TCP Fast Open

In computer networking, TCP Fast Open (TFO) is an extension to speed up the opening of successive Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connections between two endpoints. It works by using a TFO cookie (a TCP option), which is a cryptographic cookie stored on the client side and set upon the initial connection with the server.[1] When the client later reconnects, it sends the initial SYN packet along with the TFO cookie data to authenticate itself. If successful, the server may start sending data to the client even before the reception of the final ACK packet of the three-way handshake, that way skipping a round trip delay and lowering the latency in the start of data transmission.

The cookie is generated by applying a block cipher keyed on a key held secret by the server to the client's IP address, generating an authentication tag that is difficult for third parties to spoof, even if they can forge a source IP address or make two-way connections to the same server from other IP addresses. Although it uses cryptographic techniques to generate the cookie, TFO is not intended to provide more security that the three-way handshake it replaces, and does not give any form of cryptographic protection to the resulting TCP connection, or provide identity assurance about either endpoint. It also is not intended to be resistant to man-in-the-middle attacks.

The proposal was originally presented in 2011[2] and was, as of February 2012, an IETF Internet Draft.[3] The specification was published as RFC 7413 in December 2014.[4] TCP Fast Open shares the goal of bypassing the three-way handshake of TCP with an earlier proposal from 1994, called T/TCP (RFC 1644). In contrast to TCP Fast Open, T/TCP paid no attention to security,[4] opening a path for vulnerabilities and failing to gain traction.

IPv4 support for TFO was merged into the Linux kernel mainline in versions 3.6 (support for clients) and 3.7 (support for servers),[5][6] and was turned on by default in version 3.13.[7] TFO support for IPv6 servers was merged in version 3.16.[8] Google Chrome and Chromium browsers have support for TFO on Linux, including Chrome OS and Android. As of 2015, Apple Inc. has announced that iOS 9 and OS X 10.11, their next operating system versions, will both support TCP Fast Open, but it will not be enabled for individual connections by default.[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kerrisk, Michael (2012-08-01). "TCP Fast Open: expediting web services". LWN.net.
  2. ↑ Radhakrishnan S, Cheng Y, Chu J, Jain A, Raghavan B (2011-12-06). "TCP Fast Open" (PDF). ACM CoNEXT.
  3. ↑ Cheng Y, Chu J, Radhakrishnan S, Jain A (2013-01-26). TCP Fast Open. IETF. I-D draft-ietf-tcpm-fastopen-06. https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tcpm-fastopen-06.
  4. 1 2 Yuchung Cheng, Jerry Chu, Sivasankar Radhakrishnan, and Arvind Jain (December 2014). "TCP Fast Open". IETF. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
  5. ↑ Kerrisk, Michael (2012-08-01). "TCP Fast Open: expediting web services". LWN.net. The client-side support has been merged for Linux 3.6
  6. ↑ Vaughan-Nichols, Steven J (2012-12-11). "Linux 3.7 arrives, ARM developers rejoice". Linux and Open Source (ZDNet). Linux 3.7. TCP Fast Open will now be supported on servers
  7. ↑ "Linux Kernel 3.13, Section 1.10. TCP Fast Open enabled by default". kernelnewbies.org. 19 January 2014. Retrieved 11 February 2014.
  8. ↑ "Linux Kernel 3.16, Section 1.4. TCP Fast Open server mode on IPv6 support". kernelnewbies.org. 3 August 2014. Retrieved 14 September 2014.
  9. ↑ "Your App and Next Generation Networks". Apple Inc. 2015.

External links


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