Network Working Group                                          L. Eggert
Request for Comments: 5482                                         Nokia
Category: Standards Track                                        F. Gont
                                                                UTN/FRH
                                                             March 2009


                       TCP User Timeout Option

Status of This Memo

  This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
  Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
  improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
  Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
  and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

  Copyright (c) 2009 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 in effect on the date of
  publication of this document (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info).
  Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
  and restrictions with respect to this document.

Abstract

  The TCP user timeout controls how long transmitted data may remain
  unacknowledged before a connection is forcefully closed.  It is a
  local, per-connection parameter.  This document specifies a new TCP
  option -- the TCP User Timeout Option -- that allows one end of a TCP
  connection to advertise its current user timeout value.  This
  information provides advice to the other end of the TCP connection to
  adapt its user timeout accordingly.  Increasing the user timeouts on
  both ends of a TCP connection allows it to survive extended periods
  without end-to-end connectivity.  Decreasing the user timeouts allows
  busy servers to explicitly notify their clients that they will
  maintain the connection state only for a short time without
  connectivity.









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Table of Contents

  1. Introduction ....................................................2
  2. Conventions .....................................................3
  3. Operation .......................................................4
     3.1. Changing the Local User Timeout ............................5
     3.2. UTO Option Reliability .....................................8
     3.3. Option Format ..............................................8
     3.4. Reserved Option Values .....................................9
  4. Interoperability Issues .........................................9
     4.1. Middleboxes ................................................9
     4.2. TCP Keep-Alives ...........................................10
  5. Programming and Manageability Considerations ...................10
  6. Security Considerations ........................................10
  7. IANA Considerations ............................................12
  8. Acknowledgments ................................................12
  9. References .....................................................12
     9.1. Normative References ......................................12
     9.2. Informative References ....................................13

1.  Introduction

  The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) specification [RFC0793]
  defines a local, per-connection "user timeout" parameter that
  specifies the maximum amount of time that transmitted data may remain
  unacknowledged before TCP will forcefully close the corresponding
  connection.  Applications can set and change this parameter with OPEN
  and SEND calls.  If an end-to-end connectivity disruption lasts
  longer than the user timeout, a sender will receive no
  acknowledgments for any transmission attempt, including keep-alives,
  and it will close the TCP connection when the user timeout occurs.

  This document specifies a new TCP option -- the TCP User Timeout
  Option (UTO) -- that allows one end of a TCP connection to advertise
  its current user timeout value.  This information provides advice to
  the other end of the connection to adapt its user timeout
  accordingly.  That is, TCP remains free to disregard the advice
  provided by the UTO option if local policies suggest it to be
  appropriate.

  Increasing the user timeouts on both ends of a TCP connection allows
  it to survive extended periods without end-to-end connectivity.
  Decreasing the user timeouts allows busy servers to explicitly notify
  their clients that they will maintain the connection state only for a
  short time without connectivity.






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  In the absence of an application-specified user timeout, the TCP
  specification [RFC0793] defines a default user timeout of 5 minutes.
  The Host Requirements RFC [RFC1122] refines this definition by
  introducing two thresholds, R1 and R2 (R2 > R1), that control the
  number of retransmission attempts for a single segment.  It suggests
  that TCP should notify applications when R1 is reached for a segment,
  and close the connection when R2 is reached.  [RFC1122] also defines
  the recommended values for R1 (3 retransmissions) and R2 (100
  seconds), noting that R2 for SYN segments should be at least 3
  minutes.  Instead of a single user timeout, some TCP implementations
  offer finer-grained policies.  For example, Solaris supports
  different timeouts depending on whether a TCP connection is in the
  SYN-SENT, SYN-RECEIVED, or ESTABLISHED state [SOLARIS].

  Although some TCP implementations allow applications to set their
  local user timeout, TCP has no in-protocol mechanism to signal
  changes to the local user timeout to the other end of a connection.
  This causes local changes to be ineffective in allowing a connection
  to survive extended periods without connectivity, because the other
  end will still close the connection after its user timeout expires.

  The ability to inform the other end of a connection about the local
  user timeout can improve TCP operation in scenarios that are
  currently not well supported.  One example of such a scenario is
  mobile hosts that change network attachment points.  Such hosts,
  maybe using Mobile IP [RFC3344], HIP [RFC4423], or transport-layer
  mobility mechanisms [TCP_MOB], are only intermittently connected to
  the Internet.  In between connected periods, mobile hosts may
  experience periods without end-to-end connectivity.  Other factors
  that can cause transient connectivity disruptions are high levels of
  congestion or link or routing failures inside the network.  In these
  scenarios, a host may not know exactly when or for how long
  connectivity disruptions will occur, but it might be able to
  determine an increased likelihood for such events based on past
  mobility patterns and thus benefit from using longer user timeouts.
  In other scenarios, the time and duration of a connectivity
  disruption may even be predictable.  For example, a node in space
  might experience connectivity disruptions due to line-of-sight
  blocking by planetary bodies.  The timing of these events may be
  computable from orbital mechanics.

2.  Conventions

  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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3.  Operation

  Use of the TCP User Timeout Option can be either enabled on a per-
  connection basis, e.g., through an API option, or controlled by a
  system-wide setting.  TCP maintains four per-connection state
  variables to control the operation of the UTO option, three of which
  (ADV_UTO, ENABLED, and CHANGEABLE) are new:

  USER_TIMEOUT
     TCP's USER TIMEOUT parameter, as specified in [RFC0793].

  ADV_UTO
     UTO option advertised to the remote TCP peer.  This is an
     application-specified value, and may be specified on a system-wide
     basis.  If unspecified, it defaults to the default system-wide
     USER TIMEOUT.

  ENABLED (Boolean)
     Flag that controls whether the UTO option is enabled for a
     connection.  This flag applies to both sending and receiving.
     Defaults to false.

  CHANGEABLE (Boolean)
     Flag that controls whether USER_TIMEOUT (TCP's USER TIMEOUT
     parameter) may be changed based on an UTO option received from the
     other end of the connection.  Defaults to true and becomes false
     when an application explicitly sets USER_TIMEOUT.

  Note that an exchange of UTO options between both ends of a
  connection is not a binding negotiation.  Transmission of a UTO
  option is a suggestion that the other end consider adapting its user
  timeout.  This adaptation only happens if the other end of the
  connection has explicitly allowed it (both ENABLED and CHANGEABLE are
  true).

  Before opening a connection, an application that wishes to use the
  UTO option enables its use by setting ENABLED to true.  It may choose
  an appropriate local UTO by explicitly setting ADV_UTO; otherwise,
  UTO is set to the default USER TIMEOUT value.  Finally, the
  application should determine whether it will allow the local USER
  TIMEOUT to change based on received UTO options from the other end of
  a connection.  The default is to allow this for connections that do
  not have specific user timeout concerns.  If an application
  explicitly sets the USER_TIMEOUT, CHANGEABLE MUST become false in
  order to prevent UTO options (from the other end) from overriding
  local application requests.  Alternatively, applications can set or
  clear CHANGEABLE directly through API calls.




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  Performing these steps before an active or passive open causes UTO
  options to be exchanged in the SYN and SYN-ACK packets and is a
  reliable way to initially exchange, and potentially adapt to, UTO
  values.  TCP implementations MAY provide system-wide default settings
  for the ENABLED, ADV_UTO and CHANGEABLE connection parameters.

  In addition to exchanging UTO options in the SYN segments, a
  connection that has enabled UTO options SHOULD include a UTO option
  in the first packet that does not have the SYN flag set.  This helps
  to minimize the amount of state information TCP must keep for
  connections in non-synchronized states.  Also, it is particularly
  useful when mechanisms such as "SYN cookies" [RFC4987] are
  implemented, allowing a newly-established TCP connection to benefit
  from the information advertised by the UTO option, even if the UTO
  contained in the initial SYN segment was not recorded.

  A host that supports the UTO option SHOULD include one in the next
  possible outgoing segment whenever it starts using a new user timeout
  for the connection.  This allows the other end of the connection to
  adapt its local user timeout accordingly.  A TCP implementation that
  does not support the UTO option MUST silently ignore it [RFC1122],
  thus ensuring interoperability.

  Hosts MUST impose upper and lower limits on the user timeouts they
  use for a connection.  Section 3.1 discusses user timeout limits and
  potentially problematic effects of some user timeout settings.

  Finally, it is worth noting that TCP's option space is limited to 40
  bytes.  As a result, if other TCP options are in use, they may
  already consume all the available TCP option space, thus preventing
  the use of the UTO option specified in this document.  Therefore, TCP
  option space issues should be considered before enabling the UTO
  option.

3.1.  Changing the Local User Timeout

  When a host receives a TCP User Timeout Option, it must decide
  whether to change the local user timeout of the corresponding
  connection.  If the CHANGEABLE flag is false, USER_TIMEOUT MUST NOT
  be changed, regardless of the received UTO option.  Without this
  restriction, the UTO option would modify TCP semantics, because an
  application-requested USER TIMEOUT could be overridden by peer
  requests.  In this case TCP SHOULD, however, notify the application
  about the user timeout value received from the other end system.







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  In general, unless the application on the local host has requested a
  specific USER TIMEOUT for the connection, CHANGEABLE will be true and
  hosts SHOULD adjust the local TCP USER TIMEOUT (USER_TIMEOUT) in
  response to receiving a UTO option, as described in the remainder of
  this section.

  The UTO option specifies the user timeout in seconds or minutes,
  rather than in number of retransmissions or round-trip times (RTTs).
  Thus, the UTO option allows hosts to exchange user timeout values
  from 1 second to over 9 hours at a granularity of seconds, and from 1
  minute to over 22 days at a granularity of minutes.

  Very short USER TIMEOUT values can affect TCP transmissions over
  high-delay paths.  If the user timeout occurs before an
  acknowledgment for an outstanding segment arrives, possibly due to
  packet loss, the connection closes.  Many TCP implementations default
  to USER TIMEOUT values of a few minutes.  Although the UTO option
  allows suggestion of short timeouts, applications advertising them
  should consider these effects.

  Long USER TIMEOUT values allow hosts to tolerate extended periods
  without end-to-end connectivity.  However, they also require hosts to
  maintain the TCP state information associated with connections for
  long periods of time.  Section 6 discusses the security implications
  of long timeout values.

  To protect against these effects, implementations MUST impose limits
  on the user timeout values they accept and use.  The remainder of
  this section describes a RECOMMENDED scheme to limit TCP's USER
  TIMEOUT based on upper and lower limits.

  Under the RECOMMENDED scheme, and when CHANGEABLE is true, each end
  SHOULD compute the local USER TIMEOUT for a connection according to
  this formula:

  USER_TIMEOUT = min(U_LIMIT, max(ADV_UTO, REMOTE_UTO, L_LIMIT))

  Each field is to be interpreted as follows:

  USER_TIMEOUT
     USER TIMEOUT value to be adopted by the local TCP for this
     connection.

  U_LIMIT
     Current upper limit imposed on the user timeout of a connection by
     the local host.





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  ADV_UTO
     User timeout advertised to the remote TCP peer in a TCP User
     Timeout Option.

  REMOTE_UTO
     Last user timeout value received from the other end in a TCP User
     Timeout Option.

  L_LIMIT
     Current lower limit imposed on the user timeout of a connection by
     the local host.

  The RECOMMENDED formula results in the maximum of the two advertised
  values, adjusted for the configured upper and lower limits, to be
  adopted for the user timeout of the connection on both ends.  The
  rationale is that choosing the maximum of the two values will let the
  connection survive longer periods without end-to-end connectivity.
  If the end that announced the lower of the two user timeout values
  did so in order to reduce the amount of TCP state information that
  must be kept on the host, it can close or abort the connection
  whenever it wants.

  It must be noted that the two endpoints of the connection will not
  necessarily adopt the same user timeout.

  Enforcing a lower limit (L_LIMIT) prevents connections from closing
  due to transient network conditions, including temporary congestion,
  mobility hand-offs, and routing instabilities.

  An upper limit (U_LIMIT) can reduce the effect of resource exhaustion
  attacks.  Section 6 discusses the details of these attacks.

  Note that these limits MAY be specified as system-wide constants or
  at other granularities, such as on per-host, per-user, per-outgoing-
  interface, or even per-connection basis.  Furthermore, these limits
  need not be static.  For example, they MAY be a function of system
  resource utilization or attack status and could be dynamically
  adapted.

  The Host Requirements RFC [RFC1122] does not impose any limits on the
  length of the user timeout.  However, it recommends a time interval
  of at least 100 seconds.  Consequently, the lower limit (L_LIMIT)
  SHOULD be set to at least 100 seconds when following the RECOMMENDED
  scheme described in this section.  Adopting a user timeout smaller
  than the current retransmission timeout (RTO) for the connection
  would likely cause the connection to be aborted unnecessarily.
  Therefore, the lower limit (L_LIMIT) MUST be larger than the current




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  retransmission timeout (RTO) for the connection.  It is worth noting
  that an upper limit may be imposed on the RTO, provided it is at
  least 60 seconds [RFC2988].

3.2.  UTO Option Reliability

  The TCP User Timeout Option is an advisory TCP option that does not
  change processing of subsequent segments.  Unlike other TCP options,
  it need not be exchanged reliably.  Consequently, the specification
  does not define a reliability handshake for UTO option exchanges.
  When a segment that carries a UTO option is lost, the other end will
  simply not have the opportunity to update its local USER TIMEOUT.

  Implementations MAY implement local mechanisms to improve delivery
  reliability, such as retransmitting a UTO option when they retransmit
  a segment that originally carried it, or "attaching" the option to a
  byte in the stream and retransmitting the option whenever that byte
  or its ACK are retransmitted.

  It is important to note that although these mechanisms can improve
  transmission reliability for the UTO option, they do not guarantee
  delivery (a three-way handshake would be required for this).
  Consequently, implementations MUST NOT assume that UTO options are
  transmitted reliably.

3.3.  Option Format

  Sending a TCP User Timeout Option informs the other end of the
  connection of the current local user timeout and suggests that the
  other end adapt its user timeout accordingly.  The user timeout value
  included in a UTO option contains the ADV_UTO value that is expected
  to be adopted for the TCP's USER TIMEOUT parameter during the
  synchronized states of a connection (ESTABLISHED, FIN-WAIT-1, FIN-
  WAIT-2, CLOSE-WAIT, CLOSING, or LAST-ACK).  Connections in other
  states MUST use the default timeout values defined in [RFC0793] and
  [RFC1122].

     0                   1                   2                   3
     0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |   Kind = 28   |   Length = 4  |G|        User Timeout         |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  (One tick mark represents one bit.)

             Figure 1: Format of the TCP User Timeout Option





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  Figure 1 shows the format of the TCP User Timeout Option.  It
  contains these fields:

  Kind (8 bits)
     This MUST be 28, i.e., the TCP option number [RFC0793] that has
     been assigned by IANA (see Section 7).

  Length (8 bits)
     Length of the TCP option in octets [RFC0793]; its value MUST be 4.

  Granularity (1 bit)
     Granularity bit, indicating the granularity of the "User Timeout"
     field.  When set (G = 1), the time interval in the "User Timeout"
     field MUST be interpreted as minutes.  Otherwise (G = 0), the time
     interval in the "User Timeout" field MUST be interpreted as
     seconds.

  User Timeout (15 bits)
     Specifies the user timeout suggestion for this connection.  It
     MUST be interpreted as a 15-bit unsigned integer.  The granularity
     of the timeout (minutes or seconds) depends on the "G" field.

3.4.  Reserved Option Values

  A TCP User Timeout Option with a "User Timeout" field of zero and a
  "Granularity" bit of either minutes (1) or seconds (0) is reserved
  for future use.  Current TCP implementations MUST NOT send it and
  MUST ignore it upon reception.

4.  Interoperability Issues

  This section discusses interoperability issues related to introducing
  the TCP User Timeout Option.

4.1.  Middleboxes

  A TCP implementation that does not support the TCP User Timeout
  Option MUST silently ignore it [RFC1122], thus ensuring
  interoperability.  In a study of the effects of middleboxes on
  transport protocols, Medina et al. have shown that the vast majority
  of modern TCP stacks correctly handle unknown TCP options [MEDINA].
  In this study, 3% of connections failed when an unknown TCP option
  appeared in the middle of a connection.  Because the number of
  failures caused by unknown options is small and they are a result of
  incorrectly implemented TCP stacks that violate existing requirements
  to ignore unknown options, they do not warrant special measures.
  Thus, this document does not define a mechanism to negotiate support
  of the TCP User Timeout Option during the three-way handshake.



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  Implementations may want to exchange UTO options on the very first
  data segments after the three-way handshake to determine if such a
  middlebox exists on the path.  When segments carrying UTO options are
  persistently lost, an implementation should turn off the use of UTO
  for the connection.  When the connection itself is reset, an
  implementation may be able to transparently re-establish another
  connection instance that does not use UTO before any application data
  has been successfully exchanged.

  Stateful firewalls usually time out connection state after a period
  of inactivity.  If such a firewall exists along the path, it may
  close or abort connections regardless of the use of the TCP User
  Timeout Option.  In the future, such firewalls may learn to parse the
  TCP User Timeout Option in unencrypted TCP segments and adapt
  connection state management accordingly.

4.2.  TCP Keep-Alives

  Some TCP implementations, such as those in BSD systems, use a
  different abort policy for TCP keep-alives than for user data.  Thus,
  the TCP keep-alive mechanism might abort a connection that would
  otherwise have survived the transient period without connectivity.
  Therefore, if a connection that enables keep-alives is also using the
  TCP User Timeout Option, then the keep-alive timer MUST be set to a
  value larger than that of the adopted USER TIMEOUT.

5.  Programming and Manageability Considerations

  The IETF specification for TCP [RFC0793] includes a simple, abstract
  application programming interface (API).  Similarly, the API for the
  UTO extension in Section 3 is kept abstract.  TCP implementations,
  however, usually provide more complex and feature-rich APIs.  The
  "socket" API that originated with BSD Unix and is now standardized by
  POSIX is one such example [POSIX].  It is expected that TCP
  implementations that choose to include the UTO extension will extend
  their API to allow applications to use and configure its parameters.

  The MIB objects defined in [RFC4022] and [RFC4898] allow management
  of TCP connections.  It is expected that revisions to these documents
  will include definitions of objects for managing the UTO extension
  defined in this document.

6.  Security Considerations

  Lengthening user timeouts has obvious security implications.
  Flooding attacks cause denial of service by forcing servers to commit
  resources for maintaining the state of throw-away connections.
  However, TCP implementations do not become more vulnerable to simple



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  SYN flooding by implementing the TCP User Timeout Option, because
  user timeouts exchanged during the handshake only affect the
  synchronized states (ESTABLISHED, FIN-WAIT-1, FIN-WAIT-2, CLOSE-WAIT,
  CLOSING, LAST-ACK), which simple SYN floods never reach.

  However, when an attacker completes the three-way handshakes of its
  throw-away connections, it can amplify the effects of resource
  exhaustion attacks because the attacked server must maintain the
  connection state associated with the throw-away connections for
  longer durations.  Because connection state is kept longer, lower-
  frequency attack traffic, which may be more difficult to detect, can
  already exacerbate resource exhaustion.

  Several approaches can help mitigate this issue.  First,
  implementations can require prior peer authentication, e.g., using
  IPsec [RFC4301] or TCP-MD5 [RFC2385], before accepting long user
  timeouts for the peer's connections.  (Implementors that decide to
  use TCP-MD5 for this purpose are encouraged to monitor the
  development of TCP-AO [AUTH_OPT], its designated successor, and
  update their implementation when it is published as an RFC.)  A
  similar approach is for a host to start accepting long user timeouts
  for an established connection only after in-band authentication has
  occurred, for example, after a TLS handshake across the connection
  has succeeded [RFC5246].  Although these are arguably the most
  complete solutions, they depend on external mechanisms to establish a
  trust relationship.

  A second alternative that does not depend on external mechanisms
  would introduce a per-peer limit on the number of connections that
  may use increased user timeouts.  Several variants of this approach
  are possible, such as fixed limits or shortening accepted user
  timeouts with a rising number of connections.  Although this
  alternative does not eliminate resource exhaustion attacks from a
  single peer, it can limit their effects.  Reducing the number of
  high-UTO connections a server supports in the face of an attack turns
  that attack into a denial-of-service attack against the service of
  high-UTO connections.

  Per-peer limits cannot protect against distributed denial-of-service
  attacks, where multiple clients coordinate a resource exhaustion
  attack that uses long user timeouts.  To protect against such
  attacks, TCP implementations could reduce the duration of accepted
  user timeouts with increasing resource utilization.

  TCP implementations under attack may be forced to shed load by
  resetting established connections.  Some load-shedding heuristics,
  such as resetting connections with long idle times first, can
  negatively affect service for intermittently connected, trusted peers



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  that have suggested long user timeouts.  On the other hand, resetting
  connections to untrusted peers that use long user timeouts may be
  effective.  In general, using the peers' level of trust as a
  parameter during the load-shedding decision process may be useful.
  Note that if TCP needs to close or abort connections with a long TCP
  User Timeout Option to shed load, these connections are still no
  worse off than without the option.

  Finally, upper and lower limits on user timeouts, discussed in
  Section 3.1, can be an effective tool to limit the impact of these
  sorts of attacks.

7.  IANA Considerations

  This section is to be interpreted according to [RFC5226].

  This document does not define any new namespaces.  IANA has allocated
  a new 8-bit TCP option number (28) for the UTO option from the "TCP
  Option Kind Numbers" registry maintained at http://www.iana.org.

8.  Acknowledgments

  The following people have improved this document through thoughtful
  suggestions: Mark Allman, Caitlin Bestler, David Borman, Bob Braden,
  Scott Brim, Marcus Brunner, Wesley Eddy, Gorry Fairhurst, Abolade
  Gbadegesin, Ted Faber, Guillermo Gont, Tom Henderson, Joseph Ishac,
  Jeremy Harris, Alfred Hoenes, Phil Karn, Michael Kerrisk, Dan Krejsa,
  Jamshid Mahdavi, Kostas Pentikousis, Juergen Quittek, Anantha
  Ramaiah, Joe Touch, Stefan Schmid, Simon Schuetz, Tim Shepard, and
  Martin Stiemerling.

  Lars Eggert is partly funded by [TRILOGY], a research project
  supported by the European Commission under its Seventh Framework
  Program.

  Fernando Gont wishes to thank Secretaria de Extension Universitaria
  at Universidad Tecnologica Nacional and Universidad Tecnologica
  Nacional/Facultad Regional Haedo for supporting him in this work.

9.  References

9.1.  Normative References

  [RFC0793]   Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7,
              RFC 793, September 1981.

  [RFC1122]   Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts -
              Communication Layers", STD 3, RFC 1122, October 1989.



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RFC 5482                TCP User Timeout Option               March 2009


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

  [RFC5226]   Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
              IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
              May 2008.

9.2.  Informative References

  [AUTH_OPT]  Touch, J., Mankin, A., and R. Bonica, "The TCP
              Authentication Option", Work in Progress, November 2008.

  [MEDINA]    Medina, A., Allman, M., and S. Floyd, "Measuring
              Interactions Between Transport Protocols and
              Middleboxes", Proc. 4th ACM SIGCOMM/USENIX Conference on
              Internet Measurement, October 2004.

  [POSIX]     IEEE Std. 1003.1-2001, "Standard for Information
              Technology - Portable Operating System Interface
              (POSIX)", Open Group Technical Standard: Base
              Specifications Issue 6, ISO/IEC 9945:2002, December 2001.

  [RFC2385]   Heffernan, A., "Protection of BGP Sessions via the TCP
              MD5 Signature Option", RFC 2385, August 1998.

  [RFC2988]   Paxson, V. and M. Allman, "Computing TCP's Retransmission
              Timer", RFC 2988, November 2000.

  [RFC3344]   Perkins, C., "IP Mobility Support for IPv4", RFC 3344,
              August 2002.

  [RFC4022]   Raghunarayan, R., "Management Information Base for the
              Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)", RFC 4022,
              March 2005.

  [RFC4301]   Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
              Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, December 2005.

  [RFC4423]   Moskowitz, R. and P. Nikander, "Host Identity Protocol
              (HIP) Architecture", RFC 4423, May 2006.

  [RFC4898]   Mathis, M., Heffner, J., and R. Raghunarayan, "TCP
              Extended Statistics MIB", RFC 4898, May 2007.

  [RFC4987]   Eddy, W., "TCP SYN Flooding Attacks and Common
              Mitigations", RFC 4987, August 2007.





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RFC 5482                TCP User Timeout Option               March 2009


  [RFC5246]   Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
              (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008.

  [SOLARIS]   Sun Microsystems, "Solaris Tunable Parameters Reference
              Manual", Part No. 806-7009-10, 2002.

  [TCP_MOB]   Eddy, W., "Mobility Support For TCP", Work in Progress,
              April 2004.

  [TRILOGY]   "Trilogy Project", <http://www.trilogy-project.org/>.

Authors' Addresses

  Lars Eggert
  Nokia Research Center
  P.O. Box 407
  Nokia Group  00045
  Finland

  Phone: +358 50 48 24461
  EMail: [email protected]
  URI:   http://research.nokia.com/people/lars_eggert/


  Fernando Gont
  Universidad Tecnologica Nacional / Facultad Regional Haedo
  Evaristo Carriego 2644
  Haedo, Provincia de Buenos Aires  1706
  Argentina

  Phone: +54 11 4650 8472
  EMail: [email protected]
  URI:   http://www.gont.com.ar/


















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