Behavior Engineering for Hindrance                        I. van Beijnum
Avoidance                                                 IMDEA Networks
Internet-Draft                                              May 16, 2010
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: November 17, 2010


              IPv6-to-IPv4 translation FTP considerations
                       draft-ietf-behave-ftp64-03

Abstract

   The File Transfer Protocol has a very long history, and despite the
   fact that today, other options exist to perform file transfers, FTP
   is still in common use.  As such, it is important that in the
   situation where some client computers are IPv6-only while many
   servers are still IPv4-only and IPv6-to-IPv4 translators are used to
   bridge that gap, FTP is made to work through these translators as
   best it can.

   FTP has an active and a passive mode, both as original commands that
   are IPv4-specific, and as extended, IP version agnostic commands.
   The only FTP mode that works without changes through an IPv6-to-IPv4
   translator is extended passive.  However, many existing FTP servers
   do not support this mode, and some clients do not ask for it.  This
   document describes server, client and middlebox (if any) behavior
   that minimizes this problem.

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 November 17, 2010.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the



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   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.  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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   3.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   4.  ALG functionality  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     4.1.  Control channel translation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     4.2.  EPSV to PASV translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     4.3.  EPRT to PORT translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       4.3.1.  Stateless EPRT translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       4.3.2.  Stateful EPRT translation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     4.4.  Default port 20 translation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     4.5.  Both PORT and PASV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     4.6.  Default behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     4.7.  The ALGS command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     4.8.  Timeouts and translating to NOOP . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   5.  Client recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   6.  Server recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   7.  IANA considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   8.  Security considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   9.  Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   10. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     11.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     11.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   Appendix A.  Document and discussion information . . . . . . . . . 16
   Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16











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1.  Introduction

   [RFC0959] specifies two modes of operation for FTP: active mode, in
   which the server connects back to the client and passive mode, where
   the server opens a port for the client to connect to.  Without
   additional action, active mode with a client-supplied port does not
   work through NATs or firewalls.  With active mode, the PORT command
   has an IPv4 address as its argument, and in passive mode, the server
   responds to the PASV command with an IPv4 address.  This makes both
   the passive and active modes as originally specified in [RFC0959]
   incompatible with IPv6.  These issues were solved in [RFC2428], which
   introduces the EPSV (extended passive) command, where the server only
   responds with a port number, and the EPRT (extended port) command,
   which allows the client to supply either an IPv4 or an IPv6 address
   (and a port) to the server.

   A survey done in April of 2009 of 25 randomly picked and/or well-
   known FTP sites reachable over IPv4 showed that only 12 of them
   supported EPSV over IPv4.  Additionally, only 2 of those 12 indicated
   that they supported EPSV in response to the FEAT command introduced
   in [RFC2389] that asks the server to list its supported features.
   One supported EPSV but not FEAT.  In 5 cases, issuing the EPSV
   command to the server led to a significant delay, in 3 cases followed
   by a control channel reset.  All 25 servers were able to successfully
   complete a transfer in traditional passive PASV mode as required by
   [RFC1123].  More tests showed that the use of an address family
   argument with the EPSV command is widely mis- or unimplemented in
   servers.  The additional tests with more servers showed that
   approximately 65% of FTP servers support EPSV successfully and around
   96% support PASV successfully.  Clients were not extensively tested,
   but previous experience from the author suggests that most clients
   support PASV, with the notable exception of the command line client
   included with Windows, which only supports active mode.  This FTP
   client uses the original PORT command when running over IPv4 and EPRT
   when running over IPv6.

   Considering the above, this document describes the following
   recommendations:

      Servers:

      *  Allow EPSV (even for IPv4-only servers)

      *  Use a predictable address in the response to the PASV command

      Clients:





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      *  Use EPSV over IPv6 rather than EPRT

      *  Fall back to PASV if EPSV fails (even over IPv6)

      *  Do not use certain modes and options that trigger server bugs

   Additionally, the document standardizes behavior for application
   layer gateway functionality to provide connectivity between unupdated
   servers and/or clients.  Clients that want to engage in more complex
   behavior, such as server-to-server transfers, may make an FTP ALG go
   into transparent mode by issuing an AUTH command as explained in
   Section 4.1.

   The recommendations and specifications in this document apply to all
   forms of IPv6-to-IPv4 translation, including stateless translation
   such as [RFC2765] or [I-D.ietf-behave-v6v4-xlate] as well as stateful
   translation such as [I-D.ietf-behave-v6v4-xlate-stateful].

   The FTP protocol allows for complex interactions, such as the
   situation where a client connects to two servers and directs the
   servers to exchange data between them.  No attempt is made to address
   these other than through making ALGs transparent after an AUTH
   command.


2.  Notational Conventions

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].


3.  Terminology

   Within the context of this document, the words "client" and "server"
   refer to FTP client and server implementations, respectively.  An FTP
   server is understood to be an implementation of the FTP protocol
   running on a server system with a stable address, waiting for clients
   to connect and issue commands and start data transfers.  Clients
   interact with servers using the FTP protocol, and store (upload
   files) to or retrieve (download files) from one or more servers,
   either interactively under control of a user, or as an unattended
   background process.  Most operating systems provide a web browser
   that implements a basic FTP client, as well as a command line client.
   Third-party FTP clients are also widely available.

   Other terminology is derived from the documents listed in the
   reference section.  Note that this document cannot be fully



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   understood on its own; it depends on background and terminology
   outlined in the references.


4.  ALG functionality

   Many within the IETF community argue that an IP version mismatch
   between FTP clients and FTP servers is better solved by changing
   clients and servers rather than using a translator.  As such, it is
   recommended to update FTP clients and servers as required for IPv6-
   to-IPv4 translation support where possible, to allow proper operation
   of the FTP protocol without the need for ALGs.

   On the other hand, network operators often have little influence over
   the FTP clients their customers run, let alone the FTP servers used
   throughout the Internet.  For those operators, deploying an ALG may
   be the only way to provide a satisfactory customer experience.  So,
   even though not the preferred solution, this document standardizes
   the functionality of such an ALG in order to promote consistent
   behavior between ALGs in an effort to minimize their harmful effects.

   Operators are encouraged to only deploy an FTP ALG for IPv6-to-IPv4
   translation when the FTP ALG is clearly needed.  In the presence of
   the ALG, EPSV commands that could be handled directly by conforming
   servers are translated into PASV commands, introducing unnecessary
   complexity and reducing robustness.  As such a "set and forget"
   policy on ALGs is not recommended.

   Note that the translation of EPSV through all translators and EPRT
   through a stateless translator is relatively simple and translation
   of EPRT through a stateful translator relatively difficult because a
   translation mapping must be set up.  This needs to happen before the
   EPRT command can be translated into a PORT command and passed on to
   the server.  As such, an ALG used with a stateful translator MUST
   support EPSV and MAY support EPRT.  However, an ALG used with a
   stateless translator SHOULD also support EPRT.

   The ALG functionality is described as a function separate from the
   IPv6-to-IPv4 translation function.  However, in the case of EPRT
   translation, the ALG and translator functions need to be tightly
   coupled, so in EPRT translation is supported, it is assumed that the
   ALG and IPv6-to-IPv4 translation functions are integrated within a
   single device.

4.1.  Control channel translation

   The IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG intercepts all TCP sessions towards IPv4
   port 21 destinations.  The FTP ALG implements the Telnet protocol



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   ([RFC0854]) used for control channel interactions to the degree
   necessary to interpret commands and responses and re-issue those
   commands and responses, modifying them as outlined below.  Telnet
   option negotiation attempts by either the client or the server,
   except for those allowed by [RFC1123], MUST be rejected by the FTP
   ALG without relaying those attempts.  This avoids the situation where
   the client and the server negotiate Telnet options unknown to the FTP
   ALG.

   There are two ways to implement the control channel ALG:

   1.  The ALG terminates the IPv6 TCP session, sets up a new IPv4 TCP
       session towards the IPv4 FTP server, and relays commands and
       responses back and forth between the two sessions.

   2.  Packets that are part of the control channel are translated
       individually.

   In the second case, an implementation MUST have the ability to track
   and update TCP sequence numbers when translating packets and break up
   packets into smaller packets after translation, as the control
   channel translation could modify the length of the payload portion of
   the packets in question.  Also, FTP commands/responses or Telnet
   negotiations could straddle packet boundaries, so in order to be able
   to perform the ALG function, it can prove necessary to reconstitute
   Telnet negotiations and FTP commands and responses from multiple
   packets.

   If the client issues the AUTH command the client is attempting to
   negotiate [RFC2228] security mechanisms which are likely to be
   incompatible with the FTP ALG function.  In this situation, the FTP
   ALG MUST switch to transparently forwarding all data on the control
   channel in both directions until the end of the control channel
   session.  This requirement applies regardless of the response from
   the server.  In other words, it is the fact that the client attempts
   the AUTH negotiation that requires the ALG to become transparent,
   whether or not the attempt is successful.  The transparency
   requirement applies to the commands and responses flowing between the
   client and the server.  It is possible that commands or responses
   that were sent through the ALG before the AUTH command was issued
   were changed in length so TCP sequence numbers in packets entering
   the ALG and packets exiting the ALG no longer match.  In transparent
   mode, the ALG MUST continue to adjust sequence numbers if it was
   doing so before entering transparent mode as the result of the AUTH
   command.  The ALGS command (Section 4.7) MAY have a similar effect as
   the AUTH command, depending on the argument used.

   There have been FTP ALGs for the purpose of making active FTP work



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   through IPv4 NATs for a long time.  Another type of ALG would be one
   that imposes restrictions required by security policies.  Multiple
   ALGs can be implemented as a single entity.  If such a multi-purpose
   ALG forbids the use of the AUTH command for policy reasons, the side
   effect of making the ALG stop performing the translations described
   here, as well as other possible interventions related to IPv6-to-IPv4
   translation, MUST be retained even if the ALG responds to the AUTH
   command with an error and does not propagate the command to the
   server.  Implementers are further advised that unlike hosts behind an
   IPv4 NAT, IPv6 hosts using an IPv6-to-IPv4 translator will normally
   have the ability to execute FTP over IPv6 without interference from
   the IPv6-to-IPv4 translator or the ALG, so an IPv6-to-IPv4
   translation FTP ALG is not the best place to implement security
   policies.

4.2.  EPSV to PASV translation

   Although many IPv4 FTP servers support the EPSV command, some servers
   react adversely to this command, and there is no reliable way to
   detect in advance that this will happen.  As such, an FTP ALG MUST
   translate all occurrences of the EPSV command issued by the client to
   the PASV command, and reformat a 227 response as a corresponding 229
   response.  However, an ALG MAY forego EPSV to PASV translation if it
   has positive knowledge, either trough administrative configuration or
   learned dynamically, that EPSV will be successful without translation
   to PASV.

   For instance, if the client issues EPSV (or EPSV 2 to indicate IPv6
   as the network protocol), this is translated to the PASV command.  If
   the server with address 192.0.2.31 then responds with:

      227 Entering Passive Mode (192,0,2,31,237,19)

   The FTP ALG reformats this as:

      229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||60691|)

   The ALG SHOULD ignore the IPv4 address in the server's 227 response.
   This is the behavior that is exhibited by most clients and is needed
   to work with servers that include [RFC1918] addresses in their 227
   responses.  However, if the 227 response contains an IPv4 address
   that does not match the destination of the control channel, the FTP
   ALG MAY send the following response to the client instead of the 229
   response:

      425 Can't open data connection.

   It is important that the response is in the 4xx range to indicate a



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   temporary condition.

   If the client issues an EPSV command with a numeric argument other
   than 2, the ALG MUST NOT pass the command on to the server, but
   rather respond with a 522 error.

   If the client issues EPSV ALL, the FTP ALG MUST NOT pass this command
   to the server, but respond with:

      504 Command not implemented for that parameter.

   This avoids the situation where an FTP server reacts adversely to
   receiving a PASV command after the client indicated that it will only
   use EPSV during this session.

4.3.  EPRT to PORT translation

   Should the IPv6 client issue an EPRT command, the FTP ALG MAY
   translate this EPRT command to a PORT command.  The translation is
   different depending on whether the translator is a stateless one-to-
   one translator or a stateful one-to-many translator.

4.3.1.  Stateless EPRT translation

   If the address specified in the EPRT command is the client's IPv6
   address, then the FTP ALG reformats the EPRT command into a PORT
   command with the IPv4 address that maps to the client's IPv6 address.
   The port number must be preserved for compatibility with stateless
   translators.  For instance, if the client with IPv6 address 2001:db8:
   2::31 issues EPRT the EPRT command:

      EPRT |2|2001:db8:2::31|5282|

   Assuming the IPv4 address that goes with 2001:db8:2::31 is
   192.0.2.31, the FTP ALG reformats this as:

      PORT 192,0,2,31,20,162

   If the address specified in the EPRT command is an IPv4 address or an
   IPv6 address that is not the client's IPv6 address, the ALG's
   response is undefined.  It may pass along the command unchanged,
   respond with an error, or attempt to perform an appropriate
   translation.

   If the address specified in the EPRT command is an IPv4 address or an
   IPv6 address that is the client's IPv6 address, but there is no IPv4
   address that maps to the client's IPv6 address, the ALG responds as
   follows:



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      425 Can't open data connection.

   It is important that the response is in the 4xx range to indicate a
   temporary condition.

4.3.2.  Stateful EPRT translation

   If the address in the EPRT command is the IPv6 address of the control
   channel client's address, the stateful translator selects an unused
   port number in combination with the IPv4 address used for the control
   channel towards the FTP server, and sets up a mapping from that
   transport address to the one specified by the client in the EPRT
   command.  The PORT command with the IPv4 address and port used on the
   IPv4 side of the mapping is only issued towards the server once the
   mapping is created.  Initially, the mapping is such that either any
   transport address or the FTP server's IPv4 address with any port
   number is accepted as a source, but once the three-way handshake is
   complete, the mapping SHOULD be narrowed to only match the negotiated
   TCP session.

   If the address in the EPRT command is not the client's IPv6 address,
   the ALG's response is undefined.

   If the client with IPv6 address 2001:db8:2::31 issues the EPRT
   command:

      EPRT |2|2001:db8:2::31|5282|

   And the stateful translator uses the address 192.0.2.31 on its IPv4
   interface, a mapping with destination address 192.0.2.31 and
   destination port 60192 towards 2001:db8:2::31 port 5282 might be
   created, after which the FTP ALG reformats the EPRT command as:

      PORT 192,0,2,31,235,32

4.4.  Default port 20 translation

   If the client does not issue an EPSV/PASV or EPRT/PORT command prior
   to initiating a file transfer, it is invoking the default active FTP
   behavior where the server sets up a TCP session towards the client.
   In this situation, the source port number is the default FTP data
   port (port 20) and the destination port is the port the client uses
   as the source port in the control channel session.

   In the case of a stateless translator, this does not pose any
   problems.  In the case of a stateful translator, the translator
   SHOULD accept incoming connection requests from the server on the
   IPv4 side if the transport addresses match that of an existing FTP



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   control channel session, with the exception that the control channel
   session uses port 21 and the new session port 20.  In this case, a
   mapping is set up towards the same transport address on the IPv6 side
   that is used for the matching FTP control channel session.

   Note that if multiple clients are using the IPv6-to-IPv4 to
   communicate with the same FTP server, and for each client the IPv6-
   to-IPv4 translator uses the same source address on its IPv4 side,
   incoming FTP data channel sessions cannot be correlated to the
   intended IPv6 host unambiguously.  In such cases, the IPv6-to-IPv4
   translator SHOULD refuse the connection establishment attempt by
   returning a TCP reset packet.  An ALG/translator MAY monitor the
   progress of FTP control channels and only attempt to perform a
   mapping when an FTP client has started a file transfer without
   issuing the EPSV, PASV, EPRT or PORT commands.

4.5.  Both PORT and PASV

   [RFC0959] allows a client to issue both PORT and PASV to use non-
   default ports on both sides of the connection.  However, this is
   incompatible with the notion that with PASV, the data connection is
   made from the client to the server, while PORT reaffirms the default
   behavior where the server connects to the client.  As such, the
   behavior of an ALG is undefined when a client issues both PASV and
   PORT.

4.6.  Default behavior

   Whenever the client issues a command which the ALG is not set up to
   translate, either because the command is not mentioned above, the
   command is not part of any FTP specification, the ALG functionality
   is disabled administratively for the command in question, or
   translation does not apply for any other reason, the command MUST be
   passed on to the server without modification, and the server response
   MUST be passed on to the client without any modification.  For
   example, if the client issues the PASV command, this command is
   passed on to the server transparently, and the server's response to
   the client.

4.7.  The ALGS command

   ALGs SHOULD support the new ALGS (ALG status) command that allows
   clients to query and set the ALG's status.  Note that this command
   MUST NOT be implemented in FTP servers.  Those SHOULD return a 202
   response when encountering the ALGS command.  A client can use the
   ALGS command to request the ALG's status and to enable and disable
   EPSV to PASV and, if implemented, EPRT to PORT translation.  There
   are three possible arguments to the ALGS command:



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   ALGS STATUS64
                   The ALG is requested to return the EPSV and EPRT
                   translation status.

   ALGS ENABLE64
                   The ALG is requested to enable translation.

   ALGS DISABLE64
                   The ALG is requested to disable translation.

   The ALG SHOULD enable or disable translation as requested.  If EPRT
   to PORT translation is supported, ALGS ENABLE64 enables it and ALGS
   DISABLE64 disables it along with enabling or disabling EPSV to PASV
   translation.  If EPRT to PORT translation is not supported, ALGS
   ENABLE64 only enables EPSV to PASV translation.  After an ALGS
   command with any of the three supported arguments, the ALG returns a
   216 response indicating the type of translation that will be
   performed.  There are four possible keywords that follow the 216
   response code:

   216 NONE
                   Neither EPSV nor EPRT translation is performed.

   216 EPSV
                   EPSV is translated to PASV, no EPRT translation is
                   performed.

   216 EPRT
                   EPRT is translated to PORT, no EPSV translation is
                   performed.

   216 EPSVEPRT
                   EPSV is translated to PASV, EPRT is translated to
                   PORT.

   The four letter translation type MAY be followed by a space and
   additional descriptive text until end-of-line.  Failure to set the
   requested translation mode is not an error condition, and is thus
   indicated by the keyword following the 216 response, and not with an
   error code response.

   If the ALGS command is not implemented, a 502 response SHOULD be
   returned.  If there is no argument to the ALGS command, or the
   argument is not one of STATUS64, ENABLE64 or DISABLE64 (or an
   argument specified by a supported newer document), a 504 error SHOULD
   be returned.





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4.8.  Timeouts and translating to NOOP

   Wherever possible, control channels should not time out while there
   is an active data channel.  A timeout of at least 30 seconds is
   recommended for data channel mappings created by the FTP ALG that are
   waiting for initial packets.

   Whenever a command from the client is not propagated to the server,
   the FTP ALG instead issues a NOOP command in order to keep the
   keepalive state between the client and the server synchronized.  The
   response to the NOOP command MUST NOT be relayed back to the client.
   An implementation MAY wait for the server to return the 200 response
   to the NOOP and translate that 200 response into the response the ALG
   is required to return to the client.  This way, the ALG never has to
   create new packets to send to the client, but it can limit itself to
   modifying packets transmitted by the server.  If the server responds
   with something other than 200 to the NOOP command, the ALG MUST tear
   down the control channel session and log an error.


5.  Client recommendations

   All FTP clients are encouraged to support EPSV when communicating
   over IPv6 and always attempt to use EPSV mode unless explicitly
   configured to use EPRT.

   It is highly recommended that FTP clients react by retrying with PASV
   when the EPSV command fails, either because of an error response by
   the server (40x, 42x, 50x and 52x responses), because the data
   connection could not be created or because the control channel
   session was terminated.  When after attempting to initiate EPSV
   and/or EPRT modes unsuccessfully and a client retries with PASV, the
   server will respond to the PASV command with an IPv4 address that the
   client is supposed to use to connect to for the data connection.
   Even if the client has IPv4 reachability, it is better to ignore the
   server-supplied address and set up a data connection towards the IPv6
   address of the server that is used for the control channel session.
   However, in this case the port number used for the data connection is
   taken from the 227 response to the PASV command as usual.

   If a client falls back to PASV after attempting EPSV/EPRT
   unsuccessfully, a client could cache the name or address of the FTP
   server and issue PASV rather than EPSV in future sessions.  In that
   case, the cache entry might be cleared if sufficient time has passed
   that the server may have been updated.  The suggested time for
   removal of a server from this case is 7 days, 1 day when the server
   indicates EPSV support in its FEAT response where it previously did
   not.



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   There is always a risk that an error was the result of a condition
   unrelated to IPv6-to-IPv4 translation.  However, retrying with a PASV
   request has little potential for harm, so unless the error is clearly
   unrelated, retrying with PASV is the appropriate reaction.

   The main rationale for ignoring the IPv4 address in the 227 response,
   even if the client has IPv4 connectivity, most servers will only
   allow a data connection from the same client address as seen in the
   control channel connection, see [Bernstein].  Using IPv6 for the
   control channel and IPv4 for the data channel means that the source
   address will almost certainly be different in both cases, making it
   unlikely that the data connection can be established successfully.
   Also, IPv4 reachability towards the server-supplied address may or
   may not exist, while IPv6 reachability has been established by virtue
   of the control channel connection.

   Clients do best to refrain from using any arguments with the EPSV
   command.  "EPSV 2" to request IPv6 will fail across an IPv6-to-IPv4
   translator.  Also, this command is often not handled properly by IPv6
   servers.  "EPSV ALL" indicates that the client will use EPSV for all
   transfers, but an ALG could translate EPSV commands to PASV commands,
   conflicting with the earlier "EPSV ALL", so the control channel
   session cannot be continued successfully.


6.  Server recommendations

   As EPSV works through IPv6-to-IPv4 translation transparently without
   additional effort on the part of the client, the server or an
   application layer gateway, it is highly recommended that all servers
   implement EPSV.

   [RFC2428] suggests that the EPSV mode is useful both for clients with
   IPv6 connectivity and for clients operating behind a NAT device.
   Hence, it is common for IPv6-capable clients to use EPSV even when
   communicating over IPv4.  If a server does not implement EPSV and
   responds with a 501 or 502 error, the client simply retries with
   PASV.  This works well with both servers that have working EPSV and
   servers that do not implement EPSV.  However, there is a class of
   servers that does implement EPSV, but is unable to use EPSV mode
   because the data connection cannot be established successfully.  This
   is very likely the result of a middlebox monitoring the control
   channel interactions, and creating firewall or translation state
   according to the information 227 response after a PASV command.  With
   the EPSV command, there is a 229 response and no 227 response, so if
   the server supports EPSV but the middlebox does not, the result is
   that the data connection cannot be established and the data transfer
   fails.



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   To avoid this, it is highly recommended that server implementers
   include a configuration setting that makes it possible to disable
   EPSV and EPRT support and respond with a 502 (command not
   implemented) error instead.  Server operators can thus disable EPSV
   support in servers located behind PASV-only middleboxes so clients
   that issue EPSV can fall back to PASV gracefully rather than time
   out.

   The test performed by Dan Wing showed that existing implementations
   tend to present the address used for the server side of the control
   channel connection in the 227 response to a PASV command.  Clients
   following the recommendations in this document depend on this
   behavior and it allows ALGs to translate a 227 PASV response to a 229
   EPSV response without loss of information; as such it is highly
   recommended that servers continue to implement this limitation.
   Later tests showed that some servers list [RFC1918] addresses in
   their 227 responses.  Many of these servers were known to reside
   behind NAT devices.  In these cases, ignoring the address in the 227
   response is the desired behavior.

   Many servers that support the FEAT command do not list EPSV and EPRT
   as a supported feature in the response to the FEAT command.  It is
   recommended that EPSV and EPRT capability is included in the FEAT
   response, unless EPSV and/or EPRT are administratively disabled as
   outlined above.


7.  IANA considerations

   None.


8.  Security considerations

   In the majority of cases, FTP is used without further security
   mechanisms.  This allows an attacker with passive interception
   capabilities to obtain the login credentials, and an attacker that
   can modify packets to change the data transferred.  However, FTP can
   be used with TLS in order to solve these issues.  IPv6-to-IPv4
   translation and the FTP ALG do not impact the security issues in the
   former case nor the use of TLS in the latter case.  However, if FTP
   is used with TLS or another authentication mechanism, the ALG
   function is not performed so only passive transfers from a server
   that implements EPSV or a client that supports PASV will succeed.







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9.  Contributors

   Dan Wing, Kentaro Ebisawa, Remi Denis-Courmont, Mayuresh Bakshi,
   Sarat Kamisetty, Reinaldo Penno, Alun Jones, Dave Thaler, Mohammed
   Boucadair, Mikael Abrahamsson, Dapeng Liu and Michael Liu contributed
   ideas and comments.  Dan Wing ran experiments with a large number of
   FTP servers that were very illuminating; many of the choices
   underlying this document are based on his results.  This document
   adopts several design decisions from [I-D.liu-behave-ftp64].


10.  Acknowledgements

   Iljitsch van Beijnum is partly funded by Trilogy, a research project
   supported by the European Commission under its Seventh Framework
   Program.


11.  References

11.1.  Normative References

   [RFC0854]  Postel, J. and J. Reynolds, "Telnet Protocol
              Specification", STD 8, RFC 854, May 1983.

   [RFC0959]  Postel, J. and J. Reynolds, "File Transfer Protocol",
              STD 9, RFC 959, October 1985.

   [RFC1123]  Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts - Application
              and Support", STD 3, RFC 1123, October 1989.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2389]  Hethmon, P. and R. Elz, "Feature negotiation mechanism for
              the File Transfer Protocol", RFC 2389, August 1998.

   [RFC2228]  Horowitz, M., "FTP Security Extensions", RFC 2228,
              October 1997.

   [RFC2428]  Allman, M., Ostermann, S., and C. Metz, "FTP Extensions
              for IPv6 and NATs", RFC 2428, September 1998.

11.2.  Informative References

   [RFC1918]  Rekhter, Y., Moskowitz, R., Karrenberg, D., Groot, G., and
              E. Lear, "Address Allocation for Private Internets",
              BCP 5, RFC 1918, February 1996.



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   [RFC2765]  Nordmark, E., "Stateless IP/ICMP Translation Algorithm
              (SIIT)", RFC 2765, February 2000.

   [I-D.ietf-behave-v6v4-xlate-stateful]
              Bagnulo, M., Matthews, P., and I. Beijnum, "Stateful
              NAT64: Network Address and Protocol Translation from IPv6
              Clients to IPv4 Servers",
              draft-ietf-behave-v6v4-xlate-stateful-11 (work in
              progress), March 2010.

   [I-D.ietf-behave-v6v4-xlate]
              Li, X., Bao, C., and F. Baker, "IP/ICMP Translation
              Algorithm", draft-ietf-behave-v6v4-xlate-05 (work in
              progress), December 2009.

   [I-D.liu-behave-ftp64]
              Liu, D. and Z. Cao, "IPv6 IPv4 translation FTP
              considerations", draft-liu-behave-ftp64-03 (work in
              progress), August 2009.

   [Bernstein]
              Bernstein, D., "PASV security and PORT security", 2000,
              <http://cr.yp.to/ftp/security.html>.


Appendix A.  Document and discussion information

   Please direct questions and comments to the BEHAVE mailinglist.  The
   latest version of this document will always be available at
   http://www.muada.com/drafts/.


Author's Address

   Iljitsch van Beijnum
   IMDEA Networks
   Avda. del Mar Mediterraneo, 22
   Leganes, Madrid  28918
   Spain

   Email: iljitsch@muada.com










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