Network Working Group C. Olvera Request for Comments: 3791 Consulintel Category: Informational P. Nesser, II Nesser & Nesser Consulting June 2004
Survey of IPv4 Addresses in Currently Deployed IETF Routing Area Standards Track and Experimental Documents
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).
Abstract
This investigation work seeks to document all usage of IPv4 addresses in currently deployed IETF Routing Area documented standards. In order to successfully transition from an all IPv4 Internet to an all IPv6 Internet, many interim steps will be taken. One of these steps is the evolution of current protocols that have IPv4 dependencies. It is hoped that these protocols (and their implementations) will be redesigned to be network address independent, but failing that will at least dually support IPv4 and IPv6. To this end, all Standards (Full, Draft, and Proposed) as well as Experimental RFCs will be surveyed and any dependencies will be documented.
This work aims to document all usage of IPv4 addresses in currently deployed IETF Routing Area documented standards. Also, throughout this document there are discussions on how routing protocols might be updated to support IPv6 addresses.
This material was originally presented within a single document, but in an effort to have the information in a manageable form, it has subsequently been split into 7 documents conforming to the current IETF main areas (Application [2], Internet [3], Operations & Management [4], Routing [this document], Security [5], Sub-IP [6] and Transport [7]).
The general overview, methodology used during documentation and scope of the investigation for the whole 7 documents can be found in the introduction of this set of documents [1].
It is important to mention that to perform this study the following classes of IETF standards are investigated: Full, Draft, and Proposed, as well as Experimental. Informational, BCP and Historic RFCs are not addressed. RFCs that have been obsoleted by either newer versions or as they have transitioned through the standards process are also not covered.
The main Sections of this document are described below.
Sections 3, 4, 5, and 6 each describe the raw analysis of Full, Draft, Proposed Standards and Experimental RFCs. Each RFC is discussed in its turn starting with RFC 1 and ending (around) RFC 3100. The comments for each RFC are "raw" in nature. That is, each RFC is discussed in a vacuum and problems or issues discussed do not "look ahead" to see if the problems have already been fixed.
Section 7 is an analysis of the data presented in Sections 3, 4, 5, and 6. It is here that all of the results are considered as a whole and the problems that have been resolved in later RFCs are correlated.
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RFC 3791 IPv4 Addresses in the IETF Routing Area June 2004
Full Internet Standards (most commonly simply referred to as "Standards") are fully mature protocol specification that are widely implemented and used throughout the Internet.
3.1.RFC 1722 (STD 57) RIP Version 2 Protocol Applicability Statement
Draft Standards represent the penultimate standard level in the IETF. A protocol can only achieve draft standard when there are multiple, independent, interoperable implementations. Draft Standards are usually quite mature and widely used.
Proposed Standards are introductory level documents. There are no requirements for even a single implementation. In many cases Proposed are never implemented or advanced in the IETF standards process. They therefore are often just proposed ideas that are presented to the Internet community. Sometimes flaws are exposed or
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RFC 3791 IPv4 Addresses in the IETF Routing Area June 2004
they are one of many competing solutions to problems. In these later cases, no discussion is presented as it would not serve the purpose of this discussion.
5.1.RFC 1195 Use of OSI IS-IS for routing in TCP/IP and dual environments
This document specifies a protocol for the exchange of IPv4 routing information.
This document defines the use of IPv4 multicast to an IPv4 only routing protocol.
5.11.RFC 1793 Extending OSPF to Support Demand Circuits
There are no IPv4 dependencies in this protocol other than the fact that it is a new functionality for a routing protocol that only supports IPv4 networks.
There are no IPv4 dependencies in this protocol other than the fact that it is a new functionality for a routing protocol that only supports IPv4 networks.
This protocol is only defined for IPv4. The document states in the Appendix:
o IPv6 as Delivery and/or Payload Protocol
This specification describes the intersection of GRE currently deployed by multiple vendors. IPv6 as delivery and/or payload protocol is not included.
5.21.RFC 2796 BGP Route Reflection - An Alternative to Full Mesh IBGP
Although the protocol enhancements have no IPv4 dependencies, the base protocol, BGP-4, is IPv4 only routing protocol. This specification updates but does not obsolete RFC 1966.
Currently BGP-4 is capable of carrying routing information only for IPv4. This document defines extensions to BGP-4 to enable it to carry routing information for multiple Network Layer protocols (e.g., IPv6, IPX, etc...). The extensions are backward compatible - a router that supports the extensions can interoperate with a router that doesn't support the extensions.
The document is therefore not examined further in this document.
5.23.RFC 2890 Key and Sequence Number Extensions to GRE
Experimental RFCs typically define protocols that do not have wide scale implementation or usage on the Internet. They are often propriety in nature or used in limited arenas. They are documented to the Internet community in order to allow potential interoperability or some other potential useful scenario. In a few cases they are presented as alternatives to the mainstream solution to an acknowledged problem.
This document defines a protocol for IPv4 multicast routing.
6.2.RFC 1383 An Experiment in DNS Based IP Routing
This proposal is IPv4 limited:
This record is designed for easy general purpose extensions in the DNS, and its content is a text string. The RX record will contain three fields: A record identifier, A cost indicator, and An IP address.
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The three strings will be separated by a single comma. An example of record would thus be:
___________________________________________________________________ | domain | type | record | value | | - | | | | |*.27.32.192.in-addr.arpa | IP | TXT | RX, 10, 10.0.0.7| |_________________________|________|__________|___________________|
which means that for all hosts whose IP address starts by the three octets "192.32.27" the IP host "10.0.0.7" can be used as a gateway, and that the preference value is 10.
There are no IPv4 dependencies in this protocol other than the fact that it is a new functionality for a routing protocol that only supports IPv4 networks.
6.5.RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server alternative to a full mesh routing
This protocol is both IPv4 and IPv6 aware and needs no changes.
6.6.RFC 1966 BGP Route Reflection An alternative to full mesh IBGP
Although the protocol enhancements have no IPv4 dependencies, the base protocol, BGP-4, is IPv4 only routing protocol. This specification has been updated by RFC 2796.
6.7.RFC 2189 Core Based Trees (CBT version 2) Multicast Routing
The document specifies a protocol that depends on IPv4 multicast. There are many packet formats defined that show IPv4 usage.
6.8.RFC 2201 Core Based Trees (CBT) Multicast Routing Architecture
See previous Section for the IPv4 limitation in this protocol.
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6.9.RFC 2337 Intra-LIS IP multicast among routers over ATM using Sparse Mode PIM
In the initial survey of RFCs, 23 positives were identified out of a total of 46, broken down as follows:
Standards: 3 out of 3 or 100.00% Draft Standards: 1 out of 3 or 33.33% Proposed Standards: 13 out of 29 or 44.83% Experimental RFCs: 6 out of 11 or 54.54%
Of those identified many require no action because they document outdated and unused protocols, while others are document protocols that are actively being updated by the appropriate working groups. Additionally there are many instances of standards that should be updated but do not cause any operational impact if they are not updated. The remaining instances are documented below. The authors have attempted to organize the results in a format that allows easy reference to other protocol designers. The assignment of statements has been based entirely on the authors perceived needs for updates and should not be taken as an official statement.
This problem has been fixed in RFC 2858 Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP-4, RFC 2545 Use of BGP-4 Multiprotocol Extensions for IPv6 Inter-Domain Routing, and in [8].
RFC 2858 extends BGP to support multi-protocol extensions that allows routing information for other address families to be exchanged. RFC 2545 further extends RFC 2858 for full support of exchanging IPv6 routing information and additionally clarifies support of the extended BGP-4 protocol using TCP+IPv6 as a transport mechanism. RFC 1771, 2858 & 2545 must be supported in order to provide full IPv6 support.
Note also that all the BGP extensions analyzed previously in this memo function without changes with the updated version of BGP-4.
This protocol relies on IPv4 DNS RR, but is no longer relevant has never seen much use; no action is necessary.
7.4.3. Core Based Trees (CBT version 2) Multicast Routing (RFC 2189)
This protocol relies on IPv4 IGMP Multicast and a new protocol standard may be produced. However, the multicast routing protocol has never been in much use and is no longer relevant; no action is necessary.
7.4.4. Core Based Trees (CBT) Multicast Routing Architecture (RFC 2201)
See previous Section for the limitation in this protocol.
7.4.5. Intra-LIS IP multicast among routers over ATM using Sparse Mode PIM (RFC 2337)
This protocol is designed for IPv4 multicast. However, Intra-LIS IP multicast among routers over ATM is not believed to be relevant anymore. A new mechanism may be defined for IPv6 multicast.
7.4.6. QoS Routing Mechanisms and OSPF Extensions (RFC 2676)
QoS extensions for OSPF were never used for OSPFv2, and there seems to be little need for them in OSPFv3.
However, if necessary, an update to this document could simply define the use of the IPv6 Traffic Class field since it is defined to be exactly the same as the IPv4 TOS field.
The original author, Philip J. Nesser II, would like to acknowledge the support of the Internet Society in the research and production of this document.
He also would like to thanks his partner in all ways, Wendy M. Nesser.
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RFC 3791 IPv4 Addresses in the IETF Routing Area June 2004
Cesar Olvera would like to thanks Pekka Savola for an extended guidance and comments for the edition of this document, and Jordi Palet for his support and reviews.
Additionally, he would further like to thank Andreas Bergstrom, Brian Carpenter, Jeff Haas, Vishwas Manral, Gabriela Medina, Venkata Naidu, Jeff Parker and Curtis Villamizar for valuable feedback.
[1] Nesser, II, P. and A. Bergstrom, Editor, "Introduction to the Survey of IPv4 Addresses in Currently Deployed IETF Standards", RFC 3789, June 2004.
[2] Sofia, R. and P. Nesser, II, "Survey of IPv4 Addresses in Currently Deployed IETF Application Area Standards", RFC 3795, June 2004.
[3] Mickles, C. and P. Nesser, II, "Internet Area: Survey of IPv4 Addresses Currently Deployed IETF Standards", RFC 3790, June 2004.
[4] Nesser, II, P. and A. Bergstrom, "Survey of IPv4 addresses in Currently Deployed IETF Operations & Management Area Standards", RFC 3796, June 2004.
[5] Nesser, II, P. and A. Bergstrom. "Survey of IPv4 Addresses in Currently Deployed IETF Security Area Standards", RFC 3792, June 2004.
[6] Nesser, II, P. and A. Bergstrom. "Survey of IPv4 Addresses in Currently Deployed IETF Sub-IP Area Standards", RFC 3793, June 2004.
[7] Nesser, II, P. and A. Bergstrom "Survey of IPv4 Addresses in Currently Deployed IETF Transport Area Standards", RFC 3794, June 2004.
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