DHC Working Group Ted Lemon INTERNET DRAFT Nominum Expires: January 2005 Bill Sommerfeld Internet Draft Sun Microsystems Document: <draft-ietf-dhc-3315id-for-v4-03.txt> Category: Standards Track July, 2004 Node-Specific Client Identifiers for DHCPv4 Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, I certify that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which I am aware have been disclosed, or will be disclosed, and any of which I become aware will be disclosed, in accordance with RFC 3668. This document is a submission by the Dynamic Host Configuration Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Comments should be submitted to the dhcwg@ietf.org mailing list. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. 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 a "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html Abstract This document specifies the format that is to be used for encoding DHCPv4 [RFC2131 and RFC2132] client identifiers, so that those identifiers will be interchangeable with identifiers used in the DHCPv6 protocol [RFC3315]. Introduction This document specifies the way in which DHCPv4 clients should identify themselves. DHCPv4 client implementations that conform to this specification use a DHCPv6-style DHCP Unique Identifier (DUID) encapsulated in a DHCPv4 client identifier option. This supersedes the behaviour specified in RFC2131 and RFC2132. Lemon & Sommerfeld Expires January, 2005 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft Node-specific Identifiers for DHCPv4 July 2004 The reason for making this change is that as we make the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, there will be network devices that must use both DHCPv4 and DHCPv6. Users of these devices will have a smoother network experience if the devices identify themselves consistently, regardless of the version of DHCP they are using at any given moment. Most obviously, DNS updates made by the DHCP server on behalf of the client will not be handled correctly. This change also addresses certain limitations in the functioning of RFC2131/2132-style DHCP client identifiers. This document first describes the problem to be solved. It then states the new technique that is to be used to solve the problem. Finally, it describes the specific changes that one would have to make to RFC2131 and RFC2132 in order for those documents not to contradict what is described in this document. 1.0 Applicability This document updates RFC2131 and RFC2132. DHCPv4 server implementations SHOULD conform to this document. DHCPv4 clients on network devices that are expected to support DHCPv6 in the future SHOULD conform to this document. This document makes no changes to the behavior of DHCPv6 clients or servers. DHCPv4 clients and servers that are implemented according to this document should be implemented as if the changes specified in section 4.3 and 4.4 have been made to RFC2131 and RFC2132. 2.0 Problem Statement 2.1. Client identities are ephemeral RFC2132 recommends that client identifiers be generated by using the permanent link-layer address of the network interface that the client is trying to configure. In cases where a network interface is removed from the client computer and replaced with a different network interface with a different permanent link-layer address, the identity of the client changes. The client loses its IP address and any other resources associated with its old identifier - for example, its domain name as published through the DHCPv4 server. 2.2. Clients can accidentally present multiple identities Consider a DHCPv4 client that has two network interfaces, one of which is wired and one of which is wireless. The DHCPv4 client will succeed in configuring either zero, one, or two network interfaces. Under the current specification, each network interface will receive a different IP address. The DHCPv4 server will treat each network interface as a completely independent DHCPv4 client, on a completely independent host. Lemon & Sommerfeld Expires January, 2005 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft Node-specific Identifiers for DHCPv4 July 2004 Thus, when the client presents some information to be updated in a network directory service, such as the DNS, the name that is presented will be the same on both interfaces, but the identity that is presented will be different. What will happen is that one of the two interfaces will get the name, and will retain that name as long as it has a valid lease, even if it loses its connection to the network, while the other network interface will never get the name. In some cases, this will achieve the desired result - when only one network interface is connected, sometimes its IP address will be published. In some cases, the one connected interface's IP address will not be the one that is published. When there are two interfaces, sometimes the correct one will be published, and sometimes not. This is likely to be a particular problem with modern laptops, which usually have built-in wireless ethernet and wired ethernet. When the user is near a wired outlet, he or she may want the additional speed and privacy provided by a wired connection, but that same user may unplug from the wired network and wander around, still connected to the wireless network. When a transition like this happens, under the current scheme, if the address of the wired interface is the one that gets published, this client will be seen by hosts attempting to connect to it as if it has intermittent connectivity, even though it actually has continuous network connectivity through the wireless port. 2.3. RFC2131/2132 and RFC3315 identifiers are incompatible The 'client identifier' option is used by DHCPv4 clients and servers to identify clients. In some cases, the value of the 'client identifier' option is used to mediate access to resources (for example, the client's domain name, as published through the DHCPv4 server). RFC2132 and RFC3315 specify different methods for deriving client identifiers. These methods guarantee that the DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 identifier will be different. This means that mediation of access to resources using these identifiers will not work correctly in cases where a node may be configured using DHCPv4 in some cases and DHCPv6 in other cases. 2.4. RFC2131 does not require the use of a client identifier RFC2131 allows the DHCPv4 server to identify clients either by using the client identifier option sent by the client, or, if the client did not send one, the client's link-layer address. Like the client identifier format recommended by RFC2131, this suffers from the problems previously described in (2) and (3). Lemon & Sommerfeld Expires January, 2005 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft Node-specific Identifiers for DHCPv4 July 2004 3. Requirements In order to address the problems stated in section 2, DHCPv4 client identifiers must have the following characteristics: - They must be persistent, in the sense that a particular host's client identifier must not change simply because a piece of network hardware is added or removed. - It must be possible for the client to represent itself as having more than one network identity - for example so that a client with two network interfaces can express to the DHCPv4 server that these two network interfaces are to receive different IP addresses, even if they happen to be connected to the same link. - It must be possible, in cases where the DHCPv4 client is expressing more than one network identity at the same time, it must nevertheless be possible for the DHCPv4 server to determine that the two network identities belong to the same host. - It must be possible for a client that is prepared to handle the case where two or more network interfaces have the same IP address to use exactly the same identifier for each interface. - DHCPv4 servers that do not conform to this specification, but that are compliant with the older client identifier specification, must correctly handle client identifiers sent by clients that conform to this specification. - DHCPv4 servers that do conform to this specification must interoperate correctly with DHCPv4 clients that do not conform to this specification, except that when configuring such clients, behaviors such as those described in section two may occur. - The use by DHCPv4 clients of the chaddr field of the DHCPv4 packet as an identifier must be deprecated. - DHCPv4 client identifiers used by dual-stack hosts that also use DHCPv6 must use the same host identification string for both DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 - for example, a DHCPv4 server that uses the client's identity to update the DNS on behalf of a DHCPv4 client must register the same client identity in the DNS that would be registered by the DHCPv6 server on behalf of the DHCPv6 client running on that host, and vice versa. In order to satisfy all but the last of these requirements, we need to construct a DHCPv4 client identifier out of two parts. One part must be unique to the host on which the client is running. The other must be unique to the network identity being presented. The DHCP Unique Identifier (DUID) and Identity Association Identifier (IAID) specified in RFC3315 satisfy these requirements. And in Lemon & Sommerfeld Expires January, 2005 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft Node-specific Identifiers for DHCPv4 July 2004 order to satisfy the last requirement, we must use the DUID to identify the DHCPv4 client. So, taking all the requirements together, the DUID and IAID described in RFC3315 are the only possible solution. 4. Implementation Here we specify changes to the behavior of DHCPv4 clients and servers. We also specify changes to the wording in RFC2131 and RFC2132. DHCPv4 clients, servers and relay agents that conform to this specification must implement RFC2131 and RFC2132 with the wording changes specified in sections 4.3 and 4.4. 4.1. DHCPv4 Client behavior DHCPv4 clients conforming to this specification MUST use stable DHCPv4 node identifiers in the dhcp-client-identifier option. DHCPv4 clients MUST NOT use client identifiers based solely on layer two addresses that are hard-wired to the layer two device (e.g., the ethernet MAC address) as suggested in RFC2131, except as allowed in section 9.2 of RFC3315. DHCPv4 clients MUST send a 'client identifier' option containing an Identity Association Unique Identifier, as defined in section 10 of RFC3315, and a DHCP Unique Identifier, as defined in section 9 of RFC3315. These together constitute an RFC3315-style binding identifier. The general format of the DHCPv4 'client identifier' option is defined in section 9.14 of RFC2132. To send an RFC3315-style binding identifiier in a DHCPv4 'client identifier' option, the type of the 'client identifier' option is set to 255. The type field is immediately followed by the IAID, which is an opaque 32-bit quantity. The IAID is immediately followed by the DUID, which consumes the remaining contents of the 'client identifier' option. The format of the 'client identifier' option is as follows: Code Len Type IAID DUID +----+----+-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+--- | 61 | n | 255 | i1 | i2 | i3 | i4 | d1 | d2 |... +----+----+-----+----+----+----+----+----+----+--- Any DHCPv4 or DHCPv6 client that conforms to this specification SHOULD provide a means by which an operator can learn what DUID the client has chosen. Such clients SHOULD also provide a means by which the operator can configure the DUID. A device that is normally configured with both a DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 client SHOULD automatically use the same DUID for DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 without any operator intervention. Lemon & Sommerfeld Expires January, 2005 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft Node-specific Identifiers for DHCPv4 July 2004 DHCPv4 clients that support more than one network interface SHOULD use the same DUID on every interface. DHCPv4 clients that support more than one network interface SHOULD use a different IAID on each interface. 4.2. DHCPv4 Server behavior This document does not require any change to DHCPv4 or DHCPv6 servers that follow RFC2131 and RFC2132. However, some DHCPv4 servers can be configured not to conform to RFC2131 and RFC2131, in the sense that they ignore the 'client identifier' option and use the client's hardware address instead. DHCPv4 servers that conform to this specification MUST use the 'client identifier' option to identify the client if the client sends it. DHCPv4 servers MAY use administrator-supplied values for chaddr and htype to identify the client in the case where the administrator is assigning a fixed IP address to the client, even if the client sends an client identifier option. This is ONLY permitted in the case where the DHCPv4 server administrator has provided the values for chaddr and htype, because in this case if it causes a problem, the administrator can correct the problem by removing the offending configuration information. 4.3. Changes from RFC2131 In section 2 of RFC2131, on page 9, the text that reads "; for example, the 'client identifier' may contain a hardware address, identical to the contents of the 'chaddr' field, or it may contain another type of identifier, such as a DNS name" is deleted. In section 4.2 of RFC2131, the text "The client MAY choose to explicitly provide the identifier through the 'client identifier' option. If the client supplies a 'client identifier', the client MUST use the same 'client identifier' in all subsequent messages, and the server MUST use that identifier to identify the client. If the client does not provide a 'client identifier' option, the server MUST use the contents of the 'chaddr' field to identify the client." is replaced by the text "The client MUST explicitly provide a client identifier through the 'client identifier' option. The client MUST use the same 'client identifier' option for all messages." In the same section, the text "Use of 'chaddr' as the client's unique identifier may cause unexpected results, as that identifier may be associated with a hardware interface that could be moved to a new client. Some sites may choose to use a manufacturer's serial number as the 'client identifier', to avoid unexpected changes in a clients network address due to transfer of hardware interfaces Lemon & Sommerfeld Expires January, 2005 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft Node-specific Identifiers for DHCPv4 July 2004 among computers. Sites may also choose to use a DNS name as the 'client identifier', causing address leases to be associated with the DNS name rather than a specific hardware box." is replaced by the text "The DHCP client MUST NOT rely on the 'chaddr' field to identify it." In section 4.4.1 of RFC2131, the text "The client MAY include a different unique identifier" is replaced with "The client MUST include a unique identifier". In sections 3.1, item 4 and 6, 3.2 item 3 and 4, and 4.3.1, where RFC2131 says that 'chaddr' may be used instead of the 'client identifier' option, the text that says "or 'chaddr'" and "'chaddr' or" is deleted. Note that these changes do not relieve the DHCPv4 server of the obligation to use 'chaddr' as an identifier if the client does not send a 'client identifier' option. Rather, they oblige clients that conform with this document to send a 'client identifier' option, and not rely on 'chaddr' for identification. DHCPv4 servers MUST use 'chaddr' as an identifier in cases where 'client identifier' is not sent, in order to support old clients that do not conform with this document. 4.4. Changes from RFC2132 The text in section 9.14, beginning with "The client identifier MAY consist of" through "that meet this requirement for uniqueness." is replaced with "the client identifier consists of a type field whose value is normally 255, followed by a two-byte type field, followed by the contents of the identifier. The two-byte type field and the format of the contents of the identifier are defined in RF3315, section 9." The text "its minimum length is 2" in the following paragraph is deleted. 5. Security Considerations This document raises no new security issues. Potential exposure to attack in the DHCPv4 protocol are discussed in section 7 of the DHCP protocol specification [RFC2131] and in Authentication for DHCP messages [RFC3118]. Potential exposure to attack in the DHCPv6 protocol is discussed in section 23 of RFC3315. 6. IANA Considerations This document defines no new name spaces that need to be administered by the IANA. This document deprecates all 'client identifier' type codes other than 255, and thus there is no need for the IANA to track additional possible values for the type field of the 'client identifier' option. Lemon & Sommerfeld Expires January, 2005 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft Node-specific Identifiers for DHCPv4 July 2004 7. Normative References [RFC2131] Droms, R., "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol", RFC 2131, March 1997. [RFC2132] S. Alexander, R. Droms, "DHCP Options and BOOTP Vendor Extensions", RFC2132, March, 1997 [RFC3315] Droms, R., Bound, J., Volz, B., Lemon, T., Perkins, C., Carney, M., "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPV6)", July, 2003 8. Informative References [RFC3118] Droms, R., Arbaugh, W., "Authentication for DHCP Messages", RFC3118, June, 2001 Author's Addresses Ted Lemon Nominum 2385 Bay Road Redwood City, CA 94063 USA +1 650 381 6000 mellon@nominum.com Bill Sommerfeld Sun Microsystems 1 Network Drive Burlington, MA 01824 +1 781 442 3458 sommerfeld@sun.com Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003-2004). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION 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. Lemon & Sommerfeld Expires January, 2005 [Page 8]
