Network Working Group B. Wijnen Request for Comments: 3595 Lucent Technologies Category: Standards Track September 2003
Textual Conventions for IPv6 Flow Label
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This MIB module defines textual conventions to represent the commonly used IPv6 Flow Label. The intent is that these textual conventions (TCs) will be imported and used in MIB modules that would otherwise define their own representations.
Several standards-track MIB modules have defined objects to represent an IPv6 Flow Label (sometimes referred to as Flow ID) [RFC2460] [FLOWLABEL] and IPv6 Flow Label filters. Unfortunately the result is a set of different definitions for the same piece of management information. This may lead to confusion and unnecessary complexity.
This document defines a set of textual conventions (TCs) that can and should be (re-)used in MIB modules, so that they all represent an IPv6 Flow Label in the same way. In fact, PIB modules can and should also use these TCs when they need to represent an IPv6 Flow label.
For a detailed overview of the documents that describe the current Internet-Standard Management Framework, please refer to section 7 of RFC 3410 [RFC3410].
Managed objects are accessed via a virtual information store, termed the Management Information Base or MIB. MIB objects are generally accessed through the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Objects in the MIB are defined using the mechanisms defined in the Structure of Management Information (SMI). This memo specifies a MIB module that is compliant to the SMIv2, which is described in STD 58, RFC 2578 [RFC2578], STD 58, RFC 2579 [RFC2579] and STD 58, RFC 2580 [RFC2580].
RFC 3595 Textual Conventions for IPv6 Flow Label September 2003
Phone: +31 348-407-775 EMail: bwijnen@lucent.com
Send comments to <mibs@ops.ietf.org>. " DESCRIPTION "This MIB module provides commonly used textual conventions for IPv6 Flow Labels.
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). This version of this MIB module is part of RFC 3595, see the RFC itself for full legal notices. " -- Revision History
REVISION "200308280000Z" -- 28 August 2003 DESCRIPTION "Initial version, published as RFC 3595."
::= { mib-2 103 }
IPv6FlowLabel ::= TEXTUAL-CONVENTION DISPLAY-HINT "d" STATUS current DESCRIPTION "The flow identifier or Flow Label in an IPv6 packet header that may be used to discriminate traffic flows. " REFERENCE "Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) specification, section 6. RFC 2460. " SYNTAX Integer32 (0..1048575)
IPv6FlowLabelOrAny ::= TEXTUAL-CONVENTION DISPLAY-HINT "d" STATUS current DESCRIPTION "The flow identifier or Flow Label in an IPv6 packet header that may be used to discriminate traffic flows. The value of -1 is used to indicate a wildcard, i.e. any value. " SYNTAX Integer32 (-1 | 0..1048575)
END
Wijnen Standards Track [Page 3]
RFC 3595 Textual Conventions for IPv6 Flow Label September 2003
The MIB module contained in this memo does not define any management objects. Instead, it defines a set of textual conventions which may be used by other MIB modules to define management objects.
Meaningful security considerations can only be written for MIB modules that define concrete management objects. This document has therefore no impact on the security of the Internet.
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it has made any effort to identify any such rights. Information on the IETF's procedures with respect to rights in standards-track and standards-related documentation can be found in BCP-11. Copies of claims of rights made available for publication and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementors or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF Secretariat.
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[FLOWLABEL] Carpenter, B., Conta, A., Deering, S. and J. Rajahalme, "IPv6 Flow Label Specification", Work in Progress.
[RFC3410] Case, J., Mundy, R., Partain, D. and B. Stewart, "Introduction and Applicability Statements for Internet- Standard Management Framework", RFC 3410, December 2002.
This document was produced as a result of a review of the use of FlowID in a PIB module and a MIB module. Further investigation found that FlowID and FlowLabel objects were defined in a few other MIB modules. The editor would like to thank all who contributed to the discussion that resulted in this document, particularly Juergen Schoenwaelder for finding and reporting most of the other MIB modules that were using/defining a FlowLabel object. Juergen also suggested the very first direction for a common TC for these objects. Further contributions were received from Fred Baker, Dan Romascanu, Kwok Ho Chan, Margaret Wasserman, Brian Carpenter, Andy Bierman, Randy Presuhn, Branislav Meandzija, Brian Williams, Ravi Sahita. We also received initial input from 3GPP that expressed the requirement to be able to specify a wildcard for FlowID or FlowLabel. Further helpful review comments were received from Brian Carpenter, John Loughney, Pekka Savola.
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