Individual Submission G. Huston
Internet-Draft Telstra
Expires: February 25, 2004 A. Lord
APNIC
P. Smith
Cisco
August 27, 2003
IPv6 Documentation Address
draft-huston-ipv6-documentation-prefix-01.txt
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
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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
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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
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packet filters are deployed, then this address should be added to
packet filters.
This not a local-use address block, and the filters may be used in
both local and public contexts.
4. IANA Considerations
IANA is to record the allocation of the IPv6 global unicast address
prefix 2001:0DB8::/32 as a documentation-only prefix 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.
Normative References
[1] Hinden, R. and S. Deering, "Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)
Addressing Architecture", RFC 3513, April 2003.
Informative References
[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
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Anne Lord
Asia Pacific Network Information Centre
Philip Smith
Cisco Systems
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