RFC 6679
Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) for RTP over UDP
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) M. Westerlund Request for Comments: 6679 I. Johansson Category: Standards Track Ericsson ISSN: 2070-1721 C. Perkins University of Glasgow P. O'Hanlon University of Oxford K. Carlberg G11 August 2012 Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) for RTP over UDPAbstract
This memo specifies how Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) can be used with the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) running over UDP, using the RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) as a feedback mechanism. It defines a new RTCP Extended Report (XR) block for periodic ECN feedback, a new RTCP transport feedback message for timely reporting of congestion events, and a Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN) extension used in the optional initialisation method using Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE). Signalling and procedures for negotiation of capabilities and initialisation methods are also defined. 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 5741. Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6679.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................4 2. Conventions, Definitions, and Acronyms ..........................5 3. Discussion, Requirements, and Design Rationale ..................6 3.1. Requirements ...............................................8 3.2. Applicability ..............................................8 3.3. Interoperability ..........................................12 4. Overview of Use of ECN with RTP/UDP/IP .........................13 5. RTCP Extensions for ECN Feedback ...............................16 5.1. RTP/AVPF Transport-Layer ECN Feedback Packet ..............16 5.2. RTCP XR Report Block for ECN Summary Information ..........19 6. SDP Signalling Extensions for ECN ..............................21 6.1. Signalling ECN Capability Using SDP .......................21 6.2. RTCP ECN Feedback SDP Parameter ...........................26 6.3. XR Block ECN SDP Parameter ................................26 6.4. ICE Parameter to Signal ECN Capability ....................27 7. Use of ECN with RTP/UDP/IP .....................................27 7.1. Negotiation of ECN Capability .............................27 7.2. Initiation of ECN Use in an RTP Session ...................28 7.3. Ongoing Use of ECN within an RTP Session ..................35 7.4. Detecting Failures ........................................38 8. Processing ECN in RTP Translators and Mixers ...................42 8.1. Transport Translators .....................................42 8.2. Fragmentation and Reassembly in Translators ...............43 8.3. Generating RTCP ECN Feedback in Media Transcoders .........45 8.4. Generating RTCP ECN Feedback in Mixers ....................46 9. Implementation Considerations ..................................47 10. IANA Considerations ...........................................47 10.1. SDP Attribute Registration ...............................47 10.2. RTP/AVPF Transport-Layer Feedback Message ................47 10.3. RTCP Feedback SDP Parameter ..............................48 10.4. RTCP XR Report Blocks ....................................48 10.5. RTCP XR SDP Parameter ....................................48 10.6. STUN Attribute ...........................................48 10.7. ICE Option ...............................................48 11. Security Considerations .......................................48 12. Examples of SDP Signalling ....................................51 12.1. Basic SDP Offer/Answer ...................................52 12.2. Declarative Multicast SDP ................................54 13. Acknowledgments ...............................................54 14. References ....................................................55 14.1. Normative References .....................................55 14.2. Informative References ...................................56
1. Introduction
This memo outlines how Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) [RFC3168] can be used for Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) [RFC3550] flows running over UDP/IP that use the RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) as a feedback mechanism. The solution consists of feedback of ECN congestion experienced markings to the sender using RTCP, verification of ECN functionality end-to-end, and procedures for how to initiate ECN usage. Since the initiation process has some dependencies on the signalling mechanism used to establish the RTP session, a specification for signalling mechanisms using the Session Description Protocol (SDP) [RFC4566] is included. ECN can be used to minimise the impact of congestion on real-time multimedia traffic. The use of ECN provides a way for the network to send congestion control signals to the media transport without having to impair the media. Unlike packet loss, ECN signals unambiguously indicate congestion to the transport as quickly as feedback delays allow and without confusing congestion with losses that might have occurred for other reasons such as transmission errors, packet-size errors, routing errors, badly implemented middleboxes, policy violations, and so forth. The introduction of ECN into the Internet requires changes to both the network and transport layers. At the network layer, IP forwarding has to be updated to allow routers to mark packets, rather than discarding them in times of congestion [RFC3168]. In addition, transport protocols have to be modified to inform the sender that ECN-marked packets are being received, so it can respond to the congestion. The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) [RFC3168], Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) [RFC4960], and Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP) [RFC4340] have been updated to support ECN, but to date, there is no specification describing how UDP-based transports, such as RTP [RFC3550], can use ECN. This is due to the lack of feedback mechanisms in UDP. Instead, the signalling control protocol on top of UDP needs to provide that feedback. For RTP, that feedback is provided by RTCP. The remainder of this memo is structured as follows. We start by describing the conventions, definitions, and acronyms used in this memo in Section 2 and the design rationale and applicability in Section 3. Section 4 gives an overview of how ECN is used with RTP over UDP. RTCP extensions for ECN feedback are defined in Section 5 and SDP signalling extensions in Section 6. The details of how ECN is used with RTP over UDP are defined in Section 7. In Section 8, we describe how ECN is handled in RTP translators and mixers. Section 9 discusses some implementation considerations; Section 10 lists IANA considerations; and Section 11 discusses security considerations.
Finally, Section 12 provides some examples of SDP signalling for ECN feedback2. Conventions, Definitions, and Acronyms
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 RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. Definitions and Abbreviations: Sender: A sender of RTP packets carrying an encoded media stream. The sender can change how the media transmission is performed by varying the media coding or packetisation. It is one endpoint of the ECN control loop. Receiver: A receiver of RTP packets with the intention to consume the media stream. It sends RTCP feedback on the received stream. It is the other endpoint of the ECN control loop. ECN-Capable Host: A sender or receiver of a media stream that is capable of setting and/or processing ECN marks. ECN-Capable Transport (ECT): A transport flow where both sender and receiver are ECN-capable hosts. Packets sent by an ECN-capable transport will be marked as ECT(0) or ECT(1) on transmission. See [RFC3168] for the definition of the ECT(0) and ECT(1) marks. ECN-CE: ECN Congestion Experienced mark (see [RFC3168]). ECN-Capable Packets: Packets with ECN mark set to either ECT(0), ECT(1), or ECN-CE. Not-ECT packets: Packets that are not sent by an ECN-capable transport and are not ECN-CE marked. ECN-Capable Queue: A queue that supports ECN-CE marking of ECN- capable packets to indicate congestion. ECN-Blocking Middlebox: A middlebox that discards ECN-capable packets. ECN-Reverting Middlebox: A middlebox that changes ECN-capable packets to not-ECT packets by removing the ECN mark.
Note that RTP mixers or translators that operate in such a manner that they terminate or split the ECN control loop will take on the role of receivers or senders. This is further discussed in Section 3.2.3. Discussion, Requirements, and Design Rationale
ECN has been specified for use with TCP [RFC3168], SCTP [RFC4960], and DCCP [RFC4340] transports. These are all unicast protocols that negotiate the use of ECN during the initial connection establishment handshake (supporting incremental deployment and checking if ECN- marked packets pass all middleboxes on the path). ECN-CE marks are immediately echoed back to the sender by the receiving endpoint using an additional bit in feedback messages, and the sender then interprets the mark as equivalent to a packet loss for congestion control purposes. If RTP is run over TCP, SCTP, or DCCP, it can use the native ECN support provided by those protocols. This memo does not concern itself further with these use cases. However, RTP is more commonly run over UDP. This combination does not currently support ECN, and we observe that it has significant differences from the other transport protocols for which ECN has been specified. These include: Signalling: RTP relies on separate signalling protocols to negotiate parameters before a session can be created and doesn't include an in-band handshake or negotiation at session setup time (i.e., there is no equivalent to the TCP three-way handshake in RTP). Feedback: RTP does not explicitly acknowledge receipt of datagrams. Instead, the RTP Control Protocol (RTCP) provides reception quality feedback, and other back channel communication, for RTP sessions. The feedback interval is generally on the order of seconds, rather than once per network round-trip time (RTT) (although the RTP Audio-Visual Profile with Feedback (RTP/AVPF) profile [RFC4585] allows more rapid feedback in most cases). RTCP is also very much oriented around counting packets, which makes byte-counting congestion algorithms difficult to utilise. Congestion Response: While it is possible to adapt the transmission of many audio/visual streams in response to network congestion, and such adaptation is required by [RFC3550], the dynamics of the congestion response may be quite different to that of TCP or other transport protocols. Middleboxes: The RTP framework explicitly supports the concept of mixers and translators, which are middleboxes that are involved in media transport functions.
Multicast: RTP is explicitly a group communication protocol and was
designed from the start to support IP multicast (primarily Any-
Source Multicast (ASM) [RFC1112], although a recent extension
supports Source-Specific Multicast (SSM) [RFC3569] with unicast
feedback [RFC5760]).
Application Awareness: When ECN support is provided within the
transport protocol, the ability of the application to react to
congestion is limited, since it has little visibility into the
transport layer. By adding support of ECN to RTP using RTCP
feedback, the application is made aware of congestion, allowing a
wider range of reactions in response to that congestion
indication.
Counting vs. Detecting Congestion: TCP, and the protocols derived
from it, are mainly designed to respond in the same way whether
they experience a burst of congestion indications within one RTT
or just a single congestion indication, whereas real-time
applications may be concerned with the amount of congestion
experienced and whether it is distributed smoothly or in bursts.
When feedback of ECN was added to TCP [RFC3168], the receiver was
designed to flip the echo congestion experienced (ECE) flag to 1
for a whole RTT then flop it back to zero. ECN feedback in RTCP,
however, will need to report a count of how much congestion has
been experienced within an RTCP reporting period, irrespective of
round-trip times.
These differences significantly alter the shape of ECN support in RTP
over UDP compared to ECN support in TCP, SCTP, and DCCP but do not
invalidate the need for ECN support.
ECN support is more important for RTP sessions than, for instance, is
the case for many applications over TCP. This is because the impact
of packet loss in real-time audio-visual media flows is highly
visible to users. For TCP-based applications, however, TCP will
retransmit lost packets, and while extra delay is incurred by having
packets dropped rather than ECN-CE marked, the loss is repaired.
Effective ECN support for RTP flows running over UDP will allow real-
time audio-visual applications to respond to the onset of congestion
before routers are forced to drop packets, allowing those
applications to control how they reduce their transmission rate and
hence media quality, rather than responding to and trying to conceal
the effects of unpredictable packet loss. Furthermore, widespread
deployment for ECN and active queue management in routers, should it
occur, can potentially reduce unnecessary queuing delays in routers,
lowering the round-trip time and benefiting interactive applications
of RTP, such as voice telephony.
3.1. Requirements
Considering ECN, transport protocols supporting ECN, and RTP-based applications, one can create a set of requirements that must be satisfied to at least some degree if ECN is to be used by RTP over UDP. o REQ 1: A mechanism must exist to negotiate and initiate the use of ECN for RTP/UDP/IP sessions so that an RTP sender will not send packets with ECT in the IP header unless it knows that all potential receivers will understand any ECN-CE indications they might receive. o REQ 2: A mechanism must exist to feed back the reception of any packets that are ECN-CE marked to the packet sender. o REQ 3: The provided mechanism should minimise the possibility of cheating (either by the sender or receiver). o REQ 4: Some detection and fallback mechanism should exist to avoid loss of communication due to the attempted usage of ECN in case an intermediate node clears ECT or drops packets that are ECT marked. o REQ 5: Negotiation of ECN should not significantly increase the time taken to negotiate and set up the RTP session (an extra RTT before the media can flow is unlikely to be acceptable for some use cases). o REQ 6: Negotiation of ECN should not cause media clipping at the start of a session. The following sections describe how these requirements can be met for RTP over UDP.3.2. Applicability
The use of ECN with RTP over UDP is dependent on negotiation of ECN capability between the sender and receiver(s) and validation of ECN support in all elements on the network path(s) traversed. RTP is used in a heterogeneous range of network environments and topologies, with different signalling protocols. The mechanisms defined here make it possible to verify support for ECN in each of these environments, irrespective of the topology. Due to the need for each RTP sender that intends to use ECN with RTP to track all participants in the RTP session, the sub-sampling of the group membership as specified by "Sampling of the Group Membership in RTP" [RFC2762] MUST NOT be used.
The use of ECN is further dependent on a capability of the RTP media flow to react to congestion signalled by ECN-marked packets. Depending on the application, media codec, and network topology, this adaptation can occur in various forms and at various nodes. As an example, the sender can change the media encoding, the receiver can change the subscription to a layered encoding, or either reaction can be accomplished by a transcoding middlebox. [RFC5117] identifies seven topologies in which RTP sessions may be configured and which may affect the ability to use ECN: Topo-Point-to-Point: This utilises standard unicast flows. ECN may be used with RTP in this topology in an analogous manner to its use with other unicast transport protocols, with RTCP conveying ECN feedback messages. Topo-Multicast: This is either an Any-Source Multicast (ASM) group [RFC3569] with potentially several active senders and multicast RTCP feedback or a Source-Specific Multicast (SSM) group [RFC4607] with a single distribution source and unicast RTCP feedback from receivers. RTCP is designed to scale to large group sizes while avoiding feedback implosion (see Section 6.2 of [RFC3550], [RFC4585], and [RFC5760]) and can be used by a sender to determine if all its receivers, and the network paths to those receivers, support ECN (see Section 7.2). It is somewhat more difficult to determine if all network paths from all senders to all receivers support ECN. Accordingly, we allow ECN to be used by an RTP sender using multicast UDP provided the sender has verified that the paths to all its known receivers support ECN, irrespective of whether the paths from other senders to their receivers support ECN ("all its known receivers" are all the synchronisation sources (SSRCs) from which the RTP sender has received RTP or RTCP in the last five reporting intervals, i.e., they have not timed out). Note that group membership may change during the lifetime of a multicast RTP session, potentially introducing new receivers that are not ECN capable or have a path that doesn't support ECN. Senders must use the mechanisms described in Section 7.4 to check that all receivers, and the network paths traversed to reach those receivers, continue to support ECN, and they need to fallback to non-ECN use if any receivers join that do not. SSM groups that use unicast RTCP feedback [RFC5760] do need a few extra considerations. This topology can have multiple media senders that provide traffic to the distribution source (DS) and are separated from the DS. There can also be multiple feedback targets. The requirement for using ECN for RTP in this topology is that the media sender must be provided the feedback from the receivers. It may be in aggregated form from the feedback targets. We will not mention this SSM use case in the below text
specifically, but when actions are required by the media source,
they also apply to the case of SSM where the RTCP feedback goes to
the feedback target.
The mechanisms defined in this memo support multicast groups but
are known to be conservative and don't scale to large groups.
This is primarily because we require all members of the group to
demonstrate that they can make use of ECN before the sender is
allowed to send ECN-marked packets, since allowing some non-ECN-
capable receivers causes fairness issues when the bottleneck link
is shared by ECN and non-ECN flows that we have not (yet) been
able to satisfactorily address. The rules regarding Determination
of ECN Support in Section 7.2.1 may be relaxed in a future version
of this specification to improve scaling once these issues have
been resolved.
Topo-Translator: An RTP translator is an RTP-level middlebox that is
invisible to the other participants in the RTP session (although
it is usually visible in the associated signalling session).
There are two types of RTP translators: those that do not modify
the media stream and are concerned with transport parameters, for
example, a multicast to unicast gateway; and those that do modify
the media stream, for example, transcoding between different media
codecs. A single RTP session traverses the translator, and the
translator must rewrite RTCP messages passing through it to match
the changes it makes to the RTP data packets. A legacy, ECN-
unaware, RTP translator is expected to ignore the ECN bits on
received packets and to set the ECN bits to not-ECT when sending
packets, thus causing ECN negotiation on the path containing the
translator to fail (any new RTP translator that does not wish to
support ECN may do so similarly). An ECN-aware RTP translator may
act in one of three ways:
* If the translator does not modify the media stream, it should
copy the ECN bits unchanged from the incoming to the outgoing
datagrams, unless it is overloaded and experiencing congestion,
in which case it may mark the outgoing datagrams with an ECN-CE
mark. Such a translator passes RTCP feedback unchanged. See
Section 8.1.
* If the translator modifies the media stream to combine or split
RTP packets but does not otherwise transcode the media, it must
manage the ECN bits in a way analogous to that described in
Section 5.3 of [RFC3168]. See Section 8.2 for details.
* If the translator is a media transcoder, or otherwise modifies
the content of the media stream, the output RTP media stream
may have radically different characteristics than the input RTP
media stream. Each side of the translator must then be
considered as a separate transport connection, with its own ECN
processing. This requires the translator to interpose itself
into the ECN negotiation process, effectively splitting the
connection into two parts with their own negotiation. Once
negotiation has been completed, the translator must generate
RTCP ECN feedback back to the source based on its own reception
and must respond to RTCP ECN feedback received from the
receiver(s) (see Section 8.3).
It is recognised that ECN and RTCP processing in an RTP translator
that modifies the media stream is non-trivial.
Topo-Mixer: A mixer is an RTP-level middlebox that aggregates
multiple RTP streams, mixing them together to generate a new RTP
stream. The mixer is visible to the other participants in the RTP
session and is also usually visible in the associated signalling
session. The RTP flows on each side of the mixer are treated
independently for ECN purposes, with the mixer generating its own
RTCP ECN feedback and responding to ECN feedback for data it
sends. Since unicast transport between the mixer and any endpoint
are treated independently, it would seem reasonable to allow the
transport on one side of the mixer to use ECN, while the transport
on the other side of the mixer is not ECN capable, if this is
desired. See Section 8.4 for details on how mixers should process
ECN.
Topo-Video-switch-MCU: A video-switching Multipoint Control Unit
(MCU) receives several RTP flows, but forwards only one of those
flows onwards to the other participants at a time. The flow that
is forwarded changes during the session, often based on voice
activity. Since only a subset of the RTP packets generated by a
sender are forwarded to the receivers, a video-switching MCU can
break ECN negotiation (the success of the ECN negotiation may
depend on the voice activity of the participant at the instant the
negotiation takes place - shout if you want ECN). It also breaks
congestion feedback and response, since RTP packets are dropped by
the MCU depending on voice activity rather than network
congestion. This topology is widely used in legacy products but
is NOT RECOMMENDED for new implementations and SHALL NOT be used
with ECN.
Topo-RTCP-terminating-MCU: In this scenario, each participant runs
an RTP point-to-point session between itself and the MCU. Each of
these sessions is treated independently for the purposes of ECN
and RTCP feedback, potentially with some using ECN and some not.
Topo-Asymmetric: It is theoretically possible to build a middlebox
that is a combination of an RTP mixer in one direction and an RTP
translator in the other. To quote [RFC5117], "This topology is so
problematic and it is so easy to get the RTCP processing wrong,
that it is NOT RECOMMENDED to implement this topology".
These topologies may be combined within a single RTP session.
The ECN mechanism defined in this memo is applicable to both sender-
and receiver-controlled congestion algorithms. The mechanism ensures
that both senders and receivers will know about ECN-CE markings and
any packet losses. Thus, the actual decision point for the
congestion control is not relevant. This is a great benefit as the
rate of an RTP session can be varied in a number of ways, for
example, a unicast media sender might use TCP Friendly Rate Control
(TFRC) [RFC5348] or some other algorithm, while a multicast session
could use a sender-based scheme adapting to the lowest common
supported rate or a receiver-driven mechanism using layered coding to
support more heterogeneous paths.
To ensure timely feedback of ECN-CE-marked packets when needed, this
mechanism requires support for the RTP/AVPF profile [RFC4585] or any
of its derivatives, such as RTP/SAVPF [RFC5124]. The standard RTP/
AVP profile [RFC3551] does not allow any early or immediate
transmission of RTCP feedback and has a minimal RTCP interval whose
default value (5 seconds) is many times the normal RTT between sender
and receiver.
3.3. Interoperability
To ensure interoperability for this specification, there is need for
at least one common initialisation method for all implementations.
Since initialisation using RTP and RTCP (Section 7.2.1) is the one
method that works in all cases, although it is not optimal for all
uses, it is selected as the mandatory-to-implement initialisation
method. This method requires both the RTCP XR extension and the ECN
feedback format, which require the RTP/AVPF profile to ensure timely
feedback.
When one considers all the uses of ECN for RTP, it is clear that
congestion control mechanisms exist that are receiver driven only
(Section 7.3.3). These congestion control mechanisms do not require
timely feedback of congestion events to the sender. If such a
congestion control mechanism is combined with an initialisation
method that also doesn't require timely feedback using RTCP, like the
leap-of-faith method (Section 7.2.3) or the ICE-based method
(Section 7.2.2), then neither the ECN feedback format nor the RTP/
AVPF profile would appear to be needed. However, fault detection can
be greatly improved by using receiver-side detection (Section 7.4.1) and early reporting of such cases using the ECN feedback mechanism. For interoperability, we mandate the implementation of the RTP/AVPF profile, with both RTCP extensions and the necessary signalling to support a common operations mode. This specification recommends the use of RTP/AVPF in all cases as negotiation of the common interoperability point requires RTP/AVPF, mixed negotiation of RTP/ AVP and RTP/AVPF depending on other SDP attributes in the same media block is difficult, and the fact that fault detection can be improved when using RTP/AVPF. The use of the ECN feedback format is also recommended, but cases exist where its use is not required because timely feedback is not needed. These will be explicitly noted using the phrase "no timely feedback required" and generally occur in combination with receiver- driven congestion control and with the leap-of-faith and ICE-based initialisation methods. We also note that any receiver-driven congestion control solution that still requires RTCP for signalling of any adaptation information to the sender will still require RTP/ AVPF for timeliness.4. Overview of Use of ECN with RTP/UDP/IP
The solution for using ECN with RTP over UDP/IP consists of four different pieces that together make the solution work: 1. Negotiation of the capability to use ECN with RTP/UDP/IP 2. Initiation and initial verification of ECN-capable transport 3. Ongoing use of ECN within an RTP session 4. Handling of dynamic behaviour through failure detection, verification, and fallback Before an RTP session can be created, a signalling protocol is used to negotiate or at least configure session parameters (see Section 7.1). In some topologies, the signalling protocol can also be used to discover the other participants. One of the parameters that must be agreed is the capability of a participant to support ECN. Note that all participants having the capability of supporting ECN does not necessarily imply that ECN is usable in an RTP session, since there may be middleboxes on the path between the participants that don't pass ECN-marked packets (for example, a firewall that blocks traffic with the ECN bits set). This document defines the information that needs to be negotiated and provides a mapping to SDP for use in both declarative and offer/answer contexts.
When a sender joins a session for which all participants claim to
support ECN, it needs to verify that the ECN support is usable.
There are three ways in which this verification can be done:
o The sender may generate a (small) subset of its RTP data packets
with the ECN field of the IP header set to ECT(0) or ECT(1). Each
receiver will then send an RTCP feedback packet indicating the
reception of the ECT-marked RTP packets. Upon reception of this
feedback from each receiver it knows of, the sender can consider
ECN functional for its traffic. Each sender does this
verification independently. When a new receiver joins an existing
RTP session, it will send RTCP reports in the usual manner. If
those RTCP reports include ECN information, verification will have
succeeded, and sources can continue to send ECT packets. If not,
verification fails, and each sender MUST stop using ECN (see
Section 7.2.1 for details).
o Alternatively, ECN support can be verified during an initial end-
to-end STUN exchange (for example, as part of ICE connection
establishment). After having verified connectivity without ECN
capability, an extra STUN exchange, this time with the ECN field
set to ECT(0) or ECT(1), is performed on the candidate path that
is about to be used. If successful, the path's capability to
convey ECN-marked packets is verified. A new STUN attribute is
defined to convey feedback that the ECT-marked STUN request was
received (see Section 7.2.2), along with an ICE signalling option
(Section 6.4) to indicate that the check is to be performed.
o Thirdly, the sender may make a leap of faith that ECN will work.
This is only recommended for applications that know they are
running in controlled environments where ECN functionality has
been verified through other means. In this mode, it is assumed
that ECN works, and the system reacts to failure indicators if the
assumption proved wrong. The use of this method relies on a high
confidence that ECN operation will be successful or an application
where failure is not serious. The impact on the network and other
users must be considered when making a leap of faith, so there are
limitations on when this method is allowed (see Section 7.2.3).
The first mechanism, using RTP with RTCP feedback, has the advantage
of working for all RTP sessions, but the disadvantages of potential
clipping if ECN-marked RTP packets are discarded by middleboxes and
slow verification of ECN support. The STUN-based mechanism is faster
to verify ECN support but only works in those scenarios supported by
end-to-end STUN, such as within an ICE exchange. The third one, leap
of faith, has the advantage of avoiding additional tests or
complexities and enabling ECN usage from the first media packet. The
downside is that if the end-to-end path contains middleboxes that do
not pass ECN, the impact on the application can be severe: in the worst case, all media could be lost if a middlebox that discards ECN- marked packets is present. A less severe effect, but still requiring reaction, is the presence of a middlebox that re-marks ECT-marked packets to not-ECT, possibly marking packets with an ECN-CE mark as not-ECT. This could result in increased levels of congestion due to non-responsiveness and impact media quality as applications end up relying on packet loss as an indication of congestion. Once ECN support has been verified (or assumed) to work for all receivers, a sender marks all its RTP packets as ECT packets, while receivers rapidly feed back reports on any ECN-CE marks to the sender using RTCP in RTP/AVPF immediate or early feedback mode, unless no timely feedback is required. Each feedback report indicates the receipt of new ECN-CE marks since the last ECN feedback packet and also counts the total number of ECN-CE-marked packets as a cumulative sum. This is the mechanism to provide the fastest possible feedback to senders about ECN-CE marks. On receipt of an ECN-CE-marked packet, the system must react to congestion as if packet loss has been reported. Section 7.3 describes the ongoing use of ECN within an RTP session. This rapid feedback is not optimised for reliability, so another mechanism, RTCP XR ECN Summary Reports, is used to ensure more reliable, but less timely, reporting of the ECN information. The ECN Summary Report contains the same information as the ECN feedback format, only packed differently for better efficiency with reports for many sources. It is sent in a compound RTCP packet, along with regular RTCP reception reports. By using cumulative counters for observed ECN-CE, ECT, not-ECT, packet duplication, and packet loss, the sender can determine what events have happened since the last report, independently of any RTCP packets having been lost. RTCP reports MUST NOT be ECT marked, since ECT-marked traffic may be dropped if the path is not ECN compliant. RTCP is used to provide feedback about what has been transmitted and what ECN markings that are received, so it is important that it is received in cases when ECT-marked traffic is not getting through. There are numerous reasons why the path the RTP packets take from the sender to the receiver may change, e.g., mobility and link failure followed by re-routing around it. Such an event may result in the packet being sent through a node that is ECN non-compliant, thus re-marking or dropping packets with ECT set. To prevent this from impacting the application for longer than necessary, the operation of ECN is constantly monitored by all senders (Section 7.4). Both the RTCP XR ECN Summary Reports and the ECN feedback packets allow the sender to compare the number of ECT(0), ECT(1), and not-ECT-marked
packets received with the number that were sent, while also reporting ECN-CE-marked and lost packets. If these numbers do not agree, it can be inferred that the path does not reliably pass ECN-marked packets. A sender detecting a possible ECN non-compliance issue should then stop sending ECT-marked packets to determine if that allows the packets to be correctly delivered. If the issues can be connected to ECN, then ECN usage is suspended.5. RTCP Extensions for ECN Feedback
This memo defines two new RTCP extensions: one RTP/AVPF [RFC4585] transport-layer feedback format for reporting urgent ECN information and one RTCP XR [RFC3611] ECN Summary Report block type for regular reporting of the ECN marking information.5.1. RTP/AVPF Transport-Layer ECN Feedback Packet
This RTP/AVPF transport-layer feedback format is intended for use in RTP/AVPF early or immediate feedback modes when information needs to urgently reach the sender. Thus, its main use is to report reception of an ECN-CE-marked RTP packet so that the sender may perform congestion control or to speed up the initiation procedures by rapidly reporting that the path can support ECN-marked traffic. The feedback format is also defined with reduced-size RTCP [RFC5506] in mind, where RTCP feedback packets may be sent without accompanying Sender or Receiver Reports that would contain the extended highest sequence number and the accumulated number of packet losses. Both are important for ECN to verify functionality and keep track of when CE marking does occur. The RTP/AVPF transport-layer feedback packet starts with the common header defined by the RTP/AVPF profile [RFC4585], which is reproduced in Figure 1. The FMT field takes the value 8 to indicate that the Feedback Control Information (FCI) contains an ECN Feedback Report, as defined in Figure 2.
0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |V=2|P| FMT=8 | PT=RTPFB=205 | length | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | SSRC of packet sender | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | SSRC of media source | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ : Feedback Control Information (FCI) : : : Figure 1: RTP/AVPF Common Packet Format for Feedback Messages 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Extended Highest Sequence Number | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | ECT (0) Counter | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | ECT (1) Counter | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | ECN-CE Counter | not-ECT Counter | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Lost Packets Counter | Duplication Counter | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Figure 2: ECN Feedback Report Format The ECN Feedback Report contains the following fields: Extended Highest Sequence Number: The 32-bit extended highest sequence number received, as defined by [RFC3550]. Indicates the highest RTP sequence number to which this report relates. ECT(0) Counter: The 32-bit cumulative number of RTP packets with ECT(0) received from this SSRC. ECT(1) Counter: The 32-bit cumulative number of RTP packets with ECT(1) received from this SSRC. ECN-CE Counter: The cumulative number of RTP packets received from this SSRC since the receiver joined the RTP session that were ECN-CE marked, including ECN-CE marks in any duplicate packets. The receiver should keep track of this value using a local representation that is at least 32 bits and only include the 16
bits with least significance. In other words, the field will wrap
if more than 65535 ECN-CE-marked packets have been received.
not-ECT Counter: The cumulative number of RTP packets received from
this SSRC since the receiver joined the RTP session that had an
ECN field value of not-ECT. The receiver should keep track of
this value using a local representation that is at least 32 bits
and only include the 16 bits with least significance. In other
words, the field will wrap if more than 65535 not-ECT packets have
been received.
Lost Packets Counter: The cumulative number of RTP packets that the
receiver expected to receive minus the number of packets it
actually received that are not a duplicate of an already received
packet, from this SSRC since the receiver joined the RTP session.
Note that packets that arrive late are not counted as lost. The
receiver should keep track of this value using a local
representation that is at least 32 bits and only include the 16
bits with least significance. In other words, the field will wrap
if more than 65535 packets are lost.
Duplication Counter: The cumulative number of RTP packets received
that are a duplicate of an already received packet from this SSRC
since the receiver joined the RTP session. The receiver should
keep track of this value using a local representation that is at
least 32 bits and only include the 16 bits with least
significance. In other words, the field will wrap if more than
65535 duplicate packets have been received.
All fields in the ECN Feedback Report are unsigned integers in
network byte order. Each ECN Feedback Report corresponds to a single
RTP source (SSRC). Multiple sources can be reported by including
multiple ECN Feedback Report packets in an compound RTCP packet.
The counters SHALL be initiated to 0 for each new SSRC received.
This enables detection of ECN-CE marks or packet loss on the initial
report from a specific participant.
The use of at least 32-bit counters allows even extremely high packet
volume applications to not have wrapping of counters within any
timescale close to the RTCP reporting intervals. However, 32 bits
are not sufficiently large to disregard the fact that wrappings may
happen during the lifetime of a long-lived RTP session, and
implementations need to be written to handle wrapping of the
counters. It is recommended that implementations use local
representation of these counters that are longer than 32 bits to
enable easy handling of wraps.
There is a difference in packet duplication reports between the packet loss counter that is defined in the Receiver Report Block [RFC3550] and that defined here. To avoid holding state for what RTP sequence numbers have been received, [RFC3550] specifies that one can count packet loss by counting the number of received packets and comparing that to the number of packets expected. As a result, a packet duplication can hide a packet loss. However, when populating the ECN Feedback Report, a receiver needs to track the sequence numbers actually received and count duplicates and packet loss separately to provide a more reliable indication. Reordering may, however, still result in packet loss being reported in one report and then removed in the next. The ECN-CE counter is robust for packet duplication. Adding each received ECN-CE-marked packet to the counter is not an issue; in fact, it is required to ensure complete tracking of the ECN state. If one of the clones was ECN-CE marked, that is still an indication of congestion. Packet duplication has a potential impact on the ECN verification, and there is thus a need to count the duplicates.5.2. RTCP XR Report Block for ECN Summary Information
This unilateral XR report block combined with RTCP SR or RR report blocks carries the same information as the ECN Feedback Report and is based on the same underlying information. However, the ECN Feedback Report is intended to report an ECN-CE mark as soon as possible, while this extended report is for the regular RTCP reporting and continuous verification of the ECN functionality end-to-end. The ECN Summary Report block consists of one RTCP XR report block header, shown in Figure 3 followed by one or more ECN Summary Report data blocks, as defined in Figure 4. 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | BT=13 | Reserved | Block Length | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Figure 3: RTCP XR Report Header
0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | SSRC of Media Sender | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | ECT (0) Counter | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | ECT (1) Counter | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | ECN-CE Counter | not-ECT Counter | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Lost Packets Counter | Duplication Counter | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Figure 4: RTCP XR ECN Summary Report The RTCP XR ECN Summary Report contains the following fields: BT: Block Type identifying the ECN Summary Report block. Value is 13. Reserved: All bits SHALL be set to 0 on transmission and ignored on reception. Block Length: The length of this XR report block, including the header, in 32-bit words minus one. Used to indicate the number of ECN Summary Report data blocks present in the ECN Summary Report. This length will be 5*n, where n is the number of ECN Summary Report blocks, since blocks are a fixed size. The block length MAY be zero if there is nothing to report. Receivers MUST discard reports where the block length is not a multiple of five, since these cannot be valid. SSRC of Media Sender: The SSRC identifying the media sender this report is for. ECT(0) Counter: as in Section 5.1. ECT(1) Counter: as in Section 5.1. ECN-CE Counter: as in Section 5.1. not-ECT Counter: as in Section 5.1. Lost Packets Counter: as in Section 5.1. Duplication Counter: as in Section 5.1.
The extended highest sequence number counter for each SSRC is not present in an RTCP XR report, in contrast to the feedback version. The reason is that this summary report will rely on the information sent in the Sender Report (SR) or Receiver Report (RR) blocks part of the same RTCP compound packet. The extended highest sequence number is available from the SR or RR. All the SSRCs that are present in the SR or RR SHOULD also be included in the RTCP XR ECN Summary Report. In cases where the number of senders are so large that the combination of SR/RR and the ECN summary for all the senders exceed the MTU, then only a subset of the senders SHOULD be included so that the reports for the subset fits within the MTU. The subsets SHOULD be selected round-robin across multiple intervals so that all sources are periodically reported. In case there are no SSRCs that currently are counted as senders in the session, the report block SHALL still be sent with no report block entry and a zero report block length to continuously indicate to the other participants the receiver capability to report ECN information.
(page 21 continued on part 2)
