Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-intarea-tunnels
draft-ietf-intarea-tunnels
Internet Area WG J. Touch
Internet Draft Independent Consultant
Intended status: Best Current Practice W. M. Townsley
Updates: 4459 Cisco
Expires: September 2023 March 26, 2023
IP Tunnels in the Internet Architecture
draft-ietf-intarea-tunnels-13.txt
Abstract
This document discusses the role of IP tunnels in the Internet
architecture. An IP tunnel transits IP datagrams as payloads in non-
link layer protocols. This document explains the relationship of IP
tunnels to existing protocol layers and the challenges in supporting
IP tunneling, based on the equivalence of tunnels to links. The
implications of this document updates RFC 4459 and its MTU and
fragmentation recommendations for IP tunnels.
Status of this Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on September 26, 2023.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2023 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction.................................................. 3
2. Conventions used in this document............................. 6
2.1. Key Words................................................ 6
2.2. Terminology.............................................. 6
3. The Tunnel Model............................................. 10
3.1. What is a Tunnel?....................................... 11
3.2. View from the Outside................................... 13
3.3. View from the Inside.................................... 13
3.4. Location of the Ingress and Egress...................... 14
3.5. Implications of This Model.............................. 15
3.6. Fragmentation........................................... 16
3.6.1. Outer Fragmentation................................ 16
3.6.2. Inner Fragmentation................................ 18
3.6.3. The Necessity of Outer Fragmentation............... 19
4. IP Tunnel Requirements....................................... 20
4.1. Encapsulation Header Issues............................. 20
4.1.1. General Principles of Header Fields Relationships.. 20
4.1.2. Addressing Fields.................................. 21
4.1.3. Hop Count Fields................................... 21
4.1.4. IP Fragment Identification Fields.................. 22
4.1.5. Checksums.......................................... 23
4.2. MTU Issues.............................................. 24
4.2.1. Minimum MTU Considerations......................... 24
4.2.2. Fragmentation...................................... 27
4.2.3. Path MTU Discovery................................. 30
4.3. Coordination Issues..................................... 32
4.3.1. Signaling.......................................... 32
4.3.2. Congestion......................................... 34
4.3.3. Multipoint Tunnels and Multicast................... 34
4.3.4. Load Balancing..................................... 35
4.3.5. Recursive Tunnels.................................. 36
5. Observations................................................. 36
5.1. Summary of Recommendations.............................. 36
5.2. Impact on Existing Encapsulation Protocols.............. 37
6. Advice....................................................... 40
6.1. Tunnel Protocol Designers............................... 40
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6.2. Tunnel Implementers..................................... 40
6.3. Tunnel Operators........................................ 41
7. Security Considerations...................................... 41
8. IANA Considerations.......................................... 42
9. References................................................... 42
9.1. Normative References.................................... 42
9.2. Informative References.................................. 42
10. Acknowledgments............................................. 48
Appendix A. Fragmentation efficiency............................ 50
A.1. Selecting fragment sizes................................ 50
A.2. Packing................................................. 51
1. Introduction
The Internet architecture follows a layered model, in which data
units traverse a stack by being wrapped inside data units of the
next layer down [Cl88][Zi80]. A tunnel is a mechanism for
transmitting data units between endpoints by wrapping them as data
units of the same or higher layers, e.g., IP in IP (Figure 1) or IP
in UDP (Figure 2).
+----+----+--------------+
| IP'| IP | Data |
+----+----+--------------+
Figure 1 IP inside IP
+----+-----+----+--------------+
| IP'| UDP | IP | Data |
+----+-----+----+--------------+
Figure 2 IP in UDP in IP in Ethernet
This document focuses on tunnels that transit IP packets, i.e., in
which an IP packet is the payload of another protocol, other than a
typical link layer. A tunnel is a virtual link that can help
decouple the network topology seen by transiting packets from the
underlying physical network [To98][RFC2473].
Tunnels were critical in the development of multicast because not
all routers were capable of processing multicast packets [Er94].
Tunnels allowed multicast packets to transit efficiently between
multicast-capable routers over paths that did not support native
link-layer multicast. Similar techniques have been used to support
incremental deployment of other protocols over legacy substrates,
such as IPv6 [RFC2546].
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Use of tunnels is common in the Internet. The word "tunnel" occurs
in over 1,800 RFCs (of nearly 9,500 current RFCs, close to 20%), and
is supported within numerous protocols, including:
o IP in IP / mobile IP - IPv4 in IPv4 tunnels using protocol 4
[RFC2003][RFC2473][RFC5944] and its precursor called "IPIP" using
protocol 94 [RFC1853]
o IP in IPv6 - IPv6 or IPv4 in IPv6 [RFC2473]
o IPsec - includes a tunnel mode to enable encryption or
authentication of an entire IP datagram inside another IP
datagram [RFC4301]
o Generic Router Encapsulation (GRE) - a shim layer for tunneling
any network layer in any other network layer, as in IP in GRE in
IP [RFC2784][RFC7588][RFC7676], or inside UDP in IP [RFC8086]
o MPLS - a shim layer for tunneling IP over a circuit-like path
over a link layer [RFC3031] or inside UDP in IP [RFC7510], in
which identifiers are rewritten on each hop, often used for
traffic provisioning
o LISP - a mechanism that uses multipoint IP tunnels to reduce
routing table load within an enclave of routers at the expense of
more complex tunnel ingress encapsulation tables [RFC9300]
o TRILL - a mechanism that uses multipoint L2 tunnels to enable use
of L3 routing (typically IS-IS) in an enclave of Ethernet bridges
[RFC5556][RFC6325]
o Generic UDP Encapsulation (GUE) - IP in UDP in IP [He19]
o Automatic Multicast Tunneling (AMT) - IP in UDP in IP for
multicast [RFC7450]
o L2TP - PPP over IP, to extend a subscriber's DSL/FTTH connection
from an access line provider to an ISP [RFC3931]
o L2VPNs - provides a link topology different from that provided by
physical links [RFC4664]; many of these are not classical
tunnels, using only tags (Ethernet VLAN tags) rather than
encapsulation
o L3VPNs - provides a network topology different from that provided
by ISPs [RFC4176]
o NVO3 - data center network sharing (to be determined, which may
include use of GUE or other tunnels) [RFC7364]
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o PWE3 - emulates wire-like services over packet-switched services
[RFC3985]
o SEAL/AERO -IP in IP tunneling with an additional shim header
designed to overcome the limitations of RFC2003 [RFC5320][Te21]
o A number of legacy variants, including swIPe (an IPsec
precursor), a GRE precursor, and the Internet Encapsulation
Protocol, all of which included a shim layer [RFC1853]
The variety of tunnel mechanisms raises the question of the role of
tunnels in the Internet architecture and the potential need for
these mechanisms to have similar and predictable behavior. In
particular, the ways in which packet size (i.e., Maximum
Transmission Unit or MTU) mismatches and error signals (e.g., ICMP)
are handled may benefit from a coordinated approach.
Regardless of the layer in which encapsulation occurs, tunnels
emulate a link. The only difference is that a link operates over a
physical communication channel, whereas a tunnel operates over other
software protocol layers. Because tunnels are links, they are
subject to the same issues as any link, e.g., MTU discovery,
fragmentation, signaling, and the potential utility of native
support for broadcast and multicast [RFC3819]. Tunnels have some
advantages over native links, being potentially easier to
reconfigure and control because they can generally rely on existing
out-of-band communication between its endpoints.
The first attempt to use large-scale tunnels was to transit
multicast traffic across the Internet in 1988, and this resulted in
'tunnel collapse'. At the time, tunnels were not implemented as
encapsulation-based virtual links, but rather as loose source routes
on un-encapsulated IP datagrams [RFC1075]. Then, as now, routers did
not support use of the loose source route IP option at line rate,
and the multicast traffic caused overload of the so-called "slow
path" processing of IP datagrams in software. Using encapsulation
tunnels avoided that collapse by allowing the forwarding of
encapsulated packets to use the "fast path" hardware processing
[Er94].
The remainder of this document describes the general principles of
IP tunneling and discusses the key considerations in the design of
any protocol that tunnels IP datagrams. It derives its conclusions
from the equivalence of tunnels and links and from requirements of
existing standards for supporting IPv4 and IPv6 as payloads.
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2. Conventions used in this document
2.1. Key Words
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
2.2. Terminology
This document uses the following terminology. Optional words in the
term are indicated in parentheses, e.g., "(link or network)
interface" or "egress (interface)".
Terms from existing RFCs:
o Messages: variable length data labeled with globally-unique
endpoint IDs, also known as a datagram for IP messages [RFC791].
o Node: a physical or logical network device that participates as
either a host [RFC1122][RFC8504] or router [RFC1812][RFC8504].
This term originally referred to gateways since some very early
RFCs [RFC5] but is currently the common way to describe a point
in a network at which messages are processed.
o Host or endpoint: a node that sources or sinks messages labeled
from/to its IDs, typically known as a host for both IP and
higher-layer protocol messages [RFC1122].
o Source or sender: the node that generates a message [RFC1122].
o Destination or receiver: the node that consumes a message
[RFC1122].
o Router or gateway: a node that relays IP messages using
destination IDs and local context [RFC1812][RFC8504]. Routers
also act as hosts when they source or sink messages. Also known
as a forwarder for IP messages. Note that the notion of router is
relative to the layer at which message processing is considered
[To16].
o Link: a communications medium (a physical link) or emulation
thereof (virtual link) that transfers IP messages between nodes
without traversing a router (as would require decrementing the
hop count) [RFC1122][RFC1812][RFC8504].
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o Link packet: a link layer message, which can carry an IP datagram
as a payload (some links use other terms, such as Ethernet and
SONET frames and ATM cells)
o (Link or network) Interface: a location on a link co-located with
a node where messages depart onto that link or arrive from that
link. On physical links, this interface formats the message for
transmission and interprets the received signals.
o Path: a sequence of one or more links over which an IP message
traverses between source and destination nodes (hosts or
routers).
o (Link) MTU: the largest message that can transit a link [RFC791],
also often referred to simply as "MTU". It does not include the
size of link-layer information, e.g., link layer headers or
trailers, i.e., it refers to the message that the link can carry
as a payload rather than the message as it appears on the link.
This is thus the largest network layer packet (including network
layer headers, e.g., IP datagram) that can transit a link. Note
that this need not be the native size of messages on the link,
i.e., the link may internally fragment and reassemble messages.
For IPv4, the smallest MTU must be at least 68 bytes [RFC791],
and for IPv6 the smallest MTU must be at least 1280 bytes
[RFC8200].
o EMTU_S (effective MTU for sending): the largest message that can
transit a link, possibly also accounting for fragmentation that
happens before the fragments are emitted onto the link [RFC1122].
When source fragmentation is possible, EMTU_S = EMTU_R. When
source fragmentation is not possible, EMTU_S = (link) MTU. For
IPv4, this is MUST be at least 68 bytes [RFC791] and for IPv6
this MUST be at least 1280 bytes [RFC8200].
o EMTU_R (effective MTU to receive): the largest payload message
that a receiver must be able to accept. This thus also represents
the largest message that can traverse a link, taking into account
reassembly at the receiver that happens after the fragments are
received [RFC1122]. For IPv4, this is MUST be at least 576 bytes
[RFC791] and for IPv6 this MUST be at least 1500 bytes [RFC8200].
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o Path MTU (PMTU): the largest message that can transit a path of
links [RFC1191][RFC8201]. Typically, this is the minimum of the
link MTUs of the links of the path and represents the largest
network layer message (including network layer headers) that can
transit a path without requiring fragmentation while in transit.
Note that this is not the largest network packet that can be sent
between a source and destination, because that network packet
might have been fragmented at the network layer of the source and
reassembled at the network layer of the destination.
o Tunnel: a protocol mechanism that transits messages between an
ingress interface and egress interface using encapsulation to
allow an existing network path to appear as a single link
[RFC1853]. Note that a protocol can be used to tunnel itself (IP
over IP). There is essentially no difference between a tunnel and
the conventional layering of the ISO stack (i.e., by this
definition, Ethernet is can be considered tunnel for IP). A
tunnel is also known as a virtual link.
o Ingress (interface): the virtual link interface of a tunnel that
receives messages within a node, encapsulates them according to
the tunnel protocol, and transmits them into the tunnel
[RFC2983]. An ingress is the tunnel equivalent of the outgoing
(departing) network interface of a link, and its encapsulation
processing is the tunnel equivalent of encoding a message for
transmission over a physical link. The ingress virtual link
interface can be co-located with the traffic source.
The term 'ingress' in other RFCs also refers to 'network
ingress', which is the entry point of traffic to a transit
network. Because this document focuses on tunnels, the term
"ingress" used in the remainder of this document implies "tunnel
ingress".
o Egress (interface): a virtual link interface of a tunnel that
receives messages that have finished transiting a tunnel and
presents them to a node [RFC2983]. For reasons similar to
ingress, the term 'egress' will refer to 'tunnel egress'
throughout the remainder of this document. An egress is the
tunnel equivalent of the incoming (arriving) network interface of
a link and its decapsulation processing is the tunnel equivalent
of interpreting a signal received from a physical link. The
egress decapsulates messages for further transit to the
destination. The egress virtual link interface can be co-located
with the traffic destination.
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o Ingress node: network device on which an ingress is attached as a
virtual link interface [RFC2983]. Note that a node can act as
both an ingress node and an egress node at the same time, but
typically only for different tunnels.
o Egress node: device where an egress is attached as a virtual link
interface [RFC2983]. Note that a device can act as both an
ingress node and an egress node at the same time, but typically
only for different tunnels.
o Inner header: the header of the message as it arrives to the
ingress [RFC2003].
o Outer header(s): one or more headers added to the message by the
ingress, as part of the encapsulation for tunnel transit
[RFC2003].
o Mid-tunnel fragmentation: Fragmentation of the message during the
tunnel transit, as could occur for IPv4 datagrams with DF=0
[RFC2983].
o Atomic packet, datagram, or fragment: an IP packet that has not
been fragmented and which cannot be fragmented further [RFC6864]
[RFC6946].
The following terms are introduced by this document:
o (Tunnel) transit packet: the packet arriving at a node connected
to a tunnel that enters the ingress interface and exits the
egress interface, i.e., the packet carried over the tunnel. This
is sometimes known as the 'tunneled packet', i.e., the packet
carried over the tunnel. This is the tunnel equivalent of a
network layer packet as it would traverse a link. This document
focuses on IPv4 and IPv6 transit packets.
o (Tunnel) link packet (TLP): packets that traverse between two
interfaces, e.g., from ingress interface to egress interface, in
which resides all or part of a transit packet. A tunnel link
packet is the tunnel equivalent of a link (layer) packet as it
would traverse a link, which is why we use the same terminology.
o Tunnel MTU: the largest transit packet that can traverse a
tunnel, i.e., the tunnel equivalent of a link MTU, which is why
we use the same terminology. This is the largest transit packet
which can be reassembled at the egress interface.
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o Tunnel maximum atomic packet (MAP): the largest transit packet
that can traverse a tunnel as an atomic packet, i.e., without
requiring tunnel link packet fragmentation either at the ingress
or on-path between the ingress and egress.
o Inner fragmentation: fragmentation of the transit packet that
arrives at the ingress interface before any additional headers
are added. This can only correctly occur for IPv4 DF=0 datagrams.
o Outer fragmentation: source fragmentation of the tunnel link
packet after encapsulation; this can involve fragmenting the
outermost header or any of the other (if any) protocol layers
involved in encapsulation.
o Maximum frame size (MFS): the link-layer equivalent of the MTU,
using the OSI term 'frame'. For Ethernet, the MTU (network packet
size) is 1500 bytes but the MFS (link frame size) is 1518 bytes
originally, and 1522 bytes assuming VLAN (802.1Q) tagging
support.
o EMFS_S: the link layer equivalent of EMTU_S.
o EMFS_R: the link layer equivalent of EMTU_R.
o Path MFS: the link layer equivalent of PMTU.
3. The Tunnel Model
A network architecture is an abstract description of a distributed
communications system, its components and their relationships, the
requisite properties of those components and the emergent properties
of the system that result [To03]. Such descriptions can help explain
behavior, as when the OSI seven-layer model is used as a teaching
example [Zi80]. Architectures describe capabilities - and, just as
importantly, constraints.
A network can be defined as a system of endpoints and relays
interconnected by communication paths, abstracting away issues of
naming in order to focus on message forwarding. To the extent that
the Internet has a single, coherent interpretation, its architecture
is defined by its core protocols (typically IPv4 [RFC791] and IPv6
[RFC8200], TCP [RFC9293], and UDP [RFC768]) whose messages are
handled by hosts, routers, and links [Cl88][To03], as shown in
Figure 3:
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+------+ ------ ------ +------+
| | / \ / \ | |
| HOST |--+ ROUTER +--+ ROUTER +--| HOST |
| | \ / \ / | |
+------+ ------ ------ +------+
Figure 3 Basic Internet architecture
As a network architecture, the Internet is a system of hosts
(endpoints) and routers (relays) interconnected by links that
exchange messages when possible. "When possible" defines the
Internet's "best effort" principle. The limited role of routers and
links represents the End-to-End Principle [Sa84] and longest-prefix
match enables hierarchical forwarding using compact tables.
Although the definitions of host, router, and link seem absolute,
they are often relative as viewed within the context of one protocol
layer, each of which can be considered a distinct network
architecture. An Internet "gateway" [RFC1812] is an OSI Layer 3
router when it transits IP datagrams [RFC791], but it acts as an OSI
Layer 2 host [RFC1122] as it sources or sinks Layer 2 messages on
attached links to accomplish this transit capability. In this way,
one device (Internet gateway) behaves as different components
(router, host) at different layers. For IPv6, gateways are called
routers [RFC8504].
Even though a single device may have multiple roles - even
concurrently - at a given layer, each role is typically static and
determined by context. An Internet gateway always acts as a Layer 2
host and that behavior does not depend on where the gateway is
viewed from within Layer 2. In the context of a single layer, a
device's behavior is typically modeled as a single component from
all viewpoints in that layer (with some notable exceptions, e.g.,
Network Address Translators, which appear as hosts and routers,
depending on the direction of the viewpoint [To16]).
3.1. What is a Tunnel?
A tunnel can be modeled as a link in another network
[To98][To01][To03]. In Figure 4, a source host (Hsrc) and
destination host (Hdst) communicating over a network M in which two
routers (Ra and Rd) are connected by a tunnel. Keep in mind that it
is possible that both network N and network M can both be components
of the Internet, i.e., there may be regular traffic as well as
tunneled traffic over any of the routers shown.
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--_ --
+------+ / \ / \ +------+
| Hsrc |--+ Ra + -- -- + Rd +--| Hdst |
+------+ \ //\ / \ / \ /\\ / +------+
--/I \--+ Rb +--+ Rc +--/E \--
\ / \ / \ / \ /
\/ -- -- \/
<------ Network N ------->
<-------------------- Network M --------------------->
Figure 4 The big picture
The tunnel consists of two interfaces - an ingress (I) and an egress
(E) that lie along a path connected by network N. Regardless of how
the ingress and egress interfaces are connected, the tunnel serves
as a link between the nodes it connects (here, Ra and Rd).
IP packets arriving at the ingress interface are encapsulated to
traverse network N. We call these packets 'tunnel transit packets'
(or just 'transit packets') because they will transit the tunnel
inside one or more of what we call 'tunnel link packets'. Transit
packets correspond to network (IP) packets traversing a conventional
link and tunnel link packets correspond to the packets of a
conventional link layer (which can be called just 'link packets').
Link packets use the source address of the ingress interface and the
destination address of the egress interface - using whatever address
is appropriate to the Layer at which the ingress and egress
interfaces operate (Layer 2, Layer 3, Layer 4, etc.). The egress
interface decapsulates those messages, which then continue on
network M as if emerging from a link. To transit packets and to the
routers the tunnel connects (Ra and Rd), the tunnel acts as a link
and the ingress and egress interfaces act as network interfaces to
that link.
The model of each component (ingress and egress interfaces) and the
entire system (tunnel) depends on the layer from which they are
viewed. From the perspective of the outermost hosts (Hsrc and Hdst),
the tunnel appears as a link between two routers (Ra and Rd). For
routers along the tunnel (e.g., Rb and Rc), the ingress and egress
interfaces appear as the endpoint hosts on network N.
When the tunnel network (N) is implemented using the same protocol
as the endpoint network (M), the picture looks flatter (Figure 5),
as if it were running over a single network. However, this
appearance is incorrect - nothing has changed from the previous
case. From the perspective of the endpoints, Rb and Rc and network N
don't exist and aren't visible, and from the perspective of the
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tunnel, network M doesn't exist. The fact that network N and M use
the same protocol and may traverse the same links is irrelevant.
--_ -- -- --
+------+ / \ /\ / \ / \ /\ / \ +------+
| Hsrc |--+ Ra +/I \--+ Rb +--+ Rc +--/E \+ Rd +--| Hdst |
+------+ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / +------+
-- \/ -- -- \/ --
<---- Network N ----->
<------------------ Network M ------------------->
Figure 5 IP in IP network picture
3.2. View from the Outside
As already observed, from outside the tunnel, to network M, the
entire tunnel acts as a link (Figure 6). Consequently, all
requirements for links supporting IP also apply to tunnels
[RFC3819].
--_ --
+------+ / \ / \ +------+
| Hsrc |--+ Ra +--------------------------+ Rd +--| Hdst |
+------+ \ / \ / +------+
-- --
<------------------ Network M ------------------->
Figure 6 Tunnels as viewed from the outside
For example, the IP datagram hop counts (IPv4 Time-to-Live [RFC791]
and IPv6 Hop Limit [RFC8200]) are decremented when traversing a
router, but not when traversing a link - or thus a tunnel.
Similarly, because the ingress and egress are interfaces on this
outer network, they should never issue ICMP messages. A router or
host would issue the appropriate ICMP, e.g., "packet too big" (IPv4
fragmentation needed and DF set [RFC792] or IPv6 packet too big
[RFC4443]), when trying to send a packet to the egress, as it would
for any interface.
Tunnels have a tunnel MTU - the largest message that can transit
that tunnel, just as links have a link MTU. This MTU may not reflect
the native message size of hops within a multihop link (or tunnel)
and the same is true for a tunnel. In both cases, the MTU is defined
by the link's (or tunnel's) effective MTU to receive (EMTU_R).
3.3. View from the Inside
Within network N, i.e., from inside the tunnel itself, the ingress
interface is a source of tunnel link packets and the egress
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interface is a sink - so both are viewed as hosts on network N
(Figure 7). Consequently [RFC1122] and [RFC8504] Internet host
requirements apply to ingress and egress interfaces when Network N
uses IP (and thus the ingress/egress interfaces use IP
encapsulation).
_ -- --
/\ / \ / \ /\
/I \--+ Rb +--+ Rc +--/E \
\ / \ / \ / \ /
\/ -- -- \/
<---- Network N ----->
Figure 7 Tunnels, as viewed from within the tunnel
Viewed from within the tunnel, the outer network (M) doesn't exist.
Tunnel link packets can be fragmented by the source (ingress
interface) and reassembled at the destination (egress interface),
just as at conventional hosts. The path between ingress and egress
interfaces has a path MTU, but the endpoints can exchange messages
as large as can be reassembled at the destination (egress
interface), i.e., the EMTU_R of the egress interface. However, in
both cases, these MTUs refer to the size of the message that can
transit the links and between the hosts of network N, which
represents a link layer to network M. I.e., the MTUs of network N
represent the maximum frame sizes (MFSs) of the tunnel as a link in
network M.
Information about the network - i.e., regarding network N MTU sizes,
network reachability, etc. - are relayed from the destination
(egress interface) and intermediate routers back to the source
(ingress interface), without regard for the external network (M).
When such messages arrive at the ingress interface, they may affect
the properties of that interface (e.g., its reported MTU to network
M), but they should never directly cause new ICMPs in the outer
network M. Again, events at interfaces don't generate ICMP messages;
it would be the host or router at which that interface is attached
that would generate ICMPs, e.g., upon attempting to use that
interface.
3.4. Location of the Ingress and Egress
The ingress and egress interfaces are endpoints of the tunnel.
Tunnel interfaces may be physical or virtual. The interface may be
implemented inside the node where the tunnel attaches, e.g., inside
a host or router. The interface may also be implemented as a "bump
in the wire" (BITW), somewhere along a link between the two nodes
the link interconnects. IP in IP tunnels are often implemented as
interfaces on nodes, whereas IPsec tunnels are sometimes implemented
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as BITW. These implementation variations determine only whether
information available at the link endpoints (ingress/egress
interfaces) can be easily shared with the connected network nodes.
An ingress or egress can be implemented as an integrated component,
appearing equivalent to any other network interface, or can be more
complex. In the simple variant, each is tightly coupled to another
network interface, e.g., where the ingress emits encapsulated
packets directly into another network interface, or where the egress
receives packets to decapsulate directly from another network
interface.
The other implementation variant is more modular, but more complex
to explain. The ingress acts like a network interface by receiving
IP packets to transmit from an upper layer protocol (or relay
mechanism of a router), but then acts like an upper layer protocol
(or relay mechanism of a router) when it emits encapsulated packets
back into the same node. The egress acts like an upper layer
interface (or relay mechanism of a router) by receiving packets from
a network interface, but then acts like a network interface when it
emits decapsulated packets back in to the same node. To the existing
network interfaces, the ingress/egress act like upper layer
interfaces (i.e., sending or receiving application stacks), while to
the interior of the node, the ingress/egress act like network
interfaces. This dual nature inside the node reflects the duality of
the tunnel as transit link and host-host channel.
3.5. Implications of This Model
This approach highlights a few key features of a tunnel as a network
architecture construct:
o To the transit packets, tunnels turn a network (Layer 3) path
into a (Layer 2) link
o To nodes the tunnel traverses, the tunnel ingress and egress
interfaces act as hosts that source and sink tunnel link packets
The consequences of these features are as follows:
o Like a link MTU, a tunnel MTU is defined by the effective MTU of
the receiver (i.e., EMTU_R of the egress).
o The messages inside the tunnel are treated like any other link
layer, i.e., the MTU is determined by the largest (transit)
payload that traverses the link.
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o Every messaging protocol that traverses a tunnel needs to be
capable of supporting fragmentation and reassembly, to adapt to
this tunnel MTU. This is always required, despite being
considered 'fragile' at certain protocol layers [RFC8900].
o The tunnel path MFS is not relevant to the transited traffic.
There is no mechanism or protocol by which it can be determined.
o Because routers, not links, alter hop counts [RFC1812][RFC8504],
hopcounts are not decremented solely by the transit of a tunnel.
A packet with a hop count of zero should successfully transit a
link (and thus a tunnel) that connects two hosts.
o The addresses of a tunnel ingress and egress interface correspond
to link layer addresses to the transit packet. Like links, some
tunnels may not have their own addresses. Like network
interfaces, ingress and egress interfaces typically require
network layer addresses.
o Like network interfaces, the ingress and egress interfaces are
never a direct source of ICMP messages but may provide
information to their attached host or router to generate those
ICMP messages during the processing of transit packets.
o Like network interfaces and links, two nodes may be connected by
any combination of tunnels and links, including multiple tunnels.
As with multiple links, existing network layer forwarding
determines which IP traffic uses each link or tunnel.
These observations make it much easier to determine what a tunnel
must do to transit IP packets, notably it must satisfy all
requirements expected of a link [RFC1122][RFC3819]. The remainder of
this document explores these implications in greater detail.
3.6. Fragmentation
There are two places where fragmentation can occur in a tunnel,
called 'outer fragmentation' and 'inner fragmentation'. This
document assumes that only outer fragmentation is viable because it
is the only approach that works for both IPv4 datagrams with DF=1
and IPv6.
3.6.1. Outer Fragmentation
Outer fragmentation is shown in Figure 8. The bottom of the figure
shows the network topology, where transit packets originate at the
source, enter the tunnel at the ingress interface for encapsulation,
exit the tunnel at the egress interface where they are decapsulated,
and arrive at the destination. The packet traffic is shown above the
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topology, where the transit packets are shown at the top. In this
diagram, the ingress interface is located on router 'Ra' and the
egress interface is located on router 'Rd'.
When the link packet - which is the encapsulated transit packet -
would exceed the tunnel MTU, the packet needs to be fragmented. In
this case the packet is fragmented at the outer (link) header, with
the fragments shown as (b1) and (b2). The outer header indicates
fragmentation (as ' and "), the inner (transit) header occurs only
in the first fragment, and the inner (transit) data is broken across
the two packets. These fragments are reassembled at the egress
interface during decapsulation in step (c), where the resulting link
packet is reassembled and decapsulated so that the transit packet
can continue on its way to the destination.
Transit packet
+----+----+ +----+----+
| iH | iD |------+ - - - - - - - - - - +------>| iH | iD |
+----+----+ | | +----+----+
v Link packet |
+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+
(a) | oH | iH | iD | | oH | iH | iD | (d)
+----+----+----+ +----+----+----+
| ^
| Link packet fragment #1 |
| +----+----+-----+ |
(b1) +----- >| oH'| iH | iD1 |-------+ (c)
| +----+----+-----+ |
| |
| Link packet fragment #2 |
| +----+-----+ |
(b2) +----- >| oH"| iD2 |------------+
+----+-----+
+-----+ +--+ +---+ +---+ +--+ +-----+
| | | |/ \ / \| | | |
| Src |----|Ra|Ingress|=====================|Egress |Rd|-----| Dst |
| | | |\ / \ /| | | |
+-----+ +--+ +---+ +---+ +--+ +-----+
Figure 8 Fragmentation of the (outer) link packet
Outer fragmentation isolates the tunnel encapsulation duties to the
ingress and egress interfaces. This can be considered a benefit in
clean, layered network design, but also may require complex egress
interface decapsulation, especially where tunnels aggregate large
amounts of traffic, such as may result in IP ID overload (see Sec.
4.1.4). Outer fragmentation is valid for any tunnel link protocol
that supports fragmentation (e.g., IPv4 or IPv6), in which the
tunnel endpoints act as the host endpoints of that protocol.
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Along the tunnel, the inner (transit) header is contained only in
the first fragment, which can interfere with mechanisms that 'peek'
into lower layer headers, e.g., as for relayed ICMP (see Sec. 4.3).
3.6.2. Inner Fragmentation
Inner fragmentation distributes the impact of tunnel fragmentation
across both egress interface decapsulation and transit packet
destination, as shown in Figure 9; this can be especially important
when the tunnel would otherwise need to source (outer) fragment
large amounts of traffic. However, this mechanism is valid only when
the transit packets can be fragmented on-path, e.g., as when the
transit packets are IPv4 datagrams with DF=0.
Again, the network topology is shown at the bottom of the figure,
and the original packets show at the top. Packets arrive at the
ingress node (router Ra) and are fragmented there based into transit
packet fragments #1 (a1) and #2 (a2). These fragments are
encapsulated at the ingress interface in steps (b1) and (b2) and
each resulting link packet traverses the tunnel. When these link
packets arrive at the egress interface, they are decapsulated in
steps (c1) and (c2) and the egress node (router) forwards the
transit packet fragments to their destination. This destination is
then responsible for reassembling the transit packet fragments into
the original transit packet (d).
Along the tunnel, the inner headers are copied into each fragment,
and so can be 'peeked at' inside the tunnel (see Sec. 4.3).
Fragmentation shifts from the ingress interface to the ingress
router and reassembly shifts from the egress interface to the
destination.
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Transit packet
+----+----+ +----+----+
| iH | iD |-+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - ->| iH | iD |
+----+----+ | +----+----+
v Transit packet fragment #1 ^
+----+-----+ +----+-----+ |
(a1) | iH'| iD1 | | iH'| iD1 |----+(d)
+----+-----+ +----+-----+ ^
| | Link packet #1 ^ |
| | +----+----+-----+ | |
| (b1)+------>| oH | iH'| iD1 |------+(c1) |
| +----+----+-----+ |
| |
v Transit packet fragment #2 |
+----+-----+ +----+-----+ |
(a2) | iH"| iD2 | | iH"| iD2 |----+
+----+-----+ +----+-----+
| Link packet #2 |
| +----+----+-----+ |
(b2)+ ----->| oH | iH"| iD2 |------+(c2)
+----+----+-----+
+-----+ +--+ +---+ +---+ +--+ +-----+
| | | |/ \ / \| | | |
| Src |----|Ra|Ingress|======================|Egress |Rd|----| Dst |
| | | |\ / \ /| | | |
+-----+ +--+ +---+ +---+ +--+ +-----+
Figure 9 Fragmentation of the inner (transit) packet
3.6.3. The Necessity of Outer Fragmentation
Fragmentation is critical for tunnels that support transit packets
for protocols with minimum MTU requirements, while operating over
tunnel paths using protocols that have their own MTU requirements.
Depending on the amount of space used by encapsulation, these two
minimums will ultimately interfere (especially when a protocol
transits itself either directly, as with IP-in-IP, or indirectly, as
in IP-in-GRE-in-IP), and the transit packet will need to be
fragmented to both support a tunnel MTU while traversing tunnels
with their own tunnel path MTUs.
Outer fragmentation is the only solution that supports all IPv4 and
IPv6 traffic, because inner fragmentation is allowed only for IPv4
datagrams with DF=0.
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4. IP Tunnel Requirements
The requirements of an IP tunnel are defined by the requirements of
an IP link because both transit IP packets. A tunnel thus must
transit the IP minimum MTU, i.e., 68 bytes for IPv4 [RFC9293] and
1280 bytes for IPv6 [RFC8200] and a tunnel must support address
resolution when there is more than one egress interface for that
tunnel.
The requirements of the tunnel ingress and egress interfaces are
defined by the network over which they exchange messages (link
packets). For IP-over-IP, this means that the ingress interface MUST
NOT exceed the IP fragment identification field uniqueness
requirements [RFC6864]. Uniqueness is more difficult to maintain at
high packet rates for IPv4, whose fragment ID field is only 16 bits.
These requirements remain even though tunnels have some unique
issues, including the need for additional space for encapsulation
headers and the potential for tunnel MTU variation.
4.1. Encapsulation Header Issues
Tunnel encapsulation uses a non-link protocol as a link layer. The
encapsulation layer thus has the same requirements and expectations
as any other IP link layer when used to transit IP packets. These
relationships are addressed in the following subsections.
4.1.1. General Principles of Header Fields Relationships
Some tunnel specifications attempt to relate the header fields of
the transit packet and tunnel link packet. In some cases, this
relationship is warranted, whereas in other cases the two protocol
layers need to be isolated from each other. For example, the tunnel
link header source and destination addresses are network endpoints
in the tunnel network N, but have no meaning in the outer network M.
The two sets of addresses are effectively independent, just as are
other network and link addresses.
Because the tunneled packet uses source and destination addresses
with a separate meaning, it is inappropriate to copy or reuse the
IPv4 Identification (ID) or IPv6 Fragment ID fields of the tunnel
transit packet (see Section 4.1.4). Similarly, the DF field of the
transit packet is not related to that field in the tunnel link
packet header (presuming both are IPv4 - because IPv6 has no DF
field) (see Section 4.2). Most other fields are similarly
independent between the transit packet and tunnel link packet. When
a field value is generated in the encapsulation header, its meaning
should be derived from what is desired in the context of the tunnel
as a link. When feedback is inferred from the values received in
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these fields (e.g., using IPv4 options or IPv6 host options) or via
related protocols (e.g., ICMP) they should be presented to the
tunnel ingress and egress as if they were network interfaces. The
behavior of the node where these interfaces attach should be
identical to that of a conventional link.
There are exceptions to this rule that are explicitly intended to
relay signals from inside the tunnel to the network outside the
tunnel at the tunnel ingress and egress, typically relevant only
when the tunnel network N and the outer network M use the same
network. These apply only when that coordination is defined, as with
explicit congestion notification (ECN) [RFC6040][Br22a][Br22b] (see
Section 4.3.2) and differentiated services code points (DSCPs)
[RFC2983]. Equal-cost multipath routing may also affect how some
encapsulation fields are set, including IPv6 flow labels [RFC6438]
and source ports for transport protocols when used for tunnel
encapsulation [RFC8085] (see Section 4.3.4).
4.1.2. Addressing Fields
Tunnel ingresses and egresses have addresses associated with the
encapsulation protocol. These addresses are the source and
destination (respectively) of the encapsulated packet while
traversing the tunnel network.
Tunnels may or may not have addresses in the network whose traffic
they transit (e.g., network M in Figure 4). In some cases, the
tunnel is an unnumbered interface to a point-to-point virtual link.
When the tunnel has multiple egresses, tunnel interfaces require
separate addresses in network M.
To see the effect of tunnel interface addresses, consider traffic
sourced at router Ra in Figure 4. Even before being encapsulated by
the ingress, traffic needs a source IP network address that belongs
to the router. One option is to use an address associated with one
of the other interfaces of the router [RFC1122][RFC8504]. Another
option is to assign a number to the tunnel interface itself.
Regardless of which address is used, the resulting IP packet is then
encapsulated by the tunnel ingress using the ingress address as a
separate operation.
4.1.3. Hop Count Fields
The Internet hop count field is used to detect and avoid forwarding
loops that cannot be corrected without a synchronized reboot. The
IPv4 Time-to-Live (TTL) and IPv6 Hop Limit field each serve this
purpose [RFC791][RFC8200]. The IPv4 TTL field was originally
intended to indicate packet expiration time, measured in seconds. An
IPv4 router is required to decrement the TTL by at least one or the
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number of seconds the packet is delayed, whichever is larger
[RFC1812]. Packets are rarely held that long, and so the field has
come to represent the count of the number of routers traversed. IPv6
makes this meaning more explicit [RFC8504].
These hop count fields represent the number of network forwarding
elements (routers) traversed by an IP datagram. An IP datagram with
a hop count of zero can traverse a link between two hosts because it
never visits a router (where it would need to be decremented and
would have been dropped).
An IP datagram traversing a tunnel thus need not have its hop count
modified, i.e., the tunnel transit header need not be affected. A
zero hopcount datagram should be able to traverse a tunnel as easily
as it traverses a link. A router MAY be configured to decrement
packets traversing a particular link (and thus a tunnel), which may
be useful in emulating a tunnel path as if it were a network path
that traversed one or more routers, but this is strictly optional.
The ability of the outer network M and tunnel network N to avoid
indefinitely looping packets does not rely on the hop counts of the
transit packet and tunnel link packet being related.
The hop count field is also used by several protocols to determine
whether endpoints are 'local', i.e., connected to the same subnet
(link-local discovery and related protocols [RFC4861] described as
the Generalized TTL Security Mechanism / GTSM [RFC5082]). A tunnel
is a way to make a remote network address appear directly-connected,
so it makes sense that the other ends of the tunnel appear local and
that such link-local protocols operate over tunnels unless
configured explicitly otherwise. When the interfaces of a tunnel are
numbered, these can be interpreted the same way as if they were on
the same link subnet.
4.1.4. IP Fragment Identification Fields
Both IPv4 and IPv6 include an IP Identification (ID) field to
support IP datagram fragmentation and reassembly
[RFC791][RFC1122][RFC8200]. When used, the ID field is intended to
be unique for every packet for a given source address, destination
address, and protocol, such that it does not repeat within the
Maximum Segment Lifetime (MSL).
For IPv4, this field is in the default header and is meaningful only
when either source fragmented or DF=0 ("non-atomic packets")
[RFC6864]. For IPv6, this field is contained in the optional
Fragment Header [RFC8200]. Although IPv6 supports only source
fragmentation, the field may occur in atomic fragments [RFC6946].
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Although the ID field was originally intended for fragmentation and
reassembly, it can also be used to detect and discard duplicate
packets, e.g., at congested routers (see Sec. 3.2.1.5 of [RFC1122]).
For this reason, and because IPv4 packets can be fragmented anywhere
along a path, all non-atomic IPv4 and IPv6 packets between a source
and destination of a given protocol must have unique ID values over
the potential fragment reordering period [RFC6864][RFC8200].
The uniqueness of the IP ID is a known problem for high-speed nodes,
because can limits the speed of a single protocol between two
endpoints when the field is used to uniquely identify packets in
flight [RFC4963][RFC6864]. Although this RFC suggests that the
uniqueness of the IP ID is moot, tunnels exacerbate this condition.
A tunnel often aggregates traffic from a number of different source
and destination addresses, of different protocols, and encapsulates
them in a header with the same ingress and egress addresses, all
using a single encapsulation protocol. If the ingress enforces IP ID
uniqueness, this can either severely limit tunnel throughput or can
require substantial resources; the alternative is to ignore IP ID
uniqueness and risk reassembly errors. Although fragmentation is
somewhat rare in the current Internet at large, it can be common
along a tunnel. Reassembly errors are not always detected by other
protocol layers (see Sec. 4.3.3), and even when detected they can
result in excessive overall packet loss and can waste bandwidth
between the egress and ultimate packet destination.
The 32-bit IPv6 ID field in the Fragment Header is typically used
only during source fragmentation. The size of the ID field is
typically sufficient that a single counter can be used at the tunnel
ingress, regardless of the endpoint addresses or next-header
protocol, allowing efficient support for very high throughput
tunnels.
The smaller 16-bit IPv4 ID is more difficult to correctly support. A
recent update to IPv4 allows the ID to be repeated for atomic
packets [RFC6864]. When either source fragmentation or on-path
fragmentation is supported, the tunnel ingress may need to keep
independent ID counters for each tunnel source/destination/protocol
tuple.
4.1.5. Checksums
IP traffic transiting a tunnel needs to expect a similar level of
error detection and correction as it would expect from any other
link. In the case of IPv4, there are no such expectations, which is
partly why it includes a header checksum [RFC791].
IPv6 omitted the header checksum because it already expects most
link errors to be detected and dropped by the link layer and because
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it also assumes transport protection [RFC8200]. When transiting IPv6
over IPv6, the tunnel fails to provide the expected error detection.
This is why IPv6 is often tunneled over layers that include separate
protection, such as GRE [RFC2784].
The fragmentation created by the tunnel ingress can increase the
need for stronger error detection and correction, especially at the
tunnel egress to avoid reassembly errors. The Internet checksum is
known to be susceptible to reassembly errors that could be common
[RFC4963] and should not be relied upon for this purpose. This is
why some tunnel protocols, e.g., SEAL and AERO [RFC5320][Te21] and
GRE [RFC2784] as well as legacy protocols swIPe and the Internet
Encapsulation Protocol [RFC1853], include a separate checksum. This
requirement can be undermined when using UDP as a tunnel with no UDP
checksum (as per [RFC6935][RFC6936]) when fragmentation occurs
because the egress has no checksum with which to validate
reassembly. For this reason, it is safe to use UDP with a zero
checksum for atomic tunnel link packets only [RFC6936]; when used on
fragments, whether generated at the ingress or en-route inside the
tunnel, omission of such a checksum can result in reassembly errors
that can cause additional work (capacity, forwarding processing,
receiver processing) downstream of the egress.
4.2. MTU Issues
Link MTUs, IP datagram limits, and transport protocol segment sizes
are already related by several requirements
[RFC768][RFC791][RFC1122][RFC1812][RFC8200] and by a variety of
protocol mechanisms that attempt to establish relationships between
them, including path MTU discovery (PMTUD) [RFC1191][RFC8201],
packetization layer path MTU discovery (PLMTUD) [RFC4821][RFC8899],
as well as mechanisms inside transport protocols
[RFC9293][RFC4340][RFC9260]. The following subsections summarize the
interactions between tunnels and MTU issues, including minimum
tunnel MTUs, tunnel fragmentation and reassembly, and MTU discovery.
4.2.1. Minimum MTU Considerations
There are a variety of values of minimum MTU values to consider,
both in a conventional network and in a tunnel as a link in that
network. These are indicated in Figure 10, an annotated variant of
Figure 4. Note that a (link) MTU (a) corresponds to a tunnel MTU (d)
and that a path MTU (b) corresponds to a tunnel path MTU (e). The
tunnel MTU is the EMTU_R of the egress interface, because that
defines the largest transit packet message that can traverse the
tunnel as a link in network M. The ability to traverse the hops of
the tunnel - in network N - is not related, and only the ingress
need be concerned with that value.
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--_ --
+------+ / \ / \ +------+
| Hsrc |--+ Ra + -- -- + Rd +--| Hdst |
+------+ \ //\ / \ / \ /\\ / +------+
--/I \---+ Rb +---+ Rc +---/E \--
\ / \ / \ / \ /
\/ -- -- \/
<----- Network N ------->
<-------------------- Network M --------------------->
Communication in network M viewed at that layer:
(a) <-> Link MTU
(b) <---- Tunnel MTU --------->
(c) <----------- Path MTU ----------------->
(d) <------------------- EMTU_R --------------------------->
Communication in network N viewed at that layer:
(e) <--> Link MTU
(f) <--- Path MTU ------>
(g) <----- EMTU_R --------->
Communication in network N viewed from network M:
(h) <--> MFS
(i) <--- Path MFS ------>
(j) <----- EMFS_R --------->
Figure 10 The variety of MTU values
Consider the following example values. For IPv6 transit packets, the
minimum (link) MTU (a) is 1280 bytes, which similarly applies to
tunnels as the tunnel MTU (b). The path MTU (c) is the minimum of
the links (including tunnels as links) along a path and indicates
the largest IP message (packet or fragment) that can traverse a path
between a source and destination without on-path fragmentation
(e.g., supported in IPv4 with DF=0). Path MTU discovery, either at
the network layer (PMTUD [RFC1191][RFC8201]) or packetization layer
(PLPMTUD [RFC4821][RFC8899]) attempts to tune the source IP packets
and fragments (i.e., EMTU_S) to fit within this path MTU size to
avoid fragmentation and reassembly [Ke95]. The minimum EMTU_R (d) is
1500 bytes, i.e., the minimum MTU for endpoint-to-endpoint
communication.
The tunnel is a source-destination communication in network N.
Messages between the tunnel source (the ingress interface) and
tunnel destination (egress interface) similarly experience a variety
of network N MTU values, including a link MTU (e), a path MTU (f),
and an EMTU_R (g). The network N message maximum is limited by the
path MTU, and the source-destination message maximum (EMTU_S) is
limited by the path MTU when source fragmentation is disabled and by
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EMTU_R otherwise, just as it was in for those types of MTUs in
network M. For an IPv6 network N, its link and path MTUs must be at
least 1280 and its EMTU_R must be at least 1500.
However, viewed from the context of network M, these network N MTUs
are link layer properties, i.e., maximum frame sizes (MFS (h)). The
network N EMTU_R determines the largest message that can transit
between the source (ingress) and destination (egress) but viewed
from network M this is a link layer, i.e., EMFS_R (j). The tunnel
EMTU_R is EMFS_R minus the link (encapsulation) headers and includes
the encapsulation headers of the link layer. Just as the path MTU
has no bearing on EMTU_R, the path MFS (i) in network N has no
bearing on the MTU of the tunnel.
For IPv6 networks M and N, these relationships are summarized as
follows:
o Network M MTU = 1280, the largest transit packet (i.e., payload)
over a single IPv6 link in the base network without source
fragmentation
o Network M path MTU = 1280, the transit packet (i.e., payload)
that can traverse a path of links in the base network without
source fragmentation
o Network M EMTU_R = 1500, the largest transit packet (i.e.,
payload) that can traverse a path in the base network with source
fragmentation
o Network N MTU = 1280 (for the same reasons as for network M)
o Network N path MTU = 1280 (for the same reasons as for network M)
o Network N EMTU_R = 1500 (for the same reasons as for network M)
o Tunnel MTU = 1500-encapsulation (typically 1460), the network N
EMTU_R payload
o Tunnel MAP (maximum atomic packet) = largest network M message
that transits a tunnel as an atomic packet using network N as a
link layer: 1280-encapsulation, i.e., the network N path MTU
payload (which is itself limited by the tunnel path MFS)
The difference between the network N MTU and its treatment as a link
layer in network M is the reason why the tunnel ingress interfaces
need to support fragmentation and tunnel egress interfaces need to
support reassembly in the encapsulation layer(s). The high cost of
fragmentation and reassembly is why it is useful for applications to
avoid sending messages too close to the size of the tunnel path MTU
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[RFC8900][Ke95], although there is no signaling mechanism that can
achieve this (see Section 4.2.3).
Note that one example of explicit indication of EMTU_R information
for tunnels is proposed for IPsec tunnel mode in [Mi22]. It relies
on the IKE protocol to exchange information for the IPsec tunnel, as
there is no in-band method that enables that exchange within IP.
4.2.2. Fragmentation
A tunnel interacts with fragmentation in two different ways. Because
the tunnel in Figure 10 acts as a link in network M, transit packets
might be fragmented before they reach the tunnel - i.e., in network
M either during source fragmentation (if generated at the same node
as the ingress interface) or forwarding fragmentation (for IPv4 DF=0
datagrams). In addition, link packets traversing inside the tunnel
may require fragmentation by the ingress interface - i.e., source
fragmentation by the ingress as a host in network N. These two
fragmentation operations are no more related than are conventional
IP fragmentation and ATM segmentation and reassembly; one occurs at
the (transit) network layer, the other at the (virtual) link layer.
Although many of these issues with tunnel fragmentation and MTU
handling were discussed in [RFC4459] and [RFC8900], both documents
described a variety of alternatives as if they were independent.
This document explains the combined approach that is necessary.
Like any other link, an IPv4 tunnel must transit 68-byte packets
without requiring source fragmentation [RFC791][RFC1122] and an IPv6
tunnel must transit 1280-byte packets without requiring source
fragmentation [RFC8200]. The tunnel MTU interacts with routers or
hosts it connects the same way as would any other link MTU. The
pseudocode examples in this section use the following values:
o TP: transit packet
o TLP: tunnel link packet
o TPsize: size of the transit packet (including its headers)
o encaps: ingress encapsulation overhead (tunnel link headers)
o tunMTU: tunnel MTU, i.e., network N egress EMTU_R - encaps
o tunMAP: tunnel maximum atomic packet as limited by the tunnel
path MFS
These rules apply at the host/router where the tunnel is attached,
i.e., at the network layer of the transit packet (we assume that all
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tunnels, including multipoint tunnels, have a single, uniform MTU).
These are basic source fragmentation rules (or transit
refragmentation for IPv4 DF=0 datagrams) and have no relation to the
tunnel itself other than to consider the tunnel MTU as the effective
link MTU of the next hop.
Inside the source during transit packet generation or a router
during transit packet forwarding, the tunnel is treated as if it
were any other link (i.e., this is not tunnel processing, but rather
typical source or router processing), as indicated in the pseudocode
in Figure 11.
if (TPsize > tunMTU) then
if (TP can be on-path fragmented, e.g., IPv4 DF=0) then
split TP into TP fragments of tunMTU size
and send each TP fragment to the tunnel ingress interface
else
drop the TP and send ICMP "too big" to the TP source
endif
else
send TP to the tunnel ingress (i.e., as an outbound interface)
endif
Figure 11 Router / host packet size processing algorithm
The tunnel ingress acts as host on the tunnel path, i.e., as source
fragmentation of tunnel link packets (we assume that all tunnels,
even multipoint tunnels, have a single, uniform tunnel MTU), using
the pseudocode shown in Figure 12. Note that ingress source
fragmentation occurs in the encapsulation process, which may involve
more than one protocol layer. In those cases, fragmentation can
occur at any of the layers of encapsulation in which it is
supported, based on the configuration of the ingress.
if (TPsize <= tunMAP) then
encapsulate the TP and emit
else
if (tunMAP < TPsize) then
encapsulate the TP, creating the TLP
fragment the TLP into tunMAP chunks
emit the TLP fragments
endif
endif
Figure 12 Ingress processing algorithm
Note that these Figure 11 and Figure 12 indicate that a node might
both "fragment then encapsulate" and "encapsulate then fragment",
i.e., the effect is "on-path fragment, then encapsulate, then source
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fragment". The first (on-path) fragmentation occurs only for IPv4
DF=0 packets, based on the tunnel MTU. The second (source)
fragmentation occurs for all packets, based on the tunnel maximum
atomic packet (MAP) size. The first fragmentation is a convenience
for a subset of IPv4 packets; it is the second (source)
fragmentation that ensures that messages traverse the tunnel.
Just as a network interface should never receive a message larger
than its MTU, a tunnel should never receive a message larger than
its tunnel MTU limit (see the host/router processing above). A
router attempting to process such a packet should already have
generated an ICMP "packet too big" and the transit packet would have
been dropped before entering into this algorithm. Similarly, a host
would have generated an error internally and aborted the attempted
transmission.
As an example, consider IPv4 over IPv6 or IPv6 over IPv6 tunneling,
where IPv6 encapsulation adds a 40-byte fixed header plus IPv6
options (i.e., IPv6 header extensions) of total size 'EHsize'. The
tunnel MTU will be at least 1500 - (40 + EHsize) bytes. The tunnel
path MTU will be at least 1280 - (40 + EHsize) bytes, which then
also represents the tunnel maximum atomic packet size (MAP). Transit
packets larger than the tunnel MTU will be dropped by a node before
ingress processing, and so do not need to be addressed as part of
ingress processing. Considering these minimum values, the previous
algorithm uses actual values shown in the pseudocode in Figure 13.
if (TPsize <= (1240 - EHsize)) then
encapsulate TP and emit
else
if ((1240 - EHsize) < TPsize) then
encapsulate the TP , creating the TLP
fragment the TLP into (1240 - EHsize) chunks
emit the TLP fragments
endif
endif
Figure 13 I Ingress processing for a tunnel over IPv6
IPv6 cannot necessarily support all tunnel encapsulations. When the
egress EMTU_R is the default of 1500 bytes, an IPv6 tunnel supports
IPv6 transit only if EHsize is 180 bytes or less; otherwise, the
incoming transit packet would have been dropped as being too large
by the host/router. Under the same EMTU_R assumption, an IPv6 tunnel
supports IPv4 transit only if EHsize is 884 bytes or less. In this
example, transit packets of up to (1240 - Ehsize) can traverse the
tunnel without ingress source fragmentation and egress reassembly.
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When using IP directly over IP, the minimum transit packet EMTU_R
for IPv4 is 576 bytes and for IPv6 is 1500 bytes. This means that
tunnels of IPv4-over-IPv4, IPv4-over-IPv6, and IPv6-over-IPv6 are
possible without additional requirements, but this may involve
ingress fragmentation and egress reassembly. IPv6 cannot be tunneled
directly over IPv4 without additional requirements, notably that the
egress EMTU_R is at least 1280 bytes.
When ongoing ingress fragmentation and egress reassembly would be
prohibitive or costly, larger MTUs can be supported by design and
confirmed either out-of-band (by design) or in-band (e.g., using
PLPMTUD [RFC4821][RFC8899], as done in SEAL [RFC5320] and AERO
[Te21]). In particular, many tunnel specifications are often able to
avoid persistent fragmentation because they operationally assume
larger EMTU_R and tunnel MAP sizes than are guaranteed for IPv4
[RFC1122] or IPv6 [RFC8200].
4.2.3. Path MTU Discovery
Path MTU discovery (PMTUD) enables a network path to support a
larger PMTU than it can assume from the minimum requirements of
protocol over which it operates. Note, however, that PMTUD never
discovers EMTU_R that is larger than the required minimum; that
information is available to some upper layer protocols, such as TCP
[RFC1122], but cannot be determined at the IP layer.
There is temptation to optimize tunnel traversal so that packets are
not fragmented between ingress and egress, i.e., to attempt tune the
network M PMTU to the tunnel MAP size rather than to the tunnel MTU,
to avoid ingress fragmentation. This is often impossible because the
ICMP "packet too big" message (IPv4 fragmentation needed [RFC792] or
IPv6 packet too big [RFC4443]) indicates the complete failure of a
link to transit a packet, not a preference for a size that matches
that internal the mechanism of the link. ICMP messages are intended
to indicate whether a tunnel MTU is insufficient; there is no ICMP
message that can indicate when a transit packet is "too big for the
tunnel path MTU, but not larger than the tunnel MTU". If there were,
endpoints might receive that message for IP packets larger than 40
bytes (the payload of a single ATM cell, allowing for the 8-byte
AAL5 trailer), but smaller than 9K (the ATM EMTU_R payload).
In addition, attempting to try to tune the network transit size to
natively match that of the link internal transit can be hazardous
for many reasons:
o The tunnel is capable of transiting packets as large as the
network N EMTU_R - encapsulation, which is always at least as
large as the tunnel MTU and typically is larger.
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o ICMP has only one type of error message regarding large packets -
"too big", i.e., too large to transit. There is no optimization
message of "bigger than I'd like, but I can deal with if needed".
o IP tunnels often involve some level of recursion, i.e.,
encapsulation over itself [RFC4459].
Tunnels that use IPv4 as the encapsulation layer SHOULD set DF=0,
but this requires generating unique fragmentation ID values, which
may limit throughput [RFC6864]. These tunnels might have difficulty
assuming ingress EMTU_S values over 64 bytes, so it may not be
feasible to assume that larger packets with DF=1 are safe.
Recursive tunneling occurs whenever a protocol ends up encapsulated
in itself. This happens directly, as when IPv4 is encapsulated in
IPv4, or indirectly, as when IP is encapsulated in UDP which then is
a payload inside IP. It can involve many layers of encapsulation
because a tunnel provider isn't always aware of whether the packets
it transits are already tunneled.
Recursion is impossible when the tunnel transit packets are limited
to that of the native size of the ingress payload. Arriving tunnel
transit packets have a minimum supported size (1280 for IPv6) and
the tunnel PMFS has the same requirement; there would be no room for
the tunnel's "link layer" headers, i.e., the encapsulation layer.
The result would be an IPv6 tunnel that cannot satisfy IPv6 transit
requirements.
It is more appropriate to require the tunnel to satisfy IP transit
requirements and enforce that requirement at design time or during
operation (the latter using PLPMTUD [RFC4821][RFC8899]).
Conventional path MTU discovery (PMTUD) relies on existing endpoint
ICMP processing of explicit negative feedback from routers along the
path via "packet to big" ICMP packets in the reverse direction of
the tunnel [RFC1191][RFC8201]. This technique is susceptible to the
"black hole" phenomenon, in which the ICMP messages never return to
the source due to policy-based filtering [RFC2923]. PLPMTUD requires
a separate, direct control channel from the egress to the ingress
that provides positive feedback; the direct channel is not blocked
by policy filters and the positive feedback ensures fail-safe
operation if feedback messages are lost [RFC4821][RFC8899].
PLPMTUD might require that the ingress consider the potential impact
of multipath forwarding (see Section 4.3.4). In such cases, probes
generated by the ingress might need to track different flows, e.g.,
that might traverse different tunnel paths. Additionally,
encapsulation might need to consider mechanisms to ensure that
probes traverse the same path as their corresponding traffic, even
when labeled as the same flow (e.g., using the IPv6 flow ID). In
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such cases, the transit packet and probe may need to be encrypted or
encapsulated in an additional flow-based transport header, to avoid
differential path traversal based on deep-packet inspection within
the tunnel.
4.3. Coordination Issues
IP tunnels interact with link layer signals and capabilities in a
variety of ways. The following subsections address some key issues
of these interactions. In general, they are again informed by
treating a tunnel as any other link layer and considering the
interactions between the IP layer and link layers [RFC3819].
4.3.1. Signaling
In the current Internet architecture, signaling goes upstream,
either from routers along a path or from the destination, back
toward the source. Such signals are typically contained in ICMP
messages, but can involve other protocols such as RSVP, transport
protocol signals (e.g., TCP RSTs), or multicast control or transport
protocols.
A tunnel behaves like a link and acts like a link interface at the
nodes where it is attached. As such, it can provide information that
enhances IP signaling (e.g., ICMP), but itself does not directly
generate ICMP messages.
For tunnels, this means that there are two separate signaling paths.
The outer network M node (Figure 14). Inside the tunnel, the inner
network N nodes can signal the source of the tunnel link packets,
the ingress I (Figure 15).
+--------+---------------------------+--------+
| | | |
v --_ -- v
+------+ / \ / \ +------+
| Hsrc |--+ Ra + -- -- + Rd +--| Hdst |
+------+ \ //\ / \ / \ /\\ / +------+
--/I \--+ Rb +--+ Rc +--/E \--
\ / \ / \ / \ /
\/ -- -- \/
<---- Network N ----->
<-------------------- Network M --------------------->
Figure 14 Signals outside the tunnel
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+-----+-------+------+
--_ | | | | --
+------+ / \ v | | | / \ +------+
| Hsrc |--+ Ra + -- -- + Rd +--| Hdst |
+------+ \ //\ / \ / \ /\\ / +------+
--/I \--+ Rb +--+ Rc +--/E \--
\ / \ / \ / \ /
\/ -- -- \/
<----- Network N ---->
<--------------------- Network M -------------------->
Figure 15 Signals inside the tunnel
These two signal paths are inherently distinct except where
information is exchanged between the network interface of the tunnel
(the ingress) and its attached node (Ra, in both figures).
It is always possible for a network interface to provide hints to
its attached node (host or router), which can be used for
optimization. In this case, when signals inside the tunnel indicate
a change to the tunnel, the ingress (i.e., the tunnel network
interface) can provide information to the router (Ra, in both
figures), so that Ra can generate the appropriate signal in return
to Hsrc. This relaying may be difficult, because signals inside the
tunnel may not return enough information to the ingress to support
direct relaying to Hsrc.
In all cases, the tunnel ingress needs to determine how to relay the
signals from inside the tunnel into signals back to the source. For
some protocols this is either simple or impossible (such as for
ICMP), for others, it can even be undefined (e.g., multicast). In
some cases, the individual signals relayed from inside the tunnel
may result in corresponding signals in the outside network, and in
other cases they may just change state of the tunnel interface. In
the latter case, the result may cause the router Ra to generate new
ICMP errors when later messages arrive from Hsrc or other sources in
the outer network.
The meaning of the relayed information must be carefully translated.
An ICMP error within a tunnel indicates a failure of the path inside
the tunnel to support an egress atomic packet or packet fragment
size. It can be very difficult to convert that ICMP error into a
corresponding ICMP message from the ingress node back to the transit
packet source. The ICMP message may not contain enough of a packet
prefix to extract the transit packet header sufficient to generate
the appropriate ICMP message. The relationship between the egress
EMTU_R and the transit packet may be indirect, e.g., the ingress
node may be performing source fragmentation that should be adjusted
instead of propagating the ICMP upstream.
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Some messages have detailed specifications for relaying between the
tunnel link packet and transit packet, including Explicit Congestion
Notification (ECN [RFC6040][Br22a][Br22b]) and multicast (IGMP
[RFC7450]).
4.3.2. Congestion
Tunnels carrying IP traffic (i.e., the focus of this document) need
not react directly to congestion any more than would any other link
layer as long as the tunneling mechanism creates traffic at a volume
corresponding to its carried traffic, e.g., per Sec. 3.1.11 in
[RFC8085]. IP transit packet traffic is already expected to be
congestion controlled and those practices are described in
[RFC2914]. Traffic that is not congestion controlled should be
moderated using other means, such as so-called "circuit breakers"
[RFC8084].
It is useful to relay network congestion notification between the
tunnel link and the tunnel transit packets. Explicit congestion
notification requires that ECN bits are copied from the tunnel
transit packet to the tunnel link packet on encapsulation, as well
as copied back at the egress based on a combination of the bits of
the two headers [RFC6040][Br22a][Br22b]. This allows congestion
notification within the tunnel to be interpreted as if it were on
the direct path.
4.3.3. Multipoint Tunnels and Multicast
Multipoint tunnels are tunnels with more than two ingress/egress
endpoints [RFC2529][RFC5214][Te21]. Just as tunnels emulate links,
multipoint tunnels emulate multipoint links, and can support
multicast as a tunnel capability. Multipoint tunnels can be useful
on their own or may be used as part of more complex systems, e.g.,
LISP and TRILL configurations [RFC9300][RFC6325].
Multipoint tunnels require a support for egress determination, just
as multipoint links do. This function is typically supported by ARP
[RFC826] or ARP emulation (e.g., LAN Emulation, known as LANE
[RFC2225]) for multipoint links. For multipoint tunnels, a similar
mechanism is required for the same purpose - to determine the egress
address for proper ingress encapsulation (e.g., LISP Map-Service
[RFC9301]).
All multipoint systems - tunnels and links - might support different
MTUs between each ingress/egress (or link entrance/exit) pair. In
most cases, it is simpler to assume a uniform MTU throughout the
multipoint system, e.g., the minimum MTU supported across all
ingress/egress pairs. This applies to both the ingress EMTU_S and
egress EMTU_R (the latter determining the tunnel MTU). Values valid
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across all receivers need to be confirmed in advance (e.g., via IPv6
ND announcements or out-of-band configuration information) before a
multipoint tunnel or link can use values other than the default,
otherwise packets may reach some receivers but be "black-holed" to
others (e.g., if PMTUD fails [RFC2923]).
A multipoint tunnel MUST have support for broadcast and multicast
(or their equivalent), in exactly the same way as this is already
required for multipoint links [RFC3819]. Both modes can be supported
either by a native mechanism inside the tunnel or by emulation using
serial replication at the tunnel ingress (e.g., AMT [RFC7450]), in
the same way that links may provide the same support either natively
(e.g., via promiscuous or automatic replication in the link itself)
or network interface emulation (e.g., as for non-broadcast
multiaccess networks, i.e., NBMAs). Tunnels that carry IP multicast
traffic with a unicast destination address, such as Automatic
Multicast Tunneling [RFC7450] need to follow the same requirements
as a tunnel carrying unicast data. Note that multicast tunnels also
must support congestion control, especially because they amplify the
traversed traffic (see Sec. 4 of [RFC8085]).
IGMP and MLD snooping enables IP multicast to be coupled with native
link layer multicast support [RFC4541]. A similar technique may be
relevant to couple transit packet multicast to tunnel link packet
multicast, but the coupling of the protocols may be more complex
because many tunnel link protocols rely on their own network N
multicast control protocol, e.g., via PIM-SM [RFC6807][RFC7761].
4.3.4. Load Balancing
Load balancing can impact the way in which a tunnel operates. In
particular, multipath routing inside the tunnel can impact some of
the tunnel parameters to vary, both over time and for different
transit packets. The use of multiple paths can be the result of MPLS
link aggregation groups (LAGs), equal-cost multipath routing (ECMP
[RFC2991]), or other load balancing mechanisms. In some cases, the
tunnel exists as the mechanism to support ECMP, as for GRE in UDP
[RFC8086].
A tunnel may have multiple paths between the ingress and egress with
different tunnel path MTU or tunnel MAP values, causing the ingress
EMTU_S to vary [RFC7690]. When individual values cannot be
correlated to transit traffic, the EMTU_S can be set to the minimum
of these different path MTU and MAP values.
In some cases, these values can be correlated to paths, e.g., IPv6
packets include a flow label to enable multipath routing to keep
packets of a single flow following the same path, as well as to help
differentiate path properties (e.g., for path MTU discovery
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[RFC4821][RFC8899]). It is important to preserve the semantics of
that flow label as an aggregate identifier of the encapsulated link
packets of a tunnel. This is achieved by hashing the transit IP
addresses and flow label to generate a new flow label for use
between the ingress and egress addresses [RFC6438]. It is not
appropriate to simply copy the flow label from the transit packet
into the link packet because of collisions that might arise if a
label is used for flows between different transit packet addresses
that traverse the same tunnel.
When the transit packet is visible to forwarding nodes inside the
tunnel (e.g., when it is not encrypted), those nodes use deep packet
inspection (DPI) context to send a single flow over different paths.
This sort of "DPI override" of the IP flow information can interfere
with both PMTUD and PLPMTUD mechanisms. The only way to ensure that
intermediate nodes do not interfere with PLPMTUD is to encrypt the
transit packet when it is encapsulated for tunnel traversal, or to
provide some other signals (e.g., an additional layer of
encapsulation header including transport ports) that preserves the
flow semantics.
4.3.5. Recursive Tunnels
The rules described in this document already support tunnels over
tunnels, sometimes known as "recursive" tunnels, in which IP is
transited over IP either directly or via intermediate encapsulation
(IP-UDP-IP, as in GUE [He19]).
There are known hazards to recursive tunneling, notably that the
independence of the tunnel transit header and tunnel link header hop
counts can result in a tunneling loop. Such looping can be avoided
when using direct encapsulation (IP in IP) by use of a header option
to track the encapsulation count and to limit that count [RFC2473].
This looping cannot be avoided when other protocols are used for
tunneling, e.g., IP in UDP in IP, because the encapsulation count
may not be visible where the recursion occurs.
5. Observations
The following subsections summarize the observations of this
document and a summary of issues with existing tunnel protocol
specifications. It also includes advice for tunnel protocol
designers, implementers, and operators. It also includes
5.1. Summary of Recommendations
Tunnel endpoints are network interfaces, tunnel are virtual links;
as a consequence:
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o Tunnels MUST behave in the same way as links:
oT unnels MUST NOT decrement hopcount or TTL values; that is the
function of a router, not a link.
oI CMP messages MUST NOT be generated by the tunnel; that is the
function of a router or host, not a link.
oI CMP messages received inside the tunnel (e.g., by the
ingress) SHOULD change the link properties but MUST NOT
generate transit-layer ICMP messages.
oL ink headers (hop, ID, options) are largely independent of
arriving ID (with few exceptions based on translation, not
direct copying, e.g., ECN and IPv6 flow IDs).
oM TU values MUST treat the tunnel as any other link.
oT unnels that cannot support the minimum required IP path MTU
as an atomic packet MUST support source ingress source
fragmentation and egress reassembly at the tunnel link packet
layer.
oT he tunnel MTU is the tunnel egress EMTU_R minus headers and
is not related at all to the ingress-egress MFS.
o Tunnels MUST obey core IP requirements:
oT unnels MUST obey IPv4 DF=1 for datagrams arriving at the
ingress (nodes MUST NOT fragment IPv4 packets where DF=1 and
routers MUST NOT clear the DF bit).
oA tunnel MUST be shut down if the tunnel MTU falls below the
required minimum for the traffic it transits.
5.2. Impact on Existing Encapsulation Protocols
Many existing and proposed encapsulation protocols are inconsistent
with the guidelines of this document. The following list summarizes
where each protocol introduces those inconsistencies but omits
inconsistencies due solely by reference to another protocol.
[TBD - should this be inverted as a table of issues and a list of
which RFCs have problems?]
o IP in IP / mobile IP [RFC2003][RFC4459] - IPv4 in IPv4
oS ets link DF when transit DF=1 (fails without PLPMTUD)
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o Drops at egress if hopcount = 0 (zero hopcount packets over
host-host tunnels fail)
o Drops based on transit source (same as router IP, matches
egress), i.e., performs routing functions it should not
o Ingress generates ICMP messages (based on relayed context),
rather than using inner ICMP messages to set interface
properties only
o Treats tunnel MTU as tunnel path MTU, not tunnel egress MTU
o IPv6 tunnels [RFC2473] -- IPv6 or IPv4 in IPv6
o Treats tunnel MTU as tunnel path MTU, not tunnel egress MTU
o Decrements transiting packet hopcount by 1 (zero-hopcount
packets over host-host tunnels fail)
o Copies traffic class from tunnel link to tunnel transit header
o Ignores IPv4 DF=0 and fragments at that layer upon arrival
o Fails to retain soft ingress state based on inner ICMP
messages affecting tunnel MTU
o Tunnel ingress issues ICMPs
o Fragments IPv4 over IPv6 fragments only if IPv4 DF=0
(misinterpreting the "can fragment the IPv4 packet" as
permission to fragment at the IPv6 link header)
o IPsec tunnel mode (IP in IPsec in IP) [RFC4301] -- IP in IPsec
o Uses security policy to set, clear, or copy DF (rather than
generating it independently, which would also be more secure)
o Intertwines tunnel selection with security selection, rather
than presenting tunnel as an interface and using existing
forwarding (as with transport mode over IP-in-IP [RFC3884])
o GRE (IP in GRE in IP or IP in GRE in UDP in IP)
[RFC2784][RFC7588][RFC7676][RFC8086]
o Treats tunnel MTU as tunnel path MTU, not tunnel egress MTU
o Requires ingress to generate ICMP errors
o Copies IPv4 DF to outer IPv4 DF
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oVi olates IPv6 MTU requirements when using IPv6 encapsulation
o LISP [RFC9300]
oTr eats tunnel MTU as tunnel path MTU, not tunnel egress MTU
oRe quires ingress to generate ICMP errors
oCo pies inner hop limit to outer
o L2TP [RFC3931]
oTr eats tunnel MTU as tunnel path MTU, not tunnel egress MTU
oRe quires ingress to generate ICMP errors
o PWE [RFC3985]
oTr eats tunnel MTU as tunnel path MTU, not tunnel egress MTU
oRe quires ingress to generate ICMP errors
o GUE (Generic UDP encapsulation) [He19] - IP (et. al) in UDP in IP
oAl lows inner encapsulation fragmentation
o Geneve [RFC7364][RFC8926] - IP (et al.) in Geneve in UDP in IP
oTr eats tunnel MTU as tunnel path MTU, not tunnel egress MTU
o SEAL/AERO [RFC5320][Te21] - IP in SEAL/AERO in IP
oSo me issues with SEAL (MTU, ICMP), corrected in AERO
o RTG DT encapsulations [No16]
oAs sumes fragmentation can be avoided completely
oAl lows encapsulation protocols that lack fragmentation
oRe lies on ICMP PTB to correct for tunnel path MTU
o No known issues
oL2 VPN (framework for L2 virtualization) [RFC4664]
oL3 VPN (framework for L3 virtualization) [RFC4176]
oMP LS (IP in MPLS) [RFC3031]
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o TRILL (Ethernet in Ethernet) [RFC5556][RFC6325]
6. Advice
6.1. Tunnel Protocol Designers
Many problems with tunnels in the Internet might be avoided, given
additional design considerations. Designers should consider that all
protocols are candidates as tunnel mechanisms. As such, the
following tunnel properties are important to consider:
All tunnels whose packets are of finite size MUST indicate a minimum
path MTU and a minimum EMTU_R. EMTU_R MUST be larger than the
minimum path MTU, preferably by at least an additional maximum
header (with options).
All tunnels SHOULD support ingress source fragmentation and egress
reassembly at line rate. Those that do not MUST support PLPMTUDs in
their tunnel mechanism.
All tunnels supporting fragmentation and reassembly SHOULD support a
checksum commensurate with the risk introduced.
Signaling protocols intended to support tunnels SHOULD differentiate
between "packet exceeds path MTU" and "packet exceeds EMTU_R". The
former can be accommodated with source fragmentation at a tunnel
ingress, where the latter cannot.
Tunnel path determination mechanisms SHOULD include support for
relaying information about path MTUs and EMTU_Rs, e.g., BGP.
Tunnel designers should be careful of the potential for paths with
multiple path MTUs and even multiple EMTU_Rs [vB16].
6.2. Tunnel Implementers
[TBD - To be completed]
Detect when the egress MTU is exceeded.
Detect when the egress MTU drops below the required minimum and shut
down the tunnel if that happens - configuring the tunnel down and
issuing a hard error may be the only way to detect this anomaly, and
it's sufficiently important that the tunnel SHOULD be disabled. This
is always better than blindly assuming the tunnel has been deployed
correctly, i.e., that the solution has been engineered.
Tunnel implementations MUST NOT decrement the hopcount or TTL of
transit traffic. Routers or hosts MAY perform that decrement, if the
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tunnel is intended to emulate a network path, the same way might do
so for physical links.
Some current tunnel implementations include diagnostics to support
monitoring the impact of tunneling, especially the impact on
fragmentation and reassembly resources, the status of path MTU
discovery, etc.
>> Because a tunnel ingress/egress is a (virtual) network interface,
it SHOULD have similar diagnostic resources as any other network
interface. This includes resources for packet processing as well as
monitoring.
6.3. Tunnel Operators
Tunnel operators need to keep in mind that tunnels, like links,
might not always provide the information needed to diagnose transit
errors. This is especially true for multihop tunnels, just as for
multihop links - do not expect the path to provide feedback.
[TBD Consider the circuit breakers doc to provide diagnostics and
last-resort control to avoid overload for non-reactive traffic]
>>>> PLPMTUD can give multiple conflicting PMTU values during ECMP
or LAG if PMTU is cached per endpoint pair rather than per flow --
but so can PMTUD. This is another reason why ICMP should never drive
up the effective MTU (if aggregate, treat as the minimum of received
messages over an interval).
7. Security Considerations
Tunnels may introduce vulnerabilities or add to the potential for
receiver overload and thus DOS attacks. These issues are primarily
related to the fact that a tunnel is a link that traverses a network
path and to fragmentation and reassembly. ICMP signal translation
introduces a new security issue and must be done with care. ICMP
generation at the router or host attached to a tunnel is already
covered by existing requirements (e.g., should be throttled).
Tunnels traverse multiple hops of a network path from ingress to
egress. Traffic along such tunnels may be susceptible to on-path and
off-path attacks, including fragment injection, reassembly buffer
overload, and ICMP attacks. Some of these attacks may not be as
visible to the endpoints of the architecture into which tunnels are
deployed and these attacks may thus be more difficult to detect.
Fragmentation at routers or hosts attached to tunnels may place an
undue burden on receivers where traffic is not sufficiently diffuse,
because tunnels may induce source fragmentation at hosts and path
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fragmentation (for IPv4 DF=0) more for tunnels than for other links.
Care should be taken to avoid this situation, notably by ensuring
that tunnel MTUs are not significantly different from other link
MTUs.
Tunnel ingresses emitting IP datagrams MUST obey all existing IP
requirements, such as the uniqueness of the IP ID field. Failure to
either limit encapsulation traffic, or use additional ingress/egress
IP addresses, can result in high-speed traffic fragments being
incorrectly reassembled.
Tunnels are susceptible to attacks at both the inner and outer
network layers. The tunnel ingress/egress endpoints appear as
network interfaces in the outer network and are as susceptible as
any other network interface. This includes vulnerability to
fragmentation reassembly overload, traffic overload, and spoofed
ICMP messages that misreport the state of those interfaces.
Similarly, the ingress/egress appear as hosts to the path traversed
by the tunnel, and thus are as susceptible as any other host to
attacks as well.
[TBD - describe relationship to [RFC6169] - JT (as per INTAREA
meeting notes, don't cover Teredo-specific issues in RFC6169, but
include generic issues here)]
8. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA considerations.
The RFC Editor should remove this section prior to publication.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words," RFC 2119, May 2017.
9.2. Informative References
[Br22a] Briscoe, B., "Guidelines for Adding Congestion
Notification to Protocols that Encapsulate IP," draft-
ietf-tsvwg-ecn-encap-guidelines, July 2022.
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[Br22b] Briscoe, B., "Propagating Explicit Congestion Notification
Across IP Tunnel Headers Separated by a Shim," draft-ietf-
tsvwg-rfc6040update-shim, July 2022.
[Cl88] Clark, D., "The design philosophy of the DARPA internet
protocols," Proc. Sigcomm 1988, p.106-114, 1988.
[Er94] Eriksson, H., "MBone: The Multicast Backbone,"
Communications of the ACM, Aug. 1994, pp.54-60.
[He19] Herbert, T., L. Yong, O. Zia, "Generic UDP Encapsulation,"
draft-ietf-intarea-gue-09, Oct. 2019.
[Ke95] Kent, S., J. Mogul, "Fragmentation considered harmful,"
ACM Sigcomm Computer Communication Review (CCR), V25 N1,
Jan. 1995, pp. 75-87.
[Mi22] Migualt, D. (Ed.), D. Liu (Ed.), R. Liu, C. Zhang, "IKEv2
IPv4 Link Maximum Atomic Packet Notification Extension,"
draft-liu-ipsecme-ikev2-mtu-dect-04, Nov. 2022.
[No16] Nordmark, E. (Ed.), A. Tian, J. Gross, J. Hudson, L.
Kreeger, P. Garg, P. Thaler, T. Herbert, "Encapsulation
Considerations," draft-ietf-rtgwg-dt-encap-02, Oct. 2016.
[RFC5] Rulifson, J, "Decode Encode Language (DEL)," RFC 5, June
1969.
[RFC768] Postel, J, "User Datagram Protocol," RFC 768, Aug. 1980
[RFC791] Postel, J., "Internet Protocol," RFC 791 / STD 5,
September 1981.
[RFC792] Postel, J., "Internet Control Message Protocol," RFC 792,
Sep. 981.
[RFC826] Plummer, D., "An Ethernet Address Resolution Protocol --
or -- Converting Network Protocol Addresses to 48.bit
Ethernet Address for Transmission on Ethernet Hardware,"
RFC 826, Nov. 1982.
[RFC1075] Waitzman, D., C. Partridge, S. Deering, "Distance Vector
Multicast Routing Protocol," RFC 1075, Nov. 1988.
[RFC1122] Braden, R., Ed., "Requirements for Internet Hosts -
Communication Layers," RFC 1122 / STD 3, October 1989.
[RFC1191] Mogul, J., S. Deering, "Path MTU discovery," RFC 1191,
November 1990.
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[RFC1812] Baker, F., "Requirements for IP Version 4 Routers," RFC
1812, June 1995.
[RFC1853] Simpson, W., "IP in IP Tunneling," RFC 1853, Oct. 1995.
[RFC2003] Perkins, C., "IP Encapsulation within IP," RFC 2003, Oct.
1996.
[RFC2225] Laubach, M., J. Halpern, "Classical IP and ARP over ATM,"
RFC 2225, Apr. 1998.
[RFC2473] Conta, A., "Generic Packet Tunneling in IPv6
Specification," RFC 2473, Dec. 1998.
[RFC2529] Carpenter, B., C. Jung, "Transmission of IPv6 over IPv4
Domains without Explicit Tunnels," RFC 2529, Mar. 1999.
[RFC2784] Farinacci, D., T. Li, S. Hanks, D. Meyer, P. Traina,
"Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)", RFC 2784, March
2000.
[RFC2914] Floyd, S., "Congestion Control Principles", BCP 41, RFC
2914, September 2000.
[RFC2923] Lahey, K., "TCP Problems with Path MTU Discovery," RFC
2923, September 2000.
[RFC2983] Black, D., "Differentiated Services and Tunnels," RFC
2983, Oct. 2000.
[RFC2991] Thaler, D., C. Hopps, "Multipath Issues in Unicast and
Multicast Next-Hop Selection," RFC 2991, Nov. 2000.
[RFC2473] Conta, A., S. Deering, "Generic Packet Tunneling in IPv6
Specification," RFC 2473, Dec. 1998.
[RFC2546] Durand, A., B. Buclin, "6bone Routing Practice," RFC 2540,
Mar. 1999.
[RFC3031] Rosen, E., A. Viswanathan, R. Callon, "Multiprotocol Label
Switching Architecture", RFC 3031, January 2001.
[RFC3819] Karn, P., Ed., C. Bormann, G. Fairhurst, D. Grossman, R.
Ludwig, J. Mahdavi, G. Montenegro, J. Touch, L. Wood,
"Advice for Internet Subnetwork Designers," RFC 3819 / BCP
89, July 2004.
[RFC3884] Touch, J., L. Eggert, Y. Wang, "Use of IPsec Transport
Mode for Dynamic Routing," RFC 3884, September 2004.
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[RFC3931] Lau, J., Ed., M. Townsley, Ed., I. Goyret, Ed., "Layer Two
Tunneling Protocol - Version 3 (L2TPv3)," RFC 3931, March
2005.
[RFC3985] Bryant, S., P. Pate (Eds.), "Pseudo Wire Emulation Edge-
to-Edge (PWE3) Architecture", RFC 3985, March 2005.
[RFC4176] El Mghazli, Y., Ed., T. Nadeau, M. Boucadair, K. Chan, A.
Gonguet, "Framework for Layer 3 Virtual Private Networks
(L3VPN) Operations and Management," RFC 4176, October
2005.
[RFC4301] Kent, S., and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol," RFC 4301, December 2005.
[RFC4340] Kohler, E., M. Handley, S. Floyd, "Datagram Congestion
Control Protocol (DCCP)," RFC 4340, Mar. 2006.
[RFC4443] Conta, A., S. Deering, M. Gupta (Ed.), "Internet Control
Message Protocol (ICMPv6) for the Internet Protocol
Version 6 (IPv6) Specification," RFC 4443, Mar. 2006.
[RFC4459] Savola, P., "MTU and Fragmentation Issues with In-the-
Network Tunneling," RFC 4459, April 2006.
[RFC4541] Christensen, M., K. Kimball, F. Solensky, "Considerations
for Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) and
Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) Snooping Switches," RFC
4541, May 2006.
[RFC4664] Andersson, L., Ed., E. Rosen, Ed., "Framework for Layer 2
Virtual Private Networks (L2VPNs)," RFC 4664, September
2006.
[RFC4821] Mathis, M., J. Heffner, "Packetization Layer Path MTU
Discovery," RFC 4821, March 2007.
[RFC4861] Narten, T., E. Nordmark, W. Simpson, H. Soliman, "Neighbor
Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)," RFC 4861, Sept. 2007.
[RFC4963] Heffner, J., M. Mathis, B. Chandler, "IPv4 Reassembly
Errors at High Data Rates," RFC 4963, July 2007.
[RFC5082] Gill, V., Heasley, J., Meyer, D., Savola, P., Ed., and C.
Pignataro, "The Generalized TTL Security Mechanism
(GTSM)," RFC 5082, October 2007,
[RFC5214] Templin, F., T. Gleeson, D. Thaler, "Intra-Site Automatic
Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP)," RFC 5214, Mar. 2008.
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[RFC5320] Templin, F., Ed., "The Subnetwork Encapsulation and
Adaptation Layer (SEAL)," RFC 5320, Feb. 2010.
[RFC5556] Touch, J., R. Perlman, "Transparently Interconnecting Lots
of Links (TRILL): Problem and Applicability Statement,"
RFC 5556, May 2009.
[RFC5944] Perkins, C., Ed., "IP Mobility Support for IPv4, Revised"
RFC 5944, Nov. 2010.
[RFC6040] Briscoe, B., "Tunneling of Explicit Congestion
Notification," RFC 6040, Nov. 2010.
[RFC6169] Krishnan, S., D. Thaler, J. Hoagland, "Security Concerns
With IP Tunneling," RFC 6169, Apr. 2011.
[RFC6325] Perlman, R., D. Eastlake, D. Dutt, S. Gai, A. Ghanwani,
"Routing Bridges (RBridges): Base Protocol Specification,"
RFC 6325, July 2011.
[RFC8504] Chown, T., J. Loughney, T. Winters, "IPv6 Node
Requirements," RFC 8504, Jan. 2019.
[RFC6438] Carpenter, B., S. Amante, "Using the IPv6 Flow Label for
Equal Cost Multipath Routing and Link Aggregation in
Tunnels," RFC 6438, Nov. 2011.
[RFC6807] Farinacci, D., G. Shepherd, S. Venaas, Y. Cai, "Population
Count Extensions to Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM),"
RFC 6807, Dec. 2012.
[RFC6864] Touch, J., "Updated Specification of the IPv4 ID Field,"
Proposed Standard, RFC 6864, Feb. 2013.
[RFC6935] Eubanks, M., P. Chimento, M. Westerlund, "IPv6 and UDP
Checksums for Tunneled Packets," RFC 6935, Apr. 2013.
[RFC6936] Fairhurst, G., M. Westerlund, "Applicability Statement for
the Use of IPv6 UDP Datagrams with Zero Checksums," RFC
6936, Apr. 2013.
[RFC6946] Gont, F., "Processing of IPv6 "Atomic" Fragments," RFC
6946, May 2013.
[RFC7364] Narten, T., Gray, E., Black, D., Fang, L., Kreeger, L., M.
Napierala, "Problem Statement: Overlays for Network
Virtualization", RFC 7364, Oct. 2014.
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[RFC7450] Bumgardner, G., "Automatic Multicast Tunneling," RFC 7450,
Feb. 2015.
[RFC7510] Xu, X., N. Sheth, L. Yong, R. Callon, D. Black,
"Encapsulating MPLS in UDP," RFC 7510, April 2015.
[RFC7588] Bonica, R., C. Pignataro, J. Touch, "A Widely-Deployed
Solution to the Generic Routing Encapsulation
Fragmentation Problem," RFC 7588, July 2015.
[RFC7676] Pignataro, C., R. Bonica, S. Krishnan, "IPv6 Support for
Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)," RFC 7676, Oct 2015.
[RFC7690] Byerly, M., M. Hite, J. Jaeggli, "Close Encounters of the
ICMP Type 2 Kind (Near Misses with ICMPv6 Packet Too Big
(PTB))," RFC 7690, Jan. 2016.
[RFC7761] Fenner, B., M. Handley, H. Holbrook, I. Kouvelas, R.
Parekh, Z. Zhang, L. Zheng, "Protocol Independent
Multicast - Sparse Mode (PIM-SM): Protocol Specification
(Revised)," RFC 7761, Mar. 2016.
[RFC8084] Fairhurst, G., "Network Transport Circuit Breakers", BCP
208, RFC 8084, DOI 10.17487/RFC8084, March 2017.
[RFC8085] Eggert, L., G. Fairhurst, G. Shepherd, "Unicast UDP Usage
Guidelines," RFC 8085, Oct. 2015.
[RFC8086] Yong, L. (Ed.), E. Crabbe, X. Xu, T. Herbert, "GRE-in-UDP
Encapsulation," RFC 8086, Feb. 2017.
[RFC8200] Deering, S., R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
(IPv6) Specification," RFC 8200, Jul. 2017.
[RFC8201] McCann, J., S. Deering, J. Mogul, R. Hinden (Ed.), "Path
MTU Discovery for IP version 6," RFC 8201, Jul. 2017.
[RFC8504] Chown, T., Loughney, J., and T. Winters, "IPv6 Node
Requirements", BCP 220, RFC 8504, January 2019.
[RFC8899] Fairhurst, G., T. Jones, M. Tuxen, I. Ruengeler, T.
Volker, "Packetization Layer Path MTU Discovery for
Datagram Transports," RFC 8899, September 2020.
[RFC8926] Gross, J. (Ed.), I. Ganga (Ed.), T. Sridhar (Ed.),
"Geneve: Generic Network Virtualization Encapsulation,"
RFC 8926, Nov. 2020.
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[RFC8900] Bonica, R., F. Baker, G. Huston, B. Hinden, O. Troan, F.
Gont, "IP Fragmentation Considered Fragile," RFC 8900,
Sep. 2020.
[RFC9260] Stewart, R., Tuxen, M., Nielsen, K., "Stream Control
Transmission Protocol," RFC 9260, Jun. 2022.
[RFC9293] Eddy, W. (Ed.), "Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)," RFC
9293, Aug. 2022.
[RFC9300] Farinacci, D., V. Fuller, D. Meyer, D. Lewis, A. Cabellos,
Ed., "The Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP)," RFC
9300, Oct. 2022.
[RFC9301] Farinacci, D., F. Mailo, V. Fuller, A. Cabellos, Ed.,
"Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) Control PLane," RFC
9301, Oct. 2022.
[Sa84] Saltzer, J., D. Reed, D. Clark, "End-to-end arguments in
system design," ACM Trans. on Computing Systems, Nov.
1984.
[Te21] Templin, F., Ed., "Asymmetric Extended Route Optimization
(AERO)," draft-templin-intarea-6706bis-99, Mar. 2021.
[To01] Touch, J., "Dynamic Internet Overlay Deployment and
Management Using the X-Bone," Computer Networks, July
2001, pp. 117-135.
[To03] Touch, J., Y. Wang, L. Eggert, G. Finn, "Virtual Internet
Architecture," USC/ISI Tech. Report ISI-TR-570, Aug. 2003.
[To16] Touch, J., "Middleboxes Models Compatible with the
Internet," USC/ISI Tech. Report ISI-TR-711, Oct. 2016.
[To98] Touch, J., S. Hotz, "The X-Bone," Proc. Globecom Third
Global Internet Mini-Conference, Nov. 1998.
[vB16] van Beijnum, I., "Extensions for Multi-MTU Subnets,"
draft-van-beijnum-multi-mtu, Mar. 2016.
[Zi80] Zimmermann, H., "OSI Reference Model - The ISO Model of
Architecture for Open Systems Interconnection," IEEE
Trans. on Comm., Apr. 1980.
10. Acknowledgments
This document originated as the result of numerous discussions among
the authors, Jari Arkko, Stuart Bryant, Lars Eggert, Ted Faber,
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Gorry Fairhurst, Dino Farinacci, Matt Mathis, and Fred Templin. It
benefitted substantially from detailed feedback from Toerless
Eckert, Vincent Roca, and Lucy Yong, as well as other members of the
Internet Area Working Group.
This work was partly supported by USC/ISI's Postel Center.
This document was prepared using 2-Word-v2.0.template.dot.
Authors' Addresses
Joe Touch
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
U.S.A.
Phone: +1 (310) 560-0334
Email: touch@strayalpha.com
W. Mark Townsley
Cisco
Cisco San Francisco, CA 94158
Email: townsley@cisco.com
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Appendix A.Fragmentation efficiency
A.1. Selecting fragment sizes
There are different ways to fragment a packet. Consider a network
with a PMTU as shown in Figure 16, where packets are encapsulated
over the same network layer as they arrive on (e.g., IP in IP). If a
packet as large as the PMTU arrives, it must be fragmented to
accommodate the additional header.
X===========================X (transit PMTU)
+----+----------------------+
| iH | DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD |
+----+----------------------+
|
| X===========================X (tunnel 1 MTU)
| +---+----+------------------+
(a) +->| H'| iH | DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD |
| +---+----+------------------+
| |
| | X===========================X (tunnel 2 MTU)
| | +----+---+----+-------------+
| (a1) +->| nH'| H | iH | DDDDDDDDDDD |
| | +----+---+----+-------------+
| |
| | +----+-------+
| (a2) +->| nH"| DDDDD |
| +----+-------+
|
| +---+------+
(b) +->| H"| DDDD |
+---+------+
|
| +----+---+------+
(b1) +->| nH'| H"| DDDD |
+----+---+------+
Figure 16 Fragmenting via maximum fit
Figure 17 shows this process using "maximum fit", assuming outer
fragmentation as an example (the situation is the same for inner
fragmentation, but the headers that are affected differ). In maximum
fit, the arriving packet is split into (a) and (b), where (a) is the
size of the first tunnel, i.e., the tunnel 1 MTU (the maximum that
fits over the first tunnel). However, this tunnel then traverses
over another tunnel (number 2), whose impact the first tunnel
ingress has not accommodated. The packet (a) arrives at the second
tunnel ingress, and needs to be encapsulated again, but it needs to
be fragmented as well to fit into the tunnel 2 MTU, into (a1) and
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(a2). In this case, packet (b) arrives at the second tunnel ingress
and is encapsulated into (b1) without fragmentation, because it is
already below the tunnel 2 MTU size.
In Figure 18, the fragmentation is done using "even split", i.e., by
splitting the original packet into two roughly equal-sized
components, (c) and (d). Note that (d) contains more packet data,
because (c) includes the original packet header because this is an
example of outer fragmentation. The packets (c) and (d) arrive at
the second tunnel encapsulator, and are encapsulated again; this
time, neither packet exceeds the tunnel 2 MTU, and neither requires
further fragmentation.
X===========================X (transit PMTU)
+----+----------------------+
| iH | DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD |
+----+----------------------+
|
| X===========================X (tunnel 1 MTU)
| +---+----+----------+
(c) +->| H'| iH | DDDDDDDD |
| +---+----+----------+
| |
| | X===========================X (tunnel 2 MTU)
| | +----+---+----+----------+
| (c1) +->| nH | H'| iH | DDDDDDDD |
| +----+---+----+----------+
|
| +---+--------------+
(d) +->| H"| DDDDDDDDDDDD |
+---+--------------+
|
| +----+---+--------------+
(d1) +->| nH | H"| DDDDDDDDDDDD |
+----+---+--------------+
Figure 17 Fragmenting via "even split"
A.2. Packing
Encapsulating individual packets to traverse a tunnel can be
inefficient, especially where headers are large relative to the
packets being carried. In that case, it can be more efficient to
encapsulate many small packets in a single, larger tunnel payload.
This technique, similar to the effect of packet bursting in Gigabit
Ethernet (regardless of whether they're encoded using L2 symbols as
delineators), reduces the overhead of the encapsulation headers
(Figure 18). It reduces the work of header addition and removal at
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the tunnel endpoints, but increases other work involving the packing
and unpacking of the component packets carried.
+-----+-----+
| iHa | iDa |
+-----+-----+
|
| +-----+-----+
| | iHb | iDb |
| +-----+-----+
| |
| | +-----+-----+
| | | iHc | iDc |
| | +-----+-----+
| | |
v v v
+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
| oH | iHa | iDa | iHb | iDb | iHc | iDc |
+----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
Figure 18 Packing packets into a tunnel
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