Internet-Draft CoAP Transport Indication July 2024
Amsüss & Lenders Expires 10 January 2025 [Page]
Workgroup:
CoRE
Internet-Draft:
draft-ietf-core-transport-indication-06
Published:
Intended Status:
Standards Track
Expires:
Authors:
C. Amsüss
M. S. Lenders
TU Dresden

CoAP Transport Indication

Abstract

The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP, [RFC7252]) is available over different transports (UDP, DTLS, TCP, TLS, WebSockets), but lacks a way to unify these addresses. This document provides terminology and provisions based on Web Linking [RFC8288] to express alternative transports available to a device, and to optimize exchanges using these.

About This Document

This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

The latest revision of this draft can be found at https://core-wg.github.io/transport-indication/. Status information for this document may be found at https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-core-transport-indication/.

Discussion of this document takes place on the core Working Group mailing list (mailto:core@ietf.org), which is archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/core/. Subscribe at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/core/.

Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at https://github.com/core-wg/transport-indication.

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

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This Internet-Draft will expire on 10 January 2025.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) provides transports mechanisms (UDP and DTLS since [RFC7252], TCP, TLS and WebSockets since [RFC8323]), with some additional being used in LwM2M [lwm2m] and even more being explored ([I-D.bormann-t2trg-slipmux], [I-D.amsuess-core-coap-over-gatt]). These are mutually incompatible on the wire, but CoAP implementations commonly support several of them, and proxies can translate between them.

CoAP currently lacks a way to indicate which transports are available for a given resource, and to indicate that a device is prepared to serve as a proxy; this document solves both by introducing the "has-proxy" terminology to Web Linking [RFC8288] that expresses the former through the latter. The additional "has-unique-proxy" term is introduced to negate any per-request overhead that would otherwise be introduced in the course of this.

CoAP also lacks a unified scheme to label a resource in a transport-independent way. This document does not attempt to introduce any new scheme here, or raise a scheme to be the canonical one. Instead, each host or application can pick a canonical address for its resources, and advertise other transports in addition.

1.1. Terminology

Readers are expected to be familiar with the terms and concepts described in CoAP [RFC7252] and link format [RFC6690] (or, equivalently, web links as described in [RFC8288]).

Same-host proxy:

A CoAP server that accepts forward proxy requests (i.e., requests carrying the Proxy-Scheme option) exclusively for URIs that it is also the authoritative server for is defined as a "same-host proxy".

The distinction between a same-host and any other proxy is only relevant on a practical, server-implementation and illustrative level; this specification does not use the distinction in normative requirements, and clients need not make the distinction at all.

When talking of proxy requests, this document only talks of the Proxy-Scheme option. Given that all URIs this is usable with can be expressed in decomposed CoAP URIs, the need for using the Proxy-URI option should never arise. The Proxy-URI option is still equivalent to the decomposed options, and can be used if the server supports it.

1.1.1. Using URIs to identify transport endpoints

The URI coap://[2001:db8::1] identifies a particular resource, possibly a "welcome" text. It is, colloquially, also used to identify the combination of a CoAP transport and the transport specific details.

For precision, this document uses the term "the transport address indicated by (a URI)" to refer to the transport and its details (in the example, CoAP over UDP with an IPv6 address and the default port), but otherwise no big deal is made of it.

The transport indicated by a URI is not only influenced by the URI scheme, but also by the authority component. The transports and resolution mechanisms currently specified make little use of this possibility, mainly because the most prominent resolution mechanism (SVCB records) has not been avaialble when [RFC8323] was published and because it can not be expressed in IP literals. The provisions of this document enable this opportunistically for registered names (Section 6.1) and for literals using the mechanism in Appendix E.

When the resolution mechanism used for a registered name authority component yields multiple addresses, all of those are possible ways to interact with the resource. The resolution mechanism or other underlying transport can give guidance on how to find the best usable one. With the currently specified transports and resolution mechanisms, the most prominent example of making use of that information is applying [RFC8305]'s Happy Eyeballs mechanism to establish a TCP connection when a name resolves to both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses,

1.1.1.1. Paths in URIs that indicate transport addresses

For the CoAP schemes (coap, coaps, coap+tcp, coaps+tcp, coap+ws, coaps+ws), URIs indicating a transport are always given with an empty path (which under their URI normalization rules is equivalent to a path containing a single slash). For the coap and coap+tcp schemes, URIs with different host names can indicate the same transport as long as the names resolve to the same addresses. For the others, the given host name informs the name set in TLS's Server Name Indication (SNI) and/or the host sent in the "Host" header of the underlying HTTP request.

If an update to this document extends the list, for new schemes it might be allowed to have paths, queries or fragment identifiers present in the URI indicating the transport address. No guidance can be given here for these, as no realistic example is known. (Note that while the coap+ws scheme does use the well-known path /.well-known/coap internally, that is used purely on the HTTP side, and not part of the CoAP URI, not even for indicating the transport address). It is conceivable that a path such as the /.well-known/coap of CoAP-over-WebSockets would be indicated in an SVCB discovery's parameters similar to dohpath. This does not immediately help with the question of whether a URI indicating a transport can have a path, though. --CA

1.1.1.2. Existing use

A similar concept is used in [I-D.ietf-core-observe-multicast-notifications] (expressed as pieces of its tp_info parameter), but not expressed with URIs yet. As that document migrates towards using CRIs ([I-D.ietf-core-href]), it is expected that its transport addresses coincide with the URIs (CRIs, equivalently) indicating a transport.

URIs indicating a transport are especially useful when talking about proxies; this use is aligned with the way they are expressed in the conventional environment variables http_proxy etc. [noproxy]. Furthermore, URIs processing is widespread in CoAP systems, and when that changes (e.g. through the introduction of [I-D.ietf-core-href]), URIs indicating a transport will still be efficient to encode. And last but not least, it lines up well with the colloquial identity mentioned above. (An alternative would be using a dedicated naming scheme, say, transport:coap:device.example.com:port, but that would needlessly introduce implementation complexity).

Note that this mechanism can only used with proxies that use CoAP's native address indication mechanisms. Proxies that perform URI mapping (as described in Section 5 of [RFC8075], especially using URI templates) are not supported in this document.

[ TBD: Do we want to extend this to HTTP proxies? Probably just not, and if so, only to those that can just take coap://... for a URI. ]

1.2. Goals

This document introduces provisions for the seamless use of different transport mechanisms for CoAP. Combined, these provide:

  1. Enablement: Inform clients of the availability of other transports of servers.

  2. No Aliasing: Any URI aliasing must be opt-in by the server. Any defined mechanisms must allow applications to keep working on the canonical URIs given by the server.

  3. Optimization: Do not incur per-request overhead from switching transports. This may depend on the server's willingness to create aliased URIs.

  4. Proxy usability: All information provided must be usable by aware proxies to reduce the need for duplicate cache entries.

  5. Proxy announcement: Allow third parties to announce that they provide alternative transports to a host.

For all these functions, security policies must be described that allow the client to use them as securely as the original transport.

This document will not concern itself with changes in transport availability over time, neither in causing them ("Please take up your TCP interface, I'm going to send a firmware update") nor in advertising their availability in advance. Hosts whose transport's availability changes over time can utilize any suitable mechanism to keep client updated, such as placing a suitable Max-Age value on their resources or having them observable.

2. Indicating alternative transports

While CoAP can set the authority component of the requested URI in all requests (by means of Uri-Host and Uri-Port), setting the scheme of a requested URI (by means of Proxy-Scheme) makes the request implicitly a proxy request. However, this needs to be of only little practical concern: Any device can serve as a proxy for itself (a "same-host proxy") by accepting requests that carry the Proxy-Scheme option. Section 5.7.2 of [RFC7252] already mandates that a proxy recognize its own addresses. A minimal same-host proxy supports only those and respond with 5.05 (Proxying Not Supported). In many cases (precisely: on hosts that alias their resources across transports), this is equivalent to ignoring the Proxy-Scheme option in that request.

A server can advertise a recommended proxy by serving a Web Link with the "has-proxy" relation to a URI indicating its transport address. In particular (and that is a typical case), it can indicate its own transport address on an alternative transport when implementing same-host proxy functionality.

The semantics of a link from S to P with relations has-proxy ("S has-proxy P", <P>;rel=has-proxy;anchor="S") are that for any resource that has the same origin as S, the transport address indicated by P can be used to obtain that resource.

2.1. Example

A constrained device at the address 2001:db8::1 that supports CoAP over TCP in addition to CoAP can self-describe like this:

Req: to [ff02::fd]:5683 on UDP
Code: GET
Uri-Path: /.well-known/core
Uri-Query: if=tag:example.com,sensor

Res: from [2001:db8::1]:5683
Content-Format: application/link-format
Payload:
</sensors/temp>;if="tag:example.com,sensor",
<coap+tcp://[2001:db8::1]>;rel=has-proxy;anchor="/"


Req: to [2001:db8::1]:5683 on TCP
Code: GET
Proxy-Scheme: coap
Uri-Path: /sensors/temp
Observe: 0

Res: 2.05 Content
Observe: 0
Payload:
39.1°C
Figure 1: Discovery and follow-up request through a has-proxy relation

Note that generating this discovery file needs to be dynamic based on its available addresses; only if queried using a link-local source address, the server may also respond with a link-local address in the authority component of the proxy URI.

Unless the device makes resources discoverable at coap+tcp://[2001:db8::1]/.well-known/core or another discovery mechanism, clients may not assume that coap+tcp://[2001:db8::1]/sensors/temp is a valid resource (let alone is equivalent to the other resource on the same path). The server advertising itself like this may reject any request on CoAP-over-TCP unless it contains a Proxy-Scheme option.

Clients that want to access the device using CoAP-over-TCP would send a request by connecting to 2001:db8::1 TCP port 5683 and sending a GET with the options Proxy-Scheme: coap, no Uri-Host or -Port options (utilizing their default values), and the Uri-Paths "sensors" and "temp".

2.2. Security context propagation

Any security requirements posed by a server or client application on a CoAP request MUST be applied independently of the transport that is used to perform the request. If a transport can not be used to satisfy the requirements, it is ineligible for use with the request (from a client's point of view), and unauthorized (from a server's point of view).

If the requirements contain transport layer security, the proxy needs to present the credentials required of the server to the client, and those of the client to the server; this is only practical when the proxy is a same-host proxy.

Some applications have requirements exceeding the requirements of a secure connection, e.g., (explicitly or implicitly) requiring that name resolution happen through a secure process and packets are only routed into networks where it trusts that they will not be intercepted on the path to the server. Such applications need to extend their requirements to the source of the has-proxy statement; a sufficient (but maybe needlessly strict) requirement is to only follow has-proxy statements that are part of the same resource that advertises the link currently being followed. Section Section 8.2 adds further considerations.

2.3. Choice of transports

It is up to the client whether to use an advertised proxy transport, or (if multiple are provided) which to pick.

Links to proxies may be annotated with additional metadata that may help guide such a choice; defining such metadata is out of scope for this document.

Clients MAY switch between advertised transports as long as the document describing them is fresh; they may even do so per request. (For example, they may perform individual requests using CoAP-over-UDP, but choose CoAP-over-TCP for requests with large expected responses). When the describing document approaches expiry, the client can use the representation's ETag to efficiently renew its justification for using the alternative transport.

2.4. Selection of a canonical origin

While a server is at liberty to provide the same resource independently on different transports (i.e. to create aliases), it may make sense for it to pick a single scheme and authority under which it announces its resources. Using only one address helps proxies keep their caches efficient, and makes it easier for clients to avoid exploring the same server twice from different angles.

When there is a predominant scheme and authority through which an existing service is discovered, it makes sense to use these for the canonical addresses.

Otherwise, it is suggested to use the coap or coaps scheme (given that these are the most basic and widespread ones), and the most stable usable name the host has.

2.4.1. Unreachable canonical origin addresses

For devices that are not generally reachable at a stable address, it may make sense to use a scheme and authority as the canonical address that can not actually be dereferenced.

The registered names available for that purpose depend on the locally defined host or service name registry. When the Domain Name System (DNS) is used, such names would not be associated with any A or AAAA records (but may still use, for example, TLSA records).

Such URIs are only usable to clients that discover a suitable proxy along with the URI, and which can place sufficient trust in that proxy.

3. Elision of Proxy-Scheme and Uri-Host

A CoAP server may publish and accept multiple URIs for the same resource, for example when it accepts requests on different IP addresses that do not carry a Uri-Host option, or when it accepts requests both with and without the Uri-Host option carrying a registered name. Likewise, the server may serve the same resources on different transports. This makes for efficient requests (with no Proxy-Scheme or Uri-Host option), but in general is discouraged [aliases].

To make efficient requests possible without creating URI aliases that propagate, the "has-unique-proxy" specialization of the has-proxy relation is defined.

If a proxy is unique, it means that requests arriving at the proxy are treated the same no matter whether the scheme, authority and port of the link context are set in the Proxy-Scheme, Uri-Host and Uri-Port options, respectively, or whether all of them are absent.

[ The following two paragraphs are both true but follow different approaches to explaining the observable and implementable behavior; it may later be decided to focus on one or the other in this document. ]

While this creates URI aliasing in the requests as they are sent over the network, applications that discover a proxy this way should not "think" in terms of these URIs, but retain the originally discovered URIs (which, because Cool URIs Don't Change[cooluris], should be long-term usable). They use the proxy for as long as they have fresh knowledge of the has-(unique-)proxy statement.

In a way, advertising has-unique-proxy can be viewed as a description of the link target in terms of SCHC [I-D.ietf-lpwan-coap-static-context-hc]: In requests to that target, the link source's scheme and host are implicitly present.

While applications retain knowledge of the originally requested URI (even if it is not expressed in full on the wire), the original URI is not accessible to caches both within the host and on the network (for the latter, see Section 5). Thus, cached responses to the canonical and any aliased URI are mutually interchangeable as long as both the response and the proxy statement are fresh.

A client MAY use a unique-proxy like a proxy and still send the Proxy-Scheme and Uri-Host option; such a client needs to recognize both relation types, as relations of the has-unique-proxy type are a specialization of has-proxy and typically don't carry the latter (redundant) annotation. [ To be evaluated -- on one hand, supporting it this way means that the server needs to identify all of its addresses and reject others. Then again, is a server that (like many now do) fully ignore any set Uri-Host correct at all? ]

Example:

Req: to [ff02::fd]:5683 on UDP
Code: GET
Uri-Path: /.well-known/core
Uri-Query: if=tag:example.com,sensor

Res: from [2001:db8::1]:5683
Content-Format: application/link-format
Payload:
</sensors/>;if="tag:example.com,collection",
<coaps+ws://[2001:db8::1]>;rel=has-unique-proxy;anchor="/"


Req: to [2001:db8::1] via WebSockets over HTTPS
Code: GET
Uri-Path: /sensors/

Res: 2.05 Content
Content-Format: application/link-format
Payload:
</sensors/temperature>;if="tag:example.com,sensor"
Figure 2: Follow-up request through a has-unique-proxy relation. Compared to the last example, 5 bytes of scheme indication are saved during the follow-up request.

It is noteworthy that when the URI reference /sensors/temperature is resolved, the base URI is coap://device0815.example.com and not its coaps+ws counterpart -- as the request is still for that URI, which both the client and the server are aware of. However, this detail is of little practical importance: A simplistic client that uses coaps+ws://device0815.proxy.rd.example.com as a base URI will still arrive at an identical follow-up request with no ill effect, as long as it only uses the wrongly assembled URI for dereferencing resources, the security context is the same, the state is kept no longer than the has-unique-proxy statement is fresh, and it does not (for example) pass the URI on to other devices.

3.1. Impact on caches

[ This section is written with the "there is implied URI aliasing" mindset; it should be possible to write it with the "compression" mindset as well (but there is no point in having both around in the document at this time).

It is also slightly duplicating, but also more detailed than, the brief note on the topic in Section 5 ]

When a node that performs caching learns of a has-unique-proxy statement, it can utilize the information about the implied URI aliasing: As long as the has-unique-proxy statement is fresh and trusted, requests for either of the origins can be served from the cache of the other origin.

3.2. Using unique proxies securely

The elision of the host name afforded by the unique-proxy relation is only possible if the required security mechanisms verify the scheme and host of the server.

This is given for OSCORE based mechanisms, where "unprotected message fields (including Uri-Host [...]) MUST not lead to an OSCORE message becoming verified".

With TLS based security mechanisms, name and scheme can not be completely elided in general. While the use of the SNI HostName field sets the default Uri-Host already, the scheme still needs to be sent in a Proxy-Scheme option to satisfy the requirement of Section 2.2.

[ It may be possible to relax this requirement if the host publishes a trustworthy statement about serving the same content on all schemes; however, no urgent need for this optimization is currently known that warrants the extra scrutiny. ]

3.3. Self-description as a unique proxy

The level of assurance a client needs from a server to elide the Uri-Host option in a request that was created from a URI with no IP address literal has been a controversial topic. [ Should we dig up old conversations, link to https://github.com/core-wg/wiki/wiki/CoAP-FAQ#q4, or just let the weight of a WG consensus-document-to-be do its work? ]

The has-unique-proxy relation provides an easy way for a server to indicate that this is in fact allowed: A server can publish a statement such as </>;rel=has-unique-proxy in its /.well-known/core file. A client that receives and understands it can thus elide the Uri-Host option in requests to the server as per the definition of the relation.

4. Third party proxy services

A server that is aware of a suitable cross proxy may use the has-proxy relation to advertise that proxy. If the transport used towards the proxy provides name indication (as CoAP over TLS or WebSockets does), or by using a large number of addresses or ports, it can even advertise a (more efficient) has-unique-proxy relation. This is particularly interesting when the advertisements are made available across transports, for example in a Resource Directory.

How the server can discover and trust such a proxy is out of scope for this document, but generally involves the same kind of links. In particular, a server may obtain a link to a third party proxy from an administrator as part of its configuration.

The proxy may advertise itself without the origin server's involvement; in that case, the client needs to take additional care (see Section 8.2).

Req: GET http://rd.example.com/rd-lookup?if=tag:example.com,sensor

Res:
Content-Format: application/link-format
Payload:
<coap://device0815.example.com/sensors/>;if="tag:example.com,collection",
<coap+wss://device0815.proxy.rd.example.com>;rel=has-unique-proxy;anchor="coap://device0815.example.com/"


Req: to device0815.proxy.rd.example.com on WebSocket
Host (indicated during upgrade): device0815.proxy.rd.example.com
Code: GET
Uri-Path: /sensors/

Res: 2.05 Content
Content-Format: application/link-format
Payload:
</sensors/temperature>;if="tag:example.com,sensor"
Figure 3: HTTP based discovery and CoAP-over-WS request to a CoAP resource through a has-unique-proxy relation

4.1. Generic proxy advertisements

A third party proxy may advertise its availability to act as a proxy for arbitrary CoAP requests. This use is not directly related to the transport indication in other parts of this document, but sufficiently similar to warrant being described in the same document.

The resource type "CPA-core.proxy" can be used to describe such a proxy.

Req: GET coap://[fe80::1]/.well-known/core?rt=CPA-core.proxy

Res:
Content-Format: application/link-format
Payload:
<>;rt=CPA-core.proxy

Req: to [fe80::1] via CoAP
Code: GET
Proxy-Scheme: http
Uri-Host: example.com
Uri-Path: /motd
Accept: text/plain

Res: 2.05 Content
Content-Format: text/plain
Payload:
On Monday, October 25th 2021, there is no special message of the day.
Figure 4: A CoAP client discovers that its border router can also serve as a proxy, and uses that to access a resource on an HTTP server.

The considerations of Section 8.2 apply here.

A generic advertised proxy is always a forward proxy, and can not be advertised as a "unique" proxy as it would lack information about where to forward.

A proxy may be limited in the URIs it can service, for technical reasons (e.g. when none of the URI's transports are supported by the server) or for policy reasons (only accessing servers inside an organizational structure). Future documents (or versions of this document) may add target attributes that allow specifying the capabilities of a proxy. [ An earlier version of this document contained a proxy-schemes attribute. This was discontinued because it could already not express whether a proxy could access IPv4 or IPv6 peers, and because the use of schemes is becoming less useful given the new recommendation of incorporating details from registered name resolution into the transport selection. ]

The use of a generic proxy can be limited to a set of devices that have permission to use it. Clients can be allowed by their network address if they can be verified, or by using explicit client authentication using the methods of [I-D.tiloca-core-oscore-capable-proxies].

5. Client picked proxies

This section is purely informative, and serves to illustrate that the mechanisms introduced in this document do not hinder the continued use of existing proxies.

When a resource is accessed through an "actual" proxy (i.e., a host between the client and the server, which itself may have a same-host proxy in addition to that), the proxy's choice of the upstream server is originally (i.e., without the mechanisms of this document) either configured (as in a "chain" of proxies) or determined by the request URI (where a proxy picks CoAP over TCP and resolves the given name for a request aimed at a coap+tcp URI).

A proxy that has learned, by active solicitation of the information or by consulting links in its cache, that the requested URI is available through a (possibly same-host) proxy, may use that information in choosing the upstream transport, to correct the URI associated with a cached response, and to use responses obtained through one transport to satisfy requests on another.

For example, if a host at coap://h1.example.com has advertised </res>,<coap+tcp://h1.example.com>;rel=has-proxy;anchor="/", then a proxy that has an active CoAP-over-TCP connection to h1.example.com can forward an incoming request for coap://h1.example.com/res through that CoAP-over-TCP connection with a suitable Proxy-Scheme and Uri-Host on that connection.

If the host had marked the proxy point as <coap+tcp://h1.example.com>;rel=has-unique-proxy instead, then the proxy could elide the Proxy-Scheme and Uri-Host options, and would (from the original CoAP caching rules) also be allowed to use any fresh cache representation of coap+tcp://h1.example.com/res to satisfy requests for coap://h1.example.com/res.

A client that uses a forward proxy and learns of a different proxy advertised to access a particular resource will not change its behavior if its original proxy is part of its configuration. If the forward proxy was only used out of necessity (e.g., to access a resource whose indicated transport not supported by the client) it can be practical for the client to use the advertised proxy instead.

7. Guidance to upcoming transports

When new transports are defined for CoAP, it is recommended to use the "coap" scheme (or "coaps" for TLS based transports).

If the transport's identifiers are IP based and have identifiers typically resolved through DNS, authors of new transports are encouraged to specify Service Binding records ([RFC9460]) for CoAP, e.g., using an alpn or coaptransport parameter. and if IP literals are relevant to the transport, to follow up on Appendix E.

If the transport's native identifiers are compatible with the structure of the authority component of a URI, those identifiers can be used as an authority as-is. To help the host decide the resolution mechanism, it may be helpful to register a subdomain of .arpa as described in [rfc3172]. The guidence for users is to never attempt to resolve such a name, and for the zone's implementation is to return NXDOMAIN unconditionally.

For the purpose of specifying a transport protocol via Service Binding records, and to encourage future authors more, this document specifies the coaptransport Service Parameter Key (SvcParamKey) with the initial legal values "udp" and "tcp" which indicate either CoAP over UDP and CoAP over TCP as the transport. The present of transport security is indicated by the alpn SvcParamKey. If it the alpn SvcParamKey is not provided, but coaptransport is, the transport is unencrypted.Wondering if "udp" or "tcp" should be strings or numeric representations as value. The later would need an extra table or is there something we could reuse, e.g. from [I-D.ietf-core-href]?

If the transport's native identifiers are incompatible with that structure (e.g. because they contain colons), the document may define some transformation.

If a transport's native identifiers are only local, the zone .alt [rfc9476] may be used instead.

For example, CoAP over GATT [I-D.amsuess-core-coap-over-gatt] removes the colons from Bluetooth Low Energy MAC addresses like 00:11:22:33:44:55 and combines them into authority compoennts such as 001122334455.ble.arpa. Slipmux [I-D.bormann-t2trg-slipmux] might use the locally significant device name /dev/ttyUSB0 as coap://ttyUSB0.dev.alt/.

URIs created from such names may not indicate the protocol uniquely: Additional transports specified later may also provide CoAP services for the same name. In the sense of Section 1.1.1, both transport would be identified by that URI. That is not an issue as long as the protocols underneath the CoAP transport provide a means of advertising the precise protocol used. For example, a hypothetical CoAP transport for BLE that is not GATT based can be selected for the same scheme and authority based on data in the BLE advertisement.

8. Security considerations

8.1. Security context propagation

Clients need to strictly enforce the rules of Section 2.2. Failure to do so, in particular using a thusly announced proxy based on a certificate that attests the proxy's name, would allow attackers to circumvent the client's security expectation.

When security is terminated at proxies (as is in DTLS and TLS), a third party proxy can usually not satisfy this requirement; these transports are limited to same-host proxies.

8.2. Traffic misdirection

Accepting arbitrary proxies, even with security context propagation performed properly, would allow attackers to redirect traffic through systems under their control. Not only does that impact availability, it also allows an attacker to observe traffic patterns.

This affects both OSCORE and (D)TLS, as neither protect the participants' network addresses.

Other than the security context propagation rules, there are no hard and general rules about when an advertised proxy is a suitable candidate. Aspects for consideration are:

  • When no direct connection is possible (e.g. because the resource to be accessed is served as coap+tcp and TCP is not implemented in the client, or because the resource's host is available on IPv6 while the client has no default IPv6 route), using a proxy is necessary if complete service disruption is to be avoided.

    While an adversary can cause such a situation (e.g. by manipulating routing or DNS entries), such an adversary is usually already in a position to observe traffic patterns.

  • A proxy advertised by the device hosting the resource to be accessed is less risky to use than one advertised by a third party.

    The /.well-known/core resource is regarded as a source of authoritative information on the endpoint's CoAP related metadata, and can be queried early in the discovery process, or queried for verification (with filtering applied) after discovery through an RD. Other resources may be less trustworthy as they may be controlled by entities not trusted with the endpoint's traffic.

Appendix D describes an extension to [I-D.ietf-lake-edhoc] by which the client can verify that the proxy used by the client is recognized by the server. This is similar to querying /.well-known/core for any proxies advertised there, but happens earlier in the connection establishment, and leaves the decision whether the proxy is legitimate to the server.

It only conveys information about the URI of the proxy. The mapping of any host name inside it to an IP address, or of an IP address to a routing decision, is left to the security mechanisms of the respective layers.

8.3. Protecting the proxy

A widely published statement about a host's availability as a proxy can cause many clients to attempt to use it.

This is mitigated in well-behaved clients by observing the rate limits of [RFC7252], and by ceasing attempts to reach a proxy for the Max-Age of received errors.

Operators can further limit ill-effects by ensuring that their client systems do not needlessly use proxies advertised in an unsecured way, and by providing own proxies when their clients need them.

9. IANA considerations

9.2. Resource Types

IANA is asked to add an entry into the "Resource Type (rt=) Link Target Attribute Values" registry under the Constrained RESTful Environments (CoRE) Parameters:

[ The RFC Editor is asked to replace any occurrence of CPA-core.proxy with the actually registered attribute value. ]

Attribute Value: core.proxy

Description: Forward proxying services

Reference: [ this document ]

9.3. Service Parameter Key (SvcParamKey)

IANA is NOT YET requested to add the following entries to the SVCB Service Parameters registry ([RFC9460]). The definition of this parameter can be found in Section 7.

Table 2
Number Name Meaning
10 (suggested) coaptransport CoAP transport protocol
to be assigned edhoc-cred EDHOC credentials identifying the server
to be assigned edhoc-info EDHOC profile information
to be assigned oauth-hints Describes how to obtain a token at an ACE Authorization Server

All entries have in common that their Reference is this this document, Section 6.2}

9.4. Underscored and Globally Scoped DNS Node Names

IANA is NOT YET requested to add the following entries to the Underscored and Globally Scoped DNS Node Names registry (in the DNS Parameters group) established in [RFC8552] and thus enables its use with SVCB records:

The request for registration is deliberately not expressed at this point because it is yet to be revisited whether the creation of a "COAP" / "COAPS" RR pair similar to the "HTTPS" RR would be preferable.

10. References

10.1. Normative References

[RFC6690]
Shelby, Z., "Constrained RESTful Environments (CoRE) Link Format", RFC 6690, DOI 10.17487/RFC6690, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6690>.
[RFC7252]
Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252, DOI 10.17487/RFC7252, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7252>.
[RFC8288]
Nottingham, M., "Web Linking", RFC 8288, DOI 10.17487/RFC8288, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8288>.
[RFC8742]
Bormann, C., "Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) Sequences", RFC 8742, DOI 10.17487/RFC8742, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8742>.
[RFC9052]
Schaad, J., "CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE): Structures and Process", STD 96, RFC 9052, DOI 10.17487/RFC9052, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9052>.
[RFC9460]
Schwartz, B., Bishop, M., and E. Nygren, "Service Binding and Parameter Specification via the DNS (SVCB and HTTPS Resource Records)", RFC 9460, DOI 10.17487/RFC9460, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9460>.
[RFC9528]
Selander, G., Preuß Mattsson, J., and F. Palombini, "Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman Over COSE (EDHOC)", RFC 9528, DOI 10.17487/RFC9528, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9528>.

10.2. Informative References

[aliases]
W3C, "Architecture of the World Wide Web, Section 2.3.1 URI aliases", n.d., <https://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#uri-aliases>.
[cooluris]
BL, T., "Cool URIs don't change", n.d., <https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI>.
[evossl]
Baier, E., "The Evolution of SSL and TLS", , <https://www.digicert.com/blog/evolution-of-ssl>.
[I-D.amsuess-core-coap-over-gatt]
Amsüss, C., "CoAP over GATT (Bluetooth Low Energy Generic Attributes)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-amsuess-core-coap-over-gatt-06, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-amsuess-core-coap-over-gatt-06>.
[I-D.amsuess-core-resource-directory-extensions]
Amsüss, C., "CoRE Resource Directory Extensions", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-amsuess-core-resource-directory-extensions-10, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-amsuess-core-resource-directory-extensions-10>.
[I-D.amsuess-t2trg-onion-coap]
Amsüss, C., Tiloca, M., and R. Höglund, "Using onion routing with CoAP", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-amsuess-t2trg-onion-coap-02, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-amsuess-t2trg-onion-coap-02>.
Amsüss, C., "rdlink: Robust distributed links to constrained devices", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-amsuess-t2trg-rdlink-01, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-amsuess-t2trg-rdlink-01>.
[I-D.bormann-t2trg-slipmux]
Bormann, C. and T. Kaupat, "Slipmux: Using an UART interface for diagnostics, configuration, and packet transfer", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-bormann-t2trg-slipmux-03, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-bormann-t2trg-slipmux-03>.
[I-D.ietf-ace-edhoc-oscore-profile]
Selander, G., Mattsson, J. P., Tiloca, M., and R. Höglund, "Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman Over COSE (EDHOC) and Object Security for Constrained Environments (OSCORE) Profile for Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments (ACE)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-ace-edhoc-oscore-profile-05, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-ace-edhoc-oscore-profile-05>.
[I-D.ietf-cbor-edn-literals]
Bormann, C., "CBOR Extended Diagnostic Notation (EDN)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-cbor-edn-literals-10, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-cbor-edn-literals-10>.
[I-D.ietf-core-dns-over-coap]
Lenders, M. S., Amsüss, C., Gündoğan, C., Schmidt, T. C., and M. Wählisch, "DNS over CoAP (DoC)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-core-dns-over-coap-07, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-core-dns-over-coap-07>.
[I-D.ietf-core-href]
Bormann, C. and H. Birkholz, "Constrained Resource Identifiers", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-core-href-15, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-core-href-15>.
[I-D.ietf-core-observe-multicast-notifications]
Tiloca, M., Höglund, R., Amsüss, C., and F. Palombini, "Observe Notifications as CoAP Multicast Responses", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-core-observe-multicast-notifications-09, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-core-observe-multicast-notifications-09>.
[I-D.ietf-lake-edhoc]
Selander, G., Mattsson, J. P., and F. Palombini, "Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman Over COSE (EDHOC)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-lake-edhoc-23, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lake-edhoc-23>.
[I-D.ietf-lpwan-coap-static-context-hc]
Minaburo, A., Toutain, L., and R. Andreasen, "Static Context Header Compression (SCHC) for the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-lpwan-coap-static-context-hc-19, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lpwan-coap-static-context-hc-19>.
[I-D.lenders-core-coap-dtls-svcb]
Lenders, M. S., Amsüss, C., Schmidt, T. C., and M. Wählisch, "Service Binding and Parameter Specification for CoAP over (D)TLS", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-lenders-core-coap-dtls-svcb-00, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-lenders-core-coap-dtls-svcb-00>.
[I-D.lenders-core-dnr]
Lenders, M. S., Amsüss, C., Schmidt, T. C., and M. Wählisch, "Discovery of Network-designated OSCORE-based Resolvers: Problem Statement", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-lenders-core-dnr-02, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-lenders-core-dnr-02>.
[I-D.silverajan-core-coap-protocol-negotiation]
Silverajan, B. and M. Ocak, "CoAP Protocol Negotiation", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-silverajan-core-coap-protocol-negotiation-09, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-silverajan-core-coap-protocol-negotiation-09>.
[I-D.tiloca-core-oscore-capable-proxies]
Tiloca, M. and R. Höglund, "OSCORE-capable Proxies", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-tiloca-core-oscore-capable-proxies-07, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-tiloca-core-oscore-capable-proxies-07>.
[I-D.tiloca-lake-app-profiles]
Tiloca, M. and R. Höglund, "Coordinating the Use of Application Profiles for Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman Over COSE (EDHOC)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-tiloca-lake-app-profiles-02, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-tiloca-lake-app-profiles-02>.
[lwm2m]
OMA SpecWorks, "White Paper – Lightweight M2M 1.1", n.d., <https://omaspecworks.org/white-paper-lightweight-m2m-1-1/>.
[noproxy]
Hu, S., "We need to talk: Can we standardize NO_PROXY?", , <https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2021/01/27/we-need-to-talk-no-proxy/>.
[RFC1123]
Braden, R., Ed., "Requirements for Internet Hosts - Application and Support", STD 3, RFC 1123, DOI 10.17487/RFC1123, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1123>.
[RFC2616]
Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, DOI 10.17487/RFC2616, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2616>.
[rfc3172]
Huston, G., Ed., "Management Guidelines & Operational Requirements for the Address and Routing Parameter Area Domain ("arpa")", BCP 52, RFC 3172, DOI 10.17487/RFC3172, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3172>.
[RFC3986]
Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986>.
[RFC4648]
Josefsson, S., "The Base16, Base32, and Base64 Data Encodings", RFC 4648, DOI 10.17487/RFC4648, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4648>.
[RFC5952]
Kawamura, S. and M. Kawashima, "A Recommendation for IPv6 Address Text Representation", RFC 5952, DOI 10.17487/RFC5952, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5952>.
[RFC6698]
Hoffman, P. and J. Schlyter, "The DNS-Based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE) Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol: TLSA", RFC 6698, DOI 10.17487/RFC6698, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6698>.
[RFC7291]
Boucadair, M., Penno, R., and D. Wing, "DHCP Options for the Port Control Protocol (PCP)", RFC 7291, DOI 10.17487/RFC7291, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7291>.
[RFC7838]
Nottingham, M., McManus, P., and J. Reschke, "HTTP Alternative Services", RFC 7838, DOI 10.17487/RFC7838, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7838>.
[RFC8075]
Castellani, A., Loreto, S., Rahman, A., Fossati, T., and E. Dijk, "Guidelines for Mapping Implementations: HTTP to the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 8075, DOI 10.17487/RFC8075, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8075>.
[RFC8305]
Schinazi, D. and T. Pauly, "Happy Eyeballs Version 2: Better Connectivity Using Concurrency", RFC 8305, DOI 10.17487/RFC8305, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8305>.
[RFC8323]
Bormann, C., Lemay, S., Tschofenig, H., Hartke, K., Silverajan, B., and B. Raymor, Ed., "CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol) over TCP, TLS, and WebSockets", RFC 8323, DOI 10.17487/RFC8323, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8323>.
[RFC8552]
Crocker, D., "Scoped Interpretation of DNS Resource Records through "Underscored" Naming of Attribute Leaves", BCP 222, RFC 8552, DOI 10.17487/RFC8552, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8552>.
[rfc9176]
Amsüss, C., Ed., Shelby, Z., Koster, M., Bormann, C., and P. van der Stok, "Constrained RESTful Environments (CoRE) Resource Directory", RFC 9176, DOI 10.17487/RFC9176, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9176>.
[RFC9200]
Seitz, L., Selander, G., Wahlstroem, E., Erdtman, S., and H. Tschofenig, "Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments Using the OAuth 2.0 Framework (ACE-OAuth)", RFC 9200, DOI 10.17487/RFC9200, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9200>.
[RFC9461]
Schwartz, B., "Service Binding Mapping for DNS Servers", RFC 9461, DOI 10.17487/RFC9461, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9461>.
[RFC9462]
Pauly, T., Kinnear, E., Wood, C. A., McManus, P., and T. Jensen, "Discovery of Designated Resolvers", RFC 9462, DOI 10.17487/RFC9462, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9462>.
[RFC9463]
Boucadair, M., Ed., Reddy.K, T., Ed., Wing, D., Cook, N., and T. Jensen, "DHCP and Router Advertisement Options for the Discovery of Network-designated Resolvers (DNR)", RFC 9463, DOI 10.17487/RFC9463, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9463>.
[rfc9476]
Kumari, W. and P. Hoffman, "The .alt Special-Use Top-Level Domain", RFC 9476, DOI 10.17487/RFC9476, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9476>.
[SUIB]
"Router and IoT Vulnerabilities: Insecure by Design", , <https://manysecured.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/ManySecured-SUIB-White-Paper.pdf>.
[w3address]
BL, T., "W3 address syntax: BNF", , <http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Addressing/BNF.html#43>.

Appendix A. Change log

Since draft-ietf-core-transport-indication-05:

Since draft-ietf-core-transport-indication-04:

Since draft-ietf-core-transport-indication-03:

Since draft-ietf-core-transport-indication-02:

Since draft-ietf-core-transport-indication-01:

Since draft-ietf-core-transport-indication-00:

Since draft-amsuess-core-transport-indication-03:

Since -02 (mainly processing reviews from Marco and Klaus):

Since -01:

Since -00:

Appendix C. Open Questions / further ideas

Appendix D. EDHOC EAD for verifying legitimate proxies

This document sketches an extension to [I-D.ietf-lake-edhoc] that informs the server of the public address the client is using, allowing it to detect undesired reverse proxies.

[ This section is immature, and written up as a discussion starting point. Further research into prior art is still necessary. ]

The External Authorization Data (EAD) item with name "Proxy CRI", label 24-CPA, is defined for use with messages 1, 2 and 3.

A client can set this label in uncritical form, followed by a CRI ([I-D.ietf-core-href]) that is CBOR-encoded in a byte string as a CBOR sequence. The transport indicated by the URI is the proxy the client chose from information advertised about the server.

If a server can not determine its set of legitimate proxies, it ignores the option (as does any EDHOC implementation that is unaware of it).

If it recognizes the CRI as belonging to a legitimate proxy, it places the empty label in its non-critical form in the next message to confirm the proxy choice. Otherwise, it places the label in its critical form, either empty or containing a recommended CRI. The client may then decide to discontinue using the proxy, or to use more extensive padding options to sidestep the attack. Both the client and the server may alert their administrators of a possible traffic misdirection.

Appendix E. Literals beyond IP addresses

[ This section is placed here preliminarily: After initial review in CoRE, this may be better moved into a separate document aiming for a wider IETF audience. ]

E.1. Motivation for new literal-ish names

IP literals were part of URIs from the start [w3address]. Initially, they were equivalent to host names in their expressiveness, save for their inherent difference that the former can be used without a shared resolver, and the latter can be switched to a different network address.

This equivalence got lost gradually: Certificates for TLS (its precursor SSL has been available since 1995 [evossl]) have only practically been available to host names. The Host header introduced in HTTP 1.1 Section 14.23 of [RFC2616] introduced name based virtual hosting in 1999. DANE [RFC6698], which provides TLS public keys augmenting the or outside of the public key infrastructure, is only available for host names resolved through DNSSEC. SVCB records [RFC9460] introduced in 2023 allow starting newer HTTP transports without going through HTTP/1.1 first, enables load balancing, fail-over, and enable Encrypted Client Hello -- again, only for host names resolved through DNS.

This document proposes an expression for the host component of a URI that fills that gap. Note that no attempt is yet made to register service.arpa in the .ARPA Zone Management; that name is used only for the purpose of discussion.

The structure and even more the syntax used here is highly preliminary. They serves to illustrate that the desired properties can be obtained, and do not claim to be optimal. As one of many aspects, they are missing considerations for normalization and for internationalization.

E.2. Structure of service.arpa

Names under service.arpa are structured into an optional custom prefix, an ordered list of key-value component pairs, and the common suffix service.arpa.

The custom prefix can contain user defined components. The intended use is labelling, and to differentiate services provided by a single host. Any data is allowed within the structure of a URI (ABNF reg-name) and DNS name rules (63 bytes per segment). (While not ever carried by DNS, this upholds the constraints of DNS for names. That decision may be revised later, but is upheld while demonstrating that the desired properties can be obtained).

Component pairs consist of a registered component type (no precise registry is proposed at this early point) followed by encoded data. The component type "--" is special in that it concatenates the values to its left and to its right, creating component values that may exceed 63 bytes in length.

Initial component types are:

  • "6": The value encodes an IPv6 address in [RFC5952] format, with the colon character (":") replaced with a dash ("-").

    It indicates an address of a host providing the service.

    If any address information is present, a client SHOULD use that information to access the service.

  • "4": The value encodes an IPv4 address in dotted decimal format [RFC1123], with the dot character (".") replaced with a dash ("-").

    It indicates an address of a host providing the service.

  • "tlsa": The data of a DNS TLSA record [RFC6698] encoded in base32 [RFC4648].

    Depending on the usage, this describes TLS credentials through which the service can be authenticated.

    If present, a client MUST establish a secure connection, and MUST fail the connection if the TLSA record's requirements are not met.

  • "edhoc-cred", "edhoc-info", "oauth-info": SvcbParams in base32 encoding of their wire format.

  • "coaptransport": SvcbParam in its text encoding.

  • "s": Other Service Parameters that do not have an explicit component type. SvcbParams in base32 encoding of their wire format.

    TBD: There is likely a transformation of the parameters' presentation format that is compatible with the requirements of the authority component, but this will require some more work on the syntax.

    If present, a client SHOULD use these hints to establish a connection.

    TBD: Encoding only the SvcParams and not priorities and targets appears to be the right thing to do for the immediate record, but does not enable load balancing and failover. Further work is required to explore how those can be expressed, and how data pertaining to the target can be expressed, possibly in a nested structure.

E.3. Syntax of service.arpa

name = [ custom ".-." ] *(component) "service.arpa"

custom = reg-name
component = 1*63nodot "." comptype "."
comptype = nodotnodash /  2*63nodot

; unreserved/subdelims without dot
nodot  = nodotnodash / "-"
; unreserved/subdelims without dot or dash
nodotnodash = ALPHA / DIGIT / "_" / "~" / sub-delims

; reg-name and sub-delims as in RFC3986

Due to [RFC3986]'s rules, all components are case insensitive and canonically lowercase.

Note that while using the IPvFuture mechanism of [RFC3986] would avoid compatibility issues around the 63 character limit and some of the character restrictions, it would not resolve the larger limitation of case insensitivity.

E.4. Processing service.arpa

A client accessing a resource under a service.arpa name does not consult DNS, but obtains information equivalent to the results of a DNS query from parsing the name.

DNS resolvers should refuse to resolve service.arpa names. (They would have all the information needed to produce sensible results, but operational aspects would need a lot of consideration; future versions of this document may revise this).

E.5. Examples

TBD: For SvcParams, the examples are inconsistent with the base32 recommendation; they serve to explore the possible alternatives.

  • http://s.alpn_h2c.6.2001-db8--1.service.arpa/ -- The server is reachable on 2001:db8::1 using HTTP/2

  • https://mail.-.tlsa.amaqckrkfivcukrkfivcukrkfivcukrkfivcukrkfivcukrkfivcukrk.service.arpa/ -- No address information is provided, the client needs to resort to other discovery mechanisms. Any server is eligible to serve the resource if it can present a (possibly self-signed) certificate whose public key SHA256 matches the encoded value. The "mail.-." part is provided to the server as part of the Host header, and can be used for name based virtual hosting.

  • coap://coaptransport.tcp.edhoc-cred.ueekcandaeasabbblaqlxq2jmbjg5jgtf2kazljkenaurxocc6i2ckx3zowjgyr.--.ai3ouj4a.6.2001-db8--1.service.arpa/ -- The server is reachable using CoAP over TCP with EDHOC security at 2001:db8::1, and the service is identifiable by the use of a KCCS credential describing an X25519 public key.

  • coap://edhoc-cred.ueekcandaeasabbblaqlxq2jmbjg5jgtf2kazljkenaurxocc6i2ckx3zowjgyr.--.ai3ouj4a.service.arpa/ -- The same server without any discoverability hints; it is up to the client to discover a (possibly short-lived) connection opportunities to the server identified by that key.

Appendix F. Acknowledgements

This document heavily builds on concepts explored by Bill Silverajan and Mert Ocak in [I-D.silverajan-core-coap-protocol-negotiation], and together with Ines Robles and Klaus Hartke inside T2TRG.

[ TBD: reviewers Marco Klaus ]

Authors' Addresses

Christian Amsüss
Austria
Martine Sophie Lenders
TUD Dresden University of Technology
Helmholtzstr. 10
D-01069 Dresden
Germany