Message Session Relay

Protocol (MSRP)

Jonathan Rosenberg
Cisco Fellow

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 Historical Context

 SIP for IM first proposed in June 2000

 Specification evolved into RFC 3428 – “MESSAGE
method”, published December 2002
 RFC3428 known as pager mode messaging
– Each instant message unrelated to previous – like SMS
– No “start” or “stop”
– Each message routed through proxies

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 Drawbacks of Pager Mode IM
 Message size limit at 1200 bytes due to UDP fragmentation issues
“Who will ever need more than 640k of memory?”
“No one will want to send large SMS”
 Performance issues of every IM going through each proxy – the
lesson of SMS in the SS7 network
 IM security end-to-end extremely hard in pager mode
 Message overhead substantial
 SIP features based on INVITE primitives don’t apply for pager
mode IM
 Doesn’t easily support multiple devices

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 Session Mode IM
 Session mode IM treats IM like an
RTP stream
 Session starts and ends with an
Proxy Proxy INVITE and BYE
 SIP/SDP used to negotiate an IM
channel directly between
SIP endpoints
INVITE/BYE – There are techniques for
intermediaries, just like for RTP
 IETF protocol for the actual IM
UA 1 UA 2 session is Message Session
MSRP Relay Protocol (MSRP)

IM Session
Mode
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 MSRP: A Looooonnnnngggg Road
 July 2001: first proposal. Actual IM protocol was RFC 3428 MESSAGE
method, signaled with SDP.
 Pushback on using SIP. IM Transport Protocol (IMTP) proposed in
November 2001 – SIP minus unnecessary features.
 IMTP perceived as a hack. Back to using MESSAGE, May 2002.
 October 2002: send CPIM messages as the IM transport protocol
 April 2003: CPIM alone doesn’t work; a shim protocol called MSRP is
introduced, built in relay support
 November 2003: Adopted as a SIMPLE working item
 October 2004: Relays split off as a separate specification
 September 2007: MSRP published as RFC 4975, MSRP Relays as RFC
4976

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 MSRP Cliff Notes
 Text based protocol, syntactically similar to SIP
 TCP only
 Defines a URI – MSRP URI – which are signaled in SDP
 Provides chunking – the ability to split a message into smaller
pieces
 Provides delivery reports
 Responses can be optionally omitted
 SDP negotiation primarily concerned with supported content types
 Carries arbitrary MIME content

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 An Example Invitation
 Indicates MSRP
 Port and IP are IGNORED
 MSRP URI indicates where messages should be sent
 Allowed content types

INVITE sip:[email protected] SIP/2.0

To: <sip:[email protected]>
From: <sip:[email protected]>;tag=786
Call-ID: 3413an89KU
Content-Type: application/sdp

c=IN IP4 atlanta.example.com

m=message 7654 TCP/MSRP *
a=accept-types:text/plain
a=path:msrp://atlanta.example.com:7654/jshA7weztas;tcp

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 Example MSRP Message
 Request line has protocol MSRP a786hjs2 SEND
name, transaction ID and To-Path: msrp://biloxi.example.
method com:12763/kjhd37s2s20w2a;tcp
 To-Path indicates series of From-Path: msrp://atlanta.exam
hops to recipient ple.com:7654/jshA7weztas;tcp
Message-ID: 87652491
 From-Path has path from
Byte-Range: 1-25/25
sender
Content-Type: text/plain
 Message ID unique per
message Hey Bob, are you there?
 Byte-Range for chunking -------a786hjs2$
(later)
 Content-Type but NO length
 End of message indicator

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 Anatomy of an MSRP URI
msrp://atlanta.example.com:7654/jshA7weztas;tcp

Method is msrp Others

or msrps for Port. allowed
secure – meaning No default but in the future
TLS on each hop 2855 recommended
For firewall config.

Host or IP address. Session ID.

DNS Resolved using A or AAAA. MSRP URI identify
a specific
session. Session ID
Are unique within
host – not globally unique

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 Basic Flow INVITE
msrp://1.2.3.4/ffd2
 INVITE and 183 contain
MSRP of each side 183
msrp://5.6.7.8/9876
 Offerer opens a TCP
connection to answerer by
resolving answerer’s MSRP TCP connect
URI
 Offerer sends IM to bind
connection to From-Path URI
– So that answerer sends IM SEND
back over same connection To-Path: msrp://5.6.7.8/9876
From-Path://1.2.3.4/ffd2
 First IM can be empty or have You there?
real content

Alice Bob

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 Framing
 MSRP uses boundary framing
 No length up front MSRP a786hjs2 SEND
 Each message ends with an end- To-Path: msrp://biloxi.example.
of-message marker com:12763/kjhd37s2s20w2a;tcp
 Marker is equal to From-Path: msrp://atlanta.exam
– 7 dashes (-------) ple.com:7654/jshA7weztas;tcp
Message-ID: 87652491
– The transaction ID from the
request line Byte-Range: 1-25/25
Content-Type: text/plain
– A +, # or a $:
• +: more chunks coming
Hey Bob, are you there?
• #: aborted message -------a786hjs2$
• $: last chunk in message
 Allows messages to be interrupted
 Allows for messages whose
length is not known up front

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 Chunking

Message-ID: 87652491
Byte-Range: 1-1000/2100 1-1000

Message-ID: 87652491
Byte-Range: 1001-2020/2100 1001-2020

Message-ID: 87652491
Byte-Range: 2020-2100/2100 2020-2100

Total size: 2100

 All chunks have same message ID
 Message ID is globally unique
 Byte-Range is firstByte-LastByte/TotalBytes
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 Interruptability
 LastByte can be set to * if a chunk is interruptible
– MUST be used for chunks over 2048
 To interrupt, send CRLF and end of chunk marker with
continuation flag (+)
 Receiver needs to be prepared for LastByte to be incorrect in case
a chunk was interrupted without * LastByte
 Total Length can also be set to *, and recipient will figure out length
by putting together all chunks.
– Knows last chunk by $ marker
 Interruptability allows sender to abort – just cut off message and
terminate with #

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 Purpose of Interruptability: HOL Blocking

Starts sending User types, “this Transmission of file

a video. is a neat video” continues
Client ends message at
M-ID: 1 byte 65547 MID: 1
Byte-Range: Sends new text message Byte-Range: 65548-*
1-*/298374665 /298374665
MID: 2
Byte-Range: 1-19/19

This is a neat video

Avoids a separate TCP/TLS

connection for each message or session
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 Content Type Negotiation
 Accept-types indicates supported types including container types
– Anything listed here can appear as the top-level type or wrapped in a
container
 Accept-wrapped-types indicates types that can ONLY appear in a
container
– But doesn’t specify which container if there is more than one
 Max-Size indicates largest message size
– Refers to overall message size, not chunk size
 415 error response when receiving unsupported types

a=accept-types: message/cpim text/plain

a=accept-wrapped-types: text/html
a=max-size: 7665

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 Example Container

MSRP d93kswow SEND

To-Path: msrp://bobpc.example.com:8888/9di4eae923wzd;tcp
From-Path: msrp://alicepc.example.com:7654/iau39soe2843z;tcp
Message-ID: 12339sdqwer
Byte-Range: 1-137/148
Content-Type: message/cpim

To: Bob <sip:[email protected]>

From: Alice <sip:[email protected]>
DateTime: 2006-05-15T15:02:31-03:00
CPIM wrapper
Content-Type: text/plain

ABCD -------d93kswow+

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 Delivery Reports
 Without a doubt the most complex part of MSRP – many options
 Failure-Report header field indicates whether reports should be
sent on failures
– Yes (default)
– No
– Partial
 Success-Report header field indicates whether reports should be
sent on successes
– Yes
– No (default)

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 Success Reports SEND 1-20
 Sent if Failure-Report = yes in
SEND SEND 21-30
 Include a Byte-Range header field
indicating range of bytes received
 Carries same message-ID as SEND 31-50
message being reported
 Byte-Ranges in REPORT and REPORT 1-50
SEND don’t have to match
– i.e., recipient can batch up reports
 Status header includes response
code namespace (000 is only one
specified) and code MSRP dkei38sd REPORT
 To-Path and From-Path like SEND To-Path: msrp://alicepc.e
 Extremely useful for file-transfer – xample.com:7777/iau39soe
allows resumption when tcp 2843z;tcp
connections fail From-Path: msrp://bob
.example.com:8888/9di4ea
e923wzd;tcp
Message-ID: 12339sdqwer
Byte-Range: 1-50/*
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 Failure Reports
MSRP dkei38sd REPORT
 Sent if Failure-Report = yes, To-Path: msrp://alicepc.e
partial or absent xample.com:7777/iau39soe
 If error known immediately at 2843z;tcp
From-Path: msrp://bob
receiver, send error response
.example.com:8888/9di4ea
 If delivery results not known, e923wzd;tcp
send 200 OK response (only if Message-ID: 12339sdqwer
report=yes) and then send Byte-Range: 1-50/*
report later if failure Status: 000 408 Timeout
 Example cases:
– Gateways to other protocols
– MSRP relays
 Looks like success report

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 Transaction Responses
 Only generated for SEND, not
REPORT
 Only sent for SEND when
MSRP d93kswow 200 OK
– Failure-Report was yes
To-Path: msrp://alicepc.exampl
– Failure-Report was partial and e.com:7777/iau39soe2843z;tcp
the response is an error From-Path: msrp://bob.exampl
 SEND error responses are e.com:8888/9di4eae923wzd;tcp
Hop-By-Hop -------d93kswow$
– To-Path contains a single URI
– that of previous hop
 Response code and
transaction ID in start line

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 MSRP Security
 Signaling links protected by TLS
 Crypto-random MSRP URI
 Msrps URI results in TLS connection for messages – but certs can
be ignored (clients often won’t have them)
 Clients reject messages with MSRP URI not matching those of
signaling links
 Provides message encryption only
 Authenticity is not cryptographically assured; that requires SIP
Identity (RFC 4474) or stronger

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 MSRP Relays in Brief
 Client configured with one or more relays
 Connects to relay and authenticates with AUTH – digest
Relay
 Relay provides an MSRP URI that client places 1.2.3.4
in its SDP

AUTH
Use-Path:
msrp://1.2.3.4/sd8

Client
8.7.6.5 INVITE
msrp://8.7.6.5/887
msrp://1.2.3.4/sd8

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