IPv6 Rapid Deployment on IPv4 Infrastructures (6rd)
RFC 5569

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Independent Submission                                        R. Despres
Request for Comments: 5569                                     RD-IPtech
Category: Informational                                     January 2010
ISSN: 2070-1721

          IPv6 Rapid Deployment on IPv4 Infrastructures (6rd)

Abstract

   IPv6 rapid deployment on IPv4 infrastructures (6rd) builds upon
   mechanisms of 6to4 to enable a service provider to rapidly deploy
   IPv6 unicast service to IPv4 sites to which it provides customer
   premise equipment.  Like 6to4, it utilizes stateless IPv6 in IPv4
   encapsulation in order to transit IPv4-only network infrastructure.
   Unlike 6to4, a 6rd service provider uses an IPv6 prefix of its own in
   place of the fixed 6to4 prefix.  A service provider has used this
   mechanism for its own IPv6 "rapid deployment": five weeks from first
   exposure to 6rd principles to more than 1,500,000 residential sites
   being provided native IPv6, under the only condition that they
   activate it.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This is a contribution to the RFC Series, independently of any
   other RFC stream.  The RFC Editor has chosen to publish this
   document at its discretion and makes no statement about its value
   for implementation or deployment.  Documents approved for
   publication by the RFC Editor are not a candidate for any level of
   Internet Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any
   errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5569.

Despres                       Informational                     [Page 1]
RFC 5569               6rd - IPv6 Rapid Deployment          January 2010

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
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http:trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................2
   2. Problem Statement and Purpose of 6rd ............................3
   3. Specification ...................................................4
   4. Applicability to ISPs That Assign Private IPv4 Addresses ........7
   5. Security Considerations .........................................8
   6. IANA Considerations .............................................8
   7. Acknowledgements ................................................9
   8. References ......................................................9
      8.1. Normative References .......................................9
      8.2. Informative References .....................................9

1.  Introduction

   After having had a succinct presentation of the 6rd idea, a major
   French Internet service provider (ISP), Free of the Iliad group
   (hereafter Free), did all of the following in an impressively short
   delay of only five weeks (November 7th to December 11th 2007):

   1.  obtained from its regional Internet Registry (RIR) an IPv6
       prefix, the length of which was that allocated without a
       justification and a delay to examine it, namely /32;

   2.  added 6rd support to the software of its Freebox home-gateway
       (upgrading for this an available 6to4 code);

   3.  provisioned PC-compatible platform with a 6to4 gateway software;

   4.  modified it to support 6rd;

   5.  tested IPv6 operation with several operating systems and
       applications;

   6.  finished operational deployment, by means of new version of the
       downloadable software of their Freeboxes;

Despres                       Informational                     [Page 2]
RFC 5569               6rd - IPv6 Rapid Deployment          January 2010

   7.  announced IPv6 Internet connectivity, at no extra charge, for all
       its customers wishing to activate it.

   More than 1,500,000 residential customers thus became able to use
   IPv6 if they wished, with all the look and feel of native IPv6
   addresses routed in IPv6.  The only condition was an activation of
   IPv6 in their Freeboxes, and of course in their IPv6-capable hosts.

   This story is reported to illustrate that ISPs that provide customer
   premise equipment (CPE) to their clients, with included routing
   capability, and that have so far postponed IPv6 deployment can, with
   the dramatically reduced investment and operational costs that 6rd
   make possible, decide to wait no longer.

   To complete the story, Free announced, on March 6th 2008, that
   provided two of its customer sites had IPv6 activated, its Telesites