To: IETF-Announce:; Cc: RFC Editor Cc: Internet Architecture Board Cc: ipng@sunroof.Eng.Sun.COM From: The IESG Subject: (IPng 677) Protocol Action: Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification to Proposed Standard Date: Mon, 18 Sep 95 14:09:05 -0400 Sender: owner-ipng@sunroof.Eng.Sun.COM Precedence: bulk The IESG has approved the following four Internet-Draft as Proposed Standards: 1. Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification 2. IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture 3. Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMPv6) for the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) 4. DNS Extensions to Support IP Version 6 The IESG has also approved the publication of An Architecture for IPv6 Unicast Address Allocation as an Informational RFC. These document are the product of the IPNG Working Group. The IESG contact persons are Scott Bradner and Allison Mankin. Technical Summary 1. Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification is the base specification produced by the IPNGWG, for the proposed successor to IP version 4. The changes from IPv4 to IPv6 fall primarily into the categories of: o Expanded Addressing Capabilities IPv6 increases the IP address size from 32 bits to 128 bits, to support more levels of addressing hierarchy, a much greater number of addressable nodes, and simpler auto-configuration of addresses. The scalability of multicast routing is improved by adding a "scope" field to multicast addresses. And a new type of address called an "anycast address" is defined, used to send a packet to any one of a group of nodes. o Header Format Simplification Some IPv4 header fields have been dropped or moved to optional extension headers, to reduce the common-case processing cost of packet handling and to limit the added bandwidth cost of the IPv6 header (beyond the long addresses). Fragmentation and reassembly are limited to the source and destination. o Improved Support for Extensions and Options Changes in the way IP header options are encoded allow for more efficient forwarding, less stringent limits on the length of options, and greater flexibility for introducing new options in the future. Among the improvements is a flexible format for the carriage of explicit routing information. o Flow Labeling Capability A new capability is added to enable the labeling of packets belonging to particular traffic "flows" for which the sender requests special handling, such as non-default quality of service or "real-time" service. o Authentication and Privacy Capabilities Extensions to support authentication, data integrity, and (optional) data confidentiality are specified for IP6 in the Proposed Standards RFC 18xx and 18xx. The document specifies the basic header and four extension headers, Hop-by-Hop Options, Destination Options, Fragment Header, and Routing Header. Authentication and Encapsulating Security Payload (privacy) extension headers for IPv6 are defined in the Proposed Standards RFCs 1825-1829 and are required for implementation in IPv6. TCP and UDP processing are directly affected by IPv6 primarily by the pseudo-header that includes IP addresses and other IP header information. This specification includes a section defining the upper layer pseudo-header checksumming procedure for IPv6. 2. The IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture This document specifies the addressing architecture of the IP Version 6 protocol. It defines the three types of addresses, unicast, anycast, and multicast, and their uses. It specifies the use of a variable length Format Prefix, and allocates directly a small fraction of the total IPv6 address space for provider addresses, local use addresses, and multicast addresses. Space is reserved for NSAP addresses, IPX addresses, and geographic addresses. The remainder of the address space is reserved for future use. This can be used for expansion of existing uses (e.g. additional provider addresses, etc.) or new uses (e.g., separate locators and identifiers). 3. The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMPv6) for the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) The Internet Protocol, version 6 (IPv6) is a new version of IP. IPv6 uses the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) as defined for IPv4 [RFC-792], with a number of changes. The Internet Group Membership Protocol (IGMP) specified for IPv4 [RFC-1112] has also been revised and has been absorbed into ICMP for IPv6. The resulting protocol is called ICMPv6, and has an IPv6 Next Header value 58. ICMPv6 is required for the implementation of IPv6. Other IPv6 specifications including Neighbor Discovery and Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (Works in Progress) introduce additional ICMPv6 messsages, subject to the general rules for ICMPv6 messages given in this specification. 4. DNS Extensions to Support IP Version 6 This specification defines the changes that need to be made to the Domain Name System to support hosts running IP version 6 (IPv6). The changes include a new resource record type to store an IPv6 address, a new domain to support lookups based on an IPv6 address, and updated definitions of existing query types that return Internet addresses as part of additional section processing. The extensions are designed to be compatible with existing applications and, in particular, DNS implementations themselves. 5. An Architecture for IPv6 Unicast Address Allocation (Informational status) This informational document describes ways in which CIDR address allocation and routing techniques can be used with IPv6. Working Group Summary The IETF Last Call comments resulted in a small list of corrections and clarifications for the base and ICMPv6 specifications. The consensus of the working group on the mailing list and at the Stockholm IETF meeting remained clear. The five documents here are part of a comprehensive specification of the IPv6 protocol and its related support, routing, transition, and media adaptation mechanisms. Besides several additional documents from the IPNGWG, other IETF WGs are preparing specifications that are close to or past IETF Last Call: these include the Address Autoconfiguration, Next Generation Transition, DHCP, DNSIND, Mobile IP, OSPF, RIPv2, and IPIDRP WGs. Based on the results of the Transport Next Generation BOF held at the San Jose IETF meeting, future work on transport advances to take advantage of IPv6 deployment will be decoupled from the initial standardization of IPv6. Protocol Quality These specifications were reviewed for the IESG by the IPng Area Directors, following lengthy community discussion and review. There is a growing number of full-function, commercial implementations of these specifications and their companion works in progress. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ IETF IPng Mailing List FTP archive: ftp.parc.xerox.com:/pub/ipng IPng Home Page: http://playground.sun.com/pub/ipng/html/ipng-main.html Direct all administrative requests to majordomo@sunroof.eng.sun.com