ANIMA                                                       M. Behringer
Internet-Draft                                             Cisco Systems
Intended status: Standards Track                          April 22, 2015
Expires: October 24, 2015


                  An Autonomic IPv6 Addressing Scheme
             draft-behringer-anima-autonomic-addressing-00

Abstract

   This document describes a generic IPv6 addressing scheme which is
   suitable for autonomic nodes, where node addressing must not depend
   on a centrally managed scheme.  It assumes a unique domain name and
   device name, and automatically derives a unique IPv6 address from
   those.  The scheme allows for a flat address hierarchy as well as
   optionally, when required, the definition of zones which are
   aggregatable.  This document is for discussion right now; the final
   addressing scheme should probably move into
   [I-D.behringer-anima-reference-model].

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 October 24, 2015.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2015 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



Behringer               Expires October 24, 2015                [Page 1]


Internet-Draft            Autonomic Addressing                April 2015


   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
   2.  The Addressing Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Algorithm to Calculate Unique Addresses . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Address Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   7.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5

1.  Introduction

   In an Autonomic Network, as defined in
   [I-D.irtf-nmrg-autonomic-network-definitions], one of the design
   goals is to minimise central functions.  Address management
   traditionally is a centralised function, where addresses are assigned
   to nodes.  In this document we assume that each node has already been
   assigned with a unique node name, and a domain name.  We introduce an
   addressing scheme and an algorithm that allows the calculation of a
   unique IPv6 ULA address inside a domain.  In other words, once a
   device has a unique node and domain name, this addressing scheme and
   algorithm allows for distributed self-management of addressing inside
   a network.

   The addressing scheme described here is specifically designed for
   both the data plane of a network, as well as the Autonomic Control
   Plane (ACP; see [I-D.behringer-autonomic-control-plane]).  It is for
   communication inside the domain only, specifically to support self-
   management functions.

   This scheme targets exclusively loopback addresses of nodes.  We
   assume that link-local addressing is used on the interfaces of links.

   The addressing scheme allows the definitions of zones for the purpose
   of aggregation of address space.  This makes it possible to start
   with a flat address scheme, and introduce a hierarchy later if and
   when required.








Behringer               Expires October 24, 2015                [Page 2]


Internet-Draft            Autonomic Addressing                April 2015


2.  The Addressing Scheme

   We assume that each node has two unique properties:

   o  A domain name: All devices in a domain share the same domain name.

   o  A node name: This name MUST be unique inside the domain.

   An example of a full node name is "node17.domain.com", where "node17"
   is the node name and "domain.com" is the domain name.  Inside
   "domain.com" "node17" MUST be unique.

   The addressing scheme follows the ULA address definition, as
   specified in [RFC4193], and has the following format:

     8      40          3       13                    64
   +--+--------------+------+---------+--------------------------------+
   |FD| hash(domain) | Type | Zone ID |         Device ID              |
   +--+--------------+------+---------+--------------------------------+

                         Figure 1: Address Scheme

   The fields are defined as follows:

   o  FD: The prefix to indicate that the address is a ULA prefix.

   o  hash(domain): A pseudo-random 40 bit value representing the
      domain.  See Section 3 for details on the way this value is
      derived.

   o  Type: Set to 000.  This field allows different address sub-types
      in the future.

   o  Zone ID: If set to all zero bits: Flat addressing scheme.  Any
      other value indicates a zone.  See section Section 4

   o  Device ID: A unique 64 bit value for the device.  See Section 3
      for details on the way this value is derived.

3.  Algorithm to Calculate Unique Addresses

   The "hash(domain)" part of the address is calculated as the first 40
   bits of the MD5 hash of the domain name, in the example "domain.com".

   The device ID is derived as follows: In an Autonomic Network, a
   registrar is enrolling new devices.  As part of the enrolment process
   the registrar assigns a number to the device, which is unique for




Behringer               Expires October 24, 2015                [Page 3]


Internet-Draft            Autonomic Addressing                April 2015


   this registrar, but not necessarily unique in the domain.  The 64 bit
   device ID is then composed as:

   o  48 bit: Registrar ID, a number unique inside the domain that
      identifies the registrar which assigned the name to the device.  A
      MAC address of the registrar can be used for this purpose.

   o  16 bit: Device ID, a number which is unique for a given registrar,
      to identify the device.  This can be a sequentially assigned
      number.

   If required, other schemas can be defined in the future, using a new
   "type" value.

4.  Address Hierarchy

   The "zone ID" allows for the definition of a simple address
   hierarchy.  If set to zero, the address scheme is flat.  In this
   case, the addresses primarily act as identifiers for the nodes.  Used
   like this, aggregation is not possible.

   If aggregation is required, the 13 bit value allows for up to 8191
   zones.  (Theoretically, the 13 bits for the zone ID would allow also
   for two levels of zones, introducing a sub-hierarchy.  We do not
   think this is required at this point, but a new type could be used in
   the future to support such a scheme.)

   Another way to introduce hierarchy is to use sub-domains in the
   naming scheme.  The node names "node17.subdomainA.domain.com" and
   "node4.subdomainB.domain.com" would automatically lead to different
   ULA prefixes, which can be used to introduce a routing hierarchy in
   the network, assuming that the subdomains are aligned with routing
   areas.

5.  Security Considerations

   tbc

6.  Acknowledgements

   The following people have been involved in developing this scheme:
   Toerless Eckert, Steinthor Bjarnason, BL Balaji, Ravi Kumar
   Vadapalli.








Behringer               Expires October 24, 2015                [Page 4]


Internet-Draft            Autonomic Addressing                April 2015


7.  References

   [I-D.behringer-anima-reference-model]
              Behringer, M., Carpenter, B., and T. Eckert, "A Reference
              Model for Autonomic Networking", draft-behringer-anima-
              reference-model-00 (work in progress), October 2014.

   [I-D.behringer-autonomic-control-plane]
              Behringer, M., Bjarnason, S., BL, B., and T. Eckert, "An
              Autonomic Control Plane", draft-behringer-autonomic-
              control-plane-00 (work in progress), June 2014.

   [I-D.irtf-nmrg-autonomic-network-definitions]
              Behringer, M., Pritikin, M., Bjarnason, S., Clemm, A.,
              Carpenter, B., Jiang, S., and L. Ciavaglia, "Autonomic
              Networking - Definitions and Design Goals", draft-irtf-
              nmrg-autonomic-network-definitions-07 (work in progress),
              March 2015.

   [RFC4193]  Hinden, R. and B. Haberman, "Unique Local IPv6 Unicast
              Addresses", RFC 4193, October 2005.

Author's Address

   Michael H. Behringer
   Cisco Systems
   Building D, 45 Allee des Ormes
   Mougins  06250
   France

   Email: mbehring@cisco.com




















Behringer               Expires October 24, 2015                [Page 5]