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Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) for the Identifier-Locator Network Protocol for IPv4 (ILNPv4)
draft-irtf-rrg-ilnp-arp-07

The information below is for an old version of the document that is already published as an RFC.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 6747.
Authors Ran Atkinson , SN Bhatti
Last updated 2015-10-14 (Latest revision 2012-07-10)
RFC stream Internet Research Task Force (IRTF)
Intended RFC status Experimental
Formats
Stream IRTF state (None)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
Document shepherd (None)
IESG IESG state Became RFC 6747 (Experimental)
Action Holders
(None)
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD Ralph Droms
IESG note
Send notices to tony.li@tony.li
draft-irtf-rrg-ilnp-arp-07
Internet Draft                                           RJ Atkinson
draft-irtf-rrg-ilnp-arp-07.txt                            Consultant
Expires:  10 JAN 2013                                      SN Bhatti
Category: Experimental                                 U. St Andrews
                                                         10 JUL 2012

                        ARP Extension for ILNPv4
                     draft-irtf-rrg-ilnp-arp-07.txt

Status of this Memo

   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

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

   This document may contain material from IETF Documents or
   IETF Contributions published or made publicly available
   before November 10, 2008. The person(s) controlling the copyright
   in some of this material may not have granted the IETF Trust the
   right to allow modifications of such material outside the IETF
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   the person(s) controlling the copyright in such materials, this
   document may not be modified outside the IETF Standards Process,
   and derivative works of it may not be created outside the IETF
   Standards Process, except to format it for publication as an RFC
   or to translate it into languages other than English.

   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

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   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/1id-abstracts.html

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

   This document is not on the IETF standards-track and does not
   specify any level of standard. This document merely provides
   information for the Internet community.

   This document is part of the ILNP document set, and has had
   extensive review within the IRTF Routing Research Group. ILNP is
   one of the recommendations made by the RG Chairs. Separately,
   various refereed research papers on ILNP have also been published
   during this decade. So the ideas contained herein have had much
   broader review than the IRTF Routing RG. The views in this
   document were considered controversial by the Routing RG, but the
   RG reached a consensus that the document still should be
   published. The Routing RG has had remarkably little consensus on
   anything, so virtually all Routing RG outputs are considered
   controversial.

Abstract

   This document defines an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
   extension to support ILNP for IPv4 (ILNPv4). ILNP is is an
   experimental, evolutionary enhancement to IP. This document is a
   product of the IRTF Routing RG.

Table of Contents

     1. Introduction.............................
     2. ARP Extension for ILNPv4.................
     3. Security Considerations..................
     4. IANA Considerations......................
     5. References...............................

1. INTRODUCTION

   At present, the Internet research and development community are
   exploring various approaches to evolving the Internet
   Architecture to solve a variety of issues including, but not
   limited to, scalability of inter-domain routing [RFC4984]. A wide

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   range of other issues (e.g. site multi-homing, node multi-homing,
   site/subnet mobility, node mobility) are also active concerns at
   present. Several different classes of evolution are being
   considered by the Internet research & development community. One
   class is often called "Map and Encapsulate", where traffic would
   be mapped and then tunnelled through the inter-domain core of the
   Internet. Another class being considered is sometimes known as
   "Identifier/Locator Split". This document relates to a proposal
   that is in the latter class of evolutionary approaches.

   The Identifier Locator Network Protocol (ILNP) is a proposal for
   evolving the Internet Architecture. It differs from the current
   Internet Architecture primarily by deprecating the concept of an
   IP Address, and instead defining two new objects, each having
   crisp syntax and semantics. The first new object is the Locator, a
   topology-dependent name for a subnetwork. The other new object is
   the Identifier, which provides a topology-independent name for a
   node.

1.1  ILNP Document Roadmap

   This document describes describes extensions to ARP for use with
   ILNPv4.

   The ILNP architecture can have more than one engineering
   instantiation. For example, one can imagine a "clean-slate"
   engineering design based on the ILNP architecture. In separate
   documents, we describe two specific engineering instances of
   ILNP. The term ILNPv6 refers precisely to an instance of ILNP that
   is based upon, and backwards compatible with, IPv6. The term ILNPv4
   refers precisely to an instance of ILNP that is based upon, and
   backwards compatible with, IPv4.

   Many engineering aspects common to both ILNPv4 and ILNPv6 are
   described in [ILNP-ENG]. A full engineering specification for
   either ILNPv6 or ILNPv4 is beyond the scope of this document.

   Readers are referred to other related ILNP documents for details
   not described here:

    a) [ILNP-ARCH] is the main architectural description of ILNP,
       including the concept of operations.

    b) [ILNP-ENG] describes engineering and implementation
       considerations that are common to both ILNPv4 and ILNPv6.

    c) [ILNP-DNS] defines additional DNS resource records that
       support ILNP.

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    d) [ILNP-ICMPv6] defines a new ICMPv6 Locator Update message
       used by an ILNP node to inform its correspondent nodes
       of any changes to its set of valid Locators.

    e) [ILNP-NONCEv6] defines a new IPv6 Nonce Destination Option
       used by ILNPv6 nodes (1) to indicate to ILNP correspondent
       nodes (by inclusion within the initial packets of an ILNP
       session) that the node is operating in the ILNP mode and
       (2) to prevent off-path attacks against ILNP ICMP messages.
       This Nonce is used, for example, with all ILNP ICMPv6
       Locator Update messages that are exchanged among ILNP
       correspondent nodes.

    f) [ILNP-ICMPv4] defines a new ICMPv4 Locator Update message
       used by an ILNP node to inform its correspondent nodes
       of any changes to its set of valid Locators.

    g) [ILNP-v4OPTS] defines a new IPv4 Nonce Option used by ILNPv4
       nodes to carry a security nonce to prevent off-path attacks
       against ILNP ICMP messages and also defines a new IPv4
       Identifier Option used by ILNPv4 nodes.

    h) [ILNP-ADV] describes optional engineering and deployment
       functions for ILNP. These are not required for the operation
       or use of ILNP and are provided as additional options.

1.2  Terminology

   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.  ARP Extensions for ILNPv4

   ILNP for IPv4 (ILNPv4) is merely a different instantiation of the
   ILNP architecture, so it retains the crisp distinction between the
   Locator and the Identifier. As with ILNPv6, only the Locator
   values are used for routing and forwarding ILNPv4 packets
   [ILNP-ARCH]. As with ILNP for IPv6 (ILNPv6), when ILNPv4 is used
   for a network-layer session, the upper-layer protocols (e.g.
   TCP/UDP pseudo-header checksum, IPsec Security Association) bind
   only to the Identifiers, never to the Locators [ILNP-ENG].

   However, just as the packet format for IPv4 is different to IPv6,
   so the engineering details for ILNPv4 are different also. While
   ILNPv6 is carefully engineered to be fully backwards-compatible

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   with IPv6 Neighbor Discovery, ILNPv4 relies upon an extended
   version of the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) [RFC826] which
   is defined here. While ILNPv4 could have been engineered to avoid
   changes in ARP, that would have required that the ILNPv4 Locator
   (i.e. L32) have slightly different semantics, which was
   architecturally undesirable.

   The packet formats used are direct extensions of the existing
   widely deployed ARP Request (OP code 1) and ARP Reply (OP code 2)
   packet formats. This design was chosen for practical engineering
   reasons (i.e. to maximise code reuse), rather than for maximum
   protocol design purity.

   We anticipate that ILNPv6 is much more likely to be widely
   implemented and deployed than ILNPv4. However, having a clear
   definition of ILNPv4 helps demonstrate the difference between
   architecture and engineering, and also demonstrates that the
   common ILNP architecture can be instantiated in different ways
   with different existing network-layer protocols.

2.1  ILNPv4 ARP Request Packet Format

   The ILNPv4 ARP Request is an extended version of the widely
   deployed ARP Request (OP code 1).  For experimentation purposes,
   the ILNPv4 ARP Request OP code uses decimal value 24.  It is
   important to note that decimal value 24 is a pre-defined,
   shared-use experimental OP code for ARP [RFC5494], and is not
   uniquely assigned to ILNPv4 ARP Requests. The ILNPv4 ARP Request
   extension permits the Node's Identifier (NID) values to be carried
   in the ARP message, in addition to the node's 32-bit Locator
   (L32) values [ILNP-DNS].

        0        7        15       23       31
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |       HT        |        PT       |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |  HAL   |  PAL   |        OP       |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |         S_HA (bytes 0-3)          |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        | S_HA (bytes 4-5)|S_L32 (bytes 0-1)|
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |S_L32 (bytes 2-3)|S_NID (bytes 0-1)|
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |         S_NID (bytes 2-5)         |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |S_ID (bytes 6-7) | T_HA (bytes 0-1)|

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        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |         T_HA (bytes 3-5)          |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |         T_L32 (bytes 0-3)         |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |         T_NID (bytes 0-3)         |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |         T_NID (bytes 4-7)         |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+

    Figure 2.1: ILNPv4 ARP Request packet format

   In the diagram of Fig 2.1, the fields are as follows:

     HT      Hardware Type (*)
     PT      Protocol Type (*)
     HAL     Hardware Address Length (*)
     PAL     Protocol Address Length (uses new value 12)
     OP      Operation Code (uses experimental value OP_EXP1=24)
     S_HA    Sender Hardware Address (*)
     S_L32   Sender L32  (* same as Sender IPv4 address for ARP)
     S_NID   Sender Node Identifier (8 bytes)
     T_HA    Target Hardware Address (*)
     T_L32   Target L32  (* same as Target IPv4 address for ARP)
     T_NID   Target Node Identifier (8 bytes)

   The changed OP code indicates that this is ILNPv4 and not IPv4.
   The semantics and usage of the ILNPv4 ARP Request are identical
   to the existing ARP Request (OP code 2), except that the ILNPv4
   ARP Request is sent only by nodes that support ILNPv4.

   The field descriptions marked with "*" should have the same
   values as for ARP as used for IPv4.

2.2  ILNPv4 ARP Reply Packet Format

   The ILNPv4 ARP Reply is an extended version of the widely
   deployed ARP Reply (OP code 2).  For experimentation purposes,
   the ILNPv4 ARP Request OP code uses decimal value 25.  It is
   important to note that decimal value 25 is a pre-defined,
   shared-use experimental OP code for ARP [RFC5494], and is not
   uniquely assigned to ILNPv4 ARP Requests.  Th ILNPv4 ARP Reply
   extension permits the Node's Identifier (NID) values to be carried
   in the ARP message, in addition to the node's 32-bit Locator
   (L32) values [ILNP-DNS].

        0        7        15       23       31

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        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |       HT        |        PT       |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |  HAL   |  PAL   |        OP       |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |         S_HA (bytes 0-3)          |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        | S_HA (bytes 4-5)|S_L32 (bytes 0-1)|
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |S_L32 (bytes 2-3)|S_NID (bytes 0-1)|
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |         S_NID (bytes 2-5)         |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |S_ID (bytes 6-7) | T_HA (bytes 0-1)|
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |         T_HA (bytes 3-5)          |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |         T_L32 (bytes 0-3)         |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |         T_NID (bytes 0-3)         |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+
        |         T_NID (bytes 4-7)         |
        +--------+--------+--------+--------+

    Figure 2.2: ILNPv4 ARP Reply packet format

   In the diagram of Fig 2.2, the fields are as follows:

     HT      Hardware Type (*)
     PT      Protocol Type (*)
     HAL     Hardware Address Length (*)
     PAL     Protocol Address Length (uses new value 12)
     OP      Operation Code (uses experimental value OP_EXP2=25)
     S_HA    Sender Hardware Address (*)
     S_L32   Sender L32  (* same as Sender IPv4 address for ARP)
     S_NID   Sender Node Identifier (8 bytes)
     T_HA    Target Hardware Address (*)
     T_L32   Target L32  (* same as Target IPv4 address for ARP)
     T_NID   Target Node Identifier (8 bytes)

   The changed OP code indicates that this is ILNPv4 and not IPv4.
   The semantics and usage of the ILNPv4 ARP Reply are identical to
   the existing ARP Reply (OP code 2), except that the ILNPv4 ARP
   Reply is sent only by nodes that support ILNPv4.

   The field descriptions marked with "*" should have the same
   values as for ARP as used for IPv4.

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2.3 Operation and Implementation of ARP for ILNPv4

   The operation of ARP for ILNPv4 is almost identical to that for
   IPv4. Essentially, the key difference is:

    a) where an IPv4 ARP Request would use IPv4 addresses, an
       ILNPv4 ARP Request MUST use:
        1. a 32-bit L32 value (_L32 suffixes in Figs 2.1 & 2.2)
        2. a 64-bit NID value (_NID suffixes in Figs 2.1 & Fig 2.2)

    b) where an IPv4 ARP Reply would use IPv4 addresses, an
       ILNPv4 ARP Reply MUST use:
        1. a 32-bit L32 value (_L32 suffixes in Figs 2.1 & 2.2)
        2. a 64-bit NID value (_NID suffixes in Figs 2.1 & Fig 2.2)

   As the OP codes 24 and 25 are distinct from ARP for IPv4, but
   the packet formats are Figs 2.1 and 2.2 are, effectively, extended
   versions of the corresponding ARP packets, it should be possible
   to implement this extension of ARP by extending existing ARP
   implementations rather than having to write an entirely new
   implementation for ILNPv4. It should be emphasised, however, that
   OP codes 24 and 25 are for experimental use as defined in [RFC5494],
   and so it is possible that other experimental protocols could be
   using these OP codes concurrently.

3.  SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS

   Security considerations for the overall ILNP Architecture are
   described in [ILNP-ARCH]. Additional common security
   considerations applicable to ILNP are described in [ILNP-ENG].
   This section describes security considerations specific to the
   specific ILNPv4 topics discussed in this document.

   The existing widely deployed Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
   for IP version 4 (IPv4) is a link-layer protocol, so it is not
   vulnerable to off-link attackers. In this way, it is a bit
   different than IPv6 Neighbor Discovery (ND); IPv6 ND is a subset
   of the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), which runs over
   the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

   However, ARP does not include any form of authentication, so
   current ARP deployments are vulnerable to a range of attacks from
   on-link nodes. For example, it is possible for one node on a link
   to forge an ARP packet claiming to be from another node, thereby
   "stealing" the other node's IPv4 address. [RFC5227] both
   describes several of these risks and also describes some measures
   that an ARP implementation can use to reduce the chance of

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   accidental IPv4 address misconfiguration and also to detect such
   misconfiguration if it should occur.

   This extension does not change the security risks that are
   inherent in using ARP.

   In situations where additional protection against on-link
   attackers is needed, for example within high-risk operational
   environments, the IEEE standards for link-layer security
   [IEEE-802.1-AE] SHOULD be implemented and deployed.

   Implementers of this specification need to understand that the 2
   OP code values used for these 2 extensions are not uniquely
   assigned to ILNPv4.  Other experimenters might be using the same
   2 OP code values at the same time for different ARP-related
   experiments.  Absent prior coordination among all users of a
   particular IP subnetwork, different experiments might be
   occurring on the same IP subnetwork.  So implementations of these
   2 ARP extensions ought to be especially defensively coded.

4.  IANA CONSIDERATIONS

   This document makes no request of IANA.

   If in future the IETF decided to standardise ILNPv4, then
   allocation of unique ARP OP codes for the two extensions above
   as part of the IETF standardisation process would be sensible.

5.  REFERENCES

   This document has both Normative and Informational References.

5.1  Normative References

   [RFC826]    D. Plummer, "An Ethernet Address Resolution Protocol",
               RFC-826, Nov 1982.

   [RFC2119]   Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to
               Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC-2119,
               March 1997.

   [RFC5227]    S. Cheshire, "IPv4 Address Conflict Detection",
                RFC-5227, July 2008.

   [RFC5494]    J. Arkko & C. Pignataro, "IANA Allocation Guidelines
                for the Address Resolution Protocol", RFC-5494,
                April 2009.

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   [IEEE-802.1-AE] IEEE, "Media Access Control (MAC) Security",
                IEEE Standard 802.1 AE, 18 August 2006, IEEE,
                New York, NY, 10016, USA.

   [ILNP-ARCH]    R.J. Atkinson & S.N. Bhatti,
                  "ILNP Architectural Description",
                  draft-irtf-rrg-ilnp-arch, 10 July 2012.

   [ILNP-DNS]     R.J. Atkinson, S.N. Bhatti, & S Rose,
                  "DNS Resource Records for ILNP",
                  draft-irtf-rrg-ilnp-dns, 10 July 2012.

   [ILNP-ENG]     R.J. Atkinson & S.N. Bhatti,
                  "ILNP Engineering and Implementation Considerations",
                  draft-irtf-rrg-ilnp-eng, 10 July 2012.

   [ILNP-ICMPv4]  R.J. Atkinson & S.N. Bhatti,
                  "ICMPv4 Locator Update message"
                  draft-irtf-rrg-ilnp-icmpv4, 10 July 2012.

   [ILNP-v4OPTS] R.J. Atkinson & S.N. Bhatti,
                 "IPv4 Options for ILNP",
                 draft-irtf-rrg-ilnp-v4opts, 10 July 2012.

5.2  Informative References

   [ILNP-ICMPv6]  R.J. Atkinson & S.N. Bhatti,
                  "ICMPv6 Locator Update message"
                  draft-irtf-rrg-ilnp-icmpv6, 10 July 2012.

   [ILNP-NONCEv6] R.J. Atkinson & S.N. Bhatti,
                 "IPv6 Nonce Destination Option for ILNPv6",
                 draft-irtf-rrg-ilnp-noncev6, 10 July 2012.

   [ILNP-ADV]    R.J. Atkinson & S.N. Bhatti,
                 "Optional Advanced Deployment Scenarios for ILNP",
                 draft-irtf-rrg-ilnp-adv, 10 July 2012.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

   Steve Blake, Stephane Bortzmeyer, Mohamed Boucadair, Noel
   Chiappa, Wes George, Steve Hailes, Joel Halpern, Mark Handley,
   Volker Hilt, Paul Jakma, Dae-Young Kim, Tony Li, Yakov Rehkter,
   Bruce Simpson, Robin Whittle and John Wroclawski (in alphabetical
   order) provided review and feedback on earlier versions of this

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   document. Steve Blake provided an especially thorough review of
   an early version of the entire ILNP document set, which was
   extremely helpful. We also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers
   of the various ILNP papers for their feedback.

   Roy Arends provided expert guidance on technical and procedural
   aspects of DNS issues.

RFC EDITOR NOTE

   This section is to be removed prior to publication.

   Please note that this document is written in British English, so
   British English spelling is used throughout. This is consistent
   with existing practice in several other RFCs, for example
   RFC-5887.

   This document tries to be very careful with history, in the
   interest of correctly crediting ideas to their earliest
   identifiable author(s). So in several places the first published
   RFC about a topic is cited rather than the most recent published
   RFC about that topic.

AUTHOR'S ADDRESS

   RJ Atkinson
   Consultant
   San Jose, CA,
   95125 USA

   Email:     rja.lists@gmail.com

   SN Bhatti
   School of Computer Science
   University of St Andrews
   North Haugh, St Andrews
   Fife, Scotland
   KY16 9SX, UK

   Email: saleem@cs.st-andrews.ac.uk

   Expires: 10 JAN 2013

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