RFC9484: Proxying IP in HTTP
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Related keywords:
(Datagram)
(HTTP)
(http-ng)
(masque)
(proxy)
(QUIC)
(quic in udp in IP in quic)
(tunnels)
(turtles all the way down)
(VPN)
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) T. Pauly, Ed.
Request for Comments: 9484 Apple Inc.
Updates: 9298 D. Schinazi
Category: Standards Track A. Chernyakhovsky
ISSN: 2070-1721 Google LLC
M. Kühlewind
M. Westerlund
Ericsson
October 2023
Proxying IP in HTTP
Abstract
This document describes how to proxy IP packets in HTTP. This
protocol is similar to UDP proxying in HTTP but allows transmitting
arbitrary IP packets. More specifically, this document defines a
protocol that allows an HTTP client to create an IP tunnel through an
HTTP server that acts as an IP proxy. This document updates RFC
9298.
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://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9484.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2023 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
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in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Conventions and Definitions
3. Configuration of Clients
4. Tunnelling IP over HTTP
4.1. IP Proxy Handling
4.2. HTTP/1.1 Request
4.3. HTTP/1.1 Response
4.4. HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 Requests
4.5. HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 Responses
4.6. Limiting Request Scope
4.7. Capsules
4.7.1. ADDRESS_ASSIGN Capsule
4.7.2. ADDRESS_REQUEST Capsule
4.7.3. ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT Capsule
4.8. IPv6 Extension Headers
5. Context Identifiers
6. HTTP Datagram Payload Format
7. IP Packet Handling
7.1. Link Operation
7.2. Routing Operation
7.2.1. Error Signalling
8. Examples
8.1. Remote Access VPN
8.2. Site-to-Site VPN
8.3. IP Flow Forwarding
8.4. Proxied Connection Racing
9. Extensibility Considerations
10. Performance Considerations
10.1. MTU Considerations
10.2. ECN Considerations
10.3. Differentiated Services Considerations
11. Security Considerations
12. IANA Considerations
12.1. HTTP Upgrade Token Registration
12.2. MASQUE URI Suffixes Registry Creation
12.3. Updates to masque Well-Known URI Registration
12.4. HTTP Capsule Types Registrations
13. References
13.1. Normative References
13.2. Informative References
Acknowledgments
Authors' Addresses
1. Introduction
HTTP provides the CONNECT method (see Section 9.3.6 of [HTTP]) for
creating a TCP [TCP] tunnel to a destination and a similar mechanism
for UDP [CONNECT-UDP]. However, these mechanisms cannot tunnel other
IP protocols [IANA-PN] nor convey fields of the IP header.
This document describes a protocol for tunnelling IP through an HTTP
server acting as an IP-specific proxy over HTTP. This can be used
for various use cases, such as remote access VPN, site-to-site VPN,
secure point-to-point communication, or general-purpose packet
tunnelling.
IP proxying operates similarly to UDP proxying [CONNECT-UDP], whereby
the proxy itself is identified with an absolute URL, optionally
containing the traffic's destination. Clients generate these URLs
using a URI Template [TEMPLATE], as described in Section 3.
This protocol supports all existing versions of HTTP by using HTTP
Datagrams [HTTP-DGRAM]. When using HTTP/2 [HTTP/2] or HTTP/3
[HTTP/3], it uses HTTP Extended CONNECT, as described in
[EXT-CONNECT2] and [EXT-CONNECT3]. When using HTTP/1.x [HTTP/1.1],
it uses HTTP Upgrade, as defined in Section 7.8 of [HTTP].
This document updates [CONNECT-UDP] to change the "masque" well-known
URI; see Section 12.3.
2. Conventions and Definitions
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.
In this document, we use the term "IP proxy" to refer to the HTTP
server that responds to the IP proxying request. The term "client"
is used in the HTTP sense; the client constructs the IP proxying
request. If there are HTTP intermediaries (as defined in Section 3.7
of [HTTP]) between the client and the IP proxy, those are referred to
as "intermediaries" in this document. The term "IP proxying
endpoints" refers to both the client and the IP proxy.
This document uses terminology from [QUIC]. Where this document
defines protocol types, the definition format uses the notation from
Section 1.3 of [QUIC]. This specification uses the variable-length
integer encoding from Section 16 of [QUIC]. Variable-length integer
values do not need to be encoded in the minimum number of bytes
necessary.
Note that, when the HTTP version in use does not support multiplexing
streams (such as HTTP/1.1), any reference to "stream" in this
document represents the entire connection.
3. Configuration of Clients
Clients are configured to use IP proxying over HTTP via a URI
Template [TEMPLATE]. The URI Template MAY contain two variables:
"target" and "ipproto"; see Section 4.6. The optionality of the
variables needs to be considered when defining the template so that
the variable is either self-identifying or possible to exclude in the
syntax.
Examples are shown below:
https://example.org/.well-known/masque/ip/{target}/{ipproto}/
https://proxy.example.org:4443/masque/ip?t={target}&i={ipproto}
https://proxy.example.org:4443/masque/ip{?target,ipproto}
https://masque.example.org/?user=bob
Figure 1: URI Template Examples
The following requirements apply to the URI Template:
* The URI Template MUST be a level 3 template or lower.
* The URI Template MUST be in absolute form and MUST include non-
empty scheme, authority, and path components.
* The path component of the URI Template MUST start with a slash
"/".
* All template variables MUST be within the path or query components
of the URI.
* The URI Template MAY contain the two variables "target" and
"ipproto" and MAY contain other variables. If the "target" or
"ipproto" variables are included, their values MUST NOT be empty.
Clients can instead use "*" to indicate wildcard or no-preference
values; see Section 4.6.
* The URI Template MUST NOT contain any non-ASCII Unicode characters
and MUST only contain ASCII characters in the range 0x21-0x7E
inclusive (note that percent-encoding is allowed; see Section 2.1
of [URI]).
* The URI Template MUST NOT use Reserved Expansion ("+" operator),
Fragment Expansion ("#" operator), Label Expansion with Dot-
Prefix, Path Segment Expansion with Slash-Prefix, nor Path-Style
Parameter Expansion with Semicolon-Prefix.
Clients SHOULD validate the requirements above; however, clients MAY
use a general-purpose URI Template implementation that lacks this
specific validation. If a client detects that any of the
requirements above are not met by a URI Template, the client MUST
reject its configuration and abort the request without sending it to
the IP proxy.
As with UDP proxying, some client configurations for IP proxies will
only allow the user to configure the proxy host and proxy port.
Clients with such limitations MAY attempt to access IP proxying
capabilities using the default template, which is defined as:
"https://$PROXY_HOST:$PROXY_PORT/.well-known/masque/
ip/{target}/{ipproto}/", where $PROXY_HOST and $PROXY_PORT are the
configured host and port of the IP proxy, respectively. IP proxy
deployments SHOULD offer service at this location if they need to
interoperate with such clients.
4. Tunnelling IP over HTTP
To allow negotiation of a tunnel for IP over HTTP, this document
defines the "connect-ip" HTTP upgrade token. The resulting IP
tunnels use the Capsule Protocol (see Section 3.2 of [HTTP-DGRAM])
with HTTP Datagrams in the format defined in Section 6.
To initiate an IP tunnel associated with a single HTTP stream, a
client issues a request containing the "connect-ip" upgrade token.
When sending its IP proxying request, the client SHALL perform URI
Template expansion to determine the path and query of its request;
see Section 3.
By virtue of the definition of the Capsule Protocol (see Section 3.2
of [HTTP-DGRAM]), IP proxying requests do not carry any message
content. Similarly, successful IP proxying responses also do not
carry any message content.
IP proxying over HTTP MUST be operated over TLS or QUIC encryption,
or another equivalent encryption protocol, to provide
confidentiality, integrity, and authentication.
4.1. IP Proxy Handling
Upon receiving an IP proxying request:
* If the recipient is configured to use another HTTP server, it will
act as an intermediary by forwarding the request to the other HTTP
server. Note that such intermediaries may need to re-encode the
request if they forward it using a version of HTTP that is
different from the one used to receive it, as the request encoding
differs by version (see below).
* Otherwise, the recipient will act as an IP proxy. The IP proxy
can choose to reject the IP proxying request. Otherwise, it
extracts the optional "target" and "ipproto" variables from the
URI it has reconstructed from the request headers, decodes their
percent-encoding, and establishes an IP tunnel.
IP proxies MUST validate whether the decoded "target" and "ipproto"
variables meet the requirements in Section 4.6. If they do not, the
IP proxy MUST treat the request as malformed; see Section 8.1.1 of
[HTTP/2] and Section 4.1.2 of [HTTP/3]. If the "target" variable is
a DNS name, the IP proxy MUST perform DNS resolution (to obtain the
corresponding IPv4 and/or IPv6 addresses via A and/or AAAA records)
before replying to the HTTP request. If errors occur during this
process, the IP proxy MUST reject the request and SHOULD send details
using an appropriate Proxy-Status header field [PROXY-STATUS]. For
example, if DNS resolution returns an error, the proxy can use the
dns_error proxy error type from Section 2.3.2 of [PROXY-STATUS].
The lifetime of the IP forwarding tunnel is tied to the IP proxying
request stream. The IP proxy MUST maintain all IP address and route
assignments associated with the IP forwarding tunnel while the
request stream is open. IP proxies MAY choose to tear down the
tunnel due to a period of inactivity, but they MUST close the request
stream when doing so.
A successful IP proxying response (as defined in Sections 4.3 and
4.5) indicates that the IP proxy has established an IP tunnel and is
willing to proxy IP payloads. Any response other than a successful
IP proxying response indicates that the request has failed; thus, the
client MUST abort the request.
Along with a successful IP proxying response, the IP proxy can send
capsules to assign addresses and advertise routes to the client
(Section 4.7). The client can also assign addresses and advertise
routes to the IP proxy for network-to-network routing.
4.2. HTTP/1.1 Request
When using HTTP/1.1 [HTTP/1.1], an IP proxying request will meet the
following requirements:
* The method SHALL be "GET".
* The request SHALL include a single Host header field containing
the host and optional port of the IP proxy.
* The request SHALL include a Connection header field with value
"Upgrade" (note that this requirement is case-insensitive, as per
Section 7.6.1 of [HTTP]).
* The request SHALL include an Upgrade header field with value
"connect-ip".
An IP proxying request that does not conform to these restrictions is
malformed. The recipient of such a malformed request MUST respond
with an error and SHOULD use the 400 (Bad Request) status code.
For example, if the client is configured with URI Template
"https://example.org/.well-known/masque/ip/{target}/{ipproto}/" and
wishes to open an IP forwarding tunnel with no target or protocol
limitations, it could send the following request:
GET https://example.org/.well-known/masque/ip/*/*/ HTTP/1.1
Host: example.org
Connection: Upgrade
Upgrade: connect-ip
Capsule-Protocol: ?1
Figure 2: Example HTTP/1.1 Request
4.3. HTTP/1.1 Response
The server indicates a successful IP proxying response by replying
with the following requirements:
* The HTTP status code on the response SHALL be 101 (Switching
Protocols).
* The response SHALL include a Connection header field with value
"Upgrade" (note that this requirement is case-insensitive, as per
Section 7.6.1 of [HTTP]).
* The response SHALL include a single Upgrade header field with
value "connect-ip".
* The response SHALL meet the requirements of HTTP responses that
start the Capsule Protocol; see Section 3.2 of [HTTP-DGRAM].
If any of these requirements are not met, the client MUST treat this
proxying attempt as failed and close the connection.
For example, the server could respond with:
HTTP/1.1 101 Switching Protocols
Connection: Upgrade
Upgrade: connect-ip
Capsule-Protocol: ?1
Figure 3: Example HTTP/1.1 Response
4.4. HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 Requests
When using HTTP/2 [HTTP/2] or HTTP/3 [HTTP/3], IP proxying requests
use HTTP Extended CONNECT. This requires that servers send an HTTP
Setting, as specified in [EXT-CONNECT2] and [EXT-CONNECT3], and that
requests use HTTP pseudo-header fields with the following
requirements:
* The :method pseudo-header field SHALL be "CONNECT".
* The :protocol pseudo-header field SHALL be "connect-ip".
* The :authority pseudo-header field SHALL contain the authority of
the IP proxy.
* The :path and :scheme pseudo-header fields SHALL NOT be empty.
Their values SHALL contain the scheme and path from the URI
Template after the URI Template expansion process has been
completed; see Section 3. Variables in the URI Template can
determine the scope of the request, such as requesting full-tunnel
IP packet forwarding, or a specific proxied flow; see Section 4.6.
An IP proxying request that does not conform to these restrictions is
malformed; see Section 8.1.1 of [HTTP/2] and Section 4.1.2 of
[HTTP/3].
For example, if the client is configured with URI Template
"https://example.org/.well-known/masque/ip/{target}/{ipproto}/" and
wishes to open an IP forwarding tunnel with no target or protocol
limitations, it could send the following request:
HEADERS
:method = CONNECT
:protocol = connect-ip
:scheme = https
:path = /.well-known/masque/ip/*/*/
:authority = example.org
capsule-protocol = ?1
Figure 4: Example HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 Request
4.5. HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 Responses
The server indicates a successful IP proxying response by replying
with the following requirements:
* The HTTP status code on the response SHALL be in the 2xx
(Successful) range.
* The response SHALL meet the requirements of HTTP responses that
start the Capsule Protocol; see Section 3.2 of [HTTP-DGRAM].
If any of these requirements are not met, the client MUST treat this
proxying attempt as failed and abort the request. As an example, any
status code in the 3xx range will be treated as a failure and cause
the client to abort the request.
For example, the server could respond with:
HEADERS
:status = 200
capsule-protocol = ?1
Figure 5: Example HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 Response
4.6. Limiting Request Scope
Unlike UDP proxying requests, which require specifying a target host,
IP proxying requests can allow endpoints to send arbitrary IP packets
to any host. The client can choose to restrict a given request to a
specific IP prefix or IP protocol by adding parameters to its
request. When the IP proxy knows that a request is scoped to a
target prefix or protocol, it can leverage this information to
optimize its resource allocation; for example, the IP proxy can
assign the same public IP address to two IP proxying requests that
are scoped to different prefixes and/or different protocols.
The scope of the request is indicated by the client to the IP proxy
via the "target" and "ipproto" variables of the URI Template; see
Section 3. Both the "target" and "ipproto" variables are optional;
if they are not included, they are considered to carry the wildcard
value "*".
target:
The variable "target" contains a hostname or IP prefix of a
specific host to which the client wants to proxy packets. If the
"target" variable is not specified or its value is "*", the client
is requesting to communicate with any allowable host. "target"
supports using DNS names, IPv6 prefixes, and IPv4 prefixes. Note
that IPv6 scoped addressing zone identifiers [IPv6-ZONE-ID] are
not supported. If the target is an IP prefix (IP address
optionally followed by a percent-encoded slash followed by the
prefix length in bits), the request will only support a single IP
version. If the target is a hostname, the IP proxy is expected to
perform DNS resolution to determine which route(s) to advertise to
the client. The IP proxy SHOULD send a ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT
capsule that includes routes for all addresses that were resolved
for the requested hostname, that are accessible to the IP proxy,
and belong to an address family for which the IP proxy also sends
an Assigned Address.
ipproto:
The variable "ipproto" contains an Internet Protocol Number; see
the defined list in the "Assigned Internet Protocol Numbers" IANA
registry [IANA-PN]. If present, it specifies that a client only
wants to proxy a specific IP protocol for this request. If the
value is "*", or the variable is not included, the client is
requesting to use any IP protocol. The IP protocol indicated in
the "ipproto" variable represents an allowable next header value
carried in IP headers that are directly sent in HTTP Datagrams
(the outermost IP headers). ICMP traffic is always allowed,
regardless of the value of this field.
Using the terms IPv6address, IPv4address, and reg-name from [URI],
the "target" and "ipproto" variables MUST adhere to the format in
Figure 6, using notation from [ABNF]. Additionally:
* If "target" contains an IPv6 literal or prefix, the colons (":")
MUST be percent-encoded. For example, if the target host is
"2001:db8::42", it will be encoded in the URI as
"2001%3Adb8%3A%3A42".
* If present, the IP prefix length in "target" SHALL be preceded by
a percent-encoded slash ("/"): "%2F". The IP prefix length MUST
represent a decimal integer between 0 and the length of the IP
address in bits, inclusive.
* If "target" contains an IP prefix and the prefix length is
strictly less than the length of the IP address in bits, the lower
bits of the IP address that are not covered by the prefix length
MUST all be set to 0.
* "ipproto" MUST represent a decimal integer between 0 and 255
inclusive or the wildcard value "*".
target = IPv6prefix / IPv4prefix / reg-name / "*"
IPv6prefix = IPv6address ["%2F" 1*3DIGIT]
IPv4prefix = IPv4address ["%2F" 1*2DIGIT]
ipproto = 1*3DIGIT / "*"
Figure 6: URI Template Variable Format
IP proxies MAY perform access control using the scoping information
provided by the client, i.e., if the client is not authorized to
access any of the destinations included in the scope, then the IP
proxy can immediately reject the request.
4.7. Capsules
This document defines multiple new capsule types that allow endpoints
to exchange IP configuration information. Both endpoints MAY send
any number of these new capsules.
4.7.1. ADDRESS_ASSIGN Capsule
The ADDRESS_ASSIGN capsule (capsule type 0x01) allows an endpoint to
assign its peer a list of IP addresses or prefixes. Every capsule
contains the full list of IP prefixes currently assigned to the
receiver. Any of these addresses can be used as the source address
on IP packets originated by the receiver of this capsule.
ADDRESS_ASSIGN Capsule {
Type (i) = 0x01,
Length (i),
Assigned Address (..) ...,
}
Figure 7: ADDRESS_ASSIGN Capsule Format
The ADDRESS_ASSIGN capsule contains a sequence of zero or more
Assigned Addresses.
Assigned Address {
Request ID (i),
IP Version (8),
IP Address (32..128),
IP Prefix Length (8),
}
Figure 8: Assigned Address Format
Each Assigned Address contains the following fields:
Request ID:
Request identifier, encoded as a variable-length integer. If this
address assignment is in response to an Address Request (see
Section 4.7.2), then this field SHALL contain the value of the
corresponding field in the request. Otherwise, this field SHALL
be zero.
IP Version:
IP Version of this address assignment, encoded as an unsigned
8-bit integer. It MUST be either 4 or 6.
IP Address:
Assigned IP address. If the IP Version field has value 4, the IP
Address field SHALL have a length of 32 bits. If the IP Version
field has value 6, the IP Address field SHALL have a length of 128
bits.
IP Prefix Length:
The number of bits in the IP address that are used to define the
prefix that is being assigned, encoded as an unsigned 8-bit
integer. This MUST be less than or equal to the length of the IP
Address field in bits. If the prefix length is equal to the
length of the IP address, the receiver of this capsule is allowed
to send packets from a single source address. If the prefix
length is less than the length of the IP address, the receiver of
this capsule is allowed to send packets from any source address
that falls within the prefix. If the prefix length is strictly
less than the length of the IP address in bits, the lower bits of
the IP Address field that are not covered by the prefix length
MUST all be set to 0.
If any of the capsule fields are malformed upon reception, the
receiver of the capsule MUST follow the error-handling procedure
defined in Section 3.3 of [HTTP-DGRAM].
If an ADDRESS_ASSIGN capsule does not contain an address that was
previously transmitted in another ADDRESS_ASSIGN capsule, it
indicates that the address has been removed. An ADDRESS_ASSIGN
capsule can also be empty, indicating that all addresses have been
removed.
In some deployments of IP proxying in HTTP, an endpoint needs to be
assigned an address by its peer before it knows what source address
to set on its own packets. For example, in the remote access VPN
case (Section 8.1), the client cannot send IP packets until it knows
what address to use. In these deployments, the endpoint that is
expecting an address assignment MUST send an ADDRESS_REQUEST capsule.
This isn't required if the endpoint does not need any address
assignment, for example, when it is configured out-of-band with
static addresses.
While ADDRESS_ASSIGN capsules are commonly sent in response to
ADDRESS_REQUEST capsules, endpoints MAY send ADDRESS_ASSIGN capsules
unprompted.
4.7.2. ADDRESS_REQUEST Capsule
The ADDRESS_REQUEST capsule (capsule type 0x02) allows an endpoint to
request assignment of IP addresses from its peer. The capsule allows
the endpoint to optionally indicate a preference for which address it
would get assigned.
ADDRESS_REQUEST Capsule {
Type (i) = 0x02,
Length (i),
Requested Address (..) ...,
}
Figure 9: ADDRESS_REQUEST Capsule Format
The ADDRESS_REQUEST capsule contains a sequence of one or more
Requested Addresses.
Requested Address {
Request ID (i),
IP Version (8),
IP Address (32..128),
IP Prefix Length (8),
}
Figure 10: Requested Address Format
Each Requested Address contains the following fields:
Request ID:
Request identifier, encoded as a variable-length integer. This is
the identifier of this specific address request. Each request
from a given endpoint carries a different identifier. Request IDs
MUST NOT be reused by an endpoint and MUST NOT be zero.
IP Version:
IP Version of this address request, encoded as an unsigned 8-bit
integer. It MUST be either 4 or 6.
IP Address:
Requested IP address. If the IP Version field has value 4, the IP
Address field SHALL have a length of 32 bits. If the IP Version
field has value 6, the IP Address field SHALL have a length of 128
bits.
IP Prefix Length:
Length of the IP Prefix requested in bits, encoded as an unsigned
8-bit integer. It MUST be less than or equal to the length of the
IP Address field in bits. If the prefix length is strictly less
than the length of the IP address in bits, the lower bits of the
IP Address field that are not covered by the prefix length MUST
all be set to 0.
If the IP address is all-zero (0.0.0.0 or ::), this indicates that
the sender is requesting an address of that address family but does
not have a preference for a specific address. In that scenario, the
prefix length still indicates the sender's preference for the prefix
length it is requesting.
If any of the capsule fields are malformed upon reception, the
receiver of the capsule MUST follow the error-handling procedure
defined in Section 3.3 of [HTTP-DGRAM].
Upon receiving the ADDRESS_REQUEST capsule, an endpoint SHOULD assign
one or more IP addresses to its peer and then respond with an
ADDRESS_ASSIGN capsule to inform the peer of the assignment. For
each Requested Address, the receiver of the ADDRESS_REQUEST capsule
SHALL respond with an Assigned Address with a matching Request ID.
If the requested address was assigned, the IP Address and IP Prefix
Length fields in the Assigned Address response SHALL be set to the
assigned values. If the requested address was not assigned, the IP
address SHALL be all-zero, and the IP Prefix Length SHALL be the
maximum length (0.0.0.0/32 or ::/128) to indicate that no address was
assigned. These address rejections SHOULD NOT be included in
subsequent ADDRESS_ASSIGN capsules. Note that other Assigned Address
entries that do not correspond to any Request ID can also be
contained in the same ADDRESS_ASSIGN response.
If an endpoint receives an ADDRESS_REQUEST capsule that contains zero
Requested Addresses, it MUST abort the IP proxying request stream.
Note that the ordering of Requested Addresses does not carry any
semantics. Similarly, the Request ID is only meant as a unique
identifier; it does not convey any priority or importance.
4.7.3. ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT Capsule
The ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT capsule (capsule type 0x03) allows an
endpoint to communicate to its peer that it is willing to route
traffic to a set of IP address ranges. This indicates that the
sender has an existing route to each address range and notifies its
peer that, if the receiver of the ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT capsule sends
IP packets for one of these ranges in HTTP Datagrams, the sender of
the capsule will forward them along its preexisting route. Any
address that is in one of the address ranges can be used as the
destination address on IP packets originated by the receiver of this
capsule.
ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT Capsule {
Type (i) = 0x03,
Length (i),
IP Address Range (..) ...,
}
Figure 11: ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT Capsule Format
The ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT capsule contains a sequence of zero or more
IP Address Ranges.
IP Address Range {
IP Version (8),
Start IP Address (32..128),
End IP Address (32..128),
IP Protocol (8),
}
Figure 12: IP Address Range Format
Each IP Address Range contains the following fields:
IP Version:
IP Version of this range, encoded as an unsigned 8-bit integer.
It MUST be either 4 or 6.
Start IP Address and End IP Address:
Inclusive start and end IP address of the advertised range. If
the IP Version field has value 4, these fields SHALL have a length
of 32 bits. If the IP Version field has value 6, these fields
SHALL have a length of 128 bits. The Start IP Address MUST be
less than or equal to the End IP Address.
IP Protocol:
The Internet Protocol Number for traffic that can be sent to this
range, encoded as an unsigned 8-bit integer. If the value is 0,
all protocols are allowed. If the value is not 0, it represents
an allowable next header value carried in IP headers that are sent
directly in HTTP Datagrams (the outermost IP headers). ICMP
traffic is always allowed, regardless of the value of this field.
If any of the capsule fields are malformed upon reception, the
receiver of the capsule MUST follow the error-handling procedure
defined in Section 3.3 of [HTTP-DGRAM].
Upon receiving the ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT capsule, an endpoint MAY
update its local state regarding what its peer is willing to route
(subject to local policy), such as by installing entries in a routing
table.
Each ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT contains the full list of address ranges.
If multiple ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT capsules are sent in one direction,
each ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT capsule supersedes prior ones. In other
words, if a given address range was present in a prior capsule but
the most recently received ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT capsule does not
contain it, the receiver will consider that range withdrawn.
If multiple ranges using the same IP protocol were to overlap, some
routing table implementations might reject them. To prevent overlap,
the ranges are ordered; this places the burden on the sender and
makes verification by the receiver much simpler. If an IP Address
Range A precedes an IP Address Range B in the same
ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT capsule, they MUST follow these requirements:
* The IP Version of A MUST be less than or equal to the IP Version
of B.
* If the IP Version of A and B are equal, the IP Protocol of A MUST
be less than or equal to the IP Protocol of B.
* If the IP Version and IP Protocol of A and B are both equal, the
End IP Address of A MUST be strictly less than the Start IP
Address of B.
If an endpoint receives a ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT capsule that does not
meet these requirements, it MUST abort the IP proxying request
stream.
Since setting the IP protocol to zero indicates all protocols are
allowed, the requirements above make it possible for two routes to
overlap when one has its IP protocol set to zero and the other has it
set to non-zero. Endpoints MUST NOT send a ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT
capsule with routes that overlap in such a way. Validating this
requirement is OPTIONAL, but if an endpoint detects the violation, it
MUST abort the IP proxying request stream.
4.8. IPv6 Extension Headers
Both request scoping (see Section 4.6) and the ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT
capsule (see Section 4.7.3) use Internet Protocol Numbers. These
numbers represent both upper layers (as defined in Section 2 of
[IPv6], with examples that include TCP and UDP) and IPv6 extension
headers (as defined in Section 4 of [IPv6], with examples that
include Fragment and Options headers). IP proxies MAY reject
requests to scope to protocol numbers that are used for extension
headers. Upon receiving packets, implementations that support
scoping or routing by Internet Protocol Number MUST walk the chain of
extensions to find the outermost non-extension Internet Protocol
Number to match against the scoping rule. Note that the
ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT capsule uses Internet Protocol Number 0 to
indicate that all protocols are allowed; it does not restrict the
route to the IPv6 Hop-by-Hop Options header (Section 4.3 of [IPv6]).
5. Context Identifiers
The mechanism for proxying IP in HTTP defined in this document allows
future extensions to exchange HTTP Datagrams that carry different
semantics from IP payloads. Some of these extensions can augment IP
payloads with additional data or compress IP header fields, while
others can exchange data that is completely separate from IP
payloads. In order to accomplish this, all HTTP Datagrams associated
with IP proxying request streams start with a Context ID field; see
Section 6.
Context IDs are 62-bit integers (0 to 2^62-1). Context IDs are
encoded as variable-length integers; see Section 16 of [QUIC]. The
Context ID value of 0 is reserved for IP payloads, while non-zero
values are dynamically allocated. Non-zero even-numbered Context IDs
are client-allocated, and odd-numbered Context IDs are proxy-
allocated. The Context ID namespace is tied to a given HTTP request;
it is possible for a Context ID with the same numeric value to be
simultaneously allocated in distinct requests, potentially with
different semantics. Context IDs MUST NOT be re-allocated within a
given HTTP request but MAY be allocated in any order. The Context ID
allocation restrictions to the use of even-numbered and odd-numbered
Context IDs exist in order to avoid the need for synchronization
between endpoints. However, once a Context ID has been allocated,
those restrictions do not apply to the use of the Context ID; it can
be used by either the client or the IP proxy, independent of which
endpoint initially allocated it.
Registration is the action by which an endpoint informs its peer of
the semantics and format of a given Context ID. This document does
not define how registration occurs. Future extensions MAY use HTTP
header fields or capsules to register Context IDs. Depending on the
method being used, it is possible for datagrams to be received with
Context IDs that have not yet been registered. For instance, this
can be due to reordering of the packet containing the datagram and
the packet containing the registration message during transmission.
6. HTTP Datagram Payload Format
When associated with IP proxying request streams, the HTTP Datagram
Payload field of HTTP Datagrams (see [HTTP-DGRAM]) has the format
defined in Figure 13. Note that, when HTTP Datagrams are encoded
using QUIC DATAGRAM frames, the Context ID field defined below
directly follows the Quarter Stream ID field that is at the start of
the QUIC DATAGRAM frame payload:
IP Proxying HTTP Datagram Payload {
Context ID (i),
Payload (..),
}
Figure 13: IP Proxying HTTP Datagram Format
The IP Proxying HTTP Datagram Payload contains the following fields:
Context ID:
A variable-length integer that contains the value of the Context
ID. If an HTTP/3 datagram that carries an unknown Context ID is
received, the receiver SHALL either drop that datagram silently or
buffer it temporarily (on the order of a round trip) while
awaiting the registration of the corresponding Context ID.
Payload:
The payload of the datagram, whose semantics depend on value of
the previous field. Note that this field can be empty.
IP packets are encoded using HTTP Datagrams with the Context ID set
to zero. When the Context ID is set to zero, the Payload field
contains a full IP packet (from the IP Version field until the last
byte of the IP payload).
7. IP Packet Handling
This document defines a tunneling mechanism that is conceptually an
IP link. However, because links are attached to IP routers,
implementations might need to handle some of the responsibilities of
IP routers if they do not delegate them to another implementation,
such as a kernel.
7.1. Link Operation
The IP forwarding tunnels described in this document are not fully
featured "interfaces" in the IPv6 addressing architecture sense
[IPv6-ADDR]. In particular, they do not necessarily have IPv6 link-
local addresses. Additionally, IPv6 stateless autoconfiguration or
router advertisement messages are not used in such interfaces, and
neither is neighbor discovery.
When using HTTP/2 or HTTP/3, a client MAY optimistically start
sending proxied IP packets before receiving the response to its IP
proxying request, noting however that those may not be processed by
the IP proxy if it responds to the request with a failure or if the
datagrams are received by the IP proxy before the request. Since
receiving addresses and routes is required in order to know that a
packet can be sent through the tunnel, such optimistic packets might
be dropped by the IP proxy if it chooses to provide different
addressing or routing information than what the client assumed.
Note that it is possible for multiple proxied IP packets to be
encapsulated in the same outer packet, for example, because a QUIC
packet can carry more than one QUIC DATAGRAM frame. It is also
possible for a proxied IP packet to span multiple outer packets,
because a DATAGRAM capsule can be split across multiple QUIC or TCP
packets.
7.2. Routing Operation
The requirements in this section are a repetition of requirements
that apply to IP routers in general and might not apply to
implementations of IP proxying that rely on external software for
routing.
When an endpoint receives an HTTP Datagram containing an IP packet,
it will parse the packet's IP header, perform any local policy checks
(e.g., source address validation), check their routing table to pick
an outbound interface, and then send the IP packet on that interface
or pass it to a local application. The endpoint can also choose to
drop any received packets instead of forwarding them. If a received
IP packet fails any correctness or policy checks, that is a
forwarding error, not a protocol violation, as far as IP proxying is
concerned; see Section 7.2.1. IP proxying endpoints MAY implement
additional filtering policies on the IP packets they forward.
In the other direction, when an endpoint receives an IP packet, it
checks to see if the packet matches the routes mapped for an IP
tunnel and performs the same forwarding checks as above before
transmitting the packet over HTTP Datagrams.
When IP proxying endpoints forward IP packets between different
links, they will decrement the IP Hop Count (or TTL) upon
encapsulation but not upon decapsulation. In other words, the Hop
Count is decremented right before an IP packet is transmitted in an
HTTP Datagram. This prevents infinite loops in the presence of
routing loops and matches the choices in IPsec [IPSEC]. This does
not apply to IP packets generated by the IP proxying endpoint itself.
Implementers need to ensure that they do not forward any link-local
traffic beyond the IP proxying interface that it was received on. IP
proxying endpoints also need to properly reply to packets destined to
link-local multicast addresses.
IPv6 requires that every link have an MTU of at least 1280 bytes
[IPv6]. Since IP proxying in HTTP conveys IP packets in HTTP
Datagrams and those can in turn be sent in QUIC DATAGRAM frames that
cannot be fragmented [DGRAM], the MTU of an IP tunnel can be limited
by the MTU of the QUIC connection that IP proxying is operating over.
This can lead to situations where the IPv6 minimum link MTU is
violated. IP proxying endpoints that operate as routers and support
IPv6 MUST ensure that the IP tunnel link MTU is at least 1280 bytes
(i.e., that they can send HTTP Datagrams with payloads of at least
1280 bytes). This can be accomplished using various techniques:
* If both IP proxying endpoints know for certain that HTTP
intermediaries are not in use, the endpoints can pad the QUIC
INITIAL packets of the outer QUIC connection that IP proxying is
running over. (Assuming QUIC version 1 is in use, the overhead is
1 byte for the type, 20 bytes for the maximal connection ID
length, 4 bytes for the maximal packet number length, 1 byte for
the DATAGRAM frame type, 8 bytes for the maximal Quarter Stream
ID, 1 byte for the zero Context ID, and 16 bytes for the
Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data (AEAD)
authentication tag, for a total of 51 bytes of overhead, which
corresponds to padding QUIC INITIAL packets to 1331 bytes or
more.)
* IP proxying endpoints can also send ICMPv6 echo requests with 1232
bytes of data to ascertain the link MTU and tear down the tunnel
if they do not receive a response. Unless endpoints have an out-
of-band means of guaranteeing that the previous techniques are
sufficient, they MUST use this method. If an endpoint does not
know an IPv6 address of its peer, it can send the ICMPv6 echo
request to the link-local all nodes multicast address (ff02::1).
If an endpoint is using QUIC DATAGRAM frames to convey IPv6 packets
and it detects that the QUIC MTU is too low to allow sending 1280
bytes, it MUST abort the IP proxying request stream.
7.2.1. Error Signalling
Since IP proxying endpoints often forward IP packets onwards to other
network interfaces, they need to handle errors in the forwarding
process. For example, forwarding can fail if the endpoint does not
have a route for the destination address, if it is configured to
reject a destination prefix by policy, or if the MTU of the outgoing
link is lower than the size of the packet to be forwarded. In such
scenarios, IP proxying endpoints SHOULD use ICMP [ICMP] [ICMPv6] to
signal the forwarding error to its peer by generating ICMP packets
and sending them using HTTP Datagrams.
Endpoints are free to select the most appropriate ICMP errors to
send. Some examples that are relevant for IP proxying include the
following:
* For invalid source addresses, send Destination Unreachable
(Section 3.1 of [ICMPv6]) with code 5, "Source address failed
ingress/egress policy".
* For unroutable destination addresses, send Destination Unreachable
(Section 3.1 of [ICMPv6]) with code 0, "No route to destination",
or code 1, "Communication with destination administratively
prohibited".
* For packets that cannot fit within the MTU of the outgoing link,
send Packet Too Big (Section 3.2 of [ICMPv6]).
In order to receive these errors, endpoints need to be prepared to
receive ICMP packets. If an endpoint does not send
ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT capsules, such as a client opening an IP flow
through an IP proxy, it SHOULD process proxied ICMP packets from its
peer in order to receive these errors. Note that ICMP messages can
originate from a source address different from that of the IP
proxying peer and also from outside the target if scoping is in use
(see Section 4.6).
8. Examples
IP proxying in HTTP enables many different use cases that can benefit
from IP packet proxying and tunnelling. These examples are provided
to help illustrate some of the ways in which IP proxying in HTTP can
be used.
8.1. Remote Access VPN
The following example shows a point-to-network VPN setup, where a
client receives a set of local addresses and can send to any remote
host through the IP proxy. Such VPN setups can be either full-tunnel
or split-tunnel.
+--------+ IP A IP B +--------+ +---> IP D
| +--------------------+ IP | IP C |
| Client | IP Subnet C <--> ? | Proxy +-----------+---> IP E
| +--------------------+ | |
+--------+ +--------+ +---> IP ...
Figure 14: VPN Tunnel Setup
In this case, the client does not specify any scope in its request.
The IP proxy assigns the client an IPv4 address (192.0.2.11) and a
full-tunnel route of all IPv4 addresses (0.0.0.0/0). The client can
then send to any IPv4 host using its assigned address as its source
address.
[[ From Client ]] [[ From IP Proxy ]]
SETTINGS
H3_DATAGRAM = 1
SETTINGS
ENABLE_CONNECT_PROTOCOL = 1
H3_DATAGRAM = 1
STREAM(44): HEADERS
:method = CONNECT
:protocol = connect-ip
:scheme = https
:path = /vpn
:authority = proxy.example.com
capsule-protocol = ?1
STREAM(44): HEADERS
:status = 200
capsule-protocol = ?1
STREAM(44): DATA
Capsule Type = ADDRESS_REQUEST
(Request ID = 1
IP Version = 4
IP Address = 0.0.0.0
IP Prefix Length = 32)
STREAM(44): DATA
Capsule Type = ADDRESS_ASSIGN
(Request ID = 1
IP Version = 4
IP Address = 192.0.2.11
IP Prefix Length = 32)
STREAM(44): DATA
Capsule Type = ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT
(IP Version = 4
Start IP Address = 0.0.0.0
End IP Address = 255.255.255.255
IP Protocol = 0) // Any
DATAGRAM
Quarter Stream ID = 11
Context ID = 0
Payload = Encapsulated IP Packet
DATAGRAM
Quarter Stream ID = 11
Context ID = 0
Payload = Encapsulated IP Packet
Figure 15: VPN Full-Tunnel Example
A setup for a split-tunnel VPN (the case where the client can only
access a specific set of private subnets) is quite similar. In this
case, the advertised route is restricted to 192.0.2.0/24, rather than
0.0.0.0/0.
[[ From Client ]] [[ From IP Proxy ]]
STREAM(44): DATA
Capsule Type = ADDRESS_ASSIGN
(Request ID = 0
IP Version = 4
IP Address = 192.0.2.42
IP Prefix Length = 32)
STREAM(44): DATA
Capsule Type = ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT
(IP Version = 4
Start IP Address = 192.0.2.0
End IP Address = 192.0.2.41
IP Protocol = 0) // Any
(IP Version = 4
Start IP Address = 192.0.2.43
End IP Address = 192.0.2.255
IP Protocol = 0) // Any
Figure 16: VPN Split-Tunnel Example
8.2. Site-to-Site VPN
The following example shows how to connect a branch office network to
a corporate network such that all machines on those networks can
communicate. In this example, the IP proxying client is attached to
the branch office network 192.0.2.0/24, and the IP proxy is attached
to the corporate network 203.0.113.0/24. There are legacy clients on
the branch office network that only allow maintenance requests from
machines on their subnet, so the IP proxy is provisioned with an IP
address from that subnet.
192.0.2.1 <--+ +--------+ +-------+ +---> 203.0.113.9
| | +-------------+ IP | |
192.0.2.2 <--+---+ Client | IP Proxying | Proxy +---+---> 203.0.113.8
| | +-------------+ | |
192.0.2.3 <--+ +--------+ +-------+ +---> 203.0.113.7
Figure 17: Site-to-Site VPN Example
In this case, the client does not specify any scope in its request.
The IP proxy assigns the client an IPv4 address (203.0.113.100) and a
split-tunnel route to the corporate network (203.0.113.0/24). The
client assigns the IP proxy an IPv4 address (192.0.2.200) and a
split-tunnel route to the branch office network (192.0.2.0/24). This
allows hosts on both networks to communicate with each other and
allows the IP proxy to perform maintenance on legacy hosts in the
branch office. Note that IP proxying endpoints will decrement the IP
Hop Count (or TTL) when encapsulating forwarded packets, so protocols
that require that field be set to 255 will not function.
[[ From Client ]] [[ From IP Proxy ]]
SETTINGS
H3_DATAGRAM = 1
SETTINGS
ENABLE_CONNECT_PROTOCOL = 1
H3_DATAGRAM = 1
STREAM(44): HEADERS
:method = CONNECT
:protocol = connect-ip
:scheme = https
:path = /corp
:authority = proxy.example.com
capsule-protocol = ?1
STREAM(44): HEADERS
:status = 200
capsule-protocol = ?1
STREAM(44): DATA
Capsule Type = ADDRESS_ASSIGN
(Request ID = 0
IP Version = 4
IP Address = 192.0.2.200
IP Prefix Length = 32)
STREAM(44): DATA
Capsule Type = ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT
(IP Version = 4
Start IP Address = 192.0.2.0
End IP Address = 192.0.2.255
IP Protocol = 0) // Any
STREAM(44): DATA
Capsule Type = ADDRESS_ASSIGN
(Request ID = 0
IP Version = 4
IP Address = 203.0.113.100
IP Prefix Length = 32)
STREAM(44): DATA
Capsule Type = ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT
(IP Version = 4
Start IP Address = 203.0.113.0
End IP Address = 203.0.113.255
IP Protocol = 0) // Any
DATAGRAM
Quarter Stream ID = 11
Context ID = 0
Payload = Encapsulated IP Packet
DATAGRAM
Quarter Stream ID = 11
Context ID = 0
Payload = Encapsulated IP Packet
Figure 18: Site-to-Site VPN Capsule Example
8.3. IP Flow Forwarding
The following example shows an IP flow forwarding setup, where a
client requests to establish a forwarding tunnel to
target.example.com using the Stream Control Transmission Protocol
(SCTP) (IP protocol 132) and receives a single local address and
remote address it can use for transmitting packets. A similar
approach could be used for any other IP protocol that isn't easily
proxied with existing HTTP methods, such as ICMP, Encapsulating
Security Payload (ESP), etc.
+--------+ IP A IP B +--------+
| +-------------------+ IP | IP C
| Client | IP C <--> D | Proxy +---------> IP D
| +-------------------+ |
+--------+ +--------+
Figure 19: Proxied Flow Setup
In this case, the client specifies both a target hostname and an
Internet Protocol Number in the scope of its request, indicating that
it only needs to communicate with a single host. The IP proxy is
able to perform DNS resolution on behalf of the client and allocate a
specific outbound socket for the client instead of allocating an
entire IP address to the client. In this regard, the request is
similar to a regular CONNECT proxy request.
The IP proxy assigns a single IPv6 address to the client
(2001:db8:1234::a) and a route to a single IPv6 host
(2001:db8:3456::b) scoped to SCTP. The client can send and receive
SCTP IP packets to the remote host.
[[ From Client ]] [[ From IP Proxy ]]
SETTINGS
H3_DATAGRAM = 1
SETTINGS
ENABLE_CONNECT_PROTOCOL = 1
H3_DATAGRAM = 1
STREAM(44): HEADERS
:method = CONNECT
:protocol = connect-ip
:scheme = https
:path = /proxy?target=target.example.com&ipproto=132
:authority = proxy.example.com
capsule-protocol = ?1
STREAM(44): HEADERS
:status = 200
capsule-protocol = ?1
STREAM(44): DATA
Capsule Type = ADDRESS_ASSIGN
(Request ID = 0
IP Version = 6
IP Address = 2001:db8:1234::a
IP Prefix Length = 128)
STREAM(44): DATA
Capsule Type = ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT
(IP Version = 6
Start IP Address = 2001:db8:3456::b
End IP Address = 2001:db8:3456::b
IP Protocol = 132)
DATAGRAM
Quarter Stream ID = 11
Context ID = 0
Payload = Encapsulated SCTP/IP Packet
DATAGRAM
Quarter Stream ID = 11
Context ID = 0
Payload = Encapsulated SCTP/IP Packet
Figure 20: Proxied SCTP Flow Example
8.4. Proxied Connection Racing
The following example shows a setup where a client is proxying UDP
packets through an IP proxy in order to control connection
establishment racing through an IP proxy, as defined in Happy
Eyeballs [HEv2]. This example is a variant of the proxied flow but
highlights how IP-level proxying can enable new capabilities, even
for TCP and UDP.
+--------+ IP A IP B +--------+ IP C
| +-------------------+ |<------------> IP E
| Client | IP C <--> E | IP |
| | D <--> F | Proxy |
| +-------------------+ |<------------> IP F
+--------+ +--------+ IP D
Figure 21: Proxied Connection Racing Setup
As with proxied flows, the client specifies both a target hostname
and an Internet Protocol Number in the scope of its request. When
the IP proxy performs DNS resolution on behalf of the client, it can
send the various remote address options to the client as separate
routes. It can also ensure that the client has both IPv4 and IPv6
addresses assigned.
The IP proxy assigns both an IPv4 address (192.0.2.3) and an IPv6
address (2001:db8:1234::a) to the client, as well as an IPv4 route
(198.51.100.2) and an IPv6 route (2001:db8:3456::b), which represent
the resolved addresses of the target hostname, scoped to UDP. The
client can send and receive UDP IP packets to either one of the IP
proxy addresses to enable Happy Eyeballs through the IP proxy.
[[ From Client ]] [[ From IP Proxy ]]
SETTINGS
H3_DATAGRAM = 1
SETTINGS
ENABLE_CONNECT_PROTOCOL = 1
H3_DATAGRAM = 1
STREAM(44): HEADERS
:method = CONNECT
:protocol = connect-ip
:scheme = https
:path = /proxy?target=target.example.com&ipproto=17
:authority = proxy.example.com
capsule-protocol = ?1
STREAM(44): HEADERS
:status = 200
capsule-protocol = ?1
STREAM(44): DATA
Capsule Type = ADDRESS_ASSIGN
(Request ID = 0
IP Version = 4
IP Address = 192.0.2.3
IP Prefix Length = 32),
(Request ID = 0
IP Version = 6
IP Address = 2001:db8::1234:1234
IP Prefix Length = 128)
STREAM(44): DATA
Capsule Type = ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT
(IP Version = 4
Start IP Address = 198.51.100.2
End IP Address = 198.51.100.2
IP Protocol = 17),
(IP Version = 6
Start IP Address = 2001:db8:3456::b
End IP Address = 2001:db8:3456::b
IP Protocol = 17)
...
DATAGRAM
Quarter Stream ID = 11
Context ID = 0
Payload = Encapsulated IPv6 Packet
DATAGRAM
Quarter Stream ID = 11
Context ID = 0
Payload = Encapsulated IPv4 Packet
Figure 22: Proxied Connection Racing Example
9. Extensibility Considerations
Extensions to IP proxying in HTTP can define behavior changes to this
mechanism. Such extensions SHOULD define new capsule types to
exchange configuration information if needed. It is RECOMMENDED for
extensions that modify addressing to specify that their extension
capsules be sent before the ADDRESS_ASSIGN capsule and that they do
not take effect until the ADDRESS_ASSIGN capsule is parsed. This
allows modifications to address assignment to operate atomically.
Similarly, extensions that modify routing SHOULD behave similarly
with regard to the ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT capsule.
10. Performance Considerations
Bursty traffic can often lead to temporally correlated packet losses;
in turn, this can lead to suboptimal responses from congestion
controllers in protocols running inside the tunnel. To avoid this,
IP proxying endpoints SHOULD strive to avoid increasing burstiness of
IP traffic; they SHOULD NOT queue packets in order to increase
batching beyond the minimal amount required to take advantage of
hardware offloads.
When the protocol running inside the tunnel uses congestion control
(e.g., [TCP] or [QUIC]), the proxied traffic will incur at least two
nested congestion controllers. When tunneled packets are sent using
QUIC DATAGRAM frames, the outer HTTP connection MAY disable
congestion control for those packets that contain only QUIC DATAGRAM
frames encapsulating IP packets. Implementers will benefit from
reading the guidance in Section 3.1.11 of [UDP-USAGE].
When the protocol running inside the tunnel uses loss recovery (e.g.,
[TCP] or [QUIC]) and the outer HTTP connection runs over TCP, the
proxied traffic will incur at least two nested loss recovery
mechanisms. This can reduce performance, as both can sometimes
independently retransmit the same data. To avoid this, IP proxying
SHOULD be performed over HTTP/3 to allow leveraging the QUIC DATAGRAM
frame.
10.1. MTU Considerations
When using HTTP/3 with the QUIC Datagram extension [DGRAM], IP
packets are transmitted in QUIC DATAGRAM frames. Since these frames
cannot be fragmented, they can only carry packets up to a given
length determined by the QUIC connection configuration and the Path
MTU (PMTU). If an endpoint is using QUIC DATAGRAM frames and it
attempts to route an IP packet through the tunnel that will not fit
inside a QUIC DATAGRAM frame, the IP proxy SHOULD NOT send the IP
packet in a DATAGRAM capsule, as that defeats the end-to-end
unreliability characteristic that methods such as Datagram
Packetization Layer PMTU Discovery (DPLPMTUD) depend on [DPLPMTUD].
In this scenario, the endpoint SHOULD drop the IP packet and send an
ICMP Packet Too Big message to the sender of the dropped packet; see
Section 3.2 of [ICMPv6].
10.2. ECN Considerations
If an IP proxying endpoint with a connection containing an IP
proxying request stream disables congestion control, it cannot signal
Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) [ECN] support on that outer
connection. That is, the QUIC sender MUST mark all IP headers with
the Not ECN-Capable Transport (Not-ECT) codepoint for QUIC packets
that are outside of congestion control. The endpoint can still
report ECN feedback via QUIC ACK_ECN frames or the TCP ECN-Echo (ECE)
bit, as the peer might not have disabled congestion control.
Conversely, if congestion control is not disabled on the outer
congestion, the guidance in [ECN-TUNNEL] about transferring ECN marks
between inner and outer IP headers does not apply because the outer
connection will react correctly to congestion notifications if it
uses ECN. The inner traffic can also use ECN, independently of
whether it is in use on the outer connection.
10.3. Differentiated Services Considerations
Tunneled IP packets can have Differentiated Services Code Points
(DSCPs) [DSCP] set in the traffic class IP header field to request a
particular per-hop behavior. If an IP proxying endpoint is
configured as part of a Differentiated Services domain, it MAY
implement traffic differentiation based on these markings. However,
the use of HTTP can limit the possibilities for differentiated
treatment of the tunneled IP packets on the path between the IP
proxying endpoints.
When an HTTP connection is congestion-controlled, marking packets
with different DSCPs can lead to reordering between them, and that
can in turn lead the underlying transport connection's congestion
controller to perform poorly. If tunneled packets are subject to
congestion control by the outer connection, they need to avoid
carrying DSCP markings that are not equivalent in forwarding behavior
to prevent this situation. In this scenario, the IP proxying
endpoint MUST NOT copy the DSCP field from the inner IP header to the
outer IP header of the packet carrying this packet. Instead, an
application would need to use separate connections to the proxy, one
for each DSCP. Note that this document does not define a way for
requests to scope to particular DSCP values; such support is left to
future extensions.
If tunneled packets use QUIC datagrams and are not subject to
congestion control by the outer connection, the IP proxying endpoints
MAY translate the DSCP field value from the tunneled traffic to the
outer IP header. IP proxying endpoints MUST NOT coalesce multiple
inner packets into the same outer packet unless they have the same
DSCP marking or an equivalent traffic class. Note that the ability
to translate DSCP values is dependent on the tunnel ingress and
egress belonging to the same Differentiated Service domain or not.
11. Security Considerations
There are significant risks in allowing arbitrary clients to
establish a tunnel that permits sending to arbitrary hosts,
regardless of whether tunnels are scoped to specific hosts or not.
Bad actors could abuse this capability to send traffic and have it
attributed to the IP proxy. HTTP servers that support IP proxying
SHOULD restrict its use to authenticated users. Depending on the
deployment, possible authentication mechanisms include mutual TLS
between IP proxying endpoints, HTTP-based authentication via the HTTP
Authorization header [HTTP], or even bearer tokens. Proxies can
enforce policies for authenticated users to further constrain client
behavior or deal with possible abuse. For example, proxies can rate
limit individual clients that send an excessively large amount of
traffic through the proxy. As another example, proxies can restrict
address (prefix) assignment to clients based on certain client
attributes, such as geographic location.
Address assignment can have privacy implications for endpoints. For
example, if a proxy partitions its address space by the number of
authenticated clients and then assigns distinct address ranges to
each client, target hosts could use this information to determine
when IP packets correspond to the same client. Avoiding such
tracking vectors may be important for certain proxy deployments.
Proxies SHOULD avoid persistent per-client address (prefix)
assignment when possible.
Falsifying IP source addresses in sent traffic has been common for
denial-of-service attacks. Implementations of this mechanism need to
ensure that they do not facilitate such attacks. In particular,
there are scenarios where an endpoint knows that its peer is only
allowed to send IP packets from a given prefix. For example, that
can happen through out-of-band configuration information or when
allowed prefixes are shared via ADDRESS_ASSIGN capsules. In such
scenarios, endpoints MUST follow the recommendations from [BCP38] to
prevent source address spoofing.
Limiting request scope (see Section 4.6) allows two clients to share
one of the proxy's external IP addresses if their requests are scoped
to different Internet Protocol Numbers. If the proxy receives an
ICMP packet destined for that external IP address, it has the option
to forward it back to the clients. However, some of these ICMP
packets carry part of the original IP packet that triggered the ICMP
response. Forwarding such packets can accidentally divulge
information about one client's traffic to another client. To avoid
this, proxies that forward ICMP on shared external IP addresses MUST
inspect the invoking packet included in the ICMP packet and only
forward the ICMP packet to the client whose scoping matches the
invoking packet.
Implementers will benefit from reading the guidance in
[TUNNEL-SECURITY]. Since there are known risks with some IPv6
extension headers (e.g., [ROUTING-HDR]), implementers need to follow
the latest guidance regarding handling of IPv6 extension headers.
Transferring DSCP markings from inner to outer packets (see
Section 10.3) exposes end-to-end flow level information to an on-path
observer between the IP proxying endpoints. This can potentially
expose a single end-to-end flow. Because of this, such use of DSCPs
in privacy-sensitive contexts is NOT RECOMMENDED.
Opportunistic sending of IP packets (see Section 7.1) is not allowed
in HTTP/1.x because a server could reject the HTTP Upgrade and
attempt to parse the IP packets as a subsequent HTTP request,
allowing request smuggling attacks; see [OPTIMISTIC]. In particular,
an intermediary that re-encodes a request from HTTP/2 or 3 to
HTTP/1.1 MUST NOT forward any received capsules until it has parsed a
successful IP proxying response.
12. IANA Considerations
12.1. HTTP Upgrade Token Registration
IANA has registered "connect-ip" in the "HTTP Upgrade Tokens"
registry maintained at <https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-
upgrade-tokens>.
Value: connect-ip
Description: Proxying of IP Payloads
Expected Version Tokens: None
References: RFC 9484
12.2. MASQUE URI Suffixes Registry Creation
IANA has created the "MASQUE URI Suffixes" registry maintained at
<https://www.iana.org/assignments/masque>. The registration policy
is Expert Review; see Section 4.5 of [IANA-POLICY]. This new
registry governs the path segment that immediately follows "masque"
in paths that start with "/.well-known/masque/"; see
<https://www.iana.org/assignments/well-known-uris> for the
registration of "masque" in the "Well-Known URIs" registry.
This new registry contains three columns:
Path Segment: An ASCII string containing only characters allowed in
tokens; see Section 5.6.2 of [HTTP]. Entries in this registry
MUST all have distinct entries in this column.
Description: A description of the entry.
Reference: An optional reference defining the use of the entry.
The registry's initial entries are as follows:
+==============+==============+===========+
| Path Segment | Description | Reference |
+==============+==============+===========+
| udp | UDP Proxying | RFC 9298 |
+--------------+--------------+-----------+
| ip | IP Proxying | RFC 9484 |
+--------------+--------------+-----------+
Table 1: MASQUE URI Suffixes Registry
Designated experts for this registry are advised that they should
approve all requests as long as the expert believes that both (1) the
requested Path Segment will not conflict with existing or expected
future IETF work and (2) the use case is relevant to proxying.
12.3. Updates to masque Well-Known URI Registration
IANA has updated the entry for the "masque" URI suffix in the "Well-
Known URIs" registry maintained at <https://www.iana.org/assignments/
well-known-uris>.
IANA has updated the "Reference" field to include this document and
has replaced the "Related Information" field with "For sub-suffix
allocations, see the registry at <https://www.iana.org/assignments/
masque>.".
12.4. HTTP Capsule Types Registrations
IANA has added the following values to the "HTTP Capsule Types"
registry maintained at <https://www.iana.org/assignments/masque>.
+=======+=====================+
| Value | Capsule Type |
+=======+=====================+
| 0x01 | ADDRESS_ASSIGN |
+-------+---------------------+
| 0x02 | ADDRESS_REQUEST |
+-------+---------------------+
| 0x03 | ROUTE_ADVERTISEMENT |
+-------+---------------------+
Table 2: New Capsules
All of these new entries use the following values for these fields:
Status: permanent
Reference: RFC 9484
Change Controller: IETF
Contact: masque@ietf.org
Notes: None
13. References
13.1. Normative References
[ABNF] Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5234>.
[BCP38] Ferguson, P. and D. Senie, "Network Ingress Filtering:
Defeating Denial of Service Attacks which employ IP Source
Address Spoofing", BCP 38, RFC 2827, DOI 10.17487/RFC2827,
May 2000, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2827>.
[DGRAM] Pauly, T., Kinnear, E., and D. Schinazi, "An Unreliable
Datagram Extension to QUIC", RFC 9221,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9221, March 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9221>.
[DSCP] Nichols, K., Blake, S., Baker, F., and D. Black,
"Definition of the Differentiated Services Field (DS
Field) in the IPv4 and IPv6 Headers", RFC 2474,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2474, December 1998,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2474>.
[ECN] Ramakrishnan, K., Floyd, S., and D. Black, "The Addition
of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP",
RFC 3168, DOI 10.17487/RFC3168, September 2001,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3168>.
[EXT-CONNECT2]
McManus, P., "Bootstrapping WebSockets with HTTP/2",
RFC 8441, DOI 10.17487/RFC8441, September 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8441>.
[EXT-CONNECT3]
Hamilton, R., "Bootstrapping WebSockets with HTTP/3",
RFC 9220, DOI 10.17487/RFC9220, June 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9220>.
[HTTP] Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
Ed., "HTTP Semantics", STD 97, RFC 9110,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9110, June 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9110>.
[HTTP-DGRAM]
Schinazi, D. and L. Pardue, "HTTP Datagrams and the
Capsule Protocol", RFC 9297, DOI 10.17487/RFC9297, August
2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9297>.
[HTTP/1.1] Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
Ed., "HTTP/1.1", STD 99, RFC 9112, DOI 10.17487/RFC9112,
June 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9112>.
[HTTP/2] Thomson, M., Ed. and C. Benfield, Ed., "HTTP/2", RFC 9113,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9113, June 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9113>.
[HTTP/3] Bishop, M., Ed., "HTTP/3", RFC 9114, DOI 10.17487/RFC9114,
June 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9114>.
[IANA-POLICY]
Cotton, M., Leiba, B., and T. Narten, "Guidelines for
Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26,
RFC 8126, DOI 10.17487/RFC8126, June 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8126>.
[ICMP] Postel, J., "Internet Control Message Protocol", STD 5,
RFC 792, DOI 10.17487/RFC0792, September 1981,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc792>.
[ICMPv6] Conta, A., Deering, S., and M. Gupta, Ed., "Internet
Control Message Protocol (ICMPv6) for the Internet
Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Specification", STD 89,
RFC 4443, DOI 10.17487/RFC4443, March 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4443>.
[IPv6] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
(IPv6) Specification", STD 86, RFC 8200,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8200, July 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8200>.
[IPv6-ZONE-ID]
Carpenter, B., Cheshire, S., and R. Hinden, "Representing
IPv6 Zone Identifiers in Address Literals and Uniform
Resource Identifiers", RFC 6874, DOI 10.17487/RFC6874,
February 2013, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6874>.
[PROXY-STATUS]
Nottingham, M. and P. Sikora, "The Proxy-Status HTTP
Response Header Field", RFC 9209, DOI 10.17487/RFC9209,
June 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9209>.
[QUIC] Iyengar, J., Ed. and M. Thomson, Ed., "QUIC: A UDP-Based
Multiplexed and Secure Transport", RFC 9000,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9000, May 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9000>.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
[TCP] Eddy, W., Ed., "Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)",
STD 7, RFC 9293, DOI 10.17487/RFC9293, August 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9293>.
[TEMPLATE] Gregorio, J., Fielding, R., Hadley, M., Nottingham, M.,
and D. Orchard, "URI Template", RFC 6570,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6570, March 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6570>.
[URI] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3986>.
13.2. Informative References
[CONNECT-UDP]
Schinazi, D., "Proxying UDP in HTTP", RFC 9298,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9298, August 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9298>.
[DPLPMTUD] Fairhurst, G., Jones, T., Tüxen, M., Rüngeler, I., and T.
Völker, "Packetization Layer Path MTU Discovery for
Datagram Transports", RFC 8899, DOI 10.17487/RFC8899,
September 2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8899>.
[ECN-TUNNEL]
Briscoe, B., "Tunnelling of Explicit Congestion
Notification", RFC 6040, DOI 10.17487/RFC6040, November
2010, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6040>.
[HEv2] Schinazi, D. and T. Pauly, "Happy Eyeballs Version 2:
Better Connectivity Using Concurrency", RFC 8305,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8305, December 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8305>.
[IANA-PN] IANA, "Protocol Numbers",
<https://www.iana.org/assignments/protocol-numbers>.
[IPSEC] Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, DOI 10.17487/RFC4301,
December 2005, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4301>.
[IPv6-ADDR]
Hinden, R. and S. Deering, "IP Version 6 Addressing
Architecture", RFC 4291, DOI 10.17487/RFC4291, February
2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4291>.
[OPTIMISTIC]
Schwartz, B. M., "Security Considerations for Optimistic
Use of HTTP Upgrade", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-schwartz-httpbis-optimistic-upgrade-00, 21 August
2023, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-
schwartz-httpbis-optimistic-upgrade-00>.
[PROXY-REQS]
Chernyakhovsky, A., McCall, D., and D. Schinazi,
"Requirements for a MASQUE Protocol to Proxy IP Traffic",
Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-masque-ip-
proxy-reqs-03, 27 August 2021,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-masque-
ip-proxy-reqs-03>.
[ROUTING-HDR]
Abley, J., Savola, P., and G. Neville-Neil, "Deprecation
of Type 0 Routing Headers in IPv6", RFC 5095,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5095, December 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5095>.
[TUNNEL-SECURITY]
Krishnan, S., Thaler, D., and J. Hoagland, "Security
Concerns with IP Tunneling", RFC 6169,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6169, April 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6169>.
[UDP-USAGE]
Eggert, L., Fairhurst, G., and G. Shepherd, "UDP Usage
Guidelines", BCP 145, RFC 8085, DOI 10.17487/RFC8085,
March 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8085>.
Acknowledgments
The design of this method was inspired by discussions in the MASQUE
Working Group around [PROXY-REQS]. The authors would like to thank
participants in those discussions for their feedback. Additionally,
Mike Bishop, Lucas Pardue, and Alejandro Sedeño provided valuable
feedback on the document.
Most of the text on client configuration is based on the
corresponding text in [CONNECT-UDP].
Authors' Addresses
Tommy Pauly (editor)
Apple Inc.
Email: tpauly@apple.com
David Schinazi
Google LLC
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
United States of America
Email: dschinazi.ietf@gmail.com
Alex Chernyakhovsky
Google LLC
Email: achernya@google.com
Mirja Kühlewind
Ericsson
Email: mirja.kuehlewind@ericsson.com
Magnus Westerlund
Ericsson
Email: magnus.westerlund@ericsson.com