability object does not contain a target or the target is empty, the uCDN MUST interpret it as "no target available for these uCDN hosts for the specified footprint". In case such a target was already advertised in a previous FCI object, the uCDN MUST interpret it as an update that deletes the previous redirect target.¶
2.1. DNS Redirect Target
A redirect target for DNS redirection is an FQDN used as an alias in a CNAME record response (see [RFC1034]) of the uCDN DNS router. Note that DNS routers make routing decisions based on either the DNS resolver's IP address or the client IP subnet when EDNS0 client-subnet (ECS) is used (see [RFC7871]). The dCDN may choose to advertise redirect targets and footprints to cover both cases, such that the uCDN resolution would route the DNS query to different dCDN CNAMEs according to client subnet or dCDN resolver IP address. This method further allows the dCDN DNS to optimize the resolution by localizing the target CNAMEs. A uCDN implementation SHOULD prefer routing based on client IP subnet when the ECS option is present. A dCDN implementation using the ECS option MUST be aware of the privacy drawbacks listed in Section 2 of [RFC7871] and SHOULD follow the guidelines provided in Section 11.1 of [RFC7871].¶
2.2. HTTP Redirect Target
A redirect target for HTTP redirection is the URI to be used as the value for the Location header of an HTTP redirect 3xx response, typically a 302 (Found) (see Section 7.1.2 of [RFC7231] and Section 6.4 of [RFC7231]).¶
2.3. Properties of Redirect Target Capability Object
The Redirect Target capability object consists of the following properties:¶
- Property:
-
redirecting
-hosts¶ - Description:
- One or more uCDN hosts to which this redirect target is attached. A redirecting host SHOULD be a host that was published in a HostMatch object by the uCDN as defined in Section 4.1.2 of [RFC8006].¶
- Type:
- A list of Endpoint objects (see Section 4.3.3 of [RFC8006])¶
- Mandatory
-to -Specify : - No. If absent or empty, the redirect target applies to all hosts of the redirecting uCDN.¶
- Property:
-
dns-target¶
- Description:
- Target CNAME record for DNS redirection.¶
- Type:
- DnsTarget object (see Section 2.4)¶
- Mandatory
-to -Specify : - No. If the dns-target is absent or empty, the uCDN MUST interpret it as "no dns-target available".¶
- Property:
-
http-target¶
- Description:
- Target URI for an HTTP redirect.¶
- Type:
- HttpTarget object (see Section 2.5)¶
- Mandatory
-to -Specify : - No. If the http-target is absent or empty, the uCDN MUST interpret it as "no http-target available".¶
The following is an example of a Redirect Target capability object
serialization that advertises a dCDN target address that is attached
to a specific list of uCDN "redirecting
2.4. DnsTarget Object
The DnsTarget object gives the target address for the DNS response to delegate from the uCDN to the dCDN.¶
- Property:
-
host¶
- Description:
- The host property is a hostname or an IP address, without a port number.¶
- Type:
- Endpoint object as defined in Section 4.3.3 of [RFC8006], with the limitation that it SHOULD NOT include a port number and, in case a port number is present, the uCDN MUST ignore it.¶
- Mandatory
-to -Specify : - Yes.¶
2.4.1. DnsTarget Example
The following is an example of the DnsTarget object:¶
The following is an example of a DNS query for uCDN address
"a
2.5. HttpTarget Object
The HttpTarget object gives the necessary information to construct the target Location URI for HTTP redirection.¶
- Property:
-
host¶
- Description:
- Hostname or IP address and an optional port, i.e., the host and port of the authority component of the URI as described in Section 3.2 of [RFC3986].¶
- Type:
- Endpoint object as defined in Section 4.3.3 of [RFC8006].¶
- Mandatory
-to -Specify : - Yes.¶
- Property:
-
scheme¶
- Description:
- A URI scheme to be used in the redirect response location construction. When present, the uCDN MUST use the provided scheme in for HTTP redirection to the dCDN.¶
- Type:
- A URI scheme as defined in Section 3.1 of [RFC3986], represented as a JSON string. The scheme MUST be either "http" or "https".¶
- Mandatory
-to -Specify : - No. If this property is absent or empty, the uCDN request router MUST use the same scheme as was used in the original request before redirection.¶
- Property:
-
path-prefix¶
- Description:
- A path prefix for the HTTP redirect Location header. The original path is appended after this prefix.¶
- Type:
- A prefix of a path-absolute as defined in Section 3.3 of [RFC3986]. The prefix MUST end with a trailing slash to indicate the end of the last path segment in the prefix.¶
- Mandatory
-to -Specify : - No. If this property is absent or empty, the uCDN MUST NOT prepend a path-prefix to the original content path, i.e., the original path MUST appear in the Location URI right after the authority component.¶
- Property:
-
include
-redirecting -host¶ - Description:
- A flag indicating whether or not to include the redirecting host as the first path segment after the path-prefix. If set to true and a "path-prefix" is used, the uCDN redirecting host MUST be added as a separate path segment after the path-prefix and before the original URL path. If set to true and there is no path-prefix, the uCDN redirecting host MUST be prepended as the first path segment in the redirect URL.¶
- Type:
- Boolean.¶
- Mandatory
-to -Specify : - No. Default value is False.¶
2.5.1. HttpTarget Example
The following is an example of the HttpTarget object with a "scheme", a "path-prefix",
and "include
The following is an example of an HTTP request for content at uCDN host
"a
2.6. Usage Example
Before requests can be routed from the uCDN to the dCDN, the CDNs must exchange service configurations between them. Using the MI, the uCDN advertises out-of-band its hosts to the dCDN; each host is designated by a hostname and has its own specific metadata (see Section 4.1.2 of [RFC8006]). Using the FCI, the dCDN advertises (also out-of-band) the redirect target address defined in Section 2.3 for the relevant uCDN hosts. The following is a generalized example of the message flow between a uCDN and a dCDN. For simplicity, we focus on the sequence of messages between the uCDN and dCDN and not on how they are passed.¶
Explanation:¶
- (1)
- The uCDN advertises a host
(s123 .ucdn .example .com ) with the host metadata.¶ - (2)
- The dCDN advertises its FCI objects to the uCDN, including a
Redirect Target capability object that contains the redirect target
address
(us -east1 .dcdn .example .com ) specified for that uCDN host.¶
Once the redirect target has been set, the uCDN can start redirecting user requests to the dCDN. The following is a generic sequence of redirection using the host and redirect target that were advertised in Figure 1.¶
Explanation:¶
- (1)
- The End User sends a request (DNS or HTTP) to the uCDN Request Router (RR).¶
- (2)
- Using the previously advertised Redirect Target, the uCDN redirects the request to the dCDN.¶
- (3)
- The End User sends a request to the dCDN.¶
- (4)
- The dCDN either sends a response or reroutes it, for example, to a dCDN surrogate.¶
3. Fallback Target Server Address
Open Caching requires that the uCDN provides a fallback target server to the dCDN to be used in cases where the dCDN cannot properly handle the request. To avoid redirect loops, the fallback target server's address at the uCDN MUST be different from the original uCDN address from which the client was redirected to the dCDN. The uCDN MUST avoid further redirection when receiving the client request at the fallback target. The Fallback Target is defined as a generic metadata object (see Section 3.2 of [RFC8006]).¶
Use cases:¶
The Fallback Target metadata object is used to indicate the target address the dCDN should redirect a client to when falling back to the uCDN. The fallback target address is represented as an Endpoint object as defined in Section 4.3.3 of [RFC8006].¶
In DNS redirection, a CNAME record is used as the fallback target address.¶
In HTTP redirection, a hostname is used as the fallback target address.¶
When using HTTP redirect to route a client request back to the uCDN, it is the dCDN's responsibility to use the original URL path as the client would have used for the original uCDN request, stripping, if needed, the dCDN path-prefix and/or the uCDN hostname from the redirect URL that may have been used to request the content from the dCDN.¶
3.1. Properties of Fallback Target Generic Metadata Object
The MI
- Property:
-
host¶
- Description:
- Target address to which the dCDN can redirect the client.¶
- Type:
- Endpoint object as defined in Section 4.3.3 of [RFC8006], with the limitation that in case of DNS delegation, it SHOULD NOT include a port number, and in case a port number is present, the dCDN MUST ignore it.¶
- Mandatory
-to -Specify : - Yes.¶
- Property:
-
scheme¶
- Description:
- A URI scheme to be used in the redirect response location construction. When present, the dCDN MUST use this scheme in case of HTTP redirection to the uCDN fallback address.¶
- Type:
- A URI scheme as defined in Section 3.1 of [RFC3986], represented as a JSON string. The scheme MUST be either "http" or "https".¶
- Mandatory
-to -Specify : - No. In case of HTTP redirection to fallback, if this property is absent or empty, the dCDN redirecting entity MUST use the same scheme as in the request received by the dCDN.¶
The following is an example of an MI
3.2. Usage Example
The uCDN advertises out-of-band the fallback target address to the dCDN, so that the dCDN may redirect a request back to the uCDN in case the dCDN cannot serve it. Using the MI, the uCDN advertises its hosts to the dCDN, along with their specific host metadata (see Section 4.1.2 of [RFC8006]). The Fallback Target generic metadata object is encapsulated within the "host-metadata" property of each host. The following is an example of a message flow between a uCDN and a dCDN. For simplicity, we focus on the sequence of messages between the uCDN and dCDN, not on how they are passed.¶
Explanation:¶
- (1)
- The uCDN advertises a host
(s123 .ucdn .example .com ) with the host metadata. The host-metadata property contains an MI .Fallback Target generic metadata object.¶ - (2)
- The dCDN advertises its FCI objects to the uCDN, including a
Redirect Target capability object that contains the redirect target
address
(us -east1 .dcdn .example .com ) specified for that uCDN host.¶
The following is a generic sequence of redirection using the configurations that were advertised in Figure 3. In this case, the dCDN redirects back to the uCDN fallback target address.¶
Explanation:¶
- (1)
- The End User sends a request (DNS or HTTP) to the uCDN Request Router (RR).¶
- (2)
- Using the previously advertised Redirect Target, the uCDN redirects the request to the dCDN.¶
- (3)
- The End User sends a request to the dCDN.¶
- (4)
- The dCDN cannot handle the request and therefore redirects it back to the uCDN fallback target address.¶
- (5)
- The End User sends the request to the uCDN fallback target address.¶
- (6)
- The uCDN either sends a response or reroutes it, for example, to a uCDN surrogate.¶
3.3. uCDN Addressing Considerations
When advertising fallback addresses to the dCDN, the uCDN
SHOULD consider the failure use cases that may lead the
dCDN to route requests to uCDN fallback. In extreme dCDN network
failures or under denial
4. IANA Considerations
4.1. CDNI Payload Types
IANA has registered the following CDNI Payload Types in the "CDNI Payload Types" registry defined in [RFC7736]:¶
4.1.1. CDNI FCI RedirectTarget Payload Type
- Purpose:
- The purpose of this payload type is to distinguish FCI advertisement objects for redirect target.¶
- Interface:
- FCI¶
- Encoding:
- See Section 2.3.¶
4.1.2. CDNI MI FallbackTarget Payload Type
- Purpose:
- The purpose of this payload type is to distinguish FallbackTarget MI objects (and any associated capability advertisement).¶
- Interface:
- MI/FCI¶
- Encoding:
- See Section 3.1.¶
5. Security Considerations
This specification defines extensions to the CDNI Metadata Interface (MI) and the Footprint & Capabilities Advertisement interface (FCI). As such, it is subject to the security and privacy considerations defined in Section 8 of [RFC8006] and in Section 7 of [RFC8008], respectively.¶
5.1. Confidentiality and Privacy
The Redirect Target capability object potentially reveals information about the internal structure of the dCDN network. A third party could intercept the FCI transactions and use the information to attack the dCDN. The same is also true for the Fallback Target generic metadata object, as it may reveal information about the internal structure of the uCDN, exposing it to external exploits. Implementations of the FCI and MI MUST therefore use strong authentication and encryption and strictly follow the directions for securing the interface as defined for the Metadata Interface in Section 8.3 of [RFC8006].¶
6. References
6.1. Normative References
- [RFC1034]
-
Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities", STD 13, RFC 1034, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC1034 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc1034 - [RFC2119]
-
Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC2119 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc2119 - [RFC3986]
-
Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC3986 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc3986 - [RFC6707]
-
Niven-Jenkins, B., Le Faucheur, F., and N. Bitar, "Content Distribution Network Interconnection (CDNI) Problem Statement", RFC 6707, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC6707 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc6707 - [RFC7231]
-
Fielding, R., Ed. and J. Reschke, Ed., "Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content", RFC 7231, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC7231 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc7231 - [RFC7336]
-
Peterson, L., Davie, B., and R. van Brandenburg, Ed., "Framework for Content Distribution Network Interconnection (CDNI)", RFC 7336, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC7336 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc7336 - [RFC7975]
-
Niven-Jenkins, B., Ed. and R. van Brandenburg, Ed., "Request Routing Redirection Interface for Content Delivery Network (CDN) Interconnection
" , RFC 7975, DOI 10.17487 , , <https:///RFC7975 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc7975 - [RFC8006]
-
Niven-Jenkins, B., Murray, R., Caulfield, M., and K. Ma, "Content Delivery Network Interconnection (CDNI) Metadata", RFC 8006, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC8006 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc8006 - [RFC8007]
-
Murray, R. and B. Niven-Jenkins, "Content Delivery Network Interconnection (CDNI) Control Interface / Triggers", RFC 8007, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC8007 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc8007 - [RFC8008]
-
Seedorf, J., Peterson, J., Previdi, S., van Brandenburg, R., and K. Ma, "Content Delivery Network Interconnection (CDNI) Request Routing: Footprint and Capabilities Semantics", RFC 8008, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC8008 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc8008 - [RFC8174]
-
Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC8174 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc8174
6.2. Informative References
- [OC-RR]
-
Finkelman, O., Ed., Hofmann, J., Klein, E., Mishra, S., Ma, K., Sahar, D., and B. Zurat, "Open Cache Request Routing Functional Specification", Version 1.1, , <https://
www >..streamingvideoa lliance .org /books /open -cache -request -routing -functional -specification / - [OCWG]
-
Streaming Video Alliance, "Open Caching", <https://
www >..streamingvideoa lliance .org /technical -groups /open -caching / - [RFC7736]
-
Ma, K., "Content Delivery Network Interconnection (CDNI) Media Type Registration", RFC 7736, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC7736 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc7736 - [RFC7871]
-
Contavalli, C., van der Gaast, W., Lawrence, D., and W. Kumari, "Client Subnet in DNS Queries", RFC 7871, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC7871 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc7871 - [SVA]
-
"Streaming Video Alliance", <https://
www >..streamingvideoa lliance .org
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Nir B. Sopher for reality checks against production use cases; his contribution is significant to this document. The authors also thank Ben Niven-Jenkins for his review and feedback and Kevin J. Ma for his guidance throughout the development of this document, including his regular reviews.¶