Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) G. Fairhurst Request for Comments: 8304 T. Jones Category: Informational University of Aberdeen ISSN: 2070-1721 February 2018
Transport Features of the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and Lightweight UDP (UDP-Lite)
Abstract
This is an informational document that describes the transport protocol interface primitives provided by the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and the Lightweight User Datagram Protocol (UDP-Lite) transport protocols. It identifies the datagram services exposed to applications and how an application can configure and use the features offered by the Internet datagram transport service. RFC 8303 documents the usage of transport features provided by IETF transport protocols, describing the way UDP, UDP-Lite, and other transport protocols expose their services to applications and how an application can configure and use the features that make up these services. This document provides input to and context for that document, as well as offers a road map to documentation that may help users of the UDP and UDP-Lite protocols.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for informational purposes.
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). Not all documents approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet Standard; see 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/rfc8304.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2018 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://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.
This document presents defined interactions between transport protocols and applications in the form of 'primitives' (function calls) for the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) [RFC0768] and the Lightweight User Datagram Protocol (UDP-Lite) [RFC3828]. In this usage, the word application refers to any program built on the datagram interface, including tunnels and other upper-layer protocols that use UDP and UDP-Lite.
UDP is widely implemented and deployed. It is used for a wide range of applications. A special class of applications can derive benefit from having partially damaged payloads delivered, rather than discarded, when using paths that include error-prone links. Applications that can tolerate payload corruption can choose to use UDP-Lite instead of UDP and use the application programming interface
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(API) to control checksum protection. Conversely, UDP applications could choose to use UDP-Lite, but this is currently less widely deployed, and users could encounter paths that do not support UDP-Lite. These topics are discussed more in Section 3.4 of "UDP Usage Guidelines" [RFC8085].
The IEEE standard API for TCP/IP applications is the "socket" interface [POSIX]. An application can use the recv() and send() POSIX functions as well as the recvfrom(), sendto(), recvmsg(), and sendmsg() functions. The UDP and UDP-Lite sockets API differs from that for TCP in several key ways. (Examples of usage of this API are provided in [STEVENS].) In UDP and UDP-Lite, each datagram is a self-contained message of a specified length, and options at the transport layer can be used to set properties for all subsequent datagrams sent using a socket or changed for each datagram. For datagrams, this can require the application to use the API to set IP-level information (IP Time To Live (TTL), Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP), IP fragmentation, etc.) for the datagrams it sends and receives. In contrast, when using TCP and other connection- oriented transports, the IP-level information normally either remains the same for the duration of a connection or is controlled by the transport protocol rather than the application.
Socket options are used in the sockets API to provide additional functions. For example, the IP_RECVTTL socket option is used by some UDP multicast applications to return the IP TTL field from the IP header of a received datagram.
Some platforms also offer applications the ability to directly assemble and transmit IP packets through "raw sockets" or similar facilities. The raw sockets API is a second, more cumbersome, method to send UDP datagrams. The use of this API is discussed in the RFC series in the UDP Guidelines [RFC8085].
The list of transport service features and primitives in this document is strictly based on the parts of protocol specifications in the RFC series that relate to what the transport protocol provides to an application that uses it and how the application interacts with the transport protocol. Primitives can be invoked by an application or a transport protocol; the latter type is called an "event".
The description in Section 3 follows the methodology defined by the IETF TAPS Working Group in [RFC8303]. Specifically, this document provides the first pass of this process, which discusses the relevant RFC text describing primitives for each protocol. [RFC8303] uses this input to document the usage of transport features provided by IETF transport protocols, describing the way UDP, UDP-Lite, and other
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transport protocols expose their services to applications and how an application can configure and use the features that make up these services.
The presented road map to documentation of the transport interface may also help developers working with UDP and UDP-Lite.
This document provides details for the pass 1 analysis of UDP and UDP-Lite that is used in "On the Usage of Transport Features Provided by IETF Transport Protocols" [RFC8303]. It uses common terminology defined in that document and also quotes RFCs that use the terminology of RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
UDP [RFC0768] [RFC8200] and UDP-Lite [RFC3828] are IETF Standards Track transport protocols. These protocols provide unidirectional, datagram services, supporting transmit and receive operations that preserve message boundaries.
This section summarizes the relevant text parts of the RFCs describing the UDP and UDP-Lite protocols, focusing on what the transport protocols provide to the application and how the transport is used (based on abstract API descriptions, where they are available). It describes how UDP is used with IPv4 or IPv6 to send unicast or anycast datagrams and is used to send broadcast datagrams for IPv4. A set of network-layer primitives required to use UDP or UDP-Lite with IP multicast (for IPv4 and IPv6) have been specified in the RFC series. Appendix A describes where to find documentation for network-layer primitives required to use UDP or UDP-Lite with IP multicast (for IPv4 and IPv6).
This User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is defined to make available a datagram mode of packet-switched computer communication in the environment of an interconnected set of computer networks...This protocol provides a procedure for application programs to send messages to other programs with a minimum of protocol mechanism.
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The User Interface section of RFC 768 states that the user interface to an application should allow
the creation of new receive ports, receive operations on the receive ports that return the data octets and an indication of source port and source address, and an operation that allows a datagram to be sent, specifying the data, source and destination ports and addresses to be sent.
UDP has been defined for IPv6 [RFC8200], together with API extensions for "Basic Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6" [RFC3493].
[RFC6935] and [RFC6936] define an update to the UDP transport originally specified in [RFC2460] (note that RFC 2460 has been obsoleted by RFC 8200). This enables use of a zero UDP checksum mode with a tunnel protocol, providing that the method satisfies the requirements in the corresponding applicability statement [RFC6936].
UDP offers only a basic transport interface. UDP datagrams may be directly sent and received, without exchanging messages between the endpoints to set up a connection (i.e., no handshake is performed by the transport protocol prior to communication). Using the sockets API, applications can receive packets from more than one IP source address on a single UDP socket. Common support allows specification of the local IP address, destination IP address, local port, and destination port values. Any or all of these can be indicated, with defaults supplied by the local system when these are not specified. The local endpoint address is set using the BIND call. At the remote end, the remote endpoint address is set using the CONNECT call. The CLOSE function has local significance only. It does not impact the status of the remote endpoint.
Neither UDP nor UDP-Lite provide congestion control, retransmission, or mechanisms for application-level packetization that would avoid IP fragmentation and other transport functions. This means that applications using UDP need to provide additional functions on top of the UDP transport API [RFC8085]. Some transport functions require parameters to be passed through the API to control the network layer (IPv4 or IPv6). These additional primitives could be considered a part of the network layer (e.g., control of the setting of the Don't Fragment (DF) flag on a transmitted IPv4 datagram) but are nonetheless essential to allow a user of the UDP API to implement functions that are normally associated with the transport layer (such as probing for the path maximum transmission size). This document includes such primitives.
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Guidance on the use of the services provided by UDP is provided in the UDP Guidelines [RFC8085]. This also states that
many operating systems also allow a UDP socket to be connected, i.e., to bind a UDP socket to a specific pair of addresses and ports. This is similar to the corresponding TCP sockets API functionality. However, for UDP, this is only a local operation that serves to simplify the local send/receive functions and to filter the traffic for the specified addresses and ports. Binding a UDP socket does not establish a connection -- UDP does not notify the remote end when a local UDP socket is bound. Binding a socket also allows configuring options that affect the UDP or IP layers, for example, use of the UDP checksum or the IP Timestamp option. On some stacks, a bound socket also allows an application to be notified when ICMP error messages are received for its transmissions [RFC1122].
The POSIX Base Specifications [POSIX] define an API that offers mechanisms for an application to receive asynchronous data events at the socket layer. Calls such as "poll", "select", or "queue" allow an application to be notified when data has arrived at a socket or when a socket has flushed its buffers.
A callback-driven API to the network interface can be structured on top of these calls. Implicit connection setup allows an application to delegate connection life management to the transport API. The transport API uses protocol primitives to offer the automated service to the application via the sockets API. By combining UDP primitives (CONNECT.UDP and SEND.UDP), a higher-level API could offer a similar service.
The following datagram primitives are specified:
CONNECT: The CONNECT primitive allows the association of source and destination port sets to a socket to enable creation of a 'connection' for UDP traffic. This UDP connection allows an application to be notified of errors received from the network stack and provides a shorthand access to the SEND and RECEIVE primitives. Since UDP is itself connectionless, no datagrams are sent because this primitive is executed. A further connect call can be used to change the association.
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The roles of a client and a server are often not appropriate for UDP, where connections can be peer-to-peer. The listening functions are performed using one of the forms of the CONNECT primitive:
1. bind(): A bind operation sets the local port either implicitly, triggered by a "sendto" operation on an unbound unconnected socket using an ephemeral port, or by an explicit "bind" to use a configured or well-known port.
2. bind(); connect(): A bind operation that is followed by a CONNECT primitive. The bind operation establishes the use of a known local port for datagrams rather than using an ephemeral port. The connect operation specifies a known address port combination to be used by default for future datagrams. This form either is used after receiving a datagram from an endpoint that causes the creation of a connection or can be triggered by a third-party configuration or a protocol trigger (such as reception of a UDP Service Description Protocol (SDP) [RFC4566] record).
SEND: The SEND primitive hands over a provided number of bytes that UDP should send to the other side of a UDP connection in a UDP datagram. The primitive can be used by an application to directly send datagrams to an endpoint defined by an address/port pair. If a connection has been created, then the address/port pair is inferred from the current connection for the socket. Connecting a socket allows network errors to be returned to the application as a notification on the SEND primitive. Messages passed to the SEND primitive that cannot be sent atomically in an IP packet will not be sent by the network layer, generating an error.
RECEIVE: The RECEIVE primitive allocates a receiving buffer to accommodate a received datagram. The primitive returns the number of bytes provided from a received UDP datagram. Section 4.1.3.5 of the requirements of Internet hosts [RFC1122] states "When a UDP datagram is received, its specific-destination address MUST be passed up to the application layer."
CHECKSUM_ENABLED: The optional CHECKSUM_ENABLED primitive controls whether a sender enables the UDP checksum when sending datagrams [RFC0768] [RFC6935] [RFC6936] [RFC8085]. When unset, this overrides the default UDP behavior, disabling the checksum on sending. Section 4.1.3.4 of the requirements for Internet hosts [RFC1122] states that "An application MAY optionally be able to control whether a UDP checksum will be generated, but it MUST default to checksumming on."
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REQUIRE_CHECKSUM: The optional REQUIRE_CHECKSUM primitive determines whether UDP datagrams received with a zero checksum are permitted or discarded; UDP defaults to requiring checksums. Section 4.1.3.4 of the requirements for Internet hosts [RFC1122] states that "An application MAY optionally be able to control whether UDP datagrams without checksums should be discarded or passed to the application." Section 3.1 of the specification for UDP-Lite [RFC3828] requires that the checksum field be non-zero; hence, the UDP-Lite API must discard all datagrams received with a zero checksum.
SET_IP_OPTIONS: The SET_IP_OPTIONS primitive requests the network layer to send a datagram with the specified IP options. Section 4.1.3.2 of the requirements for Internet hosts [RFC1122] states that an "application MUST be able to specify IP options to be sent in its UDP datagrams, and UDP MUST pass these options to the IP layer."
GET_IP_OPTIONS: The GET_IP_OPTIONS primitive retrieves the IP options of a datagram received at the network layer. Section 4.1.3.2 of the requirements for Internet hosts [RFC1122] states that a UDP receiver "MUST pass any IP option that it receives from the IP layer transparently to the application layer."
SET_DF: The SET_DF primitive allows the network layer to fragment packets using the Fragment Offset in IPv4 [RFC6864] and a host to use Fragment Headers in IPv6 [RFC8200]. The SET_DF primitive sets the Don't Fragment (DF) flag in the IPv4 packet header that carries a UDP datagram, which allows routers to fragment IPv4 packets. Although some specific applications rely on fragmentation support, in general, a UDP application should implement a method that avoids IP fragmentation (Section 4 of [RFC8085]). NOTE: In many other IETF transports (e.g., TCP and the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP)), the transport provides the support needed to use DF. However, when using UDP, the application is responsible for the techniques needed to discover the effective Path MTU (PMTU) allowed on the network path, coordinating with the network layer. Classical Path MTU Discovery (PMTUD) [RFC1191] relies upon the network path returning ICMP Fragmentation Needed or ICMPv6 Packet Too Big messages to the sender. When these ICMP messages are not delivered (or filtered), a sender is unable to learn the actual PMTU, and UDP datagrams larger than the PMTU will be "black holed". To avoid this, an application can instead implement Packetization Layer Path MTU Discovery (PLPMTUD) [RFC4821] that does not rely upon network
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support for ICMPv6 messages and is therefore considered more robust than standard PMTUD, as recommended in [RFC8085] and [RFC8201].
GET_MMS_S: The GET_MMS_S primitive retrieves a network-layer value that indicates the maximum message size (MMS) that may be sent at the transport layer using a non-fragmented IP packet from the configured interface. This value is specified in Section 6.1 of [RFC1191] and Section 5.1 of [RFC8201]. It is calculated from Effective MTU for Sending (EMTU_S) and the link MTU for the given source IP address. This takes into account the size of the IP header plus space reserved by the IP layer for additional headers (if any). UDP applications should use this value as part of a method to avoid sending UDP datagrams that would result in IP packets that exceed the effective PMTU allowed across the network path. The effective PMTU (specified in Section 1 of [RFC1191]) is equivalent to the EMTU_S (specified in [RFC1122]). The specification of PLPMTUD [RFC4821] states:
If PLPMTUD updates the MTU for a particular path, all Packetization Layer sessions that share the path representation (as described in Section 5.2) SHOULD be notified to make use of the new MTU and make the required congestion control adjustments.
GET_MMS_R: The GET_MMS_R primitive retrieves a network-layer value that indicates the MMS that may be received at the transport layer from the configured interface. This value is specified in Section 3.1 of [RFC1191]. It is calculated from Effective MTU for Receiving (EMTU_R) and the link MTU for the given source IP address, and it takes into account the size of the IP header plus space reserved by the IP layer for additional headers (if any).
SET_TTL: The SET_TTL primitive sets the Hop Limit (TTL field) in the network layer that is used in the IPv4 header of a packet that carries a UDP datagram. This is used to limit the scope of unicast datagrams. Section 3.2.2.4 of the requirements for Internet hosts [RFC1122] states that "An incoming Time Exceeded message MUST be passed to the transport layer."
GET_TTL: The GET_TTL primitive retrieves the value of the TTL field in an IP packet received at the network layer. An application using the Generalized TTL Security Mechanism (GTSM) [RFC5082] can use this information to trust datagrams with a TTL value within the expected range, as described in Section 3 of RFC 5082.
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SET_MIN_TTL: The SET_MIN_TTL primitive restricts datagrams delivered to the application to those received with an IP TTL value greater than or equal to the passed parameter. This primitive can be used to implement applications such as GTSM [RFC5082] too, as described in Section 3 of RFC 5082, but this RFC does not specify this method.
SET_IPV6_UNICAST_HOPS: The SET_IPV6_UNICAST_HOPS primitive sets the network-layer Hop Limit field in an IPv6 packet header [RFC8200] carrying a UDP datagram. For IPv6 unicast datagrams, this is functionally equivalent to the SET_TTL IPv4 function.
GET_IPV6_UNICAST_HOPS: The GET_IPV6_UNICAST_HOPS primitive is a network-layer function that reads the hop count in the IPv6 header [RFC8200] information of a received UDP datagram. This is specified in Section 6.3 of RFC 3542. For IPv6 unicast datagrams, this is functionally equivalent to the GET_TTL IPv4 function.
SET_DSCP: The SET_DSCP primitive is a network-layer function that sets the DSCP (or the legacy Type of Service (ToS)) value [RFC2474] to be used in the field of an IP header of a packet that carries a UDP datagram. Section 2.4 of the requirements for Internet hosts [RFC1123] states that "Applications MUST select appropriate ToS values when they invoke transport layer services, and these values MUST be configurable." The application should be able to change the ToS during the connection lifetime, and the ToS value should be passed to the IP layer unchanged. Section 4.1.4 of [RFC1122] also states that on reception the "UDP MAY pass the received ToS up to the application layer." The Diffserv model [RFC2475] [RFC3260] replaces this field in the IP header assigning the six most significant bits to carry the DSCP field [RFC2474]. Preserving the intention of the host requirements [RFC1122] to allow the application to specify the "Type of Service" should be interpreted to mean that an API should allow the application to set the DSCP. Section 3.1.8 of the UDP Guidelines [RFC8085] describes the way UDP applications should use this field. Normally, a UDP socket will assign a single DSCP value to all datagrams in a flow, but a sender is allowed to use different DSCP values for datagrams within the same flow in certain cases [RFC8085]. There are guidelines for WebRTC that illustrate this use [RFC7657].
SET_ECN: The SET_ECN primitive is a network-layer function that sets the Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) field in the IP header of a UDP datagram. The ECN field defaults to a value of 00. When the use of the ToS field was redefined by Diffserv [RFC3260], 2 bits of the field were assigned to support ECN [RFC3168]. Section 3.1.5 of the UDP Guidelines [RFC8085] describes the way
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UDP applications should use this field. NOTE: In many other IETF transports (e.g., TCP), the transport provides the support needed to use ECN; when using UDP, the application or higher-layer protocol is itself responsible for the techniques needed to use ECN.
GET_ECN: The GET_ECN primitive is a network-layer function that returns the value of the ECN field in the IP header of a received UDP datagram. Section 3.1.5 of [RFC8085] states that a UDP receiver "MUST check the ECN field at the receiver for each UDP datagram that it receives on this port", requiring the UDP receiver API to pass the received ECN field up to the application layer to enable appropriate congestion feedback.
ERROR_REPORT: The ERROR_REPORT event informs an application of "soft errors", including the arrival of an ICMP or ICMPv6 error message. Section 4.1.4 of the requirements for Internet hosts [RFC1122] states that "UDP MUST pass to the application layer all ICMP error messages that it receives from the IP layer." For example, this event is required to implement ICMP-based Path MTU Discovery [RFC1191] [RFC8201]. UDP applications must perform a CONNECT to receive ICMP errors.
CLOSE: The CLOSE primitive closes a connection. No further datagrams can be sent or received. Since UDP is itself connectionless, no datagrams are sent when this primitive is executed.
In the requirements for Internet hosts [RFC1122], Section 3.4 describes GET_MAXSIZES and ADVISE_DELIVPROB, and Section 3.3.4.4 describes GET_SRCADDR. These mechanisms are no longer used. It also specifies use of the Source Quench ICMP message, which has since been deprecated [RFC6633].
The IPV6_V6ONLY function is a network-layer primitive that applies to all transport services, as defined in Section 5.3 of the basic socket interface for IPv6 [RFC3493]. This restricts the use of information from the name resolver to only allow communication of AF_INET6 sockets to use IPv6 only. This is not considered part of the transport service.
UDP-Lite [RFC3828] provides similar services to UDP. It changed the semantics of the UDP "payload length" field to that of a "checksum coverage length" field. UDP-Lite requires the pseudo-header checksum to be computed at the sender and checked at a receiver. Apart from the length and coverage changes, UDP-Lite is semantically identical to UDP.
The sending interface of UDP-Lite differs from that of UDP by the addition of a single (socket) option that communicates the checksum coverage length. This specifies the intended checksum coverage, with the remaining unprotected part of the payload called the "error- insensitive part".
The receiving interface of UDP-Lite differs from that of UDP by the addition of a single (socket) option that specifies the minimum acceptable checksum coverage. The UDP-Lite Management Information Base (MIB) [RFC5097] further defines the checksum coverage method. Guidance on the use of services provided by UDP-Lite is provided in the UDP Guidelines [RFC8085].
UDP-Lite requires use of the UDP or UDP-Lite checksum; hence, it is not permitted to use the DISABLE_CHECKSUM function to disable use of a checksum, nor is it possible to disable receiver checksum processing using the REQUIRE_CHECKSUM function. All other primitives and functions for UDP are permitted.
In addition, the following are defined:
SET_CHECKSUM_COVERAGE: The SET_CHECKSUM_COVERAGE primitive sets the coverage area for a sent datagram. UDP-Lite traffic uses this primitive to set the coverage length provided by the UDP checksum. Section 3.3 of the UDP-Lite specification [RFC3828] states that "Applications that wish to define the payload as partially insensitive to bit errors...should do this by an explicit system call on the sender side." The default is to provide the same coverage as for UDP.
SET_MIN_COVERAGE: The SET_MIN_COVERAGE primitive sets the minimum acceptable coverage protection for received datagrams. UDP-Lite traffic uses this primitive to set the coverage length that is checked on receive. (Section 1.1 of [RFC5097] describes the corresponding MIB entry as udpliteEndpointMinCoverage.) Section 3.3 of the UDP-Lite specification [RFC3828] states that "Applications that wish to receive payloads that were only
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partially covered by a checksum should inform the receiving system by an explicit system call." The default is to require only minimal coverage of the datagram payload.
Security considerations for the use of UDP and UDP-Lite are provided in the referenced RFCs. Security guidance for application usage is provided in the UDP Guidelines [RFC8085].
[POSIX] IEEE, "Standard for Information Technology - Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX(R)) Base Specifications", Issue 7, IEEE 1003.1, <http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7582338/>.
[RFC4604] Holbrook, H., Cain, B., and B. Haberman, "Using Internet Group Management Protocol Version 3 (IGMPv3) and Multicast Listener Discovery Protocol Version 2 (MLDv2) for Source- Specific Multicast", RFC 4604, DOI 10.17487/RFC4604, August 2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4604>.
[RFC5790] Liu, H., Cao, W., and H. Asaeda, "Lightweight Internet Group Management Protocol Version 3 (IGMPv3) and Multicast Listener Discovery Version 2 (MLDv2) Protocols", RFC 5790, DOI 10.17487/RFC5790, February 2010, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5790>.
[STEVENS] Stevens, W., Fenner, B., and A. Rudoff, "UNIX Network Programming, The sockets Networking API", Volume 1, ISBN-13: 9780131411555, October 2003.
This appendix describes primitives that are used when UDP and UDP-Lite support IPv4/IPv6 multicast. Multicast services are not considered by the IETF TAPS WG, but the currently specified primitives are included for completeness in this appendix. Guidance on the use of UDP and UDP-Lite for multicast services is provided in the UDP Guidelines [RFC8085].
IP multicast may be supported by using the Any Source Multicast (ASM) model or the Source-Specific Multicast (SSM) model. The latter requires use of a Multicast Source Filter (MSF) when specifying an IP multicast group destination address.
Use of multicast requires additional primitives at the transport API that need to be called to coordinate operation of the IPv4 and IPv6 network-layer protocols. For example, to receive datagrams sent to a group, an endpoint must first become a member of a multicast group at the network layer. Local multicast reception is signaled for IPv4 by the Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) [RFC3376] [RFC4604]. IPv6 uses the equivalent Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) protocol [RFC3810] [RFC5790], carried over ICMPv6. A lightweight version of these protocols has also been specified [RFC5790].
The following are defined:
JoinHostGroup: Section 7.1 of "Host Extensions for IP Multicasting" [RFC1112] provides a function that allows receiving traffic from an IP multicast group.
JoinLocalGroup: Section 7.3 of "Host Extensions for IP Multicasting" [RFC1112] provides a function that allows receiving traffic from a local IP multicast group.
LeaveHostGroup: Section 7.1 of "Host Extensions for IP Multicasting" [RFC1112] provides a function that allows leaving an IP multicast group.
LeaveLocalGroup: Section 7.3 of "Host Extensions for IP Multicasting" [RFC1112] provides a function that allows leaving a local IP multicast group.
IPV6_MULTICAST_IF: Section 5.2 of the basic socket extensions for IPv6 [RFC3493] states that this sets the interface that will be used for outgoing multicast packets.
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IP_MULTICAST_TTL: This sets the time-to-live field t to use for outgoing IPv4 multicast packets. This is used to limit the scope of multicast datagrams. Methods such as "The Generalized TTL Security Mechanism (GTSM)" [RFC5082] set this value to ensure link-local transmission. GTSM also requires the UDP receiver API to pass the received value of this field to the application.
IPV6_MULTICAST_HOPS: Section 5.2 of the basic socket extensions for IPv6 [RFC3493] states that this sets the hop count to use for outgoing multicast IPv6 packets. (This is equivalent to IP_MULTICAST_TTL used for IPv4 multicast.)
IPV6_MULTICAST_LOOP: Section 5.2 of the basic socket extensions for IPv6 [RFC3493] states that this sets whether a copy of a datagram is looped back by the IP layer for local delivery when the datagram is sent to a group to which the sending host itself belongs).
IPV6_JOIN_GROUP: Section 5.2 of the basic socket extensions for IPv6 [RFC3493] provides a function that allows an endpoint to join an IPv6 multicast group.
SIOCGIPMSFILTER: Section 8.1 of the socket interface for MSF [RFC3678] provides a function that allows reading the multicast source filters.
SIOCSIPMSFILTER: Section 8.1 of the socket interface for MSF [RFC3678] provides a function that allows setting/modifying the multicast source filters.
IPV6_LEAVE_GROUP: Section 5.2 of the basic socket extensions for IPv6 [RFC3493] provides a function that allows leaving an IPv6 multicast group.
The socket interface extensions for MSF [RFC3678] updates the multicast interface to add support for MSF for IPv4 and IPv6 required by IGMPv3. Section 3 defines both basic and advanced APIs, and Section 5 describes protocol-independent versions of these APIs. Four sets of API functionality are therefore defined:
1. IPv4 Basic (Delta-based) API. "Each function call specifies a single source address which should be added to or removed from the existing filter for a given multicast group address on which to listen."
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2. IPv4 Advanced (Full-state) API. "This API allows an application to define a complete source-filter comprised of zero or more source addresses, and replace the previous filter with a new one."
IP_ADD_MEMBERSHIP: This is used to join an ASM group.
IP_BLOCK_SOURCE: This MSF can block data from a given multicast source to a given ASM or SSM group.
IP_UNBLOCK_SOURCE: This updates an MSF to undo a previous call to IP_UNBLOCK_SOURCE for an ASM or SSM group.
IP_DROP_MEMBERSHIP: This is used to leave an ASM or SSM group. (In SSM, this drops all sources that have been joined for a particular group and interface. The operations are the same as if the socket had been closed.)
Section 4.1.2 of the socket interface for MSF [RFC3678] updates the interface to add IPv4 MSF support to IGMPv3 using ASM:
IP_ADD_SOURCE_MEMBERSHIP: This is used to join an SSM group.
IP_DROP_SOURCE_MEMBERSHIP: This is used to leave an SSM group.
Section 4.2 of the socket interface for MSF [RFC3678] defines the Advanced (Full-state) API:
setipv4sourcefilter: This is used to join an IPv4 multicast group or to enable multicast from a specified source.
getipv4sourcefilter: This is used to leave an IPv4 multicast group or to filter multicast from a specified source.
Section 5.1 of the socket interface for MSF [RFC3678] specifies Protocol-Independent Multicast API functions:
MCAST_JOIN_GROUP: This is used to join an ASM group.
MCAST_JOIN_SOURCE_GROUP: This is used to join an SSM group.
MCAST_BLOCK_SOURCE: This is used to block a source in an ASM group.
Fairhurst & Jones Informational [Page 19]
RFC 8304 UDP Transport Features February 2018
MCAST_UNBLOCK_SOURCE: This removes a previous MSF set by MCAST_BLOCK_SOURCE.
MCAST_LEAVE_GROUP: This leaves an ASM or SSM group.
MCAST_LEAVE_SOURCE_GROUP: This leaves an SSM group.
Section 5.2 of the socket interface for MSF [RFC3678] specifies the Protocol-Independent Advanced MSF (Full-state) API applicable for both IPv4 and IPv6:
setsourcefilter: This is used to join an IPv4 or IPv6 multicast group or to enable multicast from a specified source.
getsourcefilter: This is used to leave an IPv4 or IPv6 multicast group or to filter multicast from a specified source.
This work was partially funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 644334 (NEAT). Thanks to all who have commented or contributed, including Joe Touch, Ted Hardie, Aaron Falk, Tommy Pauly, and Francis Dupont.
Authors' Addresses
Godred Fairhurst University of Aberdeen School of Engineering Fraser Noble Building Fraser Noble Building Aberdeen AB24 3UE United Kingdom
Email: gorry@erg.abdn.ac.uk
Tom Jones University of Aberdeen School of Engineering Fraser Noble Building Aberdeen AB24 3UE United Kingdom