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+
+CoRE Working Group K. Hartke
+Internet-Draft Universitaet Bremen TZI
+Intended status: Standards Track December 30, 2014
+Expires: July 3, 2015
+
+
+ Observing Resources in CoAP
+ draft-ietf-core-observe-16
+
+Abstract
+
+ The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a RESTful application
+ protocol for constrained nodes and networks. The state of a resource
+ on a CoAP server can change over time. This document specifies a
+ simple protocol extension for CoAP that enables CoAP clients to
+ "observe" resources, i.e., to retrieve a representation of a resource
+ and keep this representation updated by the server over a period of
+ time. The protocol follows a best-effort approach for sending new
+ representations to clients and provides eventual consistency between
+ the state observed by each client and the actual resource state at
+ the server.
+
+Status of This Memo
+
+ This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
+ provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
+
+ Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
+ Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
+ working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
+ Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
+
+ Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
+ and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
+ time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
+ material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
+
+ This Internet-Draft will expire on July 3, 2015.
+
+Copyright Notice
+
+ Copyright (c) 2014 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
+
+
+
+Hartke Expires July 3, 2015 [Page 1]
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+
+ carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
+ to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
+ include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
+ the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
+ described in the Simplified BSD License.
+
+Table of Contents
+
+ 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
+ 1.1. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
+ 1.2. Protocol Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
+ 1.3. Consistency Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
+ 1.4. Observable Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
+ 1.5. Requirements Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
+ 2. The Observe Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
+ 3. Client-side Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
+ 3.1. Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
+ 3.2. Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
+ 3.3. Caching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
+ 3.4. Reordering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
+ 3.5. Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
+ 3.6. Cancellation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
+ 4. Server-side Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
+ 4.1. Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
+ 4.2. Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
+ 4.3. Caching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
+ 4.4. Reordering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
+ 4.5. Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
+ 5. Intermediaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
+ 6. Web Linking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
+ 7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
+ 8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
+ 9. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
+ 10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
+ 10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
+ 10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
+ Appendix A. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
+ A.1. Client/Server Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
+ A.2. Proxy Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
+ Appendix B. Changelog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+1. Introduction
+
+1.1. Background
+
+ The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) [RFC7252] is intended to
+ provide RESTful services [REST] not unlike HTTP [RFC7230] while
+ reducing the complexity of implementation as well as the size of
+ packets exchanged in order to make these services useful in a highly
+ constrained network of themselves highly constrained nodes [RFC7228].
+
+ The model of REST is that of a client exchanging representations of
+ resources with a server, where a representation captures the current
+ or intended state of a resource. The server is the authority for
+ representations of the resources in its namespace. A client
+ interested in the state of a resource initiates a request to the
+ server, the server then returns a response with a representation of
+ the resource that is current at the time of the request.
+
+ This model does not work well when a client is interested in having a
+ current representation of a resource over a period of time. Existing
+ approaches from HTTP, such as repeated polling or HTTP long polling
+ [RFC6202], generate significant complexity and/or overhead and thus
+ are less applicable in a constrained environment.
+
+ The protocol specified in this document extends the CoAP core
+ protocol with a mechanism for a CoAP client to "observe" a resource
+ on a CoAP server: the client retrieves a representation of the
+ resource and requests this representation be updated by the server
+ as long as the client is interested in the resource.
+
+ The protocol keeps the architectural properties of REST. It enables
+ high scalability and efficiency through the support of caches and
+ proxies. There is no intention, though, to solve the full set of
+ problems that the existing HTTP solutions solve, or to replace
+ publish/subscribe networks that solve a much more general problem
+ [RFC5989].
+
+1.2. Protocol Overview
+
+ The protocol is based on the well-known observer design pattern
+ [GOF]. In this design pattern, components called "observers"
+ register at a specific, known provider called the "subject" that they
+ are interested in being notified whenever the subject undergoes a
+ change in state. The subject is responsible for administering its
+ list of registered observers. If multiple subjects are of interest
+ to an observer, the observer must register separately for all of
+ them.
+
+
+
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+ Observer Subject
+ | |
+ | Registration |
+ +------------------->|
+ | |
+ | Notification |
+ |<-------------------+
+ | |
+ | Notification |
+ |<-------------------+
+ | |
+ | Notification |
+ |<-------------------+
+ | |
+
+ Figure 1: The Observer Design Pattern
+
+ The observer design pattern is realized in CoAP as follows:
+
+ Subject: In the context of CoAP, the subject is a resource in the
+ namespace of a CoAP server. The state of the resource can change
+ over time, ranging from infrequent updates to continuous state
+ transformations.
+
+ Observer: An observer is a CoAP client that is interested in having
+ a current representation of the resource at any given time.
+
+ Registration: A client registers its interest in a resource by
+ initiating an extended GET request to the server. In addition to
+ returning a representation of the target resource, this request
+ causes the server to add the client to the list of observers of
+ the resource.
+
+ Notification: Whenever the state of a resource changes, the server
+ notifies each client in the list of observers of the resource.
+ Each notification is an additional CoAP response sent by the
+ server in reply to the single extended GET request, and includes a
+ complete, updated representation of the new resource state.
+
+ Figure 2 below shows an example of a CoAP client registering its
+ interest in a resource and receiving three notifications: the first
+ with the current state upon registration, and then two upon changes
+ to the resource state. Both the registration request and the
+ notifications are identified as such by the presence of the Observe
+ Option defined in this document. In notifications, the Observe
+ Option additionally provides a sequence number for reordering
+ detection. All notifications carry the token specified by the
+ client, so the client can easily correlate them to the request.
+
+
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+ Client Server
+ | |
+ | GET /temperature |
+ | Token: 0x4a | Registration
+ | Observe: 0 |
+ +------------------->|
+ | |
+ | 2.05 Content |
+ | Token: 0x4a | Notification of
+ | Observe: 12 | the current state
+ | Payload: 22.9 Cel |
+ |<-------------------+
+ | |
+ | 2.05 Content |
+ | Token: 0x4a | Notification upon
+ | Observe: 44 | a state change
+ | Payload: 22.8 Cel |
+ |<-------------------+
+ | |
+ | 2.05 Content |
+ | Token: 0x4a | Notification upon
+ | Observe: 60 | a state change
+ | Payload: 23.1 Cel |
+ |<-------------------+
+ | |
+
+ Figure 2: Observing a Resource in CoAP
+
+ A client remains on the list of observers as long as the server can
+ determine the client's continued interest in the resource. The
+ server may send a notification in a confirmable CoAP message to
+ request an acknowledgement from the client. When the client
+ deregisters, rejects a notification, or the transmission of a
+ notification times out after several transmission attempts, the
+ client is considered no longer interested in the resource and is
+ removed by the server from the list of observers.
+
+1.3. Consistency Model
+
+ While a client is in the list of observers of a resource, the goal of
+ the protocol is to keep the resource state observed by the client as
+ closely in sync with the actual state at the server as possible.
+
+ It cannot be avoided that the client and the server become out of
+ sync at times: First, there is always some latency between the change
+ of the resource state and the receipt of the notification. Second,
+ CoAP messages with notifications can get lost, which will cause the
+ client to assume an old state until it receives a new notification.
+
+
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+ And third, the server may erroneously come to the conclusion that the
+ client is no longer interested in the resource, which will cause the
+ server to stop sending notifications and the client to assume an old
+ state until it eventually registers its interest again.
+
+ The protocol addresses this issue as follows:
+
+ o It follows a best-effort approach for sending the current
+ representation to the client after a state change: Clients should
+ see the new state after a state change as soon as possible, and
+ they should see as many states as possible. This is limited by
+ congestion control, however, so a client cannot rely on observing
+ every single state that a resource might go through.
+
+ o It labels notifications with a maximum duration up to which it is
+ acceptable for the observed state and the actual state to be out
+ of sync. When the age of the notification received reaches this
+ limit, the client cannot use the enclosed representation until it
+ receives a new notification.
+
+ o It is designed on the principle of eventual consistency: The
+ protocol guarantees that, if the resource does not undergo a new
+ change in state, eventually all registered observers will have a
+ current representation of the latest resource state.
+
+1.4. Observable Resources
+
+ A CoAP server is the authority for determining under what conditions
+ resources change their state and thus when observers are notified of
+ new resource states. The protocol does not offer explicit means for
+ setting up triggers or thresholds; it is up to the server to expose
+ observable resources that change their state in a way that is useful
+ in the application context.
+
+ For example, a CoAP server with an attached temperature sensor could
+ expose one or more of the following resources:
+
+ o <coap://server/temperature>, which changes its state every few
+ seconds to a current reading of the temperature sensor;
+
+ o <coap://server/temperature/felt>, which changes its state to
+ "COLD" whenever the temperature reading drops below a certain pre-
+ configured threshold, and to "WARM" whenever the reading exceeds a
+ second, slightly higher threshold;
+
+ o <coap://server/temperature/critical?above=42>, which changes its
+ state based on the client-specified parameter value: every few
+ seconds to the current temperature reading if the temperature
+
+
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+ exceeds the threshold, or to "OK" when the reading drops below;
+
+ o <coap://server/?query=select+avg(temperature)+from+Sensor.window:
+ time(30sec)>, which accepts expressions of arbitrary complexity
+ and changes its state accordingly.
+
+ Thus, by designing CoAP resources that change their state on certain
+ conditions, it is possible to update the client only when these
+ conditions occur instead of supplying it continuously with raw sensor
+ data. By parameterizing resources, this is not limited to conditions
+ defined by the server, but can be extended to arbitrarily complex
+ queries specified by the client. The application designer therefore
+ can choose exactly the right level of complexity for the application
+ envisioned and devices involved, and is not constrained to a "one
+ size fits all" mechanism built into the protocol.
+
+1.5. Requirements Notation
+
+ 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].
+
+2. The Observe Option
+
+ The Observe Option has the following properties. Its meaning depends
+ on whether it is included in a GET request or in a response.
+
+ +-----+---+---+---+---+---------+--------+--------+---------+
+ | No. | C | U | N | R | Name | Format | Length | Default |
+ +-----+---+---+---+---+---------+--------+--------+---------+
+ | 6 | | x | - | | Observe | uint | 0-3 B | (none) |
+ +-----+---+---+---+---+---------+--------+--------+---------+
+
+ C=Critical, U=Unsafe, N=No-Cache-Key, R=Repeatable
+
+ Table 1: The Observe Option
+
+ When included in a GET request, the Observe Option extends the GET
+ method so it does not only retrieve a current representation of the
+ target resource, but also requests the server to add or remove an
+ entry in the list of observers of the resource, depending on the
+ option value. The list entry consists of the client endpoint and the
+ token specified by the client in the request. Possible values are:
+
+ 0 (register) adds the entry to the list, if not present;
+
+ 1 (deregister) removes the entry from the list, if present.
+
+
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+ The Observe Option is not critical for processing the request. If
+ the server is unwilling or unable to add a new entry to the list of
+ observers, then the request falls back to a normal GET request, and
+ the response does not include the Observe Option.
+
+ The Observe Option is not part of the cache-key: a cacheable response
+ obtained with an Observe Option in the request can be used to satisfy
+ a request without an Observe Option, and vice versa. When a stored
+ response with an Observe Option is used to satisfy a normal GET
+ request, the option MUST be removed before the response is returned.
+
+ When included in a response, the Observe Option identifies the
+ message as a notification. This implies that a matching entry exists
+ in the list of observers and that the server will notify the client
+ of changes to the resource state. The option value is a sequence
+ number for reordering detection (see Section 3.4 and Section 4.4).
+
+ The value of the Observe Option is encoded as an unsigned integer in
+ network byte order using a variable number of bytes ('uint' option
+ format); see Section 3.2 of RFC 7252 [RFC7252].
+
+3. Client-side Requirements
+
+3.1. Request
+
+ A client registers its interest in a resource by issuing a GET
+ request with an Observe Option set to 0 (register). If the server
+ returns a 2.xx response that includes an Observe Option as well, the
+ server has successfully added an entry with the client endpoint and
+ request token to the list of observers of the target resource and the
+ client will be notified of changes to the resource state.
+
+ Like a fresh response can be used to satisfy a request without
+ contacting the server, the stream of updates resulting from one
+ observation request can be used to satisfy another (observation or
+ normal GET) request if the target resource is the same. A client
+ MUST aggregate such requests and MUST NOT register more than once for
+ the same target resource. The target resource is identified by all
+ options in the request that are part of the cache-key. This
+ includes, for example, the full request URI and the Accept Option.
+
+3.2. Notifications
+
+ Notifications are additional responses sent by the server in reply to
+ the single extended GET request that created the registration. Each
+ notification includes the token specified by the client in the
+ request. The only difference between a notification and a normal
+ response is the presence of the Observe Option.
+
+
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+ Notifications typically have a 2.05 (Content) response code. They
+ include an Observe Option with a sequence number for reordering
+ detection (see Section 3.4), and a payload in the same Content-Format
+ as the initial response. If the client included one or more ETag
+ Options in the GET request (see Section 3.3), notifications can have
+ a 2.03 (Valid) response code rather than a 2.05 (Content) response
+ code. Such notifications include an Observe Option with a sequence
+ number but no payload.
+
+ In the event that the resource changes in a way that would cause a
+ normal GET request at that time to return a non-2.xx response (for
+ example, when the resource is deleted), the server sends a
+ notification with an appropriate response code (such as 4.04 Not
+ Found) and removes the client's entry from the list of observers of
+ the resource. Non-2.xx responses do not include an Observe Option.
+
+3.3. Caching
+
+ As notifications are just additional responses to a GET request,
+ notifications partake in caching as defined in Section 5.6 of RFC
+ 7252 [RFC7252]. Both the freshness model and the validation model
+ are supported.
+
+3.3.1. Freshness
+
+ A client MAY store a notification like a response in its cache and
+ use a stored notification that is fresh without contacting the
+ server. Like a response, a notification is considered fresh while
+ its age is not greater than the value indicated by the Max-Age Option
+ (and no newer notification/response has been received).
+
+ The server will do its best to keep the resource state observed by
+ the client as closely in sync with the actual state as possible.
+ However, a client cannot rely on observing every single state that a
+ resource might go through. For example, if the network is congested
+ or the state changes more frequently than the network can handle, the
+ server can skip notifications for any number of intermediate states.
+
+ The server uses the Max-Age Option to indicate an age up to which it
+ is acceptable that the observed state and the actual state are
+ inconsistent. If the age of the latest notification becomes greater
+ than its indicated Max-Age, then the client MUST NOT assume that the
+ enclosed representation reflects the actual resource state.
+
+ To make sure it has a current representation and/or to re-register
+ its interest in a resource, a client MAY issue a new GET request with
+ the same token as the original at any time. All options MUST be
+ identical to those in the original request, except for the set of
+
+
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+ ETag Options. It is RECOMMENDED that the client does not issue the
+ request while it still has a fresh notification/response for the
+ resource in its cache. Additionally, the client SHOULD at least wait
+ for a random amount of time between 5 and 15 seconds after Max-Age
+ expired to reduce collisions with other clients.
+
+3.3.2. Validation
+
+ When a client has one or more notifications stored in its cache for a
+ resource, it can use the ETag Option in the GET request to give the
+ server an opportunity to select a stored notification to be used.
+
+ The client MAY include an ETag Option for each stored response that
+ is applicable in the GET request. Whenever the observed resource
+ changes to a representation identified by one of the ETag Options,
+ the server can select a stored response by sending a 2.03 (Valid)
+ notification with an appropriate ETag Option instead of a 2.05
+ (Content) notification.
+
+ A client implementation needs to keep all candidate responses in its
+ cache until it is no longer interested in the target resource or it
+ re-registers with a new set of entity-tags.
+
+3.4. Reordering
+
+ Messages with notifications can arrive in a different order than they
+ were sent. Since the goal is to keep the observed state as closely
+ in sync with the actual state as possible, a client MUST consider the
+ notification that was sent most recently as the freshest, regardless
+ of the order of arrival.
+
+ To provide an order among notifications for the client, the server
+ sets the value of the Observe Option in each notification to the 24
+ least-significant bits of a strictly increasing sequence number. An
+ incoming notification was sent more recently than the freshest
+ notification so far when one of the following conditions is met:
+
+ (V1 < V2 and V2 - V1 < 2^23) or
+ (V1 > V2 and V1 - V2 > 2^23) or
+ (T2 > T1 + 128 seconds)
+
+ where V1 is the value of the Observe Option in the freshest
+ notification so far, V2 the value of the Observe Option in the
+ incoming notification, T1 a client-local timestamp for the freshest
+ notification so far, and T2 a client-local timestamp for the incoming
+ notification.
+
+
+
+
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+ Design Note: The first two conditions verify that V1 is less than V2
+ in 24-bit serial number arithmetic [RFC1982]. The third condition
+ ensures that, if the server is generating serial numbers based on
+ a local clock, the time elapsed between the two incoming messages
+ is not so large that the difference between V1 and V2 has become
+ larger than the largest integer that it is meaningful to add to a
+ 24-bit serial number; in other words, after 128 seconds have
+ elapsed without any notification, a client does not need to check
+ the sequence numbers to assume that an incoming notification was
+ sent more recently than the freshest notification it has received
+ so far.
+
+ The duration of 128 seconds was chosen as a nice round number
+ greater than MAX_LATENCY (Section 4.8.2 of RFC 7252 [RFC7252]).
+
+3.5. Transmission
+
+ A notification can be confirmable or non-confirmable, i.e., it can be
+ sent in a confirmable or a non-confirmable message. The message type
+ used for a notification is independent of the type used for the
+ request and of any previous notification.
+
+ If a client does not recognize the token in a confirmable
+ notification, it MUST NOT acknowledge the message and SHOULD reject
+ it with a Reset message; otherwise, the client MUST acknowledge the
+ message as usual. In the case of a non-confirmable notification,
+ rejecting the message with a Reset message is OPTIONAL.
+
+ An acknowledgement message signals to the server that the client is
+ alive and interested in receiving further notifications; if the
+ server does not receive an acknowledgement in reply to a confirmable
+ notification, it will assume that the client is no longer interested
+ and will eventually remove the associated entry from the list of
+ observers.
+
+3.6. Cancellation
+
+ A client that is no longer interested in receiving notifications for
+ a resource can simply "forget" the observation. When the server then
+ sends the next notification, the client will not recognize the token
+ in the message and thus will return a Reset message. This causes the
+ server to remove the associated entry from the list of observers.
+ The entries in lists of observers are effectively "garbage collected"
+ by the server.
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+ Implementation Note: Due to potential message loss, the Reset
+ message may not reach the server. The client may therefore have
+ to reject multiple notifications, each with one Reset message,
+ until the server finally removes the associated entry from the
+ list of observers and stops sending notifications.
+
+ In some circumstances, it may be desirable to cancel an observation
+ and release the resources allocated by the server to it more eagerly.
+ In this case, a client MAY explicitly deregister by issuing a GET
+ request which has the Token field set to the token of the observation
+ to be cancelled and includes an Observe Option with the value set to
+ 1 (deregister). All other options MUST be identical to those in the
+ registration request, except for the set of ETag Options. When the
+ server receives such a request, it will remove any matching entry
+ from the list of observers and process the GET request as usual.
+
+4. Server-side Requirements
+
+4.1. Request
+
+ A GET request with an Observe Option set to 0 (register) requests the
+ server not only to return a current representation of the target
+ resource, but also to add the client to the list of observers of that
+ resource. Upon success, the server returns a current representation
+ of the resource and MUST keep this representation updated (as
+ described in Section 1.3) as long as the client is on the list of
+ observers.
+
+ The entry in the list of observers is keyed by the client endpoint
+ and the token specified by the client in the request. If an entry
+ with a matching endpoint/token pair is already present in the list
+ (which, for example, happens when the client wishes to reinforce its
+ interest in a resource), the server MUST NOT add a new entry but MUST
+ replace or update the existing one.
+
+ A server that is unable or unwilling to add a new entry to the list
+ of observers of a resource MAY silently ignore the registration
+ request and process the GET request as usual. The resulting response
+ MUST NOT include an Observe Option, the absence of which signals to
+ the client that it will not be notified of changes to the resource
+ and, e.g., needs to poll the resource for its state instead.
+
+ If the Observe Option in a GET request is set to 1 (deregister), then
+ the server MUST remove any existing entry with a matching endpoint/
+ token pair from the list of observers and process the GET request as
+ usual. The resulting response MUST NOT include an Observe Option.
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+4.2. Notifications
+
+ A client is notified of changes to the resource state by additional
+ responses sent by the server in reply to the GET request. Each such
+ notification response (including the initial response) MUST echo the
+ token specified by the client in the GET request. If there are
+ multiple entries in the list of observers, the order in which the
+ clients are notified is not defined; the server is free to use any
+ method to determine the order.
+
+ A notification SHOULD have a 2.05 (Content) or 2.03 (Valid) response
+ code. However, in the event that the state of a resource changes in
+ a way that would cause a normal GET request at that time to return a
+ non-2.xx response (for example, when the resource is deleted), the
+ server SHOULD notify the client by sending a notification with an
+ appropriate response code (such as 4.04 Not Found) and subsequently
+ MUST remove the associated entry from the list of observers of the
+ resource.
+
+ The Content-Format specified in a 2.xx notification MUST be the same
+ as the one used in the initial response to the GET request. If the
+ server is unable to continue sending notifications in this format, it
+ SHOULD send a notification with a 4.06 (Not Acceptable) response code
+ and subsequently MUST remove the associated entry from the list of
+ observers of the resource.
+
+ A 2.xx notification MUST include an Observe Option with a sequence
+ number as specified in Section 4.4 below; a non-2.xx notification
+ MUST NOT include an Observe Option.
+
+4.3. Caching
+
+ As notifications are just additional responses sent by the server in
+ reply to a GET request, they are subject to caching as defined in
+ Section 5.6 of RFC 7252 [RFC7252].
+
+4.3.1. Freshness
+
+ After returning the initial response, the server MUST keep the
+ resource state that is observed by the client as closely in sync with
+ the actual resource state as possible.
+
+ Since becoming out of sync at times cannot be avoided, the server
+ MUST indicate for each representation an age up to which it is
+ acceptable that the observed state and the actual state are
+ inconsistent. This age is application-dependent and MUST be
+ specified in notifications using the Max-Age Option.
+
+
+
+
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+
+ When the resource does not change and the client has a current
+ representation, the server does not need to send a notification.
+ However, if the client does not receive a notification, the client
+ cannot tell if the observed state and the actual state are still in
+ sync. Thus, when the age of the latest notification becomes greater
+ than its indicated Max-Age, the client no longer has a usable
+ representation of the resource state. The server MAY wish to prevent
+ that by sending a new notification with the unchanged representation
+ and a new Max-Age just before the Max-Age indicated earlier expires.
+
+4.3.2. Validation
+
+ A client can include a set of entity-tags in its request using the
+ ETag Option. When a observed resource changes its state and the
+ origin server is about to send a 2.05 (Content) notification, then,
+ whenever that notification has an entity-tag in the set of entity-
+ tags specified by the client, the server MAY send a 2.03 (Valid)
+ response with an appropriate ETag Option instead.
+
+4.4. Reordering
+
+ Because messages can get reordered, the client needs a way to
+ determine if a notification arrived later than a newer notification.
+ For this purpose, the server MUST set the value of the Observe Option
+ of each notification it sends to the 24 least-significant bits of a
+ strictly increasing sequence number. The sequence number MAY start
+ at any value and MUST NOT increase so fast that it increases by more
+ than 2^23 within less than 256 seconds.
+
+ The sequence number selected for a notification MUST be greater than
+ that of any preceding notification sent to the same client with the
+ same token for the same resource. The value of the Observe Option
+ MUST be current at the time of transmission; if a notification is
+ retransmitted, the server MUST update the value of the option to the
+ sequence number that is current at that time before retransmission.
+
+ Implementation Note: A simple implementation that satisfies the
+ requirements is to obtain a timestamp from a local clock. The
+ sequence number then is the timestamp in ticks, where 1 tick =
+ (256 seconds)/(2^23) = 30.52 microseconds. It is not necessary
+ that the clock reflects the current time/date.
+
+ Another valid implementation is to store a 24-bit unsigned integer
+ variable per resource and increment this variable each time the
+ resource undergoes a change of state (provided that the resource
+ changes its state less than 2^23 times in the first 256 seconds
+ after every state change). This removes the need to update the
+ value of the Observe Option on retransmission when the resource
+
+
+
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+
+ state did not change.
+
+ Design Note: The choice of a 24-bit option value and a time span of
+ 256 seconds theoretically allows for a notification rate of up to
+ 65536 notifications per second. Constrained nodes often have
+ rather imprecise clocks, though, and inaccuracies of the client
+ and server side may cancel out or add in effect. Therefore, the
+ maximum notification rate is reduced to 32768 notifications per
+ second. This is still well beyond the highest known design
+ objective of around 1 kHz (most CoAP applications will be several
+ orders of magnitude below that), but allows total clock
+ inaccuracies of up to -50/+100 %.
+
+4.5. Transmission
+
+ A notification can be sent in a confirmable or a non-confirmable
+ message. The message type used is typically application-dependent
+ and may be determined by the server for each notification
+ individually.
+
+ For example, for resources that change in a somewhat predictable or
+ regular fashion, notifications can be sent in non-confirmable
+ messages; for resources that change infrequently, notifications can
+ be sent in confirmable messages. The server can combine these two
+ approaches depending on the frequency of state changes and the
+ importance of individual notifications.
+
+ A server MAY choose to skip sending a notification if it knows that
+ it will send another notification soon, for example, when the state
+ of a resource is changing frequently. It also MAY choose to send
+ more than one notification for the same resource state. However,
+ above all, the server MUST ensure that a client in the list of
+ observers of a resource eventually observes the latest state if the
+ resource does not undergo a new change in state.
+
+ For example, when state changes occur in bursts, the server can skip
+ some notifications, send the notifications in non-confirmable
+ messages, and make sure that the client observes the latest state
+ change by repeating the last notification in a confirmable message
+ when the burst is over.
+
+ The client's acknowledgement of a confirmable notification signals
+ that the client is interested in receiving further notifications. If
+ a client rejects a confirmable or non-confirmable notification with a
+ Reset message, or if the last attempt to retransmit a confirmable
+ notification times out, then the client is considered no longer
+ interested and the server MUST remove the associated entry from the
+ list of observers.
+
+
+
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+
+ Implementation Note: To properly process a Reset message that
+ rejects a non-confirmable notification, a server needs to remember
+ the message IDs of the non-confirmable notifications it sends.
+ This may be challenging for a server with constrained resources.
+ However, since Reset messages are transmitted unreliably, the
+ client must be prepared that its Reset messages aren't received by
+ the server. A server thus can always pretend that a Reset message
+ rejecting a non-confirmable notification was lost. If a server
+ does this, it could accelerate cancellation by sending the
+ following notifications to that client in confirmable messages.
+
+ A server that transmits notifications mostly in non-confirmable
+ messages MUST send a notification in a confirmable message instead of
+ a non-confirmable message at least every 24 hours. This prevents a
+ client that went away or is no longer interested from remaining in
+ the list of observers indefinitely.
+
+4.5.1. Congestion Control
+
+ Basic congestion control for CoAP is provided by the exponential
+ back-off mechanism in Section 4.2 of RFC 7252 [RFC7252] and the
+ limitations in Section 4.7 of RFC 7252 [RFC7252]. However, CoAP
+ places the responsibility of congestion control for simple request/
+ response interactions only on the clients: rate limiting request
+ transmission implicitly controls the transmission of the responses.
+ When a single request yields a potentially infinite number of
+ notifications, additional responsibility needs to be placed on the
+ server.
+
+ In order not to cause congestion, servers MUST strictly limit the
+ number of simultaneous outstanding notifications/responses that they
+ transmit to a given client to NSTART (1 by default; see Section 4.7
+ of RFC 7252 [RFC7252]). An outstanding notification/response is
+ either a confirmable message for which an acknowledgement has not yet
+ been received and whose last retransmission attempt has not yet timed
+ out, or a non-confirmable message for which the waiting time that
+ results from the following rate limiting rules has not yet elapsed.
+
+ The server SHOULD NOT send more than one non-confirmable notification
+ per round-trip time (RTT) to a client on average. If the server
+ cannot maintain an RTT estimate for a client, it SHOULD NOT send more
+ than one non-confirmable notification every 3 seconds, and SHOULD use
+ an even less aggressive rate when possible (see also Section 3.1.2 of
+ RFC 5405 [RFC5405]).
+
+ Further congestion control optimizations and considerations are
+ expected in the future with advanced CoAP congestion control
+ mechanisms.
+
+
+
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+
+4.5.2. Advanced Transmission
+
+ The state of an observed resource may change while the number of the
+ number of simultaneous outstanding notifications/responses to a
+ client on the list of observers is greater than or equal to NSTART.
+ In this case, the server cannot notify the client of the new resource
+ state immediately but has to wait for an outstanding notification/
+ response to complete first.
+
+ If there exists an outstanding notification/response that the server
+ transmits to the client and that pertains to the changed resource,
+ then it is desirable for the server to stop working towards getting
+ the representation of the old resource state to the client, and to
+ start transmitting the current representation to the client instead,
+ so the resource state observed by the client stays closer in sync
+ with the actual state at the server.
+
+ For this purpose, the server MAY optimize the transmission process by
+ aborting the transmission of the old notification (but not before the
+ current transmission attempt completed) and starting a new
+ transmission for the new notification (but with the retransmission
+ timer and counter of the aborted transmission retained).
+
+ In more detail, a server MAY supersede an outstanding transmission
+ that pertains to an observation as follows:
+
+ 1. Wait for the current (re-)transmission attempt to be
+ acknowledged, rejected or to time out (confirmable transmission);
+ or wait for the waiting time to elapse or the transmission to be
+ rejected (non-confirmable transmission).
+
+ 2. If the transmission is rejected or it was the last attempt to
+ retransmit a notification, remove the associated entry from the
+ list of observers of the observed resource.
+
+ 3. If the entry is still in the list of observers, start to transmit
+ a new notification with a representation of the current resource
+ state. Should the resource have changed its state more than once
+ in the meantime, the notifications for the intermediate states
+ are silently skipped.
+
+ 4. The new notification is transmitted with a new Message ID and the
+ following transmission parameters: If the previous
+ (re-)transmission attempt timed out, retain its transmission
+ parameters, increment the retransmission counter and double the
+ timeout; otherwise, initialize the transmission parameters as
+ usual (see Section 4.2 of RFC 7252 [RFC7252]).
+
+
+
+
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+
+
+ It is possible that the server later receives an acknowledgement for
+ a confirmable notification that it superseded this way. Even though
+ this does not signal consistency, it is valuable in that it signals
+ the client's further interest in the resource. The server therefore
+ should avoid inadvertently removing the associated entry from the
+ list of observers.
+
+5. Intermediaries
+
+ A client may be interested in a resource in the namespace of a server
+ that is reached through a chain of one or more CoAP intermediaries.
+ In this case, the client registers its interest with the first
+ intermediary towards the server, acting as if it was communicating
+ with the server itself, as specified in Section 3. It is the task of
+ this intermediary to provide the client with a current representation
+ of the target resource and to keep the representation updated upon
+ changes to the resource state, as specified in Section 4.
+
+ To perform this task, the intermediary SHOULD make use of the
+ protocol specified in this document, taking the role of the client
+ and registering its own interest in the target resource with the next
+ hop towards the server. If the response returned by the next hop
+ doesn't include an Observe Option, the intermediary MAY resort to
+ polling the next hop or MAY itself return a response without an
+ Observe Option.
+
+ The communication between each pair of hops is independent; each hop
+ in the server role MUST determine individually how many notifications
+ to send, of which message type, and so on. Each hop MUST generate
+ its own values for the Observe Option in notifications, and MUST set
+ the value of the Max-Age Option according to the age of the local
+ current representation.
+
+ If two or more clients have registered their interest in a resource
+ with an intermediary, the intermediary MUST register itself only once
+ with the next hop and fan out the notifications it receives to all
+ registered clients. This relieves the next hop from sending the same
+ notifications multiple times and thus enables scalability.
+
+ An intermediary is not required to act on behalf of a client to
+ observe a resource; an intermediary MAY observe a resource, for
+ example, just to keep its own cache up to date.
+
+ See Appendix A.2 for examples.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+
+6. Web Linking
+
+ A web link [RFC5988] to a resource accessible over CoAP (for example,
+ in a link-format document [RFC6690]) MAY include the target attribute
+ "obs".
+
+ The "obs" attribute, when present, is a hint indicating that the
+ destination of a link is useful for observation and thus, for
+ example, should have a suitable graphical representation in a user
+ interface. Note that this is only a hint; it is not a promise that
+ the Observe Option can actually be used to perform the observation.
+ A client may need to resort to polling the resource if the Observe
+ Option is not returned in the response to the GET request.
+
+ A value MUST NOT be given for the "obs" attribute; any present value
+ MUST be ignored by parsers. The "obs" attribute MUST NOT appear more
+ than once in a given link-value; occurrences after the first MUST be
+ ignored by parsers.
+
+7. Security Considerations
+
+ The security considerations in Section 11 of the CoAP specification
+ [RFC7252] apply.
+
+ Observing resources can dramatically increase the negative effects of
+ amplification attacks. That is, not only can notifications messages
+ be much larger than the request message, but the nature of the
+ protocol can cause a significant number of notifications to be
+ generated. Without client authentication, a server therefore MUST
+ strictly limit the number of notifications that it sends between
+ receiving acknowledgements that confirm the actual interest of the
+ client in the data; i.e., any notifications sent in non-confirmable
+ messages MUST be interspersed with confirmable messages. (An
+ attacker may still spoof the acknowledgements if the confirmable
+ messages are sufficiently predictable.)
+
+ The protocol follows a best-effort approach for keeping the state
+ observed by a client and the actual resource state at a server in
+ sync. This may have the client and the server become out of sync at
+ times. Depending on the sensitivity of the observed resource,
+ operating on an old state might be a security threat. The client
+ therefore must be careful not to use a representation after its Max-
+ Age expires, and the server must set the Max-Age Option to a sensible
+ value.
+
+ As with any protocol that creates state, attackers may attempt to
+ exhaust the resources that the server has available for maintaining
+ the list of observers for each resource. Servers may want to apply
+
+
+
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+
+
+ access controls to this creation of state. As degraded behavior, the
+ server can always fall back to processing the request as a normal GET
+ request (without an Observe Option) if it is unwilling or unable to
+ add a client to the list of observers of a resource, including if
+ system resources are exhausted or nearing exhaustion.
+
+ Intermediaries must be careful to ensure that notifications cannot be
+ employed to create a loop. A simple way to break any loops is to
+ employ caches for forwarding notifications in intermediaries.
+
+ Resources can be observed over DTLS-secured CoAP using any of the
+ security modes described in Section 9 of RFC 7252. The use of DTLS
+ is indicated by the "coaps" URI scheme. All notifications resulting
+ from a GET request with an Observe Option MUST be returned within the
+ same epoch of the same connection as the request.
+
+8. IANA Considerations
+
+ The following entry is added to the CoAP Option Numbers registry:
+
+ +--------+---------+-----------+
+ | Number | Name | Reference |
+ +--------+---------+-----------+
+ | 6 | Observe | [RFCXXXX] |
+ +--------+---------+-----------+
+
+ [Note to RFC Editor: Please replace XXXX with the RFC number of this
+ specification.]
+
+9. Acknowledgements
+
+ Carsten Bormann was an original author of this draft and is
+ acknowledged for significant contribution to this document.
+
+ Thanks to Daniele Alessandrelli, Jari Arkko, Peter A. Bigot, Angelo
+ P. Castellani, Gilbert Clark, Esko Dijk, Thomas Fossati, Brian Frank,
+ Bert Greevenbosch, Jeroen Hoebeke, Cullen Jennings, Matthias
+ Kovatsch, Barry Leiba, Salvatore Loreto, Charles Palmer, Akbar
+ Rahman, Zach Shelby, and Floris Van den Abeele for helpful comments
+ and discussions that have shaped the document.
+
+ This work was supported in part by Klaus Tschira Foundation, Intel,
+ Cisco, and Nokia.
+
+10. References
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
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+
+
+10.1. Normative References
+
+ [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
+ Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
+
+ [RFC5988] Nottingham, M., "Web Linking", RFC 5988, October 2010.
+
+ [RFC7252] Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained
+ Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252, June 2014.
+
+10.2. Informative References
+
+ [GOF] Gamma, E., Helm, R., Johnson, R., and J. Vlissides,
+ "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented
+ Software", Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, USA,
+ November 1994.
+
+ [REST] Fielding, R., "Architectural Styles and the Design of
+ Network-based Software Architectures", Ph.D. Dissertation,
+ University of California, Irvine, 2000, <http://
+ www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/
+ fielding_dissertation.pdf>.
+
+ [RFC1982] Elz, R. and R. Bush, "Serial Number Arithmetic", RFC 1982,
+ August 1996.
+
+ [RFC5405] Eggert, L. and G. Fairhurst, "Unicast UDP Usage Guidelines
+ for Application Designers", BCP 145, RFC 5405,
+ November 2008.
+
+ [RFC5989] Roach, A., "A SIP Event Package for Subscribing to Changes
+ to an HTTP Resource", RFC 5989, October 2010.
+
+ [RFC6202] Loreto, S., Saint-Andre, P., Salsano, S., and G. Wilkins,
+ "Known Issues and Best Practices for the Use of Long
+ Polling and Streaming in Bidirectional HTTP", RFC 6202,
+ April 2011.
+
+ [RFC6690] Shelby, Z., "Constrained RESTful Environments (CoRE) Link
+ Format", RFC 6690, August 2012.
+
+ [RFC7228] Bormann, C., Ersue, M., and A. Keranen, "Terminology for
+ Constrained-Node Networks", RFC 7228, May 2014.
+
+ [RFC7230] Fielding, R. and J. Reschke, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol
+ (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing", RFC 7230,
+ June 2014.
+
+
+
+
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+
+
+Appendix A. Examples
+
+A.1. Client/Server Examples
+
+ Observed CLIENT SERVER Actual
+ t State | | State
+ ____________ | | ____________
+ 1 | |
+ 2 unknown | | 18.5 Cel
+ 3 +----->| Header: GET 0x41011633
+ 4 | GET | Token: 0x4a
+ 5 | | Uri-Path: temperature
+ 6 | | Observe: 0 (register)
+ 7 | |
+ 8 | |
+ 9 ____________ |<-----+ Header: 2.05 0x61451633
+ 10 | 2.05 | Token: 0x4a
+ 11 18.5 Cel | | Observe: 9
+ 12 | | Max-Age: 15
+ 13 | | Payload: "18.5 Cel"
+ 14 | |
+ 15 | | ____________
+ 16 ____________ |<-----+ Header: 2.05 0x51457b50
+ 17 | 2.05 | 19.2 Cel Token: 0x4a
+ 18 19.2 Cel | | Observe: 16
+ 29 | | Max-Age: 15
+ 20 | | Payload: "19.2 Cel"
+ 21 | |
+
+ Figure 3: A client registers and receives one notification of the
+ current state and one of a new state upon a state change
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+ Observed CLIENT SERVER Actual
+ t State | | State
+ ____________ | | ____________
+ 22 | |
+ 23 19.2 Cel | | 19.2 Cel
+ 24 | | ____________
+ 25 | X----+ Header: 2.05 0x51457b51
+ 26 | 2.05 | 19.7 Cel Token: 0x4a
+ 27 | | Observe: 25
+ 28 | | Max-Age: 15
+ 29 | | Payload: "19.7 Cel"
+ 30 | |
+ 31 ____________ | |
+ 32 | |
+ 33 19.2 Cel | |
+ 34 (stale) | |
+ 35 | |
+ 36 | |
+ 37 | |
+ 38 +----->| Header: GET 0x41011634
+ 39 | GET | Token: 0xb2
+ 40 | | Uri-Path: temperature
+ 41 | | Observe: 0 (register)
+ 42 | |
+ 43 | |
+ 44 ____________ |<-----+ Header: 2.05 0x61451634
+ 45 | 2.05 | Token: 0xb2
+ 46 19.7 Cel | | Observe: 44
+ 47 | | Max-Age: 15
+ 48 | | ETag: 0x78797a7a79
+ 49 | | Payload: "19.7 Cel"
+ 50 | |
+
+ Figure 4: The client re-registers after Max-Age ends
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+
+ Observed CLIENT SERVER Actual
+ t State | | State
+ ____________ | | ____________
+ 51 | |
+ 52 19.7 Cel | | 19.7 Cel
+ 53 | |
+ 54 | | ____________
+ 55 | crash
+ 56 |
+ 57 |
+ 58 |
+ 59 ____________ |
+ 60 |
+ 61 19.7 Cel |
+ 62 (stale) |
+ 63 | reboot____________
+ 64 | |
+ 65 | | 20.0 Cel
+ 66 | |
+ 67 +----->| Header: GET 0x41011635
+ 68 | GET | Token: 0xf9
+ 69 | | Uri-Path: temperature
+ 70 | | Observe: 0 (register)
+ 71 | | ETag: 0x78797a7a79
+ 72 | |
+ 73 | |
+ 74 ____________ |<-----+ Header: 2.05 0x61451635
+ 75 | 2.05 | Token: 0xf9
+ 76 20.0 Cel | | Observe: 74
+ 77 | | Max-Age: 15
+ 78 | | Payload: "20.0 Cel"
+ 79 | |
+ 80 | | ____________
+ 81 ____________ |<-----+ Header: 2.03 0x5143aa0c
+ 82 | 2.03 | 19.7 Cel Token: 0xf9
+ 83 19.7 Cel | | Observe: 81
+ 84 | | ETag: 0x78797a7a79
+ 85 | | Max-Age: 15
+ 86 | |
+
+ Figure 5: The client re-registers and gives the server the
+ opportunity to select a stored response
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+ Observed CLIENT SERVER Actual
+ t State | | State
+ ____________ | | ____________
+ 87 | |
+ 88 19.7 Cel | | 19.7 Cel
+ 89 | |
+ 90 | | ____________
+ 91 ____________ |<-----+ Header: 2.05 0x4145aa0f
+ 92 | 2.05 | 19.3 Cel Token: 0xf9
+ 93 19.3 Cel | | Observe: 91
+ 94 | | Max-Age: 15
+ 95 | | Payload: "19.3 Cel"
+ 96 | |
+ 97 | |
+ 98 +- - ->| Header: 0x7000aa0f
+ 99 | |
+ 100 | |
+ 101 | |
+ 102 | | ____________
+ 103 | |
+ 104 | | 19.0 Cel
+ 105 | |
+ 106 ____________ | |
+ 107 | |
+ 108 19.3 Cel | |
+ 109 (stale) | |
+ 110 | |
+
+ Figure 6: The client rejects a notification and thereby cancels the
+ observation
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+
+A.2. Proxy Examples
+
+ CLIENT PROXY SERVER
+ | | |
+ | +----->| Header: GET 0x41015fb8
+ | | GET | Token: 0x1a
+ | | | Uri-Host: sensor.example
+ | | | Uri-Path: status
+ | | | Observe: 0 (register)
+ | | |
+ | |<-----+ Header: 2.05 0x61455fb8
+ | | 2.05 | Token: 0x1a
+ | | | Observe: 42
+ | | | Max-Age: 60
+ | | | Payload: "ready"
+ | | |
+ +----->| | Header: GET 0x41011633
+ | GET | | Token: 0x9a
+ | | | Proxy-Uri: coap://sensor.example/status
+ | | |
+ |<-----+ | Header: 2.05 0x61451633
+ | 2.05 | | Token: 0x9a
+ | | | Max-Age: 53
+ | | | Payload: "ready"
+ | | |
+ | |<-----+ Header: 2.05 0x514505fc0
+ | | 2.05 | Token: 0x1a
+ | | | Observe: 135
+ | | | Max-Age: 60
+ | | | Payload: "busy"
+ | | |
+ +----->| | Header: GET 0x41011634
+ | GET | | Token: 0x9b
+ | | | Proxy-Uri: coap://sensor.example/status
+ | | |
+ |<-----+ | Header: 2.05 0x61451634
+ | 2.05 | | Token: 0x9b
+ | | | Max-Age: 49
+ | | | Payload: "busy"
+ | | |
+
+ Figure 7: A proxy observes a resource to keep its cache up to date
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+ CLIENT PROXY SERVER
+ | | |
+ +----->| | Header: GET 0x41011635
+ | GET | | Token: 0x6a
+ | | | Proxy-Uri: coap://sensor.example/status
+ | | | Observe: 0 (register)
+ | | |
+ |<- - -+ | Header: 0x60001635
+ | | |
+ | +----->| Header: GET 0x4101af90
+ | | GET | Token: 0xaa
+ | | | Uri-Host: sensor.example
+ | | | Uri-Path: status
+ | | | Observe: 0 (register)
+ | | |
+ | |<-----+ Header: 2.05 0x6145af90
+ | | 2.05 | Token: 0xaa
+ | | | Observe: 67
+ | | | Max-Age: 60
+ | | | Payload: "ready"
+ | | |
+ |<-----+ | Header: 2.05 0x4145af94
+ | 2.05 | | Token: 0x6a
+ | | | Observe: 17346
+ | | | Max-Age: 60
+ | | | Payload: "ready"
+ | | |
+ +- - ->| | Header: 0x6000af94
+ | | |
+ | |<-----+ Header: 2.05 0x51455a20
+ | | 2.05 | Token: 0xaa
+ | | | Observe: 157
+ | | | Max-Age: 60
+ | | | Payload: "busy"
+ | | |
+ |<-----+ | Header: 2.05 0x5145af9b
+ | 2.05 | | Token: 0x6a
+ | | | Observe: 17436
+ | | | Max-Age: 60
+ | | | Payload: "busy"
+ | | |
+
+ Figure 8: A client observes a resource through a proxy
+
+
+
+
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+
+
+Appendix B. Changelog
+
+ [Note to RFC Editor: Please remove this section before publication.]
+
+ Changes from ietf-15 to ietf-16:
+
+ o Clarified several points based on AD, GenART, IESG, and Secdir
+ reviews.
+
+ Changes from ietf-14 to ietf-15:
+
+ o Clarified several points based on AD, GenART, IESG, and Secdir
+ reviews.
+
+ Changes from ietf-13 to ietf-14:
+
+ o Updated references.
+
+ Changes from ietf-12 to ietf-13:
+
+ o Extended the Observe Option in requests to not only add but also
+ remove an entry in the list of observers, depending on the option
+ value.
+
+ Note: The value of the Observe Option in a registration request
+ may now be any sequence of bytes that encodes the unsigned
+ integer 0, i.e., 0x'', 0x'00', 0x'00 00' or 0x'00 00 00'.
+
+ o Removed the 7.31 Code for cancellation.
+
+ Changes from ietf-11 to ietf-12:
+
+ o Introduced the 7.31 Code to request the cancellation of a pending
+ request.
+
+ o Made the algorithm for superseding an outstanding transmission
+ OPTIONAL.
+
+ o Clarified that the entry in the list of observers is removed if
+ the client fails to acknowledge a confirmable notification before
+ the last retransmission attempt times out (#350).
+
+ o Simplified the text on cancellation (#352) and the handling of
+ Reset messages (#353).
+
+ Changes from ietf-10 to ietf-11:
+
+
+
+
+
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+ o Pointed out that client and server clocks may differ in their
+ realization of the SI second, and added robustness to the existing
+ reordering scheme by reducing the maximum notification rate to
+ 32768 notifications per second (#341).
+
+ Changes from ietf-09 to ietf-10:
+
+ o Required consistent sequence numbers across requests (#333).
+
+ o Clarified that a server needs to update the entry in the list of
+ observers instead of adding a new entry if the endpoint/token pair
+ is already present.
+
+ o Allowed that a client uses a token that is currently in use to
+ ensure that it's still in the list of observers. This is possible
+ because sequence numbers are now consistent across requests and
+ servers won't add a new entry for the same token.
+
+ o Improved text on the transmission of non-confirmable notifications
+ to match Section 3.1.2 of RFC 5405 more closely.
+
+ o Updated examples to use UCUM units.
+
+ o Moved Appendix B into the introduction.
+
+ Changes from ietf-08 to ietf-09:
+
+ o Removed the side effects of requests on existing observations.
+ This includes removing that
+
+ * the client can use a GET request to cancel an observation;
+
+ * the server updates the entry in the list of observers instead
+ of adding a new entry if the client is already present (#258,
+ #281).
+
+ o Clarified that a resource (and hence an observation relationship)
+ is identified by the request options that are part of the Cache-
+ Key (#258).
+
+ o Clarified that a non-2.xx notification MUST NOT include an Observe
+ Option.
+
+ o Moved block-wise transfer of notifications to [I-D.ietf-core-
+ block].
+
+ Changes from ietf-07 to ietf-08:
+
+
+
+
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+ o Expanded text on transmitting a notification while a previous
+ transmission is pending (#242).
+
+ o Changed reordering detection to use a fixed time span of 128
+ seconds instead of EXCHANGE_LIFETIME (#276).
+
+ o Removed the use of the freshness model to determine if the client
+ is still on the list of observers. This includes removing that
+
+ * the client assumes that it has been removed from the list of
+ observers when Max-Age ends;
+
+ * the server sets the Max-Age Option of a notification to a value
+ that indicates when the server will send the next notification;
+
+ * the server uses a number of retransmit attempts such that
+ removing a client from the list of observers before Max-Age
+ ends is avoided (#235);
+
+ * the server may remove the client from all lists of observers
+ when the transmission of a confirmable notification ultimately
+ times out.
+
+ o Changed that an unrecognized critical option in a request must
+ actually have no effect on the state of any observation
+ relationship to any resource, as the option could lead to a
+ different target resource.
+
+ o Clarified that client implementations must be prepared to receive
+ each notification equally as a confirmable or a non-confirmable
+ message, regardless of the message type of the request and of any
+ previous notification.
+
+ o Added a requirement for sending a confirmable notification at
+ least every 24 hours before continuing with non-confirmable
+ notifications (#221).
+
+ o Added congestion control considerations from [I-D.bormann-core-
+ congestion-control-02].
+
+ o Recommended that the client waits for a randomized time after the
+ freshness of the latest notification expired before re-
+ registering. This prevents that multiple clients observing a
+ resource perform a GET request at the same time when the need to
+ re-register arises.
+
+ o Changed reordering detection from 'MAY' to 'SHOULD', as the goal
+ of the protocol (to keep the observed state as closely in sync
+
+
+
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+
+ with the actual state as possible) is not optional.
+
+ o Fixed the length of the Observe Option (3 bytes) in the table in
+ Section 2.
+
+ o Replaced the 'x' in the No-Cache-Key column in the table in
+ Section 2 with a '-', as the Observe Option doesn't have the No-
+ Cache-Key flag set, even though it is not part of the cache key.
+
+ o Updated examples.
+
+ Changes from ietf-06 to ietf-07:
+
+ o Moved to 24-bit sequence numbers to allow for up to 15000
+ notifications per second per client and resource (#217).
+
+ o Re-numbered option number to use Unsafe/Safe and Cache-Key
+ compliant numbers (#241).
+
+ o Clarified how to react to a Reset message that is sent in reply to
+ a non-confirmable notification (#225).
+
+ o Clarified the semantics of the "obs" link target attribute (#236).
+
+ Changes from ietf-05 to ietf-06:
+
+ o Improved abstract and introduction to say that the protocol is
+ about best effort and eventual consistency (#219).
+
+ o Clarified that the value of the Observe Option in a request must
+ have zero length.
+
+ o Added requirement that the sequence number must be updated each
+ time a server retransmits a notification.
+
+ o Clarified that a server must remove a client from the list of
+ observers when it receives a GET request with an unrecognized
+ critical option.
+
+ o Updated the text to use the endpoint concept from [I-D.ietf-core-
+ coap] (#224).
+
+ o Improved the reordering text (#223).
+
+ Changes from ietf-04 to ietf-05:
+
+ o Recommended that a client does not re-register while a new
+ notification from the server is still likely to arrive. This is
+
+
+
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+
+ to avoid that the request of the client and the last notification
+ after max-age cross over each other (#174).
+
+ o Relaxed requirements when sending a Reset message in reply to non-
+ confirmable notifications.
+
+ o Added an implementation note about careless GET requests (#184).
+
+ o Updated examples.
+
+ Changes from ietf-03 to ietf-04:
+
+ o Removed the "Max-OFE" Option.
+
+ o Allowed a Reset message in reply to non-confirmable notifications.
+
+ o Added a section on cancellation.
+
+ o Updated examples.
+
+ Changes from ietf-02 to ietf-03:
+
+ o Separated client-side and server-side requirements.
+
+ o Fixed uncertainty if client is still on the list of observers by
+ introducing a liveliness model based on Max-Age and a new option
+ called "Max-OFE" (#174).
+
+ o Simplified the text on message reordering (#129).
+
+ o Clarified requirements for intermediaries.
+
+ o Clarified the combination of blockwise transfers with
+ notifications (#172).
+
+ o Updated examples to show how the state observed by the client
+ becomes eventually consistent with the actual state on the server.
+
+ o Added examples for parameterization of observable resource.
+
+ Changes from ietf-01 to ietf-02:
+
+ o Removed the requirement of periodic refreshing (#126).
+
+ o The new "Observe" Option replaces the "Lifetime" Option.
+
+ o Introduced a new mechanism to detect message reordering.
+
+
+
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+ o Changed 2.00 (OK) notifications to 2.05 (Content) notifications.
+
+ Changes from ietf-00 to ietf-01:
+
+ o Changed terminology from "subscriptions" to "observation
+ relationships" (#33).
+
+ o Changed the name of the option to "Lifetime".
+
+ o Clarified establishment of observation relationships.
+
+ o Clarified that an observation is only identified by the URI of the
+ observed resource and the identity of the client (#66).
+
+ o Clarified rules for establishing observation relationships (#68).
+
+ o Clarified conditions under which an observation relationship is
+ terminated.
+
+ o Added explanation on how clients can terminate an observation
+ relationship before the lifetime ends (#34).
+
+ o Clarified that the overriding objective for notifications is
+ eventual consistency of the actual and the observed state (#67).
+
+ o Specified how a server needs to deal with clients not
+ acknowledging confirmable messages carrying notifications (#69).
+
+ o Added a mechanism to detect message reordering (#35).
+
+ o Added an explanation of how notifications can be cached,
+ supporting both the freshness and the validation model (#39, #64).
+
+ o Clarified that non-GET requests do not affect observation
+ relationships, and that GET requests without "Lifetime" Option
+ affecting relationships is by design (#65).
+
+ o Described interaction with blockwise transfers (#36).
+
+ o Added Resource Discovery section (#99).
+
+ o Added IANA Considerations.
+
+ o Added Security Considerations (#40).
+
+ o Added examples (#38).
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+
+Author's Address
+
+ Klaus Hartke
+ Universitaet Bremen TZI
+ Postfach 330440
+ Bremen D-28359
+ Germany
+
+ Phone: +49-421-218-63905
+ EMail: hartke@tzi.org
+
+
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