Internet Engineering Task Force B. Liang Internet-Draft Tsinghua University Intended status: Informational Y. Xiang Expires: 10 July 2026 Yunshan Networks 6 January 2026 Provenance Identifier TCP Option draft-liang-tcpm-provenance-option-00 Abstract This document describes a TCP option that carries a Provenance Identifier (ProvID) to enable correlation of TCP connections when transport-layer identifiers change along the path. 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 https://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 10 July 2026. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2026 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 (https://trustee.ietf.org/ license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License. Liang & Xiang Expires 10 July 2026 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Provenance Identifier TCP Option January 2026 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. Option Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Appendix A. Appendix 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1. Introduction Transport connections in operator-managed network domains often traverse elements such as NATs, and service proxies. These devices commonly rewrite transport-layer identifiers or terminate and originate new TCP connections. As a result, what is logically a single communication between two workloads frequently appears as a series of distinct TCP connections. These transformations break provenance continuity. Observations of TCP traffic at different points in the domain cannot reliably be associated with the same logical flow, and operators cannot determine which workload instance originally initiated a connection once rewriting has occurred. This document defines an experimental TCP option that carries a small Provenance Identifier (ProvID). A ProvID is a compact value generated at connection initiation using workload-scoped attributes, such as host IP with process ID. The ProvID enables provenance correlation across rewriting boundaries within the domain. The ProvID option is intended for operator-managed environments such as cloud platforms, enterprise networks, and data centers. 1.1. Requirements Language The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here. Liang & Xiang Expires 10 July 2026 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Provenance Identifier TCP Option January 2026 2. Option Format The Provenance Identifier (ProvID) option uses a fixed-length experimental TCP option format. The option is identified by the experimental option kind and is distinguished by a fixed option length. 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Kind | Length | ExID | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | ProvID | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Figure 1: ProvID TCP Option Format Kind The TCP option kind. The value of this field is 253. Length The total length of the TCP option in bytes. For the ProvID option defined in this document, the value of this field is 12. ExID The Experiment Identifier (ExID). This 2-byte field identifies the ProvID experiment when used with experimental TCP option kinds. The value of this field is 0xDEE9. ProvID The Provenance Identifier. This field is 8 bytes in length and carries a provenance identifier defined by the sender. 3. IANA Considerations This document's IANA considerations are to be determined and will be provided in a subsequent revision of this draft. [TODO] 4. Security Considerations This document's security considerations are to be determined and will be provided in a subsequent revision of this draft. [TODO] 5. References 5.1. Normative References Liang & Xiang Expires 10 July 2026 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Provenance Identifier TCP Option January 2026 [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, . [RFC6994] Touch, J., "Shared Use of Experimental TCP Options", RFC 6994, DOI 10.17487/RFC6994, August 2013, . [RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May 2017, . [RFC9293] Eddy, W., Ed., "Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)", STD 7, RFC 9293, DOI 10.17487/RFC9293, August 2022, . 5.2. Informative References [draft-ietf-tcpm-ack-rate-request-10] Gomez, C. and J. Crowcroft, "ACK Rate Request", December 2025, . Appendix A. Appendix 1 TODO Authors' Addresses Bowen Liang Tsinghua University Email: liangbw25@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn Yang Xiang Yunshan Networks Email: xiangyang@yunshan.net Liang & Xiang Expires 10 July 2026 [Page 4]