EIP: The Extended Internet Protocol
RFC 1385
Document | Type |
RFC - Historic
(November 1992; No errata)
Obsoleted by RFC 6814
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Last updated | 2013-03-02 | ||
Stream | Legacy | ||
Formats | plain text pdf html bibtex | ||
Stream | Legacy state | (None) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
RFC Editor Note | (None) | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 1385 (Historic) | |
Telechat date | |||
Responsible AD | (None) | ||
Send notices to | (None) |
Network Working Group Z. Wang Request for Comments: 1385 University College London November 1992 EIP: The Extended Internet Protocol A Framework for Maintaining Backward Compatibility Status of this Memo This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Summary The Extended Internet Protocol (EIP) provides a framework for solving the problem of address space exhaustion with a new addressing and routing scheme, yet maintaining maximum backward compatibility with current IP. EIP can substantially reduce the amount of modifications needed to the current Internet systems and greatly ease the difficulties of transition. This is an "idea" paper and discussion is strongly encouraged on Big-Internet@munnari.oz.au. Introduction The Internet faces two serious scaling problems: address exhaustion and routing explosion [1-2]. The Internet will run out of Class B numbers soon and the 32-bit IP address space will be exhausted altogether in a few years time. The total number of IP networks will also grow to a point where routing algorithms will not be able to perform routing based a flat network number. A number of short-term solutions have been proposed recently which attempt to make more efficient use of the the remaining address space and to ease the immediate difficulties [3-5]. However, it is important that a long term solution be developed and deployed before the 32-bit address space runs out. An obvious approach to this problem is to replace the current IP with a new internet protocol that has no backward compatibility with the current IP. A number of proposals have been put forward: Pip[7], Nimrod [8], TUBA [6] and SIP [14]. However, as IP is really the cornerstone of the current Internet, replacing it with a new "IP" requires fundamental changes to many aspects of the Internet system (e.g., routing, routers, hosts, ARP, RARP, ICMP, TCP, UDP, DNS, FTP). Migrating to a new "IP" in effect creates a new "Internet". The Wang [Page 1] RFC 1385 EIP November 1992 development and deployment of such a new "Internet" would take a very large amount of time and effort. In particular, in order to maintain interoperability between the old and new systems during the transition period, almost all upgraded systems have to run both the new and old versions in parallel and also have to determine which version to use depending on whether the other side is upgraded or not. Let us now have a look at the detailed changes that will be required to replace the current IP with a completely new "IP" and to maintain the interoperability between the new and the old systems. 1) Border Routers: Border routers have to be upgraded and to provide address translation service for IP packets across the boundaries. Note that the translation has to be done on the outgoing IP packets as well as the in-coming packets to IP hosts. 2) Subnet Routers: Subnet Routers have to be upgraded and have to deal with both the new and the old packet formats. 3) Hosts: Hosts have to be upgraded and run both the new and the old protocols in parallel. Upgraded hosts also have to determine whether the other side is upgraded or not in order to choose the correct protocol to use. 4) DNS: The DNS has to be modified to provide mapping for domain names and new addresses. 5) ARP/RARP: ARP/RARP have to be modified, and upgraded hosts and routers have to deal with both the old and new ARP/RARP packets. 6) ICMP: ICMP has to be modified, and the upgraded routers have to be able to generate both both old and new ICMP packets. However, it may be impossible for a backbone router to determine whether the packet comes from an upgraded host or an IP host but translated by the border router. 7) TCP/UDP Checksum: The pseudo headers may have to be modified to use the new addresses. 8) FTP: The DATA PORT (PORT) command has to be changed to pass new addresses. In this paper, we argue that an evolutionary approach can extend the addressing space yet maintain backward compatibility. The Extended Internet Protocol (EIP) we present here can be used as a framework by which a new routing and addressing scheme may solve the problem of address exhaustion yet maintain maximum backward compatibility to Wang [Page 2] RFC 1385 EIP November 1992 current IP. EIP has a number of very desirable features:Show full document text