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Happy Eyeballs Version 3: Better Connectivity Using Concurrency
draft-ietf-happy-happyeyeballs-v3-02

Document Type Active Internet-Draft (happy WG)
Authors Tommy Pauly , David Schinazi , Nidhi Jaju , Kenichi Ishibashi
Last updated 2025-10-20
Replaces draft-pauly-happy-happyeyeballs-v3
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draft-ietf-happy-happyeyeballs-v3-02
HAPPY Working Group                                             T. Pauly
Internet-Draft                                                 Apple Inc
Intended status: Standards Track                             D. Schinazi
Expires: 23 April 2026                                           N. Jaju
                                                            K. Ishibashi
                                                              Google LLC
                                                         20 October 2025

    Happy Eyeballs Version 3: Better Connectivity Using Concurrency
                  draft-ietf-happy-happyeyeballs-v3-02

Abstract

   Many communication protocols operating over the modern Internet use
   hostnames.  These often resolve to multiple IP addresses, each of
   which may have different performance and connectivity
   characteristics.  Since specific addresses or address families (IPv4
   or IPv6) may be blocked, broken, or sub-optimal on a network, clients
   that attempt multiple connections in parallel have a chance of
   establishing a connection more quickly.  This document specifies
   requirements for algorithms that reduce this user-visible delay and
   provides an example algorithm, referred to as "Happy Eyeballs".  This
   document updates the algorithm description in RFC 8305.

About This Document

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   The latest revision of this draft can be found at https://ietf-wg-
   happy/draft-happy-eyeballs-v3/draft-ietf-happy-happyeyeballs-v3.html.
   Status information for this document may be found at
   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-happy-happyeyeballs-v3/.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the HAPPY Working Group
   mailing list (mailto:happy@ietf.org), which is archived at
   https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/happy/.  Subscribe at
   https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/happy/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/ietf-wg-happy/draft-happy-eyeballs-v3.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 23 April 2026.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2025 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
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   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Overview  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Hostname Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.1.  Sending DNS Queries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.2.  Handling DNS Answers Asynchronously . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       4.2.1.  Resolving SVCB/HTTPS Aliases and Targets  . . . . . .   7
       4.2.2.  Examples  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     4.3.  Handling New Answers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     4.4.  Handling Multiple DNS Server Addresses  . . . . . . . . .   8
   5.  Grouping and Sorting Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     5.1.  Grouping By Application Protocols and Security
           Requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       5.1.1.  When to Apply Application Preferences . . . . . . . .  10
     5.2.  Grouping By Service Priority  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     5.3.  Sorting Destination Addresses Within Groups . . . . . . .  11
   6.  Connection Attempts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     6.1.  Determining successful connection establishment . . . . .  13
     6.2.  Handling Application Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN)  .  15
     6.3.  Dropping or Pending Connection Attempts . . . . . . . . .  15

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   7.  DNS Answer Changes During Happy Eyeballs Connection Setup . .  16
   8.  Supporting IPv6-Mostly and IPv6-Only Networks . . . . . . . .  17
     8.1.  IPv4 Address Literals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     8.2.  Discovering and Utilizing PREF64  . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     8.3.  Supporting DNS64  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     8.4.  Hostnames with Broken AAAA Records  . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     8.5.  Virtual Private Networks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
   9.  Summary of Configurable Values  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
   10. Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
     10.1.  Path Maximum Transmission Unit Discovery . . . . . . . .  21
     10.2.  Application Layer  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
     10.3.  Hiding Operational Issues  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   11. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   12. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
   13. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
     13.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
     13.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26

1.  Introduction

   Many communication protocols operating over the modern Internet use
   hostnames.  These often resolve to multiple IP addresses, each of
   which may have different performance and connectivity
   characteristics.  Since specific addresses or address families (IPv4
   or IPv6) may be blocked, broken, or sub-optimal on a network, clients
   that attempt multiple connections in parallel have a chance of
   establishing a connection more quickly.  This document specifies
   requirements for algorithms that reduce this user-visible delay and
   provides an example algorithm.

   This document defines the algorithm for "Happy Eyeballs", a technique
   for reducing user-visible delays on dual-stack hosts.  This
   definition updates the description in [HEV2], which itself obsoleted
   [RFC6555].

   The Happy Eyeballs algorithm of racing connections to resolved
   addresses has several stages to avoid delays to the user whenever
   possible, while respecting client priorities, such as preferring the
   use of IPv6 or the availability of protocols like HTTP/3 [HTTP3] and
   TLS Encrypted Client Hello [ECH].  This document discusses how to
   initiate DNS queries when starting a connection, how to sort the list
   of destination addresses received from DNS answers, and how to race
   the connection attempts.

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   The major difference between the algorithm defined in this document
   and [HEV2] is the addition of support for SVCB / HTTPS resource
   records [SVCB].  SVCB records provide alternative endpoints and
   information about application protocol support, Encrypted Client
   Hello [ECH] keys, address hints, and other relevant details about the
   services being accessed.  Discovering protocol support during
   resolution, such as for HTTP/3 over QUIC [HTTP3], allows upgrading
   between protocols on the current connection attempts, instead of
   waiting for subsequent attempts to use information from other
   discovery mechanisms such as HTTP Alternative Services [AltSvc].
   These records can be queried along with A and AAAA records, and the
   updated algorithm defines how to handle SVCB responses to improve
   connection establishment.

2.  Conventions and Definitions

   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.

3.  Overview

   This document defines a method of connection establishment, named the
   "Happy Eyeballs Connection Setup".  This approach has several
   distinct phases:

   1.  Asynchronous resolution of a hostname into destination addresses
       (Section 4)

   2.  Sorting of the resolved destination addresses (Section 5)

   3.  Initiation of asynchronous connection attempts (Section 6)

   4.  Successful establishment of one connection and cancellation of
       other attempts (Section 6)

   Note that this document assumes that the preference policy for the
   host destination address favors IPv6 over IPv4.  IPv6 has many
   desirable properties designed to be improvements over IPv4 [IPV6].

   This document also assumes that the preference policy favors QUIC
   over TCP.  QUIC only requires one packet to establish a secure
   connection, making it quicker compared to TCP [QUIC].

   If the host is configured to have different preferences, the
   recommendations in this document can be easily adapted.

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4.  Hostname Resolution

   When a client is trying to establish a connection to a named host, it
   needs to determine which destination IP addresses it can use to reach
   the host.  The client resolves the hostname into IP addresses by
   sending DNS queries and collecting the answers.  This section
   describes how a client initiates DNS queries and asynchronously
   handles the answers.

4.1.  Sending DNS Queries

   Clients first need to determine which DNS resource records they will
   include in queries for a named host.

   This decision is based on if client has "connectivity" using IPv4 and
   IPv6.  In this case, "connectivity" for an address family is defined
   as having at least one local address of the family from which to send
   packets, and at least one non-link local route for the address
   family.

   When a client has both IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity, it needs to send
   out queries for both AAAA and A records.  On a network with only IPv4
   connectivity, it will send a query for A records.  On a network with
   only IPv6 connectivity, the client will either send out queries for
   both AAAA and A records, or only a query for AAAA records, depending
   on the network configuration.  See Section 8 for more discussion of
   handling IPv6-mostly and IPv6-only networks.

   In addition to requesting AAAA and A records, depending on which
   application is establishing the connection, clients can request
   either SVCB or HTTPS records [SVCB].  For applications using HTTP or
   HTTPS (including applications using WebSockets), the client SHOULD
   send a query for HTTPS records.

   All of the DNS queries SHOULD be made as soon after one another as
   possible.  The order in which the queries are sent SHOULD be as
   follows (omitting any query that doesn't apply based on the logic
   described above):

   1.  SVCB or HTTPS query

   2.  AAAA query

   3.  A query

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4.2.  Handling DNS Answers Asynchronously

   Once the client receives sufficient answers to its DNS queries, it
   can move onto the phases of sorting addresses (Section 5) and
   establishing connections (Section 6).

   Implementations SHOULD NOT wait for all answers to return before
   starting the next steps of connection establishment.  If one query
   fails or takes significantly longer to return, waiting for those
   answers can significantly delay connection establishment that could
   otherwise proceed with already received answers.

   Therefore, the client SHOULD treat DNS resolution as asynchronous,
   processing different record types independently.  Note that if the
   platform does not offer an asynchronous DNS API, this behavior can be
   simulated by making separate synchronous queries for each record type
   in parallel.

   The client moves onto sorting addresses and establishing connections
   once one of the following condition sets is met:

   Either:

   *  Some positive (non-empty) address answers have been received AND

   *  A postive (non-empty) or negative (empty) answer has been received
      for the preferred address family that was queried AND

   *  SVCB/HTTPS service information has been received (or has received
      a negative response)

   Or:

   *  Some positive (non-empty) address answers have been received AND

   *  A resolution time delay has passed after which other answers have
      not been received

   Positive answers can be addresses received either from AAAA or A
   records, or address hints received directly in SVCB/HTTPS records.

   Negative answers are exclusively responses to AAAA or A records that
   contain no addresses (with or without an error like NXDOMAIN).  If
   all answers come back with negative answers, the connection
   establishment will fail or need to wait until other answers are
   received.

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   On networks that have both default routes for IPv6 and IPv4, IPv6 is
   assumed to be the preferred address family.  If only one of IPv6 or
   IPv4 has a default route, that address family should be considered
   the preferred address family for progressing the algorithm.

   The resolution time delay is a short time that provides a chance to
   receive preferred addresses (via AAAA records) along with service
   information (via SVCB/HTTPS records).  This accounts for the case
   where the AAAA or SVCB/HTTPS records follow the A records by a few
   milliseconds.  This delay is referred to as the "Resolution Delay".

   The RECOMMENDED value for the Resolution Delay is 50 milliseconds.

4.2.1.  Resolving SVCB/HTTPS Aliases and Targets

   SVCB and HTTPS records describe information for network services.
   Individual records are either AliasMode or ServiceMode records, where
   AliasMode requires another SVCB/HTTPS query for the alias name.
   ServiceMode records either are associated with the original name
   being queried, in which case their TargetName is ".", or are
   associated with another service name (see Section 2.5 of [SVCB]).

   The algorithm in this document does not consider service information
   to be received until ServiceMode records are available.

   ServiceMode records can contain address hints via ipv6hint and
   ipv4hint parameters.  When these are received, they SHOULD be
   considered as positive non-empty answers for the purpose of the
   algorithm when A and AAAA records corresponding to the TargetName are
   not available yet.  Note that clients are still required to issue A
   and AAAA queries for those TargetNames if they haven't yet received
   those records.  When those records are received, they replace the
   hints and update the available set of responses as new answers (see
   Section 4.3).

4.2.2.  Examples

   TODO: Provide examples of various scenarios (simple dual stack, SVCB,
   delayed AAAA, delayed SVCB, SVCB hints providing early answers)

4.3.  Handling New Answers

   If new records arrive while connection attempts are in progress, but
   before any connection has been established, then any newly received
   addresses are incorporated into the list of available candidate
   addresses (see Section 7) and the process of connection attempts will
   continue with the new addresses added, until one connection is
   established.

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4.4.  Handling Multiple DNS Server Addresses

   If multiple DNS server addresses are configured for the current
   network, the client may have the option of sending its DNS queries
   over IPv4 or IPv6.  In keeping with the Happy Eyeballs approach,
   queries SHOULD be sent over IPv6 first (note that this is not
   referring to the sending of AAAA or A queries, but rather the address
   of the DNS server itself and IP version used to transport DNS
   messages).  If DNS queries sent to the IPv6 address do not receive
   responses, that address may be marked as penalized and queries can be
   sent to other DNS server addresses.

   As native IPv6 deployments become more prevalent and IPv4 addresses
   are exhausted, it is expected that IPv6 connectivity will have
   preferential treatment within networks.  If a DNS server is
   configured to be accessible over IPv6, IPv6 should be assumed to be
   the preferred address family.

   Client systems SHOULD NOT have an explicit limit to the number of DNS
   servers that can be configured, either manually or by the network.
   If such a limit is required by hardware limitations, the client
   SHOULD use at least one address from each address family from the
   available list.

5.  Grouping and Sorting Addresses

   Before attempting to connect to any of the resolved destination
   addresses, the client defines the order in which to start the
   attempts.  Once the order has been defined, the client can use a
   simple algorithm for racing each option after a short delay (see
   Section 6).  It is important that the ordered list involve all
   addresses from both families and all protocols that have been
   received by this point, as this allows the client to get the racing
   effect of Happy Eyeballs for the entire list, not just the first IPv4
   and first IPv6 addresses.

   The client performs three levels of grouping and sorting of addresses
   based on the DNS answers received.  Each subsequent level of sorting
   only changes orders and preferences within the previously defined
   groups.

   1.  Grouping and sorting by application protocol and security
       requirements (Section 5.1)

   2.  Grouping and sorting by service priorities (Section 5.2)

   3.  Sorting by destination address preferences (Section 5.3)

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5.1.  Grouping By Application Protocols and Security Requirements

   Clients first group based on which application protocols the
   destination endpoints support and which security features those
   endpoints offer.  These are based on information from SVCB/HTTPS
   records about application-layer protocols ("alpn" values) and other
   parameters like TLS Encrypted Client Hello configuration ("ech"
   values, see [SVCB-ECH]).

   For cases where the answers do not include any SVCB/HTTPS
   information, or if all of the answers are associated with the same
   SVCB/HTTPS record, this step is trivial: all answers belong to one
   group, and the client assumes they support the same protocols and
   security properties.

   However, the client is aware of different sets of destination
   endpoints that advertise different capabilities when it receives
   multiple distinct SVCB/HTTPS records.  The client SHOULD separate
   these addresses into different groups, such that all addresses in a
   group share the same application protocols and relevant security
   properties.  The specific parameters that are relevant to the client
   depend on the client implementation and application.

   Note that some destination addresses might need to be added to
   multiple groups at this stage.  For example, consider the following
   HTTPS records:

    example.com. 60 IN HTTPS 1 svc1.example.com. (
        alpn="h3,h2" ipv6hint=2001:db8::2 )
    example.com. 60 IN HTTPS 1 svc2.example.com. (
        alpn="h2" ipv6hint=2001:db8::4 )

   In this case, 2001:db8::2 can be used with HTTP/3 and HTTP/2, but
   2001:db8::4 can only be used with HTTP/2.  If the client creates a
   grouping for HTTP/3-capable addresses and HTTP/2-capable addresses,
   2001:db8::2 would exist in both groups (assuming that all other
   security properties are the same).

   Connection racing as described in Section 6 applies to different
   destination address options within one of these groups.  The logic
   for prioritizing and falling back between groups of addresses with
   different security properties and protocol properties is
   implementation-defined.

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5.1.1.  When to Apply Application Preferences

   Whether or not specific application protocols or security features
   are grouped separately is a client application decision.  Clients
   SHOULD avoid grouping and sorting separately in cases where their use
   of an application protocol or feature is non-critical.

   For example, an HTTP client loading a simple webpage may not see a
   large difference between using HTTP/3 or HTTP/2, and thus can group
   the ALPNs together to respect service-determined priorities where
   HTTP/3 might be prioritized behind HTTP/2.  However, another client
   might see significant performance improvements by using HTTP/3's
   ability to send unreliable frames for its application use-case and
   will group HTTP/3 before HTTP/2.

   Similarly, a particular application might require or strongly prefer
   the use of TLS ECH for privacy-sensitive traffic, while others might
   support ECH opportunistically.

   Section 8 of [SVCB-ECH] recommends against SVCB record sets that
   contain some answers that include ECH configuration and some that
   don't, but notes that such cases are possible.  It is possible that
   services only include ECH configurations on SVCB answers that are
   prioritized behind others that don't include ECH configurations; for
   example, this might be used as an experimenation or roll-out
   strategy.  Due to such cases, clients ought to not arbitrarily group
   ECH-containing answers and sort them first if they won't use the ECH
   information, or if the connection would not benefit from the use of
   ECH.  However, for cases where there is a reason for an application
   preference for ECH, the client MAY group and prioritize those answers
   separately.  Even though this might conflict with the published
   service record priorities, any answers published by the service are
   eligible to be used by clients, and clients can choose to use them.

5.2.  Grouping By Service Priority

   The next step of grouping and sorting is to group across different
   services (as defined by SVCB/HTTPS records), and sort these groups by
   priority.

   This step allows server-published priorities to be reflected in the
   client connection establishment algorithm.

   SVCB [SVCB] records indicate a priority for each ServiceMode
   response.  This priority applies to any IPv4 or IPv6 address hints in
   the record itself, as well as any addresses received on A or AAAA
   queries for the name in the ServiceMode record.  The priority in a
   SVCB ServiceMode record is always greater than 0.

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   SVCB answers with the lowest numerical value (such as 1) are sorted
   first, and answers with higher numerical values are sorted later.

   Note that a SVCB record with the TargetName "." applies to the owner
   name in the record, and the priority of that SVCB record applies to
   any A or AAAA records for the same owner name.  These answers are
   sorted according to that SVCB record's priority.

   All addresses received from a particular SVCB service (within a group
   as defined in Section 5.1), either by an associated AAAA or A record
   or address hints, SHOULD be separated into a group by the client.
   These service-based groups SHOULD then be sorted using the service
   priority.

   For cases where the answers do not include any SVCB/HTTPS
   information, or if all of the answers are associated with the same
   SVCB/HTTPS record, this step is trivial: all answers belong to one
   group that has the same priority.

   When there are multiple services, and thus multiple groups, with the
   same priority, the client SHOULD shuffle these groups randomly.

   If there are some SVCB/HTTPS services received, but there are AAAA or
   A records that do not have an associated service (for example, if no
   SVCB/HTTPS record is received for the original name using the "."
   TargetName), the unassociated addresses SHOULD be put in a group that
   is prioritized at the end of the list.

5.3.  Sorting Destination Addresses Within Groups

   Within each group of addresses, after grouping based on the logic in
   Section 5.1 and Section 5.2, the client sorts the addresses based on
   preference and historical data.

   First, the client MUST sort the addresses using Destination Address
   Selection ([RFC6724], Section 6).

   If the client is stateful and has a history of expected round-trip
   times (RTTs) for the routes to access each address, it SHOULD add a
   Destination Address Selection rule between rules 8 and 9 that prefers
   addresses with lower RTTs.  If the client keeps track of which
   addresses it used in the past, it SHOULD add another Destination
   Address Selection rule between the RTT rule and rule 9, which prefers
   used addresses over unused ones.  This helps servers that use the
   client's IP address during authentication, as is the case for TCP
   Fast Open [RFC7413] and some Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP)
   cookies.  This historical data MUST be partitioned using the same
   boundaries used for privacy-sensitive information specific to that

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   endpoint, and MUST NOT be used across different network interfaces.
   The data SHOULD be flushed whenever a device changes the network to
   which it is attached.  Clients that use historical data MUST ensure
   that clients with different historical data will eventually converge
   toward the same behaviors.  For example, clients can periodically
   ignore historical data to ensure that fresh addresses are attempted.

   Next, the client SHOULD modify the ordered list to interleave address
   families.  Whichever address family is first in the list should be
   followed by an endpoint of the other address family.  For example, if
   the first address in the sorted list is an IPv6 address, then the
   first IPv4 address should be moved up in the list to be second in the
   list.  An implementation MAY choose to favor one address family more
   by allowing multiple addresses of that family to be attempted before
   trying the next.  The number of contiguous addresses of the first
   address family of properties will be referred to as the "Preferred
   Address Family Count" and can be a configurable value.  This avoids
   waiting through a long list of addresses from a given address family
   if connectivity over that address family is impaired.

   Note that the address selection described in this section only
   applies to destination addresses; Source Address Selection
   ([RFC6724-UPDATE], Section 3.2) is performed once per destination
   address and is out of scope of this document.

6.  Connection Attempts

   Once the list of addresses received up to this point has been
   constructed, the client will attempt to make connections.  In order
   to avoid unreasonable network load, connection attempts SHOULD NOT be
   made simultaneously.  Instead, one connection attempt to a single
   address is started first, followed by the others, one at a time.
   Starting a new connection attempt does not affect previous attempts,
   as multiple connection attempts may occur in parallel.  Once one of
   the connection attempts succeeds (Section 6.1), all other connections
   attempts that have not yet succeeded SHOULD be canceled.  Any address
   that was not yet attempted as a connection SHOULD be ignored.  At
   that time, any asynchronous DNS queries MAY be canceled as new
   addresses will not be used for this connection.  However, the DNS
   client resolver SHOULD still process DNS replies from the network for
   a short period of time (recommended to be 1 second), as they will
   populate the DNS cache and can be used for subsequent connections.

   If grouping addresses by application or security requirements
   (Section 5.1) produced multiple groups, the application SHOULD start
   with connection attempts to the most preferred option.  The policy
   for attempting any addresses outside of the most preferred group is
   up to the client implementation and out of scope for this document.

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   If grouping addresses by service (Section 5.2) produced multiple
   groups, all of the addresses of the first group SHOULD be started
   before starting attempts using the next group.  Attempts across
   service groups SHOULD be allowed to continue in parallel; in effect,
   the groups are flattened into a single list.

   A simple implementation can have a fixed delay for how long to wait
   before starting the next connection attempt.  This delay is referred
   to as the "Connection Attempt Delay".  One recommended value for a
   default delay is 250 milliseconds.  A more nuanced implementation's
   delay should correspond to the time when the previous attempt is
   retrying its handshake (such as sending a second TCP SYN or a second
   QUIC Initial), based on the retransmission timer ([RFC6298],
   [RFC9002]).  If the client has historical RTT data gathered from
   other connections to the same host or prefix, it can use this
   information to influence its delay.  Note that this algorithm should
   only try to approximate the time of the first handshake packet
   retransmission, and not any further retransmissions that may be
   influenced by exponential timer back off.

   The Connection Attempt Delay MUST have a lower bound, especially if
   it is computed using historical data.  More specifically, a
   subsequent connection MUST NOT be started within 10 milliseconds of
   the previous attempt.  The recommended minimum value is 100
   milliseconds, which is referred to as the "Minimum Connection Attempt
   Delay".  This minimum value is required to avoid congestion collapse
   in the presence of high packet-loss rates.  The Connection Attempt
   Delay SHOULD have an upper bound, referred to as the "Maximum
   Connection Attempt Delay".  The current recommended value is 2
   seconds.

   The Connection Attempt Delay is used to set a timer, referred to as
   the "Next Connection Attempt Timer".  Whenever this timer fires and a
   connection has not been successfully established, the next connection
   attempt starts, and the timer either is reset to a new delay value
   or, in the case of the end of the list being reached, is cancelled.
   Note that the delay value can be different for each connection
   attempt (depending on the protocol being used and the estimated RTT).

6.1.  Determining successful connection establishment

   The determination of when a connection attempt has successfully
   completed (and other attempts can be cancelled) ultimately depends on
   the client application's interpretation of the connection state being
   ready to use.  This will generally include at least the transport-
   level handshake with the remote endpoint (such as the TCP or QUIC
   handshake), but can involve other higher-level handshakes or state
   checks as well.

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   Client connections that use TCP only (without TLS or another protocol
   on top, such as for unencrypted HTTP connections) will determine
   successful establishment based on completing the TCP handshake only.
   When TLS is used on top of of TCP (such as for encrypted HTTP
   connections), clients MAY choose to wait for the TLS handshake to
   successfully complete before cancelling other connection attempts.
   This is particularly useful for networks in which a TCP-terminating
   proxy might be causing TCP handshakes to succeed quickly, even though
   end-to-end connectivity with the TLS-terminating server will fail.
   QUIC connections inherently include a secure handshake in their main
   handshakes, and thus usually only need to wait for a single handshake
   to complete.

   Beyond TCP, TLS, and/or QUIC handshakes, clients may also wait for
   other requirements to be met before determining that the connection
   establishment was successful.  For example, clients generally
   validate that the server's certificate provided via TLS is trusted,
   and that operation can be asynchronous.

   In cases where the connection establishment determination goes beyond
   the initial transport handshake, the Next Connection Attempt Timer
   ought to be adjusted after the initial transport handshake is
   completed.  When the connection establishment makes progress, but has
   not completed, the timer SHOULD be extended to a new value that
   represents an estimated time for the full connection establishment to
   complete.

   For example, consider a case where connection establishment involves
   both a TCP handshake and a TLS handshake.  If the timer is initially
   set to be roughly at the time when a TCP SYN packet would be
   retransmitted, and the TCP handshake completes before the timer
   fires, the timer should be adjusted to allow for the time in which
   the TLS handshake could complete.

   While transport layer handshakes generally do not have restrictions
   on attempts to establish a connection, some cryptographic handshakes
   may be dependent on SVCB ServiceMode records and could impose
   limitations on establishing a connection.  For instance, ECH-capable
   clients may become SVCB-reliant clients (Section 3 of [SVCB]) when
   SVCB records contain the "ech" SvcParamKey [SVCB-ECH].  If the client
   is either an SVCB-reliant client or a SVCB-optional client that might
   switch to SVCB-reliant connection establishment during the process,
   the client MUST wait for SVCB records before proceeding with the
   cryptographic handshake.

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6.2.  Handling Application Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN)

   The alpn and no-default-alpn SvcParamKeys in SVCB records indicate
   the "SVCB ALPN set," which specifies the underlying transport
   protocols supported by the associated service endpoint.  When the
   client requests SVCB records, it SHOULD perform the procedure
   specified in Section 7.1.2 of [SVCB] to determine the underlying
   transport protocols that both the client and the service endpoint
   support.  The client SHOULD NOT attempt to make a connection to a
   service endpoint whose SVCB ALPN set does not contain any protocols
   that the client supports.  For example, suppose the client is an HTTP
   client that only supports TCP-based versions such as HTTP/1.1 and
   HTTP/2, and it receives the following HTTPS record:

    example.com. 60 IN HTTPS 1 svc1.example.com. (
        alpn="h3" no-default-alpn ipv6hint=2001:db8::2 )

   In this case, attempting a connection to 2001:db8::2 or any other
   address resolved for svc1.example.com would be incorrect because the
   record indicates that svc1.example.com only supports HTTP/3, based on
   the ALPN value of "h3".

   If the client is an HTTP client that supports both Alt-Svc [AltSvc]
   and SVCB (HTTPS) records, the client SHOULD ensure that connection
   attempts are consistent with both the Alt-Svc parameters and the SVCB
   ALPN set, as specified in Section 9.3 of [SVCB].

6.3.  Dropping or Pending Connection Attempts

   Some situations related to handling SVCB responses can require
   connection attempts to be dropped, or pended until SVCB responses
   return.

   Section 3.1 of [SVCB] describes client behavior for handling
   resolution failures when responses are "cryptographically protected"
   using DNSSEC [DNSSEC] or encrypted DNS ([DOT], [DOH], or [DOQ], for
   example).  If SVCB resolution fails when using cryptographic
   protection, clients SHOULD abandon connection attempts altogether to
   avoid downgrade attacks.

   Use of cryptographic protection in DNS can influence other parts of
   Happy Eyeballs connection establishment, as well.

   Situations in which DNS is not protected allow for any records to be
   blocked or modified, so security properties derived from SVCB records
   are opportunistic only.  However, when DNS is cryptographically
   protected, clients can be stricter about relying on the properties
   from SVCB records.

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   Section 5.1 of [SVCB] explains that clients "MUST NOT transmit any
   information that could be altered by the SVCB response until it
   arrives", and specifically mentions properties that affect the TLS
   ClientHello.  This restriction specifically applies when a client's
   behavior will be altered by the SVCB response, which depends both on
   the client implementation's ability to support a particular feature,
   as well as the client implementation's willingness to rely on the
   SVCB response to enable a particular feature.

   Based on this, clients in some scenarios MUST pend starting a TLS
   handshake (either after TCP or as part of QUIC) until SVCB responses
   have been received, even after the "Resolution Delay" defined in
   Section 4 has been reached.  Specifically, clients MUST pend starting
   handshakes if _all_ of the following are true:

   1.  DNS responses are cryptographically protected with DNSSEC or
       encrypted DNS.  Note that, if unencrypted and unsigned DNS is
       used, SVCB information is opportunistic; clients MAY wait for
       SVCB responses but do not need to.

   2.  The client implementation supports parsing and using a particular
       security-related SVCB parameter, such as the "ech" SvcParamKey
       [SVCB-ECH].  (In contrast, implementations that do not support
       actively using ECH do not need to wait for SVCB resolution if
       that is the only reason to do so).

   3.  The client relies on the presence of the particular SVCB-related
       parameter to enable the relevant protocol feature.  For example,
       if a connection attempt would normally be using cleartext HTTP
       unless an HTTPS DNS record would cause the client to upgrade, the
       client needs to wait for the record; however, if the client
       already would be using HTTP over TLS, then it is not relying on
       that signal from SVCB.  As another example, some SVCB properties
       can affect the TLS ClientHello in ways that optimize performance
       (like tls-supported-groups [I-D.ietf-tls-key-share-prediction])
       but only aim to save round trips.  The other TLS groups can be
       discovered through the TLS handshake itself, instead of SVCB, and
       thus do not require waiting for SVCB responses.

7.  DNS Answer Changes During Happy Eyeballs Connection Setup

   If, during the course of connection establishment, the DNS answers
   change by either adding resolved addresses (for example due to DNS
   push notifications [RFC8765]) or removing previously resolved
   addresses (for example, due to expiry of the TTL on that DNS record),
   the client should react based on its current progress.  Additionally,
   once A and AAAA records are received, addresses received via SVCB
   hints that are not included in the A and AAAA records for the

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   corresponding address family SHOULD be removed from the list, as
   specified in Section 7.3 of [SVCB].

   If an address is removed from the list that already had a connection
   attempt started, the connection attempt SHOULD NOT be canceled, but
   rather be allowed to continue.  If the removed address had not yet
   had a connection attempt started, it SHOULD be removed from the list
   of addresses to try.

   If an address is added to the list, it should be sorted into the list
   of addresses not yet attempted according to the rules above (see
   Section 5).

8.  Supporting IPv6-Mostly and IPv6-Only Networks

   While many IPv6 transition protocols have been standardized and
   deployed, most are transparent to client devices.  Supporting
   IPv6-only networks often requires specific client-side changes,
   especially when interacting with IPv4-only services.  Two primary
   mechanisms for this are the combined use of NAT64 [RFC6146] with
   DNS64 [RFC6147], or leveraging NAT64 with a discovered PREF64 prefix
   [RFC8781].

   One possible way to handle these networks is for the client device
   networking stack to implement 464XLAT [RFC6877]. 464XLAT has the
   advantage of not requiring changes to user space software; however,
   it requires per-packet translation if the application is using IPv4
   literals and does not encourage client application software to
   support native IPv6.  On platforms that do not support 464XLAT, the
   Happy Eyeballs engine SHOULD follow the recommendations in this
   section to properly support IPv6-mostly ([V6-MOSTLY]) and IPv6-only
   networks.

   The features described in this section SHOULD only be enabled when
   the host detects an IPv6-mostly or IPv6-only network.  A simple
   heuristic to detect one of these networks is to check if the network
   offers routable IPv6 addressing, does not offer routable IPv4
   addressing, and offers a DNS resolver address.

8.1.  IPv4 Address Literals

   If client applications or users wish to connect to IPv4 address
   literals, the Happy Eyeballs engine will need to perform NAT64
   address synthesis for them.  The solution is similar to "Bump-in-the-
   Host" [RFC6535] but is implemented inside the Happy Eyeballs client.

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   Note that some IPv4 prefixes are scoped to a given host or network,
   such as 0.0.0.0/8, 127.0.0.0/8, 169.254.0.0/16, and
   255.255.255.255/32, and therefore do not require NAT64 address
   synthesis.

8.2.  Discovering and Utilizing PREF64

   When an IPv4 address is passed into the Happy Eyeballs implementation
   instead of a hostname, it SHOULD use PREF64s received from Router
   Advertisements [RFC8781].

   With PREF64 available, networks might choose to not deploy DNS64, as
   the latter has a number of disadvantages (see [V6-MOSTLY],
   Section 4.3.4).  To ensure compatibility with such networks, if
   PREF64 is available, clients SHOULD send an A query in addition to an
   AAAA query for a given hostname.  This allows the client to receive
   any existing IPv4 A records and perform local NAT64 address
   synthesis, eliminating the network's need to run DNS64.

   If the network does not provide PREF64s, the implementation SHOULD
   query the network for the NAT64 prefix using "Discovery of the IPv6
   Prefix Used for IPv6 Address Synthesis" [RFC7050].  It then
   synthesizes an appropriate IPv6 address (or several) using the
   encoding described in "IPv6 Addressing of IPv4/ IPv6 Translators"
   [RFC6052].  The synthesized addresses are then inserted into the list
   of addresses as if they were results from DNS A queries; connection
   attempts follow the algorithm described above (see Section 6).

   Such translation also applies to any IPv4 addresses received in A
   records and IPv4 address hints received in SVCB records.

8.3.  Supporting DNS64

   If PREF64 is not available and the NAT64 prefix cannot be discovered,
   clients SHOULD assume the network is relying on DNS64 for IPv4-to-
   IPv6 address synthesis.  In this scenario, clients will typically
   only receive AAAA records from DNS queries, as DNS64 servers synthese
   these records for IPv4-only domains.

8.4.  Hostnames with Broken AAAA Records

   At the time of writing, there exist a small but non-negligible number
   of hostnames that resolve to valid A records and broken AAAA records,
   which we define as AAAA records that contain seemingly valid IPv6
   addresses but those addresses never reply when contacted on the usual
   ports.  These can be, for example, caused by:

   *  Mistyping of the IPv6 address in the DNS zone configuration

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   *  Routing black holes

   *  Service outages

   While an algorithm complying with the other sections of this document
   would correctly handle such hostnames on a dual-stack network, they
   will not necessarily function correctly on IPv6-only networks with
   NAT64 and DNS64.  Since DNS64 recursive resolvers rely on the
   authoritative name servers sending negative (no error, no data)
   responses for AAAA records in order to synthesize, they will not
   synthesize records for these particular hostnames and will instead
   pass through the broken AAAA record.

   In order to support these scenarios, the client device needs to query
   the DNS for the A record and then perform local synthesis.  Since
   these types of hostnames are rare and, in order to minimize load on
   DNS servers, this A query should only be performed when the client
   has given up on the AAAA records it initially received.  This can be
   achieved by using a longer timeout, referred to as the "Last Resort
   Local Synthesis Delay"; the delay is recommended to be 2 seconds.
   The timer is started when the last connection attempt is fired.  If
   no connection attempt has succeeded when this timer fires, the device
   queries the DNS for the IPv4 address and, on reception of a valid A
   record, treats it as if it were provided by the application (see
   Section 8.1).

8.5.  Virtual Private Networks

   Some Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) may be configured to handle DNS
   queries from the device.  The configuration could encompass all
   queries or a subset such as "*.internal.example.com".  These VPNs can
   also be configured to only route part of the IPv4 address space, such
   as 192.0.2.0/24.  However, if an internal hostname resolves to an
   external IPv4 address, these can cause issues if the underlying
   network is IPv6-only.  As an example, let's assume that
   "www.internal.example.com" has exactly one A record, 198.51.100.42,
   and no AAAA records.  The client will send the DNS query to the
   company's recursive resolver and that resolver will reply with these
   records.  The device now only has an IPv4 address to connect to and
   no route to that address.  Since the company's resolver does not know
   the NAT64 prefix of the underlying network, it cannot synthesize the
   address.  Similarly, the underlying network's DNS64 recursive
   resolver does not know the company's internal addresses, so it cannot
   resolve the hostname.  Because of this, the client device needs to
   resolve the A record using the company's resolver and then locally
   synthesize an IPv6 address, as if the resolved IPv4 address were
   provided by the application (Section 8.1).

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9.  Summary of Configurable Values

   The values that may be configured as defaults on a client for use in
   Happy Eyeballs are as follows:

   *  Resolution Delay (Section 4): The time to wait for a AAAA record
      after receiving an A record.  Recommended to be 50 milliseconds.

   *  Preferred Address Family Count (Section 5): The number of
      addresses belonging to the preferred address family (such as IPv6)
      that should be attempted before attempting the next address
      family.  Recommended to be 1; 2 may be used to more aggressively
      favor a particular combination of address family and protocol.

   *  Connection Attempt Delay (Section 6): The time to wait between
      connection attempts in the absence of RTT data.  Recommended to be
      250 milliseconds.

   *  Minimum Connection Attempt Delay (Section 6): The minimum time to
      wait between connection attempts.  Recommended to be 100
      milliseconds.  MUST NOT be less than 10 milliseconds.

   *  Maximum Connection Attempt Delay (Section 6): The maximum time to
      wait between connection attempts.  Recommended to be 2 seconds.

   *  Last Resort Local Synthesis Delay (Section 8.4): The time to wait
      after starting the last IPv6 attempt and before sending the A
      query.  Recommended to be 2 seconds.

   The delay values described in this section were determined
   empirically by measuring the timing of connections on a very wide set
   of production devices.  They were picked to reduce wait times noticed
   by users while minimizing load on the network.  As time passes, it is
   expected that the properties of networks will evolve.  For that
   reason, it is expected that these values will change over time.
   Implementors should feel welcome to use different values without
   changing this specification.  Since IPv6 issues are expected to be
   less common, the delays SHOULD be increased with time as client
   software is updated.

10.  Limitations

   Happy Eyeballs will handle initial connection failures at the
   transport layer (such as TCP or QUIC); however, other failures or
   performance issues may still affect the chosen connection.

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10.1.  Path Maximum Transmission Unit Discovery

   For TCP connections, since Happy Eyeballs is only active during the
   initial handshake and TCP does not pass the initial handshake, issues
   related to MTU can be masked and go unnoticed during Happy Eyeballs.
   For QUIC connections, a minimum MTU of at least 1200 bytes [RFC9000],
   Section 8.1-5 is guaranteed, but there is a chance that larger values
   may not be available.  Solving this issue is out of scope of this
   document.  One solution is to use "Packetization Layer Path MTU
   Discovery" [RFC4821].

10.2.  Application Layer

   If the DNS returns multiple addresses for different application
   servers, the application itself may not be operational and functional
   on all of them.  Common examples include Transport Layer Security
   (TLS) and HTTP.

10.3.  Hiding Operational Issues

   It has been observed in practice that Happy Eyeballs can hide issues
   in networks.  For example, if a misconfiguration causes IPv6 to
   consistently fail on a given network while IPv4 is still functional,
   Happy Eyeballs may impair the operator's ability to notice the issue.
   It is recommended that network operators deploy external means of
   monitoring to ensure functionality of all address families.

11.  Security Considerations

   Note that applications should not rely upon a stable hostname-to-
   address mapping to ensure any security properties, since DNS results
   may change between queries.  Happy Eyeballs may make it more likely
   that subsequent connections to a single hostname use different IP
   addresses.

   When using HTTP, HTTPS resource records indicate that clients should
   require HTTPS when connecting to an origin (see Section 9.5 of
   [RFC9460]), so an active attacker can attempt a downgrade attack by
   interfering with the successful delivery of HTTPS resource records.
   When clients use insecure DNS mechanisms, any on-path attacker can
   simply drop HTTPS resource records, so clients cannot tell the
   difference between an attack and a resolver that fails to respond to
   HTTPS queries.

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   However, when using cryptographically protected DNS mechanisms, as
   described in Section 3.1 of [RFC9460], both SVCB-reliant and SVCB-
   optional clients MUST NOT send any unencrypted data after the TCP
   handshake completes unless they have received a valid HTTPS response.
   Those clients need to complete a TLS handshake before proceeding if
   that response is non-negative.

12.  IANA Considerations

   This document does not require any IANA actions.

13.  References

13.1.  Normative References

   [ECH]      Rescorla, E., Oku, K., Sullivan, N., and C. A. Wood, "TLS
              Encrypted Client Hello", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
              draft-ietf-tls-esni-25, 14 June 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-tls-
              esni-25>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.

   [RFC4821]  Mathis, M. and J. Heffner, "Packetization Layer Path MTU
              Discovery", RFC 4821, DOI 10.17487/RFC4821, March 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4821>.

   [RFC6052]  Bao, C., Huitema, C., Bagnulo, M., Boucadair, M., and X.
              Li, "IPv6 Addressing of IPv4/IPv6 Translators", RFC 6052,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6052, October 2010,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6052>.

   [RFC6146]  Bagnulo, M., Matthews, P., and I. van Beijnum, "Stateful
              NAT64: Network Address and Protocol Translation from IPv6
              Clients to IPv4 Servers", RFC 6146, DOI 10.17487/RFC6146,
              April 2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6146>.

   [RFC6147]  Bagnulo, M., Sullivan, A., Matthews, P., and I. van
              Beijnum, "DNS64: DNS Extensions for Network Address
              Translation from IPv6 Clients to IPv4 Servers", RFC 6147,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6147, April 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6147>.

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   [RFC6298]  Paxson, V., Allman, M., Chu, J., and M. Sargent,
              "Computing TCP's Retransmission Timer", RFC 6298,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6298, June 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6298>.

   [RFC6535]  Huang, B., Deng, H., and T. Savolainen, "Dual-Stack Hosts
              Using "Bump-in-the-Host" (BIH)", RFC 6535,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6535, February 2012,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6535>.

   [RFC6724]  Thaler, D., Ed., Draves, R., Matsumoto, A., and T. Chown,
              "Default Address Selection for Internet Protocol Version 6
              (IPv6)", RFC 6724, DOI 10.17487/RFC6724, September 2012,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6724>.

   [RFC6724-UPDATE]
              Buraglio, N., Chown, T., and J. Duncan, "Prioritizing
              known-local IPv6 ULAs through address selection policy",
              Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-6man-rfc6724-
              update-25, 11 August 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-6man-
              rfc6724-update-25>.

   [RFC7050]  Savolainen, T., Korhonen, J., and D. Wing, "Discovery of
              the IPv6 Prefix Used for IPv6 Address Synthesis",
              RFC 7050, DOI 10.17487/RFC7050, November 2013,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7050>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.

   [RFC8781]  Colitti, L. and J. Linkova, "Discovering PREF64 in Router
              Advertisements", RFC 8781, DOI 10.17487/RFC8781, April
              2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8781>.

   [RFC9000]  Iyengar, J., Ed. and M. Thomson, Ed., "QUIC: A UDP-Based
              Multiplexed and Secure Transport", RFC 9000,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9000, May 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9000>.

   [RFC9460]  Schwartz, B., Bishop, M., and E. Nygren, "Service Binding
              and Parameter Specification via the DNS (SVCB and HTTPS
              Resource Records)", RFC 9460, DOI 10.17487/RFC9460,
              November 2023, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9460>.

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   [SVCB]     Schwartz, B., Bishop, M., and E. Nygren, "Service Binding
              and Parameter Specification via the DNS (SVCB and HTTPS
              Resource Records)", RFC 9460, DOI 10.17487/RFC9460,
              November 2023, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9460>.

   [SVCB-ECH] Schwartz, B. M., Bishop, M., and E. Nygren, "Bootstrapping
              TLS Encrypted ClientHello with DNS Service Bindings", Work
              in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-tls-svcb-ech-08,
              16 June 2025, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-ietf-tls-svcb-ech-08>.

13.2.  Informative References

   [AltSvc]   Nottingham, M., McManus, P., and J. Reschke, "HTTP
              Alternative Services", RFC 7838, DOI 10.17487/RFC7838,
              April 2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7838>.

   [DNSSEC]   Hoffman, P., "DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC)", BCP 237,
              RFC 9364, DOI 10.17487/RFC9364, February 2023,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9364>.

   [DOH]      Hoffman, P. and P. McManus, "DNS Queries over HTTPS
              (DoH)", RFC 8484, DOI 10.17487/RFC8484, October 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8484>.

   [DOQ]      Huitema, C., Dickinson, S., and A. Mankin, "DNS over
              Dedicated QUIC Connections", RFC 9250,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9250, May 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9250>.

   [DOT]      Hu, Z., Zhu, L., Heidemann, J., Mankin, A., Wessels, D.,
              and P. Hoffman, "Specification for DNS over Transport
              Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 7858, DOI 10.17487/RFC7858, May
              2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7858>.

   [HEV2]     Schinazi, D. and T. Pauly, "Happy Eyeballs Version 2:
              Better Connectivity Using Concurrency", RFC 8305,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8305, December 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8305>.

   [HTTP3]    Bishop, M., Ed., "HTTP/3", RFC 9114, DOI 10.17487/RFC9114,
              June 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9114>.

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Internet-Draft              Happy Eyeballs v3               October 2025

   [I-D.ietf-tls-key-share-prediction]
              Benjamin, D., "TLS Key Share Prediction", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-tls-key-share-
              prediction-03, 29 August 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-tls-key-
              share-prediction-03>.

   [IPV6]     Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
              (IPv6) Specification", STD 86, RFC 8200,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8200, July 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8200>.

   [QUIC]     Iyengar, J., Ed. and M. Thomson, Ed., "QUIC: A UDP-Based
              Multiplexed and Secure Transport", RFC 9000,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9000, May 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9000>.

   [RFC6555]  Wing, D. and A. Yourtchenko, "Happy Eyeballs: Success with
              Dual-Stack Hosts", RFC 6555, DOI 10.17487/RFC6555, April
              2012, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6555>.

   [RFC6877]  Mawatari, M., Kawashima, M., and C. Byrne, "464XLAT:
              Combination of Stateful and Stateless Translation",
              RFC 6877, DOI 10.17487/RFC6877, April 2013,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6877>.

   [RFC7413]  Cheng, Y., Chu, J., Radhakrishnan, S., and A. Jain, "TCP
              Fast Open", RFC 7413, DOI 10.17487/RFC7413, December 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7413>.

   [RFC8765]  Pusateri, T. and S. Cheshire, "DNS Push Notifications",
              RFC 8765, DOI 10.17487/RFC8765, June 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8765>.

   [RFC9002]  Iyengar, J., Ed. and I. Swett, Ed., "QUIC Loss Detection
              and Congestion Control", RFC 9002, DOI 10.17487/RFC9002,
              May 2021, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9002>.

   [V6-MOSTLY]
              Buraglio, N., Caletka, O., and J. Linkova, "IPv6-Mostly
              Networks: Deployment and Operations Considerations", Work
              in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-v6ops-6mops-04, 20
              October 2025, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-ietf-v6ops-6mops-04>.

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Acknowledgments

   The authors thank Dan Wing, Andrew Yourtchenko, and everyone else who
   worked on the original Happy Eyeballs design [RFC6555], Josh
   Graessley, Stuart Cheshire, and the rest of team at Apple that helped
   implement and instrument this algorithm, and Jason Fesler and Paul
   Saab who helped measure and refine this algorithm.  The authors would
   also like to thank Fred Baker, Nick Chettle, Lorenzo Colitti, Igor
   Gashinsky, Geoff Huston, Jen Linkova, Paul Hoffman, Philip Homburg,
   Warren Kumari, Erik Nygren, Jordi Palet Martinez, Rui Paulo, Stephen
   Strowes, Jinmei Tatuya, Dave Thaler, Joe Touch, and James Woodyatt
   for their input and contributions.

Authors' Addresses

   Tommy Pauly
   Apple Inc
   Email: tpauly@apple.com

   David Schinazi
   Google LLC
   Email: dschinazi.ietf@gmail.com

   Nidhi Jaju
   Google LLC
   Email: nidhijaju@google.com

   Kenichi Ishibashi
   Google LLC
   Email: bashi@google.com

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