Rfc5627
TitleObtaining and Using Globally Routable User Agent URIs (GRUUs) in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
AuthorJ. Rosenberg
DateOctober 2009
Format:TXT, HTML
Status:PROPOSED STANDARD






Network Working Group                                       J. Rosenberg
Request for Comments: 5627                                 Cisco Systems
Category: Standards Track                                   October 2009


     Obtaining and Using Globally Routable User Agent URIs (GRUUs)
                in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)

Abstract

   Several applications of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) require
   a user agent (UA) to construct and distribute a URI that can be used
   by anyone on the Internet to route a call to that specific UA
   instance.  A URI that routes to a specific UA instance is called a
   Globally Routable UA URI (GRUU).  This document describes an
   extension to SIP for obtaining a GRUU from a registrar and for
   communicating a GRUU to a peer within a dialog.

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) 2009 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   described in the BSD License.

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   Contributions published or made publicly available before November
   10, 2008.  The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this
   material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow
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   Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
   the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may
   not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format
   it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other
   than English.















































RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   3.  Overview of Operation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     3.1.  Structure of GRUUs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
       3.1.1.  GRUUs That Expose the Underlying AOR . . . . . . . . .  6
       3.1.2.  GRUUs That Hide the Underlying AOR . . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.2.  Obtaining a GRUU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     3.3.  Using a GRUU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     3.4.  Dereferencing a GRUU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   4.  User Agent Behavior  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     4.1.  Generating a REGISTER Request  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     4.2.  Learning GRUUs from REGISTER Responses . . . . . . . . . . 10
     4.3.  Constructing a Self-Made GRUU  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     4.4.  Using One's Own GRUUs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       4.4.1.  Considerations for Multiple AORs . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     4.5.  Dereferencing a GRUU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     4.6.  Rendering GRUUs on a User Interface  . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   5.  Registrar Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     5.1.  Processing a REGISTER Request  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     5.2.  Generating a REGISTER Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     5.3.  Timing Out a Registration  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     5.4.  Creation of a GRUU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     5.5.  Registration Event Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   6.  Proxy Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     6.1.  Request Targeting  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     6.2.  Record-Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
   7.  Grammar  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
   8.  Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
   9.  Example Call Flow  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   10. Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     10.1. Outside Attacks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     10.2. Inside Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
     10.3. Privacy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
   11. IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
     11.1. Header Field Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
     11.2. URI Parameter  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
     11.3. SIP Option Tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
   12. Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
   13. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
     13.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
     13.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
   Appendix A.  Example GRUU Construction Algorithms  . . . . . . . . 37
     A.1.  Public GRUU  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
     A.2.  Temporary GRUU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
   Appendix B.  Network Design Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . 39




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1.  Introduction

   In the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), RFC 3261 [1], the basic
   unit of reference is the Address of Record (AOR).  However, in SIP
   systems a single user can have a number of user agents (handsets,
   softphones, voicemail accounts, etc.) that are all referenced by the
   same AOR.  There are a number of contexts in which it is desirable to
   have an identifier that addresses a single user agent rather than the
   group of user agents indicated by an AOR.

   As an example, consider a blind transfer application (see RFC 5589
   [19]).  User A is talking to user B.  User A wants to transfer the
   call to user C.  So, user A sends a REFER to user C.  That REFER
   looks like, in part:

       REFER sip:C@example.com SIP/2.0
       From: sip:A@example.com;tag=99asd
       To: sip:C@example.com
       Refer-To: (URI that identifies B's UA)

   The Refer-To header field needs to contain a URI that can be used by
   user C to place a call to user B.  However, this call needs to route
   to the specific UA instance that user B is using to talk to user A.
   If it doesn't, the transfer service will not execute properly.  For
   example, if A provides C with B's AOR, the call might be routed to
   B's voicemail rather than B's current handset.

   In order to enable this functionality, user B provides an instance-
   specific URI to user A in the Contact header of their SIP exchange.
   This URI refers to the user agent B is currently using, and it can be
   dereferenced by C's user agent.  Because user B doesn't know in
   advance who user A will transfer the call to, the URI has to be
   usable by anyone.

   Many current clients attempt to meet the need for an instance-
   specific identifier by using explicit IP addresses in the values they
   provide in the Contact header field.  However, this interacts poorly
   with NATs and firewalls, and as a practical matter, these URIs cannot
   be used by arbitrary external clients.  Usage of hostnames has proven
   problematic for similar reasons.  In addition, many SIP clients do
   not have or cannot obtain a hostname for themselves at all.

   This specification describes a mechanism for providing a unique user-
   agent identifier which is still globally routable.  This identifier
   is called a Globally Routable User Agent (UA) URI (GRUU).






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2.  Terminology

   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 [4].

   This specification defines the following additional terms:

   contact:  The term "contact", when used in all lowercase, refers to a
      URI that is bound to an AOR and GRUU by means of a registration.
      A contact is usually a SIP URI, and is bound to the AOR and GRUU
      through a REGISTER request by appearing as a value of the Contact
      header field.  The contact URI identifies a specific UA.

   remote target:  The term "remote target" refers to a URI that a user
      agent uses to identify itself for receipt of both mid-dialog and
      out-of-dialog requests.  A remote target is established by placing
      a URI in the Contact header field of a dialog-forming request or
      response and is updated by target refresh requests or responses.

   Contact header field:  The term "Contact header field", with a
      capitalized C, refers to the header field that can appear in
      REGISTER requests and responses, redirects, or dialog-creating
      requests and responses.  Depending on the semantics, the Contact
      header field sometimes conveys a contact, and sometimes conveys a
      remote target.

3.  Overview of Operation

   The basic idea behind a GRUU is simple.  GRUUs are issued by SIP
   domains and always route back to a proxy in that domain.  In turn,
   the domain maintains the binding between the GRUU and the particular
   UA instance.  When a GRUU is dereferenced while sending a SIP
   request, that request arrives at the proxy.  It maps the GRUU to the
   contact for the particular UA instance, and sends the request there.

3.1.  Structure of GRUUs

   A GRUU is a SIP URI that has two properties:

   o  It routes to a specific UA instance.

   o  It can be successfully dereferenced by any user agent on the
      Internet, not just ones in the same domain or IP network as the UA
      instance to which the GRUU points.






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   In principle, a GRUU can be constructed in any way the domain
   chooses, as long as it meets the criteria above.  However, all GRUUs
   contain the "gr" URI parameter (either with or without a value), so
   that a recipient of a GRUU can tell that it has these two properties.

   In practice, there are two different types of GRUUs:

   1.  GRUUs that expose the underlying AOR

   2.  GRUUs that hide the underlying AOR

3.1.1.  GRUUs That Expose the Underlying AOR

   In many cases, it is desirable to construct the GRUU in such a way
   that the mapping to the AOR is apparent.  For example, many user
   agents retain call logs, which keep track of incoming and outgoing
   call attempts.  If the UA had made a call to a GRUU (perhaps as a
   consequence of a transfer request), the call log will contain the
   GRUU.  Since the call log is rendered to the user, it would be useful
   to be able to present the user with the AOR instead, since the AOR is
   meaningful to users as an identifier.

   This type of GRUU is called a public GRUU.  It is constructed by
   taking the AOR, and adding the "gr" URI parameter with a value chosen
   by the registrar in the domain.  The value of the "gr" URI parameter
   contains a representation of the UA instance.  For instance, if the
   AOR was "sip:alice@example.com", the GRUU might be:

       sip:alice@example.com;gr=kjh29x97us97d

   If a UA removes the "gr" URI parameter, the result is the AOR.  Since
   many systems ignore unknown parameters anyway, a public GRUU will
   "look" like the AOR to those systems.

3.1.2.  GRUUs That Hide the Underlying AOR

   In other cases, it is desirable to construct a GRUU that obfuscates
   the AOR such that it cannot be extracted by a recipient of the GRUU.
   Such a GRUU is called a temporary GRUU.  The most obvious reason to
   do this is to protect the user's privacy.  In such cases, the GRUU
   can have any content, provided that it meets the requirements in
   Sections 3.1 and 5.4, and the AOR cannot be readily determined from
   the GRUU.  The GRUU will have the "gr" URI parameter, either with or
   without a value.  In order to avoid creating excessive state in the
   registrar, it is often desirable to construct cryptographically
   protected "stateless" GRUUs using an algorithm like that described in
   Appendix A.




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   An example of a temporary GRUU constructed using a stateful algorithm
   would be:

       sip:asd887f9dfkk76690@example.com;gr

3.2.  Obtaining a GRUU

   A user agent can obtain a GRUU in one of several ways:

   o  As part of its REGISTER transaction.

   o  By constructing one locally, using the IP address or hostname of
      the user agent instance as the domain part of the URI.  These are
      called self-made GRUUs, and are only really GRUUs when constructed
      by UAs that know they are globally reachable using their IP
      address or hostname.

   o  Via some locally specified administrative mechanism.

   A UA that wants to obtain a GRUU via its REGISTER request does so by
   providing an instance ID in the "+sip.instance" Contact header field
   parameter, defined in RFC 5626 [14].  For example:

        Contact: <sip:callee@192.0.2.2>
        ;+sip.instance="<urn:uuid:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>"

   The registrar detects this header field parameter and provides two
   GRUUs in the REGISTER response.  One of these is a temporary GRUU,
   and the other is the public GRUU.  These two GRUUs are returned in
   the "temp-gruu" and "pub-gruu" Contact header field parameters in the
   response, respectively.  For example:

   <allOneLine>
   Contact: <sip:callee@192.0.2.2>
   ;pub-gruu="sip:callee@example.com;gr=urn:
   uuid:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6"
   ;temp-gruu="sip:tgruu.7hs==
   jd7vnzga5w7fajsc7-ajd6fabz0f8g5@example.com;gr"
   ;+sip.instance="<urn:uuid:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>"
   ;expires=3600
   </allOneLine>

   Note that the <allOneLine> tag is used as defined in [17].

   When a user agent refreshes this registration prior to its
   expiration, the registrar will return back the same public GRUU, but
   will create a new temporary GRUU.  Despite the fact that each refresh
   provides the UA with a new temporary GRUU, all of the temporary GRUUs



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   learned from previous REGISTER responses during the lifetime of a
   contact remain valid as long as (1) a contact with that instance ID
   remains registered, and (2) the UA doesn't change the Call-ID in its
   REGISTER request compared to previous ones for the same reg-id [14].
   When the last contact for the instance expires, either through
   explicit de-registration or timeout, all of the temporary GRUUs
   become invalidated.  Similarly, if a register refresh for a contact
   (or, if RFC 5626 is being used, for a reg-id) changes the Call-ID
   compared to previous register refreshes, all of the previous
   temporary GRUUs are invalidated.  When the user agent later creates a
   new registration with the same instance ID, the public GRUU is the
   same.  The temporary GRUU will be new (as it is with refreshes), and
   it will be the only valid temporary GRUU for the instance until the
   next refresh, at which point a second one becomes valid too.
   Consequently, temporary GRUUs "accumulate" during the lifetime of a
   registration.

3.3.  Using a GRUU

   Once a user agent obtains GRUUs from the registrar, it uses them in
   several ways.  First, it uses them as the contents of the Contact
   header field in non-REGISTER requests and responses that it emits
   (for example, an INVITE request and 200 OK response).  According to
   RFC 3261 [1], the Contact header field is supposed to contain a URI
   that routes to that user agent.  Prior to this specification, there
   hasn't been a way to really meet that requirement.  The user agent
   would use one of its temporary GRUUs for anonymous calls, and use its
   public GRUU otherwise.

   Second, the UA can use the GRUU in any other place it needs to use a
   URI that resolves to itself, such as a webpage.

3.4.  Dereferencing a GRUU

   Because a GRUU is simply a URI, a UA dereferences it in exactly the
   same way as it would any other URI.  However, once the request has
   been routed to the appropriate proxy, the behavior is slightly
   different.  The proxy will map the GRUU to the AOR and determine the
   set of contacts that the particular UA instance has registered.  The
   GRUU is then mapped to those contacts, and the request is routed
   towards the UA.










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4.  User Agent Behavior

   This section defines the normative behavior for user agents.

4.1.  Generating a REGISTER Request

   When a UA compliant to this specification generates a REGISTER
   request (initial or refresh), it MUST include the Supported header
   field in the request.  The value of that header field MUST include
   "gruu" as one of the option tags.  This alerts the registrar for the
   domain that the UA supports the GRUU mechanism.

   Furthermore, for each contact for which the UA desires to obtain a
   GRUU, the UA MUST include a "sip.instance" media feature tag (see RFC
   5626 [14]) as a UA characteristic (see [7]), whose value MUST be the
   instance ID that identifies the UA instance being registered.  Each
   such Contact header field SHOULD NOT contain a "pub-gruu" or "temp-
   gruu" header field.  The contact URI MUST NOT be equivalent, based on
   the URI equality rules in RFC 3261 [1], to the AOR in the To header
   field.  If the contact URI is a GRUU, it MUST NOT be a GRUU for the
   AOR in the To header field.

   As in RFC 3261 [1], the Call-ID in a REGISTER refresh SHOULD be
   identical to the Call-ID used to previously register a contact.  With
   GRUU, an additional consideration applies.  If the Call-ID changes in
   a register refresh, the server will invalidate all temporary GRUUs
   associated with that UA instance; the only valid one will be the new
   one returned in that REGISTER response.  When RFC 5626 is in use,
   this rule applies to the reg-ids: If the Call-ID changes for the
   registration refresh for a particular reg-id, the server will
   invalidate all temporary GRUUs associated with that UA instance as a
   whole.  Consequently, if a UA wishes its previously obtained
   temporary GRUUs to remain valid, it MUST utilize the same Call-ID in
   REGISTER refreshes.  However, it MAY change the Call-ID in a refresh
   if invalidation is the desired objective.

   Note that, if any dialogs are in progress that utilize a temporary
   GRUU as a remote target, and a UA performs a registration refresh
   with a change in Call-ID, those temporary GRUUs become invalid, and
   the UA will not be reachable for subsequent mid-dialog messages.

   If a UA instance is trying to register multiple contacts for the same
   instance for the purposes of redundancy, it MUST use the procedures
   defined in RFC 5626 [14].

      A UA utilizing GRUUs can still perform third-party registrations
      and can include contacts that omit the "+sip.instance" Contact
      header field parameter.



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   If a UA wishes to guarantee that the REGISTER request is not
   processed unless the domain supports and uses this extension, it MAY
   include a Require header field in the request with a value that
   contains the "gruu" option tag.  This is in addition to the presence
   of the Supported header field, also containing the "gruu" option tag.
   The use of Proxy-Require is not necessary and is NOT RECOMMENDED.

4.2.  Learning GRUUs from REGISTER Responses

   If the REGISTER response is a 2xx, each Contact header field that
   contains the "+sip.instance" Contact header field parameter can also
   contain a "pub-gruu" and "temp-gruu" Contact header field parameter.
   These header field parameters convey the public and a temporary GRUU
   for the UA instance, respectively.  A UA MUST be prepared for a
   Contact header field to contain just a "pub-gruu", just a "temp-
   gruu", neither, or both.  The temporary GRUU will be valid for the
   duration of the registration (that is, through refreshes), while the
   public GRUU persists across registrations.  The UA will receive a new
   temporary GRUU in each successful REGISTER response, while the public
   GRUU will typically be the same.  However, a UA MUST be prepared for
   the public GRUU to change from a previous one, since the persistence
   property is not guaranteed with complete certainty.  If a UA changed
   its Call-ID in this REGISTER request compared to a previous REGISTER
   request for the same contact or reg-id, the UA MUST discard all
   temporary GRUUs learned through prior REGISTER responses.  A UA MAY
   retain zero, one, some, or all of the temporary GRUUs that it is
   provided during the time over which at least one contact or reg-id
   remains continuously registered.  If a UA stores any temporary GRUUs
   for use during its registration, it needs to be certain that the
   registration does not accidentally lapse due to clock skew between
   the UA and registrar.  Consequently, the UA MUST refresh its
   registration such that the REGISTER refresh transaction will either
   complete or timeout prior to the expiration of the registration.  For
   default transaction timers, this would be at least 32 seconds prior
   to expiration, assuming the registration expiration is larger than 64
   seconds.  If the registration expiration is less than 64 seconds, the
   UA SHOULD refresh its registration halfway prior to expiration.

   Note that, when [14] is in use, and the UA is utilizing multiple
   flows for purposes of redundancy, the temporary GRUUs remain valid as
   long as at least one flow is registered.  Thus, even if the
   registration of one flow expires, the temporary GRUUs learned
   previously remain valid.

   In cases where registrars forcefully shorten registration intervals,
   the registration event package, RFC 3680 [24], is used by user agents
   to learn of these changes.  A user agent implementing both RFC 3680
   [24] and GRUU MUST also implement the extensions to RFC 3680 [24] for



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   conveying information on GRUU, as defined in RFC 5628 [28], as these
   are necessary to keep the set of temporary GRUUs synchronized between
   the UA and the registrar.  More generally, the utility of temporary
   GRUUs depends on the UA and registrar being in sync on the set of
   valid temporary GRUUs at any time.  Without support of RFC 3680 [24]
   and its extension for GRUU, the client will remain in sync only as
   long as it always re-registers well before the registration
   expiration.  Besides forceful de-registrations, other events (such as
   network outages, connection failures, and short refresh intervals)
   can lead to potential inconsistencies in the set of valid temporary
   GRUUs.  For this reason, it is RECOMMENDED that a UA that utilizes
   temporary GRUUs implement RFC 3680 [24] and RFC 5628 [28].

   A non-2xx response to the REGISTER request has no impact on any
   existing GRUUs previously provided to the UA.  Specifically, if a
   previously successful REGISTER request provided the UA with a GRUU, a
   subsequent failed request does not remove, delete, or otherwise
   invalidate the GRUU.

   The user and host parts of the GRUU learned by the UA in the REGISTER
   response MUST be treated opaquely by the UA.  That is, the UA MUST
   NOT modify them in any way.  A UA MUST NOT modify or remove URI
   parameters it does not recognize.  Furthermore, the UA MUST NOT add,
   remove, or modify URI parameters relevant for receipt and processing
   of request at the proxy, including the transport, lr, maddr, ttl,
   user, and comp (see RFC 3486 [25]) URI parameters.  The other URI
   parameter defined in RFC 3261 [1], method, would not typically be
   present in a GRUU delivered from a registrar, and a UA MAY add a
   method URI parameter to the GRUU before handing it out to another
   entity.  Similarly, the URI parameters defined in RFC 4240 [26] and
   RFC 4458 [27] are meant for consumption by the UA.  These would not
   be included in the GRUU returned by a registrar and MAY be added by a
   UA wishing to provide services associated with those URI parameters.

   Note, however, that should another UA dereference the GRUU, the
   parameters will be lost at the proxy when the Request-URI is
   translated into the registered contact, unless some other means is
   provided for the attributes to be delivered to the UA.  Mechanisms
   for such delivery are currently the subject of future standardization
   activity (see "Delivery of Request-URI Targets to User Agents" [29]).

4.3.  Constructing a Self-Made GRUU

   Many user agents (such as gateways to the Public Switched Telephone
   Network (PSTN), conferencing servers, and media servers) do not
   perform registrations, and cannot obtain GRUUs through that
   mechanism.  These types of user agents can be publicly reachable.
   This would mean that the policy of the domain is that requests can



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   come from anywhere on the public Internet and be delivered to the
   user agent without requiring processing by intervening proxies within
   the domain.  Furthermore, firewall and NAT policies administered by
   the domain would allow such requests into the network.  When a user
   agent is certain that these conditions are met, a UA MAY construct a
   self-made GRUU.  Of course, a user agent that does REGISTER, but for
   whom these conditions are met regardless, MAY also construct a self-
   made GRUU.  However, usage of GRUUs obtained by the registrar is
   RECOMMENDED instead.

   A self-made GRUU is one whose domain part equals the IP address or
   hostname of the user agent.  The user part of the SIP URI is chosen
   arbitrarily by the user agent.  Like all other GRUUs, the URI MUST
   contain the "gr" URI parameter, with or without a value, indicating
   it is a GRUU.

   If a user agent does not register, but is not publicly reachable, it
   would need to obtain a GRUU through some other means.  Typically, the
   UA would be configured with a GRUU, the GRUU would be configured into
   the proxy, and the proxy will be configured with a mapping from the
   GRUU to the IP address (or hostname) and port of the UA.

4.4.  Using One's Own GRUUs

   A UA SHOULD use a GRUU when populating the Contact header field of
   dialog-forming and target refresh requests and responses.  In other
   words, a UA compliant to this specification SHOULD use one of its
   GRUUs as its remote target.  This includes:

   o  the INVITE request

   o  a 2xx or 18x response to an INVITE which contains a To tag

   o  the SUBSCRIBE request (see [5])

   o  a 2xx response to a SUBSCRIBE which contains a To tag

   o  the NOTIFY request

   o  the REFER request (see [6])

   o  a 2xx response to NOTIFY

   o  the UPDATE request

   o  a 2xx response to NOTIFY





RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   The only reason not to use a GRUU would be privacy considerations;
   see Section 10.3.

   When using a GRUU obtained through registrations, a UA MUST have an
   active registration prior to using a GRUU, and MUST use a GRUU
   learned through that registration.  It MUST NOT reuse a GRUU learned
   through a previous registration that has lapsed (in other words, one
   obtained when registering a contact that has expired).  The UA MAY
   use either the public or one of its temporary GRUUs provided by its
   registrar.  A UA MUST NOT use a temporary GRUU learned in a REGISTER
   response whose Call-ID differs from the one in the most recent
   REGISTER request generated by the UA for the same AOR and instance ID
   (and, if RFC 5626 [14] is in use, reg-id).  When a UA wishes to
   construct an anonymous request as described in RFC 3323 [15], it
   SHOULD use a temporary GRUU.  See Section 10.3 for a more complete
   discussion on the level of privacy afforded by temporary GRUUs.

   As per RFC 3261 [1], a UA SHOULD include a Supported header with the
   option tag "gruu" in requests and responses it generates.

4.4.1.  Considerations for Multiple AORs

   In some SIP networks, a user agent can have a multiplicity of AORs,
   either in different domains or within the same domain.  In such
   cases, additional considerations apply.

   When a UA sends a request, the request will be sent 'using' one of
   its AORs.  This AOR will typically show up in the From header field
   of the request, and credentials unique to that AOR will be used to
   authenticate the request.  The GRUU placed into the Contact header
   field of such a request SHOULD be one that is associated with the AOR
   used to send the request.  In cases where the UA uses a tel URI (as
   defined in [11]) to populate the From header field, the UA typically
   has a SIP AOR that is treated as an alias for the tel URI.  The GRUU
   associated with that SIP AOR SHOULD be used in the Contact header
   field.

   When a UA receives a request, the GRUU placed into the Contact header
   field of a 2xx response SHOULD be the one associated with the AOR or
   GRUU to which the request was most recently targeted.  There are
   several ways to determine the AOR or GRUU to which a request was
   sent.  For example, if a UA registered a different contact to each
   AOR (by using a different user part of the URI), the Request-URI
   (which contains that contact) will indicate the AOR.







RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


4.5.  Dereferencing a GRUU

   A GRUU is identified by the presence of the "gr" URI parameter, and
   this URI parameter might or might not have a value.  A UA that wishes
   to send a request to a URI that contains a GRUU knows that the
   request will be delivered to a specific UA instance without further
   action on the part of the requestor.

   Some UAs implement non-standard URI-handling mechanisms that
   compensate for the fact that heretofore many contact URIs have not
   been globally routable.  Since any URI containing the "gr" URI
   parameter is known to be globally routable, a UA SHOULD NOT apply
   such mechanisms when a contact URI contains the "gr" URI parameter.

      Because the instance ID is a callee capabilities parameter, a UA
      might be tempted to send a request to the AOR of a user, and
      include an Accept-Contact header field (defined in [12]) that
      indicates a preference for routing the request to a UA with a
      specific instance ID.  Although this would appear to have the same
      effect as sending a request to the GRUU, it does not.  The caller
      preferences expressed in the Accept-Contact header field are just
      preferences.  Their efficacy depends on a UA constructing an
      Accept-Contact header field that interacts with domain-processing
      logic for an AOR, to cause a request to route to a particular
      instance.  Given the variability in routing logic in a domain (for
      example, time-based routing to only selected contacts), this
      doesn't work for many domain-routing policies.  However, this
      specification does not forbid a client from attempting such a
      request, as there can be cases where the desired operation truly
      is a preferential routing request.

4.6.  Rendering GRUUs on a User Interface

   When rendering a GRUU to a user through a user interface, it is
   RECOMMENDED that the "gr" URI parameter be removed.  For public
   GRUUs, this will produce the AOR, as desired.  For temporary GRUUs,
   the resulting URI will be seemingly random.  Future work might
   provide improved mechanisms that would allow an automaton to know
   that a URI is anonymized, and therefore inappropriate to render.

5.  Registrar Behavior

5.1.  Processing a REGISTER Request

   A REGISTER request might contain a Require header field with the
   "gruu" option tag; this indicates that the registrar has to
   understand this extension in order to process the request.  It does
   not require the registrar to create GRUUs, however.



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   As the registrar is processing the contacts in the REGISTER request
   according to the procedures of step 7 in Section 10.3 of RFC 3261
   [1], the registrar checks whether each Contact header field in the
   REGISTER message contains a "+sip.instance" header field parameter.
   If present with a non-zero expiration, the contact is processed
   further based on the rules in the remainder of this section.
   Otherwise, the contact is processed based on normal RFC 3261 [1]
   rules.

      Note that handling of a REGISTER request containing a Contact
      header field with value "*" and an expiration of zero still
      retains the meaning defined in RFC 3261 [1] -- all contacts, not
      just those with a specific instance ID, are deleted.  As described
      in Section 5.4, this removes the binding of each contact to the
      AOR and the binding of each contact to its GRUUs.

   If the contact URI is equivalent (based on URI equivalence in RFC
   3261 [1]) to the AOR, the registrar MUST reject the request with a
   403, since this would cause a routing loop.  If the contact URI is a
   GRUU for the AOR in the To header field of the REGISTER request, the
   registrar MUST reject the request with a 403, for the same reason.
   If the contact is not a SIP URI, the REGISTER request MUST be
   rejected with a 403.

   Next, the registrar checks if there is already a valid public GRUU
   for the AOR (present in the To header field of the REGISTER request)
   and the instance ID (present as the content of the "+sip.instance"
   Contact header field parameter).  If there is no valid public GRUU,
   the registrar SHOULD construct a public GRUU at this time according
   to the procedures of Section 5.4.  The public GRUU MUST be
   constructed by adding the "gr" URI parameter, with a value, to the
   AOR.  If the contact contained a "pub-gruu" Contact header field
   parameter, the header field parameter MUST be ignored by the
   registrar.  A UA cannot suggest or otherwise provide a public GRUU to
   the registrar.

   Next, the registrar checks for any existing contacts registered to
   the same AOR, instance ID, and if the contact in the REGISTER request
   is registering a flow [14], reg-id.  If there is at least one, the
   registrar finds the one that was most recently registered, and
   examines the Call-ID value associated with that registered contact.
   If it differs from the one in the REGISTER request, the registrar
   MUST invalidate all previously generated temporary GRUUs for the AOR
   and instance ID.  A consequence of this invalidation is that requests
   addressed to those GRUUs will be rejected by the domain with a 404
   from this point forward.





RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   Next, the registrar SHOULD create a new temporary GRUU for the AOR
   and instance ID with the characteristics described in Section 5.4.
   The temporary GRUU construction algorithm MUST have the following two
   properties:

   1.  The likelihood that the temporary GRUU is equal to another GRUU
       that the registrar has created MUST be vanishingly small.

   2.  Given a pair of GRUUs, it MUST be computationally infeasible to
       determine whether they were issued for the same AOR or instance
       ID or for different AORs and instance IDs.

   If the contact contained a "temp-gruu" Contact header field
   parameter, the header field parameter MUST be ignored by the
   registrar.  A UA cannot suggest or otherwise provide a temporary GRUU
   to the registrar.

5.2.  Generating a REGISTER Response

   When generating the 200 (OK) response to the REGISTER request, the
   procedures of step 8 of Section 10.3 of RFC 3261 [1] are followed.
   Furthermore, for each Contact header field value placed in the
   response, if the registrar has stored an instance ID associated with
   that contact, that instance ID is returned as a Contact header field
   parameter.  If the REGISTER request contained a Supported header
   field that included the "gruu" option tag, and the registrar has at
   least one temporary GRUU assigned to the instance ID and AOR, the
   registrar MUST add a "temp-gruu" Contact header field parameter to
   that Contact header field.  The value of the "temp-gruu" parameter is
   a quoted string, and MUST contain the most recently created temporary
   GRUU for that AOR and instance ID.  In addition, if the registrar has
   a public GRUU assigned to the instance ID and AOR (and the client
   supports GRUUs), the registrar MUST add a "pub-gruu" Contact header
   field parameter to that Contact header field.  The value of the "pub-
   gruu" Contact header field parameter is the public GRUU.

   The registrar SHOULD NOT include the "gruu" option tag in the Require
   or Supported header field of the response.

5.3.  Timing Out a Registration

   When a registered contact expires (either due to timeout or explicit
   de-registration), its binding to the AOR is removed as usual.  In
   addition, its binding to its GRUUs are removed at the same time, as a
   consequence of the relationships described in Section 5.4






RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   If, as a consequence of the expiration of the contact, a particular
   GRUU no longer has any registered contacts bound to it, and the GRUU
   is a temporary GRUU, the GRUU MUST be invalidated.  This means that
   all of the accumulated temporary GRUUs get invalidated once the last
   contact for a given instance ID expires.

   If, however, the GRUU was a public GRUU, the registrar SHOULD
   continue to treat the GRUU as valid.  Consequently, subsequent
   requests targeted to the GRUU, prior to re-registration of a contact
   to the GRUU, SHOULD return a 480 (Temporarily Unavailable) response.
   In addition, since the GRUU remains valid, the rules in Section 5.1
   will cause it to be retained when a contact with that instance ID is
   once again registered to the AOR.

      These rules give a public GRUU a semi-permanent property.  The
      intent is that the registrar make every attempt to retain validity
      of the GRUU for as long as the AOR itself is known within the
      domain.  The requirements for doing so are at SHOULD strength and
      not MUST strength because of the difficulty in meeting a MUST
      strength requirement; registrar failures could cause the set of
      valid GRUUs to be lost, and this specification requires the UA to
      be robust against such cases.  That said, it is possible for a
      public GRUU to be constructed such that a registrar does not need
      to retain any additional state for it, yet the GRUU still meets
      the requirements described here.

5.4.  Creation of a GRUU

   This section defines additional behaviors associated with the
   construction and maintenance of a GRUU that are specific to a
   registrar.  These rules do not apply to self-made GRUUs or GRUUs not
   obtained through registrations.

   When a registrar creates a GRUU, it is required to maintain certain
   information associated with the GRUU, regardless of whether it is a
   public or temporary GRUU.  Every GRUU is associated with a single AOR
   and a single instance ID.  A registrar MUST be able to determine the
   instance ID and AOR when presented with a GRUU.  In addition, the
   GRUU, like an AOR, resolves to zero or more contacts.  While the AOR
   resolves to all registered contacts for an AOR, a GRUU resolves only
   to those contacts whose instance ID matches the one associated with
   the GRUU.  For this reason, a contact with an instance ID is always
   bound to both a GRUU and its AOR, never just an AOR or just a GRUU.
   This is shown pictorially in Figure 1.  The figure shows three
   contacts registered to a single AOR.  One of the contacts has an
   instance ID of 1, and the other two have an instance ID of 2.  There
   are two GRUUs for this AOR.  One is associated with instance ID 1,
   and the other with instance ID 2.  The first GRUU resolves only to



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   contacts whose instance ID is 1, and the second resolves only to
   contacts whose instance ID is 2.  There will typically be multiple
   contacts for a given instance ID if a UA has crashed, rebooted, and
   re-registered with the same instance ID, or is using the mechanisms
   of RFC 5626 [14] to have multiple registrations for redundancy.  If
   the contact for instance ID 1 expires, the AOR would resolve to two
   contacts, but the GRUU associated with instance ID 1 would resolve to
   zero.

          +----------+   +----------+  +----------+
          |  GRUU    |   |          |  |  GRUU    |
          |          |   |   AOR    |  |          |
          |Instance:1|   |          |  |Instance:2|
          +----------+   +----------+  +----------+
               |           /  |  \           / |
               |          /   |   \         /  |
               |         /    |    \       /   |
               |        /     |     \     /    |
               |       /      |      \   /     |
               |      /       |       \ /      |
               |     /        |        X       |
               |    /         |       / \      |
               |   /          |      /   \     |
               |  /           |     /     \    |
               V V            V    V       V   V
          +----------+   +----------+  +----------+
          | Contact  |   | Contact  |  | Contact  |
          |          |   |          |  |          |
          |Instance:1|   |Instance:2|  |Instance:2|
          +----------+   +----------+  +----------+

                                 Figure 1

   There can be multiple GRUUs with the same instance ID and AOR.
   Indeed, this specification requires registrars to maintain many --
   one that is public, and several that are temporary.  However, if two
   GRUUs are associated with different AORs or different instance IDs or
   both, the GRUUs MUST be different based on URI equality comparison.
   A GRUU in a domain MUST NOT be equivalent, based on URI comparison,
   to any AOR in a domain except for the one associated with the GRUU.

      A public GRUU will always be equivalent to the AOR based on URI
      equality rules.  The reason is that the rules in RFC 3261 [1]
      cause URI parameters that are in one URI, but not in the other, to
      be ignored for equality purposes.  Since a public GRUU differs
      from an AOR only by the presence of the "gr" URI parameter, the
      two URIs are equivalent based on those rules.




RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   Once a temporary GRUU is constructed, it MUST be considered valid by
   the registrar until invalidated based on the rules described
   previously.  Once a public GRUU is constructed, it MUST be considered
   valid for the duration that the AOR itself is valid.  Once an AOR is
   no longer valid within a domain, all of its GRUUs MUST be considered
   invalid as well.

   This specification does not mandate a particular mechanism for
   construction of the GRUU.  Example algorithms for public and
   temporary GRUUs that work well are given in Appendix A.  However, in
   addition to the properties described in Section 3.1, a GRUU
   constructed by a registrar MUST exhibit the following properties:

   o  The domain part of the URI is an IP address present on the public
      Internet, or, if it is a hostname, the resolution procedures of
      RFC 3263 [2], once applied, result in an IP address on the public
      Internet.

   o  When a request is sent to the GRUU, it routes to a proxy that can
      access the registration data generated by the registrar.  Such a
      proxy is called an authoritative proxy, defined in RFC 5626 [14].

5.5.  Registration Event Support

   RFC 3680 [24] defines an event package that allows a client to learn
   about registration events at the registrar.  This package allows
   registrars to alter registrations forcefully (for example, shortening
   them to force a re-registration).  If a registrar is supporting RFC
   3680 [24] and GRUU, it MUST also support RFC 5628 [28].

6.  Proxy Behavior

   Proxy behavior is fully defined in Section 16 of RFC 3261 [1].  GRUU
   processing impacts that processing in two places -- request targeting
   at the authoritative proxy and record-routing.

6.1.  Request Targeting

   When a proxy receives a request, owns the domain in the Request-URI,
   and is supposed to access a location service in order to compute
   request targets (as specified in Section 16.5 of RFC 3261 [1]), the
   proxy examines the Request-URI.  If it contains the "gr" URI
   parameter but is not equivalent, based on URI comparison, to a
   currently valid GRUU within the domain, it SHOULD be rejected with a
   404 (Not Found) response; this is the same behavior a proxy would
   exhibit for any other URI within the domain that is not valid.





RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   If the Request-URI contains the "gr" URI parameter and is equivalent,
   based on URI comparison, to a GRUU which is currently valid within
   the domain, processing proceeds as it would for any other URI present
   in the location service, as defined in Section 16.5 of RFC 3261 [1],
   except that the "gr" URI parameter is not removed as part of the
   canonicalization process.  This is the case for both out-of-dialog
   requests targeted to the GRUU, and mid-dialog requests targeted to
   the GRUU (in which case the incoming request would have a Route
   header field value containing the URI that the proxy used for record-
   routing.).

   Note that the "gr" URI parameter is retained just for the purposes of
   finding the GRUU in the location service; if a match is found, the
   Request-URI will be rewritten with the registered contacts, replacing
   the GRUU and its "gr" URI parameter.  The "gr" URI parameter is not
   carried forward into the rewritten Request-URI.

   If there are no registered contacts bound to the GRUU, the server
   MUST return a 480 (Temporarily Unavailable) response.  If there are
   more than one, there are two cases:

   1.  The client is using RFC 5626 [14] and registering multiple
       contacts for redundancy.  In that case, these contacts contain
       "reg-id" Contact header field parameters, and the rules described
       in Section 7 of RFC 5626 [14] for selecting a single registered
       contact apply.

   2.  The client was not using RFC 5626 [14], in which case there would
       only be multiple contacts with the same instance ID if the client
       had rebooted, restarted, and re-registered.  In this case, these
       contacts would not contain the "reg-id" Contact header field
       parameter.  The proxy MUST select the most recently refreshed
       contact.  As with RFC 5626, if a request to this target fails
       with a 408 (Request Timeout) or 430 (Flow Failed) response, the
       proxy SHOULD retry with the next most recently refreshed contact.
       Furthermore, if the request fails with any other response, the
       proxy MUST NOT retry on any other contacts for this instance.

   Any caller preferences in the request (as defined in RFC 3841 [12])
   SHOULD be processed against the contacts bound to the GRUU.

   In essence, to select a registered contact, the GRUU is processed
   just like it was the AOR, but with only a subset of the contacts
   bound to the AOR.

   Special considerations apply to the processing of any Path headers
   stored in the registration (see RFC 3327 [3]).  If the received
   request has Route header field values beyond the one pointing to the



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   authoritative proxy itself (this will happen when the request is a
   mid-dialog request), the Path URI MUST be discarded.  This is
   permitted by RFC 3327 [3] as a matter of local policy; usage of GRUUs
   will require this policy in order to avoid call spirals and likely
   call failures.

   A proxy MAY apply other processing to the request, such as execution
   of called party features, as it might do for requests targeted to an
   AOR.  For requests that are outside of a dialog, it is RECOMMENDED to
   apply screening types of functions, both automated (such as blacklist
   and whitelist screening) and interactive (such as interactive voice
   response (IVR) applications that confer with the user to determine
   whether to accept a call).  In many cases, the new request is related
   to an existing dialog, and might be an attempt to join it (using the
   Join header field defined in RFC 3911 [21]) or replace it (using the
   Replaces header field defined in RFC 3891 [22]).  When the new
   request is related to an existing dialog, the UA will typically make
   its own authorization decisions; bypassing screening services at the
   authoritative proxy might make sense, but needs to be carefully
   considered by network designers, as the ability to do so depends on
   the specific type of screening service.

   However, forwarding services, such as call forwarding, SHOULD NOT be
   provided for requests sent to a GRUU.  The intent of the GRUU is to
   target a specific UA instance, and this is incompatible with
   forwarding operations.

   If the request is a mid-dialog request, a proxy SHOULD only apply
   services that are meaningful for mid-dialog requests, generally
   speaking.  This excludes screening and forwarding functions.

   In addition, a request sent to a GRUU SHOULD NOT be redirected.  In
   many instances, a GRUU is used by a UA in order to assist in the
   traversal of NATs and firewalls, and a redirection might prevent such
   a case from working.

6.2.  Record-Routing

   There are two distinct requirements for record-routing -- in the
   originating domain and in the terminating domain.  These requirements
   avoid unnecessary, and possibly problematic, spirals of requests.

   If:

   o  an originating authoritative proxy receives a dialog-forming
      request,





RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   o  AND the Contact header field contains a GRUU in the domain of the
      proxy,

   o  AND that GRUU is a valid one in the domain of the proxy,

   o  AND that GRUU is associated with the AOR matching the
      authenticated identity of the requestor (assuming such
      authentication has been performed),

   o  AND the request contains Record-Route header fields,

   then the authoritative proxy MUST record-route.  If all of these
   conditions are true, except that the GRUU is associated with an AOR
   that did not match the authenticated identity of the requestor, it is
   RECOMMENDED that the proxy reject the request with a 403 (Forbidden)
   response.

   If:

   o  a terminating authoritative proxy receives a dialog-forming
      request,

   o  AND the Request-URI contains a URI in the location service (either
      a GRUU or an AOR),

   o  AND the contact selected for sending the request has an instance
      ID and is bound to a GRUU,

   o  AND the registration contain Path URI,

   then the authoritative proxy MUST record-route.

   If a proxy is in either the originating or terminating domains but is
   not an authoritative proxy, the proxy MAY record-route.

   If a proxy in the terminating domain requires mid-dialog requests to
   pass through it for whatever reason (firewall traversal, accounting,
   etc.), the proxy MUST still record-route, and MUST NOT assume that a
   UA will utilize its GRUU in the Contact header field of its response
   (which would cause mid-dialog requests to pass through the proxy
   without record-routing).

      Implementors should note that, if a UA uses a GRUU in its contact,
      and a proxy inserted itself into the Path header field of a
      registration, that proxy will be receiving mid-dialog requests
      regardless of whether it record-routes or not.  The only
      distinction is what URI the proxy will see in the topmost Route




RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


      header field of mid-dialog requests.  If the proxy record-routes,
      it will see that URI.  If it does not, it will see the Path URI it
      inserted.

7.  Grammar

   This specification defines two new Contact header field parameters
   ("temp-gruu" and "pub-gruu") by extending the grammar for "contact-
   params" as defined in RFC 3261 [1].  It also defines a new SIP URI
   parameter ("gr") by extending the grammar for "uri-parameter" as
   defined in RFC 3261 [1].  The ABNF [13] is as follows:

   contact-params  =/ temp-gruu / pub-gruu
   temp-gruu       =  "temp-gruu" EQUAL quoted-string
   pub-gruu        =  "pub-gruu" EQUAL quoted-string

   uri-parameter   =/ gr-param
   gr-param        = "gr" ["=" pvalue]   ; defined in RFC 3261

   The quoted strings for temp-gruu and pub-gruu MUST contain a SIP URI.
   However, they are encoded like all other quoted strings and can
   therefore contain quoted-pair escapes when represented this way.

8.  Requirements

   This specification was created in order to meet the following
   requirements:

   REQ 1:  When a UA invokes a GRUU, it must cause the request to be
      routed to the specific UA instance to which the GRUU refers.

   REQ 2:  It must be possible for a GRUU to be invoked from anywhere on
      the Internet, and still cause the request to be routed
      appropriately.  That is, a GRUU must not be restricted to use
      within a specific addressing realm.

   REQ 3:  It must be possible for a GRUU to be constructed without
      requiring the network to store additional state.

   REQ 4:  It must be possible for a UA to obtain a multiplicity of
      GRUUs that each route to that UA instance.  For example, this is
      needed to support ad hoc conferencing where a UA instance needs a
      different URI for each conference it is hosting.  NOTE: This
      requirement is not met by this specification, and is being
      addressed in a separate specification (currently, "Delivery of
      Request-URI Targets to User Agents" [29]).





RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   REQ 5:  When a UA receives a request sent to a GRUU, it must be
      possible for the UA to know the GRUU that was used to invoke the
      request.  This is necessary as a consequence of REQ 4.  NOTE: This
      requirement is not met by this specification, and is being
      addressed in a separate specification (currently, "Delivery of
      Request-URI Targets to User Agents" [29]).

   REQ 6:  It must be possible for a UA to add opaque content to a GRUU.
      This content is not interpreted or altered by the network, and is
      used only by the UA instance to whom the GRUU refers.  This
      provides a basic cookie type of functionality, allowing a UA to
      build a GRUU with the state embedded.  NOTE: This requirement is
      not met by this specification, and is being addressed in a
      separate specification (currently, "Delivery of Request-URI
      Targets to User Agents" [29]).

   REQ 7:  It must be possible for a proxy to execute services and
      features on behalf of a UA instance represented by a GRUU.  As an
      example, if a user has call-blocking features, a proxy might want
      to apply those call-blocking features to calls made to the GRUU,
      in addition to calls made to the user's AOR.

   REQ 8:  It must be possible for a UA in a dialog to inform its peer
      of its GRUU, and for the peer to know that the URI represents a
      GRUU.  This is needed for the conferencing and dialog reuse
      applications of GRUUs, where the URIs are transferred within a
      dialog.

   REQ 9:  When transferring a GRUU per REQ 8, it must be possible for
      the UA receiving the GRUU to be assured of its integrity and
      authenticity.

   REQ 10:  It must be possible for a server that is authoritative for a
      domain to construct a GRUU that routes to a UA instance bound to
      an AOR in that domain.  In other words, the proxy can construct a
      GRUU, too.  This is needed for the presence application.

9.  Example Call Flow

   The following call flow, shown in Figure 2, shows a basic
   registration and call setup, followed by a subscription directed to
   the GRUU.  It then shows a failure of the callee, followed by a re-
   registration.  The conventions of RFC 4475 [17] are used to describe
   the representation of long message lines.







RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


       Caller                 Proxy                Callee
       |                     |(1) REGISTER         |
       |                     |<--------------------|
       |                     |(2) 200 OK           |
       |                     |-------------------->|
       |(3) INVITE           |                     |
       |-------------------->|                     |
       |                     |(4) INVITE           |
       |                     |-------------------->|
       |                     |(5) 200 OK           |
       |                     |<--------------------|
       |(6) 200 OK           |                     |
       |<--------------------|                     |
       |(7) ACK              |                     |
       |-------------------->|                     |
       |                     |(8) ACK              |
       |                     |-------------------->|
       |(9) SUBSCRIBE        |                     |
       |-------------------->|                     |
       |                     |(10) SUBSCRIBE       |
       |                     |-------------------->|
       |                     |(11) 200 OK          |
       |                     |<--------------------|
       |(12) 200 OK          |                     |
       |<--------------------|                     |
       |                     |(13) NOTIFY          |
       |                     |<--------------------|
       |(14) NOTIFY          |                     |
       |<--------------------|                     |
       |(15) 200 OK          |                     |
       |-------------------->|                     |
       |                     |(16) 200 OK          |
       |                     |-------------------->|
       |                     |                     |Crashes,
       |                     |(17) REGISTER        | Reboots
       |                     |<--------------------|
       |                     |(18) 200 OK          |
       |                     |-------------------->|

                                 Figure 2











RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   The callee supports the GRUU extension.  As such, its REGISTER (1)
   looks like:

      REGISTER sip:example.com SIP/2.0
      Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 192.0.2.1;branch=z9hG4bKnashds7
      Max-Forwards: 70
      From: Callee <sip:callee@example.com>;tag=a73kszlfl
      Supported: gruu
      To: Callee <sip:callee@example.com>
      Call-ID: 1j9FpLxk3uxtm8tn@192.0.2.1
      CSeq: 1 REGISTER
      Contact: <sip:callee@192.0.2.1>
       ;+sip.instance="<urn:uuid:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>"
      Content-Length: 0

   The registrar assigns a temporary and a public GRUU.  The REGISTER
   response (message 2) would look like:

      SIP/2.0 200 OK
      Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 192.0.2.1;branch=z9hG4bKnashds7
      From: Callee <sip:callee@example.com>;tag=a73kszlfl
      To: Callee <sip:callee@example.com> ;tag=b88sn
      Call-ID: 1j9FpLxk3uxtm8tn@192.0.2.1
      CSeq: 1 REGISTER
      <allOneLine>
      Contact: <sip:callee@192.0.2.1>
      ;pub-gruu="sip:callee@example.com
      ;gr=urn:uuid:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6"
      ;temp-gruu="sip:tgruu.7hs==
      jd7vnzga5w7fajsc7-ajd6fabz0f8g5@example.com;gr"
      ;+sip.instance="<urn:uuid:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>"
      ;expires=3600
      </allOneLine>
      Content-Length: 0

   The Contact header field in the REGISTER response contains the "pub-
   gruu" Contact header field parameter with the public GRUU sip:callee@
   example.com;gr=urn:uuid:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6, and the
   "temp-gruu" header field parameter with the temporary GRUU
   sip:tgruu.7hs==jd7vnzga5w7fajsc7-ajd6fabz0f8g5@example.com;gr.  Both
   are valid GRUUs for the AOR and instance ID, and both translate to
   the contact sip:callee@192.0.2.1.

   The INVITE from the caller (message 3) is a normal SIP INVITE.
   However, the 200 OK generated by the callee (message 5) now contains
   a GRUU as the remote target.  The UA has chosen to use its public
   GRUU.




RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


      SIP/2.0 200 OK
      Via: SIP/2.0/UDP proxy.example.com;branch=z9hG4bKnaa8
      Via: SIP/2.0/UDP host.example.com;branch=z9hG4bK99a
      From: Caller <sip:caller@example.com>;tag=n88ah
      To: Callee <sip:callee@example.com> ;tag=a0z8
      Call-ID: 1j9FpLxk3uxtma7@host.example.com
      CSeq: 1 INVITE
      Supported: gruu
      Allow: INVITE, OPTIONS, CANCEL, BYE, ACK, SUBSCRIBE
      <allOneLine>
      Contact:
      <sip:callee@example.com
      ;gr=urn:uuid:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>
      </allOneLine>
      Content-Length: --
      Content-Type: application/sdp

     [SDP Not shown]

   At some point later in the call, the caller decides to subscribe to
   the dialog event package (defined in [16]) at that specific UA.  To
   do that, it generates a SUBSCRIBE request (message 9), but directs it
   towards the remote target, which is a GRUU:

      <allOneLine>
      SUBSCRIBE sip:callee@example.com;gr=urn:uuid:f8
      1d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6
       SIP/2.0
      </allOneLine>
      Via: SIP/2.0/UDP host.example.com;branch=z9hG4bK9zz8
      From: Caller <sip:caller@example.com>;tag=kkaz-
      <allOneLine>
      To: <sip:callee@example.com;gr=urn:uuid:f8
      1d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>
      </allOneLine>
      Call-ID: faif9a@host.example.com
      CSeq: 2 SUBSCRIBE
      Supported: gruu
      Event: dialog
      Allow: INVITE, OPTIONS, CANCEL, BYE, ACK, NOTIFY
      Contact: <sip:caller@example.com;gr=hdg7777ad7aflzig8sf7>
      Content-Length: 0

   In this example, the caller itself supports the GRUU extension and is
   using its own GRUU to populate its remote target.






RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   This request is routed to the proxy, which proceeds to perform a
   location lookup on the Request-URI.  It is translated into the
   contact for that instance, and then proxied to that contact.

       SUBSCRIBE sip:callee@192.0.2.1 SIP/2.0
       Via: SIP/2.0/UDP proxy.example.com;branch=z9hG4bK9555
       Via: SIP/2.0/UDP host.example.com;branch=z9hG4bK9zz8
       From: Caller <sip:caller@example.com>;tag=kkaz-
       <allOneLine>
       To: <sip:callee@example.com;gr=urn:uuid:f8
       1d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>
       </allOneLine>
       Call-ID: faif9a@host.example.com
       CSeq: 2 SUBSCRIBE
       Supported: gruu
       Event: dialog
       Allow: INVITE, OPTIONS, CANCEL, BYE, ACK, NOTIFY
       Contact: <sip:caller@example.com;gr=hdg7777ad7aflzig8sf7>
       Content-Length: 0

   The SUBSCRIBE generates a 200 response (message 11), which is
   followed by a NOTIFY (message 13 and 14) and its response (message 15
   and 16).  At some point after message 16 is received, the callee's
   machine crashes and recovers.  It obtains a new IP address,
   192.0.2.2.  Unaware that it had previously had an active
   registration, it creates a new one (message 17 below).  Notice how
   the instance ID remains the same, as it persists across reboot
   cycles:

      REGISTER sip:example.com SIP/2.0
      Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 192.0.2.2;branch=z9hG4bKnasbba
      Max-Forwards: 70
      From: Callee <sip:callee@example.com>;tag=ha8d777f0
      Supported: gruu
      To: Callee <sip:callee@example.com>
      Call-ID: hf8asxzff8s7f@192.0.2.2
      CSeq: 1 REGISTER
      <allOneLine>
      Contact: <sip:callee@192.0.2.2>
      ;+sip.instance="<urn:uuid:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>"
      </allOneLine>
      Content-Length: 0

   The registrar notices that a different contact, sip:callee@192.0.2.1,
   is already associated with the same instance ID.  It registers the
   new one too and returns both in the REGISTER response.  Both have the
   same public GRUUs, but the registrar has generated a second temporary
   GRUU for this AOR and instance ID combination.  Both contacts are



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   included in the REGISTER response, and the temporary GRUU for each is
   the same -- the most recently created one for the instance ID and
   AOR.  The registrar then generates the following response:

      SIP/2.0 200 OK
      Via: SIP/2.0/UDP 192.0.2.2;branch=z9hG4bKnasbba
      From: Callee <sip:callee@example.com>;tag=ha8d777f0
      To: Callee <sip:callee@example.com>;tag=99f8f7
      Call-ID: hf8asxzff8s7f@192.0.2.2
      CSeq: 1 REGISTER
      <allOneLine>
      Contact: <sip:callee@192.0.2.2>
      ;pub-gruu="sip:callee@example.com;gr=urn:
      uuid:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6"
      ;temp-gruu="sip:tgruu.7hatz6cn-098shfyq193=
      ajfux8fyg7ajqqe7@example.com;gr"
      ;+sip.instance="<urn:uuid:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>"
      ;expires=3600
      </allOneLine>
      <allOneLine>
      Contact: <sip:callee@192.0.2.1>
      ;pub-gruu="sip:callee@example.com;gr=urn:
      uuid:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6"
      ;temp-gruu="sip:tgruu.7hatz6cn-098shfyq193=
      ajfux8fyg7ajqqe7@example.com;gr"
      ;+sip.instance="<urn:uuid:f81d4fae-7dec-11d0-a765-00a0c91e6bf6>"
      ;expires=400
      </allOneLine>
      Content-Length: 0

   There is no need for the UA to remove the stale registered contact;
   the request targeting rules in Section 6.1 will cause the request to
   be delivered to the most recent one.

10.  Security Considerations

   Attacks in SIP networks using GRUUs can be divided into outside
   attacks (where a third party is trying to attack the system) and
   inside attacks (where the attacker is a valid participant in the
   system but is malicious).  In addition, there are privacy
   considerations with using GRUUs.

10.1.  Outside Attacks

   It is important for a UA to be assured of the integrity of a GRUU
   given in a REGISTER response.  If the GRUU is tampered with by an
   attacker, the result could be denial of service (DoS) to the UA.  As
   a result, it is RECOMMENDED that a UA use the SIPS URI scheme in the



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   Request-URI when registering.  Proxies and registrars MUST support
   the SIPS URI and MUST support TLS.  This does not represent a change
   from the requirements in RFC 3261 [1].

   The example GRUU construction algorithm in Appendix A.1 makes no
   attempt to create a GRUU that hides the AOR and instance ID
   associated with the GRUU.  In general, determination of the AOR
   associated with a GRUU is considered a good property, since it allows
   for easy tracking of the target of a particular call.  Learning the
   instance ID provides little benefit to an attacker.  To register or
   otherwise impact registrations for the user, an attacker would need
   to obtain the credentials for the user.  Knowing the instance ID is
   insufficient.

   The example GRUU construction algorithm in Appendix A.1 makes no
   attempt to create a GRUU that prevents users from guessing a GRUU
   based on knowledge of the AOR and instance ID.  A user that is able
   to do that will be able to direct a new request at a particular
   instance.  However, this specification recommends that service
   treatment (in particular, screening features) be given to requests
   that are sent to a GRUU.  That treatment will make sure that the GRUU
   does not provide a back door for attackers to contact a user that has
   tried to block the attacker.

10.2.  Inside Attacks

   As a consequence of this specification, a UA will begin using GRUUs
   in the dialog forming and target refresh requests and responses it
   emits.  These GRUUs will be passed to another UA (called the
   correspondent), which then uses them in requests that they emit.

   If a malicious correspondent removes the "gr" URI parameter, the
   request will be routed to the authoritative proxy.  If the GRUU had
   been temporary, removal of the "gr" URI parameter produces a URI that
   is not recognized as a GRUU and is not equal to any AOR.  The request
   will be rejected.  If the GRUU had been public, removing the "gr" URI
   parameter would have produced the AOR.  Therefore, the request is
   treated like a call to the AOR.  Since it is a desired goal to allow
   users to extract the AOR from the GRUU, this is not an attack, and
   the call will be handled normally.

   A malicious user in the system might try to use a GRUU for launching
   a DoS attack against another SIP UA.  To do that, it would wait for a
   call from that UA, and from it, observe their GRUU.  Once the GRUU is
   obtained, the UA would launch a SIP request to an entity, such as a
   presence server, which will generate many requests back towards the
   UA.  However, the attacker will use the target's GRUU in the Contact
   header field of that SUBSCRIBE request.  This will cause the traffic



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   to be directed towards the target instead.  Since the GRUU is
   globally routable, such traffic is more likely to be delivered to the
   target than traffic sent to its IP address.  This specification helps
   mitigate this attack by requiring proxies to validate that the GRUU
   in the Contact of a request matches the authenticated identity of the
   sender of the request.  This check requires the use of an outbound
   proxy.  SIP does not require outbound proxies, and this does leave a
   potential area of vulnerability.  However, in practice, nearly all
   deployments of SIP utilize an outbound proxy, and therefore this
   vulnerability is not likely to be a concern.

10.3.  Privacy Considerations

   RFC 3323 [15] defines mechanisms for privacy.  It distinguishes
   between network-provided privacy and user-provided privacy.  In the
   former, the user requests privacy services from the network by
   including a Privacy header field in the request.  In the latter, the
   UA follows a basic set of guidelines for construction of its request,
   so a certain level of privacy is afforded.

   The guidelines in Section 4.1 of RFC 3323 [15] for user-provided
   privacy request that a UA construct its Contact header field with a
   URI that omits a user part, and utilizes the IP address or hostname
   of the UA.  Such recommendations are in conflict with the rules
   defined in this specification, which require the usage of a GRUU in
   the Contact header field.

   However, the temporary GRUUs provided by the registrar can be used in
   place of the Contact URI format described in RFC 3323 [15].  A user
   agent would gather the temporary GRUU returned in each REGISTER
   response, and keep a small number of them cached.  When it makes or
   receives a call, a temporary GRUU is used to populate the Contact
   header field.

   A UA can either elect to use the same temporary GRUU in each call, or
   it can use a different temporary GRUU in each call.  The choice
   depends on the level of privacy desired:

   o  A UA utilizing the same temporary GRUU for each call will allow a
      correspondent, based solely on investigation of the Contact header
      field, to correlate calls as coming from the same UA.  This is
      also true for the user-provided privacy procedures in RFC 3323
      [15], since the IP address or hostname in the Contact URI provides
      a similar correlator.







RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   o  A UA utilizing a different temporary GRUU for each call will not
      allow a correspondent, based solely on investigation of the
      Contact header field, to correlate calls as coming from the same
      UA.

   o  In both cases, absent network-provided privacy, IP address and
      port information in the Session Description Protocol (SDP)
      (defined in [10]) will allow a correspondent to correlate calls as
      coming from the same UA.

   o  In both cases, if a user makes a call, the correspondent will be
      able to call back by directing requests towards the GRUU in the
      Contact header field.  Similarly, features such as transfer and
      digit collection by network application servers (see RFC 4730
      [20]), which depend on a Contact with the GRUU property, will also
      be possible.  These kinds of inbound requests will be possible
      until the registration for that UA lapses.  A UA that wishes to
      invalidate its previous temporary GRUU in order to limit
      reachability MAY do so by generating a REGISTER refresh with a
      Call-ID that differs from ones used previously.  A UA SHOULD NOT
      forcefully expire its registration and then re-register in order
      to invalidate a temporary GRUU; this results in a brief period of
      unreachability and will often produce excess load on the network.
      Refreshing with a new Call-ID is more efficient and is meant as
      the technique for coarse-grained control over the validity of
      temporary GRUUs.  A UA wishing to not be disturbed by a specific
      call back will need to implement manual or automated call-handling
      procedures to reject it.  This specification does not provide the
      UA the ability to manually invalidate individual temporary GRUUs.
      If a UA insists on not receiving any such inbound requests
      (including ones generated by network applications, such as those
      used for collecting digits), the UA can place a non-GRUU into the
      Contact header field.  However, this is NOT RECOMMENDED.  Usage of
      a GRUU coupled with automated call rejection features is far
      superior.

   o  As long as a temporary GRUU is used to populate the Contact header
      field, a correspondent will not be able to ascertain any
      information about the AOR or instance ID of the UA by inspection
      of the Contact header field.  However, absent a network-provided
      privacy service, the IP address in the SDP can be used to
      determine information about the UA, such as its geographic
      location and ISP.

   o  In all cases, regardless of whether the UA uses a temporary or
      public GRUU in the Contact, regardless of whether it utilizes GRUU
      at all, and regardless of whether it invokes a network-provided
      privacy service, a correspondent will be able to determine the SIP



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


      service provider of the UA.

11.  IANA Considerations

   This specification defines two new Contact header field parameters,
   one SIP URI parameter, and a SIP option tag.

11.1.  Header Field Parameter

   This specification defines two new header field parameters, as per
   the registry created by RFC 3968 [8].  The required information is as
   follows:

   Header field in which the parameter can appear:  Contact
   Name of the Parameter:  pub-gruu
   Predefined Values:  none
   RFC Reference:  RFC 5627

   Header field in which the parameter can appear:  Contact
   Name of the Parameter:  temp-gruu
   Predefined Values:  none
   RFC Reference:  RFC 5627

11.2.  URI Parameter

   This specification defines one new SIP URI parameter, as per the
   registry created by RFC 3969 [9].

   Name of the Parameter:  gr
   Predefined Values:  none
   RFC Reference:  RFC 5627

11.3.  SIP Option Tag

   This specification registers a new SIP option tag, as per the
   guidelines in Section 27.1 of RFC 3261 [1].

   Name:  gruu

   Description:  This option tag is used to identify the Globally
      Routable User Agent URI (GRUU) extension.  When used in a
      Supported header, it indicates that a User Agent understands the
      extension.  When used in a Require header field of a REGISTER
      request, it indicates that the registrar is not expected to
      process the registration unless it supports the GRUU extension.






RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


12.  Acknowledgments

   The author would like to thank Eric Rescorla, Robert Sparks, Rohan
   Mahy, Paul Kyzivat, Alan Johnston, Ya-Ching Tan, Dale Worley, Jeroen
   van Bemmel, Vijay Gurbani, Andrew Allen, Alan Hawrylyshen, Francois
   Audet, Fredrik Thulin, Dean Willis, David Hancock, Keith Drage, and
   Cullen Jennings for their comments and contributions to this work.
   Eric Rescorla provided the text for the introduction and the GRUU
   construction algorithm in the appendix.

13.  References

13.1.  Normative References

   [1]   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.

   [2]   Rosenberg, J. and H. Schulzrinne, "Session Initiation Protocol
         (SIP): Locating SIP Servers", RFC 3263, June 2002.

   [3]   Willis, D. and B. Hoeneisen, "Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
         Extension Header Field for Registering Non-Adjacent Contacts",
         RFC 3327, December 2002.

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

   [5]   Roach, A., "Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-Specific Event
         Notification", RFC 3265, June 2002.

   [6]   Sparks, R., "The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Refer
         Method", RFC 3515, April 2003.

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

   [8]   Camarillo, G., "The Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA)
         Header Field Parameter Registry for the Session Initiation
         Protocol (SIP)", BCP 98, RFC 3968, December 2004.

   [9]   Camarillo, G., "The Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA)
         Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) Parameter Registry for the
         Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)", BCP 99, RFC 3969,
         December 2004.





RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   [10]  Handley, M., Jacobson, V., and C. Perkins, "SDP: Session
         Description Protocol", RFC 4566, July 2006.

   [11]  Schulzrinne, H., "The tel URI for Telephone Numbers", RFC 3966,
         December 2004.

   [12]  Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., and P. Kyzivat, "Caller
         Preferences for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)",
         RFC 3841, August 2004.

   [13]  Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
         Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008.

   [14]  Jennings, C., Ed. and R. Mahy, Ed., "Managing Client-Initiated
         Connections in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)",
         RFC 5626, October 2009.

13.2.  Informative References

   [15]  Peterson, J., "A Privacy Mechanism for the Session Initiation
         Protocol (SIP)", RFC 3323, November 2002.

   [16]  Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., and R. Mahy, "An INVITE-
         Initiated Dialog Event Package for the Session Initiation
         Protocol (SIP)", RFC 4235, November 2005.

   [17]  Sparks, R., Hawrylyshen, A., Johnston, A., Rosenberg, J., and
         H. Schulzrinne, "Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Torture Test
         Messages", RFC 4475, May 2006.

   [18]  Schulzrinne, H., "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP-
         for-IPv4) Option for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
         Servers", RFC 3361, August 2002.

   [19]  Sparks, R., Johnston, A., and D. Petrie, "Session Initiation
         Protocol (SIP) Call Control - Transfer", BCP 149, RFC 5589,
         June 2009.

   [20]  Burger, E. and M. Dolly, "A Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
         Event Package for Key Press Stimulus (KPML)", RFC 4730,
         November 2006.

   [21]  Mahy, R. and D. Petrie, "The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
         "Join" Header", RFC 3911, October 2004.

   [22]  Mahy, R., Biggs, B., and R. Dean, "The Session Initiation
         Protocol (SIP) "Replaces" Header", RFC 3891, September 2004.




RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   [23]  Willis, D. and B. Hoeneisen, "Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
         Extension Header Field for Service Route Discovery During
         Registration", RFC 3608, October 2003.

   [24]  Rosenberg, J., "A Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Event
         Package for Registrations", RFC 3680, March 2004.

   [25]  Camarillo, G., "Compressing the Session Initiation Protocol
         (SIP)", RFC 3486, February 2003.

   [26]  Burger, E., Van Dyke, J., and A. Spitzer, "Basic Network Media
         Services with SIP", RFC 4240, December 2005.

   [27]  Jennings, C., Audet, F., and J. Elwell, "Session Initiation
         Protocol (SIP) URIs for Applications such as Voicemail and
         Interactive Voice Response (IVR)", RFC 4458, April 2006.

   [28]  Kyzivat, P., "Registration Event Package Extension for Session
         Initiation Protocol (SIP) Globally Routable User Agent URIs
         (GRUUs)", RFC 5628, October 2009.

   [29]  Rosenberg, J., van Elburg, J., Holmberg, C., Audet, F., and S.
         Schubert, Ed., "Delivery of Request-URI Targets to User
         Agents", Work in Progress, June 2009.



























RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


Appendix A.  Example GRUU Construction Algorithms

   The mechanism for constructing a GRUU is not subject to
   specification.  This appendix provides an example that can be used by
   a registrar to construct a public and a temporary GRUU.  Of course,
   others are permitted, as long as they meet the constraints defined
   for a GRUU.

A.1.  Public GRUU

   The most basic approach for constructing a public GRUU is to take the
   AOR and place the actual value of the instance ID into the contents
   of the "gr" URI parameter.

A.2.  Temporary GRUU

   This specification requires a registrar to create a new temporary
   GRUU on each registration refresh.  If a registration is very long
   lived, this can quickly result in hundreds or even thousands of
   temporary GRUUs being created and allocated to a UA.  Consequently,
   it is important to have an algorithm for constructing temporary GRUUs
   that does not require additional storage that grows in size with the
   number of temporary GRUUs.  The following algorithm meets this goal.

   The registrar maintains a counter, I. This counter is 48 bits and is
   initialized to zero.  The counter is persistently stored, using a
   backend database or other similar technique.  When the registrar
   creates the first temporary GRUU for a particular AOR and instance
   ID, the registrar notes the current value of the counter, I_i, and
   increments the counter in the database.  The registrar then maps I_i
   to the AOR and instance ID using the database, a persistent hashmap
   or similar technology.  If the registration expires such that there
   are no longer any contacts with that particular instance ID bound to
   the GRUU, the registrar removes the mapping.  Similarly, if the
   temporary GRUUs are invalidated due to a change in Call-ID, the
   registrar removes the current mapping from I_i to the AOR and
   instance ID, notes the current value of the counter I_j, and stores a
   mapping from I_j to the AOR and instance ID.  Based on these rules,
   the hashmap will contain a single mapping for each AOR and instance
   ID for which there is a currently valid registration.

   The usage of a counter in a 48-bit space with sequential assignment
   allows for a compact representation of the hashmap key, which is
   important for generating GRUUs of reasonable size.  The counter
   starts at zero when the system is initialized.  Persistent and
   reliable storage of the counter is required to avoid misrouting of a
   GRUU to the wrong AOR and instance ID.  Similarly, persistent storage
   of the hashmap is required, even through proxy and registrar



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   restarts.  If the hashmap is reset, all previous temporary GRUUs
   become invalidated.  This might cause dialogs in progress to fail, or
   future requests towards a temporary GRUU to fail when they normally
   would not.  The same hashmap needs to be accessible by all proxies
   and registrars that can field requests for a particular AOR and
   instance ID.

   The registrar maintains a pair of local symmetric keys K_e and K_a.
   These are regenerated every time the counter is reset.  When the
   counter rolls over or is reset, the registrar remembers the old
   values of K_e and K_a for a time.  Like the hashmap itself, these
   keys need to be shared across all proxy and registrars that can
   service requests for a particular AOR and instance ID.

   To generate a new temporary GRUU, the registrar generates a random
   80-bit distinguisher value D. It then computes:

   M = D || I_i
   E = AES-ECB-Encrypt(K_e, M)
   A = HMAC-SHA256-80(K_a, E)

   Temp-Gruu-userpart = "tgruu." || base64(E) || base64(A)

   where || denotes concatenation, and AES-ECB-Encrypt represents AES
   encryption in electronic codebook mode.  M will be 128 bits long,
   producing a value of E that is 128 bits and A that is 80 bits.  This
   produces a user part which has 42 characters.

   When a proxy receives a request whose user part begins with "tgruu.",
   it extracts the remaining portion, and splits it into 22 characters
   (E') and the remaining 14 characters (A').  It then computes A and E
   by performing a base64 decode of A' and E' respectively.  Next, it
   computes:

   Ac = HMAC-SHA256-80(K_a, E)

   If the counter has rolled over or reset, this computation is
   performed with the current and previous K_a.  If the Ac value(s) that
   are computed do not match the value of A extracted from the GRUU, the
   GRUU is rejected as invalid.  Next, the proxy computes:

   M = AES-ECB-Decrypt(K_e, E)

   If the counter has rolled over, this computation is done using the
   value of K_e that goes with the value of K_a, which produced a valid
   Ac in the previous HMAC validation.  The leading 80 bits (the
   distinguisher D) are discarded, leaving an index I_i in the hashmap.
   This index is looked up.  If it exists, the proxy now has the AOR and



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


   instance ID corresponding to this temporary GRUU.  If there is
   nothing in the hashmap for the key I_i, the GRUU is no longer valid
   and the request is rejected.

   The usage of a 48-bit counter allows for the registrar to have as
   many as a billion AORs, with 10 instances per AOR, and cycle through
   10,000 Call-ID changes for each instance through the duration of a
   single registration.  These numbers reflect the average; the system
   works fine if a particular AOR has more than 10 instances or a
   particular instance cycles through more than 10,000 Call-IDs in its
   registration, as long as the average meets these constraints.

Appendix B.  Network Design Considerations

   The GRUU specification works properly based on logic implemented at
   the user agents and in the authoritative proxies on both sides of a
   call.  Consequently, it is possible to construct network deployments
   in which GRUUs will not work properly.

   One important assumption made by the GRUU mechanism is that, if a
   request passes through any proxies in the originating domain prior to
   visiting the terminating domain, one of those proxies will be the
   authoritative proxy for the User Agent Client (UAC).  Administrators
   of SIP networks will need to make sure that this property is
   retained.  There are several ways it can be accomplished:

   1.  If the user agents support the service-route mechanism [23], the
       registrar can implement it and return a service route that points
       to the authoritative proxy.  This will cause requests originated
       by the user agent to pass through the authoritative proxy.

   2.  The user agents can be configured to never use an outbound proxy,
       and send requests directly to the domain of the terminating
       party.  This configuration is not practical in many use cases,
       but it is a solution to this requirement.

   3.  The user agents can be configured with an outbound proxy in the
       same domain as the authoritative proxy, and this outbound proxy
       forwards requests to the authoritative proxy by default.  This
       works very well in cases where the clients are not roaming; in
       such cases, the outbound proxy in a visited network may be
       discovered dynamically through DHCP [18].

   4.  In cases where the client discovers a local outbound proxy via a
       mechanism such as DHCP, and is not implementing the service route
       mechanism, the UA can be configured to automatically add an
       additional Route header field after the outbound proxy, which
       points to a proxy in the home network.  This has the same net



RFC 5627                     GRUU Mechanism                 October 2009


       effect of the service route mechanism, but is accomplished
       through static configuration.

Author's Address

   Jonathan Rosenberg
   Cisco Systems
   Edison, NJ
   US

   EMail: jdrosen@cisco.com
   URI:   http://www.jdrosen.net