Definition of the Differentiated Services Field (DS Field) in the IPv4 and IPv6 Headers
RFC 2474
Document | Type |
RFC - Proposed Standard
(December 1998; Errata)
Updates RFC 791
|
|
---|---|---|---|
Authors | Fred Baker , David Black , Kathleen Nichols , Steven Blake | ||
Last updated | 2020-01-21 | ||
Stream | IETF | ||
Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized with errata bibtex | ||
Stream | WG state | (None) | |
Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 2474 (Proposed Standard) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
Telechat date | |||
Responsible AD | (None) | ||
Send notices to | (None) |
Network Working Group K. Nichols Request for Comments: 2474 Cisco Systems Obsoletes: 1455, 1349 S. Blake Category: Standards Track Torrent Networking Technologies F. Baker Cisco Systems D. Black EMC Corporation December 1998 Definition of the Differentiated Services Field (DS Field) in the IPv4 and IPv6 Headers Status of this Memo This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved. Abstract Differentiated services enhancements to the Internet protocol are intended to enable scalable service discrimination in the Internet without the need for per-flow state and signaling at every hop. A variety of services may be built from a small, well-defined set of building blocks which are deployed in network nodes. The services may be either end-to-end or intra-domain; they include both those that can satisfy quantitative performance requirements (e.g., peak bandwidth) and those based on relative performance (e.g., "class" differentiation). Services can be constructed by a combination of: - setting bits in an IP header field at network boundaries (autonomous system boundaries, internal administrative boundaries, or hosts), - using those bits to determine how packets are forwarded by the nodes inside the network, and - conditioning the marked packets at network boundaries in accordance with the requirements or rules of each service. Nichols, et. al. Standards Track [Page 1] RFC 2474 Differentiated Services Field December 1998 The requirements or rules of each service must be set through administrative policy mechanisms which are outside the scope of this document. A differentiated services-compliant network node includes a classifier that selects packets based on the value of the DS field, along with buffer management and packet scheduling mechanisms capable of delivering the specific packet forwarding treatment indicated by the DS field value. Setting of the DS field and conditioning of the temporal behavior of marked packets need only be performed at network boundaries and may vary in complexity. This document defines the IP header field, called the DS (for differentiated services) field. In IPv4, it defines the layout of the TOS octet; in IPv6, the Traffic Class octet. In addition, a base set of packet forwarding treatments, or per-hop behaviors, is defined. For a more complete understanding of differentiated services, see also the differentiated services architecture [ARCH]. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ................................................. 3 2. Terminology Used in This Document ............................ 5 3. Differentiated Services Field Definition ..................... 7 4. Historical Codepoint Definitions and PHB Requirements ........ 9 4.1 A Default PHB ............................................. 9 4.2 Once and Future IP Precedence Field Use ................... 10 4.2.1 IP Precedence History and Evolution in Brief .......... 10 4.2.2 Subsuming IP Precedence into Class Selector .......... 11 Codepoints 4.2.2.1 The Class Selector Codepoints ..................... 11 4.2.2.2 The Class Selector PHB Requirements ............... 11 4.2.2.3 Using the Class Selector PHB Requirements ......... 12 for IP Precedence Compatibility 4.2.2.4 Example Mechanisms for Implementing Class ......... 12 Selector Compliant PHB Groups 4.3 Summary ................................................... 13 5. Per-Hop Behavior Standardization Guidelines .................. 13 6. IANA Considerations .......................................... 14 7. Security Considerations ...................................... 15 7.1 Theft and Denial of Service ............................... 15 7.2 IPsec and Tunneling Interactions .......................... 16 8. Acknowledgments .............................................. 17 9. References ................................................... 17Show full document text