Internet DRAFT - draft-briscoe-intarea-ipv4-id-reuse
draft-briscoe-intarea-ipv4-id-reuse
Internet Area Working Group B. Briscoe
Internet-Draft BT
Updates: 791, 2003, 2780, 4301, 4727, February 14, 2014
6864 (if approved)
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: August 18, 2014
Reusing the IPv4 Identification Field in Atomic Packets
draft-briscoe-intarea-ipv4-id-reuse-04
Abstract
This specification takes a new approach to extensibility that is both
principled and a hack. It builds on recent moves to formalise the
increasingly common practice where fragmentation in IPv4 more closely
matches that of IPv6. The large majority of IPv4 packets are now
'atomic', meaning indivisible. In such packets, the 16 bits of the
IPv4 Identification (IPv4 ID) field are redundant and could be freed
up for the Internet community to put to other uses, at least within
the constraints imposed by their original use for reassembly. This
specification defines the process for redefining the semantics of
these bits. It uses the previously reserved control flag in the IPv4
header to indicate that these 16 bits have new semantics. Great care
is taken throughout to ease incremental deployment, even in the
presence of middleboxes that incorrectly discard or normalise packets
that have the reserved control flag set.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on August 18, 2014.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
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. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. IPv4 Wire Protocol Semantics for Reusing the
Identification Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Behaviour of Intermediate Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1. End-to-End Preservation of ID-Reuse Semantics . . . . . . 8
4.2. Tunnel Behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. Process for Defining Subdivisions of the ID-Reuse Field . . . 9
5.1. Constraints on Uses of the ID-Reuse Field . . . . . . . . 10
5.2. Process Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. Incremental Deployment of New Uses of the IPv4 ID Field . . . 13
6.2. Process for Using the ID-Reuse Field Without Requiring
RC=1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7. Updates to Existing RFCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
10. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
11. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
12. Outstanding Issues (to be removed when all resolved) . . . . . 21
13. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
13.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
13.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Appendix A. Why More Bits Cannot be Freed (To be Removed by
RFC Editor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Appendix B. Experimental or Standards Track? (To Be Removed
Before Publication) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Appendix C. Changes in This Version (to be removed by RFC
Editor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
Intended status: Standards Track? (to be removed before publication)
This draft defines a process and a protocol for enabling new
protocols, including their progression from experimental track to
standards track. A process specification cannot have lesser status
than the protocols it enables. So if this specification were to
start on the experimental track, it would not initially have
sufficient status to enable standards track protocols.
In order for the IETF to consider whether this draft itself should be
experimental or standards track, it has been written as if it is
intended for the standards track. Otherwise the parts of the process
for enabling standards track protocols would have had to have been
written hypothetically, which would have been highly confusing. If
the IETF decides this specification ought to start out on the
experimental track, the standards track parts of the process will
have to be edited out.
Appendix B discusses whether this draft itself would be better to
start as experimental or standards track.
1. Introduction
The Problem: The extensibility provisions in IP (v4 and v6) have
turned out not to be usable in practice. Hardware has been optimised
for the common case, so packets using extensibility mechanisms (e.g.
IPv4 options or IPv6 hop-by-hop options) are very likely to be punted
to the software slow-path and consequently likely to be dropped
whenever the software processor is busy [Fransson04, Cisco.IPv6Ext].
This specification takes a different approach to extensibility.
Rather than flagging protocol extensions as 'extensions', it places
extension headers where they will be ignored by pre-existing
hardware. As code is added to routers to handle newly added
extensions, the code can tell the machine where to look for the
relevant header.
This approach recognises that extensions added after a protocol suite
was first defined are different to options defined as a coherent part
of the original protocol suite. Machines that have no code to
understand a protocol extension that was added later do not need to
punt a packet to the software processor merely to scan through chains
of headers that it will not know how to process.
Having only settled on this approach long after the TCP/IP suite has
been defined, it becomes necessary to find places in the existing
protocol headers that are already ignored by existing machines. In
an 'atomic' IPv4 packet, the Identification (IPv4 ID) field is one
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
such place that is redundant. This specification defines the process
through which the 16 bits in this field can be returned to the IETF
for use in future standards actions, at least within the constraints
imposed by their original use for reassembly.
Background: [RFC6864] updates IPv4 to more closely match the approach
taken to fragmentation in IPv6. It specifies that the IPv4 ID field
is only defined for 'atomic' packets. An atomic packet is one that
has not yet been fragmented (MF=0 and fragment offset=0) and for
which further fragmentation is inhibited (DF=1) [RFC6864].
In practical scenarios, the IPv4 ID field is too small to guarantee
uniqueness during the lifetime of a packet anyway [RFC4963].
Therefore it has become safer to disable fragmentation altogether and
instead use an approach such as packetization layer path MTU
discovery [RFC4821]. The large majority of IPv4 packets are now
atomic.
Approach: This specification defines the IPv4 control flag that was
previously reserved [RFC0791] as the Recycled flag (RC). An
implementation can set RC=1 in an atomic packet to unambiguously flag
that the IPv4 ID field is not to be interpreted as IP Identification,
but instead it has the alternative semantics of an ID-Reuse field.
By setting RC=1, IPv4 implementations can distinguish a value
deliberately written into the ID-Reuse field from the same value that
just happened to be written into the IP ID field of an atomic packet
by a pre-existing implementation.
Thus, this specification effectively uses up the last bit in the IPv4
header in order to free up 16 other bits. However, there are some
constraints on the use of these 16 bits due to their original use as
the IP ID field (enumerated in Section 5.1). Of course the main
constraint is that the bits are not available in non-atomic packets.
But fragmentation is now used only rarely anyway, so it makes sense
to see if the the Internet community can invent ways to use the 16
bits in the IPv4 ID field despite the constraints.
Frequently Asked Questions:
1. There are many cases where a non-compliant machine ignores Don't
Fragment (DF=1) and fragments a packet anyway.
One answer is that we cannot allow non-complaint behaviour to
always block progress. Another answer is that we may be able to
detect and circumvent such non-compliant behaviour. For
instance, if a non-compliant router fragments packets with DF=1,
it may be possible to enhance path maximum transmission unit
discovery (PMTUD) to find a lower segment size small enough to
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
prevent the offending box from fragmenting packets.
2. Shouldn't we be focusing on IPv6, not continuing to update IPv4?
The simple answer is that, where additions are made to IPv6,
sometimes it will be necessary to make a parallel addition to
IPv4, to ensure continued interoperability between the IETF's two
main protocols.
Document Roadmap: Section 3 defines the semantics of the updated IPv4
wire protocol and Section 4 defines intermediate node behaviour.
Section 5 defines the process to be used for reassigning sub-fields
of the IPv4 ID-Reuse field. Then Section 6 describes a way to
circumvent problems likely to arise when deploying this new protocol.
Finally, Section 7 enumerates the updates to pre-existing RFCs,
before the tailpiece sections considering IANA, Security and draw
conclusions.
2. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
Further terminology used within this document:
Atomic packet: A packet not yet having been fragmented (MF=0 and
fragment offset=0) and for which further fragmentation has been
inhibited (DF=1), or in the syntax of the C programming language
((DF==1) && (MF==0) && (Offset==0)) [RFC6864].
Recycled (RC) flag: The control flag that was 'reserved' in
[RFC0791] (Figure 1). The flag positioned at bit 48 of the IPv4
header (counting from 0). Alternatively, some would call this bit
0 (counting from 0) of octet 7 (counting from 1) of the IPv4
header.
ID-Reuse field: Octets 5 and 6 (counting from 1) of the IPv4 header
of an atomic packet (Figure 3). The field that would have been
the IP Identification field if the packet were not atomic.
3. IPv4 Wire Protocol Semantics for Reusing the Identification Field
This specification defines the control flag that was defined as
'reserved' in [RFC0791] as the Recycled (RC) flag (Figure 1).
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
0 1 2
+---+---+---+
| R | D | M |
| C | F | F |
+---+---+---+
The Recycled (RC) Flag was previously reserved.
Figure 1: The Control Flags at the Start of Byte 7 of the IPv4 Header
Figure 2 recaps the definitions of octets 5 to 8 (counting from 1) of
the IPv4 header [RFC0791].
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Identification |Flags| Fragment Offset |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 2: Recap of RFC791 Definition of Octets 5 to 8 of the IPv4
Header.
If an IPv4 implementation sets RC=1 on an atomic packet, octets 5 & 6
of the IPv4 header MUST be interpreted with the semantics of the ID-
Reuse field, and MUST NOT be interpreted as the Identification field.
Figure 3 shows how octets 5 & 6 are redefined as the ID-Reuse field
when the packet is atomic, in the case where RC=1.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| ID-Reuse |1 1 0|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
The Identification Field is redefined as the ID-Reuse Field when the
Packet is Atomic and specifically when RC=1
Figure 3: Octets 5 to 8 of the IPv4 Header.
If the Recycled flag is cleared to RC=0 on an atomic packet, some
sub-fields of octets 5 & 6 of the IPv4 header MAY be interpreted with
the semantics of the ID-Reuse field, but only in the highly
constrained circumstances defined in Section 6.2.
For the avoidance of doubt, the Recycled flag alone MUST NOT be
assumed to indicate that the packet is atomic. Only the combination
of ((DF==1) && (MF==0) && (Offset==0)) indicates that a packet is
atomic. Then if the Recycled flag is also set, the ID field
unambiguously has the semantics of the ID-Reuse field. If the
Recycled flag of an atomic packet is cleared, its ID field only has
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
the semantics of the ID-Reuse field in specific limited
circumstances.
It is expected that proposals to use the ID-Reuse field will each
need a few bits, not the whole 16 bit field. Therefore this
specification establishes a new IANA registry (Section 8) to record
assignments of sub-divisions of the ID-Reuse field. In this way, it
will be possible for new uses of different sub-divisions to be
orthogonal to each other. The process for incrementally defining new
sub-divisions is specified in Section 5.
If an IPv4 packet header has RC=1 but it is not atomic ((DF==0) ||
(MF==1) || (Offset !=0)), then all the fields of the IPv4 header are
undefined and reserved for future use. If an implementation receives
such a packet, it could imply:
o that some currently unknown attack is being attempted
o or that some future standards action has defined a meaning for
this reserved combination of header values
Therefore, if an implementation receives a non-atomic packets with
RC=1, it MUST treat the packet as if the Recycled flag were cleared
to 0, but it MUST NOT change the Recycled flag to zero. It MAY log
the arrival of such packets and/or raise an alarm. It MUST NOT
always drop such packets, but it MAY drop them under a policy that
can be revoked if it is established that the appearance of such
packets is the result of a future standards action.
For convenience only, the above rules are summarised in Table 1. The
semantics of octets 5 & 6 of the IPv4 header are tabulated for each
value of the RC flag (rows) and for whether the packet is atomic or
not (columns).
+---------+----------------+--------------------+
| RC flag | Non-Atomic | Atomic |
+---------+----------------+--------------------+
| 0 | Identification | ID-Reuse (Limited) |
| 1 | Undefined | ID-Reuse |
+---------+----------------+--------------------+
Table 1: The Dependence of the Semantics of Octets 5 & 6 of the IPv4
Header on whether the Packet is Atomic and on the RC Flag
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
4. Behaviour of Intermediate Nodes
4.1. End-to-End Preservation of ID-Reuse Semantics
If the source sets the RC flag to 1 on an atomic packet, another node
MUST NOT clear the RC flag to zero. Otherwise the semantics of the
ID-Reuse field would change (see the Security Considerations in
Section 9 for discussion of the integrity of the ID-Reuse field).
Note that intermediate nodes are already not expected to change an
atomic packet to non-atomic, which otherwise would also risk changing
the semantics of the ID-Reuse field.
If the source zeros the RC flag on an atomic packet, an intermediate
node MAY change the RC flag to 1. At this time, no case is envisaged
where an intermediate node would need to do this. However, as this
behaviour preserves ID-Reuse semantics safely, it is not precluded in
case it will prove useful (e.g. for sender proxies).
4.2. Tunnel Behaviour
This specification does not need to change the following aspects of
IPv4-in-IPv4 tunnelling, which already provide the most useful
semantics for the ID-Reuse field:
o For some time, it has been mandated that an atomic packet "MUST"
be encapsulated by an atomic outer header [RFC2003] (although some
implementations are broken in this respect).
o On decapsulation the outgoing header will naturally propagate the
ID-Reuse field of the inner header.
However, compliant IPv4 encapsulation implementations SHOULD copy the
ID-Reuse field when encapsulating an atomic IPv4 packet in another
atomic IPv4 header, irrespective of the setting of the Recycled flag.
It would be ideal but impractical to assert 'MUST' in this last
clause, given it cannot be assumed that pre-existing IPv4-in-IPv4
encapsulators will propagate the ID-Reuse field to the outer header
(see Section 5.1).
IPv6 packets without a fragmentation extension header are inherently
atomic. Therefore, if an IPv4 header encapsulates an IPv6 packet,
the encapsulator is already required to set the outer as atomic.
There is no direct mapping between the IPv4 ID-Reuse field as a whole
and any IPv6 header field (main or extension), because the ID-Reuse
field is merely a container for yet-to-be-defined sub-fields.
However, sub-fields of the ID-Reuse field might be defined to provide
a mapping for IPv6 extension headers that need to be visible in the
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
outer IPv4 header of a tunnel. The present specification cannot say
anything in general about any such mappings or any associated tunnel
behaviour. Any such behaviour will have to be defined when
individual ID-Reuse sub-fields are specified.
5. Process for Defining Subdivisions of the ID-Reuse Field
When IPv4 was designed, then later IPv6, all the fields in the main
IP header were initially defined together in a coordinated fashion.
In contrast, the only practical way to define new uses for the bits
in the ID-Reuse field will be to adopt a gradual addition approach,
in which subsets of the bits or codepoints will have to be assigned
on the merits of each request at the time.
Each new scheme will need to submit an RFC that requests a
subdivision of the ID-Reuse field and assigns behaviours to the
codepoints within this subdivision. A specification defining a new
use of a subdivision of the ID-Reuse field MUST register this use
with the IANA, which will maintain a registry for this purpose
(Section 8).
Proposals to reuse the IP ID field could relate to other parts of the
IPv4 header in the following different ways {ToDo: this list is not
exhaustive}:
Orthogonal: Some new protocol proposals will need to apply whatever
is in the rest of the packet, e.g. whether unicast or multicast,
whatever the Diffserv codepoint and whatever else might have been
added in the rest of the IP-Reuse field. Schemes that need to be
orthogonal to other elements of the IPv4 protocol will require
assignment of a number of bits as a dedicated sub-field of the ID-
Reuse field.
Mutually exclusive: It might be impossible for two uses of the ID-
Reuse field to both apply to the same packet. Such mutually
exclusive schemes will only each require a range of codepoints
within a sub-field.
Conditional: Some protocol proposals might only apply when other
parts of the header satisfy certain conditions, e.g. only for
multicast packets. The IANA will need to register these
conditions so that the bits can still be assigned for other uses
when the conditions do not apply.
To allow interworking between sub-fields that are being defined
incrementally, every new protocol MUST assign the all-zeros codepoint
of its sub-field to mean the new protocol is 'turned off'. This
means that implementations of the new protocol will treat such
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 9]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
packets as they would have been treated before the new protocol was
defined.
Implementations MUST also clear to zero any bits in the ID-Reuse
field that are not defined at the time the implementation is coded.
Proposals to use sub-fields of ID-Reuse will have to be assessed in
the order they arrive without knowing what future proposals they
might preclude. To judge each proposal, at least the following
criteria will be used:
Constraint satisfaction: Each proposal MUST either satisfy all the
constraints in Section 5.1 below, or include measures to
circumvent them.
General usefulness: Proposals that are not applicable to a broad set
of services that can be built over the internetwork protocol
SHOULD NOT warrant consuming the newly freed up IPv4 header space.
Parsimony: Burning up a large proportion of the remaining bits will
count against a proposal.
Backward compatibility with prior uses of ID-Reuse: As more sub-
fields of the ID-Reuse field become defined, each new proposal
SHOULD ensure that it takes into account potential interactions
with earlier standards actions or experiments defining other sub-
fields.
Forward compatibility with potential uses of ID-Reuse: In addition,
proposals that demonstrate sensitivity to potential future uses of
the remaining sub-fields of the ID-Reuse field will be more likely
to progress through the IETF's approval process.
Do no harm: Proposals that do no harm to existing uses of the
Internet will be favoured over those that do more harm.
5.1. Constraints on Uses of the ID-Reuse Field
Atomic packets: The IPv4 ID field cannot be reused if the packet is
not atomic, because then the IP ID field will need to be used for
its original purpose: fragment reassembly.
IPsec interaction: The IP Authentication Header (AH) [RFC4302]
assumes and requires the IPv4 ID field to be immutable, otherwise
verification of authentication and integrity checks will fail.
Any new use of bits in the ID-Reuse field MUST ensure the bits are
immutable, at least between IPsec endpoints (whether transport or
tunnel mode). It cannot be assumed that pre-existing IPsec
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 10]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
implementations will check the setting of the Recycled flag.
Note that the Recycled flag itself is considered mutable and
masked out before calculating an authentication header [RFC4302]
(see Section 9).
Tunnelling: Any new use of the ID-Reuse field in atomic packets
cannot reliably assume that the ID-Reuse field will propagate
unchanged into the outer header of an IPv4-in-IPv4 tunnel
[RFC2003, RFC4301]. It is likely that an IPv4 tunnel ingress will
encapsulate an atomic packet with another atomic outer header, as
this behaviour was mandated in [RFC2003]. However it is known
that some implementations are broken in this respect. It is
possible that an IPv4 encapsulator might copy the IP ID field of
an arriving atomic packet into the outer header. However this
behaviour has never been required and therefore cannot be
guaranteed for pre-existing tunnels.
Nonetheless, it can be assumed that the IPv4 ID field will be
preserved through the inner header into the outgoing packet at the
other end of the tunnel (even though this behaviour would not
strictly have been necessary for an atomic packet).
Incremental deployment: Each new proposal will need to consider any
detrimental effects from pre-existing IPv4 implementations,
assuming that they are likely to act on atomic packets without
first checking on the setting of the Recycled flag.
5.2. Process Example
For illustration purposes, imagine two RFCs have been published: an
experimental track RFC called Experiment A (ExA) and a standards
track RFC called Standard B (StB) and . Imagine they define
respectively a use for bits bits 14 to 15 and 11 to 13 of the ID-
Reuse field. Figure 4 shows example IANA registry entries for these
imaginary sub-fields.
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 11]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
Protocol name: StB
RFC: BBBB
Leftmost bit: 11
No. of bits allocated: 3
Sub-field defined if: Atomic packet and RC=1
Protocol name: ExA
RFC: AAAA
Leftmost bit: 14
No. of bits allocated: 2
Sub-field defined if: Atomic packet and RC=1
Figure 4: Example IANA Registry of Sub-fields of the ID-Reuse Field
Figure 5 shows an example of how incremental specification of
subdivisions of ID-Reuse would work.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| ID-Reuse _____ ___|1 1 0|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0|
|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0| StB |ExA| | |
| |1 0 1|0 1| | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 5: Example of Reuse of Octets 5 & 6 using RC=1
The bits shown in each row of Figure 5 define the semantics of the
bits shown in the next row down, as follows:
o The top row identifies that the packet is atomic and the RC flag
is 1. Therefore octets 5 & 6 of the IPv4 header are redefined as
the ID-Reuse field.
o The middle row shows the bits assigned to Standard B and
Experiment A by IANA. An implementer has to ensure that all the
bits of the ID-Reuse field that are yet to be defined (bits 0-10)
are cleared to zero.
o The bottom row shows that an implementation of ExA has set its
2-bit sub-field to codepoint 01 and an implementation of StB has
set its 3-bit sub-field to codepoint 101. The meaning of each
would be defined in the RFCs for ExA and StB respectively.
Imagine now that Experiment C (ExC) is defined later to use bits 0-7
of the ID-Reuse field. If the packet in Figure 5 is received by an
implementation of ExC, then it will see only zeros in the ExC sub-
field. Therefore the implementation of ExC will treat the packet as
if ExC is turned off (as mandated in Section 5).
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 12]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
Similarly, the implementation of protocol StB can rely on being able
to turn off Experiment A by setting bits 14 & 15 to zero.
6. Incremental Deployment of New Uses of the IPv4 ID Field
When implementations first set the Recycled flag to 1, they are
likely to be blocked by certain middleboxes, either deliberately
(e.g. firewalls that assume anomalies are attacks) or erroneously
(e.g. having misunderstood the phrase "reserved, must be zero" in
RFC791). It is also possible that broken 'normalisers' might clear
RC to zero if it is 1, although so far no tests have found such
broken behaviour.
To address this problem, Section 6.2 introduces a way to use a sub-
field of ID-Reuse without having to set RC=1. In this approach,
packet headers using the new protocol will be indistinguishable from
an IPv4 header not using the new protocol. Therefore it will be
possible to guarantee that middleboxes will not treat packets using
the new protocol any differently from other IPv4 packets.
Many pre-existing IPv4 hosts cycle through all the values in the IP
ID field even when sending atomic packets in which the IP ID field
has no function. Therefore, these pre-existing IPv4 hosts will
occasionally issue a packet that happens to look as if it is using a
codepoint of a new protocol using the IP ID field. Without RC=1,
there will be no way to distinguish the two.
+------+---------------------+--------------------------+
| | middlebox traversal | new protocol recognition |
+------+---------------------+--------------------------+
| RC=0 | Assured | Uncertain |
| RC=1 | Uncertain | Assured |
+------+---------------------+--------------------------+
Table 2: Tradeoff between deterministic middlebox traversal and
deterministic protocol recognition
Table 2 shows the tradeoff between using RC=0 or RC=1:
RC=0: If an implementation of a new protocol uses RC=0, its packets
will traverse middleboxes, but it will suffer a small fraction of
false positives when recognising which packets using the new
protocol -- occasionally it will mistakenly assume a packet is
using the new protocol when it is actually just random noise in
the IP ID field from a pre-existing implementation.
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 13]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
RC=1: If an implementation of a new protocol uses RC=1, its packets
may be black-holed by some middleboxes, but it will be certain
which packets use the new protocol and which don't.
Nonetheless, a probabilistic protocol that can be deployed may be
more useful than a deterministic protocol that cannot.
6.1. Process Example with RC=0
Figure 6 shows an example of how this approach would work with RC=0.
For illustration purposes imagine, as in the previous example in
Section 5.2, that an experimental track RFC has been published called
Experiment A (ExA) that defines bits 14 to 15 of the ID-Reuse field
for atomic packets with RC=1. Now imagine another experimental track
RFC has been published called Experiment B (ExB) that defines a use
for bits 11 to 13 of the ID-Reuse field, but does not require RC=1.
In fact a packet is defined as complying with ExB whether RC=1 or
RC=0 (i.e., RC=X, where 'X' means don't care). Figure 7 shows the
IANA registry entries for these imaginary sub-fields.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| ID-Reuse _____ |X 1 0|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0|
|0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0| ExB |0 0|0 | |
| |1 0 1| | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 6: Example of Experimental Reuse of Octets 5 & 6 Without
Requiring RC=1
The bits shown in each row of Figure 6 define the semantics of the
bits shown in the next row down, as follows:
o The top row identifies that the packet is atomic. The RC flag is
don't care ('X'), so RC does not have to be 1. Implementations
can clear RC to 0 to traverse awkward middleboxes, but RC can be
set to 1 otherwise.
o The middle row shows that an implementation of Experiment B (ExB)
has set RC=0. It is also using the ID-Reuse field, so it clears
all the bits to zero except those in its own sub-field (bits
11-13). It will have registered this experimental use with the
IANA as shown in the top example of Figure 7.
o The bottom row shows that an implementation of ExB has set its
3-bit sub-field to codepoint 101, the meaning of which will have
been defined in the RFC specifying the ExB protocol.
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 14]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
Note that, the process for using protocol ExB without RC=1
(Section 6.2) precludes an implementation from using the ExA protocol
in the same packet -- any one packet can only be part of one RC=0
protocol at a time.
6.2. Process for Using the ID-Reuse Field Without Requiring RC=1
This approach SHOULD NOT be used unless the preferred approach
(Section 5) is impractical due to middleboxes blocking packets with
RC set to 1.
To follow this non-preferred approach, the registration with the IANA
MUST specify that the sub-field of ID-Reuse is defined for 'RC=X',
meaning "don't care", that is RC may be either set or cleared (for an
example, see the final bullet of the imaginary registration details
in Section 8). The RFC defining the relevant ID-Reuse sub-field MUST
also make it clear that the sub-field is defined for either value of
the Recycled flag (RC=X) in an atomic IPv4 packet.
This approach will not be feasible for all protocols; only those that
satisfy the severe constraints laid down below. Otherwise, for
protocols that cannot satisfy these prerequisite constraints, the
preferred approach in Section 5 wth RC=1 will be the only option.
Once a sub-field of the ID-Reuse field has been registered with the
IANA, implementations of the protocol can use any of the available
codepoints within that sub-field in atomic packets without having to
set RC=1, if and only if the following constraints can be satisfied:
1. New protocol implementations MUST NOT use RC=0 unless the
treatments associated with all the new codepoints are generally
benign to packets not taking part in the protocol. 'Benign'
means the new protocol SHOULD do no more harm to other packets
than previous implementations did. Using the term 'SHOULD'
rather than 'MUST' does not completely rule out new protocol
proposals that might sometimes introduce slightly more harm, but
such proposals will need to give strong justifications
2. Implementations MUST clear all the other bits of the ID-Reuse
field (except those in the new protocol's sub-field) to zero.
Note that this is different to the approach with RC=1, where more
than one sub-field at once can be non-zero
3. In addition the constraints in Section 5.1 must also be
satisfied.
Constraint #1 is severe but necessary in order to ensure that a new
protocol (e.g. ExB) does not harm atomic packets from pre-existing
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 15]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
IPv4 implementations. For example, a receiving implementation of ExB
can assume that most packets with all zeros in bits 0-10 and 14-15
were deliberately set by another implementation of ExB. But many
pre-existing implementations of IPv4 will be cycling (sequentially or
randomly) through all the IPID values as they send out packets.
Occasionally they will send out a packet that happens to look like it
complies with protocol ExB. For the case of ExB with a 3-bit sub-
field, such false positives will occur with probability 1 in 2^13
(~0.01%). We term this the misrecognition probability.
If the new protocol were designed to do harm (e.g. to deprioritise
certain packets against others) that would be fine for those packets
intended to take part in the new protocol. But it would not be
acceptable to harm even a small proportion of packets misrecognised
as using the new protocol. This is why the RC=0 approach can only be
allowed for a new protocol that is generally benign.
Constraint #2 is necessary in order to ensure the misrecognition
probability remains low. If only one sub-field is allowed at one
time, all the other bits in the ID-Reuse field will have to be zero.
This ensures that a pre-existing IPv4 implementation cycling through
all the IP ID values will collide less frequently with values used
for each new protocol.
As already stated (Section 5), each new protocol MUST define the all-
zeros codepoint of its sub-field to mean that the new protocol is
'turned off'.
This arrangement ensures that packets with an IPv4 ID of zero will
never collide with a codepoint used by any ID-Reuse scheme, whether
RC=0 or RC=1. All zeros was deliberately chosen as the common
'turned off' codepoint because some pre-existing implementations have
used zero as the default IP ID for atomic packets.
In either case, whether the Recycled flag is set or not, a sub-field
of the ID-Reuse field MUST be registered with the IANA, initially for
experimental use, by referencing the relevant experimental track RFC.
This will ensure that experiments with different sub-fields of the
ID-Reuse field can proceed in parallel on the public Internet without
colliding with each other. The referenced RFC MUST define a coherent
process for returning the bits for other uses if the experimental
approach does not progress to the standards track.
The same sub-field can be used with the same semantics as the
experiment progresses, initially with the Recycled flag cleared to 0
and later set to 1. And the same protocol semantics can be used
whether the proposal is experimental or standards track. Thus, the
whole process is designed to:
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 16]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
1. allow initial experiments to use RC=0 to traverse non-compliant
middleboxes (Section 6);
2. then, once sufficient middleboxes forward RC=1 packets, the
experiment can either be continued with RC=1 (Section 5);
3. or the experiment can progress cleanly to the standards track,
while still using the same sub-field but with RC=1;
4. or the experiment can be terminated without having wasted any
header bits.
(Step 1 is only feasible if the extra constraints in Section 6.2 can
be satisfied. If not, Step 2 will be the only feasible first step.)
For the avoidance of doubt, any use of ID-Reuse, whether experimental
or not, is also subject to the general constraints already enumerated
in Section 5.1.
7. Updates to Existing RFCs
Great care has been taken to ensure all the updates defined in this
specifications are incrementally deployable.
The definition of the RC flag in Section 3 updates the status of this
flag that was "reserved, must be zero" in [RFC0791]. The
redefinition of the IP Identification field as the ID-Reuse field
when an IPv4 packet is atomic also updates RFC791.
Updates to existing RFC791 implementations are only REQUIRED if they
discard IPv4 packets with RC=1, or change RC from 1 to 0, both of
which are misinterpretations of RFC791 anyway. Otherwise, there will
be no need to update an RFC791-compliant IPv4 stack until new use(s)
for the ID-Reuse field are also specified.
The recommendation in Section 4.2 to copy the ID-Reuse field when
encapsulating an atomic IPv4 packet with another atomic IPv4 header
updates IPv4-in-IPv4 encapsulation specifications [RFC2003]
[RFC4301]. These updates to tunnels are likely to be recommended
rather than essential for interworking, so they can be implemented as
part of routine code maintenance.
The ability to redefine the IPv4 ID field of an atomic packet updates
[RFC6864], specifically the following two statements no longer apply:
"the field's value is defined only when a datagram is actually
fragmented" and "IPv4 ID field MUST NOT be used for purposes other
than fragmentation and reassembly." Nonetheless, octets 5 & 6 of an
atomic packet still MUST NOT be interpreted with the semantics of the
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 17]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
Identification field.
[RFC2780] provides the IANA with guidelines on allocating values in
IP and related headers. The process defined in Section 5 and
Section 6 update RFC2780, given ID-Reuse is effectively a new field
in the IPv4 header.
[RFC4727] defines the processes for experimental use of values in
fields in the IP header that are managed by the IANA. The processes
defined in Section 5 and Section 6 update RFC4727 to include the new
alternative use of the IPv4 ID field as an ID-Reuse field.
8. IANA Considerations
The IANA is requested to establish a new registry to record
allocation of sub-divisions of the ID-Reuse field and to avoid
duplicate allocations. The ID-Reuse field is an alternative use of
the Identification field of the IPv4 header in atomic packets
(Section 3). All 16 bits are available for assignment, either as
sub-fields of bits or as sets of codepoints within a sub-field of
bits. Each sub-division of the ID-Reuse field MUST be allocated
through an IETF Consensus action. The registry MUST then record:
Protocol name: the name for the protocol, as used in the RFC
defining it
RFC: the RFC that defines the semantics of the codepoints used by
the protocol
Leftmost bit: the leftmost bit allocated, counting from bit 0 at the
most significant bit (which is bit 32 of the IPv4 header, counting
from 0)
No. of bits allocated: the width in bits of the allocated sub-field
Codepoint range (optional): The range of codepoints within the
assigned sub-field of bits that the protocol uses
Sub-field defined if: the precondition for the sub-field to be
defined (Section 5). Valid entries MUST include the condition
that the packet is atomic and MUST specifiy valid values of the
Recycled (RC) flag, either 'RC=1' or 'RC=X', where 'X' means don't
care (Section 6).
Two example registrations are shown in Figure 7.
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 18]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
Protocol name: ExB
RFC: BBBB
Most significant bit: 11
No. of bits allocated: 3
Codepoint range: all
Sub-field defined if: Atomic packet and RC=X
Protocol name: ExA
RFC: AAAA
Most significant bit: 14
No. of bits allocated: 2
Codepoint range: all
Sub-field defined if: Atomic packet and RC=1
Figure 7: Example IANA Registry of Sub-fields of the ID-Reuse Field
9. Security Considerations
Integrity Checking: This specification make the semantics of octets
5 & 6 of the IPv4 header (IP ID or ID-Reuse) depend on the setting
of octets 7 & 8 (all the Control Flags and the Fragment Offset
field). The IP Authentication Header (AH) [RFC4302] covers octets
5 & 6 but not octets 7 & 8. Therefore AH can assure the integrity
of the bits in the ID-Reuse field, but it cannot verify whether or
not the sender intended those bits to have the semantics of an ID-
Reuse field.
Any security-sensitive application of the ID-Reuse field will
therefore need to provide its own integrity checking of the status
of the Control Flags and Fragment Offset. Such a facility would
need to take into account that the present specification allows an
intermediate node to set the Recycled flag, but not to clear it
(Section 4.1).
Covert channels: It has always been possible to use bit 48 of the
IPv4 header for a 1 bit per packet covert channel, for instance
between a network protected by IPsec and an unprotected network.
Bit 48 could be covertly toggled to pass messages because it had
no function (so no-one would notice any affect on the main
communication channel) and it was not covered by IPsec
authentication. On the other hand, once alerted to the
vulnerability, it has always been easy for an IPsec gateway to
spot bit 48 being used as a covert channel, given bit 48 was meant
to always be zero.
Now that bit 48 has been given a function, it will often no longer
be possible for an attacker to toggle it without affecting the
main data communication. However, whenever the main communication
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 19]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
does not depend on bit 48, it will be easier to for an attacker to
toggle it covertly given it will no longer stand out as anomalous
behaviour.
10. Conclusions
This specification builds on recent moves to make the approach to
fragmentation in IPv4 more closely match that of IPv6. Already the
fields that support fragmentation in the IPv4 header are usually
redundant, but unfortunately they are non-optional.
This specification makes it possible to reuse the 16 bits of the IPv4
ID field when they are not needed for reassembly. The last unused
bit in the IPv4 header is used in order to unambiguously flag that
the IP ID field has new semantics. The bit is called the Recycled
flag, because it allows the IP ID field to be recycled for new
purposes when it would otherwise be redundant. Whenever the IP ID
field has new semantics, it is termed the ID-Reuse field.
The process for redefining the semantics of sub-fields of this ID-
Reuse field has been laid down, both for experimental and standards
actions. Great care has been taken throughout to ease incremental
deployment. The same sub-field can be used with the same semantics
as an experiment evolves into a standards action. Initially it is
even possible for certain experiments to leave the Recycled flag
cleared to zero, in order to traverse any awkward middleboxes that
incorrectly discard or normalise packets if the Recycled flag is set.
11. Acknowledgements
Rob Hancock originally pointed out that code to handle new protocols
can tell the machine where to look for the relevant header. Dan Wing
pointed out that codepoints, not just whole bits, could be assigned
for protocols that are mutually exclusive.
Bob Briscoe is partly funded by Trilogy, a research project (ICT-
216372) supported by the European Community under its Seventh
Framework Programme.
Comments Solicited (to be removed by the RFC Editor):
Comments and questions are encouraged and very welcome. They can be
addressed to the IETF Internet Area working group mailing list
<int-area@ietf.org>, and/or to the author(s).
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 20]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
12. Outstanding Issues (to be removed when all resolved)
1. ...
13. References
13.1. Normative References
[RFC0791] Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791,
September 1981.
[RFC2003] Perkins, C., "IP Encapsulation within IP", RFC 2003,
October 1996.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2780] Bradner, S. and V. Paxson, "IANA Allocation
Guidelines For Values In the Internet Protocol and
Related Headers", BCP 37, RFC 2780, March 2000.
[RFC4301] Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, December 2005.
[RFC4302] Kent, S., "IP Authentication Header", RFC 4302,
December 2005.
[RFC4727] Fenner, B., "Experimental Values In IPv4, IPv6,
ICMPv4, ICMPv6, UDP, and TCP Headers", RFC 4727,
November 2006.
[RFC6864] Touch, J., "Updated Specification of the IPv4 ID
Field", RFC 6864, February 2013.
13.2. Informative References
[Cisco.IPv6Ext] Cisco, "IPv6 Extension Headers Review and
Considerations", Cisco Technology White Paper ,
October 2006, <http://www.cisco.com/en/US/
technologies/tk648/tk872/
technologies_white_paper0900aecd8054d37d.html>.
[Fransson04] Fransson, P. and A. Jonsson, "End-to-end
measurements on performance penalties of IPv4
options", Luleae University of Technology, Technical
Report 2004:03, 2004, <http://pure.ltu.se/portal/
files/1299598/LTU-TR-0403-SE.pdf>.
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 21]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
[RFC4821] Mathis, M. and J. Heffner, "Packetization Layer Path
MTU Discovery", RFC 4821, March 2007.
[RFC4963] Heffner, J., Mathis, M., and B. Chandler, "IPv4
Reassembly Errors at High Data Rates", RFC 4963,
July 2007.
Appendix A. Why More Bits Cannot be Freed (To be Removed by RFC Editor)
Given this specification uses the last unassigned bit in the IPv4
header, it is worth checking whether it can be used to flag a new use
for more than the 16 bits in the IP ID field of atomic packets.
IHL: Ideally, the Internet header length field (4 bits) could be
made redundant if the length of those IPv4 headers with bit 48 set
were redefined to be fixed at 20 octets. Then a similar approach
to IPv6 could be taken with the Protocol field redefined as a Next
Header field and each extension header specifying its own length.
Unfortunately, although IPv4 options are rarely used and generally
ignored, this idea would not be incrementally deployable. There
are probably billions of pre-existing implementations of the IPv4
stack that will use the IHL field to find the transport protocol
header, without ever looking at bit 48. If the IHL field were
given any other semantics conditional on bit 48 being set, all
these pre-existing stacks would break.
Header Checksum: Ideally, the Header Checksum (16 bits) could be
made redundant in those IPv4 headers with bit 48 set. Then a
similar approach to IPv6 could be taken where the integrity of the
IP header relies on the end-to-end checksum of the transport
protocol, which includes the main fields in the IP header.
Unfortunately, again, this idea would not be incrementally
deployable. Pre-existing implementations of the IPv4 stack might
verify the header checksum without ever looking at bit 48. And
anyway IPv4 stacks on probably every pre-existing router
implementation would update the checksum field without knowing to
check whether bit 48 was set. Therefore if the field were used
for any other purpose than a checksum, it would be impossible to
predict how its value might be changed by a combination of pre-
existing and new stacks.
It is clear that reusing fields other than the IPv4 ID would be
fraught with incremental deployment problems. The reason the IPv4 ID
field can be reused, is that an atomic packet already does not need
an Identification field, whether bit 48 is set or not. Setting bit
48 merely allows new implementations that understand ID-Reuse
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 22]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
semantics to be certain the value in the ID-Reuse field was not
written by an implementation that intended it to have Identification
semantics.
Appendix B. Experimental or Standards Track? (To Be Removed Before
Publication)
This document defines a protocol (using the Recycled flag) to enable
other protocols (using the ID-Reuse field). The Recycled flag
protocol is currently written as if it is on the IETF standards
track. Nonetheless it might be feasible to write it for the
experimental track. This appendix discusses the pros and cons of
each.
The Recycled flag uses up the last unused bit in the IPv4 header.
The present specification defines a use for this last bit in the
expectation that the Internet community will find ingeneous new
use(s) for sub-fields of the ID-Reuse field, because then the
Recycled flag will be needed to unambiguously indicate the new
semantics. However, there is a risk that the last IPv4 header bit
could be wasted, if no new uses for the IP ID field can be found
within the constraints of its previous use for fragment reassembly,
or if new experimental uses are proposed but none successfully
proceed through to standards actions.
The risk of wasting the last bit would be mitigated if the definition
of the Recycled flag itself was initially on the experimental track.
Then, if some experimental use(s) of the ID-Reuse field did see
widespread adoption, the RC flag protocol could progress to the
standards track. On the other hand, if no ID-Reuse experiments
happened, the RC flag could possibly be reclaimed for another use in
the future. This would require all experiments with the RC flag to
be confined in time, so that stray implementations of old experiments
would not conflict with future uses of the flag.
Eventually, each specification for each sub-field of ID-Reuse might
either progress on the experimental track or standards track.
However, an enabler for standards track specifications cannot itself
only be experimental. Therefore the RC flag protocol would have to
be on the standards track, to enable standards track protocols as
well as experimental. Figure 8 illustrates this need for the RC flag
protocol to have sufficient rank for any protocols it enables.
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 23]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
+---------+---------------------------+
| RC flag | ID-Reuse sub-field track |
| track +-------------+-------------+
| | Expt | Stds |
+---------+-------------+-------------+
| Expt | Expt | INVALID |
| Stds | Expt | Stds |
+---------+-------------+-------------+
The IETF track of the RC flag protocol in the present document (rows)
and of any particular RFC specifying a sub-field of the ID-Reuse
field (columns). The combination determines the status of any
particular sub-field as shown at the intersection of the relevant row
and column.
Figure 8: Validity of Combinations of IETF tracks for the RC flag and
an ID-Reuse Subfield
One purpose of the present draft is to outline how new uses of ID-
Reuse sub-fields can progress seamlessly from experimental track to
standards track. Therefore, this draft is written as if it were on
the standards track. Otherwise the processes for enabling standards
track documents would have had to be written hypothetically, which
would have been highly confusing. Nonetheless, no intent to prejudge
that this document should be or will be on the standards track is
implied.
If it were decided that the present draft should start on the
experimental track, all the text about enabling standards track
protocols would have to be edited out, or perhaps moved to a non-
normative appendix.
Alternatively, the IETF might see some obvious new uses for sub-
fields of the ID-Reuse field that would make it reasonable to fast-
track the RC flag straight onto the standards track.
Appendix C. Changes in This Version (to be removed by RFC Editor)
From briscoe-03 to 04:
* Refreshed to keep alive.
From briscoe-02 to 03:
* Updated references
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 24]
Internet-Draft Reusing the IPv4 ID Field February 2014
From briscoe-01 to 02:
* Altered summary of draft-ietf-ipv4-id-update to reflect recent
changes to that draft
* Added FAQ2 explaining why it will still sometimes be necessary
to update IPv4 even though the focus of the new features will
be IPv6
* Updated references
From briscoe-00 to 01:
* Updated to preserve liveness.
* No changes other than updates to refs and minor corrections.
Author's Address
Bob Briscoe
BT
B54/77, Adastral Park
Martlesham Heath
Ipswich IP5 3RE
UK
Phone: +44 1473 645196
EMail: bob.briscoe@bt.com
URI: http://bobbriscoe.net/
Briscoe Expires August 18, 2014 [Page 25]