Observations on the Dropping of Packets with IPv6 Extension Headers in the Real World
RFC 7872
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) F. Gont
Request for Comments: 7872 SI6 Networks / UTN-FRH
Category: Informational J. Linkova
ISSN: 2070-1721 Google
T. Chown
Jisc
W. Liu
Huawei Technologies
June 2016
Observations on the Dropping of Packets
with IPv6 Extension Headers in the Real World
Abstract
This document presents real-world data regarding the extent to which
packets with IPv6 Extension Headers (EHs) are dropped in the Internet
(as originally measured in August 2014 and later in June 2015, with
similar results) and where in the network such dropping occurs. The
aforementioned results serve as a problem statement that is expected
to trigger operational advice on the filtering of IPv6 packets
carrying IPv6 EHs so that the situation improves over time. This
document also explains how the results were obtained, such that the
corresponding measurements can be reproduced by other members of the
community and repeated over time to observe changes in the handling
of packets with IPv6 EHs.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.
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/rfc7872.
Gont, et al. Informational [Page 1]
RFC 7872 IPv6 Extension Headers June 2016
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2016 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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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Support of IPv6 Extension Headers in the Internet . . . . . . 3
3. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Appendix A. Reproducing Our Experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
A.1. Obtaining the List of Domain Names . . . . . . . . . . . 8
A.2. Obtaining AAAA Resource Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
A.3. Filtering the IPv6 Address Datasets . . . . . . . . . . . 9
A.4. Performing Measurements with Each IPv6 Address Dataset . 9
A.5. Obtaining Statistics from Our Measurements . . . . . . . 10
Appendix B. Measurements Caveats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
B.1. Isolating the Dropping Node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
B.2. Obtaining the Responsible Organization for the Packet
Drops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Appendix C. Troubleshooting Packet Drops Due to IPv6 Extension
Headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
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RFC 7872 IPv6 Extension Headers June 2016
1. Introduction
IPv6 Extension Headers (EHs) allow for the extension of the IPv6
protocol and provide support for core functionality such as IPv6
fragmentation. While packets employing IPv6 EHs have been suspected
to be dropped in some IPv6 deployments, there was not much concrete
data on the topic. Some preliminary measurements have been presented
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