Internet DRAFT - draft-gang-sunset4-nat64-port-allocation

draft-gang-sunset4-nat64-port-allocation






Network Working Group                                            G. Chen
Internet-Draft                                              China Mobile
Intended status: Informational                                     W. Li
Expires: October 17, 2015                                  China Telecom
                                                                 T. Tsou
                                                                J. Huang
                                                     Huawei Technologies
                                                               T. Taylor
                                                    PT Taylor Consulting
                                                          April 15, 2015


  Analysis of NAT64 Port Allocation Methods for Shared IPv4 Addresses
              draft-gang-sunset4-nat64-port-allocation-00

Abstract

   This document enumerates methods of port assignment in Carrier Grade
   NATs (CGNs), focused particularly on NAT64 environments.  A
   theoretical framework of different NAT port allocation methods is
   described.  The memo is intended to clarify and focus the port
   allocation discussion and propose an integrated view of the
   considerations for selection of the port allocation mechanism in a
   given deployment.

Status of this Memo

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

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on October 17, 2015.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2015 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



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   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Considerations for the Choice of Port Allocation Methods . . .  3
     2.1.  Port Consumption on NAT64  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     2.2.  Classification of Port Allocation Models . . . . . . . . .  4
       2.2.1.  Stateful vs. Stateless . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
       2.2.2.  Dynamic vs. Static . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
       2.2.3.  Centralized vs. Distributed  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     2.3.  Port Allocation Solutions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
       2.3.1.  Other Transition Technologies  . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
       2.3.2.  Stateless Transition Technologies  . . . . . . . . . .  7
       2.3.3.  Port Control Protocol (PCP)  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     2.4.  Specific Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       2.4.1.  Log Volume Optimization  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       2.4.2.  Connectivity State Optimization  . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       2.4.3.  Port Randomization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   3.  Considerations for the Dynamic Assignment of Port-Ranges . . . 11
     3.1.  Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     3.2.  Implementation Issues -- Port Randomization and
           Port-Range Deallocation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     3.3.  Issues Of Traceability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     3.4.  Other Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   4.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   5.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   6.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   7.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     7.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     7.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18











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1.  Introduction

   As a result of the depletion of public IPv4 addresses, Carrier Grade
   NAT (CGN) has been adopted by ISPs to share the available IPv4
   resources.  Overall, a CGN function maps IP addresses from one
   address realm to another, relying upon a mechanism of multiplexing
   multiple subscribers' connections over a number of shared IPv4
   addresses to provide connectivity services to end hosts.  A network-
   based NAT is implied by several approaches to IPv4 service continuity
   over an IPv6 network including DS-Lite [RFC6333], NAT64 ([RFC6145]
   and [RFC6146]), etc.

   Section 2) focusses on the topic of IPv6 migration.  When NAPT is
   involved, Section 2 elaborates on the considerations for address
   sharing and particularly port assignment in the NAT64 environment.

   Section 3 looks more closely at dynamic bulk assignment of ports to
   individual subscriber sites, particularly as a means to reduce the
   volume of log files.  The proposals made in this section are
   applicable to the CGN environment in general, independently of the
   particular flavor of translation being used.


2.  Considerations for the Choice of Port Allocation Methods

   For port allocations on NAT64, several aspects may have to be
   considered when selecting a suitable method.  Here is a list of the
   potential considerations, which are covered in more detail below.

   o  specific features of port usage in a NAT64 environment;

   o  classification of different port allocation methods;

   o  port allocation to improve connectivity;

   o  port allocation to optimize log volume;

   o  port allocation to enhance security.

   Both analysis and relevant experimental results are presented in the
   sub-sections that follow.

2.1.  Port Consumption on NAT64

   China Mobile did a test comparison of port consumption on NAT64 and
   NAT44.  Top100 websites (referring to Alexa statistics) were assessed
   to evaluate status of port usage on NAT44 and NAT64 respectively.
   China Mobile observed that the port consumption per session on NAT64



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   is roughly only half that on NAT44. 43 percent of top100 websites
   have AAAA records, therefore the NAT64 didn't have to assign ports to
   the traffic going to those websites.  The results may be different if
   more services (e.g. game, web-mail, etc) are considered.  But it is
   apparent that the effects of port saving on NAT64 will be amplified
   by increasing native IPv6 support.

   Apart from the above observation, port allocation can be tuned
   according to the phase of IPv6 migration.  As more content providers
   and services become available over IPv6, the utilization of NAT64
   goes down since fewer destinations require translation progressing.
   Thus as IPv6 migration proceeds, it will be possible to relax the
   multiplexing ratio of IPv4 address sharing (see Appendix B of
   [RFC6269]).

2.2.  Classification of Port Allocation Models

   This section lists several models to allocate the port information in
   NAT64.  It also describes example cases for each allocation model.

2.2.1.  Stateful vs. Stateless

   o  Stateful

      The stateful NAT can be implemented either by static address
      translation or dynamic address translation.

      In the case of static address assignment, a one-to-one address
      mapping for hosts between a IPv6 network address and an IPv4
      network address is pre-configured on the NAT operation.  This case
      normally occurs when a server is deployed in an IPv6 domain.  The
      static configuration ensures stable inbound connectivity.

      Dynamic address assignment would periodically free the binding so
      that the global address could be recycled for later use.  This
      increases the efficiency of usage of IPv4 resources.

   o  Stateless

      Stateless NAT is performed in compliance with [RFC6145].  The
      public IPv4 address is required to be embedded in the IPv6
      address.  Thus the NAT64 can directly extract the address and has
      no need to record mapping states.

   A promising usage of stateless NAT may appear in the data centre
   environment where IPv6 server pools receive inbound connections from
   IPv4 users externally [I-D.ietf-v6ops-siit-dc].  NAT usage in other
   cases may be controversial.  First off, the static one-to-one mapping



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   does not address the issue of IPv4 depletion.  Secondly, it
   introduces a dependency between IPv4 and IPv6 addressing.  That
   creates other limitations since a change of IPv4 address will cause
   renumbering of IPv6 addresses.

2.2.2.  Dynamic vs. Static

   Port assignments can be dynamic (ports allocated on demand) or static
   (ports allocated as part of the configuration process).

   o  Dynamic assignment

      NAT64 uses dynamic assignment, since this achieves higher port
      utilization.  Port allocations can be made with per-session or
      per-customer granularity.  Per-session assignment is configured on
      the NAT64 by default since it maximizes port utilization.
      However, if only individual port numbers are assigned, this can
      result in a heavy log volume that may have to be recorded for
      legal data retention systems.  To mitigate that concern, the NAT64
      may dynamically allocate a port range for each connected
      subscriber or upon receipt of a first outgoing packet from an IPv6
      host.  This will significantly reduce log volume.

      A proper port-range configuration may have to take into account
      two considerations:

      A.  The number of session initiations for each subscriber.  A
          subscriber normally uses multiple applications simultaneously,
          e.g. maps applications, online video or game.  The number of
          concurrent sessions is essential to determine the number of
          ports the subscriber needs.  The China Mobile study mentioned
          earlier observed that the average number of sessions consumed
          by one user's device was around 200 to 300 ports.  Several
          devices may appear behind a CPE.  Based on this observation,
          1000 ports per subscriber household will provide enough room
          for multiple active users.  Administrators should monitor
          usage to adjust this number if users are being limited by this
          number, or if usage is so low that fewer ports would be
          sufficient.

      B.  Impacts on NAT64 capacity.  Preassigned port ranges occupy
          memory even when there are unused ports.  Therefore, the
          operator should be cautious about the impact of port-range
          reservation on the capacity for attempted concurrent sessions,
          especially in the case of a centralized NAT64 serving numerous
          subscribers.





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   o  Static assignment

      Static assignment makes port reservations in bulk for each
      internal address before subscriber connection.  The assigned ports
      can be in either a contiguous port range or a non-contiguous port
      range for the sake of defense against port-guessing attacks (see
      Section 3.2).  Log recording for each port assignment may not be
      necessary due to the stable mapping relations.  Considerations of
      the interaction between port-range allocation and capacity impact
      are also applicable in the case of static assignment.  [RFC7422]
      describes a deterministic algorithm to assign a port range for an
      internal IP address pool in a sequence.

2.2.3.  Centralized vs. Distributed

   There is an increasing need to connect NAT64 with downstream NAT46-
   capable devices to support IPv4 users/applications on an IPv6-only
   path.  Several solutions have been proposed in this area, e.g.,
   464xlat [RFC6877], MAP-T [I-D.ietf-softwire-map-t] and 4rd
   [I-D.ietf-softwire-4rd].  Port allocation can be categorized as a
   centralized assignment on NAT64 or as a port delegation distributed
   to downstream devices (e.g, Customer Edge connected with NAT64).

   o  Centralized Assignment

      A centralized method makes port assignments once IP flows come to
      the NAT64.  The allocation policy is enforced on a centralized
      point.  Either a dynamic or static port assignment is made for
      received sessions.

   o  Distributed Assignment

      NAT64 can also delegate the pre-allocated port range to customer
      edge devices.  That can be achieved through additional out-of-band
      provisioning signals (e.g., [I-D.ietf-pcp-port-set],
      [I-D.ietf-softwire-map-dhcp]).  The distributed model normally is
      performed A+P style [RFC6346] for static port assignment.  The
      NAT64 should also hold the corresponding mapping in order to
      validate port usage in the outgoing direction and route inbound
      packets.  Delegated port ranges shift NAT64 port computations/
      states into downstream devices.  The detailed benefits of this
      approach are documented in
      [I-D.ietf-softwire-stateless-4v6-motivation].








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2.3.  Port Allocation Solutions

2.3.1.  Other Transition Technologies

   [RFC6146] describes a process where the dynamic binding is created by
   an outgoing packet, but it may also be created by other means such as
   a Port Control Protocol request (see Section 2.3.3).  Lookin beyond
   NAT64 for the moment, DS-Lite [RFC6333] refers to the cautions in
   [RFC6269] but does not specify any port allocation method.  Both
   techniques DS-Lite and NAT64 assume a centralized model.

   The specifications for both transition methods thus allow
   implementations to use the proposals made in Section 3 (and
   [RFC7422]).

2.3.2.  Stateless Transition Technologies

   The port allocation solutions that are being specified at the time of
   writing of this document are all variations on the static distributed
   model, to minimize the amount of state that has to be held in the
   network.  The proposals made in Section 3 do not apply to the current
   work in progress because that work has gone in another direction.
   That work includes:

   o  Light-weight 4over6 (LW4o6 [I_D.ietf-softwire-lw4over6]), which
      requires the CPE to be configured explicitly with the shared IPv4
      address and port set it will use on the WAN side of its NAT44
      function.  The border router is configured with the same
      information, reducing the state it must hold from per-session to
      per-subscriber amounts.

   o  Mapping of Address and Port with Encapsulation (MAP-E
      [I-D.ietf-softwire-map]) and the experimental specifications
      Mapping of Address and Port with Translation (MAP-T
      [I-D.ietf-softwire-map-t]) and 4rd [I-D.ietf-softwire-4rd],
      already mentioned.  These rely on an algorithmic embedding of WAN-
      side IPv4 address and assigned port set within the IPv6 prefix
      assigned to each CPE.  Both the CPE and the border router must be
      configured with this information.  However, the algorithm is
      designed to aggregate routing information such that the amount of
      state carried by the border router is of a lower order of
      magnitude than even the per-subscriber level.

   All A+P variants support a 1-1 mapping mode, where the IPv4 and IPv6
   addresses assigned to a CPE are independent.  This can be helpful in
   transition, but, as with LW4o6, raises the amount of state in the
   network back to the per-subscriber level.




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   For a packet destined to a host outside the MAP domain from which the
   packet originated: MAP-E and 4rd treat the packet as an IPv4 over
   IPv6 tunnel via the border router.

   MAP-T uses stateless mapping in the sense of Section 2.2.1 by
   embedding the destination IPv4 address within the IPv6 address of the
   packet sent to the border router.

2.3.3.  Port Control Protocol (PCP)

   The Port Control Protocol (PCP, [RFC6887]) can be used to reserve a
   single port or a port set [I-D.ietf-pcp-port-set] for applications.
   It requires that the NAT be controlled by a PCP server function.  PCP
   provides an out-of-band signalling mechanism for coordinating dynamic
   allocation of ports between hosts and the border router, removes the
   need for ALGs, allows for successful incoming connections, etc.

2.4.  Specific Considerations

2.4.1.  Log Volume Optimization

   [RFC6269] provides a thoughtful analysis on the issues of IP address
   sharing.  It points out that IP address sharing may impact law
   enforcement since source address information will be lost during the
   translation.  Network administrators have to log the mapping status
   for each connection in order to identify a specific user associated
   with an IP address in a particular time slot.  The storage of log
   information may pose a challenge to operators, since it requires
   additional resources and data inspection processes to identify users.
   For concrete details of what should be logged, see Section 3.1 of
   [I-D.ietf-behave-syslog-nat-logging].  The actual logging may use
   either IPFIX [RFC7011] or Syslog [RFC5424] depending on the
   operator's requirements.

   It is desirable to reduce the volume of the logged information.
   Referring to the classification of port allocation methods given
   above, dynamic assignments can be managed on either a per-session or
   per-customer granularity.  The coarser granularity will lead to lower
   log volume storage.  A test was made by recording the log information
   from 200,000 subscribers in the Chinese network for 60 days.  The
   volume of recorded information reached up to 42.5 terabytes with per-
   session logging in the raw format.  The volume could be reduced to
   10.6 terabytes with gzip format.  Compared with that, it only
   occupied 40.6 gigabytes, three orders of magnitude smaller volume,
   with per-customer logging in the raw format.  With static allocation,
   of course, no logs for port assignment are required, but a record of
   the configuration change is still required.




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   On the other hand, the lower logging volumes are associated with
   lower efficiency of port utilization.  A port allocation based on
   per-customer granularity has to retain vacant ports in order to avoid
   traffic overflow.  The efficiency can be evaluated by port
   utilization rate, and will be even lower if the static port
   allocation method is used.  Inactive users may also impact the
   efficiency.

   Table 1 summarizes the test results using Syslog.  The ports were
   pre-allocated to customers regardless of online or offline status.

   +--------------------+--------------+----------------+--------------+
   | Port Allocation    | Log          | Estimated Log  | Port         |
   | Method             | Granularity  | Volume         | Utilization  |
   +--------------------+--------------+----------------+--------------+
   | Dynamic NAPT       | Per-session  | 42.5 terabytes | 100%         |
   | Dynamic port-range | Per-customer | 40.6 Gigabytes | 75%          |
   | Deterministic NAT, | None         | None           | (60% * 75%)  |
   | MAP-T, 4rd         |              |                | = 45%        |
   +--------------------+--------------+----------------+--------------+

       Table 1: Estimated Log Volumes For 200,000 Users Over 60 Days

   Note: 75% is the estimated port utilization ratio per active
   subscriber. 60% is the estimated ratio of active subscribers to the
   total number of subscribers.

   The data shown in Table 1 roughly demonstrates the tradeoff between
   port utilization and log volume reduction.  Administrators may
   consider the following factors to make their design choice that would
   meet their deployment requirements:

   o  average connectivity per customer per day;

   o  peak connectivity per day;

   o  the number of public IPv4 addresses available to the NAT64;

   o  application demands for specific ports;

   o  processing capabilities of the NAT64;

   o  tolerable log volume.








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2.4.2.  Connectivity State Optimization

   It has been observed that port consumption is significantly increased
   once subscribers land on a web page for video on demand, an online
   game, or map services.  In those cases, multiple TCP connections may
   be initiated to optimize the performance of data transmissions for
   video download and message exchange.  Given the video traffic growth
   trend, this likely presents a challenge for network operators who
   need to optimize connectivity states and avoid port depletion.  Those
   optimizations may even affect the method of port-range allocation,
   because a subscriber is only allowed to use a pre-configured port
   resource.

   Two optimizations may be considered:

   o  Reducing the TIME-WAIT state.  The user's behavior normally
      correlates with system performance.  It is rather common that
      users change video channels often.  Investigations have shown that
      60% of videos are watched for less than 20% of their duration.
      The user's access patterns may leave a number of the TIME-WAIT
      states.  Therefore, acceleration of TIME-WAIT state transitions
      could increase the efficiency of port utilization.  [RFC6191]
      defines a mechanism for reducing TIME-WAIT state by proposing TCP
      timestamps and sequence numbers.

      [I-D.penno-behave-rfc4787-5382-5508-bis] recommended applying
      [RFC6191] and PAWS (Protect Against Wrapped Sequence numbers,
      described in [RFC1323]) to NAT.  This may also be a way to improve
      port utilization.

   o  Another possibility is to use Address-Dependent Mapping or Address
      and Port-Dependent Mapping [RFC4787] to increase port utilization.
      This feature has already been implemented on a vendor-specific
      basis.  However, it should be noted that REQ-7 and REQ-12 in
      [RFC6888] may reduce the incentive to use anything but the
      Address-Independent Mapping behaviour recommended by [RFC4787].

2.4.3.  Port Randomization

   Port randomization is a feature to enhance the defense against
   hijacking of flows.  [RFC6056] specifies that:

      "A NAPT that does not implement port preservation ([RFC4787],
      [RFC5382]) should obfuscate selection of the ephemeral port of a
      packet when it is changed during translation of that packet."

   A NAPT based on per-session allocation normally follows this
   recommendation.



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   See Section 4 for a fuller discussion of port randomization.


3.  Considerations for the Dynamic Assignment of Port-Ranges

3.1.  Motivation

   During the IPv6 transition period, large-scale NAT devices may be
   introduced, e.g.  DS-Lite AFTR, NAT64.  When a NAT device needs to
   set up a new connection for a given internal address behind the NAT,
   it needs to create a new mapping entry for the new connection, which
   will contain source IP address, source port or ICMP identifier,
   converted source IP address, converted source port, protocol (TCP/
   UDP), etc.

   For various reasons it is necessary to log these mappings.  Some high
   performance NAT devices may need to create a large amount of new
   sessions per second.  As discussed in Section 2.4.1, if the logs are
   generated for each mapping entry, the log traffic could reach tens of
   megabytes per second or more, which would be a problem for log
   generation, transmission and storage.  (The per-session volumes in
   Table 1 amount to 42 bytes per served subscriber per second.  The
   volumes reported in the introduction to [RFC7422] for U.S. users are
   even higher, around 58 bytes per second per subscriber served.)

   [RFC6888], REQ-13, REQ-14, and REQ-15 deal explicitly with port
   allocation schemes and logging.  However, it is recognized that these
   are conflicting requirements, requiring a tradeoff between the
   efficiency with which ports are used and the rate of generation of
   log records.

   Allocating a range of N ports at once reduces the log volume by a
   factor of N, while also reducing port utilization by a factor which
   varies with the address sharing ratio and other configuration
   parameters.  This provides a clear motivation to use dynamic
   allocation of port-ranges rather than individual ports when it is
   possible to do so while maintaining a satisfactory level of port
   utilization (and by implication, shared global IPv4 address
   utilization).

   Dynamic allocation of port ranges may be used either as the sole
   strategy for port allocation on the NAPT, or as a supplement to an
   initial static allocation.

3.2.  Implementation Issues -- Port Randomization and Port-Range
      Deallocation

   When the user sends out the first packet, a port resource pool is



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   allocated for the user, e.g., assigning ports 2001~2300 of a public
   IP address to the user's resource pool.  Only one log should be
   generated for this port block.  When the NAT needs to set up a new
   mapping entry for the user, it can use a port in the user's resource
   pool and the corresponding public IP address.  If the user needs more
   port resources, the NAT can allocate another port block, e.g., ports
   3501~3800, to the user's resource pool.  Again, just one log needs to
   be generated for this port block.

   Cryptographically random port assignment is discussed in Section 2.2
   of [RFC6431].  Indeed, [RFC6431] takes this idea further by
   allocating non-contiguous sets of ports using a pseudorandom
   function.  Scattering the allocated ports in this way provides a
   modest barrier to port guessing attacks.  The use of randomization is
   discussed further in Section 4.

   Suppose now that a given internal address has been assigned more than
   one block of ports.  The individual sessions using ports within a
   port block will start and end at different times.  If no ports in
   some port block are used for some configurable time, the NAT can
   remove the port block from the resource pool allocated to a given
   internal address, and make it available for other users.  In theory,
   it is unnecessary to log deallocations of blocks of ports, because
   the ports in deallocated blocks will not be used again until the
   blocks are reallocated.  However, the deallocation may be logged when
   it occurs to add robustness to troubleshooting or other procedures.

   The deallocation procedure presents a number of difficulties in
   practice.  The first problem is the choice of timeout value for the
   block.  If idle timers are applied for the individual mappings
   (sessions) within the block, and these conform to the recommendations
   for NAT behaviour for the protocol concerned, then the additional
   time that might be configured as a guard for the block as a whole
   need not be more than a few minutes.  The block timer in this case
   serves only as a slightly more conservative extension of the
   individual session idle timers.  If, instead, a single idle timer is
   used for the whole block, it must itself conform to the
   recommendations for the protocol with which that block of ports is
   associated.  For example, REQ-5 of [RFC5382] requires an idle timer
   expiry duration of at least 2 hours and 4 minutes for TCP.  The
   suggestions made in Section 2.4.2 may be considered for reducing this
   time.

   The next issue with port block deallocation is the conflict between
   the desire to randomize port allocation and the desire to make unused
   resources available to other internal addresses.  As mentioned above,
   ideally port selection will take place over the entire set of blocks
   allocated to the internal address.  However, taken to its fullest



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   extent, such a policy will minimize the probability that all ports in
   any given block are idle long enough for it to be released.

   As an alternative, it is suggested that when choosing which block to
   select a port from, the NAT should omit from its range of choice the
   block that has been idle the longest, unless no ports are available
   in any of the other blocks.  The expression "block that has been idle
   the longest" designates the block in which the time since the last
   packet was observed in any of its sessions, in either direction, is
   earlier than the corresponding time in any of the other blocks
   assigned to that internal address.  As [RFC6269] points out, port
   randomization is just one security measure of several, and the loss
   of randomness incurred by the suggested procedure is justified by the
   increased utilization of port resources it allows.

3.3.  Issues Of Traceability

   Section 12 of [RFC6269] provides a good discussion of the
   traceability issue.  Complete traceability given the NAT logging
   practices proposed in this draft requires that the remote destination
   record the source port of a request along with the source address
   (and presumably protocol, if not implicit) [RFC6302].  In addition,
   the logs at each end must be timestamped, and the clocks must be
   synchronized within a certain degree of accuracy.  Here is one reason
   for the guard timing on block release, to increase the tolerable
   level of clock skew between the two ends.

   Where source port logging can be enabled, this memo strongly urges
   the operators to do so.  Similarly, intrusion detection systems
   should capture source port as well as source address of suspect
   packets.

   In some cases [RFC6269], a server may not record the source port of a
   connection.  To allow traceability, the NAT device needs to record
   the destination IP address of a connection.  As [RFC6269] points out,
   this will provide an incomplete solution to the issue of traceability
   because multiple users of the same shared public IP address may
   access the service at the same time.  From the point of view of this
   draft, in such situations the game is lost, so to speak, and port
   allocation at the NAT might as well be completely dynamic.

   The final possibility to consider is where the NAT does not do per-
   session logging even given the possibility that the remote end is
   failing to capture source ports.  In that case, the port allocation
   strategy proposed in this section can be used.  The impact on
   traceability is that analysis of the logs would yield only the list
   of all internal addresses mapped to a given public address during the
   period of time concerned.  This has an impact on privacy as well as



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   traceability, depending on the follow-up actions taken.

3.4.  Other Considerations

   [RFC6269] notes several issues introduced by the use of dynamic as
   opposed to static port assignment.  For example, Section 12.2 of that
   document notes the effect on authentication procedures.  These issues
   must be resolved, but are not specific to the dynamic port-range
   allocation strategy.


4.  Security Considerations

   The discussion which follows addresses an issue that is particularly
   relevant to the strategies described in Section 3 of this document.
   The security considerations applicable to NAT operation for various
   protocols as documented in, for example, [RFC4787] and [RFC5382] also
   apply to this proposal.

   [RFC6056] summarizes the TCP port-guessing attack, by means of which
   an attacker can hijack one end of a TCP connection.  One mitigating
   measure is to make the source port number used for a TCP connection
   less predictable.  [RFC6056] provides various algorithms for this
   purpose.

   As Section 3.1 of that RFC notes: "...provided adequate algorithms
   are in use, the larger the range from which ephemeral ports are
   selected, the smaller the chances of an attacker are to guess the
   selected port number."  Conversely, the reduced range sizes proposed
   by the present document increase the attacker's chances of guessing
   correctly.  This result cannot be totally avoided.  However,
   mitigating measures to improve this situation can be taken both at
   port block assignment time and when selecting individual ports from
   the blocks that have been allocated to a given user.

   At assignment time, one possibility is to assign ports as non-
   contiguous sets of values as proposed in [RFC6431].  However, this
   approach creates a lot of complexity for operations, and the pseudo
   randomization can create uncertainty when the accuracy of logs is
   important to protect someone's life or liberty.

   Alternatively, the NAT can assign blocks of contiguous ports.
   However, at assignment time the NAT could attempt to randomize its
   choice of which of the available idle blocks it would assign to a
   given user.  This strategy has to be traded off against the
   desirability of minimizing the chance of conflict between what
   [RFC6056] calls "transport protocol instances" by assigning the most-
   idle block, as suggested in Section 3.  A compromise policy might be



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   to assign blocks only if they have been idle for a certain amount of
   time whenever possible, and select pseudorandomly between the blocks
   available according to this criterion.  In this case it is suggested
   that the time value used be greater than the guard timing mentioned
   in Section 3, and that no block should ever be reassigned until it
   has been idle at least for the duration given by the guard timer.

   Note that with the possible exception of cryptographically-based port
   allocations, attackers could reverse-engineer algorithmically-derived
   port allocations to either target a specific subscriber or to spoof
   traffic to make it appear to have been generated by a specific
   subscriber.  However, this is exactly the same level of security that
   the subscriber would experience in the absence of CGN.  CGN is not
   intended to provide additional security by obscurity.

   While the block assignment strategy can provide some mitigation of
   the port guessing attack, the largest contribution will come from
   pseudo-randomization at port selection time.  [RFC6056] provides a
   number of algoriths for achieving this pseudo-randomization.  When
   the available ports are contained in blocks which are not in general
   consecutive, the algorithms clearly need some adaptation.  The task
   is complicated by the fact that the number of blocks allocated to the
   user may vary over time.  Adaptation is left as an exercise for the
   implementor.


5.  IANA Considerations

   This document makes no request of IANA.


6.  Acknowledgements

   This document is the result of a merger of the original
   draft-chen-sunset4-cgn-port-allocation and
   draft-tsou-behave-natx4-log-reduction.  Version -02 of draft-chen
   contains the following acknowledgements:

      The author would like to thank Lee Howard and Simon Perreault for
      their helpful comments.

      Many thanks to Wesley George and Marc Blanchet encourage the
      author to continue this work.

   The authors of draft-tsou-behave-natx4-log-reduction have their own
   thanks to give.  Mohamed Boucadair reviewed the initial document and
   provided useful comments to improve it.  Reinaldo Penno, Joel
   Jaeggli, and Dan Wing provided comments on the subsequent version



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   that resulted in major revisions.  Serafim Petsis provided
   encouragement to publication after a hiatus of two years.

   The present version of the document benefited from further comments
   by Lee Howard and Mohamed Boucadair.


7.  References

7.1.  Normative References

   [RFC6056]  Larsen, M. and F. Gont, "Recommendations for Transport-
              Protocol Port Randomization", BCP 156, RFC 6056,
              January 2011.

   [RFC6145]  Li, X., Bao, C., and F. Baker, "IP/ICMP Translation
              Algorithm", RFC 6145, April 2011.

   [RFC6146]  Bagnulo, M., Matthews, P., and I. van Beijnum, "Stateful
              NAT64: Network Address and Protocol Translation from IPv6
              Clients to IPv4 Servers", RFC 6146, April 2011.

   [RFC6269]  Ford, M., Boucadair, M., Durand, A., Levis, P., and P.
              Roberts, "Issues with IP Address Sharing", RFC 6269,
              June 2011.

7.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-behave-syslog-nat-logging]
              Chen, Z., Zhou, C., Tsou, T., and T. Taylor, "Syslog
              Format for NAT Logging (Work in Progress)", January 2014.

   [I-D.ietf-pcp-port-set]
              Sun, Q., Boucadair, M., Sivakumar, S., Zhou, C., Tsou, T.,
              and S. Perrault, "Port Control Protocol (PCP) Extension
              for Port Set Allocation (Work in Progress)",
              November 2014.

   [I-D.ietf-softwire-4rd]
              Despres, R., Jiang, S., Penno, R., Lee, Y., Chen, G., and
              M. Chen, "IPv4 Residual Deployment via IPv6 - a Stateless
              Solution (4rd) (Work in Progress)", December 2014.

   [I-D.ietf-softwire-map]
              Troan, O., Dec, W., Li, X., Bao, C., Matsushima, S.,
              Murakami, T., and T. Taylor, "Mapping of Address and Port
              with Encapsulation (MAP) (Work in Progress)", March 2015.




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   [I-D.ietf-softwire-map-dhcp]
              Mrugalski, T., Troan, O., Dec, W., Farrer, I., Perrault,
              S., Bao, C., Yeh, L., and X. Deng, "DHCPv6 Options for
              configuration of Softwire Address and Port Mapped Clients
              (Work in Progress)", March 2015.

   [I-D.ietf-softwire-map-t]
              Li, X., Bao, C., Dec, W., Troan, O., Matsushima, S., and
              T. Murakami, "Mapping of Address and Port using
              Translation (MAP-T) (Work in progress)", December 2014.

   [I-D.ietf-softwire-stateless-4v6-motivation]
              Boucadair, M., Matsushima, S., Lee, Y., Bonness, O.,
              Borges, I., and G. Chen, "Motivations for Carrier-side
              Stateless IPv4 over IPv6 Migration Solutions (Expired work
              in Progress)", November 2012.

   [I-D.ietf-v6ops-siit-dc]
              Anderson, T., "SIIT-DC: Stateless IP/ICMP Translation for
              IPv6 Data Centre Environments (Work in progress)",
              December 2014.

   [I-D.penno-behave-rfc4787-5382-5508-bis]
              Penno, R., Perrault, S., Kamiset, S., Boucadair, M., and
              K. Naito, "Network Address Translation (NAT) Behavioral
              Requirements Updates (expired Work in Progress)",
              January 2013.

   [I_D.ietf-softwire-lw4over6]
              Cui, Y., Sun, Q., Boucadair, M., Tsou, T., Lee, Y., and I.
              Farrer, "Lightweight 4over6: An Extension to the DS-Lite
              Architecture (Work in Progress)", November 2014.

   [RFC1323]  Jacobson, V., Braden, B., and D. Borman, "TCP Extensions
              for High Performance", RFC 1323, May 1992.

   [RFC4787]  Audet, F. and C. Jennings, "Network Address Translation
              (NAT) Behavioral Requirements for Unicast UDP", BCP 127,
              RFC 4787, January 2007.

   [RFC5382]  Guha, S., Biswas, K., Ford, B., Sivakumar, S., and P.
              Srisuresh, "NAT Behavioral Requirements for TCP", BCP 142,
              RFC 5382, October 2008.

   [RFC5424]  Gerhards, R., "The Syslog Protocol", RFC 5424, March 2009.

   [RFC6191]  Gont, F., "Reducing the TIME-WAIT State Using TCP
              Timestamps", BCP 159, RFC 6191, April 2011.



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   [RFC6302]  Durand, A., Gashinsky, I., Lee, D., and S. Sheppard,
              "Logging Recommendations for Internet-Facing Servers",
              BCP 162, RFC 6302, June 2011.

   [RFC6333]  Durand, A., Droms, R., Woodyatt, J., and Y. Lee, "Dual-
              Stack Lite Broadband Deployments Following IPv4
              Exhaustion", RFC 6333, August 2011.

   [RFC6346]  Bush, R., "The Address plus Port (A+P) Approach to the
              IPv4 Address Shortage", RFC 6346, August 2011.

   [RFC6431]  Boucadair, M., Levis, P., Bajko, G., Savolainen, T., and
              T. Tsou, "Huawei Port Range Configuration Options for PPP
              IP Control Protocol (IPCP)", RFC 6431, November 2011.

   [RFC6877]  Mawatari, M., Kawashima, M., and C. Byrne, "464XLAT:
              Combination of Stateful and Stateless Translation",
              RFC 6877, April 2013.

   [RFC6887]  Wing, D., Cheshire, S., Boucadair, M., Penno, R., and P.
              Selkirk, "Port Control Protocol (PCP)", RFC 6887,
              April 2013.

   [RFC6888]  Perreault, S., Yamagata, I., Miyakawa, S., Nakagawa, A.,
              and H. Ashida, "Common Requirements for Carrier-Grade NATs
              (CGNs)", BCP 127, RFC 6888, April 2013.

   [RFC7011]  Claise, B., Trammell, B., and P. Aitken, "Specification of
              the IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) Protocol for the
              Exchange of Flow Information", STD 77, RFC 7011,
              September 2013.

   [RFC7422]  Donley, C., Grundemann, C., Sarawat, V., Sundaresan, K.,
              and O. Vautrin, "Deterministic Address Mapping to Reduce
              Logging in Carrier-Grade NAT Deployments", RFC 7422,
              December 2014.















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Authors' Addresses

   Gang Chen
   China Mobile
   53A,Xibianmennei Ave.,
   Xuanwu District,
   Beijing  100053
   P.R. China

   Email: phdgang@gmail.com


   Weibo Li
   China Telecom
   109, Zhongshan Ave. West, Tianhe District
   Guangzhou,   510630
   P.R. China

   Phone:
   Email: mweiboli@gmail.com


   Tina Tsou
   Huawei Technologies
   Bantian, Longgang District
   Shenzhen  518129
   P.R. China

   Phone:
   Email: tina.tsou.zouting@huawei.com


   James Huang
   Huawei Technologies
   Bantian, Longgang District
   Shenzhen  518129
   P.R. China

   Phone:
   Email: James.huang@huawei.com











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   Tom Taylor
   PT Taylor Consulting
   Ottawa, Ontario
   Canada

   Phone:
   Email: tom.taylor.stds@gmail.com












































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