RFC 5498

IANA Allocations for Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) Protocols

📅 published March 2009, from ietf

RFC 5498: IANA Allocations for MANET Protocols ✨

Okay bestie, let's get into it! 🦋 This is RFC 5498, written by I. Chakeres (Ian D Chakeres) from CenGen. It's a Standards Track document dated March 2009. Its title block doesn't list anything it obsoletes or updates, so it's standing on its own. 💅

The whole point is to lock down a few well-known numbers that MANET (Mobile Ad hoc NETwork) protocols can all share: a UDP port, an IP protocol number, and a link-local multicast group address. 🌸

Status of This Memo 📋

This is an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and it's asking for discussion and suggestions for improvements. 🫶 If you want the current standardization state and status, check the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1). Distribution of this memo is unlimited, so share away! 🌈

Copyright Notice ⚖️

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents, as they stood on the date of publication. Go read them carefully, because they're the ones that spell out your rights and restrictions for this doc. 📜 The license info lives at http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info.

Heads up: this document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF Contributions published or made publicly available before November 10, 2008. Some of the copyright holders for that older material may not have given the IETF Trust permission to allow modifications outside the IETF Standards Process. So unless you get an adequate license from those copyright holders, don't modify this document outside the IETF Standards Process, and don't make derivative works outside it either. The exceptions are formatting it for publication as an RFC, or translating it into languages other than English. 🙈

Abstract 🎀

This doc lists several common IANA allocations that Mobile Ad hoc NETwork (MANET) protocols can use. The following well-known numbers are required: a UDP port number, an IP protocol number, and a link-local multicast group address. ✨

Table of Contents 🗺️

1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Conventions Used in This Document ...............................2
3. UDP Port Number .................................................2
4. IP Protocol Number ..............................................2
5. Link-Local Multicast Group for MANET Routers ....................3
6. IANA Considerations .............................................3
7. Security Considerations .........................................4
8. Acknowledgements ................................................4
9. References ......................................................5
   9.1. Normative References .......................................5
   9.2. Informative References .....................................5

1. Introduction 🌷

This doc lists several common IANA allocations for protocols that conform to [RFC5444]. The well-known numbers it needs are a UDP port number, an IP protocol number, and a link-local multicast group address. All interoperable protocols running on these well-known IANA allocations MUST conform to [RFC5444]. 💖 [RFC5444] gives everyone a common format, so one or more protocols can share the IANA allocations defined here without any confusion. 🧚

2. Conventions Used in This Document 📚

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be read as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. That's the official vibe check for the capital-letter words! 🙌

3. UDP Port Number 🔌

MANET routers require a well-known UDP port number [IANA] to send and receive MANET routing protocol packets. The title of this port is "manet", and its value is 269. 💜

4. IP Protocol Number 🌐

MANET routers require a well-known IP protocol number [IANA] to send and receive MANET routing protocol packets. The title of this IP protocol number is "manet", and its value is 138. 🦋

5. Link-Local Multicast Group for MANET Routers 📡

MANET routers require a well-known, link-local multicast address [RFC4291] to send and receive MANET routing protocol packets. The name of the multicast address that reaches link-local (LL) MANET routers is "LL-MANET-Routers". ✨

For IPv4, a well-known, link-local scope multicast address is required. The address for LL-MANET-Routers is 224.0.0.109. 🍓

For IPv6, a well-known, link-local scope multicast address is required. The address for LL-MANET-Routers is FF02:0:0:0:0:0:0:6D. 👑

6. IANA Considerations 📝

This doc lists several common IANA allocations for protocols that conform to [RFC5444]. Specifically, the following well-known numbers have been assigned: a UDP port (Section 3), an IP protocol number (Section 4), and a link-local multicast group address (Section 5). 🫶

Action 1: 🔌

IANA has made the following assignments in the "PORT NUMBERS" registry:

sub-registry "WELL KNOWN PORT NUMBERS"

Keyword Decimal Description     References
------- ------- -----------     ----------
manet   269/udp MANET Protocols [RFC5498]

Action 2: 🌐

IANA has made the following assignments in the "PROTOCOL NUMBERS" registry:

sub-registry "WELL KNOWN PORT NUMBERS"

Keyword Decimal Description     References
------- ------- -----------     ----------
manet   138     MANET Protocols [RFC5498]

Action 3: 📡

IANA has made the following assignments in the "Internet Multicast Addresses" registry:

sub-registry "224.0.0.0 - 224.0.0.255 (224.0.0/24) Local Network
Control Block"

224.0.0.109 LL-MANET-Routers   [RFC5498]

Action 4: 💫

IANA has made the following assignments in the "INTERNET PROTOCOL VERSION 6 MULTICAST ADDRESSES" registry:

sub-registry "Fixed Scope Multicast Addresses"

sub-sub-registry "Link-Local Scope"

FF02:0:0:0:0:0:0:6D LL-MANET-Routers [RFC5498]

7. Security Considerations 🚨

This is the serious part, bestie, so read it carefully. 💀

This document specifies only well-known numbers for protocols that conform to [RFC5444]. It does not specify the protocols that carry the information across the network. Each protocol using these well-known numbers may have its own set of security issues, but those issues are not affected by using the IANA allocations specified here. 🔒

The security issues that come with possibly running multiple cooperating protocols on the same IANA assignments (for example, the same UDP port) MUST be addressed in each protocol's specification. Every protocol has to handle this on its own, no excuses! 😤

8. Acknowledgements 🙏

Fred Templin, Bill Fenner, Alexandru Petrescu, Sam Weiler, Ross Callon, and Lars Eggert provided valuable input to this document. The squad is iconic! 👯‍♀️💖

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.

[RFC4291]  Hinden, R. and S. Deering, "IP Version 6 Addressing
           Architecture", RFC 4291, February 2006.

[RFC5444]  Clausen, T., Dearlove, C., Dean, J., and C. Adjih,
           "Generalized Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) Packet/Message
           Format", RFC 5444, February 2009.

9.2. Informative References 📎

[IANA]     http://www.iana.org/

Author's Address 💌

Ian D Chakeres
CenGen
9250 Bendix Road North
Columbia MD 21045  USA

EMail: ian.chakeres@gmail.com
URI:   http://www.ianchak.com/

That's the whole RFC, bestie! 🌈✨ It's a short one, but it's the reason all those MANET routers can find each other. Iconic. 👑

📦 where this page comes from

ietf: rfc5498 2009-03
💖 girlified by claude-haiku-5-5 on 2026-10-17: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms