Network Working Group JP. Dionne
Internet-Draft S. Perreault
Intended status: Informational Viagenie
Expires: January 16, 2014 T. Tsou
Huawei Technologies (USA)
C. Zhou
Huawei Technologies
July 15, 2013
Gap Analysis for IPv4 Sunset
draft-ietf-sunset4-gapanalysis-03
Abstract
Sunsetting IPv4 refers to the process of turning off IPv4
definitively. It can be seen as the final phase of the migration to
IPv6. This memo enumerates difficulties arising when sunsetting
IPv4, and identifies the gaps requiring additional work.
Status of This Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on January 16, 2014.
Copyright Notice
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document authors. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Related Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. Remotely Disabling IPv4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1. Indicating that IPv4 connectivity is unavailable . . . . 3
3.2. Disabling IPv4 in the LAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Client Connection Establishment Behavior . . . . . . . . . . 3
5. Disabling IPv4 in Operating System and Applications . . . . . 4
6. On-Demand Provisioning of IPv4 Addresses . . . . . . . . . . 4
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
9. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
10. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Appendix A. Solution Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
A.1. Remotely Disabling IPv4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
A.1.1. Indicating that IPv4 connectivity is unavailable . . 7
A.1.2. Disabling IPv4 in the LAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
A.2. Client Connection Establishment Behavior . . . . . . . . 7
A.3. Disabling IPv4 in Operating System and Applications . . . 8
A.4. On-Demand Provisioning of IPv4 Addresses . . . . . . . . 8
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1. Introduction
The final phase of the migration to IPv6 is the sunset of IPv4, that
is turning off IPv4 definitively on the attached networks and on the
upstream networks.
Some current implementation behavior makes it hard to sunset IPv4.
Additionally, some new features could be added to IPv4 to make its
sunsetting easier. This document analyzes the current situation and
proposes new work in this area.
The decision about when to turn off IPv4 is out of scope. This
document merely attempts to enumerate the issues one might encounter
if that decision is made.
2. Related Work
[RFC3789], [RFC3790],[RFC3791], [RFC3792], [RFC3793], [RFC3794],
[RFC3795] and [RFC3796] contain surveys of IETF protocols with their
IPv4 dependencies.
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3. Remotely Disabling IPv4
3.1. Indicating that IPv4 connectivity is unavailable
PROBLEM 1: When an IPv4 node boots and requests an IPv4 address
(e.g., using DHCP), it typically interprets the absence of a
response as a failure condition even when it is not.
PROBLEM 2: Home router devices often identify themselves as default
routers in DHCP responses that they send to requests coming from
the LAN, even in the absence of IPv4 connectivity on the WAN.
3.2. Disabling IPv4 in the LAN
PROBLEM 3: IPv4-enabled hosts inside an IPv6-only LAN can auto-
configure IPv4 addresses [RFC3927] and enable various protocols
over IPv4 such as mDNS [I-D.cheshire-dnsext-multicastdns] and
LLMNR [RFC4795]. This can be undesirable for operational or
security reasons, since in the absence of IPv4, no monitoring or
logging of IPv4 will be in place.
PROBLEM 4: IPv4 can be completely disabled on a link by filtering it
on the L2 switching device. However, this may not be possible in
all cases or may be too complex to deploy. For example, an ISP is
often not able to control the L2 switching device in the
subscriber home network.
PROBLEM 5: A host with only Link-Local IPv4 addresses will "ARP for
everything", as described in Section 2.6.2 of [RFC3927].
Applications running on such a host connected to an IPv6-only
network will believe that IPv4 connectivity is available,
resulting in various bad or sub-optimal behavior patterns. See
[I-D.yourtchenko-ipv6-disable-ipv4-proxyarp] for further analysis.
Some of these problems were described in [RFC2563], which
standardized a DHCP option to disable IPv4 address auto-
configuration. However, using this option requires running an IPv4
DHCP server, which is contrary to the goal of IPv4 sunsetting.
4. Client Connection Establishment Behavior
PROBLEM 6: Happy Eyeballs [RFC6555] refers to multiple approaches to
dual-stack client implementations that try to reduce connection
setup delays by trying both IPv4 and IPv6 paths simultaneously.
Some implementations introduce delays which provide an advantage
to IPv6, while others do not [Huston2012]. The latter will pick
the fastest path, no matter whether it is over IPv4 or IPv6,
directing more traffic over IPv4 than the other kind of
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implementations. This can prove problematic in the context of
IPv4 sunsetting, especially for Carrier-Grade NAT phasing out
because CGN does not add significant latency that would make the
IPv6 path more preferable. Traffic will therefore continue using
the CGN path unless other network conditions change.
PROBLEM 7: getaddrinfo() [RFC3493] sends DNS queries for both A and
AAAA records regardless of the state of IPv4 or IPv6 availability.
The AI_ADDRCONFIG flag can be used to change this behavior, but it
relies on programmers using the getaddrinfo() function to always
pass this flag to the function. The current situation is that in
an IPv6-only environment, many useless A queries are made.
5. Disabling IPv4 in Operating System and Applications
It is possible to completely remove IPv4 support from an operating
system as has been shown by the work of Bjoern Zeeb on FreeBSD.
[Zeeb] Removing IPv4 support in the kernel revealed many IPv4
dependencies in libraries and applications.
PROBLEM 8: Completely disabling IPv4 at runtime often reveals
implementation bugs. Hard-coded dependencies on IPv4 abound, such
as on the 127.0.0.1 address assigned to the loopback interface.
It is therefore often operationally impossible to completely
disable IPv4 on individual nodes.
PROBLEM 9: In an IPv6-only world, legacy IPv4 code in operating
systems and applications incurs a maintenance overhead and can
present security risks.
6. On-Demand Provisioning of IPv4 Addresses
As IPv6 usage climbs, the usefulness of IPv4 addresses to subscribers
will become smaller. This could be exploited by an ISP to save IPv4
addresses by provisioning them on-demand to subscribers and
reclaiming them when they are no longer used. This idea is described
in [I-D.fleischhauer-ipv4-addr-saving] and [BBF.TR242] for the
context of PPP sessions. In these scenarios, the home router is
responsible for requesting and releasing IPv4 addresses, based on
snooping the traffic generated by the hosts in the LAN, which are
still dual-stack and unaware that their traffic is being snooped.
PROBLEM 10: Dual-stack hosts that implement Happy-Eyeballs [RFC6555]
will generate both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic even if the algorithm end
up chooosing IPv6. This means that an IPv4 address will always be
requested by the home router, which defeats the purpose of on-
demand provisioning.
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PROBLEM 11: Many operating systems periodically perform some kind of
network connectivity check as long as an interface is up.
Similarly, applications often send keep-alive traffic
continuously. This permanent "background noise" will prevent an
IPv4 address from being released by the home router.
PROBLEM 12: Hosts in the LAN have no knowledge that IPv4 is available
to them on-demand only. If they had explicit knowledge of this
fact, they could tune their behaviour so as to be more
conservative in their use of IPv4.
PROBLEM 13: This mechanism is only being proposed for PPP even though
it could apply to other provisioning protocols (e.g., DHCP).
7. IANA Considerations
None.
8. Security Considerations
It is believed that none of the problems identified in this draft are
security issues.
9. Acknowledgements
Thanks in particular to Nejc Skoberne and Lee Howard for their
thorough reviews and comments.
Special thanks to Marc Blanchet who was the driving force behind this
work.
10. Informative References
[BBF.TR242]
Broadband Forum, "TR-242: IPv6 Transition Mechanisms for
Broadband Networks", August 2012.
[Huston2012]
Huston, G. and G. Michaelson, "RIPE 64: Analysing Dual
Stack Behaviour and IPv6 Quality", April 2012.
[I-D.cheshire-dnsext-multicastdns]
Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "Multicast DNS", draft-
cheshire-dnsext-multicastdns-15 (work in progress),
December 2011.
[I-D.fleischhauer-ipv4-addr-saving]
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Fleischhauer, K. and O. Bonness, "On demand IPv4 address
provisioning in Dual-Stack PPP deployment scenarios",
draft-fleischhauer-ipv4-addr-saving-03 (work in progress),
August 2012.
[I-D.yourtchenko-ipv6-disable-ipv4-proxyarp]
Yourtchenko, A. and O. Owen, "Disable "Proxy ARP for
Everything" on IPv4 link-local in the presence of IPv6
global address", draft-yourtchenko-ipv6-disable-
ipv4-proxyarp-00 (work in progress), May 2013.
[RFC2563] Troll, R., "DHCP Option to Disable Stateless Auto-
Configuration in IPv4 Clients", RFC 2563, May 1999.
[RFC3493] Gilligan, R., Thomson, S., Bound, J., McCann, J., and W.
Stevens, "Basic Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6", RFC
3493, February 2003.
[RFC3789] Nesser, P. and A. Bergstrom, "Introduction to the Survey
of IPv4 Addresses in Currently Deployed IETF Standards
Track and Experimental Documents", RFC 3789, June 2004.
[RFC3790] Mickles, C. and P. Nesser, "Survey of IPv4 Addresses in
Currently Deployed IETF Internet Area Standards Track and
Experimental Documents", RFC 3790, June 2004.
[RFC3791] Olvera, C. and P. Nesser, "Survey of IPv4 Addresses in
Currently Deployed IETF Routing Area Standards Track and
Experimental Documents", RFC 3791, June 2004.
[RFC3792] Nesser, P. and A. Bergstrom, "Survey of IPv4 Addresses in
Currently Deployed IETF Security Area Standards Track and
Experimental Documents", RFC 3792, June 2004.
[RFC3793] Nesser, P. and A. Bergstrom, "Survey of IPv4 Addresses in
Currently Deployed IETF Sub-IP Area Standards Track and
Experimental Documents", RFC 3793, June 2004.
[RFC3794] Nesser, P. and A. Bergstrom, "Survey of IPv4 Addresses in
Currently Deployed IETF Transport Area Standards Track and
Experimental Documents", RFC 3794, June 2004.
[RFC3795] Sofia, R. and P. Nesser, "Survey of IPv4 Addresses in
Currently Deployed IETF Application Area Standards Track
and Experimental Documents", RFC 3795, June 2004.
[RFC3796] Nesser, P. and A. Bergstrom, "Survey of IPv4 Addresses in
Currently Deployed IETF Operations & Management Area
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Standards Track and Experimental Documents", RFC 3796,
June 2004.
[RFC3927] Cheshire, S., Aboba, B., and E. Guttman, "Dynamic
Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses", RFC 3927, May
2005.
[RFC4795] Aboba, B., Thaler, D., and L. Esibov, "Link-local
Multicast Name Resolution (LLMNR)", RFC 4795, January
2007.
[RFC6555] Wing, D. and A. Yourtchenko, "Happy Eyeballs: Success with
Dual-Stack Hosts", RFC 6555, April 2012.
[Zeeb] , "FreeBSD Snapshots without IPv4 support", ,
<http://wiki.freebsd.org/IPv6Only>.
Appendix A. Solution Ideas
A.1. Remotely Disabling IPv4
A.1.1. Indicating that IPv4 connectivity is unavailable
One way to address these issues is to send a signal to a dual-stack
node that IPv4 connectivity is unavailable. Given that IPv4 shall be
off, the message must be delivered through IPv6.
A.1.2. Disabling IPv4 in the LAN
One way to address these issues is to send a signal to a dual-stack
node that auto-configuration of IPv4 addresses is undesirable, or
that direct IPv4 communication between nodes on the same link should
not take place.
A signalling protocol equivalent to the one from [RFC2563] but over
IPv6 is necessary, using either Router Advertisements or DHCPv6.
Furthermore, it could be useful to have L2 switches snoop this
signalling and automatically start filtering IPv4 traffic as a
consequence.
Finally, it could be useful to publish guidelines on how to safely
block IPv4 on an L2 switch.
A.2. Client Connection Establishment Behavior
Recommendations on client connection establishment behavior that
would facilitate IPv4 sunsetting would be appropriate.
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A.3. Disabling IPv4 in Operating System and Applications
It would be useful for the IETF to provide guidelines to programmers
on how to avoid creating dependencies on IPv4, how to discover
existing dependencies, and how to eliminate them. Having programs
and operating systems that behave well in an IPv6-only environment is
a prerequisite for IPv4 sunsetting.
A.4. On-Demand Provisioning of IPv4 Addresses
No idea.
Authors' Addresses
Jean-Philippe Dionne
Viagenie
246 Aberdeen
Quebec, QC G1R 2E1
Canada
Phone: +1 418 656 9254
Email: jean-philippe.dionne@viagenie.ca
URI: http://viagenie.ca
Simon Perreault
Viagenie
246 Aberdeen
Quebec, QC G1R 2E1
Canada
Phone: +1 418 656 9254
Email: simon.perreault@viagenie.ca
URI: http://viagenie.ca
Tina Tsou
Huawei Technologies (USA)
2330 Central Expressway
Santa Clara, CA 95050
USA
Phone: +1 408 330 4424
Email: tina.tsou.zouting@huawei.com
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Cathy Zhou
Huawei Technologies
Huawei Industrial Base
Bantian, Shenzhen
China
Email: cathy.zhou@huawei.com
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