Basic Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6
RFC 3493
Document | Type |
RFC - Informational
(March 2003; No errata)
Obsoletes RFC 2553
|
|
---|---|---|---|
Authors | Robert Gilligan , Jack McCann , Jim Bound , Susan Thomson | ||
Last updated | 2015-10-14 | ||
Stream | IETF | ||
Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized bibtex | ||
Stream | WG state | (None) | |
Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 3493 (Informational) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
Telechat date | |||
Responsible AD | Thomas Narten | ||
IESG note | published as RFC 3493. | ||
Send notices to | <mrw@windriver.com> |
Network Working Group R. Gilligan Request for Comments: 3493 Intransa, Inc. Obsoletes: 2553 S. Thomson Category: Informational Cisco J. Bound J. McCann Hewlett-Packard W. Stevens February 2003 Basic Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6 Status of this Memo This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved. Abstract The de facto standard Application Program Interface (API) for TCP/IP applications is the "sockets" interface. Although this API was developed for Unix in the early 1980s it has also been implemented on a wide variety of non-Unix systems. TCP/IP applications written using the sockets API have in the past enjoyed a high degree of portability and we would like the same portability with IPv6 applications. But changes are required to the sockets API to support IPv6 and this memo describes these changes. These include a new socket address structure to carry IPv6 addresses, new address conversion functions, and some new socket options. These extensions are designed to provide access to the basic IPv6 features required by TCP and UDP applications, including multicasting, while introducing a minimum of change into the system and providing complete compatibility for existing IPv4 applications. Additional extensions for advanced IPv6 features (raw sockets and access to the IPv6 extension headers) are defined in another document. Gilligan, et al. Informational [Page 1] RFC 3493 Basic Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6 February 2003 Table of Contents 1. Introduction................................................3 2. Design Considerations.......................................4 2.1 What Needs to be Changed...............................4 2.2 Data Types.............................................6 2.3 Headers................................................6 2.4 Structures.............................................6 3. Socket Interface............................................6 3.1 IPv6 Address Family and Protocol Family................6 3.2 IPv6 Address Structure.................................7 3.3 Socket Address Structure for 4.3BSD-Based Systems......7 3.4 Socket Address Structure for 4.4BSD-Based Systems......9 3.5 The Socket Functions...................................9 3.6 Compatibility with IPv4 Applications..................10 3.7 Compatibility with IPv4 Nodes.........................11 3.8 IPv6 Wildcard Address.................................11 3.9 IPv6 Loopback Address.................................13 3.10 Portability Additions.................................14 4. Interface Identification...................................16 4.1 Name-to-Index.........................................17 4.2 Index-to-Name.........................................17 4.3 Return All Interface Names and Indexes................18 4.4 Free Memory...........................................18 5. Socket Options.............................................18 5.1 Unicast Hop Limit.....................................19 5.2 Sending and Receiving Multicast Packets...............19 5.3 IPV6_V6ONLY option for AF_INET6 Sockets...............22 6. Library Functions..........................................22 6.1 Protocol-Independent Nodename and Service Name Translation..............................23 6.2 Socket Address Structure to Node Name and Service Name......................................28 6.3 Address Conversion Functions..........................31 6.4 Address Testing Macros................................33 7. Summary of New Definitions.................................33 8. Security Considerations....................................35 9. Changes from RFC 2553......................................35 10. Acknowledgments............................................36 11. References.................................................37 12. Authors' Addresses.........................................38 13. Full Copyright Statement...................................39Show full document text