MMUSIC Working Group                                       F. Andreasen 
     Internet Draft                                            Cisco Systems 
     Expires: June 2007                                    December 10, 2006 
                                         
      
                                           
                             SDP Capability Negotiation: 
                      Requirements and Review of Existing Work 


           draft-andreasen-mmusic-sdp-capability-negotiation-reqts-00.txt 


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     Abstract 

        The Session Description Protocol (SDP) was intended for describing 
        multimedia sessions for the purposes of session announcement, session 
        invitation, and other forms of multimedia session initiation. SDP was 
        not intended to provide capability indication or capability 
        negotiation, however over the years, SDP has seen widespread adoption 
        and as a result it has been gradually extended to provide limited 
        support for these. SDP and its current extensions however do not have 
      
      
      
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        the ability to negotiate one or more alternative transport protocols 
        (e.g. RTP profiles) which makes it particularly difficult to deploy 
        new RTP profiles such as secure RTP and RTP with RTCP-based feedback. 
        The purpose of this document is to identify a set of requirements for 
        SDP Capability Negotiation and evaluate existing work in this area. 
        The document does not provide any solutions to SDP Capability 
        Negotiation 

     Conventions used in this document 

        The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", 
        "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this 
        document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119]. 

     Table of Contents 

         
        1. Introduction...................................................2 
        2. Requirements...................................................5 
        3. Review of Existing Work........................................8 
           3.1. Grouping of Media Lines...................................8 
           3.2. Session Description Protocol (SDP) Simple Capability 
           Declaration...................................................10 
           3.3. Session Description and Capability Negotiation (SDPng)...10 
           3.4. Multipart/alternative....................................12 
           3.5. Sharing Ports Between "m=" Lines.........................13 
           3.6. Opportunistic Encryption Using a Session Attribute.......14 
           3.7. Best-Effort Secure Real-Time Transport Protocol..........15 
           3.8. Opportunistic Encryption using Probing...................15 
        4. Security Considerations.......................................16 
        5. IANA Considerations...........................................16 
        6. Acknowledgments...............................................16 
        7. Change Log....................................................16 
        8. References....................................................17 
           8.1. Normative References.....................................17 
           8.2. Informative References...................................17 
        Author's Addresses...............................................19 
        Intellectual Property Statement..................................19 
        Disclaimer of Validity...........................................20 
        Copyright Statement..............................................20 
        Acknowledgment...................................................20 
         
     1. Introduction 

        The Session Description Protocol (SDP) was intended for describing 
        multimedia sessions for the purposes of session announcement, session 
        invitation, and other forms of multimedia session initiation. The SDP 
      
      
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        contains one or more media stream descriptions with information such 
        as IP-address and port, type of media stream (e.g. audio or video), 
        transport protocol (possibly including profile information, e.g. 
        RTP/AVP or RTP/SAVP), media formats (e.g. codecs), and various other 
        session and media stream parameters that define the session.  

        Simply providing media stream descriptions is sufficient for session 
        announcements for a broadcast application, where the media stream 
        parameters are fixed for all participants. When a participant wants 
        to join the session, he obtains the session announcement and uses the 
        media descriptions provided, e.g., joins a multicast group and 
        receives media packets in the encoding format specified.  If the 
        media stream description is not supported by the participant, he is 
        unable to receive the media.  

        Such restrictions are not generally acceptable to multimedia session 
        invitations, where two or more entities attempt to establish a media 
        session using a set of media stream parameters acceptable to all 
        participants. First of all, each entity must inform the other of its 
        receive address, and secondly, the entities need to agree on the 
        media stream parameters to use for the session, e.g. transport 
        protocols and codecs. We here make a distinction between the 
        capabilities supported by each participant and the parameters that 
        can actually be used for the session. More generally, we can say that 
        we have the following: 

        o  A set of capabilities, or potential configurations of the media 
           stream components, supported by each side.  

        o  A set of actual configurations of the media stream components, 
           which specifies which media stream components to use and with what 
           parameters. 

        o  A negotiation process that takes the set of potential 
           configurations (capabilities) as input and provides the actual 
           configurations as output.  

        SDP by itself was designed to provide only the second of these, i.e., 
        the actual configurations, however over the years, use of SDP has 
        been extended beyond its original scope.  Session negotiation 
        semantics were defined by the offer/answer model in RFC 3264.  It 
        defines how two entities, an offerer and an answerer, exchange 
        session descriptions to negotiate a session. The offerer can include 
        one or more media formats (codecs) per media stream, and the answerer 
        then selects one or more of those offered and returns them in an 
        answer. Both the offer and the answer contain actual configurations - 

      
      
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        potential configurations are not supported. The answer however may 
        reduce the set of actual configurations from the offer.  

        Other relevant extensions have been defined. Simple capability 
        declarations, which defines how to provide a simple and limited set 
        of capability descriptions in SDP was defined in RFC 3407.  Grouping 
        of media lines, which defines how media lines in SDP can have other 
        semantics than the traditional "simultaneous media streams" 
        semantics, was defined in RFC 3388, etc.   

        Each of these extensions was designed to solve a specific limitation 
        of SDP.  Since SDP had already been stretched beyond its original 
        intent, a more comprehensive capability declaration and negotiation 
        process was intentionally not defined.  Instead, work on a "next 
        generation" of a protocol to provide session description and 
        capability negotiation was initiated [SDPng].  SDPng however has not 
        gained traction and has remained as work in progress for an extended 
        period of time.  Existing real-time multimedia communication 
        protocols such as SIP, RTSP, Megaco, and MGCP continue to use SDP.  
        SDP and its current extensions however do not address an increasingly 
        important problem: the ability to negotiate one or more alternative 
        transport protocols (e.g., RTP profiles).  This makes it difficult to 
        deploy new RTP profiles such as secure RTP (SRTP) [SRTP], RTP with 
        RTCP-Based Feedback [AVPF], etc.  This particular problem is 
        exacerbated by the fact that RTP profiles are defined independently.  
        When a new profile is defined and N other profiles already exist, 
        there is a potential need for defining N additional profiles, since 
        profiles cannot be combined automatically.  For example, in order to 
        support the plain and secure RTP version of RTP with and without 
        RTCP-based feedback, four separate profiles (and hence profile 
        definitions) are needed: RTP/AVP [RFC3551], RTP/SAVP [SRTP], RTP/AVPF 
        [AVPF], and RTP/SAVPF [SAVPF].  In addition to the pressing profile 
        negotiation problem, other important real-life constraints have been 
        found as well.  

        The purpose of this document is two-fold.  

        1. Identify a set of requirements for a SDP capability negotiation 
        mechanism that will enable SDP to provide limited support for 
        indicating potential configurations (capabilities) and negotiate the 
        use of those potential configurations as actual configurations.   

        2. Review relevant existing work in the are of SDP capability 
        negotiation and see how it aligns with the proposed requirements.  

        It should be noted, that it is not the intent to provide requirements 
        for a full-fledged capability indication and negotiation mechanism 
      
      
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        along the lines of SDPng [SDPng] or ITU-T H.245 [H245]. Rather, the 
        focus is on identifying requirements for addressing a set of well-
        known real-life limitations.  

        The rest of the document is structured as follows. In Section 2, we 
        provide a set of requirements for SDP capability negotiation, and in 
        Section 3, we review relevant existing work in this area, how a 
        solution based on that work might look, and the pros and cons 
        associated with each. An actual solution to the proposed requirements 
        will be provided separately.  

     2. Requirements 

        REQ-10: It MUST be possible to indicate and negotiate alternative 
        media formats on a per media stream basis. 

           For example, many implementations support multiple codecs, but 
           only one at a time.  Changes between codecs cannot be done on-
           the-fly, e.g. when receiving a simple RTP payload type change. 

        REQ-20: It MUST be possible to indicate and negotiate alternative 
        attribute values ("a=") on a per media stream basis.  

           For example, T.38 [T38] defines new attributes that may need to 
           be conveyed as part of a capability. Also, alternative SRTP 
           keying mechanisms (e.g. [SDES] and [KMGMT]) may use SDP 
           attributes to negotiate SRTP keying material. 

        REQ-25: It MUST be possible to indicate and negotiate alternative 
        attribute values ("a=") at the session level.    

           For example, [KMGMT] may indicate alternative key management 
           material for MIKEY [MIKEY] at the session level. 

        REQ-30: It MUST be possible to indicate and negotiate alternative 
        media format parameter values ("a=fmtp") per media format on a per 
        media stream basis. 

           For example, a media format (codec) indicated as an alternative 
           capability may include fmtp parameters.  

        REQ-40: It MUST be possible to indicate and negotiate alternative 
        transport protocols, e.g. different RTP profiles, on a per media 
        stream basis.  

           For example, "RTP/AVP" and "RTP/SAVP" may be alternatives. 

      
      
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        REQ-50: It MUST be possible to indicate and negotiate alternative 
        transport protocol and media type combinations on a per media stream 
        basis. 

           For example, an entity may support a fax call using either T.38 
           fax relay ("m=image <port> udptl t38") or PCMU ("m=audio <port> 
           RTP/AVP 0").  

        REQ-80: The mechanism MUST be backwards compatible for SIP. Ideally, 
        the mechanism should be completely transparent to entities that do 
        not support it, without the need for any further signaling.  

        REQ-90: The mechanism MUST either be backwards compatible for Megaco 
        and MGCP or it MUST be possible to interwork it with Megaco and MGCP 
        without any additional signaling between the MGC and its peer (e.g. 
        another SIP UA as opposed to a media gateway).  

           For example, if a media gateway controller (MGC) uses SIP to 
           communicate with peers, and the MGC uses Megaco or MGCP to 
           control a media gateway, it must be possible to translate between 
           the mechanism and normal SDP. Avoiding interworking requirements 
           in the MGC is desirable.  

        REQ-100: The mechanism MUST work within the context of the 
        offer/answer model [RFC3264]. Specifically, it MUST be possible to 
        negotiate alternatives within a single offer/answer exchange. 

        REQ-110: The offer/answer model requires the offerer to be able to 
        receive media for any media streams listed as either "recvonly" or 
        "sendrecv" in an offer, as soon as that offer is generated.  The 
        mechanism MUST preserve this capability for all actual configurations 
        included in an offer.  

           Potential configurations do not have such a requirement.  

        REQ-120: The mechanism MUST enable inclusion of potential 
        configurations (alternative capabilities) in the offer - the answer 
        would then indicate which, if any of these potential configurations 
        were accepted. The offerer is not required to process media for a 
        specific potential configuration until the offerer receives an answer 
        showing that potential configuration was accepted. 

           Note that this implies that it may not be possible for the 
           offerer to process early media generated using a potential 
           configuration (as opposed to the actual configuration) until the 
           answer has been received.  

      
      
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        REQ-130: The mechanism MUST work in the presence of SIP forking.  

        REQ-140: The mechanism SHOULD be reasonably efficient in terms of 
        overall message size.  

           This is a relative requirement to evaluate alternative solutions 
           as opposed to an absolute and quantifiable requirement. Use of 
           compression techniques can help reduce the size of text-based 
           messages, however it is still considered important to try and 
           keep the message size reasonably small.  

        REQ-150: It MUST be possible to specify valid combinations of media 
        lines. 

           For example, an entity may be able to support audio and video or 
           audio and IM, but not video and IM (or all three). 

        REQ-160: It MUST be possible to specify valid combinations of media 
        formats between media streams. 

           For example, there may be constraints on which combinations of 
           audio and video codecs can be supported.  

        REQ-170: The mechanism MUST be extensible and allow for new types of 
        capabilities to be specified and used in potential and actual 
        configurations.  

           For example, the mechanism could be extended to negotiate unicast 
           or multicast addresses as alternatives. 

        REQ-300: The mechanism provided MUST be modular inasmuch as it can be 
        divided into a required core set of functionality that all entities 
        MUST support and an optional set of enhancements that entities MAY 
        support. Entities that implement different sets of enhancements MUST 
        be fully interoperable, albeit possibly with reduced functionality in 
        terms of the actual negotiation performed.  

           For example, not all entities may implement support for REQ-150 
           and REQ-160 

        REQ-310: The following requirements are considered enhancements as 
        defined in REQ-300:  

          * REQ-50 (alternative combinations of transport protocol and media 
          type) 

          * REQ-150 (valid combinations of media lines) 
      
      
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          * REQ-160 (valid combinations of media formats between media 
          streams) 

         

          [Editor's Note: Should we have any security requirements - see e.g. 
          Section 4.  

         

        Above, we presented the requirements for the capability negotiation 
        mechanism. Below, we provide a set of features that were considered 
        and then explicitly deemed to be out-of-scope: 

        o  Support for negotiation of unicast and multicast addresses as 
           alternatives. It was suggested as a requirement initially, but 
           subsequent discussion led to its removal.  

        o  Support for negotiation of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses as 
           alternatives. It was suggested as a requirement initially, but 
           subsequent discussion led to its removal.  

        If necessary, it should be possible to define such capabilities in 
        the form of extensions. 

     3. Review of Existing Work  

        In this section, we provide an overview of existing relevant work 
        that has either been completed or is work in progress.  For each 
        item, we outline how/if it can be used to address the requirements 
        provided and the pros and cons of doing so.  

     3.1. Grouping of Media Lines 

        Grouping of Media Lines is defined in [RFC3388]. RFC 3388 defines a 
        framework that enables two or media lines to be grouped together for 
        different purposes. Each media line is assigned an identifier and one 
        or more group attributes then references two or more of those 
        identifiers. Associated with each group attribute is a semantics 
        indication. One semantic indication is the Alternative Network 
        Address Types ("ANAT") [RFC4091] which allows for IPv4 and IPv6 
        addresses to be specified as alternatives. The requirements presented 
        above go beyond that, however a new semantic to simply indicate 
        alternative media lines and associated negotiation rules could easily 
        be defined.  

        The main advantages of such an approach would be: 
      
      
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        o  Mechanism Reuse:  Several semantics have already been defined 
           which increases the likelihood of an implementation supporting the 
           framework.  

        The disadvantages of such an approach would be: 

        o  Backwards Compatibility:   The mechanism is not transparently 
           backwards compatible.  If an entity that does not support the 
           mechanism receives it, the entity may incorrectly interpret the 
           SDP as consisting of multiple media streams.  While RFC 3388 
           defines procedures for recognizing and recover from this when 
           using offer/answer, it can still lead to unintended behavior with 
           endpoints that do not support the mechanism.  

             In practice, it is not clear how much of an issue this is, at 
             least for intelligent SIP endpoints. Most current 
             implementations generally accept only one media stream of a 
             given type (e.g. audio). Use of alternatives with different 
             media stream types (e.g. a fax call using "audio" for voice-
             band data or "image" for T.38) makes it less clear though.  
             Also, Media Gateway Controllers and Media Gateways that do not 
             support grouping of media lines have been known to encounter 
             problems.  

        o  Semantics Combination Issues: Multiple semantics may be provided 
           by use of grouping, however they may interact with each other 
           unintentionally. For example, the "FID" semantics defined in RFC 
           3388 forbids grouping of media lines with the same transport 
           address, however that would be needed for alternative 
           capabilities. Thus, using "FID" and alternative capabilities 
           together would require special consideration.  

        o  Some Combinatoric Explosion:  The mechanism is not ideal to 
           indicate alternative capabilities for multiple parameters or media 
           formats within a particular media stream. For example, alternative 
           attribute values and media format parameters for several codecs 
           would lead to combinatoric explosion.  
            
           [Editor's note: In practice, it is not clear this is a huge issue 
           though.]  

        o  Message Size:  Each alternative requires full duplication of all 
           the relevant media stream parameters.  
            
           [Editor's note: In practice, it is not clear this is a huge issue 
           though.]  

      
      
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     3.2. Session Description Protocol (SDP) Simple Capability Declaration 

        SDP Simple Capability Declaration (simcap) is defined in [RFC3407]. 
        It defines a set of SDP attributes that enables capabilities to be 
        described at a session level or on a per media stream basis.  RFC 
        3407 defines capability declaration only - actual negotiation 
        procedures taking advantage of such capabilities have not been 
        defined. Such rules however could easily be defined - the negotiation 
        part would extend the offer/answer model to examine alternative 
        configurations (capabilities).  In conjunction with that, attributes 
        to indicate the alternative configurations accepted would likely be 
        needed as well.  
         
        The main advantages of this approach are: 

        o  Satisfies most of the requirements provided above.  In particular, 
           by relying solely on SDP attributes, transparent backwards 
           compatibility is always ensured.  

        The disadvantages of this approach are: 

        o  Offered Capabilities Hidden in Attributes:   An offer may be 
           accepted by the answerer and a media stream established based on 
           SDP parameters contained in SDP attributes not known to 
           intermediaries. Such intermediaries may be back-to-back user 
           agents, or proxies that need to inspect the SDP, e.g., to 
           authorize Quality of Service, add transcoders, etc. 

        o  Maximum of 255 alternative media formats per SDP:     RFC 3407 
           currently allows a maximum of 255 alternative media formats 
           (codecs) per SDP. This may be too restrictive.  

     3.3. Session Description and Capability Negotiation (SDPng) 

        The Session Description and Capability Negotiation protocol [SDPng] 
        was intended as a replacement for SDP [SDP].  SDPng includes a full 
        capability indication and negotiation framework that would address 
        the shortcomings of SDP and satisfy the requirements provided above.  
        However, SDPng has not gained traction, in large part due to existing 
        widespread adoption of SDP.  As a consequence, SDPng has remained as 
        work in progress with limited progress for an extended period of 
        time.  

        SDPng consists of two things: an SDPng description, which is an XML 
        document that describes the actual and/or potential configurations as 
        well as an optional negotiation process (an offer/answer compliant 

      
      
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        process is included as part of SDPng). The SDPng description consists 
        of up to five parts: 

        o  Capabilities:     An optional list of capabilities (potential 
           configurations) to be matched with the other parties' 
           capabilities.  

        o  Definitions:      An optional set of definitions of commonly used 
           parameters for later referencing. 

        o  Configurations:   A mandatory description of the conference 
           components, each of which can provide a list of alternative 
           configurations.  

        o  Constraints:      An optional set of constraints of combinations 
           of configurations.  Constraints are not defined as part of the 
           base SDPng specification.  

        o  Session Information:    Optional meta information on the 
           conferences and individual components.  

        SDPng is application-agnostic with the base specification defining a 
        basic XML schema supporting the above.  In order to actually use 
        SDPng, application-specific packages are needed.  Packages define 
        things such as media types, codecs and their configuration 
        parameters, etc.  The base SDPng specification includes a couple of 
        example packages to support audio, video, and RTP.  

        One approach to extending SDP with capability indication and 
        negotiation capabilities could be to adopt the mechanisms defined by 
        SDPng that are necessary to satisfy the requirements provided above.  
        Those areas could then be included within SDP itself, e.g. in the 
        form of one or more SDP attributes ("a=") containing the actual SDPng 
        description. The areas to consider here include: 

        o  Capabilities:  This would be needed to describe alternative media 
           formats and media format parameters. 

        o  Configurations:   This would be needed to define alternative 
           configurations 

        The constraints and session information parts of SDPng would not be 
        used.  

        The main advantages of such an approach would be: 


      
      
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        o  SDPng was designed and intended to solve the general capability 
           negotiation problems faced by SDP.  A considerable amount of work 
           has already gone into it and it was originally targeted as the 
           long-term direction (replacement for SDP).  

        The disadvantages of such an approach would be: 

        o  Duplicate Encoding and Specification Work:   SDPng uses a 
           different coding format than SDP and hence all SDP parameters 
           (incl. codecs and transports) that need to be provided will need 
           to have an equivalent SDPng definition.  There is currently no 
           automatic process for translating all SDP parameters or values 
           into corresponding SDPng parameters or values; many existing SDP 
           parameters and values currently have no corresponding SDPng 
           definition.  

        o  SDPng is Work in Progress: SDPng is currently work in progress but 
           has seen limited interest and progress for a while.  Adoption of a 
           subset of its current definition may end up differing from the 
           final specification.  Also, the current SDPng specification needs 
           further clarification and semantic tightening in a number of areas 
           that would be of relevance to this approach.  

        o  Negotiation of Transport Parameters:   SDPng currently does not 
           support negotiation of transport parameters as individual 
           capabilities.  It is however still possible to negotiate different 
           transport parameters by providing alternative configurations. 

        o  Verbose Encoding and Large Message Size:  SDPng descriptions are 
           XML documents, which are fairly verbose and result in descriptions 
           that are substantially larger than existing SDP.  

     3.4. Multipart/alternative 

        In [I-D.jenning-sipping-multipart], the use of multipart/alternative 
        MIME is proposed as a way to support multiple alternative offers.  
        Each alternative offer has an id associated with it by use of a new 
        MIME header field called Content-Answering-CID. The answerer chooses 
        one of the offers and performs normal offer/answer operation on that 
        offer, and then sends back a single answer which includes the 
        Content-Answering-CID value of the offer chosen.  

        The main advantages of this approach are: 

        o  It allows for use of alternative encodings of the offer, e.g. SDP 
           and SDPng, as well as varying levels of confidentiality and 
           integrity by use of S/MIME [RFC3851].  
      
      
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        Use of multipart/alternative to solve the SDP capability negotiation 
        problems however has several shortcomings: 

        o  Backwards Compatibility:   Neither SIP nor RTSP mandate support 
           for Multipart MIME. In the case of SIP, multipart/alternative is 
           generally incompatible with existing SIP proxies, firewalls, 
           Session Border Controllers, and endpoints. 

        o  Heterogeneous Error Response Forking Problem (HERFP): When a SIP 
           proxy forks a request to multiple Contacts, each of which generate 
           a response, the proxy only forwards the "best" of these responses 
           to the request originator.  If one or more of the Contacts do not 
           support multipart/alternative, the request originator may never 
           discover this.  Instead, only a Contact that supports 
           multipart/alternative will be able to generate an answer that 
           reaches the request originator.  

        o  Combinatoric Explosions:   Use of multipart/alternative to convey 
           alternatives on a per media stream basis or even per media format 
           parameter basis quickly leads to combinatoric explosions. 

        o  Message Size:  Each alternative requires full duplication of all 
           the relevant SDP parameters (one complete SDP per alternative).  

        It should be noted, that use of multipart/alternative has been 
        discussed several times before and, in large part due to the problems 
        mentioned above as well as the semantics defined for 
        multipart/alternative [RFC2046], has met with opposition when it 
        comes to addressing the above types of requirements.  

     3.5. Sharing Ports Between "m=" Lines 

        SDP [SDP] does not state whether two "m=" lines can share the same 
        transport address or not but rather leaves this explicitly undefined.  
        It has been suggested that alternative capabilities for a media 
        stream could be indicated by including multiple media stream 
        descriptions sharing the same transport address (i.e. using the same 
        port number in the "m=" line and sharing the same IP-address).  

          Such practice was not defined in [RFC2327], however it was 
          suggested in an Internet-Draft version of [SDP].  Following 
          discussion of the potential problems it introduced, it was removed.  

        The main advantages of this approach would be: 



      
      
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        o  May not require any additional extensions to SDP - only additional 
           semantics.  
            
           [Editor's note: It is somewhat unclear how it would work without 
           extensions if we allow for alternative attributes and media format 
           parameters and the offerer needs to always know which ones were 
           accepted] 

        The disadvantages of this approach would be: 

        o  Backwards Compatibility Issues:  Since sharing of transport 
           addresses between multiple streams was never specified as part of 
           SDP, backwards compatibility is likely to be an issue.  Some 
           implementations may support it whereas others may not. The lack of 
           an explicit signaling indication to indicate the desired operation 
           may lead to ungraceful failure scenarios.  Offer/answer semantics 
           would be unclear here as well.  

        o  Some Combinatoric Explosion:  The mechanism is not ideal to 
           indicate alternative capabilities for multiple parameters or media 
           formats within a particular media stream. For example, alternative 
           attribute values and media format parameters for several codecs 
           would lead to combinatoric explosion.  

        o  Message Size:  Each alternative requires full duplication of all 
           the relevant media stream parameters.  
            
           [Editor's note: In practice, it is not clear this is a huge issue 
           though.]  

     3.6. Opportunistic Encryption Using a Session Attribute  

        This approach was suggested to address the specific scenario of 
        negotiating either RTP or SRTP. The endpoints signal their desire to 
        do SRTP by listing RTP (RTP/AVP) as the transport protocol in the 
        "m=" line in the offer together with an attribute ("a=") that 
        indicates whether SRTP is supported or not. If the answerer supports 
        SRTP and wants to use it, the answer then includes SRTP (RTP/SAVP) as 
        the transport protocol in the "m=" line.  

        The main advantages of this approach are: 

        o  Compatible with non-SRTP-aware endpoints.  

        The disadvantages of this approach are: 


      
      
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        o  Does not allow the offerer to indicate alternatives other than 
           SRTP (including vanilla RTP as an alternative to SRTP).  

        o  Addresses only a small subset of the requirements provided above.  

     3.7. Best-Effort Secure Real-Time Transport Protocol  

        This approach is documented in [BESRTP]. The approach is similar to 
        the one described above, except it does not actually include any 
        explicit signaling indication as to the transport protocols 
        supported. Instead, support for the Secure RTP profile [SRTP] is 
        inferred based on the presence of the crypto attribute defined in 
        [SDES] and/or the key-mgmt attribute defined in [KMGMT]. 

        The main advantages of this approach are: 

        o  Compatible with non-SRTP-aware endpoints.  

        The disadvantages of this approach are: 

        o  Defines new semantics above and beyond those defined by RFC 3264, 
           RFC 4567, and RFC 4568 without any explicit signaling in the offer 
           to that effect. This in turn may lead to unintended side-effects. 

              Without explicit signaling indication, it is questionable to 
              infer that presence of e.g. a crypto parameter in the offer 
              indeed indicates that the offer wants to use the mechanism 
              defined by the proposal.  Furthermore, Section 5.1.2 of [SDES] 
              defines generic operation where presence of a crypto attribute 
              without e.g. SRTP as the offered transport protocol could 
              result in the media stream being rejected.  

        o  Does not allow the offerer to indicate alternatives other than the 
           inferred SRTP (including vanilla RTP as an alternative to SRTP). 

        o  Addresses only a small subset of the requirements provided above. 

     3.8. Opportunistic Encryption using Probing  

        This is another approach suggested to address the specific scenario 
        of negotiating either RTP or SRTP. In this case, the endpoints first 
        establish an RTP session using RTP (RTP/AVP). The endpoints send 
        probe messages, over the media path, to determine if the remote 
        endpoint supports their keying technique. 

        The main advantages of this approach are: 

      
      
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        o  Compatible with non-SRTP-aware endpoints.  

        The disadvantages of this approach are: 

        o  Addresses only a small subset of the requirements provided above. 

     4. Security Considerations 

        One of the motivations for SDP capability negotiation is to enable 
        best-effort SRTP negotiation, i.e. an offer/answer exchange offering 
        both a secure and a non-secure version of RTP. The answerer in turn 
        will select one of these. Such a negotiation where the offerer is 
        willing to accept either a secure or insecure RTP profile, and 
        possible with more or less strong security algorithms as a result of 
        the negotiation opens up for a range of possible security attacks. It 
        is important that any solution for SDP capability negotiation 
        properly addresses such security risks and/or notes any security 
        threats inherent in the proposed solution.  

          [Editor's note: This almost sounds like we should have some 
          specific requirements around all of this]. 

     5. IANA Considerations 

        There are no IANA considerations in this document.  

     6. Acknowledgments 

        Thanks to the MMUSIC WG for comments on the requirements in this 
        document. Also, Francois Audet, Paul Jones and Dan Wing provided 
        specific comments on a precursor to this document.  

         

     7. Change Log 

        Version -00 is the initial version. The requirements provided in this 
        initial version were taken from an earlier version of [SDPCapNeg] 
        with additional requirements added (from REQ-150 and up).  

        The ability to indicate capabilities as either mandatory or optional 
        is no longer explicitly out of scope (in order to support modularity 
        and extensibility per the newly added requirements), and neither is 
        the ability to indicate constraints on combinations of 
        configurations.  


      
      
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     8. References 

     8.1. Normative References 

        [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate 
                  Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. 

        [RFC2234] Crocker, D. and Overell, P.(Editors), "Augmented BNF for 
                  Syntax Specifications: ABNF", RFC 2234, Internet Mail 
                  Consortium and Demon Internet Ltd., November 1997. 

        [RFC3264] Rosenberg, J., and H. Schulzrinne, "An Offer/Answer Model 
                  with Session Description Protocol (SDP)", RFC 3264, June 
                  2002.  

        [RFC3407] F. Andreasen, "Session Description Protocol (SDP) Simple 
                  Capability Declaration", RFC 3407, October 2002. 

        [RFC3605] C. Huitema, "Real Time Control Protocol (RTCP) attribute in 
                  Session Description Protocol (SDP)", RFC 3605, October 
                  2003.  

        [RFC4234] Crocker, D., and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax 
                  Specifications: ABNF", RFC 4234, October 2005. 

        [SDP]     Handley, M., Jacobson, V., and C. Perkins, "SDP: Session 
                  Description Protocol", RFC 4566, July 2006.  

     8.2. Informative References 

        [RFC2046] Freed, N., and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail 
                  Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046, 
                  November 1996. 

        [RFC2327] Handley, M., Jacobson, V., and C. Perkins, "SDP: Session 
                  Description Protocol", RFC 2327, April 1998.  

        [RFC3261]  Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston, 
                  A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., and E. Schooler, 
                  "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261, June 2002. 

        [RFC3388] Camarillo, G., Eriksson, G., Holler, J., and H. 
                  Schulzrinne, "Grouping of Media Lines in the Session 
                  Description Protocol (SDP)", RFC 3388, December 2002. 



      
      
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        [RFC3551] Schulzrinne, H., and S. Casner, "RTP Profile for Audio and 
                  Video Conferences with Minimal Control", RFC 3551, July 
                  2003.  

        [SRTP]    Baugher, M., McGrew, D., Naslund, M., Carrara, E., and K. 
                  Norrman, "The Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP)", 
                  RFC 3711, March 2004. 

        [RFC3851] B. Ramsdell, "Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions 
                  (S/MIME) Version 3.1 Message Specification", RFC 3851, July 
                  2004.  

        [RFC4091] Camarillo, G., and J. Rosenberg, The Alternative Network 
                  Address Types (ANAT) Semantics for the Session Description 
                  Protocol (SDP) Grouping Framework, RFC 4091, June 2005.  

        [AVPF]    Ott, J., Wenger, S., Sato, N., Burmeister, C., and J. Rey, 
                  "Extended RTP Profile for RTCP-Based Feedback (RTP/AVPF)", 
                  Work in Progress, August 2004.  

        [I-D.jennings-sipping-multipart] Wing, D., and C. Jennings, "Session 
                  Initiation Protocol (SIP) Offer/Answer with Multipart 
                  Alternative", Work in Progress, March 2006. 

        [SAVPF]   Ott, J., and E Carrara, "Extended Secure RTP Profile for 
                  RTCP-based Feedback (RTP/SAVPF)", Work in Progress, 
                  December 2005.  

        [SDES]    Andreasen, F., Baugher, M., and D. Wing, "Session 
                  Description Protocol Security Descriptions for Media 
                  Streams", RFC 4568, July 2006.  

        [SDPng]   Kutscher, D., Ott, J., and C. Bormann, "Session Description 
                  and Capability Negotiation", Work in Progress, February 
                  2005.  

        [BESRTP]  Kaplan, H., and F. Audet, "Session Description Protocol 
                  (SDP) Offer/Answer Negotiation for Best-Effort Secure Real-
                  Time Transport Protocol, Work in progress, August 2006.  

        [KMGMT]   Arkko, J., Lindholm, F., Naslund, M., Norrman, K., and E. 
                  Carrara, "Key Management Extensions for Session Description 
                  Protocol (SDP) and Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP)", 
                  RFC 4567, July 2006.  

        [SDPCapNeg] Andreasen, F. "SDP Capability Negotiation", work in 
                  progress, December 2006. 
      
      
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        [MIKEY]   J. Arkko, E. Carrara, F. Lindholm, M. Naslund, and K. 
                  Norrman, "MIKEY: Multimedia Internet KEYing", RFC 3830, 
                  August 2004.  

        [T38]     ITU-T Recommendation T.38, "Procedures for real-time Group 
                  3 facsimile communication over IP networks", September 
                  2005. 

        [H245]    ITU-T Recommendation H.245, "Control protocol for 
                  multimedia communication", May 2006.  

         

     Author's Addresses 

        Flemming Andreasen 
        Cisco Systems 
        Edison, NJ 
            
        Email: fandreas@cisco.com 
         

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