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IPv6 Maintenance Working Group S. Kawamura
Internet-Draft NEC BIGLOBE, Ltd.
Intended status: Informational M. Kawashima
Expires: April 21, 2010 NEC AccessTechnica, Ltd.
October 18, 2009
A Recommendation for IPv6 Address Text Representation
draft-ietf-6man-text-addr-representation-01
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that
other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
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and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
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http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.
This Internet-Draft will expire on April 21, 2010.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2009 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 in effect on the date of
publication of this document (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info).
Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
and restrictions with respect to this document.
Abstract
As IPv6 network grows, there will be more engineers and also non-
engineers who will have the need to use an IPv6 address in text.
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While the IPv6 address architecture RFC 4291 section 2.2 depicts a
flexible model for text representation of an IPv6 address, this
flexibility has been causing problems for operators, system
engineers, and users. This document will describe the problems that
a flexible text representation has been causing. This document also
recommends a canonical representation format that best avoids
confusion. It is expected that the canonical format is followed by
humans and systems when representing IPv6 addresses as text, but all
implementations must accept and be able to handle any legitimate
RFC4291 format.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Text Representation Flexibility of RFC4291 . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Leading Zeros in a 16 Bit Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Zero Compression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3. Uppercase or Lowercase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Problems Encountered with the Flexible Model . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1. Searching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.1. General Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.2. Searching Spreadsheets and Text Files . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.3. Searching with Whois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.4. Searching for an Address in a Network Diagram . . . . 7
3.2. Parsing and Modifying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2.1. General Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2.2. Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2.3. Auditing: Case 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2.4. Auditing: Case 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2.5. Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2.6. Unexpected Modifying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.3. Operating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.3.1. General Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.3.2. Customer Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3.3. Abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.4. Other Minor Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.4.1. Changing Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.4.2. Preference in Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.4.3. Legibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4. A Recommendation for IPv6 Text Representation . . . . . . . . 10
4.1. Handling Leading Zeros in a 16 Bit Field . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2. "::" Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2.1. Shorten As Much As Possible . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2.2. Handling One 16 Bit 0 Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2.3. Choice in Placement of "::" . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.3. Lower Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
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5. Text Representation of Special Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. Notes on Combining IPv6 Addresses with Port Numbers . . . . . 11
7. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
10. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
11.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
11.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Appendix A. For Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Appendix B. Prefix Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
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1. Introduction
A single IPv6 address can be text represented in many ways. Examples
are shown below.
2001:db8:0:0:1:0:0:1
2001:0db8:0:0:1:0:0:1
2001:db8::1:0:0:1
2001:db8::0:1:0:0:1
2001:0db8::1:0:0:1
2001:db8:0:0:1::1
2001:db8:0000:0:1::1
2001:DB8:0:0:1::1
All the above point to the same IPv6 address. This flexibility has
caused many problems for operators, systems engineers, and customers.
The problems will be noted in Section 3. Also, a canonical
representation format to avoid problems will be introduced in
Section 4.
1.1. Requirements Language
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 [RFC2119].
2. Text Representation Flexibility of RFC4291
Examples of flexibility in Section 2.2 of [RFC4291] are described
below.
2.1. Leading Zeros in a 16 Bit Field
'It is not necessary to write the leading zeros in an individual
field.'
In other words, it is also not necessary to omit leading zeros. This
means that, it is possible to select from such as the following
example. The final 16 bit field is different, but all these
addresses mean the same.
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2001:db8:aaaa:bbbb:cccc:dddd:eeee:0001
2001:db8:aaaa:bbbb:cccc:dddd:eeee:001
2001:db8:aaaa:bbbb:cccc:dddd:eeee:01
2001:db8:aaaa:bbbb:cccc:dddd:eeee:1
2.2. Zero Compression
'A special syntax is available to compress the zeros. The use of
"::" indicates one or more groups of 16 bits of zeros.'
It is possible to select whether or not to omit just one 16 bits of
zeros.
2001:db8:aaaa:bbbb:cccc:dddd::1
2001:db8:aaaa:bbbb:cccc:dddd:0:1
In case where there are more than one zero fields, there is a choice
of how many fields can be shortened. Examples follow.
2001:db8:0:0:0::1
2001:db8:0:0::1
2001:db8:0::1
2001:db8::1
In addition, [RFC4291] in section 2.2 notes,
'The "::" can only appear once in an address.'
This gives a choice on where, in a single address to compress the
zero. Examples are shown below.
2001:db8::aaaa:0:0:1
2001:db8:0:0:aaaa::1
2.3. Uppercase or Lowercase
[RFC4291] does not mention about preference of uppercase or
lowercase. Various flavors are shown below.
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2001:db8:aaaa:bbbb:cccc:dddd:eeee:aaaa
2001:db8:aaaa:bbbb:cccc:dddd:eeee:AAAA
2001:db8:aaaa:bbbb:cccc:dddd:eeee:AaAa
3. Problems Encountered with the Flexible Model
3.1. Searching
3.1.1. General Summary
A search of an IPv6 address if conducted through a UNIX system is
usually case sensitive and extended options to allow for regular
expression use will come in handy. However, there are many
applications in the Internet today that do not provide this
capability. When searching for an IPv6 address in such systems, the
system engineer will have to try each and every possibility to search
for an address. This has critical impacts especially when trying to
deploy IPv6 over an enterprise network.
3.1.2. Searching Spreadsheets and Text Files
Spreadsheet applications and text editors on GUI systems, rarely have
the ability to search for a text using regular expression. Moreover,
there are many non-engineers (who are not aware of case sensitivity
and regular expression use) that use these application to manage IP
addresses. This has worked quite well with IPv4 since text
representation in IPv4 has very little flexibility. There is no
incentive to encourage these non-engineers to change their tool or
learn regular expression when they decide to go dual-stack. If the
entry in the spreadsheet reads, 2001:db8::1:0:0:1, but the search was
conducted as 2001:db8:0:0:1::1, this will show a result of no match.
One example where this will cause problem is, when the search is
being conducted to assign a new address from a pool, and a check was
being done to see if it was not in use. This may cause problems to
the end-hosts or end-users. This type of address management is very
often seen in enterprise networks and also in ISPs.
3.1.3. Searching with Whois
The "whois" utility is used by a wide range of people today. When a
record is set to a database, one will likely check the output to see
if the entry is correct. If an entity was recorded as 2001:db8::/48,
but the whois output showed 2001:0db8:0000::/48, most non-engineers
would think that their input was wrong, and will likely retry several
times or make a frustrated call to the database hostmaster. If there
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was a need to register the same address on different systems, and
each system showed a different text representation, this would
confuse people even more. Although this document focuses on
addresses rather than prefixes, this is worth mentioning since
problems encountered are mostly equal.
3.1.4. Searching for an Address in a Network Diagram
Network diagrams and blue-prints contain IP addresses as allocated to
system devices. In times of trouble shooting, there may be a need to
search through a diagram to find the point of failure (for example,
if a traceroute stopped at 2001:db8::1, one would search the diagram
for that address). This is a technique quite often in use in
enterprise networks and managed services. Again, the different
flavors of text representation will result in a time-consuming
search, leading to longer MTTR in times of trouble.
3.2. Parsing and Modifying
3.2.1. General Summary
With all the possible text representation ways, each application must
include a module, object, link, etc. to a function that will parse
IPv6 addresses in a manner that no matter how it is represented, they
will mean the same address. This is not too much a problem if the
output is to be just 'read' or 'managed' by a network engineer.
However, many system engineers who integrate complex computer systems
to corporate customers will have difficulties finding that their
favorite tool will not have this function, or will encounter
difficulties such as having to rewrite their macro's or scripts for
their customers. It must be noted that each additional line of a
program will result in increased development fees that will be
charged to the customers.
3.2.2. Logging
If an application were to output a log summary that represented the
address in full (such as 2001:0db8:0000:0000:1111:2222:3333:4444),
the output would be highly unreadable compared to the IPv4 output.
The address would have to be parsed and reformed to make it useful
for human reading. This will result in additional code on the
applications which will result in extra fees charged to the
customers. Sometimes, logging for critical systems is done by
mirroring the same traffic to two different systems. Care must be
taken that no matter what the log output is, the logs should be
parsed so they will mean the same.
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3.2.3. Auditing: Case 1
When a router or any other network appliance machine configuration is
audited, there are many methods to compare the configuration
information of a node. Sometimes, auditing will be done by just
comparing the changes made each day. In this case, if configuration
was done such that 2001:db8::1 was changed to 2001:0db8:0000:0000:
0000:0000:0000:0001 just because the new engineer on the block felt
it was better, a simple diff will tell you that a different address
was configured. If this was done on a wide scale network, people
will be focusing on 'why the extra zeros were put in' instead of
doing any real auditing. Lots of tools are just plain 'diff's that
do not take into account address representation rules.
3.2.4. Auditing: Case 2
Node configurations will be matched against an information system
that manages IP addresses. If output notation is different, there
will need to be a script that is implemented to cover for this. An
SNMP GET of an interface address and text representation in a humanly
written text file is highly unlikely to match on first try.
3.2.5. Verification
Some protocols require certain data fields to be verified. One
example of this is X.509 certificates. If an IPv6 address was
embedded in one of the fields in a certificate, and the verification
was done by just a simple textual comparison, the certificate may be
maistakenly shown as being invalid due to a difference in text
representation methods.
3.2.6. Unexpected Modifying
Sometimes, a system will take an address and modify it as a
convenience. For example, a system may take an input of
2001:0db8:0::1 and make the output 2001:db8::1 (which is seen in some
RIR databases). If the zeros were input for a reason, the outcome
may be somewhat unexpected.
3.3. Operating
3.3.1. General Summary
When an operator sets an IPv6 address of a system as 2001:db8:0:0:1:
0:0:1, the system may take the address and show the configuration
result as 2001:DB8::1:0:0:1. A distinguished engineer will know that
the right address is set, but an operator, or a customer that is
communicating with the operator to solve a problem, is usually not as
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distinguished as we would like. Again, the extra load in checking
that the IP address is the same as was intended, will result in fees
that will be charged to the customers.
3.3.2. Customer Calls
When a customer calls to inquire about a suspected outage, IPv6
address representation should be handled with care. Not all
customers are engineers nor have the same skill in IPv6 technology.
The NOC will have to take extra steps to humanly parse the address to
avoid having to explain to the customers that 2001:db8:0:1::1 is the
same as 2001:db8::1:0:0:0:1. This is one thing that will never
happen in IPv4 because IPv4 address cannot be abbreviated.
3.3.3. Abuse
Network abuse is reported along with the abusing IP address. This
'reporting' could take any shape or form of the flexible model. A
team that handles network abuse must be able to tell the difference
between a 2001:db8::1:0:1 and 2001:db8:1::0:1. Mistakes in the
placement of the "::" will result in a critical situation. A system
that handles these incidents should be able to handle any type of
input and parse it in a correct manner. Also, incidents are reported
over the phone. It is unnecessary to report if the letter is an
uppercase or lowercase. However, when a letter is spelled uppercase,
people tend to clarify that it is uppercase, which is unnecessary
information.
3.4. Other Minor Problems
3.4.1. Changing Platforms
When an engineer decides to change the platform of a running service,
the same code may not work as expected due to the difference in IPv6
address text representation. Usually, a change in a platform (e.g.
Unix to Windows, Cisco to Juniper) will result in a major change of
code, but flexibility in address representation will increase the
work load which will again, result in fees that will be charged to
the customers, and also longer down time of systems.
3.4.2. Preference in Documentation
A document that is edited by more than one author, may become harder
to read.
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3.4.3. Legibility
Capital case D and 0 can be quite often misread. Capital B and 8 can
also be misread.
4. A Recommendation for IPv6 Text Representation
A recommendation for a canonical text representation format of IPv6
addresses is presented in this section. The recommendation in this
document is one that, complies fully with [RFC4291], is implemented
by various operating systems, and is human friendly. The
recommendation in this document SHOULD be followed by humans and
systems when generating an address to represent as text, but all
implementations MUST accept any legitimate [RFC4291] format.
4.1. Handling Leading Zeros in a 16 Bit Field
Leading zeros should be chopped for human legibility and easier
searching. Also, a single 16 bit 0000 field should be represented as
just 0. Place holder zeros are often cause of misreading.
4.2. "::" Usage
4.2.1. Shorten As Much As Possible
The use of "::" should be used to its maximum capability (i.e. 2001:
db8::0:1 is not considered as clean representation).
4.2.2. Handling One 16 Bit 0 Field
"::" should not be used to shorten just one 16 bit 0 field for it
would tend to mislead that there are more than one 16 bit field that
is shortened.
4.2.3. Choice in Placement of "::"
When there is an alternative choice in the placement of a "::", the
longest run of consecutive 16 bit 0 fields should be shortened (i.e.
latter is shortened in 2001:0:0:1:0:0:0:1). When the length of the
consecutive 16 bit 0 fields are equal (i.e. 2001:db8:0:0:1:0:0:1),
the former is shortened. This is consistent with many current
implementations. One idea to avoid any confusion, is for the
operator to not use 16 bit field 0 in the first 64 bits. By nature
IPv6 addresses are usually assigned or allocated to end-users as
longer than 32 bits (typically 48 bits or longer).
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4.3. Lower Case
Recent implementations tend to represent IPv6 address as lower case.
It is better to use lower case to avoid problems such as described in
section 3.3.3 and 3.4.3.
5. Text Representation of Special Addresses
Addresses such as IPv4-Mapped IPv6 addresses, ISATAP [RFC5214], and
IPv4-translated addresses [RFC2765] have IPv4 addresses embedded in
the low-order 32 bits of the address. These addresses have special
representation that may mix hexadecimal and decimal notations. In
cases where there is a choice of whether to express the address as
fully hexadecimal or hexadecimal and decimal mixed, and if the
address type can be distinguished as having IPv4 addresses embedded
in the lower 32 bits solely from the 128bits of the address field
itself, mixed notation is the better choice. However, there may be
situations where hexadecimal representation is chosen to meet certain
needs. Addressing those needs is out of the scope of this document.
The text representation method noted in Section 4 should be applied
for the leading hexadecimal part (i.e. ::ffff:192.0.2.1 instead of
0:0:0:0:0:ffff:192.0.2.1).
6. Notes on Combining IPv6 Addresses with Port Numbers
When IPv6 addresses and port numbers are represented in text combined
together, there seems to be many different ways to do so. Examples
are shown below.
o [2001:db8::1]:80
o 2001:db8::1:80
o 2001:db8::1.80
o 2001:db8::1 port 80
o 2001:db8::1p80
o 2001:db8::1#80
The situation is not much different in IPv4, but the most ambiguous
case with IPv6 is the second bullet. This is due to the "::"usage in
IPv6 addresses. This style is not recommended for its ambiguity.
The [] style as expressed in [RFC3986] is recommended. Other styles
are acceptable when cross-platform portability does not become an
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issue.
7. Conclusion
The recommended format of text representing an IPv6 address is
summarized as follows.
(1) omit leading zeros in a 16 bit field
(2) when using "::", shorten consecutive zero fields to their
maximum extent (leave no zero fields behind).
(3) "::" used where shortens address the most
(4) "::" used in the former part in case of a tie breaker
(5) do not shorten one 16 bit 0 field, but always shorten when
there are two or more consecutive 16 bit 0 fields
(6) use lower case
Hints for developers are written in the Appendix section.
8. Security Considerations
None.
9. IANA Considerations
None.
10. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Jan Zorz, Randy Bush, Yuichi Minami,
Toshimitsu Matsuura for their generous and helpful comments in kick
starting this document. We also would like to thank Brian Carpenter,
Akira Kato, Juergen Schoenwaelder, Antonio Querubin, Dave Thaler,
Brian Haley, Suresh Krishnan, Jerry Huang, Roman Donchenko, Heikki
Vatiainen for their input. Also a very special thanks to Ron Bonica,
Fred Baker, Brian Haberman, Robert Hinden, Jari Arkko, and Kurt
Lindqvist for their support in bringing this document to the light of
IETF working groups.
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11. References
11.1. 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.
11.2. Informative References
[RFC2765] Nordmark, E., "Stateless IP/ICMP Translation Algorithm
(SIIT)", RFC 2765, February 2000.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
RFC 3986, January 2005.
[RFC4038] Shin, M-K., Hong, Y-G., Hagino, J., Savola, P., and E.
Castro, "Application Aspects of IPv6 Transition",
RFC 4038, March 2005.
[RFC5214] Templin, F., Gleeson, T., and D. Thaler, "Intra-Site
Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP)", RFC 5214,
March 2008.
Appendix A. For Developers
We recommend that developers use display routines that conform to
these rules. For example, the usage of getnameinfo() with flags
argument NI_NUMERICHOST in FreeBSD 7.0 will give a conforming output,
except for the special addresses notes in Section 5. The function
inet_ntop() of FreeBSD7.0 is a good C code reference, but should not
be called directly. See [RFC4038] for details.
Appendix B. Prefix Issues
Problems with prefixes are just the same as problems encountered with
addresses. Text representation method of IPv6 prefixes should be no
different from that of IPv6 addresses.
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Authors' Addresses
Seiichi Kawamura
NEC BIGLOBE, Ltd.
14-22, Shibaura 4-chome
Minatoku, Tokyo 108-8558
JAPAN
Phone: +81 3 3798 6085
Email: kawamucho@mesh.ad.jp
Masanobu Kawashima
NEC AccessTechnica, Ltd.
800, Shimomata
Kakegawa-shi, Shizuoka 436-8501
JAPAN
Phone: +81 537 23 9655
Email: kawashimam@necat.nec.co.jp
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