RFC 3540 (rfc3540) - Page 1 of 13
Robust Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) Signaling with Nonces
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group N. Spring
Request for Comments: 3540 D. Wetherall
Category: Experimental D. Ely
University of Washington
June 2003
Robust Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN)
Signaling with Nonces
Status of this Memo
This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.
Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This note describes the Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN)-nonce,
an optional addition to ECN that protects against accidental or
malicious concealment of marked packets from the TCP sender. It
improves the robustness of congestion control by preventing receivers
from exploiting ECN to gain an unfair share of network bandwidth.
The ECN-nonce uses the two ECN-Capable Transport (ECT)codepoints in
the ECN field of the IP header, and requires a flag in the TCP
header. It is computationally efficient for both routers and hosts.
1. Introduction
Statement of Intent
This specification describes an optional addition to Explicit
Congestion Notification [RFC 3168] improving its robustness against
malicious or accidental concealment of marked packets. It has not
been deployed widely. One goal of publication as an Experimental
RFC is to be prudent, and encourage use and deployment prior to
publication in the standards track. Another consideration is to
give time for firewall developers to recognize and accept the
pattern presented by the nonce. It is the intent of the Transport
Area Working Group to re-submit this specification as an IETF
Proposed Standard in the future after more experience has been
gained.
Spring, et. al. Experimental