Remote Direct Memory Access - Connection Manager (RDMA-CM) Private Data for
RPC-over-RDMA Version 1Oracle CorporationUnited States of Americachuck.lever@oracle.comNFS-over-RDMA
This document specifies the format of
Remote Direct Memory Access - Connection Manager (RDMA-CM) Private Data
exchanged between RPC-over-RDMA version 1 peers
as part of establishing a connection.
The addition of the Private Data payload specified in this document
is an optional extension
that does not alter the RPC-over-RDMA version 1 protocol.
This document updates RFC 8166.
Introduction
The RPC-over-RDMA version 1 transport protocol
enables payload data transfer using
Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA)
for upper-layer protocols based on Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs)
.
The terms "Remote Direct Memory Access" (RDMA) and
"Direct Data Placement" (DDP) are introduced in
.
The two most immediate shortcomings
of RPC-over-RDMA version 1 are as follows:
Setting up an RDMA data transfer (via RDMA Read or Write) can be costly.
The small default size of messages transmitted using RDMA Send
forces the use of RDMA Read or Write operations
even for relatively small messages and data payloads.
The original specification of RPC-over-RDMA version 1 provided
an out-of-band protocol for passing inline threshold values
between connected peers
.
However,
eliminated support for this protocol, making it unavailable for this purpose.
Unlike most other contemporary RDMA-enabled storage protocols,
there is no facility in RPC-over-RDMA version 1
that enables the use of remote invalidation
.
Each RPC-over-RDMA version 1 Transport Header follows the
External Data Representation (XDR) definition
specified in .
However, RPC-over-RDMA version 1
has no means of extending this definition
in such a way that interoperability with existing implementations is preserved.
As a result, an out-of-band mechanism is needed
to help relieve these constraints
for existing RPC-over-RDMA version 1 implementations.
This document specifies a simple, non-XDR-based message format
designed to be passed between RPC-over-RDMA version 1 peers
at the time each RDMA transport connection is first established.
The mechanism assumes that the underlying RDMA transport has a
Private Data field that is passed between peers at connection time,
such as is present in the Marker PDU Aligned Framing (MPA) protocol
(described in
and extended in ) or the InfiniBand Connection Manager
.
To enable current RPC-over-RDMA version 1 implementations
to interoperate with implementations that support
the message format described in this document,
implementation of the Private Data exchange is OPTIONAL.
When Private Data has been successfully exchanged,
peers may choose to perform extended RDMA semantics.
However, this exchange
does not alter the XDR definition specified in
.
The message format is intended to be further extensible
within the normal scope of such IETF work
(see
for further details).
of this document defines an IANA registry for this purpose.
In addition, interoperation between
implementations of RPC-over-RDMA version 1 that present this message format to peers
and those that do not recognize this message format is guaranteed.
Requirements LanguageThe key words "MUST", "MUST NOT",
"REQUIRED", "SHALL",
"SHALL NOT", "SHOULD",
"SHOULD NOT",
"RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED",
"MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document
are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14
when, and only
when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.Advertised Transport PropertiesInline Threshold Size
defines the term "inline threshold".
An inline threshold is the maximum number of bytes that
can be transmitted using one RDMA Send and one RDMA Receive.
There are a pair of inline thresholds for a connection:
a client-to-server threshold and a server-to-client threshold.
If an incoming RDMA message exceeds the size
of a receiver's inline threshold,
the Receive operation fails
and
the RDMA provider typically terminates the connection.
To convey an RPC message larger than the receiver's inline threshold
without risking receive failure,
a sender must use explicit RDMA data transfer operations,
which are more expensive than an RDMA Send.
See Sections and of
for a complete discussion.
The default value of inline thresholds for RPC-over-RDMA version 1
connections is 1024 bytes (as defined in ).
This value is adequate for nearly all NFS version 3 procedures.
NFS version 4 COMPOUND operations
are larger on average
than NFS version 3 procedures
,
forcing clients to use explicit RDMA operations
for frequently issued requests such as LOOKUP and GETATTR.
The use of RPCSEC_GSS security also increases the average size
of RPC messages,
due to the larger size of RPCSEC_GSS credential material
included in RPC headers
.
If a sender and receiver could somehow agree on larger inline thresholds,
frequently used RPC transactions avoid the cost of explicit RDMA operations.
Remote Invalidation
After an RDMA data transfer operation completes,
an RDMA consumer can request
that its peer's RDMA Network Interface Card (RNIC)
invalidate the Steering Tag (STag)
associated with the data transfer
.
An RDMA consumer requests remote invalidation by posting
an RDMA Send with Invalidate operation
in place of an RDMA Send operation.
Each RDMA Send with Invalidate carries one STag to invalidate.
The receiver of an RDMA Send with Invalidate performs the
requested invalidation and then reports that invalidation
as part of the completion of a waiting Receive operation.
If both peers support remote invalidation,
an RPC-over-RDMA responder might use remote invalidation
when replying to an RPC request that provided chunks.
Because one of the chunks has already been invalidated,
finalizing the results of the RPC is made simpler and faster.
However, there are some important caveats that contraindicate
the blanket use of remote invalidation:
Remote invalidation is not supported by all RNICs.
Not all RPC-over-RDMA responder implementations can generate
RDMA Send with Invalidate operations.
Not all RPC-over-RDMA requester implementations can recognize
when remote invalidation has occurred.
On one connection in different RPC-over-RDMA transactions,
or in a single RPC-over-RDMA transaction,
an RPC-over-RDMA requester can expose a mixture of STags
that may be invalidated remotely
and some that must not be.
No indication is provided at the RDMA layer as to which is which.
A responder therefore must not employ remote invalidation unless it is
aware of support for it in its own RDMA stack, and on the requester.
And, without altering the XDR structure of RPC-over-RDMA version 1 messages,
it is not possible to support remote invalidation with requesters
that include an STag that must not be invalidated
remotely in an RPC with STags that may be invalidated. Likewise, it
is not possible to support remote invalidation with requesters that
mix RPCs with STags that may be invalidated with RPCs with STags that
must not be invalidated on the same connection.
There are some NFS/RDMA client implementations whose STags
are always safe to invalidate remotely.
For such clients, indicating to the responder that remote
invalidation is always safe can enable such invalidation
without the need for additional protocol elements to be defined.
Private Data Message Format
With an InfiniBand lower layer, for example,
RDMA connection setup uses a Connection Manager (CM)
when establishing a Reliable Connection
.
When an RPC-over-RDMA version 1 transport connection is established,
the client (which actively establishes connections)
and the server (which passively accepts connections)
populate the CM Private Data field exchanged
as part of CM connection establishment.
The transport properties exchanged via this mechanism
are fixed for the life of the connection.
Each new connection presents an opportunity
for a fresh exchange.
An implementation of the extension described in this document
MUST be prepared for the settings to change upon a reconnection.
For RPC-over-RDMA version 1, the CM Private Data field
is formatted as described below. RPC clients and servers use the same format.
If the capacity of the Private Data field is too small
to contain this message format
or
the underlying RDMA transport is not managed by a CM,
the CM Private Data field cannot be used on behalf of RPC-over-RDMA version 1.
The first eight octets of the CM Private Data field
are to be formatted as follows:
Format Identifier:
This field contains a fixed 32-bit value that identifies
the content of the Private Data field as an RPC-over-RDMA
version 1 CM Private Data message.
In RPC-over-RDMA version 1 Private Data,
the value of this field is always 0xf6ab0e18, in network byte order.
The use of this field is further expanded upon in
.
Version:
This 8-bit field contains a message format version number.
The value "1" in this field indicates that exactly eight octets are present,
that they appear in the order described in this section,
and that each has the meaning defined in this section.
Further considerations about the use of this field are discussed in
.
Reserved:
This 7-bit field is unused.
Senders MUST set these bits to zero,
and
receivers MUST ignore their value.
R:
This 1-bit field indicates that
the sender supports remote invalidation.
The field is set and interpreted as described in
.
Send Size:
This 8-bit field contains an encoded value
corresponding to the maximum number of bytes
this peer is prepared to transmit in a single RDMA Send
on this connection.
The value is encoded as described in
.
Receive Size:
This 8-bit field contains an encoded value
corresponding to the maximum number of bytes
this peer is prepared to receive with a single RDMA Receive
on this connection.
The value is encoded as described in
.
Using the R Field
The R field indicates limited support for remote invalidation
as described in
.
When both connection peers have set this bit flag in their CM Private Data,
the responder MAY use RDMA Send with Invalidate operations
when transmitting RPC Replies.
Each RDMA Send with Invalidate MUST invalidate an STag
associated only with the Transaction ID (XID) in the rdma_xid field
of the RPC-over-RDMA Transport Header it carries.
When either peer on a connection clears this flag,
the responder MUST use only RDMA Send when transmitting RPC Replies.
Send and Receive Size Values
Inline threshold sizes from 1024 to 262144 octets
can be represented in the Send Size and Receive Size fields.
The inline threshold values provide a pair of
1024-octet-aligned maximum message lengths that
guarantee that Send and Receive operations
do not fail due to length errors.
The minimum inline threshold for RPC-over-RDMA version 1
is 1024 octets (see ).
The values in the Send Size and Receive Size fields represent
the unsigned number of additional kilo-octets of length
beyond the first 1024 octets.
Thus, a sender computes the encoded value by
dividing its actual buffer size, in octets, by 1024
and
subtracting one from the result.
A receiver decodes an incoming Size value by performing
the inverse set of operations:
it adds one to the encoded value
and then
multiplies that result by 1024.
The client uses the smaller of its own send size and
the server's reported receive size
as the client-to-server inline threshold.
The server uses the smaller of its own send size and
the client's reported receive size
as the server-to-client inline threshold.
Interoperability Considerations
The extension described in this document is designed to allow
RPC-over-RDMA version implementations that use CM Private Data
to interoperate fully with
RPC-over-RDMA version 1 implementations that do not exchange this information.
Implementations that use this extension must also interoperate
fully with RDMA implementations that use CM Private Data for other purposes.
Realizing these goals requires that implementations of this extension
follow the practices described in the rest of this section.
Interoperability with RPC-over-RDMA Version 1 Implementations
When a peer does not receive a CM Private Data message
that conforms to
,
it needs to act as if the remote peer supports only the
default RPC-over-RDMA version 1 settings,
as defined in
.
In other words, the peer MUST behave as if a Private Data
message was received in which (1) bit 15 of the Flags field is zero
and (2) both Size fields contain the value zero.
Interoperability amongst RDMA Transports
The Format Identifier field defined in
is provided to enable implementations to distinguish the Private Data defined
in this document from Private Data inserted at other layers, such as the
additional Private Data defined by the MPAv2 protocol described in
, and others.
As part of connection establishment,
the buffer containing the received Private Data is searched for the Format Identifier word.
The offset of the Format Identifier is not restricted to any alignment.
If the RPC-over-RDMA version 1 CM Private Data Format Identifier
is not present,
an RPC-over-RDMA version 1 receiver MUST
behave as if no RPC-over-RDMA version 1 CM Private Data
has been provided.
Once the RPC-over-RDMA version 1 CM Private Data Format Identifier
is found,
the receiver parses the subsequent octets as
RPC-over-RDMA version 1 CM Private Data.
As additional assurance that the content is valid
RPC-over-RDMA version 1 CM Private Data,
the receiver should check that
the format version number field contains a valid and recognized version number
and
the size of the content does not overrun the length of the buffer.
Updating the Message Format
Although the message format described in this document
provides the ability for the client and server
to exchange particular information about
the local RPC-over-RDMA implementation,
it is possible that there will be a future need
to exchange additional properties.
This would make it necessary to extend or otherwise modify
the format described in this document.
Any modification faces the problem of interoperating properly
with implementations of RPC-over-RDMA version 1
that are unaware of the existence of the new format.
These include implementations that do not recognize
the exchange of CM Private Data
as well as
those that recognize only the format described in this document.
Given the message format described in this document,
these interoperability constraints could be met by the following
sorts of new message formats:
A format that uses a different value for the first four bytes of the format,
as provided for in the registry described in
.
A format that uses the same value for the Format Identifier field
and a value other than one (1) in the Version field.
Although it is possible to reorganize
the last three of the eight bytes in the existing format,
extended formats are unlikely to do so.
New formats would take the form of extensions
of the format described in this document with added fields
starting at byte eight of the format
or changes to the definition of bits in the Reserved field.
Security Considerations
The reader is directed to the Security Considerations section of
for background and further discussion.
The RPC-over-RDMA version 1 protocol framework depends
on the semantics of the Reliable Connected (RC) queue pair (QP)
type, as defined in
Section 9.7.7 of .
The integrity of CM Private Data
and
the authenticity of its source
are ensured by the exclusive use of RC QPs.
Any attempt to interfere with or hijack data in transit
on an RC connection
results in the RDMA provider terminating the connection.
The Security Considerations section of
refers the reader to further relevant discussion
of generic RDMA transport security.
That document recommends IPsec as
the default transport-layer security solution.
When deployed with the Remote Direct Memory Access Protocol (RDMAP) , DDP , and MPA , IPsec establishes a protected channel before any
operations are exchanged; thus, it protects the exchange of Private Data.
However, IPsec is not available for InfiniBand or RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) deployments.
Those fabrics rely on
physical security
and
cyclic redundancy checks
to protect network traffic.
Exchanging the information
contained in the message format defined in this document
does not expose upper-layer payloads to an attacker.
Furthermore, the behavior changes that occur
as a result of exchanging the Private Data
described in the current document
do not introduce any new risk of exposure
of upper-layer payload data.
Improperly setting one of the fields in version 1
Private Data can result in an increased risk of disconnection
(i.e., self-imposed Denial of Service).
A similar risk can arise
if non-RPC-over-RDMA CM Private Data
inadvertently contains the Format Identifier that
identifies this protocol's data structure.
Additional checking of incoming Private Data,
as described in
,
can help reduce this risk.
In addition to describing the structure of a new format version,
any document that extends the Private Data format described
in the current document must discuss security considerations
of new data items exchanged between connection peers.
Such documents should also explore the risks
of erroneously identifying non-RPC-over-RDMA CM Private Data
as the new format.
IANA Considerations
IANA has created the "RDMA-CM Private Data Identifiers" subregistry within the
"Remote Direct Data Placement" protocol category group.
This is a subregistry of 32-bit numbers that identify
the upper-layer protocol associated with data that appears in
the application-specific RDMA-CM Private Data area.
The fields in this subregistry include the following:
Format Identifier,
Length (format length, in octets),
Description,
and
Reference.
The initial contents of this registry are a single entry:
New "RDMA-CM Private Data Identifiers" Registry
Format Identifier
Length
Description
Reference
0xf6ab0e18
8
RPC-over-RDMA version 1 CM Private Data
RFC 8797
IANA is to assign subsequent new entries in this registry using
the Specification Required policy as defined in .
Guidance for Designated Experts
The Designated Expert (DE), appointed by the IESG,
should ascertain the existence of suitable documentation that
defines the semantics and format of the Private Data,
and verify that the document is permanently and publicly available.
Documentation produced outside the IETF must not conflict
with work that is active or already published within the IETF.
The new Reference field should contain
a reference to that documentation.
The Description field should contain the name of the
upper-layer protocol
that generates and uses the Private Data.
The DE should assign a new Format Identifier so that
it does not conflict with existing entries in this registry
and so that
it is not likely to be mistaken
as part of the payload of other registered formats.
The DE shall post the request to the NFSV4 Working Group mailing list
(or a successor to that list, if such a list exists)
for comment and review.
The DE shall approve or deny the request and publish notice
of the decision within 30 days.
ReferencesNormative ReferencesInfiniBand Architecture Specification Volume 1InfiniBand Trade AssociationInformative ReferencesAcknowledgments
Thanks to
and
for suggesting this approach,
and to
and
for their expert comments and review.
The author also wishes to thank
and
for their support of this work.
Also, thanks to expert reviewers
and
.
Special thanks go to
document shepherd
,
Transport Area Director
,
NFSV4 Working Group Chairs
and
,
and
NFSV4 Working Group Secretary .