IEEE 802.15.4 Information Element for IETF
draft-kivinen-802-15-ie-00

Network Working Group                                         T. Kivinen
Internet-Draft                                             INSIDE Secure
Intended status: Standards Track                               P. Kinney
Expires: September 17, 2016                        Kinney Consulting LLC
                                                          March 16, 2016

               IEEE 802.15.4 Information Element for IETF
                     draft-kivinen-802-15-ie-00.txt

Abstract

   IEEE Std. 802.15.4-2015 has Information Elements (IE) that can be
   used to extend the 802.15.4 in interoperable manner.  IEEE 802.15
   Assigned Numbers Authority (ANA) manages the registry of the
   Information Elements, and this document requests ANA to allocate a
   number for IETF and provides the information how the IE is formatted
   to provide sub types.

Status of This Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on September 17, 2016.

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   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Users of the IETF IE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  IETF IE Subtype Format  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  Request to allocate IETF IE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   8.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     8.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     8.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5

1.  Introduction

   The IEEE Std. 802.15.4-2015 [IEEE-802-15-4] has Information Elements
   (IE) that can be used to extended the 802.15.4 in interoperable
   manner.  There are two different IE types, Header IE and Payload IE.
   The Header IEs are part of the Medium Access Control (MAC) header,
   and they are never encrypted, but they may be authenticated.  Most of
   the Header IE processing is done by the MAC, and IETF protocols
   should not need to extend up with them.  The Payload IEs are part of
   the MAC payload and they may be encrypted and authenticated.

   IETF protocols will need to include information in the 802.15.4
   frames, and standard 802.15.4 way of doing that is to include payload
   IE in the frame that will contain the information.  Because of this
   the IETF needs to obtain a dedicated Payload IE.

   The 802.15.4 operations manual provides information on how a
   standardization organization may request an allocation of the one IE
   to them.  To make this request the standardization organization needs
   to: provide the reason for the request; a description of the protocol
   format that shows there is sufficient subtype capability; a statement
   that the external organization understands that only one ID number
   will be issued.

   This document provides the information needed for the request.

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 [RFC2119].

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3.  Users of the IETF IE

   There are several IETF working groups such as 6tisch, 6lo, core etc,
   which could benefit from the IETF IE.  The 6tisch working group has
   already expressed the need for the IE, and this allocation should
   provide them a way forward.

4.  IETF IE Subtype Format

   The maximum length of the Payload IE content is 2047 octets, and
   802.15.4 frame contains a list of payload IEs, i.e. a single frame
   can have multiple payload IEs, terminated with the payload IE
   terminator, and may be followed by the payload.

   Because the frame contains a list of the payloads, there is no need
   to provide internal structure inside the IETF IE, and the Payload IE
   format of the 802.15.4 contains the Length field.  The length of the
   Sub-Type Content can be calculated from the Length field of the IETF
   IE.

   The format of the IETF IE is as follows:

                        1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   | Sub-Type ID   |                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+                                               |
   ~                       Sub-Type Content                        ~
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                     Figure 1: IETF IE Subtype Format

   o  Sub-Type ID is the IANA allocated number specifying the sub-type
      of the IETF IE.  Value 0 is reserved for future extensibility,
      i.e., in case a longer Sub-Type ID field is needed.

   o  Sub-Type Content is the actual content of the information element,
      and its length can be calculated from the Length field of the IETF
      IE.

   One IEEE 802.15.4 frame can contain multiple IETF IEs for same or
   different sub types.

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5.  Request to allocate IETF IE

   IETF would request the 802.15.4 Working Group to allocate a Payload
   IE for IETF use.  Furthermore IETF understands that only one ID will
   be issued to it.

6.  Security Considerations

   This document creates an IANA registry for IETF IE Sub-type IDs, and
   the security of the protocols using the IEs needs to be described in
   the actual documents allocating values from this registry.

   The IEEE Std. 802.15.4-2015 [IEEE-802-15-4] contains methods where
   security of the IE can be enforced when a frame is received, but this
   is only per IE type, thus all IETF IEs will have same security level
   requirements regardless of the Sub-Type ID used.  This can cause
   issues if different security processing would be needed and any of
   those IEs would need to be processed in the MAC level.  Fortunately
   everything IETF does should be in a higher level than the MAC level,
   thus the higher layer processing for these IEs needs to perform
   separate security policy checking based on the IETF IE Sub-Type ID in
   addition to the checks done by the MAC.

7.  IANA Considerations

   This document creates a new registry for IETF IE Sub-type IDs
   registry:

   Value     Sub-type ID
   0         Reserved
   1-200     Unassigned
   201-255   Private Use

8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/
              RFC2119, March 1997,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

8.2.  Informative References

   [IEEE-802-15-4]
              "IEEE Standard for Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area
              Networks (WPANs)", IEEE Standard 802.15.4, 2015.

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Authors' Addresses

   Tero Kivinen
   INSIDE Secure
   Eerikinkatu 28
   HELSINKI  FI-00180
   FI

   Email: kivinen@iki.fi

   Pat Kinney
   Kinney Consulting LLC

   Email: pat.kinney@kinneyconsultingllc.com

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