Internet Draft L. Donnerhacke Category: Proposed Standard Editor Updates: 4291, 5952 Richard Hartmann Expires: October 5, 2011 Editor April 6, 2011 Naming IPv6 address parts draft-denog-v6ops-addresspartnaming-03.txt Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 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 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/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on October 5, 2011. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2011 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 to this document. Donnerhacke, Hartmann Expires October 5, 2011 [Page 1]
Internet Draft Naming IPv6 address parts April 6, 2011 Abstract In the daily communication between technicians, engineers and other people who need to deal with computer networks, it is often necessary to refer to particular parts of IP addresses. In the world of IPv4, the term "octet" is well established, however as the use of IPv6 is spreading, it becomes apparent that there is no such commonly accepted term for IPv6 addresses. Discussing and explaining technical matters become difficult when different people use different terms for the same thing. Therefore, this document discusses several naming proposal for those 16bit pieces of IPv6 addreses. Table of Contents 1. Introduction .................................................. 2 2. Rationale ..................................................... 3 3. Naming Considerations ......................................... 3 4. Naming Proposals .............................................. 4 4.1. Hextet ................................................... 4 4.2. Quibble .................................................. 4 5. Security Considerations ....................................... 4 6. IANA Considerations ........................................... 4 7. References .................................................... 4 7.1. Normative References ..................................... 4 7.2. Informal References ...................................... 5 8. Acknowledgements .............................................. 5 1. Introduction Verbal and written communication requires a common set of terms, eas- ily understood by every potential party. While deploying IPv6, when refering to segments of IPv6 addresses, confusion regularly arises due to the usage of different and sometimes conflicting nomenclature for the same pieces of information. [IPV6Addr] is the normative reference to IPv6 addressing and avoids to coin a special term for the subject of this document itself: The preferred form is x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x, where the 'x's are one to four hexadecimal digits of the eight 16-bit pieces of the address. [IPv6Rep] is the normative reference to IPv6 address text representa- tion and introduces the term "16-bit field" or short "field". Donnerhacke, Hartmann Expires October 5, 2011 [Page 2]
Internet Draft Naming IPv6 address parts April 6, 2011 2. Rationale While we readily agree that the naming of IPv6 address parts is not the most pressing concern the Internet is facing today, a common nomenclature is important for efficient communication. In IPv6 deployments the delimiting colons are regularly used to facilitate the separation of labels discerning not only administra- tive boundaries but also network segments and distinct infrastructure components. Consequently the values between the colons are frequently refered to especially in communication regarding coordinative mat- ters. Time spent explaining what one is referring to is wasted and con- flicting names can lead to misunderstanding while the usage of a com- mon term helps facilitating quick understanding. To solve this problem, the specification of a precise and recogniz- able term is advised. A typical ambiguity occurs in [IPv6Rep] which uses the term "field" or "16-bit field" for the term in question. This case is interesting because there was a short IETF WG discussion which term should be used. If an IPv6 address field in a certificate was incorrectly verified by converting it to text ... Since parts of the internet community only accept authoritative advice substantiated by a published document, also known as the 'citation needed' approach, it is helpful to have a definite source. 3. Naming Considerations Any term that can be confused with other technical terms due to pho- netic similarities can lead to misconfiguration causing reachability and security risks to the involved parties. Even with English being the preferred language in the IT world today, a good name should describe the technical matter precisely while being easy to remember, spell and pronounce in as many languages as possible. Donnerhacke, Hartmann Expires October 5, 2011 [Page 3]
Internet Draft Naming IPv6 address parts April 6, 2011 4. Naming Proposals 4.1. Hextet "Hexadectet" is directly derived from IPv4's "octet", thus techni- cally correct and convenient to get used to. Because it is harder to pronounce, the short form "hextet" is used. "Hextet" SHOULD be the standard term in technical documents refering to IPv6 address parts. 4.2. Quibble A nibble is a 4bit entity, hence 16 bits are a quad nibble. This is a rather bulky word, however, so "quibble" is a convenient abbrevia- tion. Also, it is a unique term in networking and has a similar cono- tation in ordinary English. "Quibble" MIGHT be used for informal communication. 5. Security Considerations This memo does not directly discuss security issues, however the lack of a common, well established term could theoretically lead to misin- terpretation, possible leading to insecure configuration of computer systems. 6. IANA Considerations No assignments by the IANA are required. However it is considered desirable that the IANA adopts the term in future documents. 7. References 7.1. Normative References [IPV6Addr] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture", RFC 4291, February 2006 [IPv6Rep] Kawamura, S. and Kawashima, M., "A Recommendation for IPv6 Address Text Representation", RFC 5952, August 2010 [Q.6] ITU-T, "Advantages of international automatic working", Fascicle VI.1 of the Blue Book, 1988 Donnerhacke, Hartmann Expires October 5, 2011 [Page 4]
Internet Draft Naming IPv6 address parts April 6, 2011 7.2. Informal References [greg] http://etherealmind.com/network-dictionary-chazwazza/, Sept 5, 2010 8. Acknowledgements Thanks go to Greg Ferro who initiated the discussion by proposing the term "chazwazza".[greg] Many thanks to all those people which contribute to our work and participate in the straw poll about all the other propoals, which are described in former versions of this memo: Chazwazza, Chunk, Column, Colonade, Colonnade, Doctet, Field, Hexadectet, Hit, Orone, Part, Provider number, customer number, network number, Quad nibble, qibble, Segment, Tuple, and Word. The inital version of this document was created following the spirit of [Q.6]. Donnerhacke, Hartmann Expires October 5, 2011 [Page 5]
Internet Draft Naming IPv6 address parts April 6, 2011 Authors' Addresses Lutz Donnerhacke Leutragraben 1 07743 Jena Germany Tel: 1.6.5.3.7.5.1.4.6.3.9.4.e164.arpa. EMail: lutz@thur.de Richard Hartmann Munich Germany Email: richih.mailinglist@gmail.com http://richardhartmann.de Michael Horn Po Box 540153 10042 Berlin Germany http://nibbler.tel/ Kay Rechthien Netsign GmbH Lindenallee 27 14050 Berlin Germany EMail: kre@netsign.eu Leon Weber Ahornstrasse 5d 01458 Ottendorf-Okrilla Germany EMail: leon@whitejack.org Donnerhacke, Hartmann Expires October 5, 2011 [Page 6]
Internet Draft Naming IPv6 address parts April 6, 2011 Supporter's Addresses Ronny Boesger Lahnsteiner Strasse 7 07629 Hermsdorf eMail: rb@isppro.de Thorsten Dahm Josefstrasse 21 66265 Heusweiler Germany EMail: t.dahm@resolution.de Joerg Dorchain Harspergerflur 23 66740 Saarlouis Germany EMail: joerg@dorchain.net Sascha Lenz s-lz.net Zum Oberbaeumle 49 97318 Kitzingen Germany E-Mail: sascha.lenz@s-lz.net Jens Link Freelance Consultant Foelderichstr. 40 13595 Berlin Germany EMail: jl@jenslink.net Jan Walzer Kopernikusstrasse 2 68519 Viernheim Germany EMail: jan.w@lzer.net Sebastian Wiesinger Germany EMail: sebastian@karotte.org Donnerhacke, Hartmann Expires October 5, 2011 [Page 7]
Internet Draft Naming IPv6 address parts April 6, 2011 Appendix A. Change History 00 - inital version 01 - Jens Link moved from Author to Supporter - Leon Weber moved from Supporter to Author - numerous typographic fixes - added "field" from [IPv6Rep] as proposal and as reason - added "part" for completeness - dismissed "hextet / hexatet / sixlet" - created sub sections for each proposal - added update notification of RFC4291 and RFC5952 - added a "Security considerations" section 02 - Fixing nits - Propose a selection mechanism 03 - Added Hextet - Removed references to DENOG - Select two proposals based of the straw poll and the WG Donnerhacke, Hartmann Expires October 5, 2011 [Page 8]