Hop-by-Hop Forwarding Options Header
draft-li-6man-hbh-fwd-hdr-00

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Network Working Group                                              Z. Li
Internet-Draft                                                   S. Peng
Intended status: Standards Track                                  Huawei
Expires: January 4, 2021                                    July 3, 2020

                  Hop-by-Hop Forwarding Options Header
                      draft-li-6man-hbh-fwd-hdr-00

Abstract

   RFC8200 specifies the HBH header that is assumed to be processed by
   each hop in the delivery path of the packet.  However, RFC8200 also
   expects that nodes processing the HBH header have been explicitly
   configured to do so.  Therefore, it cannot be assumed that a HBH
   header present in the packet is processed.  It all depends on the
   configuration of each node across the path.  Moreover, in most of
   networks today, the processing of the HBH header is done in the
   control plane (slow processing path) which incurs several limitations
   among which resources consumption and security risk.

   For these reasons, over time, the Hop-by-Hop Options header has been
   sparsely used without any form of large scale deployment.  Also, most
   of already defined HBH options are forwarding options which contain
   forwarding plane information that needs not to be sent to the control
   plane.

   This document proposes a new Hop-by-Hop Forwarding Options Header in
   order to carry Hop-by-Hop options that are solely intended to and
   processed by the forwarding plane.  This new HBH header is confined
   in and dedicated to the forwarding plane while the current HBH header
   can still be used for control plane options.

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].

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 https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

Li & Peng                Expires January 4, 2021                [Page 1]
Internet-Draft        HBH Forwarding Options Header            July 2020

   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 January 4, 2021.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2020 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
   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
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   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Problem Statement and Motivation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.1.  Specifications in RFC8200 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.2.  Classification of HBH Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     2.3.  Service Requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   3.  Proposal  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.1.  Hop-by-Hop Forwarding Options Header  . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.2.  The usage of the existing Hop-by-Hop Options Header . . .   7
   4.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   6.  Appendix. Existing HBH Options  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   7.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     7.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     7.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10

1.  Introduction

   As specified in [RFC8200], the Hop-by-Hop (HBH) Options header is
   used to carry optional information that will be examined and
   processed by every node along a packet's delivery path if it is
   explicitly configured to do so.  Since there is no specification on
   the possible configuration, nodes may be configured to ignore the
   Hop-by-Hop Options header, drop packets containing a Hop-by-Hop