Individual Submission G. Huston
Internet-Draft Telstra
Expires: August 15, 2003 A. Lord
APNIC
P. Smith
Cisco
February 14, 2003
IPv6 Documentation Address
draft-huston-ipv6-documentation-prefix-00.txt
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.
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 August 15, 2003.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
To reduce the likelihood of conflict and confusion when relating
documented examples to deployed systems, an IPv6 unicast prefix is
reserved for use in examples in RFCs, books, documentation, and the
like. Since site-local and link- local unicast addresses have special
meaning in IPv6, these addresses cannot be used in many example
situations. The document describes the use of the IPv6 address prefix
2001:0DB8::/32 as a reserved prefix for use in documentation. This
prefix has been assigned by the Asia Pacific Network Information
Centre (APNIC) for this purpose, on behalf of the Regional Internet
Huston, et al. Expires August 15, 2003 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft IPv6 Documentation Address February 2003
Registries.
1. Introduction
The address architecture for IPv6 [1] does not specifically allocate
an IPv6 address prefix for use for documentation purposes.
Documentation material is currently using address prefixes drawn from
address blocks already allocated or assigned to existing
organizations or to well known ISPs, or drawn from the currently
unallocated address pool. Such use conflicts with existing or future
allocations or assignments of IPv6 address space.
The problems such conflicts may cause have already been encountered
with IPv4 where literal use of documented examples in a production
environment causes address and routing conflicts with existing
services. In making an explicit allocation of a documentation address
prefix, it is intended that such operational problems may be avoided
for IPv6.
Similar, but different, discussion also applies to top level domain
names and some have been reserved for similar purposes [2].
2. Documentation IPv6 Address Prefix
To allow documentation to accurately describe deployment examples the
use of site local or link local addresses is inappropriate, and a
unicast address block is required. All IPv6 unicast address space is
marked reserved or allocated [1], and no unicast address space has
been specifically nominated for the purposes of use in documented
examples.
Following acceptance within the addressing community of a proposal
for a block of IPv6 address space to be created for documentation
purposes, the Regional Internet Registries allocated a unicast
address prefix for documentation purposes. The address block is
within the range of a conventional allocation size, so that
documentation can accurately match deployment scenarios.
Multicast addresses can also be reserved for documentation using this
document reserved address space together with the Unicast
prefix-based proposal [3]for multicast addresses.
The prefix allocated for documentation purposes is 2001:0DB8::/32
3. Operational Implications
This assignment implies that IPv6 network operators should add this
address block to the list of non-routeable IPv6 address space, and if
Huston, et al. Expires August 15, 2003 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft IPv6 Documentation Address February 2003
packet filters are deployed, then this address should be added to
packet filters.
This not a private-use address block, and the filters may be used in
both private and public contexts. Private use should use a site-local
address block [1].
4. IANA Considerations
IANA is to reserve 2001:0DB8::/32 address space out of the global
unicast address space as a documentation-only prefix, and note this
reservation in the IPv6 address registry. No end party is to be
assigned this address.
5. Security Considerations
IPv6 addressing documents do not have any direct impact on Internet
infrastructure security. Authentication of IPv6 packets is defined
in [4].
6. Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the work of Marc Blanchet, assisted by Alain
Durand, Robert Elz, Bob Fink and Dave Thaler, in authoring a previous
proposal for a V6 documentation prefix.
References
[1] Hinden, R. and S. Deering, "IP Version 6 Addressing
Architecture", RFC 2373, July 1998.
[2] Eastlake, D. and A. Panitz, "Reserved Top Level DNS Names", BCP
32, RFC 2606, June 1999.
[3] Haberman, B. and D. Thaler, "Unicast-Prefix-based IPv6 Multicast
Addresses", RFC 3306, August 2002.
[4] Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "IP Authentication Header", RFC 2402,
November 1998.
Authors' Addresses
Geoff Huston
Telstra
Huston, et al. Expires August 15, 2003 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft IPv6 Documentation Address February 2003
Anne Lord
Asia Pacific Network Information Centre
Philip Smith
Cisco Systems
Huston, et al. Expires August 15, 2003 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft IPv6 Documentation Address February 2003
Intellectual Property Statement
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it
has made any effort to identify any such rights. Information on the
IETF's procedures with respect to rights in standards-track and
standards-related documentation can be found in BCP-11. Copies of
claims of rights made available for publication and any assurances of
licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to
obtain a general license or permission for the use of such
proprietary rights by implementors or users of this specification can
be obtained from the IETF Secretariat.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights which may cover technology that may be required to practice
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF Executive
Director.
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assignees.
This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
Huston, et al. Expires August 15, 2003 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft IPv6 Documentation Address February 2003
HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Acknowledgement
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
Internet Society.
Huston, et al. Expires August 15, 2003 [Page 6]