RFC 6543

RFC 6543: Reserved IPv6 Interface Identifier for Proxy Mobile IPv6 🦋

Okay bestie, here's the deal with this one 💅 It's a Standards Track doc, which means it's real, official Internet protocol stuff, not just an opinion piece 👑

• Author: S. Gundavelli, from Cisco 🎀
• Date: May 2012 🌸
• Category: Standards Track ✨
• Updates: 5213 (it updates RFC 5213, so it's a follow-up to Proxy Mobile IPv6) 🔥
• ISSN: 2070-1721 💜

Abstract

Okay so, Proxy Mobile IPv6 (RFC 5213) says that every mobile access gateway has to use a fixed link-local address and a fixed link-layer address on any access link it shares with mobile nodes 🧚 The whole point is that a phone doesn't notice anything when it roams from one gateway to another, which is so iconic 😭

The problem is that nobody reserved any specific addresses for this, so vendors have to coordinate and everyone has to configure the same addresses by hand on every mobility element in a Proxy Mobile IPv6 domain. That's a lot of work and a lot of room for mistakes 💀 This document makes a reservation for special addresses that can be used for exactly this purpose, so the operational part gets way easier ✨ It also updates RFC 5213 🦋

Status of This Memo

This is an Internet Standards Track document. 👑

This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741. 💖

Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6543. 🌈

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. 🎀

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. 🫶

Table of Contents 🌸

1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Conventions and Terminology .....................................3
   2.1. Conventions ................................................3
   2.2. Terminology ................................................3
3. IANA Considerations .............................................4
4. Security Considerations .........................................4
5. Acknowledgements ................................................4
6. References ......................................................5
   6.1. Normative References .......................................5
   6.2. Informative References .....................................5

1. Introduction ✨

Proxy Mobile IPv6 [RFC5213] is a network-based mobility management protocol. It gives a mobile node IP mobility support without needing that node to take part in any mobility-related signaling, which is seriously the dream 🧚 The mobility elements in the network make sure the mobile node doesn't detect any change to its Layer 3 attachment, even after it roams from one mobile access gateway to another and changes its point of attachment in the network 🦋 All mobile access gateways in a Proxy Mobile IPv6 domain use a fixed link-local address and a fixed link-layer address on any of their access links that they share with the mobile nodes. Basically, after a handoff, the mobile node doesn't notice any change to its IP network configuration 💅

Now, the base Proxy Mobile IPv6 specification [RFC5213] does require a fixed link-local address and a fixed link-layer address, but it never actually reserved any specific addresses for that 💀 That's been a real headache in deployments that mix vendors 😭 So this specification makes the following two reservations 👑

1. This specification reserves one Ethernet unicast address, 00-00-5E-00-52-13, for use with Proxy Mobile IPv6. This reserved link-layer address SHOULD be used by the mobile access gateway in a Proxy Mobile IPv6 domain, on all of the access links that it shares with the mobile nodes. The protocol configuration variable FixedMAGLinkLayerAddressOnAllAccessLinks [RFC5213] SHOULD be set to this reserved address. The mobile access gateway can use this address in all packet communication with the mobile node on the access links. Considerations from [RFC5342] apply with respect to the use of Ethernet parameters in IETF protocols. This address is allocated from the registry "IANA Ethernet Address Block - Unicast Use". 🌈
2. This specification reserves an IPv6 interface identifier, 0200:5EFF:FE00:5213. This interface identifier is a modified EUI-64 interface identifier generated from the allocated Ethernet unicast address 00-00-5E-00-52-13. This reserved IPv6 interface identifier SHOULD be used by all of the mobile access gateways in a Proxy Mobile IPv6 domain on all of the access links that they share with the mobile nodes. The protocol configuration variable FixedMAGLinkLocalAddressOnAllAccessLinks [RFC5213] SHOULD be set to the link-local address generated using this reserved IPv6 interface identifier. The mobile access gateway can use this link-local address generated using this reserved IPv6 interface identifier in all Neighbor Discovery-related [RFC4861] communication with the mobile node. 🧚

2. Conventions and Terminology 🎀

2.1. Conventions

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. 💜

2.2. Terminology

All of the mobility-related terms used in this document are to be interpreted as defined in the base Proxy Mobile IPv6 specifications ([RFC5213], [RFC5844]). All of the terminology related to IPv6 addressing is to be interpreted as specified in [RFC4291]. 🦋

3. IANA Considerations 🌸

• This specification reserves one Ethernet unicast address, 00-00-5E-00-52-13, for Proxy Mobile IPv6. This address has been reserved in the registry "IANA Ethernet Address Block - Unicast Use". ✨
• This specification reserves an IPv6 interface identifier, 0200:5EFF:FE00:5213, for Proxy Mobile IPv6 [RFC5213] in the registry "Reserved IPv6 Interface Identifiers" [RFC5453]. This interface identifier is a modified EUI-64 interface identifier generated from the allocated Ethernet unicast address 00-00-5E-00-52-13, as specified in Appendix A of [RFC4291]. 👑

4. Security Considerations 🔥

⚠️ Serious security business ahead, bestie. Please read this part carefully 🙈

All of the security considerations specified in [RFC5213] and [RFC5844] continue to apply to the mobility elements in a Proxy Mobile IPv6 domain when those elements conform to this specification. Specifically, the issues related to the use of fixed link-local and link-layer addresses, as documented in Section 6.9.3 of the base Proxy Mobile IPv6 specification, are equally relevant here. Sort of in a way, the reservations made in this specification mean the same set of link-local and link-layer address values gets used beyond a single Proxy Mobile IPv6 domain. That expands the existing problem of asserting ownership of configured addresses from one domain to a multi-domain environment 😭 Future work may be needed to address these issues. 💀

5. Acknowledgements 🫶

The author would like to thank Jari Arkko and Dave Thaler for all of the discussions around the use of fixed link-local and link-layer addresses during work related to the standardization of Proxy Mobile IPv6 [RFC5213]. The author would also like to thank Tero Kivinen, Donald Eastlake 3rd, Stephen Farrell, Suresh Krishnan, Margaret Wasserman, Thomas Narten, Basavaraj Patil, and Eric Voit for their reviews and participation in the discussions related to this document. 💖

6. References 🌈

6.1. 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.
• [RFC5213] Gundavelli, S., Ed., Leung, K., Devarapalli, V., Chowdhury, K., and B. Patil, "Proxy Mobile IPv6", RFC 5213, August 2008.
• [RFC5453] Krishnan, S., "Reserved IPv6 Interface Identifiers", RFC 5453, February 2009.

6.2. Informative References

• [RFC4861] Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and H. Soliman, "Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 4861, September 2007.
• [RFC5342] Eastlake 3rd, D., "IANA Considerations and IETF Protocol Usage for IEEE 802 Parameters", BCP 141, RFC 5342, September 2008.
• [RFC5844] Wakikawa, R. and S. Gundavelli, "IPv4 Support for Proxy Mobile IPv6", RFC 5844, May 2010.

Author's Address 🎀

Sri Gundavelli
Cisco
170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA  95134
USA

EMail: sgundave@cisco.com

---

That's the whole doc, bestie 🦋 Reserved addresses = less copy-pasting = main character energy 👑✨