Gratuitous Neighor Discovery: Creating Neighbor Cache Entries on First-Hop Routers
draft-linkova-6man-grand-00
The information below is for an old version of the document.
| Document | Type |
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Replaced".
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Jen Linkova | ||
| Last updated | 2019-10-28 | ||
| Replaced by | draft-ietf-6man-grand, RFC 9131 | ||
| RFC stream | (None) | ||
| Formats | |||
| Stream | Stream state | (No stream defined) | |
| Consensus boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| RFC Editor Note | (None) | ||
| IESG | IESG state | I-D Exists | |
| Telechat date | (None) | ||
| Responsible AD | (None) | ||
| Send notices to | (None) |
draft-linkova-6man-grand-00
IPv6 Maintenance J. Linkova
Internet-Draft Google
Updates: 4861 (if approved) October 27, 2019
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: April 29, 2020
Gratuitous Neighor Discovery: Creating Neighbor Cache Entries on First-
Hop Routers
draft-linkova-6man-grand-00
Abstract
Neighbor Discovery (RFC4861) is used by IPv6 nodes to determine the
link-layer addresses of neighboring nodes as well as to discover and
maintain reachability information. This document updates [RFC4861]
to allow routers to proactively create a Neighbor Cache entry when a
new IPv6 address is assigned to a host. It also updates [RFC4862]
and [RFC4429] recommending hosts to send unsolicited Neighbor
Advertisements upon assigning a new IPv6 address. The proposed
change will minimize the delay and packet loss when a host initiate
connections to off-link destination from a new IPv6 address.
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
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Drafts is at https://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 April 29, 2020.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2019 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
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publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Proposed Changes to Neighbor Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Hosts Sending Gratuitous Neighbor Advertisements . . . . 4
2.2. Routers Creating Cache Entries Upon Receiving Unsolicited
Neighbor Advertisements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Avoiding Disruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Modifications to RFC-Mandated Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1. Modification to RFC4861 Neighbor Discovery for IP version
6 (IPv6) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1.1. Modification to the section 7.2.5 . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1.2. Modification to the section 7.2.6 . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1. Introduction
The Neighbor Discovery state machine defined in [RFC4861] implies
that communications between IPv6 nodes are in most cases bi-
directional and if a host A is trying to communicate to its neighbor,
host B, the return traffic flows could be expected. So when the host
A start the address resolution process, the target host would also
create an entry for the host A address in its neighbor cache. That
entry will be used for sending the return traffic to the host A.
However when a host sends traffic to off-link destinations the
different scenario might be observed. After receiving an RA the host
populates its neighbor cache with the default router address and is
able to send traffic to off-link destinations. At the same time the
router does not have any cache entries for the host global addresses
and therefore needs to start address resolution upon receiving the
first packet of the return traffic flow. While waiting for the
resolution to complete routers only keep a very small number of
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packets in the queue (as recommended in [RFC4861] Section 7.2.2. It
might cause user-visible packet loss and performance degradation.
The detailed problem statement and various solution approaches could
be found in [I-D.linkova-v6ops-nd-cache-init]. This document
summarized the proposed neighbor discovery changes to address the
issue.
1.1. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
1.2. Terminology
ND: Neighbor Discovery, [RFC4861].
SLAAC: IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration, [RFC4862].
NS: Neighbor Solicitation, [RFC4861].
NA: Neighbor Advertisement, [RFC4861].
RS: Router Solicitation, [RFC4861].
RA: Router Advertisement, [RFC4861].
SLLA: Source link-layer Address, an option in the ND packets
containing the link-layer address of the sender of the packet
([RFC4861]).
TLLA: Target link-layer Address, an option in the ND packets
containing the link-layer address of the target ([RFC4861]).
GUA: Global Unicast Address ([RFC4291]).
DAD: Duplicate Address Detection, [RFC4862].
Optimistic DAD: a modification of DAD, [RFC4429].
2. Proposed Changes to Neighbor Discovery
The following changes are proposed to minimize the delay in creating
new entries in a router neighbor cache
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o A host SHOULD send unsolicited NA upon assigning a new IPv6
address to its interface.
o A router MAY create a new cache entry upon receiving an
unsolicited NA from a host.
The following sections discuss these changes in more detail.
2.1. Hosts Sending Gratuitous Neighbor Advertisements
The section 7.2.6 of [RFC4861] discusses using unsolicited Neighbor
Advertisement to inform node neighbors of the new link-layer address
quickly. The same mechanism could be used to notify the host
neighbors about the new network-layer address as well: the host can
send gratuitous unsolicited Neighbor Advertisements upon assigning a
new global IPv6 address to its interface. However there is no need
for every single device on-link to be aware of another IPv6 address
the gratuitous NAs should be sent to all-routers multicast address
(ff02::2). Limiting the recipients to routers only would help reduce
the multicast noise level.
2.2. Routers Creating Cache Entries Upon Receiving Unsolicited Neighbor
Advertisements
The section 7.2.5 of [RFC4861] states: "When a valid Neighbor
Advertisement is received (either solicited or unsolicited), the
Neighbor Cache is searched for the target's entry. If no entry
exists, the advertisement SHOULD be silently discarded. There is no
need to create an entry if none exists, since the recipient has
apparently not initiated any communication with the target".
The reasoning behind dropping unsolicited Neighbor Advertisements
("the recipient has apparently not initiated any communication with
the target") is valid for onlink host-to-host communication but, as
discussed in [I-D.linkova-v6ops-nd-cache-init] does not really apply
for the scenario when the host is announcing its address to routers.
Therefore it would be beneficial to allow routers creating new
entries upon receiving an unsolicited Neighbor Advertisement. While
such behaviour would not formally violate [RFC4861] it's worth
clarifying the difference in the expected behaviour between hosts and
routers and provide explicit recommendations for routers.
This document suggests that routers MAY create a new Neighbor Cache
entry when receive an unsolicited Neighbor Advertisement.
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3. Avoiding Disruption
If hosts following the recommendations in this document are using the
DAD mechanism defined in [RFC4862], they would send unsolicited NA as
soon as the address changes the state from tentative to preferred
(after its uniqueness has been verified). However hosts willing to
minimize network stack configuration delays might be using optimistic
addresses, which means there is a possibility of the address not
being unique on the link. The section 2.2 of [RFC4429] discusses
measures to ensure that ND packets from the optimistic address do not
override any existing neighbor cache entries as it would cause
traffic interruption of the rightful address owner in case of address
conflict.
As hosts willing to speed up their network stack configuration are
most likely to be affected by the problem outlined in this document
it seems reasonable for such hosts to advertise their optimistic GUAs
by sending unsolicited NAs. The main question to consider is the
potential risk of overriding the cache entry for the rightful address
owner if the optimistic address happens to be duplicated.
As per section 7.2.5 of [RFC4861] if the Neighbor Cache entry for the
target address already exists and is in in any state other than
INCOMPLETE then the only change the unsolicited NA could cause is to
change the entry from REACHABLE to STALE. It would not cause any
traffic interruption for the rightful address owner.
If there is no entry then it would be created/updated with the
supplied LLA and its state set to STALE. In that case as soon as the
entry is used for sending traffic to the host, the entry state will
be changed to DELAY and the Neighbor Unreachability Detection would
be started and the rightful owner LLA will be entered in the cache.
So in the scenario when the rightful owner does not use the address
for communication then it might be a short (a few seconds) period of
time when the data packets sent from the outside could reach the host
with the optimistic address. However it seems likely that hosts
using Optimistic DAD would start sending/receiving traffic right
away, so the first return packet would trigger the NUD process and
rewrite the cache.
Another corner case is the INCOMPLETE cache entry for the address.
If the host sends an unsolicited NA from the Optimistic address it
would update the entry with the host LLA and set the entry to the
STALE state. As the INCOMPLETE entry means that the router has
started the ND process for the address and the multicast NS has been
sent, the rightful owner is expected to reply with solicited NA which
would recover the cache entry and set the LLA to the rightful owner's
one. The risk here:
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o The data packet arrives after the unsolicited NA from the host but
before the rightful owner responded with the solicited NA. Those
packets would be sent to the host with the optimistic address
instead of its rightful owner. However without the unsolicited NA
those packets would have been dropped anyway (as the entry was in
INCOMPLETE state).
4. Modifications to RFC-Mandated Behavior
All normative text in this memo is contained in this section.
4.1. Modification to RFC4861 Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)
4.1.1. Modification to the section 7.2.5
This document proposes the following changes to the section 7.2.5 of
[RFC4861]:
------------------------------------------------------------------
OLD TEXT:
When a valid Neighbor Advertisement is received (either solicited or
unsolicited), the Neighbor Cache is searched for the target's entry.
If no entry exists, the advertisement SHOULD be silently discarded.
There is no need to create an entry if none exists, since the
recipient has apparently not initiated any communication with the
target.
NEW TEXT:
When a valid Neighbor Advertisement is received (either solicited or
unsolicited), the Neighbor Cache is searched for the target's entry.
If no entry exists, hosts SHOULD silently discard the advertisement.
There is no need to create an entry if none exists, since the
recipient has apparently not initiated any communication with the
target. Routers MAY create a new entry for the target address with
the link-layer address set to the Target link-layer address option
(if supplied). The entry its reachability state MUST also be set to
STALE. If the received Neighbor Advertisement does not contain the
Target link-layer address option the advertisement SHOULD be silently
discarded. Routers SHOULD have a configuration knob to enable
creating a new cache entry upon receiving an unsolicited Neighbor
Advertisement on a specific interface.
------------------------------------------------------------------
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4.1.2. Modification to the section 7.2.6
This document proposes the following changes to the section 7.2.6 of
[RFC4861]:
OLD TEXT:
In such cases, a node MAY send up to MAX_NEIGHBOR_ADVERTISEMENT
unsolicited Neighbor Advertisement messages to the all-nodes
multicast address. These advertisements MUST be separated by at
least RetransTimer seconds.
NEW TEXT:
In such cases, a node MAY send up to MAX_NEIGHBOR_ADVERTISEMENT
unsolicited Neighbor Advertisement messages to the all-nodes
multicast address. These advertisements MUST be separated by at
least RetransTimer seconds.
A host may also wish to notify its first-hop routers when it
configures a new global IPv6 address so the routers can proactively
populate their neighbor caches with the corresponding entries. In
such cases a host SHOULD send up to MAX_NEIGHBOR_ADVERTISEMENT
unsolicited Neighbor Advertisement messages to the all-routers
multicast address. These advertisements MUST be separated by at
least RetransTimer seconds. The first advertisement SHOULD be sent
as soon as one of the following events happens:
o if Optimistic DAD [RFC4429] is used: a new Optimistic GUA is
assigned to the host interface.
o if Optimistic DAD is not used: a GUA changes the state from
tentative to preferred.
------------------------------------------------------------------
5. IANA Considerations
This memo asks the IANA for no new parameters.
6. Security Considerations
One of the potential attack vectors to consider is a cache spoofing
when the attacker might try to install a cache entry for the victim's
IPv6 address and the attacker's Link-Layer address. However it
should be noted that this document does not propose any changes for
the scenario when the ND cache for the given IPv6 address already
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exists. Therefore it is not possible for the attacker to override
any existing cache entry.
A malicious host could attempt to exhaust the neighbor cache on the
router by creating a large number of STALE entries. However this
attack vector is not new and this document does not increase the risk
of such an attack: the attacker could do it, for example, by sending
a NS or RS packet with SLLAO included. All recommendations from
[RFC6583] still apply.
Announcing a new address to all-routers multicast address may inform
an on-link attacker about IPv6 addresses assigned to the host.
However hiding information about the specific IPv6 address should not
be considered a security measure as it falls into 'Security through
obscurity' category. If peer-to-peer onlink communications are not
desirable they should be prevented by proper layer2 security
mechanisms. Therefore the risk of allowing hosts to send unsolicited
Neighbor Advertisements to all-routers multicast address is low.
7. Acknowledgements
Thanks to the following people (in alphabetical order) for their
review and feedback: Lorenzo Colitti, Tatuya Jinmei, Erik Kline,
Warren Kumari, Michael Richardson, Pascal Thubert, Loganaden
Velvindron, Eric Vyncke.
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,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC4291] Hinden, R. and S. Deering, "IP Version 6 Addressing
Architecture", RFC 4291, DOI 10.17487/RFC4291, February
2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4291>.
[RFC4429] Moore, N., "Optimistic Duplicate Address Detection (DAD)
for IPv6", RFC 4429, DOI 10.17487/RFC4429, April 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4429>.
[RFC4861] Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and H. Soliman,
"Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 4861,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4861, September 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4861>.
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[RFC4862] Thomson, S., Narten, T., and T. Jinmei, "IPv6 Stateless
Address Autoconfiguration", RFC 4862,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4862, September 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4862>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
8.2. Informative References
[I-D.linkova-v6ops-nd-cache-init]
Linkova, J., "Neighbor Cache Entries on First-Hop Routers:
Operational Considerations", draft-linkova-v6ops-nd-cache-
init-01 (work in progress), July 2019.
[RFC4941] Narten, T., Draves, R., and S. Krishnan, "Privacy
Extensions for Stateless Address Autoconfiguration in
IPv6", RFC 4941, DOI 10.17487/RFC4941, September 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4941>.
[RFC6583] Gashinsky, I., Jaeggli, J., and W. Kumari, "Operational
Neighbor Discovery Problems", RFC 6583,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6583, March 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6583>.
Author's Address
Jen Linkova
Google
1 Darling Island Rd
Pyrmont, NSW 2009
AU
Email: furry@google.com
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