RFC 4483 PROPOSED STANDARD SIP · MIME · SIGNALING

SIP content indirection: A Mechanism for Content Indirection in Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Messages

How a SIP message can point to a body part by URI instead of carrying it, using the message/external-body type.

On rfc-editor.org ↗
PUBLISHED
May 2006
AUTHORS
E. Burger
STREAM
IETF
MIME TYPE
message/external-body
MANDATORY PARAMETER
expiration
HASH ALGORITHM
SHA-1, hex encoded
REJECTION RESPONSE
415 Unsupported Media Type
REQUIRED URI SCHEME
HTTP
DOI
10.17487/RFC4483
ERRATA
Reported errata

RFC text

Contents
Original text · RFC Editor View on rfc-editor.org ↗
Network Working Group                                     E. Burger, Ed.
Request for Comments: 4483                       Cantata Technolgy, Inc.
Category: Standards Track                                       May 2006


                  A Mechanism for Content Indirection
             in Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Messages

Status of This Memo

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

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).

Abstract

   This document defines an extension to the URL MIME External-Body
   Access-Type to satisfy the content indirection requirements for the
   Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).  These extensions are aimed at
   allowing any MIME part in a SIP message to be referred to indirectly
   via a URI.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................2
   2. Terminology .....................................................3
   3. Use Case Examples ...............................................3
      3.1. Presence Notification ......................................4
      3.2. Document Sharing ...........................................4
   4. Requirements ....................................................5
   5. Application of RFC 2017 to the Content Indirection Problem ......6
      5.1. Specifying Support for Content Indirection .................6
      5.2. Mandatory support for HTTP URI .............................7
      5.3. Rejecting Content Indirection ..............................7
      5.4. Specifying the Location of the Content via a URI ...........7
      5.5. Marking Indirect Content Optional ..........................7
      5.6. Specifying Versioning Information for the URI ..............8
      5.7. Specifying the URI Lifetime ................................8
      5.8. Specifying the type of the Indirect Content ................8
      5.9. Specifying the Size of the Indirect Content ................9
      5.10. Specifying the Purpose of the Indirect Content ............9
      5.11. Specifying Multiple URIs for Content Indirection .........10
      5.12. Specifying a Hash Value for the Indirect Content .........10
      5.13. Supplying Additional Comments about the Indirect
            Content ..................................................11
      5.14. Relationship to Call-Info, Error-Info, and
            Alert-Info Headers .......................................11
   6. Examples .......................................................12
      6.1. Single Content Indirection ................................12
      6.2. Multipart MIME with Content Indirection ...................12
   7. Security Considerations ........................................13
   8. Contributions ..................................................15
   9. Acknowledgements ...............................................15
   10. References ....................................................15
      10.1. Normative References .....................................15
      10.2. Informative Reference ....................................16

1.  Introduction

   The purpose of the Session Initiation Protocol [9] (SIP) is to
   create, modify, or terminate sessions with one or more participants.
   SIP messages, like HTTP, are syntactically composed of a start line,
   one or more headers, and an optional body.  Unlike HTTP, SIP is not
   designed as a general-purpose data transport protocol.

   There are numerous reasons why it might be desirable to specify the
   content of the SIP message body indirectly.  For bandwidth-limited
   applications such as cellular wireless, indirection provides a means
   to annotate the (indirect) content with meta-data, which may be used
   by the recipient to determine whether or not to retrieve the content
   over a resource-limited link.

   It is also possible that the content size to be transferred might
   overwhelm intermediate signaling proxies, thereby unnecessarily
   increasing network latency.  For time-sensitive SIP applications,
   this may be unacceptable.  Indirect content can remedy this by moving
   the transfer of this content out of the SIP signaling network and
   into a potentially separate data transfer channel.

   There may also be scenarios where the session-related data (body)
   that needs to be conveyed does not directly reside on the endpoint or
   User Agent.  In such scenarios, it is desirable to have a mechanism
   whereby the SIP message can contain an indirect reference to the
   desired content.  The receiving party would then use this indirect
   reference to retrieve the content via a non-SIP transfer channel such
   as HTTP, FTP, or LDAP.

   The purpose of content indirection is purely to provide an
   alternative transport mechanism for SIP MIME body parts.  With the
   exception of the transport mechanism, indirect body parts are
   equivalent to, and should have the same treatment as, in-line body
   parts.

   Previous attempts at solving the content indirection problem made use
   of the text/uri-list [6] MIME type.  While attractive for its
   simplicity (a list of URIs delimited by end-of-line markers), it
   failed to satisfy a number of the requirements for a more general-
   purpose content indirection mechanism in SIP.  Most notably lacking
   is the ability to specify various attributes on a per-URI basis.
   These attributes might include version information, the MIME type of
   the referenced content, etc.

   RFC 2017 defines a strong candidate for a replacement for the
   text/uri-list MIME type.  RFC 2017 [1] defines an extension to the
   message/external-body MIME type originally defined in RFC2046 [3].
   The extension that RFC 2017 makes allows a generic URI to specify the
   location of the content rather than protocol-specific parameters for
   FTP, etc., as originally defined in RFC2046.  Although it provides
   most of the functionality needed for a SIP content indirection
   mechanism, RFC 2017 by itself is not a complete solution.  This
   document specifies the usage of RFC 2017 necessary to fulfill the
   requirements outlined for content indirection.

   The requirements can be classified as applying either to the URI,
   which indirectly references the desired content, or to the content
   itself.  Where possible, existing MIME parameters and entity headers
   are used to satisfy those requirements.  MIME (Content-Type)
   parameters are the preferred manner of describing the URI, while
   entity headers are the preferred manner of describing the (indirect)
   content.  See RFC 2045 [2] for a description of most of these entity
   headers and MIME parameters.

2.  Terminology

   RFC 2119 [5] defines the keywords "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED",
   "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY",
   and "OPTIONAL".

3.  Use Case Examples

   There are several examples of using the content indirection
   mechanism.  These are examples only and are not intended to limit the
   scope or applicability of the mechanism.

3.1.  Presence Notification

   The information carried in a presence document could exceed the
   recommended size for a SIP (NOTIFY) request, particularly if the
   document carries aggregated information from multiple endpoints.  In
   such a situation, it would be desirable to send the NOTIFY request
   with an indirect pointer to the presence document, which could then
   be retrieved by, for example, HTTP.

                Watcher                 Presence Server
                   |                           |
                   |         SUBSCRIBE         |
                   |-------------------------->|
                   |          200 OK           |
                   |<--------------------------|
                   |                           |
                   |          NOTIFY           |
                   |<--------------------------|
                   |          200 OK           |
                   |-------------------------->|
                   |                           |
                   |      NOTIFY (w/URI)       |
                   |<--------------------------|
                   |           200             |
                   |-------------------------->|
                   |                           |
                   |         HTTP GET          |
                   |-------------------------->|
                   |                           |
                   | application/cpim-pidf+xml |
                   |<--------------------------|
                   |                           |

   In this example, the presence server returns an HTTP URI pointing to
   a presence document on the presence server, which the watcher can
   then fetch by using an HTTP GET.

3.2.  Document Sharing

   During an instant messaging conversation, a useful service is
   document sharing, wherein one party sends an IM (MESSAGE request)
   with an indirect pointer to a document that is meant to be rendered
   by the remote party.  Carrying such a document directly in the
   MESSAGE request is not an appropriate use of the signaling channel.
   Furthermore, the document to be shared may reside on a completely
   independent server from that of the originating party.

                  UAC                  UAS         Web Server
                  (User Agent        (User Agent         |
                   Client)            Server)            |
                   |                    |                |
                   |   MESSAGE w/URI    |                |
                   |------------------->|                |
                   |        200         |                |
                   |<-------------------|                |
                   |                    |                |
                   |                    |    HTTP GET    |
                   |                    |--------------->|
                   |                    |   image/jpeg   |
                   |                    |<---------------|
                   |                    |                |

   In this example, a user UAC wishes to exchange a JPEG image that she
   has stored on her web server with user UAS with whom she has an IM
   conversation.  She intends to render the JPEG inline in the IM
   conversation.  The recipient of the MESSAGE request launches an HTTP
   GET request to the web server to retrieve the JPEG image.

4.  Requirements

   o  It MUST be possible to specify the location of content via a URI.
      Such URIs MUST conform with RFC2396 [7].

   o  It MUST be possible to specify the length of the indirect content.

   o  It MUST be possible to specify the type of the indirect content.

   o  It MUST be possible to specify the disposition of each URI
      independently.

   o  It MUST be possible to label each URI to identify if and when the
      content referred to by that URI has changed.  Applications of this
      mechanism may send the same URI more than once.  The intention of
      this requirement is to allow the receiving party to determine
      whether the content referenced by the URI has changed, without
      having to retrieve that content.  Examples of ways the URI could
      be labeled include a sequence number, timestamp, and version
      number.  When used with HTTP, the entity-tag (ETAG) mechanism, as
      defined in RFC2068 [4], may be appropriate.  Note that we are
      labeling not the URI itself but the content to which the URI
      refers, and that the label is therefore effectively "metadata" of
      the content itself.

   o  It MUST be possible to specify the time span for which a given URI
      is valid.  This may or may not be the same as the lifetime for the
      content itself.

   o  It MUST be possible for the UAC and the UAS to indicate support of
      this content indirection mechanism.  A fallback mechanism SHOULD
      be specified in the event that one of the parties is unable to
      support content indirection.

   o  It MUST be possible for the UAC and UAS to negotiate the type of
      the indirect content when using the content indirection mechanism.

   o  It MUST be possible for the UAC and UAS to negotiate support for
      any URI scheme to be used in the content indirection mechanism.
      This is in addition to the ability to negotiate the content type.

   o  It SHOULD be possible to ensure the integrity and confidentiality
      of the URI when it is received by the remote party.

   o  It MUST be possible to process the content indirection without
      human intervention.

   o  It MUST allow for indirect transference of content in any SIP
      message that would otherwise carry that content as a body.

5.  Application of RFC 2017 to the Content Indirection Problem

   The following text describes the application of RFC 2017 to the
   requirements for content indirection.

5.1.  Specifying Support for Content Indirection

   A UAC/UAS indicates support for content indirection by including the
   message/external-body MIME type in the Accept header.  The UAC/UAS
   MAY supply additional values in the Accept header to indicate the
   content types that it is willing to accept, either directly or
   through content indirection.  User-Agents supporting content
   indirection MUST support content indirection of the application/sdp
   MIME type.

   For example:

            Accept: message/external-body, image/*, application/sdp

5.2.  Mandatory support for HTTP URI

   Applications that use this content indirection mechanism MUST support
   the HTTP URI scheme.  Additional URI schemes MAY be used, but a
   UAC/UAS MUST support receiving a HTTP URI for indirect content if it
   advertises support for content indirection.

   The UAS MAY advertise alternate access schemes in the schemes
   parameter of the Contact header in the UAS response to the UAC's
   session establishment request (e.g., INVITE, SUBSCRIBE), as described
   in RFC 3840 [11].

5.3.  Rejecting Content Indirection

   If a UAS receives a SIP request that contains a content indirection
   payload and the UAS cannot or does not wish to support such a content
   type, it MUST reject the request with a 415 Unsupported Media Type
   response as defined in section 21.4.13 of SIP [9].  In particular,
   the UAC should note the absence of the message/external-body MIME
   type in the Accept header of this response to indicate that the UAS
   does not support content indirection, or the absence of the
   particular MIME type of the requested comment to indicate that the
   UAS does not support the particular media type.

5.4.  Specifying the Location of the Content via a URI

   The URI for the indirect content is specified in a "URI" parameter of
   the message/external-body MIME type.  An access-type parameter
   indicates that the external content is referenced by a URI.  HTTP URI
   specifications MUST conform to RFC 2396 [7].

   For example:

            Content-Type: message/external-body; access-type="URL";
                URL="http://www.example.com/the-indirect-content"

5.5.  Marking Indirect Content Optional

   Some content is not critical to the context of the communication if
   there is a fetch or conversion failure.  The content indirection
   mechanism uses the Critical-Content mechanism described in RFC 3459
   [10].  In particular, if the UAS is unable to fetch or render an
   optional body part, then the server MUST NOT return an error to the
   UAC.

5.6.  Specifying Versioning Information for the URI

   In order to determine whether the content indirectly referenced by
   the URI has changed, a Content-ID entity header is used.  The syntax
   of this header is defined in RFC 2045 [2].  Changes in the underlying
   content referred to by a URI MUST result in a change in the Content-
   ID associated with that URI.  Multiple SIP messages carrying URIs
   that refer to the same content SHOULD reuse the same Content-ID, to
   allow the receiver to cache this content and to avoid unnecessary
   retrievals.  The Content-ID is intended to be globally unique and
   SHOULD be temporally unique across SIP dialogs.

   For example:

            Content-ID: <4232423424@www.example.com>

5.7.  Specifying the URI Lifetime

   The URI supplied by the Content-Type header is not required to be
   accessible or valid for an indefinite period of time.  Rather, the
   supplier of the URI MUST specify the time period for which this URI
   is valid and accessible.  This is done through an "EXPIRATION"
   parameter of the Content-Type.  The format of this expiration
   parameter is an RFC 1123 [12] date-time value.  This is further
   restricted in this application to use only GMT time, consistent with
   the Date: header in SIP.  This is a mandatory parameter.  Note that
   the date-time value can range from minutes to days or even years.

   For example:

            Content-Type: message/external-body;
                          expiration="Mon, 24 June 2002 09:00:00 GMT"

5.8.  Specifying the type of the Indirect Content

   To support existing SIP mechanisms for the negotiation of content
   types, a Content-Type entity header SHOULD be present in the entity
   (payload) itself.  If the protocol (scheme) of the URI supports its
   own content negotiation mechanisms (e.g., HTTP), this header may be
   omitted.  The sender MUST, however, be prepared for the receiving
   party to reject content indirection if the receiver is unable to
   negotiate an appropriate MIME type by using the underlying protocol
   for the URI scheme.

   For example:

            Content-Type: message/external-body; access-type="URL";
                expiration="Mon, 24 June 2002 09:00:00 GMT";
                URL="http://www.example.com/the-indirect-content"
            <CRLF>
            Content-Type: application/sdp
            Content-Disposition: session
            <CRLF>

5.9.  Specifying the Size of the Indirect Content

   When known in advance, the size of the indirect content in bytes
   SHOULD be supplied via a size parameter on the Content-Type header.
   This is an extension of RFC 2017 but is in line with other access
   types defined for the message/external-body MIME type in RFC 2046.
   The content size is useful for the receiving party to make a
   determination about whether to retrieve the content.  As with
   directly supplied content, a UAS may return a 513 error response in
   the event that the content size is too large.  Size is an optional
   parameter.

   For example:

            Content-Type: message/external-body; access-type="URL";
                expiration="Mon, 24 June 2002 09:00:00 GMT";
                URL="http://www.example.com/the-indirect-content";
                size=4123

5.10.  Specifying the Purpose of the Indirect Content

   A Content-Disposition entity header MUST be present for all indirect
   content.

   For example:

            Content-Type: message/external-body; access-type="URL";
                expiration="Mon, 24 June 2002 09:00:00 GMT";
                URL="http://www.example.com/the-indirect-content"
            <CRLF>
            Content-Type: image/jpeg
            Content-Disposition: render

5.11.  Specifying Multiple URIs for Content Indirection

   If there is a need to send multiple URIs for content indirection, an
   appropriate multipart MIME type [3] should be used.  Each URI MUST be
   contained in a single entity.  Indirect content may be mixed with
   directly-supplied content.  This is particularly useful with the
   multipart/alternative MIME type.

   NOTE: This specification does not change the meanings of the various
   multipart flavors, particularly multipart/related, as described in
   RFC 2387 [13].

   For example:

           MIME-Version: 1.0
           Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=boundary42

           --boundary42
           Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

           The company announcement for June, 2002 follows:
           --boundary42
           Content-Type: message/external-body;
                access-type="URL";
                expiration="Mon, 24 June 2002 09:00:00 GMT";
                URL="http://www.example.com/announcements/07242002";
                size=4123

           Content-Type: text/html
           Content-Disposition: render

           --boundary42--

5.12.  Specifying a Hash Value for the Indirect Content

   If the sender knows the specific content being referenced by the
   indirection, and if the sender wishes the recipient to be able to
   validate that this content has not been altered from that intended by
   the sender, the sender includes a SHA-1 [8] hash of the content.  If
   it is included, the hash is encoded by extending the MIME syntax [3]
   to include a "hash" parameter for the content type "message/
   external-body", whose value is a hexadecimal encoding of the hash.

   For example:

            Content-Type: message/external-body;
                access-type="URL";
                expiration="Mon, 24 June 2002 09:00:00 GMT";
                URL="http://www.example.com/the-indirect-content.au";
                size=52723;
                hash=10AB568E91245681AC1B
            <CRLF>
            Content-Disposition: render

5.13.  Supplying Additional Comments about the Indirect Content

   One MAY use the Content-Description entity header to provide
   optional, freeform text to comment on the indirect content.  This
   text MAY be displayed to the end user but MUST NOT used by other
   elements to determine the disposition of the body.

   For example:

            Content-Type: message/external-body;
                access-type="URL";
                expiration="Mon, 24 June 2002 09:00:00 GMT";
                URL="http://www.example.com/the-indirect-content";
                size=52723
            <CRLF>
            Content-Description: Multicast gaming session
            Content-Disposition: render

5.14.  Relationship to Call-Info, Error-Info, and Alert-Info Headers

   SIP [9] defines three headers that supply additional information with
   regard to a session, a particular error response, or alerting.  All
   three of these headers allow the UAC or UAS to indicate additional
   information through a URI.  They may be considered a form of content
   indirection.  The content indirection mechanism defined in this
   document is not intended as a replacement for these headers.  Rather,
   the headers defined in SIP MUST be used in preference to this
   mechanism, where applicable, because of the well-defined semantics of
   those headers.

6.  Examples

6.1.  Single Content Indirection

           INVITE sip:boromir@example.com SIP/2.0
           From: <sip:gandalf@example.net>;tag=347242
           To: <sip:boromir@example.com>
           Call-ID: 3573853342923422@example.net
           CSeq: 2131 INVITE
           Accept: message/external-body application/sdp
           Content-Type: message/external-body;
                ACCESS-TYPE=URL;
                URL="http://www.example.net/party/06/2002/announcement";
                EXPIRATION="Sat, 20 Jun 2002 12:00:00 GMT";
                size=231
           Content-Length: 105

           Content-Type: application/sdp
           Content-Disposition: session
           Content-ID: <4e5562cd1214427d@example.net>

6.2.  Multipart MIME with Content Indirection

           MESSAGE sip:boromir@example.com SIP/2.0
           From: <sip:gandalf@example.net>;tag=34589882
           To: <sip:boromir@example.com>
           Call-ID: 9242892442211117@example.net
           CSeq: 388 MESSAGE
           Accept: message/external-body, text/html, text/plain,
                   image/*, text/x-emoticon
           MIME-Version: 1.0
           Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=zz993453

           --zz993453
           Content-Type: message/external-body;
                access-type="URL";
                expiration="Mon, 24 June 2002 09:00:00 GMT";
                URL="http://www.example.net/company_picnic/image1.png";
                size=234422

           Content-Type: image/png
           Content-ID: <9535035333@example.net>
           Content-Disposition: render
           Content-Description: Kevin getting dunked in the wading pool

           --zz993453
           Content-Type: message/external-body;
                access-type="URL";
                expiration="Mon, 24 June 2002 09:00:00 GMT";
                URL="http://www.example.net/company_picnic/image2.png";
                size=233811

           Content-Type: image/png
           Content-ID: <1134299224244@example.net>
           Content-Disposition: render
           Content-Description: Peter on his tricycle

           --zz993453--

7.  Security Considerations

   Any content indirection mechanism introduces additional security
   concerns.  By its nature, content indirection requires an extra
   processing step and information transfer.  There are a number of
   potential abuses of a content indirection mechanism:

   o  Content indirection allows the initiator to choose an alternative
      protocol with weaker security or known vulnerabilities for the
      content transfer (for example, asking the recipient to issue an
      HTTP request that results in a Basic authentication challenge).

   o  Content indirection allows the initiator to ask the recipient to
      consume additional resources in the information transfer and
      content processing, potentially creating an avenue for denial-of-
      service attacks (for example, an active FTP URL consuming 2
      connections for every indirect content message).

   o  Content indirection could be used as a form of port-scanning
      attack where the indirect content URL is actually a bogus URL
      pointing to an internal resource of the recipient.  The response
      to the content indirection request could reveal information about
      open (and vulnerable) ports on these internal resources.

   o  A content indirection URL can disclose sensitive information about
      the initiator such as an internal user name (as part of an HTTP
      URL) or possibly geolocation information.

   Fortunately, all of these potential threats can be mitigated through
   careful screening of both the indirect content URIs that are received
   and those that are sent.  Integrity and confidentiality protection of
   the indirect content URI can prevent additional attacks as well.

   For confidentiality, integrity, and authentication, this content
   indirection mechanism relies on the security mechanisms outlined in
   RFC 3261.  In particular, the usage of S/MIME as defined in section
   23 of RFC 3261 provides the necessary mechanism to ensure integrity,
   protection, and confidentiality of the indirect content URI and
   associated parameters.

   Securing the transfer of the indirect content is the responsibility
   of the underlying protocol used for this transfer.  If HTTP is used,
   applications implementing this content indirection method SHOULD
   support the HTTPS URI scheme for secure transfer of content and MUST
   support the upgrading of connections to TLS, by using starttls.  Note
   that a failure to complete HTTPS or starttls (for example, due to
   certificate or encryption mismatch) after having accepted the
   indirect content in the SIP request is not the same as rejecting the
   SIP request, and it may require additional user-user communication
   for correction.

   Note that this document does not advocate the use of transitive
   trust.  That is, just because the UAS receives a URI from a UAC that
   the UAS trusts, the UAS SHOULD NOT implicitly trust the object
   referred to by the URI without establishing its own trust
   relationship with the URI provider.

   Access control to the content referenced by the URI is not defined by
   this specification.  Access control mechanisms may be defined by the
   protocol for the scheme of the indirect content URI.

   If the UAC knows the content in advance, the UAC SHOULD include a
   hash parameter in the content indirection.  The hash parameter is a
   hexadecimal-encoded SHA-1 [8] hash of the indirect content.  If a
   hash value is included, the recipient MUST check the indirect content
   against that hash and indicate any mismatch to the user.

   In addition, if the hash parameter is included and the target URI
   involves setting up a security context using certificates, the UAS
   MUST ignore the results of the certificate validation procedure, and
   instead verify that the hash of the (canonicalized) content received
   matches the hash presented in the content-indirection hash parameter.

   If the hash parameter is NOT included, the sender SHOULD use only
   schemes that offer message integrity (such as https:).  When the hash
   parameter is not included and security using certificates is used,
   the UAS MUST verify any server certificates, by using the UAS's list
   of trusted top-level certificate authorities.

   If hashing of indirect content is not used, the content returned to
   the recipient by exercise of the indirection might have been altered
   from that intended by the sender.

8.  Contributions

   Sean Olson, seanol@microsoft.com, provided the vast majority of the
   content of this document, including editorship through the first IESG
   review.  Dean Willis touched it next.

   Eric Burger edited the document and addressed IESG comments,
   including the access protocol negotiation mechanism.

9.  Acknowledgements

   Cullen Jennings and Nancy Greene provided a through review and
   valuable comments and suggestions.

10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [1]   Freed, N. and K. Moore, "Definition of the URL MIME External-
         Body Access-Type", RFC 2017, October 1996.

   [2]   Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
         Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies",
         RFC 2045, November 1996.

   [3]   Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
         Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046, November
         1996.

   [4]   Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Nielsen, H., and T.
         Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC
         2068, January 1997.

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

   [6]   Daniel, R., "A Trivial Convention for using HTTP in URN
         Resolution", RFC 2169, June 1997.

   [7]   Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
         Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986,
         January 2005.

   [8]   Eastlake, D. and P. Jones, "US Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA1)",
         RFC 3174, September 2001.

   [9]   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.

   [10]  Burger, E., "Critical Content Multi-purpose Internet Mail
         Extensions (MIME) Parameter", RFC 3459, January 2003.

   [11]  Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., and P. Kyzivat, "Indicating
         User Agent Capabilities in the Session Initiation Protocol
         (SIP)", RFC 3840, August 2004.

   [12]  Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts - Application and
         Support", STD 3, RFC 1123, October 1989.

10.2.  Informative Reference

   [13]  Levinson, E., "The MIME Multipart/Related Content-type", RFC
         2387, August 1998.

Author's Address

   Eric Burger (editor)
   Cantata Technolgy, Inc.

   EMail: eburger@cantata.com
   URI:   http://www.cantata.com

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AI ELI5

On this page
PROBLEMSIP is not a general data transport, and large or remote content can overload proxies, strain slow links or live somewhere other than on the endpoint.
MECHANISMA SIP body part is replaced by a message/external-body part that names a URI, with parameters for expiry, size and hash and headers for type, purpose and version. The receiver fetches the content over HTTP or another protocol.
WHY IT MATTERSAny MIME part of a SIP message can be sent indirectly, and the receiver can decide whether to fetch it. Security relies on screening URIs, S/MIME and an optional SHA-1 hash.

§1Why Indirect Content

RFC 4483 defines content indirection for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). SIP messages have a start line, headers and an optional body, but unlike HTTP, SIP is not designed as a general-purpose data transport protocol.

Indirection helps in several cases. On bandwidth-limited links, the recipient can use metadata to decide whether to fetch the content. Large content can overload intermediate proxies, so it is moved out of the signaling network. And the data may not reside on the endpoint at all. The receiver then retrieves it by a non-SIP channel such as HTTP, FTP or LDAP.

The mechanism only changes transport. Apart from that, an indirect body part is equivalent to an in-line one and gets the same treatment. The RFC builds on the URL access type of RFC 2017, which extends message/external-body from RFC 2046. An earlier approach with the text/uri-list type could not carry per-URI attributes.

If a package is too big for the mailbox, you leave a note saying where to pick it up. The note counts the same as the package.

§3Use Cases

The RFC gives two examples. In presence notification, a presence document may be larger than the recommended size for a SIP NOTIFY request, especially if it combines information from several endpoints. The server sends a NOTIFY with a URI, and the watcher fetches the document with an HTTP GET.

In document sharing, one party in an instant messaging conversation sends a MESSAGE request with a pointer to a document. Carrying the document itself is not an appropriate use of the signaling channel, and it may sit on an unrelated server. The recipient fetches it with HTTP GET.

A long report is posted on a website and you only text the link, so the chat stays quick.

PRESENCE NOTIFICATION WITH A URI (RFC 4483, SECTION 3.1)
WatcherPresence Server
  1. SUBSCRIBE
  2. 200 OK
  3. NOTIFY
  4. 200 OK
  5. NOTIFY (w/URI)Points at the presence document.
  6. 200
  7. HTTP GET
  8. application/cpim-pidf+xmlThe presence document.

§4Requirements

The RFC lists what any solution MUST provide. It must be possible to give the location by URI, and to give the length, the type and the disposition of each URI independently. It must be possible to label the content so a receiver can tell if it changed, to give a time span for which the URI is valid, and for both sides to indicate support, with a fallback if one side cannot. Parties must be able to negotiate the content type and the URI scheme, and processing must need no human intervention. Integrity and confidentiality of the URI SHOULD be possible. Finally, it must work for any SIP message that could otherwise carry the content as a body.

The note has to say where, how big, what kind, how long the link works and whether the thing changed, and both sides must agree they understand notes.

§5Declaring Support and Rejecting

A user agent shows it supports indirection by listing message/external-body in its Accept header, optionally along with other types it accepts directly or indirectly. Agents that support indirection MUST support it for application/sdp, and MUST support receiving an HTTP URI. Other URI schemes MAY be used.

A UAS that cannot or does not wish to support indirection MUST reject the request with a 415 Unsupported Media Type response. The UAC can read the Accept header in that response: if message/external-body is missing, indirection is not supported, and if the specific media type is missing, that type is not supported.

Indirect content can be marked optional using the Critical-Content mechanism of RFC 3459. If the UAS cannot fetch or render an optional part, it MUST NOT return an error.

Before sending a note, you tell the other side you can read notes. If they cannot, they answer that they do not understand, and you send the thing itself.

§5.4Describing the URI and the Content

The URI goes in a URL parameter of the message/external-body Content-Type, with access-type="URL". Other details use further parameters and entity headers:

  • expiration is mandatory. It is an RFC 1123 date-time in GMT, and it can span minutes to years.
  • size in bytes SHOULD be given when known. A UAS may answer with a 513 error if the size is too large.
  • hash is a hexadecimal SHA-1 hash that the sender includes if it knows the content and wants the receiver to validate it.
  • Content-ID labels the content. A change in content MUST change the Content-ID, and repeated messages about the same content SHOULD reuse it so receivers can cache.
  • Content-Type of the content SHOULD be present, and may be omitted if the URI scheme can negotiate its own type.
  • Content-Disposition MUST be present for all indirect content.
  • Content-Description MAY hold free text for the user, but MUST NOT be used to decide how to handle the body.

Several URIs go in a multipart MIME body, with each URI in its own entity, and indirect parts may be mixed with in-line parts. The existing SIP headers Call-Info, Error-Info and Alert-Info MUST be used in preference to this mechanism where they apply.

The note carries the address, an expiry date, the size and a fingerprint so you can check that the thing you got is the right one.

EXAMPLE FROM RFC 4483 SECTION 5.9
Indirect content with a size
Content-Type: message/external-body; access-type="URL";
    expiration="Mon, 24 June 2002 09:00:00 GMT";
    URL="http://www.example.com/the-indirect-content";
    size=4123

§6Examples

The RFC shows a single indirection in an INVITE, where the body is an application/sdp part fetched from an HTTP URL with size=231. It also shows a MESSAGE with a multipart/mixed body holding two image/png parts, each referenced by its own URL and size, each with a Content-ID, a disposition of render and a description.

A message can hold several notes, one for each picture, and each note says where its picture lives.

§7Security Considerations

Indirection adds risk. The RFC names these abuses: choosing a weaker protocol for the transfer, making the recipient spend resources (an active FTP URL uses 2 connections per message), port scanning by pointing at internal resources, and leaking sensitive details such as an internal user name or location in the URL. Careful screening of URIs both received and sent can mitigate all of these.

The mechanism relies on RFC 3261 and S/MIME for confidentiality, integrity and authentication of the URI. Securing the transfer itself is up to the underlying protocol. With HTTP, applications SHOULD support HTTPS and MUST support upgrading to TLS with starttls. Trust is not transitive, so a UAS SHOULD NOT trust the object just because it trusts the sender of the URI.

If the UAC knows the content in advance it SHOULD include the hash, and the recipient MUST check it and report any mismatch to the user. When a hash is present, the UAS MUST ignore certificate validation results and compare the hash instead. Without a hash, the sender SHOULD use schemes with message integrity such as https, and the UAS MUST verify server certificates against its trusted authorities.

A note could send you to a bad place, so you check the address, and a fingerprint tells you whether you got the right thing.

§8References