Internet DRAFT - draft-jennings-behave-test-resutls

draft-jennings-behave-test-resutls






BEHAVE WG                                                    C. Jennings
Internet-Draft                                             Cisco Systems
Expires: January 17, 2006                                  July 16, 2005


                    NAT Classification Test Results
                 draft-jennings-behave-test-results-01

Status of this Memo

   By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any
   applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware
   have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes
   aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that
   other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
   Drafts.

   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."

   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt.

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.

   This Internet-Draft will expire on January 17, 2006.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).

Abstract

   IETF has several groups that are considering the impact of NATs on
   various protocols.  Having a classification of the types of NATs that
   are being developed and deployed is useful in gauging the impact of
   various solutions.  This draft records the results of classifying
   NATs.

   This draft is not complete and has only a few test results but it is
   worth discussing all the testing we wish to do before all the test
   results are collected.  The test results here are very old and work



Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006                [Page 1]

Internet-Draft              NAT Test Results                   July 2005


   is being done to update them with more current information.

   This work is being discussed on the ietf-behave@list.sipfoundry.org
   mailing list

1.  Conventions

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC-2119 [2].

2.  Introduction

   A major issue in working with NAT traversal solutions for various
   protocols is that NATs behave in many different ways.  This draft
   describes the results of testing several residential style NATs.

3.  Descriptions of Tests

3.1  UDP Mapping

   This test sends STUN packets from the same port on three different
   internal IP addresses to the same destination.  The source port on
   the outside of the NAT is observed.  The test records whether the
   port is preserved or not and whether all the mapping get different
   ports.

   A second set of tests checks out how the NAT maps ports above and
   below 1024.

   Tests are run with a group of several consecutive ports to see if the
   NAT preserves port parity.

3.2  UDP Filtering

   This test sends STUN packets from the same port on three different
   internal IP addresses to the same destination.  It then tests whether
   places on the outside with 1) a different port but the same IP
   address and then 2) a different port and a different IP address can
   successfully send a packet back to the sender.

3.3  UDP Hairpin

   This test sends a STUN packet from the inside to the outside to
   create a mapping and discover the external source address called A.
   It does the same thing from a different internal IP address to get a
   second external mapping called B. It then sends a packet from A to B
   and B to A and notes if these packets are successfully delivered from



Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006                [Page 2]

Internet-Draft              NAT Test Results                   July 2005


   one internal IP address to the other.

3.4  ICMP

   A device on the inside sends a packet to an external address that
   causes an ICMP Destination Unreachable packet to be returned.  The
   test records whether this packet makes it back through the NAT
   correctly.

3.5  Fragmentation

   The MTU on the outside of the NAT is set to under 1000; on the inside
   it is set to 1500 or over.  Then a 1200 byte packet is sent to the
   NAT.  The test records whether the NAT correctly fragments this when
   sending it.  Another test is done with DF=1.  An additional test is
   done with DF=1 in which the adjacent MTU on the NAT is large enough
   the NAT does not need to fragment the packet but further on, a link
   has an MTU small enough that an ICMP packet gets generated.  The test
   records whether the NAT correctly forwards the ICMP packet.

   In the next test a fragmented packet with the packets in order is
   sent to the outside of the NAT, and the test records whether the
   packets are dropped, reassembled and forwarded, or forwarded
   individually.  A similar test is done with the fragments out of
   order.

3.6  UDP Refresh

   A test is done that involves sending out a STUN packet and then
   waiting a variable number of minutes before the server sends the
   response.  The client sends different requests with different times
   on several different ports at the start of the test and then watches
   the responses to find out how long the NAT keeps the binding alive.

   A second test is done with a request that is delayed more than the
   binding time but every minute an outbound packet is sent to keep the
   binding alive.  This test checks that outbound traffic will update
   the timer.

   A third test is done in which several requests are sent with the
   delay less than the binding time and one request with the delay
   greater.  The early test responses will result in inbound traffic
   that may or may not update the binding timer.  This test detects
   whether the packet with the time greater than the binding time will
   traverse the NAT which provide the information about whether the
   inbound packets have updated the binding timers.

   An additional test is done to multiple different external IP



Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006                [Page 3]

Internet-Draft              NAT Test Results                   July 2005


   addresses from the same source, to see if outbound traffic to one
   destination updates the timers on each session in that mapping.

3.7  Multicast and IGMP

   Multicast traffic is sent to the outside of the NAT, and the test
   records whether the NAT forwards it to the inside.  Next an IGMP
   Membership Report is sent from inside.  The test records whether the
   NAT correctly forwards it to the outside and whether it allows
   incoming multicast traffic.

3.8  Multicast Timers

   The test records how long the NAT will forward multicast traffic
   without receiving any IGMP Membership Reports and whether receiving
   Reports refreshes this timer.

3.9  TCP Timers

   TBD: Measure time before ACK, after ACK, and after FIN and RST.

3.10  TCP Port Mapping

   Multiple SYN packets are sent from the same inside address to
   different outside IP addresses, and the source port used on the
   outside of the NAT is recorded.

3.11  SYN Filtering

   Test that a SYN packet received on the outside interfaces that does
   not match anything gets discarded with no reply being sent.  Test
   whether an outbound SYN packet will create a binding that allows an
   incoming SYN packet.

3.12  DNS

   Does the DNS proxy in them successfully pass through SRV requests.

3.13  DHCP

   Do any DHCP options received on the WAN side get put into DHCP
   answers sent on lan side?

4.  Observations

   Several NATs attempt to use the same external port number as the
   internal host has used.  This is referred to as port preservation.
   Some of the NATs that do this were found to have different



Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006                [Page 4]

Internet-Draft              NAT Test Results                   July 2005


   characteristics depending on whether the port was already in use or
   not.  This was tested by running the STUN tests from a particular
   port on one internal IP address and then running them again from the
   same port on a different internal IP address.  The results from the
   first interface, where the port was preserved, are referred to as the
   primary type; while the results from the second interface, which did
   not manage to get the same external port because it was already in
   use, are referred to as the secondary type.  On most NATs the
   secondary type is the same as the primary but on some it is
   different; these are referred to as nondeterministic NATs, since a
   client with a single internal IP address cannot figure out what type
   of NAT it is.

   There are several NATs that would be detected as address restricted
   by the STUN tests but are not.  These NATs always use the same
   external port as the internal port and store the IP address of the
   most recent internal host to send a packet on that port.  The NATs
   then forward any traffic arriving at the external interface of the
   NAT on this port to the internal host that has most recently used it.
   These NATs are labeled "Bad" in the result table since they do not
   meet the definitions of NAPT in RFC 3022.  Interestingly, as long as
   the clients behind the NAT choose random port numbers, they often do
   work.  STUN detects these NATs as address restricted although they
   are really not address restricted NATs.  This type of NAT is easily
   detected by sending a STUN packet from the same port on two different
   internal IP addresses and looking at the mapped port in the return.
   If both packets have been mapped to the same external port, the NAT
   is of the Bad type.

   Another important aspect of a NAT for some applications is whether it
   can send media from one internal host back to another host behind the
   same NAT.  This is referred to as supporting hairpin media.

   It was rumored that some NATs existed that looked in arbitrary
   packets for either the NATs' external IP address or the internal host
   IP address - either in binary or dotted decimal form - and rewrote it
   to something else.  STUN could be extended to test for exactly this
   type of behavior by echoing arbitrary client data and the mapped
   address but sending the bits inverted so these evil NATs did not mess
   with them.  NATs that do this will break integrity detection on
   payloads.

   To help organize the NATs by what types of applications they can
   support, the following groups are defined.  The application of using
   a SIP phone with a TLS connection for signaling and using STUN for
   media ports is considered.  It is assumed the RTP/RTCP media is on
   random port pairs as recommended for RTP.




Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006                [Page 5]

Internet-Draft              NAT Test Results                   July 2005


      Group A: NATs that are deterministic, not symmetric, and support
      hairpin media.  These NATs would work with many phones behind
      them.
      Group B: NATs that are not symmetric on the primary mapping.  This
      group would work with many IP phones as long as the media ports
      did not conflict.  This is unlikely to happen often but will
      occasionally.  Because they may not support hairpin media, a call
      from one phone behind a NAT to another phone behind the same NAT
      may not work.
      Group D: NATs of the type Bad. These have the same limitations of
      group B but when the ports conflict, media gets delivered to a
      random phone behind the NAT.
      Group F: These NATs are symmetric and phones will not work.

5.  Results

   To help with common reporting of test results.  This specification
   will use the following format:


        Address and port mapping behavior:
            "endpoint independent" |
            "address dependent" |
            "address and port dependent"
        IP address pooling behavior:
            "unsupported" |
            "arbitrary" |
            "paired"
        Port preservation:
            "yes" |
            "no" |
            "overloading"
        Port-range preservation:
            "none" |
            "registered" |
            "dynamic" |
            "registered and dynamic"
        Port-parity preservation:
            "yes" |
            "no"
        Port-contiguity preservation:
            "yes" |
            "no"
        Mapping refresh timer:
            <seconds> |
            "configurable"
        Mapping outbound refresh:
            "yes" |



Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006                [Page 6]

Internet-Draft              NAT Test Results                   July 2005


            "no"
        Mapping inbound refresh:
            "yes" |
            "no"
        Unsolicited packet filtering:
            "endpoint independent" |
            "address dependent" |
            "address and port dependent"
        Filter refresh timer:
            <seconds> |
            "configurable"
        Filter outbound refresh:
            "yes" |
            "no"
        Filter inbound refresh:
            "yes" |
            "no"
        Hairpining behavior:
            "none" |
            "external source address and port" |
            "internal source address and port"
        Fixed application level gateways:
            <DNS, FTP, etc.> |
            "none"
        Configurable application level gateways:
            <DNS, FTP, etc.> |
            "none"
        Mapping and filtering determinism:
            "deterministic" |
            "non-deterministic"
        Supports ICMP destination unreachable:
            "yes" |
            "no"
        Supports fragmentation:
            "yes" |
            "no"
        Fragment receive ordering:
            "ordered" |
            "out of order" |
            "none"
        Maximum transmission unit (MTU):
            <bytes> |
            "configurable"

   OPEN ISSUE: Should this be XML? can we make these shorter?

   For example, the product datasheet for a given NAT device might
   include the following complete description of its NAT behavior:



Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006                [Page 7]

Internet-Draft              NAT Test Results                   July 2005


        Address and port mapping behavior:       endpoint independent
        IP address pooling behavior:             paired
        Port preservation:                       yes
        Port-range preservation:                 registered and dynamic
        Port-parity preservation:                yes
        Port-contiguity preservation:            yes
        Mapping refresh timer:                   configurable
        Mapping outbound refresh:                yes
        Mapping inbound refresh:                 yes
        Unsolicited packet filtering:            endpoint independent
        Filter refresh timer:                    configurable
        Filter outbound refresh:                 yes
        Filter inbound refresh:                  yes
        Hairpining behavior:                     external
        Supports ICMP destination unreachable:   yes
        Supports fragmentation:                  yes
        Fragment receive ordering:               out of order

   The following table shows the results from several NATs.  The NATs
   tested include some random ones the author had lying around as well
   as every NAT that could be purchased in February 2004 in the San Jose
   Fry's, Best Buy, CompUSA, and Circuit City.  Clearly this is not a
   very good approximation to a random sample.  It is clear that the
   NATs widely purchased in the US are different from what are available
   in Japan and Europe.

   In the following table the Prim column indicates the primary type of
   the NAT.  A value of Port indicates port restricted, Cone is a full
   cone, Bad is described in the next section, Symm is Symmetric, and
   Addr is Address restricted.  The Hair column value of Y or N
   indicates whether the NAT will hairpin media.  The Pres column
   indicates whether the NAT attempts to preserve port numbers.  The Sec
   column indicates the secondary type of the NAT, and a value of Same
   indicates it is the same as the primary type.  The Grp indicates the
   group that this NAT falls into.
















Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006                [Page 8]

Internet-Draft              NAT Test Results                   July 2005


   Vendor      Model       Firmware           Prim  Sec  Hair Pres Grp

   Airlink     ASOHO4P     V1.01.0095         Port  Symm  N    Y    B
   Apple       Air Base    V5.2               Cone  Same  Y    N    A
   Belkin      F5D5321     V1.13              Port  Same  N    N    B
   Cisco       IOS                            Port  Symm            -
   Cisco       PIX                            Port  Same            -
   Corega      BAR Pro2    R1.00 Feb 21 2003  Cone                  -
   DLink       DI-604      2.0 Jun 2002       Cone  Same  N    N    B
   DLink       DI-704P     2.61 build 2       Cone  Same  Y    N    A
   Dlink       DI-804      .30, Tue,Jun 24 20 Cone  Same  Y    N    A
   Hawkings    FR24        6.26.02h Build 004 Bad   Same  Y    Y    D
   Linksys     BEFSR11                        Port                  B
   Linksys     BEFSR11 V2  1.42.7, Apr 02 200 Port                  B
   Linksys     BEFSR41     v1.44.2            Port                  B
   Linksys     BEFSR81     2.42.7.1 June 2002 Addr  Same  N    Y    B
   Linksys     BEFSRU31                       Port                  B
   Linksys     BEFSX41     1.44.3, Dec 24 200 Port                  B
   Linksys     BEFVP41     1.41.1, Sep 04 200 Port                  B
   Linksys     BEFW11S4    1.45.3, Jul 1 2003 Port                  B
   Linksys     WRT54G      1.42.2             Port  Symm  N    Y    B
   Linksys     WRT55AG     1.04, Jun.30, 2003 Port                  B
   Linksys     WRV54G      2.03               Port  Same  N    Y    B
   Microsoft   MN-700      02.00.07.0331      Cone  Same  N    N    B
   Netgear     FVS318      V1.4 Jul. 15 2003  Port  Same  N    N    B
   Netgear     RP114       3.26(CD.0) 8/17/20 Cone                  -
   Netgear     RP614       4.00 April 2002    Cone  Same  Y    N    A
   NetworkEver NR041       Version 1.0 Rel 10 Symm  Same  N    N    F
   NetworkEver NR041       Version 1.2 Rel 03 Bad   Same  Y    Y    D
   SMC         2804WBRP-G  v1.00 Oct 14 2003  Port  Symm  Y    Y    B
   SMC         7004ABR     V1.42.003          Port  Same  N    N    B
   SMC         7004VBR     v1.03 Jun 12, 2002 Cone                  -
   Toshiba     WRC-1000    1.07.03a-C024a     Port  Cone  N    Y    B
   umax        ugate-3000  2.06h              Port                  -
   US Robotics USR8003     1.04 08            Cone  Same  N    N    B
   ZOT         BR1014      Unknown            Bad   Same  N    Y    D

   Since this testing was done, some additional testing and shopping
   sprees in France and Taiwan have provided the following results.












Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006                [Page 9]

Internet-Draft              NAT Test Results                   July 2005


   Vendor      Model       Firmware           Prim  Sec  Hair Pres Grp

   Netgear     MR814v2     Version 5.01       Bad   Same  Y    Y    D
   Cisco       PIX 515     6.3(3)             Port  Same  N    N    B
   Dynex       DX-E401     1.03               Cone  Same  Y    N    A
   Asante      FR1004      R1.13 V2           Cone  Same  N    N    B
   Linksys     BEFSR81     2.42.7.1           Addr Note 1 N    Y    B
   Lanner      BRL-04FPU                      Cone  Same  N    N
   AboCom      CAS3047                        Port  Same  N    Y
   Lemmel      LM-IS6400B                     Port  Same  N    Y

   The NAT with a secondary type of "Note 1" is particularly weird.  The
   primary connection is address restricted.  If a second host uses this
   same port, it also gets an Address Restricted, but when a third host
   uses this same port, it gets Symmetric.

   Another good source of information for behavior of various NATs is
   the NATCECK [9] and STUNT [8] web pages.

   Open Issue: How should we arrange all the results?  There are going
   to be too many to put it as one row per device.

6.  Discussion

   It is clear from discussions with various vendors and watching how
   tests have changed over the years that symmetric is becoming less
   common.  This change is being driven primarily by the desire to make
   online gaming work; many games use methods similar to STUN for NAT
   traversal.  The only symmetric NAT found was an old device.  More
   recent versions of the software on the same device were not
   symmetric.  It is clear that other symmetric NATs are deployed, but
   it is hard to find them.

7.  Security Concerns

   It is often assumed that symmetric NATs are more secure than port
   restricted NATs.  This is not true - they are identical from a
   security point of view.  They both only allow a packet to come inside
   the NAT if the host inside has previously sent to the exact same
   external IP and port.  One can argue that cone is less secure than
   port restricted, but this is not true if the attacker can spoof the
   IP address, which is fairly easy to do in many cases.  What level of
   security can be expected from NATs at all is a strange and curious
   topic.  With all the NATs, if you allow packets out, packets can come
   in, so don't be surprised if NATs provide less security than
   anticipated.





Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006               [Page 10]

Internet-Draft              NAT Test Results                   July 2005


8.  Open Issues

   The hairpin media tests were done by having a single host use STUN to
   find a public address on the NAT and then send media to itself and
   see if it was received.  It is possible that NATs might not hairpin
   media to the same host but would hairpin media to another host behind
   the same NAT.  It is possible that because of this, the hairpin
   results reported here might be wrong.

   This sample set of NATs is very US-centric: D-Link, Linksys, and
   Netgear dominate the US consumer market.  It would be good to get
   more results from other places.

   These test results should be verified by another group.  This has not
   been done yet.

   This draft should be moved to be consistent with the classification
   in [11].

9.  Acknowledgments

   Many people and several mailing lists have contributed to the
   material on understanding NATs in this document.  Many thanks to
   Larry Metzger, Dan Wing, and Rohan Mahy.  The STUN server and client
   is open source and available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/stun,
   and thank you to Jason Fischl who runs the public STUN server at
   larry.gloo.net.  Thanks to Yutaka Takeda who tested and found bugs
   and Christian Stredicke for getting people thinking.  Thanks to
   Francois Audet for catching mistakes, verifying several results, and
   finding the very strange non-deterministic nature in the BEFSR81.

   The work of the various people on STUN Client and Server [6], NATCECK
   [10], and STUNT [7] has greatly helped this work.

10.  References

10.1  Normative References

   [1]  Rosenberg, J., Weinberger, J., Huitema, C., and R. Mahy, "STUN -
        Simple Traversal of User Datagram Protocol (UDP) Through Network
        Address Translators (NATs)", RFC 3489, March 2003.

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







Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006               [Page 11]

Internet-Draft              NAT Test Results                   July 2005


10.2  Informative References

   [3]   Daigle, L. and IAB, "IAB Considerations for UNilateral Self-
         Address Fixing (UNSAF) Across Network Address Translation",
         RFC 3424, November 2002.

   [4]   Srisuresh, P. and K. Egevang, "Traditional IP Network Address
         Translator (Traditional NAT)", RFC 3022, January 2001.

   [5]   Srisuresh, P. and M. Holdrege, "IP Network Address Translator
         (NAT) Terminology and Considerations", RFC 2663, August 1999.

   [6]   Jennings, C., "STUN Client and Server:
         http://www.vovida.org/applications/downloads/stun",
         February 2005.

   [7]   Guha, S. and P. Francis, "STUNT
         http://nutss.gforge.cis.cornell.edu/stunt.php", February 2005.

   [8]   Guha, S. and P. Francis, "STUNT Results
         http://www.guha.cc/saikat/stunt-results.php", February 2005.

   [9]   Ford, B. and D. Andersen, "Nat Check Results
         http://bgp.lcs.mit.edu/~dga/view.cgi", February 2005.

   [10]  Ford, B. and D. Andersen, "Nat Check
         http://midcom-p2p.sourceforge.net", February 2005.

   [11]  Audet, F. and C. Jennings, "NAT Behavioral Requirements for
         Unicast UDP", draft-ietf-behave-nat-udp-00 (work in progress),
         January 2005.

   [12]  Wing, D., "IGMP Proxy Behavior", draft-wing-behave-multicast-00
         (work in progress), October 2004.

   [13]  Sivakumar, S., "NAT Behavioral Requirements for TCP",
         draft-sivakumar-behave-nat-tcp-req-00 (work in progress),
         January 2005.













Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006               [Page 12]

Internet-Draft              NAT Test Results                   July 2005


Author's Address

   Cullen Jennings
   Cisco Systems
   170 West Tasman Drive
   Mailstop SJC-21/2
   San Jose, CA  95134
   USA

   Phone: +1 408 421 9990
   Email: fluffy@cisco.com








































Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006               [Page 13]

Internet-Draft              NAT Test Results                   July 2005


Intellectual Property Statement

   The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
   Intellectual Property Rights 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; nor does it represent that it has
   made any independent effort to identify any such rights.  Information
   on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
   found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat 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 implementers or users of this
   specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
   http://www.ietf.org/ipr.

   The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
   copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
   rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
   this standard.  Please address the information to the IETF at
   ietf-ipr@ietf.org.


Disclaimer of Validity

   This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
   "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
   OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
   ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
   INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE
   INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
   WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.


Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).  This document is subject
   to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and
   except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights.


Acknowledgment

   Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
   Internet Society.




Jennings                Expires January 17, 2006               [Page 14]