Independent Submission                                  A. Bhattacharyya
Request for Comments: 7967                              S. Bandyopadhyay
Category: Informational                                           A. Pal
ISSN: 2070-1721                                                  T. Bose
                                         Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
                                                            August 2016


Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) Option for No Server Response

Abstract

  There can be machine-to-machine (M2M) scenarios where server
  responses to client requests are redundant.  This kind of open-loop
  exchange (with no response path from the server to the client) may be
  desired to minimize resource consumption in constrained systems while
  updating many resources simultaneously or performing high-frequency
  updates.  CoAP already provides Non-confirmable (NON) messages that
  are not acknowledged by the recipient.  However, the request/response
  semantics still require the server to respond with a status code
  indicating "the result of the attempt to understand and satisfy the
  request", per RFC 7252.

  This specification introduces a CoAP option called 'No-Response'.
  Using this option, the client can explicitly express to the server
  its disinterest in all responses against the particular request.
  This option also provides granular control to enable expression of
  disinterest to a particular response class or a combination of
  response classes.  The server MAY decide to suppress the response by
  not transmitting it back to the client according to the value of the
  No-Response option in the request.  This option may be effective for
  both unicast and multicast requests.  This document also discusses a
  few examples of applications that benefit from this option.


















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Status of This Memo

  This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
  published for informational purposes.

  This is a contribution to the RFC Series, independently of any other
  RFC stream.  The RFC Editor has chosen to publish this document at
  its discretion and makes no statement about its value for
  implementation or deployment.  Documents approved for publication by
  the RFC Editor are not a candidate for any level of Internet
  Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.

  Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
  and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
  http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7967.

Copyright Notice

  Copyright (c) 2016 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
  document authors.  All rights reserved.

  This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
  Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
  (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
  publication of this document.  Please review these documents
  carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
  to this document.
























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Table of Contents

  1. Introduction ....................................................3
     1.1. Potential Benefits .........................................4
     1.2. Terminology ................................................4
  2. Option Definition ...............................................5
     2.1. Granular Control over Response Suppression .................5
     2.2. Method-Specific Applicability Considerations ...............8
  3. Miscellaneous Aspects ...........................................9
     3.1. Reusing Tokens .............................................9
     3.2. Taking Care of Congestion Control and Server-Side
          Flow Control ..............................................10
     3.3. Considerations regarding Caching of Responses .............11
     3.4. Handling the No-Response Option for a HTTP-to-CoAP
          Reverse Proxy .............................................11
  4. Application Scenarios ..........................................12
     4.1. Frequent Update of Geolocation from Vehicles to
          Backend Server ............................................12
          4.1.1. Using No-Response with PUT .........................13
          4.1.2. Using No-Response with POST ........................14
                 4.1.2.1. POST Updating a Fixed Target Resource .....14
                 4.1.2.2. POST Updating through Query String ........15
     4.2. Multicasting Actuation Command from a Handheld Device
          to a Group of Appliances ..................................15
          4.2.1. Using Granular Response Suppression ................16
  5. IANA Considerations ............................................16
  6. Security Considerations ........................................16
  7. References .....................................................16
     7.1. Normative References ......................................16
     7.2. Informative References ....................................17
  Acknowledgments ...................................................18
  Authors' Addresses ................................................18

1.  Introduction

  This specification defines a new option for the Constrained
  Application Protocol (CoAP) [RFC7252] called 'No-Response'.  This
  option enables clients to explicitly express their disinterest in
  receiving responses back from the server.  The disinterest can be
  expressed at the granularity of response classes (e.g., 2.xx) or a
  combination of classes (e.g., 2.xx and 5.xx).  By default, this
  option indicates interest in all response classes.  The server MAY
  decide to suppress the response by not transmitting it back to the
  client according to the value of the No-Response option in the
  request.






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  Along with the technical details, this document presents some
  practical application scenarios that highlight the usefulness of this
  option.  [ITS-LIGHT] and [CoAP-ADAPT] contain the background research
  for this document.

  In this document, when it is mentioned that a request from a client
  is with No-Response, the intended meaning is that the client
  expresses its disinterest for all or some selected classes of
  responses.

1.1.  Potential Benefits

  The use of the No-Response option should be driven by typical
  application requirements and, particularly, characteristics of the
  information to be updated.  If this option is opportunistically used
  in a fitting M2M application, then the concerned system may benefit
  in the following aspects.  (However, note that this option is
  elective, and servers can simply ignore the preference expressed by
  the client.)

     *  Reduction in network congestion due to effective reduction of
        the overall traffic.

     *  Reduction in server-side load by relieving the server from
        responding to requests for which responses are not necessary.

     *  Reduction in battery consumption at the constrained
        endpoint(s).

     *  Reduction in overall communication cost.

1.2.  Terminology

  The terms used in this document are in conformance with those defined
  in [RFC7252].

  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].












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2.  Option Definition

  The properties of the No-Response option are given in Table 1.  In
  this table, the C, U, N, and R columns indicate the properties
  Critical, Unsafe, NoCacheKey, and Repeatable, respectively.

  +--------+---+---+---+---+-------------+--------+--------+---------+
  | Number | C | U | N | R |   Name      | Format | Length | Default |
  +--------+---+---+---+---+-------------+--------+--------+---------+
  |   258  |   | X | - |   | No-Response |  uint  |  0-1   |    0    |
  +--------+---+---+---+---+-------------+--------+--------+---------+

                      Table 1: Option Properties

  This option is a request option.  It is elective and not repeatable.
  This option is Unsafe-to-Forward, as the intermediary MUST know how
  to interpret this option.  Otherwise, the intermediary (without
  knowledge about the special unidirectional nature of the request)
  would wait for responses.

  Note: Since CoAP maintains a clear separation between the
     request/response and the message sub-layer, this option does not
     have any dependency on the type of message
     (Confirmable/Non-confirmable).  So, even the absence of a message
     sub-layer (e.g., CoAP over TCP [CoAP-TCP-TLS]) should have no
     effect on the interpretation of this option.  However, considering
     the CoAP-over-UDP scenario [RFC7252], NON messages are best suited
     to this option because of the expected benefits.  Using
     No-Response with NON messages gets rid of any kind of reverse
     traffic, and the interaction becomes completely open loop.

     Using this option with CON requests may not serve the desired
     purpose if piggybacked responses are triggered.  But, if the
     server responds with a separate response (which, perhaps, the
     client does not care about), then this option can be useful.
     Suppressing the separate response reduces traffic by one
     additional CoAP message in this case.

  This option contains values to indicate disinterest in all or a
  particular class or combination of classes of responses as described
  in Section 2.1.

2.1.  Granular Control over Response Suppression

  This option enables granular control over response suppression by
  allowing the client to express its disinterest in a typical class or
  combination of classes of responses.  For example, a client may
  explicitly tell the receiver that no response is required unless



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  something 'bad' happens and a response of class 4.xx or 5.xx is to be
  fed back to the client.  No response of the class 2.xx is required in
  such case.

  Note: Section 2.7 of [RFC7390] describes a scheme where a server in
     the multicast group may decide on its own to suppress responses
     for group communication with granular control.  The client does
     not have any knowledge about that.  However, on the other hand,
     the No-Response option enables the client to explicitly inform the
     servers about its disinterest in responses.  Such explicit control
     on the client side may be helpful for debugging network resources.
     An example scenario is described in Section 4.2.1.

  The server MUST send back responses of the classes for which the
  client has not expressed any disinterest.  There may be instances
  where a server, on its own, decides to suppress responses.  An
  example is suppression of responses by multicast servers as described
  in Section 2.7 of [RFC7390].  If such a server receives a request
  with a No-Response option showing 'interest' in specific response
  classes (i.e., not expressing disinterest for these options), then
  any default behavior of suppressing responses, if present, MUST be
  overridden to deliver those responses that are of interest to the
  client.

  So, for example, suppose a multicast server suppresses all responses
  by default and receives a request with a No-Response option
  expressing disinterest in 2.xx (success) responses only.  Note that
  the option value naturally expresses interest in error responses 4.xx
  and 5.xx in this case.  Thus, the server must send back a response if
  the concerned request caused an error.

  The option value is defined as a bit map (Table 2) to achieve
  granular suppression.  Its length can be 0 bytes (empty) or 1 byte.

  +-------+-----------------------+-----------------------------------+
  | Value | Binary Representation |          Description              |
  +-------+-----------------------+-----------------------------------+
  |   0   |      <empty>          | Interested in all responses.      |
  +-------+-----------------------+-----------------------------------+
  |   2   |      00000010         | Not interested in 2.xx responses. |
  +-------+-----------------------+-----------------------------------+
  |   8   |      00001000         | Not interested in 4.xx responses. |
  +-------+-----------------------+-----------------------------------+
  |  16   |      00010000         | Not interested in 5.xx responses. |
  +-------+-----------------------+-----------------------------------+

                         Table 2: Option Values




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  The conventions used in deciding the option values are:

  1.  To suppress an individual class: Set bit number (n-1) starting
      from the least significant bit (bit number 0) to suppress all
      responses belonging to class n.xx.  So,

              option value to suppress n.xx class = 2**(n-1)

  2.  To suppress a combination of classes: Set each corresponding bit
      according to point 1 above.  Example: The option value will be 18
      (binary: 00010010) to suppress both 2.xx and 5.xx responses.
      This is essentially bitwise OR of the corresponding individual
      values for suppressing 2.xx and 5.xx.  The "CoAP Response Codes"
      registry (see Section 12.1.2 of [RFC7252]) defines 2.xx, 4.xx,
      and 5.xx responses.  So, an option value of 26 (binary: 00011010)
      will request to suppress all response codes defined in [RFC7252].

  Note: When No-Response is used with value 26 in a request, the client
     endpoint SHOULD cease listening to response(s) to the particular
     request.  On the other hand, showing interest in at least one
     class of response means that the client endpoint can no longer
     completely cease listening activity and must be configured to
     listen during some application specific time-out period for the
     particular request.  The client endpoint never knows whether the
     present request will be a success or a failure.  Thus, for
     example, if the client decides to open up the response for errors
     (4.xx and 5.xx), then it has to wait for the entire time-out
     period -- even for the instances where the request is successful
     (and the server is not supposed to send back a response).  Note
     that in this context there may be situations when the response to
     errors might get lost.  In such a situation, the client would wait
     during the time-out period but would not receive any response.
     However, this should not give the client the impression that the
     request was necessarily successful.  In other words, in this case,
     the client cannot distinguish between response suppression and
     message loss.  The application designer needs to tackle this
     situation.  For example, while performing frequent updates, the
     client may strategically interweave requests without No-Response
     option into a series of requests with No-Response to check
     periodically that things are fine at the server end and the server
     is actively responding.










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2.2.  Method-Specific Applicability Considerations

  The following table provides a ready reference on the possible
  applicability of this option with four REST methods.  This table is
  for the type of possible interactions foreseen at the time of
  preparing this specification.  The key words from RFC 2119 such as
  "SHOULD NOT", etc., deliberately have not been used in this table
  because it only contains suggestions.

  +-------------+----------------------------------------------------+
  | Method Name |              Remarks on Applicability              |
  +-------------+----------------------------------------------------+
  |             | This should not be used with a conventional GET    |
  |             | request when the client requests the contents      |
  |             | of a resource.  However, this option may be useful |
  |             | for exceptional cases where GET requests have side |
  |     GET     | effects.  For instance, the proactive cancellation |
  |             | procedure for observing a request [RFC7641]        |
  |             | requires a client to issue a GET request with the  |
  |             | Observe option set to 1 ('deregister').  If it is  |
  |             | more efficient to use this deregistration instead  |
  |             | of reactive cancellation (rejecting the next       |
  |             | notification with RST), the client MAY express its |
  |             | disinterest in the response to such a GET request. |
  +-------------+----------------------------------------------------+
  |             | Suitable for frequent updates (particularly in NON |
  |             | messages) on existing resources.  Might not be     |
  |             | useful when PUT is used to create a new resource,  |
  |             | as it may be important for the client to know that |
  |     PUT     | the resource creation was actually successful in   |
  |             | order to carry out future actions.  Also, it may be|
  |             | important to ensure that a resource was actually   |
  |             | created rather than updating an existing resource. |
  +-------------+----------------------------------------------------+
  |             | If POST is used to update a target resource,       |
  |             | then No-Response can be used in the same manner as |
  |             | in PUT.  This option may also be useful while      |
  |     POST    | updating through query strings rather than updating|
  |             | a fixed target resource (see Section 4.1.2.2 for an|
  |             | example).                                          |
  +-------------+----------------------------------------------------+
  |             | Deletion is usually a permanent action.  If the    |
  |    DELETE   | client wants to ensure that the deletion request   |
  |             | was properly executed, then this option should not |
  |             | be used with the request.                          |
  +-------------+----------------------------------------------------+

   Table 3: Suggested Applicability of No-Response with REST Methods



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3.  Miscellaneous Aspects

  This section further describes important implementation aspects worth
  considering while using the No-Response option.  The following
  discussion contains guidelines and requirements (derived by combining
  [RFC7252], [RFC7390], and [RFC5405]) for the application developer.

3.1.  Reusing Tokens

  Tokens provide a matching criteria between a request and the
  corresponding response.  The life of a Token starts when it is
  assigned to a request and ends when the final matching response is
  received.  Then, the Token can again be reused.  However, a request
  with No-Response typically does not have any guaranteed response
  path.  So, the client has to decide on its own about when it can
  retire a Token that has been used in an earlier request so that the
  Token can be reused in a future request.  Since the No-Response
  option is 'elective', a server that has not implemented this option
  will respond back.  This leads to the following two scenarios:

  The first scenario is when the client is never going to care about
  any response coming back or about relating the response to the
  original request.  In that case, it MAY reuse the Token value at
  liberty.

  However, as a second scenario, let us consider that the client sends
  two requests where the first request is with No-Response and the
  second request (with the same Token) is without No-Response.  In this
  case, a delayed response to the first one can be interpreted as a
  response to the second request (client needs a response in the second
  case) if the time interval between using the same Token is not long
  enough.  This creates a problem in the request-response semantics.

  The most ideal solution would be to always use a unique Token for
  requests with No-Response.  But if a client wants to reuse a Token,
  then in most practical cases the client implementation SHOULD
  implement an application-specific reuse time after which it can reuse
  the Token.  A minimum reuse time for Tokens with a similar expression
  as in Section 2.5 of [RFC7390] SHOULD be used:

  TOKEN_REUSE_TIME = NON_LIFETIME + MAX_SERVER_RESPONSE_DELAY +
                     MAX_LATENCY

  NON_LIFETIME and MAX_LATENCY are defined in Section 4.8.2 of
  [RFC7252].  MAX_SERVER_RESPONSE_DELAY has the same interpretation as
  in Section 2.5 of [RFC7390] for a multicast request.  For a unicast
  request, since the message is sent to only one server,
  MAX_SERVER_RESPONSE_DELAY means the expected maximum response delay



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  from the particular server to that client that sent the request.  For
  multicast requests, MAX_SERVER_RESPONSE_DELAY has the same
  interpretation as in Section 2.5 of [RFC7390].  So, for multicast it
  is the expected maximum server response delay "over all servers that
  the client can send a multicast request to", per [RFC7390].  This
  response delay for a given server includes its specific Leisure
  period; where Leisure is defined in Section 8.2 of [RFC7252].  In
  general, the Leisure for a server may not be known to the client.  A
  lower bound for Leisure, lb_Leisure, is defined in [RFC7252], but not
  an upper bound as is needed in this case.  Therefore, the upper bound
  can be estimated by taking N (N>>1) times the lower bound lb_Leisure:

                         lb_Leisure = S * G / R

  where
  S = estimated response size
  G = group size estimate
  R = data transfer rate

  Any estimate of MAX_SERVER_RESPONSE_DELAY MUST be larger than
  DEFAULT_LEISURE, as defined in [RFC7252].

  Note: If it is not possible for the client to get a reasonable
     estimate of the MAX_SERVER_RESPONSE_DELAY, then the client, to be
     safe, SHOULD use a unique Token for each stream of messages.

3.2.  Taking Care of Congestion Control and Server-Side Flow Control

  This section provides guidelines for basic congestion control.
  Better congestion control mechanisms can be designed as future work.

  If this option is used with NON messages, then the interaction
  becomes completely open loop.  The absence of any feedback from the
  server-end affects congestion-control mechanisms.  In this case, the
  communication pattern maps to the scenario where the application
  cannot maintain an RTT estimate as described in Section 3.1.2 of
  [RFC5405].  Hence, per [RFC5405], a 3-second interval is suggested as
  the minimum interval between successive updates, and it is suggested
  to use an even less aggressive rate when possible.  However, in case
  of a higher rate of updates, the application MUST have some knowledge
  about the channel, and an application developer MUST interweave
  occasional closed-loop exchanges (e.g., NON messages without
  No-Response, or CON messages) to get an RTT estimate between the
  endpoints.

  Interweaving requests without No-Response is a MUST in case of an
  aggressive request rate for applications where server-side flow
  control is necessary.  For example, as proposed in [CoAP-PUBSUB], a



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  broker MAY return 4.29 (Too Many Requests) in order to request a
  client to slow down the request rate.  Interweaving requests without
  No-Response allows the client to listen to such a response.

3.3.  Considerations regarding Caching of Responses

  The cacheability of CoAP responses does not depend on the request
  method, but it depends on the Response Code.  The No-Response option
  does not lead to any impact on cacheability of responses.  If a
  request containing No-Response triggers a cacheable response, then
  the response MUST be cached.  However, the response MAY not be
  transmitted considering the value of the No-Response option in the
  request.

  For example, if a request with No-Response triggers a cacheable
  response of 4.xx class with Max-Age not equal to 0, then the response
  must be cached.  The cache will return the response to subsequent
  similar requests without No-Response as long as the Max-Age has not
  elapsed.

3.4.  Handling the No-Response Option for a HTTP-to-CoAP Reverse Proxy

  A HTTP-to-CoAP reverse proxy MAY translate an incoming HTTP request
  to a corresponding CoAP request indicating that no response is
  required (showing disinterest in all classes of responses) based on
  some application-specific requirement.  In this case, it is
  RECOMMENDED that the reverse proxy generate an HTTP response with
  status code 204 (No Content) when such response is allowed.  The
  generated response is sent after the proxy has successfully sent out
  the CoAP request.

  If the reverse proxy applies No-Response for one or more classes of
  responses, it will wait for responses up to an application-specific
  maximum time (T_max) before responding to the HTTP side.  If a
  response of a desired class is received within T_max, then the
  response gets translated to HTTP as defined in [HTTP-to-CoAP].
  However, if the proxy does not receive any response within T_max, it
  is RECOMMENDED that the reverse Proxy send an HTTP response with
  status code 204 (No Content) when allowed for the specific HTTP
  request method.











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4.  Application Scenarios

  This section describes some examples of application scenarios that
  may potentially benefit from the use of the No-Response option.

4.1.  Frequent Update of Geolocation from Vehicles to Backend Server

  Let us consider an intelligent traffic system (ITS) consisting of
  vehicles equipped with a sensor gateway comprising sensors like GPS
  and accelerometer sensors.  The sensor gateway acts as a CoAP client.
  It connects to the Internet using a low-bandwidth cellular connection
  (e.g., General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)).  The GPS coordinates of
  the vehicle are periodically updated to the backend server.

  While performing frequent location updates, retransmitting (through
  the CoAP CON mechanism) a location coordinate that the vehicle has
  already left is not efficient as it adds redundant traffic to the
  network.  Therefore, the updates are done using NON messages.
  However, given the huge number of vehicles updating frequently, the
  NON exchange will also trigger a huge number of responses from the
  backend.  Thus, the cumulative load on the network will be quite
  significant.  Also, the client in this case may not be interested in
  getting responses to location update requests for a location it has
  already passed and when the next location update is imminent.

  On the contrary, if the client endpoints on the vehicles explicitly
  declare that they do not need any status response back from the
  server, then load will be reduced significantly.  The assumption is
  that the high rate of updates will compensate for the stray losses in
  geolocation reports.

  Note: It may be argued that the above example application can also be
     implemented using the Observe option [RFC7641] with NON
     notifications.  But, in practice, implementing with Observe would
     require lot of bookkeeping at the data collection endpoint at the
     backend (observer).  The observer needs to maintain all the
     observe relationships with each vehicle.  The data collection
     endpoint may be unable to know all its data sources beforehand.
     The client endpoints at vehicles may go offline or come back
     online randomly.  In the case of Observe, the onus is always on
     the data collection endpoint to establish an observe relationship
     with each data source.  On the other hand, implementation will be
     much simpler if initiating is left to the data source to carry out
     updates using the No-Response option.  Another way of looking at
     it is that the implementation choice depends on where there is
     interest to initiate the update.  In an Observe scenario, the
     interest is expressed by the data consumer.  In contrast, the




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     classic update case applies when the interest is from the data
     producer.  The No-Response option makes classic updates consume
     even less resources.

  The following subsections illustrate some sample exchanges based on
  the application described above.

4.1.1.  Using No-Response with PUT

  Each vehicle is assigned a dedicated resource "vehicle-stat-<n>",
  where <n> can be any string uniquely identifying the vehicle.  The
  update requests are sent using NON messages.  The No-Response option
  causes the server not to respond back.

  Client Server
  |      |
  |      |
  +----->| Header: PUT (T=NON, Code=0.03, MID=0x7d38)
  | PUT  | Token: 0x53
  |      | Uri-Path: "vehicle-stat-00"
  |      | Content Type: text/plain
  |      | No-Response: 26
  |      | Payload:
  |      | "VehID=00&RouteID=DN47&Lat=22.5658745&Long=88.4107966667&
  |      | Time=2013-01-13T11:24:31"
  |      |
  [No response from the server.  Next update in 20 s.]
  |      |
  +----->| Header: PUT (T=NON, Code=0.03, MID=0x7d39)
  | PUT  | Token: 0x54
  |      | Uri-Path: "vehicle-stat-00"
  |      | Content Type: text/plain
  |      | No-Response: 26
  |      | Payload:
  |      | "VehID=00&RouteID=DN47&Lat=22.5649015&Long=88.4103511667&
  |      | Time=2013-01-13T11:24:51"

    Figure 1: Example of Unreliable Update with No-Response Option
                               Using PUT












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4.1.2.  Using No-Response with POST

4.1.2.1.  POST Updating a Fixed Target Resource

  In this case, POST acts the same way as PUT.  The exchanges are the
  same as above.  The updated values are carried as payload of POST as
  shown in Figure 2.

  Client Server
  |      |
  |      |
  +----->| Header: POST (T=NON, Code=0.02, MID=0x7d38)
  | POST | Token: 0x53
  |      | Uri-Path: "vehicle-stat-00"
  |      | Content Type: text/plain
  |      | No-Response: 26
  |      | Payload:
  |      | "VehID=00&RouteID=DN47&Lat=22.5658745&Long=88.4107966667&
  |      | Time=2013-01-13T11:24:31"
  |      |
  [No response from the server.  Next update in 20 s.]
  |      |
  +----->| Header: POST (T=NON, Code=0.02, MID=0x7d39)
  | POST | Token: 0x54
  |      | Uri-Path: "vehicle-stat-00"
  |      | Content Type: text/plain
  |      | No-Response: 26
  |      | Payload:
  |      | "VehID=00&RouteID=DN47&Lat=22.5649015&Long=88.4103511667&
  |      | Time=2013-01-13T11:24:51"

   Figure 2: Example of Unreliable Update with No-Response Option
                  Using POST as the Update Method


















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4.1.2.2.  POST Updating through Query String

  It may be possible that the backend infrastructure deploys a
  dedicated database to store the location updates.  In such a case,
  the client can update through a POST by sending a query string in the
  URI.  The query string contains the name/value pairs for each update.
  No-Response can be used in the same manner as for updating fixed
  resources.  The scenario is depicted in Figure 3.

  Client Server
  |      |
  |      |
  +----->| Header: POST (T=NON, Code=0.02, MID=0x7d38)
  | POST | Token: 0x53
  |      | Uri-Path: "updateOrInsertInfo"
  |      | Uri-Query: "VehID=00"
  |      | Uri-Query: "RouteID=DN47"
  |      | Uri-Query: "Lat=22.5658745"
  |      | Uri-Query: "Long=88.4107966667"
  |      | Uri-Query: "Time=2013-01-13T11:24:31"
  |      | No-Response: 26
  |      |
  [No response from the server.  Next update in 20 s.]
  |      |
  +----->| Header: POST (T=NON, Code=0.02, MID=0x7d39)
  | POST | Token: 0x54
  |      | Uri-Path: "updateOrInsertInfo"
  |      | Uri-Query: "VehID=00"
  |      | Uri-Query: "RouteID=DN47"
  |      | Uri-Query: "Lat=22.5649015"
  |      | Uri-Query: "Long=88.4103511667"
  |      | Uri-Query: "Time=2013-01-13T11:24:51"
  |      | No-Response: 26
  |      |

   Figure 3: Example of Unreliable Update with No-Response Option
   Using POST with a Query String to Insert Update Information
                    into the Backend Database

4.2.  Multicasting Actuation Command from a Handheld Device to a Group
     of Appliances

  A handheld device (e.g., a smart phone) may be programmed to act as
  an IP-enabled switch to remotely operate on one or more IP-enabled
  appliances.  For example, a multicast request to switch on/off all
  the lights of a building can be sent.  In this case, the IP switch





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  application can use the No-Response option in a NON request message
  to reduce the traffic generated due to simultaneous CoAP responses
  from all the lights.

  Thus, No-Response helps in reducing overall communication cost and
  the probability of network congestion in this case.

4.2.1.  Using Granular Response Suppression

  The IP switch application may optionally use granular response
  suppression such that the error responses are not suppressed.  In
  that case, the lights that could not execute the request would
  respond back and be readily identified.  Thus, explicit suppression
  of option classes by the multicast client may be useful to debug the
  network and the application.

5.  IANA Considerations

  The IANA had previously assigned number 284 to this option in the
  "CoAP Option Numbers" registry.  IANA has updated this as shown
  below:

           +--------+--------------+-------------+
           | Number |     Name     |  Reference  |
           +--------+--------------+-------------+
           |   258  | No-Response  |  RFC 7967   |
           +--------+--------------+-------------+

6.  Security Considerations

  The No-Response option defined in this document presents no security
  considerations beyond those in Section 11 of the base CoAP
  specification [RFC7252].

7.  References

7.1.  Normative References

  [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
             Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
             <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

  [RFC7252]  Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained
             Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC7252, June 2014,
             <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7252>.




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7.2.  Informative References

  [CoAP-ADAPT]
             Bandyopadhyay, S., Bhattacharyya, A., and A. Pal,
             "Adapting protocol characteristics of CoAP using sensed
             indication for vehicular analytics", 11th ACM Conference
             on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys '13),
             DOI 10.1145/2517351.2517422, November 2013.

  [CoAP-PUBSUB]
             Koster, M., Keranen, A., and J. Jimenez, "Publish-
             Subscribe Broker for the Constrained Application Protocol
             (CoAP)", Work in Progress, draft-koster-core-coap-
             pubsub-05, July 2016.

  [CoAP-TCP-TLS]
             Bormann, C., Lemay, S., Tschofenig, H., Hartke, K.,
             Silverajan, B., and B. Raymor, Ed., "CoAP (Constrained
             Application Protocol) over TCP, TLS, and WebSockets", Work
             in Progress, draft-ietf-core-coap-tcp-tls-04, August 2016.

  [HTTP-to-CoAP]
             Castellani, A., Loreto, S., Rahman, A., Fossati, T., and
             E. Dijk, "Guidelines for HTTP-to-CoAP Mapping
             Implementations", Work in Progress, draft-ietf-core-http-
             mapping-13, July 2016.

  [ITS-LIGHT]
             Bhattacharyya, A., Bandyopadhyay, S., and A. Pal,
             "ITS-light: Adaptive lightweight scheme to resource
             optimize intelligent transportation tracking system (ITS)
             - Customizing CoAP for opportunistic optimization", 10th
             International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems:
             Computing, Networking and Services (MobiQuitous 2013),
             DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-11569-6_58, December 2013.

  [RFC5405]  Eggert, L. and G. Fairhurst, "Unicast UDP Usage Guidelines
             for Application Designers", BCP 145, RFC 5405,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC5405, November 2008,
             <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5405>.

  [RFC7390]  Rahman, A., Ed., and E. Dijk, Ed., "Group Communication
             for the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC
             7390, DOI 10.17487/RFC7390, October 2014,
             <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7390>.






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  [RFC7641]  Hartke, K., "Observing Resources in the Constrained
             Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7641,
             DOI 10.17487/RFC7641, September 2015,
             <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7641>.

Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Carsten Bormann, Matthias Kovatsch, Esko Dijk, Bert
  Greevenbosch, Akbar Rahman, and Klaus Hartke for their valuable
  input.

Authors' Addresses

  Abhijan Bhattacharyya
  Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
  Kolkata, India

  Email: [email protected]


  Soma Bandyopadhyay
  Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
  Kolkata, India

  Email: [email protected]


  Arpan Pal
  Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
  Kolkata, India

  Email: [email protected]


  Tulika Bose
  Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.
  Kolkata, India

  Email: [email protected]












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