Internet DRAFT - draft-tsou-6man-hbh-header-update
draft-tsou-6man-hbh-header-update
Internet Engineering Task Force Z. Chen
Internet-Draft China Telecom
Intended status: Standards Track S. Setty
Expires: September 13, 2012 Huawei Technologies India Pvt.
Ltd.
T. Tsou, Ed.
Huawei Technologies (USA)
March 12, 2012
hop-by-hop extension header update
draft-tsou-6man-hbh-header-update-01
Abstract
The Hop-by-Hop Options header is used to convey optional information
that must be examined by every node along a packet's delivery path.
This document updates RFC2460, removing the requirement that source
nodes must process the Hop-by-Hop extension header, on the basis that
it imposes a performance impact with no advantages.
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 September 13, 2012.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 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
(http://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 and restrictions with respect
Chen, et al. Expires September 13, 2012 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft hop-by-hop EH update March 2012
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Processing of Hop-by-Hop Option Header . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Updating RFC2460 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Chen, et al. Expires September 13, 2012 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft hop-by-hop EH update March 2012
1. Introduction
The Hop-by-Hop Options extension header is used to convery
information that must be examined by all nodes along the path.
[RFC2460] requires processing of the Hop-by-Hop Options extension
header in all nodes along the packet delivery path. However, this is
not really necessary for source node, and imposes a performance
penalty on the source node when such packets are employed.
Section 2 describes the Processing of Hop-by-hop Options header.
Section 3 formally updates the [RFC2460] such that the aforementioned
penalty on the source node is eliminated.
1.1. Requirements Language
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 [RFC2119].
2. Processing of Hop-by-Hop Option Header
Section 4 of [RFC2460] states that the Hop-by-Hop Options header must
be examined and processed by every node along a packet's delivery
path, including the source and destination nodes.
The above requirement means that a node originating the packet that
contains a Hop-by-Hop Extension header will have to process that
header. Since source node is the one inserting the header in the
first place, there does not seem to be any advantages in such
requirement, but otherwise represents a performance penalty.
Some applications in the source node, e.g. firewall, may check the
network packets before they are sent out, the hop-by-hop option
header may be processed, which is optional.
As of the time of this writing, two options (other than the padding
options) have been specified for the Hop-by-Hop Options extension
header:
Router Alert Option This option is defined in [RFC2711],
intended for applications like MLD, RSVP,
etc.
Jumbo Payload Option This option is defined in [RFC2675], and
used to convey IPv6 payloads larger than
2^16 bytes.
Chen, et al. Expires September 13, 2012 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft hop-by-hop EH update March 2012
In the above two cases, the source node does not need to process the
Hop-By-Hop options extension header.
3. Updating RFC2460
This document updates [RFC2460] as follows:
The Hop-by-Hop Options header MUST be examined and processed by every
node along a packet's delivery path (including the destination
nodes), except for the source node.
4. IANA Considerations
This specification does not require any IANA actions.
5. Security Considerations
This specification does not introduce new security issues.
6. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2460] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
(IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998.
[RFC2675] Borman, D., Deering, S., and R. Hinden, "IPv6 Jumbograms",
RFC 2675, August 1999.
[RFC2711] Partridge, C. and A. Jackson, "IPv6 Router Alert Option",
RFC 2711, October 1999.
Authors' Addresses
Zhonghua Chen
China Telecom
Shanghai
China
Phone:
Email: 18918588897@189.cn
Chen, et al. Expires September 13, 2012 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft hop-by-hop EH update March 2012
Sreenatha Setty
Huawei Technologies India Pvt. Ltd.
Airport Road
Bangalore 560008
India
Phone: +91 961 127 9232
Email: sreenathabs@huawei.com
Tina Tsou (editor)
Huawei Technologies (USA)
2330 Central Expressway
Santa Clara CA 95050
USA
Phone: +1 408 330 4424
Email: tina.tsou.zouting@huawei.com
Chen, et al. Expires September 13, 2012 [Page 5]
