Internet Engineering Task Force S. Kawamura
Internet-Draft NEC BIGLOBE, Ltd.
Intended status: Informational E. Jankiewicz
Expires: June 12, 2011 SRI International, Inc.
December 9, 2010
A Basic Guideline for Listing ISPs that Run IPv6
draft-kawamura-ipv6-isp-listings-01
Abstract
There are many web sites that list IPv6 enabled service providers, or
attempt to categorize the IPv6 capability of ISPs. While these
opinions are helpful, there is no standard criteria used by the
sites, so it is difficult to compare the results. This document
surveys current listings, and proposes a set of guidelines that could
be taken into consideration by theses sites, or by anyone looking to
evaluate an ISP's IPv6 capability. This guideline can also be used
as a checklist by ISPs planning activation of IPv6 in their network.
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
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This Internet-Draft will expire on June 12, 2011.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
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described in the Simplified BSD License.
1. Introduction
There are many web sites that give listings of IPv6 enabled service
providers, or rate ISPs according to their IPv6 enabledness.
Appendix A gives examples of these.
There are several motivations for these listings which benefit both
the ISPs and the users. It gives ISPs a goal to work for in turning
up IPv6, i.e. earning a rating as "IPv6 capable". It also can be
used by ISPs for publicity, a platform for telling the world that
their service is ready for IPv4 address exhaustion. Listings can
also be a guide for users to select the IPv6 capability they want
when they choose their ISP, assuming they have a choice in their
service area.
This document surveys examples of currently known listings, and
proposes a set of basic guidelines that can be used in revised or new
listings like this or by individuals evaluating an ISP's capability.
These guidelines would help those that intend to start such programs.
It may also help in keeping one listing or rating guideline from
being widely different from another, so it would not confuse users
who decided to choose ISPs on the basis that the ISP is on one of
these IPv6 enabled service provider listings.
1.1. Requirements Language
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 RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
2. Examples of Listing Criteria
2.1. IPv6 Enabled Program
The IPv6 enabled program (http://ipv6forum.org/ipv6_enabled/) lists
ISPs at two levels: basic and advanced. At the time of this writing,
the advanced level list has not been started yet. The requirements
for being listed in the basic list are, to have a prefix assigned or
allocated (IPv6 enabled program does not check if the prefix is an
assignment or allocation), have a global AS route it, and keep
reachability as much as possible.
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The IPv6 Enabled Program checks the following.
2.1.1. Network Accessibility
The ISP's AS number is checked against a database to see if the AS
exists and is unique.
2.1.2. Active IPv6 Address Requirement
The ISP's IPv6 prefix is checked against a database to see if the
applying ISP is the rightful owner. Actual traffic to the prefix
from a customer is also checked. Checking at the time of writing is
done by using a script that the ISP will paste to a web site, and the
script checks if it was accessed via IPv6.
2.1.3. Persistence of IPv6 Service Reachability
The check noted in the previous section is done periodically to check
global reachability.
2.2. IPv6 Ripeness
IPv6 Ripeness (http://labs.ripe.net/content/ipv6-ripeness/) is part
of a study conducted by RIPE NCC. Stars are given to LIRs registered
in the RIPE NCC service region by checking there status in IPv6
deployment.
2.2.1. Criteria
Stars are earned by checking the following criteria.
o Have an IPv6 prefix allocated or a PI assigned.
o Prefix is visible in the Routing Information System(RIS).
o A route6 object is registered in the RIPE database.
o Reverse DNS is setup for the IPv6 prefix.
2.3. Summary of the Checking Criteria
The programs discussed in this section share these criteria in
common.
o Have an IPv6 prefix allocated or a PI assigned.
o Prefix is visible in a routing database.
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IPv6 Ripeness also checks if a route6 is registered (have good
routing manners), and a reverse DNS is set up. IPv6 Enabled Program
checks for actual traffic which requires the presence of an active
web server inside the ISP.
3. Guidelines for Listing an IPv6 Enabled ISP
3.1. Scope of the Guideline
This guideline can be used to check any LIR or a PI address holder,
that claims to be an ISP. The guideline is only intended to check an
ISP's network accessibility. In turn, this guideline can also be
used as a minimum requirement checklist by ISPs who want to newly
turn up IPv6 in their network.
3.2. Levels of the Listing
We divide the listing into three levels, Experimental, Basic, and
Advanced. Experimental level is what is a minimal set of
capabilities for any ISP to claim that they have some form of IPv6
working and available to some subset of customers. The Experimental
level will not guarantee that the ISP has a fully working or
production quality IPv6 network or that IPv6 service is available to
all customers. The Experimental level is what is absolutely
necessary to provide service defined in [RFC5211] section 2.1 as
PREP1+PREP2+PREP3 strengthened by the addition of section 2.2
"Trans1". This means that in addition to preparing for IPv6
deployment, an Experimental level ISP MUST offer IPv6-based Internet
Service to at least some customers as a trial.
The Basic level will take the requirements one step further in bring
the level of deployment closer to the quality of the IPv4 network.
The Basic level includes what is absolutely necessary to provide
service defined as MUST in [RFC5211] section 2.2 as TRANS1+TRANS2+
TRANS3 and to the extent possible the capabilities defined as SHOULD.
The requirements of the Basic level should be covered in order to
provide any of the service types defined in the General Terminology
section in [RFC4084].
The Advanced level will take the requirements further to bring the
level of deployment and support to parity with what is generally
recognized as "full production support" in the IPv4 services offered
by ISPs today. This corresponds to the service level defined in
[RFC5211] section 2.3 as POST1+POST2+POST3.
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3.3. Experimental
The Experimental level listing checks an ISP to meet the following
criteria.
o Have an IPv6 prefix allocated or a PI assigned.
o Prefix is visible in at least one routing database.
o Have at least one server with an IPv6 address where accessibility
can be checked.
3.4. Basic
The Basic level listing checks an ISP to meet the following criteria.
o Reverse DNS for is set up for allocated prefixes.
o DNS cache servers are accessible via IPv6 transport.
o Path MTU discovery [RFC1981] is functional and is not filtered.
o Prefix visibility is seen in at least two routing databases
belonging in different regions of the world.
o Some form of support is available to customers and to operators
that want to contact the ISP on an issue that cannot be resolved
within their network.
o Mail exchange(MX) servers are accessible via IPv6.
3.5. Advanced
Detailed criteria for Advanced level are difficult to specify, as
they depend on the specific operational characteristic of the
particular network. In general the Advanced level listing requires
an ISP to meet the following criteria, essentially full parity with
IPv4 level of service.
o The capabilities described in Basic level MUST be available to all
customers by default.
o Full support for IPv6 services comparable to support for IPv4
services MUST be available to all customers and operators.
o All public websites provided by the ISP for customer and other
operators SHOULD be accessible from an IPv6-only client.
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3.6. Considerations
The listings can be made more useful if checking is done according to
the target users of the ISP service. ISP for residential, ISP for
ISPs (transit providers), ISP for enterprises, and ISP for data
centers have different requirements. This document does not go into
discussing the requirements for each type of services are. This
document intends to discuss the requirements that should be common to
any services provided by any ISP.
4. Security Considerations
This draft does not introduce any new Security Considerations.
5. IANA Considerations
None.
6. Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the Task Force on IPv4 Address
Exhaustion, Japan. Parts of this document was inspired from work by
Brian Carpenter and Sheng Jiang. Thanks to Vesna Manojlovic for
providing generous input to the draft.
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC5211] Curran, J., "An Internet Transition Plan", RFC 5211,
July 2008.
7.2. Informative References
[RFC1981] McCann, J., Deering, S., and J. Mogul, "Path MTU Discovery
for IP version 6", RFC 1981, August 1996.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC4084] Klensin, J., "Terminology for Describing Internet
Connectivity", BCP 104, RFC 4084, May 2005.
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Appendix A. Links to Listing Programs
Below are some programs that list IPv6 enabled service providers.
IPv6 Enabled Program http://ipv6forum.org/ipv6_enabled/
IPv6 Ripeness http://labs.ripe.net/content/ipv6-ripeness/
SixXS http://www.sixxs.net/wiki/IPv6_Enabled_Service_Providers
IPv6 to Standard http://www.ipv6-to-standard.org/
Hurricane Electric IPv6 Progress Report
http://bgp.he.net/ipv6-progress-report.cgi
Authors' Addresses
Seiichi Kawamura
NEC BIGLOBE, Ltd.
14-22, Shibaura 4-chome
Minatoku, Tokyo 108-8558
JAPAN
Email: kawamucho@mesh.ad.jp
Edward J. Jankiewicz
SRI International, Inc.
333 Ravenswood Ave
Menlo Park, CA
USA
Email: edward.jankiewicz@sri.com
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