Network Working Group J. Rosenberg
Request for Comments: 5390 Cisco
Category: Informational December 2008
Requirements for Management of Overload in the
Session Initiation Protocol
Status of This Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
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Abstract
Overload occurs in Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) networks when
proxies and user agents have insufficient resources to complete the
processing of a request. SIP provides limited support for overload
handling through its 503 response code, which tells an upstream
element that it is overloaded. However, numerous problems have been
identified with this mechanism. This document summarizes the
problems with the existing 503 mechanism, and provides some
requirements for a solution.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Causes of Overload ..............................................2
3. Terminology .....................................................4
4. Current SIP Mechanisms ..........................................4
5. Problems with the Mechanism .....................................5
5.1. Load Amplification .........................................5
5.2. Underutilization ...........................................9
5.3. The Off/On Retry-After Problem .............................9
5.4. Ambiguous Usages ..........................................10
6. Solution Requirements ..........................................10
7. Security Considerations ........................................13
8. Acknowledgements ...............................................13
9. References .....................................................14
9.1. Normative Reference .......................................14
9.2. Informative References ....................................14
1. Introduction
Overload occurs in Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [RFC3261]
networks when proxies and user agents have insufficient resources to
complete the processing of a request or a response. SIP provides
limited support for overload handling through its 503 response code.
This code allows a server to tell an upstream element that it is
overloaded. However, numerous problems have been identified with
this mechanism.
This document describes the general problem of SIP overload and
reviews the current SIP mechanisms for dealing with overload. It
then explains some of the problems with these mechanisms. Finally,
the document provides a set of requirements for fixing these
problems.
2. Causes of Overload
Overload occurs when an element, such as a SIP user agent or proxy,
has insufficient resources to successfully process all of the traffic
it is receiving. Resources include all of the capabilities of the
element used to process a request, including CPU processing, memory,
I/O, or disk resources. It can also include external resources such
as a database or DNS server, in which case the CPU, processing,
memory, I/O, and disk resources of those servers are effectively part
of the logical element processing the request. Overload can occur
for many reasons, including:
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Poor Capacity Planning: SIP networks need to be designed with
sufficient numbers of servers, hardware, disks, and so on, in
order to meet the needs of the subscribers they are expected to
serve. Capacity planning is the process of determining these
needs. It is based on the number of expected subscribers and the
types of flows they are expected to use. If this work is not done
properly, the network may have insufficient capacity to handle
predictable usages, including regular usages and predictably high
ones (such as high voice calling volumes on Mother's Day).
Dependency Failures: A SIP element can become overloaded because a
resource on which it is dependent has failed or become overloaded,
greatly reducing the logical capacity of the element. In these
cases, even minimal traffic might cause the server to go into
overload. Examples of such dependency overloads include DNS
servers, databases, disks, and network interfaces.
Component Failures: A SIP element can become overloaded when it is a
member of a cluster of servers that each share the load of
traffic, and one or more of the other members in the cluster fail.
In this case, the remaining elements take over the work of the
failed elements. Normally, capacity planning takes such failures
into account, and servers are typically run with enough spare
capacity to handle failure of another element. However, unusual
failure conditions can cause many elements to fail at once. This
is often the case with software failures, where a bad packet or
bad database entry hits the same bug in a set of elements in a
cluster.
Avalanche Restart: One of the most troubling sources of overload is
avalanche restart. This happens when a large number of clients
all simultaneously attempt to connect to the network with a SIP
registration. Avalanche restart can be caused by several events.
One is the "Manhattan Reboots" scenario, where there is a power
failure in a large metropolitan area, such as Manhattan. When
power is restored, all of the SIP phones, whether in PCs or
standalone devices, simultaneously power on and begin booting.
They will all then connect to the network and register, causing a
flood of SIP REGISTER messages. Another cause of avalanche
restart is failure of a large network connection, for example, the
access router for an enterprise. When it fails, SIP clients will
detect the failure rapidly using the mechanisms in [OUTBOUND].
When connectivity is restored, this is detected, and clients re-
REGISTER, all within a short time period. Another source of
avalanche restart is failure of a proxy server. If clients had
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all connected to the server with TCP, its failure will be
detected, followed by re-connection and re-registration to another
server. Note that [OUTBOUND] does provide some remedies to this
case.
Flash Crowds: A flash crowd occurs when an extremely large number of
users all attempt to simultaneously make a call. One example of
how this can happen is a television commercial that advertises a
number to call to receive a free gift. If the gift is compelling
and many people see the ad, many calls can be simultaneously made
to the same number. This can send the system into overload.
Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks: An attacker, wishing to disrupt
service in the network, can cause a large amount of traffic to be
launched at a target server. This can be done from a central
source of traffic or through a distributed DoS attack. In all
cases, the volume of traffic well exceeds the capacity of the
server, sending the system into overload.
Unfortunately, the overload problem tends to compound itself. When a
network goes into overload, this can frequently cause failures of the
elements that are trying to process the traffic. This causes even
more load on the remaining elements. Furthermore, during overload,
the overall capacity of functional elements goes down, since much of
their resources are spent just rejecting or treating load that they
cannot actually process. In addition, overload tends to cause SIP
messages to be delayed or lost, which causes retransmissions to be
sent, further increasing the amount of work in the network. This
compounding factor can produce substantial multipliers on the load in
the system. Indeed, in the case of UDP, with as many as seven
retransmits of an INVITE request prior to timeout, overload can
multiply the already-heavy message volume by as much as seven!
3. Terminology
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 RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
4. Current SIP Mechanisms
SIP provides very basic support for overload. It defines the 503
response code, which is sent by an element that is overloaded. RFC
3261 defines it thus:
The server is temporarily unable to process the request due to
a temporary overloading or maintenance of the server. The
server MAY indicate when the client should retry the request in
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a Retry-After header field. If no Retry-After is given, the
client MUST act as if it had received a 500 (Server Internal
Error) response.
A client (proxy or UAC) receiving a 503 (Service Unavailable)
SHOULD attempt to forward the request to an alternate server.
It SHOULD NOT forward any other requests to that server for the
duration specified in the Retry-After header field, if present.
Servers MAY refuse the connection or drop the request instead of
responding with 503 (Service Unavailable).
The objective is to provide a mechanism to move the work of the
overloaded server to another server so that the request can be
processed. The Retry-After header field, when present, is meant to
allow a server to tell an upstream element to back off for a period
of time, so that the overloaded server can work through its backlog
of work.
RFC 3261 also instructs proxies to not forward 503 responses
upstream, at SHOULD NOT strength. This is to avoid the upstream
server of mistakingly concluding that the proxy is overloaded when,
in fact, the problem was an element further downstream.
5. Problems with the Mechanism
At the surface, the 503 mechanism seems workable. Unfortunately,
this mechanism has had numerous problems in actual deployment. These
problems are described here.
5.1. Load Amplification
The principal problem with the 503 mechanism is that it tends to
substantially amplify the load in the network when the network is
overloaded, causing further escalation of the problem and introducing
the very real possibility of congestive collapse. Consider the
topology in Figure 1.
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+------+
> | |
/ | S1 |
/ | |
/ +------+
/
/
/
/
+------+ / +------+
--------> | |/ | |
| P1 |---------> | S2 |
--------> | |\ | |
+------+ \ +------+
\
\
\
\
\
\ +------+
\ | |
> | S3 |
| |
+------+
Figure 1
Proxy P1 receives SIP requests from many sources and acts solely as a
load balancer, proxying the requests to servers S1, S2, and S3 for
processing. The input load increases to the point where all three
servers become overloaded. Server S1, when it receives its next
request, generates a 503. However, because the server is loaded, it
might take some time to generate the 503. If SIP is being run over
UDP, this may result in request retransmissions, which further
increase the work on S1. Even in the case of TCP, if the server is
loaded and the kernel cannot send TCP acknowledgements fast enough,
TCP retransmits may occur. When the 503 is received by P1, it
retries the request on S2. S2 is also overloaded and eventually
generates a 503, but in the interim may also be hit with retransmits.
P1 once again tries another server, this time S3, which also
eventually rejects it with a 503.
Thus, the processing of this request, which ultimately failed,
involved four SIP transactions (client to P1, P1 to S1, P1 to S2, P1
to S3), each of which may have involved many retransmissions -- up to
seven in the case of UDP. Thus, under unloaded conditions, a single
request from a client would generate one request (to S1, S2, or S3)
and two responses (from S1 to P1, then P1 to the client). When the
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network is overloaded, a single request from the client, before
timing out, could generate as many as 18 requests and as many
responses when UDP is used! The situation is better with TCP (or any
reliable transport in general), but even if there was never a TCP
segment retransmitted, a single request from the client can generate
three requests and four responses. Each server had to expend
resources to process these messages. Thus, more messages and more
work were sent into the network at the point at which the elements
became overloaded. The 503 mechanism works well when a single
element is overloaded. But when the problem is overall network load,
the 503 mechanism actually generates more messages and more work for
all servers, ultimately resulting in the rejection of the request
anyway.
The problem becomes amplified further if one considers proxies
upstream from P1, as shown in Figure 2.
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+------+
> | | <
/ | S1 | \\
/ | | \\
/ +------+ \\
/ \
/ \\
/ \\
/ \
+------+ / +------+ +------+
| | / | | | |
| P1 | ---------> | S2 |<----------| P2 |
| | \ | | | |
+------+ \ +------+ +------+
^ \ / ^
\ \ // /
\ \ // /
\ \ // /
\ \ / /
\ \ +------+ // /
\ \ | | // /
\ > | S3 | < /
\ | | /
\ +------+ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
\ /
+------+
| |
| PA |
| |
+------+
^ ^
| |
| |
Figure 2
Here, proxy PA receives requests and sends these to proxies P1 or P2.
P1 and P2 both load balance across S1 through S3. Assuming again S1
through S3 are all overloaded, a request arrives at PA, which tries
P1 first. P1 tries S1, S2, and then S3, and each transaction results
in many request retransmits if UDP is used. Since P1 is unable to
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eventually process the request, it rejects it. However, since all of
its downstream dependencies are busy, it decides to send a 503. This
propagates to PA, which tries P2, which tries S1 through S3 again,
resulting in a 503 once more. Thus, in this case, we have doubled
the number of SIP transactions and overall work in the network
compared to the previous case. The problem here is that the fact
that S1 through S3 were overloaded was known to P1, but this
information was not passed back to PA and through to P2, so that P2
retries S1 through S3 again.
5.2. Underutilization
Interestingly, there are also examples of deployments where the
network capacity was greatly reduced as a consequence of the overload
mechanism. Consider again Figure 1. Unfortunately, RFC 3261 is
unclear on the scope of a 503. When it is received by P1, does the
proxy cease sending requests to that IP address? To the hostname?
To the URI? Some implementations have chosen the hostname as the
scope. When the hostname for a URI points to an SRV record in the
DNS, which, in turn, maps to a cluster of downstream servers (S1, S2,
and S3 in the example), a 503 response from a single one of them will
make the proxy believe that the entire cluster is overloaded.
Consequently, proxy P1 will cease sending any traffic to any element
in the cluster, even though there are elements in the cluster that
are underutilized.
5.3. The Off/On Retry-After Problem
The Retry-After mechanism allows a server to tell an upstream element
to stop sending traffic for a period of time. The work that would
have otherwise been sent to that server is instead sent to another
server. The mechanism is an all-or-nothing technique. A server can
turn off all traffic towards it, or none. There is nothing in
between. This tends to cause highly oscillatory behavior under even
mild overload. Consider a proxy P1 that is balancing requests
between two servers S1 and S2. The input load just reaches the point
where both S1 and S2 are at 100% capacity. A request arrives at P1
and is sent to S1. S1 rejects this request with a 503, and decides
to use Retry-After to clear its backlog. P1 stops sending all
traffic to S1. Now, S2 gets traffic, but it is seriously overloaded
-- at 200% capacity! It decides to reject a request with a 503 and a
Retry-After, which now forces P1 to reject all traffic until S1's
Retry-After timer expires. At that point, all load is shunted back
to S1, which reaches overload, and the cycle repeats.
It's important to observe that this problem is only observed for
servers where there are a small number of upstream elements sending
it traffic, as is the case in these examples. If a proxy is accessed
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by a large number of clients, each of which sends a small amount of
traffic, the 503 mechanism with Retry-After is quite effective when
utilized with a subset of the clients. This is because spreading the
503 out amongst the clients has the effect of providing the proxy
more fine-grained controls on the amount of work it receives.
5.4. Ambiguous Usages
Unfortunately, the specific instances under which a server is to send
a 503 are ambiguous. The result is that implementations generate 503
for many reasons, only some of which are related to actual overload.
For example, RFC 3398 [RFC3398], which specifies interworking from
SIP to ISDN User Part (ISUP), defines the usage of 503 when the
gateway receives certain ISUP cause codes from downstream switches.
In these cases, the gateway has ample capacity; it's just that this
specific request could not be processed because of a downstream
problem. All subsequent requests might succeed if they take a
different route in the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).
This causes two problems. First, during periods of overload, it
exacerbates the problems above because it causes additional 503 to be
fed into the system, causing further work to be generated in
conditions of overload. Second, it becomes hard for an upstream
element to know whether to retry when a 503 is received. There are
classes of failures where trying on another server won't help, since
the reason for the failure was that a common downstream resource is
unavailable. For example, if servers S1 and S2 share a database and
the database fails, a request sent to S1 will result in a 503, but
retrying on S2 won't help since the same database is unavailable.
6. Solution Requirements
In this section, we propose requirements for an overload control
mechanism for SIP that addresses these problems.
REQ 1: The overload mechanism shall strive to maintain the overall
useful throughput (taking into consideration the quality-of-
service needs of the using applications) of a SIP server at
reasonable levels, even when the incoming load on the network is
far in excess of its capacity. The overall throughput under load
is the ultimate measure of the value of an overload control
mechanism.
REQ 2: When a single network element fails, goes into overload, or
suffers from reduced processing capacity, the mechanism should
strive to limit the impact of this on other elements in the
network. This helps to prevent a small-scale failure from
becoming a widespread outage.
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REQ 3: The mechanism should seek to minimize the amount of
configuration required in order to work. For example, it is
better to avoid needing to configure a server with its SIP message
throughput, as these kinds of quantities are hard to determine.
REQ 4: The mechanism must be capable of dealing with elements that
do not support it, so that a network can consist of a mix of
elements that do and don't support it. In other words, the
mechanism should not work only in environments where all elements
support it. It is reasonable to assume that it works better in
such environments, of course. Ideally, there should be
incremental improvements in overall network throughput as
increasing numbers of elements in the network support the
mechanism.
REQ 5: The mechanism should not assume that it will only be deployed
in environments with completely trusted elements. It should seek
to operate as effectively as possible in environments where other
elements are malicious; this includes preventing malicious
elements from obtaining more than a fair share of service.
REQ 6: When overload is signaled by means of a specific message, the
message must clearly indicate that it is being sent because of
overload, as opposed to other, non overload-based failure
conditions. This requirement is meant to avoid some of the
problems that have arisen from the reuse of the 503 response code
for multiple purposes. Of course, overload is also signaled by
lack of response to requests. This requirement applies only to
explicit overload signals.
REQ 7: The mechanism shall provide a way for an element to throttle
the amount of traffic it receives from an upstream element. This
throttling shall be graded so that it is not all-or-nothing as
with the current 503 mechanism. This recognizes the fact that
"overload" is not a binary state and that there are degrees of
overload.
REQ 8: The mechanism shall ensure that, when a request was not
processed successfully due to overload (or failure) of a
downstream element, the request will not be retried on another
element that is also overloaded or whose status is unknown. This
requirement derives from REQ 1.
REQ 9: That a request has been rejected from an overloaded element
shall not unduly restrict the ability of that request to be
submitted to and processed by an element that is not overloaded.
This requirement derives from REQ 1.
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REQ 10: The mechanism should support servers that receive requests
from a large number of different upstream elements, where the set
of upstream elements is not enumerable.
REQ 11: The mechanism should support servers that receive requests
from a finite set of upstream elements, where the set of upstream
elements is enumerable.
REQ 12: The mechanism should work between servers in different
domains.
REQ 13: The mechanism must not dictate a specific algorithm for
prioritizing the processing of work within a proxy during times of
overload. It must permit a proxy to prioritize requests based on
any local policy, so that certain ones (such as a call for
emergency services or a call with a specific value of the
Resource-Priority header field [RFC4412]) are given preferential
treatment, such as not being dropped, being given additional
retransmission, or being processed ahead of others.
REQ 14: The mechanism should provide unambiguous directions to
clients on when they should retry a request and when they should
not. This especially applies to TCP connection establishment and
SIP registrations, in order to mitigate against avalanche restart.
REQ 15: In cases where a network element fails, is so overloaded
that it cannot process messages, or cannot communicate due to a
network failure or network partition, it will not be able to
provide explicit indications of the nature of the failure or its
levels of congestion. The mechanism must properly function in
these cases.
REQ 16: The mechanism should attempt to minimize the overhead of the
overload control messaging.
REQ 17: The overload mechanism must not provide an avenue for
malicious attack, including DoS and DDoS attacks.
REQ 18: The overload mechanism should be unambiguous about whether a
load indication applies to a specific IP address, host, or URI, so
that an upstream element can determine the load of the entity to
which a request is to be sent.
REQ 19: The specification for the overload mechanism should give
guidance on which message types might be desirable to process over
others during times of overload, based on SIP-specific
considerations. For example, it may be more beneficial to process
a SUBSCRIBE refresh with Expires of zero than a SUBSCRIBE refresh
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with a non-zero expiration (since the former reduces the overall
amount of load on the element), or to process re-INVITEs over new
INVITEs.
REQ 20: In a mixed environment of elements that do and do not
implement the overload mechanism, no disproportionate benefit
shall accrue to the users or operators of the elements that do not
implement the mechanism.
REQ 21: The overload mechanism should ensure that the system remains
stable. When the offered load drops from above the overall
capacity of the network to below the overall capacity, the
throughput should stabilize and become equal to the offered load.
REQ 22: It must be possible to disable the reporting of load
information towards upstream targets based on the identity of
those targets. This allows a domain administrator who considers
the load of their elements to be sensitive information, to
restrict access to that information. Of course, in such cases,
there is no expectation that the overload mechanism itself will
help prevent overload from that upstream target.
REQ 23: It must be possible for the overload mechanism to work in
cases where there is a load balancer in front of a farm of
proxies.
7. Security Considerations
Like all protocol mechanisms, a solution for overload handling must
prevent against malicious inside and outside attacks. This document
includes requirements for such security functions.
Any mechanism that improves the behavior of SIP elements under load
will result in more predictable performance in the face of
application-layer denial-of-service attacks.
8. Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Steve Mayer, Mouli Chandramouli,
Robert Whent, Mark Perkins, Joe Stone, Vijay Gurbani, Steve Norreys,
Volker Hilt, Spencer Dawkins, Matt Mathis, Juergen Schoenwaelder, and
Dale Worley for their contributions to this document.
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9. References
9.1. Normative Reference
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
9.2. Informative References
[OUTBOUND] Jennings, C. and R. Mahy, "Managing Client Initiated
Connections in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)",
Work in Progress, October 2008.
[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.
[RFC3398] Camarillo, G., Roach, A., Peterson, J., and L. Ong,
"Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) User Part
(ISUP) to Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Mapping",
RFC 3398, December 2002.
[RFC4412] Schulzrinne, H. and J. Polk, "Communications Resource
Priority for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)",
RFC 4412, February 2006.
Author's Address
Jonathan Rosenberg
Cisco
Edison, NJ
US
EMail: jdrosen@cisco.com
URI: http://www.jdrosen.net
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