| Internet-Draft | Automatic Stub Networks | July 2024 |
| Lemon & Hui | Expires 9 January 2025 | [Page] |
This document describes a set of practices for connecting stub networks to adjacent infrastructure networks. This is applicable in cases such as constrained (Internet of Things) networks where there is a need to provide functional parity of service discovery and reachability between devices on the stub network and devices on an adjacent infrastructure link (for example, a home network).¶
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.¶
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.¶
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 9 January 2025.¶
Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶
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This document describes a set of practices for automatically connecting IPv6 stub networks to adjacent infrastructure networks. The connection is enabled through a Stub Network Auto-Configuring router, or SNAC router. There are several use cases for stub networks. Motivating factors include:¶
What makes stub networks a distinct type of network is simply that a stub network never provides transit between networks to which it is connected. The term "stub" refers to the way the network is seen by the link to which it is connected: there is reachability through a stub network router to devices on the stub network from the infrastructure link, but there is no reachability through the stub network to any link beyond that one.¶
Eliminating transit routing is not intended to be seen as a virtue in itself, but rather as a simplifying assumption that makes it possible to solve a subset of the general problem of automating multi-link networks. Stub networks may be globally reachable, or may be only locally reachable. A host on a locally reachable stub network can only interoperate with hosts on the network link(s) to which it is connected. A host on a globally reachable stub network should be able to interoperate with hosts on other network links in the same infrastructure as well as hosts on the global internet.¶
It may be noted that just as you can plug several Home Gateway devices together in series to form multi-layer NATs, there is nothing preventing the owner of a stub network router from attaching it to a stub network as if that network were its infrastructure network. In the case of an IoT wireless network, there may be no way to do this, nor would it be desirable, but a stub router that uses ethernet on both the infrastructure and stub network sides could be connected this way. Nothing in this document is intended to prevent this from being done, but neither do we attempt to solve the problems that this could create.¶
The goal of this document is to describe the minimal set of changes or behaviors required to use existing IETF specifications to support the stub network use case. The result is intended to be deployable on existing networks without requiring changes to those networks.¶
The specific goal is for hosts on the stub network to be able to interoperate with hosts on the adjacent infrastructure link or links. What we mean by "interoperate" is that a host on a stub network:¶
Discoverability here means "discoverable using DNS, or DNS Service Discovery". DNS Service Discovery includes multicast DNS [RFC6762]. As an example, when one host connected to a specific WiFi network wishes to discover services on hosts connected to that same WiFi network, it can do so using multicast DNS. Similarly, when a host on some other network wishes to discover the same service, it must use DNS-based DNS Service Discovery [RFC6763]. In both cases, "discoverable using DNS" means that the host has one or more entries in the DNS that serve to make it discoverable.¶
We lump discoverability in with reachability and addressability, both of which are essentially Layer 3 issues. The reason for this is that it does us no good to automatically set up connectivity between stub network hosts and infrastructure hosts if the infrastructure hosts have no means to learn about the availability of services provided by stub network hosts. For stub network hosts that only consume cloud services this will not be an issue, but for stub networks that provide services, such as IoT devices on stub networks with incompatible media, discoverability is necessary in order for stub network connectivity to be useful.¶
Ability to acquire an IP address that can be used to communicate means that the IP address a host on the stub network acquires can be used to communicate with it by hosts not on the stub network.¶
Reachability to hosts on adjacent infrastructure links means that when a host (A) on the stub network has a datagram destined for the IP address of a host (B) on an adjacent infrastructure link, host (A) knows of a next-hop router to which it can send the datagram, so that it will ultimately reach host (B) on the infrastructure network.¶
Reachability from hosts on adjacent infrastructure links means that when host (A) on an adjacent infrastructure link has a datagram destined for the IP address of a host (B) on the stub network, a next-hop router is known by host (A) such that, when the datagram is sent to that router, it will ultimately reach host (B) on the stub network.¶
To achieve the reachability goal described above, this document assumes hosts attempting to reach destinations on the stub network maintain a routing table - Type C hosts as defined in Section 3.1 of [RFC4191]). Type A and Type B hosts are out-of-scope for this document.¶
In addition to the interoperability goals we've described above, the additional goal for stub networks is that they be able to be connected automatically, with no user intervention. The experience of connecting a stub network to an infrastructure network should be as straightforward as connecting a new host to the same infrastructure network.¶
SNAC routers can be attached to any network. However, there are network configurations where a SNAC router will not work. An analysis of networks where SNAC routers could be attached is provided in Appendix A.¶
This section describes the meaning of and gives default values for various constants used in this document.¶
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.¶
We assume that the AIL supports Neighbor Discovery [RFC4861], and specifically that routers and on-link prefixes can be advertised using Router Advertisement messages and discovered using Neighbor Solicitation messages. The stub network link may also support this, or may use some different mechanism. This section specifies how advertisement of the on-link prefix for such links is managed. In this section we will use the term "Advertising Interface" as described in Section 6.2.2 of [RFC4861].¶
Support for AILS on networks where Neighbor Discovery is not supported is out of scope for this document. SNAC routers do not provide routing between AILs when connected to more than one such link.¶
In order to provide IPv6 routing to the stub network, IPv6 addressing must be available on each AIL. Ideally such addressing is already present on these links, and need not be provided. However, if it is not present, the SNAC router must provide it.¶
SNAC routers must evaluate prefixes that are advertised on-link as to their suitability for use in communicating with devices on the stub network. If no suitable prefix is found, a SNAC router MUST advertise one.¶
An on-link prefix is considered suitable if it is advertised on the link in a Prefix Information option ([RFC4861], Section 4.6.2) with the following Prefix Information option header values:¶
A prefix is not considered a suitable on-link prefix if the 'L' flag bit is set, but the 'A' flag bit is not set. This indicates that node addressability is being managed using DHCPv6. Nodes are not required to use DHCPv6 to acquire addresses, so a prefix that requires the use of DHCPv6 can't be considered "suitable"—not all hosts can actually use it.¶
Note: there can be layer two networks where neighbor discovery is not supported and therefore we cannot set the 'L' flag bit, but could set the 'A' flag bit. The behavior of stub networks when connecting to such networks is out of scope for this document.¶
A prefix is considered to be advertised on the link if, when a Router Solicitation message ([RFC4861], Section 4.1) is sent, a Router Advertisement message is received in response which contains a prefix information option ([RFC4861], Section 4.6.2) for that prefix.¶
After an RA message containing a suitable prefix has been received, it can be assumed for some period of time thereafter that that prefix is still valid on the link. However, prefix lifetimes and router lifetimes are often quite long. In addition to knowing that a prefix has been advertised on the link in the past, and is still valid, we must therefore ensure that at least one router that has advertised this prefix is still alive to respond to Router Advertisement messages.¶
The possible states of an interface connected to an AIL are described here, along with actions required to be taken to monitor the state. The purpose of the state machine described here is to ensure that at all times, when a new host arrives on the AIL, it is able to acquire an IPv6 address on that link.¶
During all of the states mentioned here except for state-unknown, the SNAC router is expected to treat the infrastructure interface as an Advertising Interface as described in Section 6.2.2 of [RFC4861]. There are two sets of information that need to be sent in an RA; if neither is present, then the SNAC router SHOULD NOT send an RA even if it is treating the infrastructure interface as an advertising interface.¶
These two sets of information are the on-link prefix, if any, that is to be advertised. Whether or not such a prefix is advertised, and what exactly is advertised regarding that prefix, is determined by the state machine. The other set of information is a set of routes to prefixes on the SNAC network. Whenever we know of a reachable (scope is not link-local) prefix on the SNAC network, we include an RIO option in the RA on the infrastructure network indicating that that prefix is reachable through the SNAC router.¶
It is important to note that it is possible for an on-link, routable prefix to be advertised and then withdrawn on the SNAC network, but for it to still be valid, and for there to still be some communication occurring using that prefix. In order to avoid prematurely interrupting such communication, the SNAC router MUST maintain a list of prefixes known to be valid on the SNAC network, even if those prefixes have been deprecated, and MUST include RIO options for all such prefixes in the RAs that it sends on the adjacent infrastructure link.¶
When the SNAC router interface first connects to the AIL, it MUST begin router discovery.¶
If, after router discovery has completed, no suitable on-link prefix has been found, the router moves this interface to STATE-BEGIN-ADVERTISING (Section 5.1.2.3).¶
If, during router discovery, a suitable on-link prefix is found, the router moves the interface to STATE-SUITABLE (Section 5.1.2.2).¶
In this state, the SNAC router MUST NOT treat this interface as an advertising interface as described in Section 6.2.2 of [RFC4861].¶
When a new host appears on the AIL and sends an initial Router Solicitation message, if it does not receive a suitable on-link prefix, it will not be able to communicate. Consequently, the SNAC router MUST monitor Router Solicitation and Router Advertisement messages on the interface in order to determine whether a prefix that has been advertised on the link is still being advertised. To accomplish this we have two complementary methods: router staleness detection and neighbor unreachability detection.¶
The SNAC router MUST listen for Router Advertisement messages on the AIL to which the interface is attached, and record the time at which each Router Advertisement was received. The router MUST NOT consider any Router Advertisement that is older than STALE_RA_TIME to be suitable. When the last non-stale Router Advertisement message containing a suitable prefix on the link is marked stale, the SNAC router MUST move the interface to STATE-BEGIN-ADVERTISING.¶
For each suitable route, the SNAC router MUST monitor the state of reachability to the router(s) that advertised it as described in ([RFC4861], Section 7.3.1) using a ReachableTime value of no more than MAX_SUITABLE_REACHABLE_TIME. The reason for this is that if no router providing the on-link prefix on the AIL is reachable, then when a new host joins the network, it will have no suitable on-link prefix to use for autoconfiguration, and thus will be unable to communicate with hosts on the stub network.¶
Whenever the ReachableTime for a router advertising a suitable prefix exceeds MAX_SUITABLE_REACHABLE_TIME, the SNAC router MUST send unicast Neighbor Solicitation messages as described in Section 7.2.2 of [RFC4861] until either a response is received, which resets ReachableTime to zero, or the maximum number of retransmissions has been sent.¶
The SNAC router MUST listen for Router Solicitation messages on the AIL. When a Router Solicitation message is received, if none of the on-link routers on the AIL are marked reachable, the SNAC router MUST move this interface to the STATE-BEGIN-ADVERTISING state (Section 5.1.2.3).¶
If a RA beacon interval arrives, and there are no routers advertising suitable prefixes that have a ReachableTime that is less than MAX_SUITABLE_REACHABLE_TIME, then the router MUST move this interface to the STATE-BEGIN-ADVERTISING state.¶
In this state, the SNAC router generates its own on-link prefix for the interface. This prefix has a valid and preferred lifetime of STUB_PROVIDED_PREFIX_LIFETIME seconds. The SNAC router sends a Router Advertisement (RA) message containing this prefix in a Prefix Information Option (PIO). In the PIO, the 'A' flag bit (autonomous configuration) Section 4.6.2 of [RFC4861] MUST be set and the 'L' flag bit (on-link prefix) MUST also be set. Link-layer technologies that require the 'L' flag bit to be cleared are out of scope of this document.¶
The 'SNAC Router' flag bit ([I-D.ietf-6man-snac-router-ra-flag]) MUST be set in the RA flags field. The values of the 'M' and 'O' flag bits MUST be copied from the respective 'M' and 'O' flag bit values seen in the most recent (unicast or multicast) RA received from a non-SNAC-router. For the selection of the most recent RA, the following RAs MUST be excluded:¶
If there is no recent RA from a non-SNAC-router, both 'M' and 'O' flag bits MUST be cleared, unless the SNAC router rebooted recently. After a reboot, if no recent RA is received from a non-SNAC-router, but a recent RA has been received from a SNAC router, the values for the 'M' and 'O' flag bits provided by that SNAC router MUST be copied. After MAX_FLAGS_COPY_TIME after reboot, the SNAC router MUST go back to the regular behavior defined above. This avoids a situation where a SNAC router that has rebooted starts to advertise different 'M' and 'O' flag bit values than other SNAC routers present on the same link.¶
The sent Router Advertisement message MUST also include a Route Information option (Section 2.3 of [RFC4191]) for each routable prefix advertised on the stub network. If the SNAC router is also a normal router (e.g. a home WiFi router), it SHOULD include all other routes that it is advertising in the RA, if there is space.¶
After having sent the initial Router Advertisement, the SNAC router moves the interface into the STATE-ADVERTISING-SUITABLE state (Section 5.1.2.4).¶
When entering this state, if the router MUST begin treating the interface as an Advertising Interface as described in Section 6.2.2 of [RFC4861] if it is not already doing so.¶
The SNAC router sends a Router Advertisement message, as described in Section 5.1.2.3, every RA_BEACON_INTERVAL seconds.¶
The SNAC router may receive a Router Advertisement message containing one or more suitable on-link prefixes on the AIL. If any of these prefixes are different than the prefix the SNAC router is advertising as the on-link suitable prefix, and the 'SNAC Router' flag bit is not set in in the Router Advertisement flags field, the SNAC router moves the interface to STATE-DEPRECATING (Section 5.1.2.5).¶
If the 'SNAC Router' flag bit is set in the RA header flags field, then one of the following must be true in order for that prefix to be considered suitable:¶
On entry to this state, the SNAC router has been treating the interface as an Advertising Interface as described in Section 6.2.2 of [RFC4861], and MUST continue to do so.¶
When the SNAC router has detected the availability of suitable on-link prefix on the AIL to which the interface is attached, and that prefix is preferable to the one it is advertising, it continues to advertise its own prefix, but deprecates it:¶
In this state, the valid lifetime (VALID) is computed based on three values: the current time when a router advertisement is being generated (NOW), the time at which the new suitable on-link prefix advertisement was received (DEPRECATE_TIME), and STUB_PROVIDED_PREFIX_LIFETIME. All of these values are in seconds. VALID is computed as follows:¶
VALID = STUB_PROVIDED_PREFIX_LIFETIME - (NOW - DEPRECATE_TIME)¶
If VALID is less than RA_BEACON_INTERVAL, the SNAC router does not include the deprecated prefix in the router advertisement. Note that VALID could be less than zero. Otherwise, the prefix is provided in the advertisement, but with a valid lifetime of VALID.¶
How addressability is managed on stub networks depends on the nature of the stub network. For some stub networks, the SNAC router can be sure that it is the only router. For example, a SNAC router that is providing a Wi-Fi network for tethering will advertise its own SSID and use its own joining credentials; in this case, it can assume that it is the only router for that network, and advertise a default route and on-link prefix just like any other router.¶
However, some stub networks are more cooperative in nature, for example IP mesh networks. On such networks, multiple SNAC routers may be present and be providing addressability and reachability.¶
In either case, some SNAC router connected to the stub network MUST provide a suitable on-link prefix (the OSNR prefix) for the stub network. If the stub network is a multicast-capable medium where Router Advertisement messages are used for router discovery, the same mechanism described in Section 5.1.2 is used.¶
Stub networks that do not support the use of Router Advertisements for router discovery must use some similar mechanism that is compatible with that type of network. Describing the process of establishing a common OSNR prefix on such networks is out of scope for this document.¶
SNAC routers may restart from time to time; when a restart occurs, the SNAC router may have been advertising state to the network which, following the restart, is no longer required.¶
For example, suppose there are two SNAC routers connected to the same infrastructure link. When the first SNAC router is restarted, the second takes over providing an on-link prefix. Now the first router rejoins the link. It sees that the second SNAC router's prefix is advertised on the infrastructure link, and therefore does not advertise its own.¶
This behavior can cause problems because the first SNAC router no longer sees the on-link prefix it had been advertising on infrastructure as on-link. Consequently, if it receives a packet to forward to such an address, it will forward that packet directly to a default router, if one is present; otherwise, it will have no route to the destination, and will drop the packet.¶
To address this problem, SNAC routers SHOULD remember the last time a prefix was advertised across restarts. On restart, the router configures the prefix on its interface but does not advertise it in Router Advertisements. Devices that are still using that prefix will be seen as on-link to the router, and so packets will be delivered using ND on-link rather than forwarded to the default router.¶
When a SNAC router has only flash memory with limited write lifetime, it may be inappropriate to do a write to flash every time an RA beacon containing a prefix is sent. In this case, the router SHOULD record the set of prefixes that have been advertised on infrastructure and the maximum valid lifetime that was advertised. On restart, the router should assume that hosts on the infrastructure link have received advertisements for any such prefixes.¶
When possible, it is best if all SNAC routers serving a particular stub network use the same 64-bit prefix on the AIL. For example, Thread SNAC routers use bits from the Thread Extended PAN ID to generate the ULA prefix's Global ID and Subnet ID. The Global ID generation conforms to [RFC4193] because the Extended PAN ID is generated randomly using the same mechanism that is specified in RFC 4193 for the ULA prefix bits.¶
In order to be able to provide addressability either on the stub network or on an adjacent infrastructure network, a SNAC router MUST allocate its own ULA Site Pefix. ULA prefixes, described in Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses ([RFC4193]) are randomly allocated prefixes. A SNAC router MUST allocate a single ULA Site Prefix for use in providing on-link prefixes to the stub network and the adjacent infrastructure link as described in Section 5.1.2.3.¶
Any ULA Link Prefixes allocated by a SNAC router SHOULD be maintained across reboots, and SHOULD remain stable over time. (TBD: mention the SHOULD exception cases) However, for privacy reasons, a SNAC router that roams from network to network SHOULD allocate a different ULA Link Prefix each time it connects to a different infrastructure network, unless configured to behave otherwise.¶
If DHCPv6 prefix delegation and IPv6 service are both available on the infrastructure link, then the SNAC router MUST attempt to acquire a prefix using DHCPv6 prefix delegation. Using a prefix provided by the infrastructure DHCPv6 prefix delegation service means (assuming the infrastructure is configured correctly) that routing is possible between the stub network links and all links on the infrastructure network, and possibly to the general internet.¶
By contrast, if the prefix generated by the SNAC router is used, reachability is only possible between the stub network and the AIL. The OSNR prefix in this case is not known to the infrastructure network routing fabric, so even though packets might be able to be forwarded to the intended destination, there would be no return path. So when the only prefix that is available is the one provided by the SNAC router, cloud services will not be reachable via IPv6, and infrastructure-provided NAT64 will not work. Therefore, when the SNAC router is able to successfully acquire a prefix using DHCPv6 PD, it MUST use DHCPv6 PD rather than the ULA Link prefix it allocated for the stub network out of its ULA Site Prefix.¶
A SNAC router SHOULD request stub network prefixes with length 64. If the SNAC router obtains a prefix with length less than 64, it SHOULD generate a /64 from the obtained prefix by padding with zeros. If the SNAC router obtains a prefix with length greater than 64, the SNAC router MUST treat the prefix as unsuitable and allocate a ULA Link Prefix out of its ULA Site Prefix instead.¶
A DHCPv6-PD client can request a particular lease interval for the DHCPv6-delegated prefix. However, there is no particular reason for a SNAC router to specify this interval.¶
It is possible that a SNAC router might obtain a prefix from a DHCPv6 server using prefix delegation and then something about the infrastructure network attachment might change that affects the validity of that prefix for use on the stub network. The section of [I-D.ietf-dhc-rfc8415bis] titled "Refreshing Configuration Information" discusses the various scenarios that can occur. We assume that the DHCPv6 prefix delegation client being used by the SNAC router conforms to this specification.¶
Situations that can occur include (but are not limited to):¶
The SNAC router MUST NOT use a prefix once the DHCPv6-PD client has determined that it is no longer valid. If the DHCPv6-PD client provides a new prefix, and the old prefix is still valid, the SNAC router SHOULD explicitly deprecate the old prefix at the same time that it first advertises the new prefix.¶
If the DHCPv6-PD client determines that the prefix it provided to use as the OSNR prefix is no longer valid, and no replacement prefix is provided by the DHCPv6 server, then the SNAC router MUST switch to the ULA link prefix that it has allocated for use on the SNAC network. In the case that the DHCPv6-PD client is unable to renew its lease on the current OSNR prefix, and time between the T2 interval for the prefix assignment Section 21.4 of [I-D.ietf-dhc-rfc8415bis] and the end of the lease has been reached, then the SNAC router MUST deprecate the DHCPv6-PD-provided OSNR prefix and begin advertising the ULA link prefix.¶
A failure to renew the DHCPv6-PD-provided OSNR prefix could be because the SNAC network has been disconnected from one AIL and moved to a different AIL. In this situation, if the new AIL also has IPv6 service and DHCPv6-PD service, the DHCPv6 client will get a clear indication that the old prefix is no longer valid. However, it may be that no DHCPv6-PD service is available on the new link, either because it is an IPv4-only link or because it's an IPv6-capable link that doesn't provide DHCPv6 service. In this situation, if the SNAC network remains connected to the link and no DHCPv6 service appears, the DHCPv6-PD-provided OSNR prefix will eventually time out and be replaced. The SNAC router SHOULD NOT attempt to replace it prior to this normal timeout process, because there is no benefit to changing the OSNR prefix on the SNAC network in such a situation, and it's possible that the SNAC router will return to the other link before the OSNR prefix expires.¶
SNAC routers MUST advertise reachability to stub network OSNR prefixes on any AIL to which they are connected. If the SNAC router is advertising a suitable prefix on any interface, any such prefixes MUST be advertised on that interface in the same Router Advertisement message that is advertising the suitable prefix, to avoid unnecessary multicast traffic.¶
Each stub network will have some set of prefixes that are advertised as on-link for that network. A SNAC router connected to that stub network SHOULD advertise reachability to all such prefixes on any AIL to which it is attached using router advertisements.¶
A SNAC router SHOULD NOT advertise itself as a default router on an AIL by setting a non-zero Router Lifetime value in the header of its Router Advertisements. The exception to this rule is the case where the SNAC router itself is the default router for a particular AIL: for example, it may be the home router providing connectivity to an ISP.¶
The SNAC router MAY advertise itself as a default router on the stub network, if it itself has a default route on the AIL. In some cases it may not be desirable to advertise reachability to the Internet as a whole; in this case the SNAC router is not required to advertise itself as a default router.¶
If the SNAC router is not advertising itself as a default router on the stub network, it MUST advertise reachability to any prefixes that are being advertised as on-link on AILs to which it is attached. This is true for prefixes it is advertising, and for other prefixes being advertised on that link.¶
Note that in some stub network configurations, it is possible for more than one SNAC router to be connected to the stub network, and each SNAC router may be connected to a different AIL. In this case, a SNAC router advertising a default route may receive a packet destined for a link that is not an AIL for that router, but is an AIL for a different router. In such a case, if the infrastructure is not capable of routing between these two AILs, a packet which could have been delivered by another SNAC router will be lost by the SNAC router that received it.¶
Consequently, SNAC routers SHOULD be configurable to not advertise themselves as default routers on the stub network. SNAC routers SHOULD be configurable to explicitly advertise AIL prefixes on the stub network even if they are advertising as a default router. The mechanisms by which such configuration can be accomplished are out of scope for this document.¶
It is also possible that SNAC routers for more than one stub network may be connected to the same AIL. In this case, the SNAC routers will be advertising Route Information Options (RIO) in their Router Advertisement messages for their OSNR prefixes. SNAC routers MUST track the presence of such routes, and MUST advertise reachability to them on interfaces connected to stub networks.¶
Since DNS-SD is in wide use, and provides for ad-hoc, self-configuring advertising using the mDNS transport, this is a suitable mandatory-to-implement protocol for stub networks, which must be able to attach to infrastructure networks without the help of new mechanisms provided by the infrastructure. Therefore, SNAC routers MUST provide DNS-SD service as described in this section.¶
The adjacent infrastructure can be assumed to already enable some service discovery mechanism between hosts on the infrastructure network, and can be assumed to provide a local DNS resolver. Therefore, we do not need to define a stub-network-specific mechanism for providing these services on the infrastructure network.¶
In some cases it will be necessary for hosts on the AIL to be able to discover devices on the stub network. In other cases, this will be unnecessary or even undesirable. For example, it may be undesirable for devices on an AIL to be able to discover devices on a Wi-Fi tether provided by a mobile phone.¶
One example of a use case for stub networks where such discovery is desirable is the constrained network use case. In this case a low-power, low-cost stub network provides connectivity for devices that provide services to the infrastructure. For such networks, it is necessary that devices on the infrastructure be able to discover devices on the stub network.¶
The most basic use case for this is to provide feature parity with existing solutions like multicast DNS (mDNS). For example, a light bulb with built-in Wi-Fi connectivity might be discoverable on the infrastructure link to which it is connected, using mDNS, but likely is not discoverable on other links. To provide equivalent functionality for an equivalent device on a constrained network that is a stub network, the stub network device must be discoverable on the infrastructure link (which is an AIL from the perspective of the stub network).¶
If services are to be advertised using DNS Service Discovery [RFC6763], there are in principle two ways to accomplish this. One is to present services on the stub network as a DNS zone which can then be configured as a browsing domain in the DNS ([RFC6763], Section 11). The second is to advertise stub network services on the AIL using multicast DNS (mDNS) [RFC6762].¶
Because this document defines behavior for SNAC routers connecting to infrastructure networks that do not provide any new mechanism for integrating stub networks, there is no way for a SNAC router to provide DNS-SD service on an infrastructure link in the form of a DNS zone in which to do discovery. Therefore, service on the infrastructure link MUST be provided using an Advertising Proxy, as defined in [I-D.ietf-dnssd-advertising-proxy].¶
One limitation of this solution is that it requires that hosts on the stub network use the DNS-SD Service Registration Protocol [I-D.ietf-dnssd-srp] to register their DNS-SD advertisements. This means that in the case of a stub network used for WiFi tethering, hosts on the stub network will not be discoverable by hosts on the infrastructure network. Any solution to this problem would require that the SNAC router provide a Discovery Proxy [RFC8766]. However, a discovery proxy is queried using DNS, not mDNS. This requires assistance from the infrastructure network, and is therefore out of scope for this document.¶
Hosts on the stub network may need to discover hosts on the AIL, or on the stub network. In the IoT network example we've been using, there might be a light switch on the stub network which needs to be able to actuate a light bulb connected to the AIL. In order to know where to send the actuation messages, the light switch will need to be able to discover the light bulb's address somehow.¶
Because the stub network is managed by SNAC routers, any DNS resolver that's available on the stub network will necessarily be provided by one or more SNAC routers. This means that the SNAC router can enable discovery of hosts on the infrastructure network by hosts on the stub network using a Discovery Proxy [RFC8766]. The Discovery Proxy can be advertised as available to hosts on the stub network through the DNS resolver provided on the stub network, as described in Section 11 of [RFC6763].¶
By implication, this means that SNAC routers MUST provide a DNS resolver. In addition, SNAC routers MUST provide DNS zones for each AIL, and MUST list these zones in the list of default browsing zones as defined in RFC6763. [[WG: we need to say how these zones are named. Or refer to the Advertising Proxy doc and have that doc say how they are named.]]¶
The SNAC router MUST also maintain an SRP registrar and use registrations made through that registrar to populate a DNS zone which is advertised as a default browsing domain, as above. This SRP registrar MUST be advertised on the stub network either using the dnssd-srp and/or dnssd-srp-tls service names or some stub-network-specific mechanism, the details of which are out of scope for this document.¶
SNAC networks rely on IPv6 to enable routing between links, which would not be possible with IPv4 due to the lack of a standard mechanism similar to Router Advertisements in IPv4. However, it can stll be useful for hosts on the SNAC network to establish communications with IPv4-only hosts on the infrastructure network.¶
Although NAT64 provides IPv6-only hosts with a way to reach IPv4 hosts, there is no easy way for an IPv4 host to use NAT64 to originate communication with an IPv6 host. Therefore, this document enables IPv6 hosts on the SNAC network to discover and reach with IPv4 hosts on infrastructure, but does not provide a way for IPv4-only hosts on infrastructure to communicate to IPv6 hosts on the SNAC network.¶
This should be acceptable because hosts on the infrastructure network should not be IPv4-only, since the SNAC router is providing IPv6 service on the infrastructure network that is suitable for communicating using IPv6 to hosts on the SNAC network--there should not be any hosts on the infrastructure network that can't communicate with hosts on the stub network unless such hosts do not have an IPv6 stack at all.¶
So the purpose of providing IPv4 connectivity for SNAC hosts is to enable communication with arbitrary IPv4 hosts which may not be on the AIL. This is accomplished by providing NAT64 address translation in the SNAC router, and by enabling service discovery using a Discovery Proxy.¶
Stub Network routers must be capable of providing NAT64 themselves, and must be capable of discovering the availability of NAT64 service on the infrastructure network and providing it when it is available and suitable.¶
Some network media may provide their own mechanisms for advertising NAT64 service to the stub network. If such a mechanism is available, SNAC routers MUST use the mechanism provided by the network medium used on the stub network to advertise NAT64 service. Otherwise, NAT64 service MUST be advertised using the PREF64 Router Advertisement option [RFC8781].¶
There are four possible combinations of circumstances in which to consider how to provide NAT64 service:¶
In the first case, infrastructure-provided NAT64 is preferred, and the SNAC router MUST advertise this service to the stub network.¶
In the second case, there is no way to provide connectivity to the infrastructure: we don't have IPv6 routing other than to the adjacent infrastructure link, because we don't have a routable prefix, we don't have NAT64 for the same reason, and we don't have IPv4, so the SNAC router can't do NAT64 on its own. In this case, the SNAC router MUST NOT advertise NAT64 service.¶
In the third case, despite the infrastructure providing NAT64, we can't use it, so the SNAC router MUST provide its own NAT64 service.¶
In the fourth case, the SNAC router MUST provide its own NAT64 service.¶
An additional complication is that there may be more than one SNAC router connecting the stub network to infrastructure. In this case, it may be desirable to limit the number of SNAC routers providing NAT64 service, or it may be acceptable for all SNAC routers to provide it.¶
In the latter case, this should not be a problem: since each SNAC router is using its own ULA Site Prefix to provide NAT64, any 5-tuple that goes through a SNAC router's NAT64 translator will necessarily have as its destination an IPv6 address in a particular NAT64 prefix, and that address will select the correct SNAC router through which to send the packet for translation. This also works on the return path because each SNAC router has its own IPv4 address, and the return packet will be destined for that IPv4 packet, and hence will always return through the SNAC router that translated it on the way out.¶
A further complication is that in some cases, some SNAC routers connected to the stub network may not be able to advertise an infrastructure-provided NAT64 prefix, while others may. In this case, when the infrastructure-provided NAT64 service appears on the stub network, SNAC routers that are not able to advertise an infrastructure NAT64 service MUST NOT do so.¶
To differentiate between infrastructure-provided NAT64 service and SNAC router-provided NAT64 service, SNAC routers that advertise infrastructure-provided NAT64 service MUST use a preference of medium for this service. SNAC routers advertising their own service MUST use a preference of low.¶
In some cases a SNAC router may be administratively configured with a NAT64 prefix. In this situation, the SNAC router MUST advertise the prefix with a preference of high.¶
SNAC routers must monitor the advertisement of other NAT64 prefixes on the stub network. If a SNAC router is advertising a NAT64 prefix, and a NAT64 prefix is advertised on the stub network with a higher preference, the SNAC router SHOULD deprecate the prefix it is advertising.¶
Stub networks are defined to be IPv6-only because it would be difficult to implement a stub network using IPv4 technology. However, stub network devices may need to be able to communicate with IPv4-only services either on the infrastructure network, or on the global internet. Ideally, the infrastructure network fully supports IPv6, and all services on the infrastructure network are IPv6-capable. In this case, perhaps the infrastructure network provides NAT64 service to IPv4-only hosts on the internet. In this ideal setting, the SNAC router need do nothing—the infrastructure network is doing it all.¶
In this situation, if there are multiple SNAC routers, each connected to the same AIL, there is no need for special behavior—each SNAC router can advertise a default route, and any SNAC router may be used to route NAT64 traffic. If some SNAC routers are connected to different AILs than others, some of which support NAT64 and some of which do not, then the default route may not carry traffic to the correct link for NAT64 service. In this case, a more specific address to the infrastructure NAT64 prefix(es) MUST be advertised by those SNAC routers that are able to discover it.¶
In order for infrastructure-provided NAT64 to work, the stub network must have an OSNR prefix that is known to the infrastructure. Typically this means that the SNAC router must have acquired this prefix using DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation. Unless otherwise configured to do so, the SNAC router MUST NOT advertise infrastructure-provided NAT64 service on the stub network if it has not acquired the OSNR prefix through DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation.¶
Most infrastructure networks at present do not provide NAT64 service. Many infrastructure networks do not provide DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation. In these cases it is necessary for SNAC routers to be able to provide NAT64 service if IPv4 hosts are to be reachable from the stub network. Therefore, SNAC routers MUST be capable of providing NAT64 service to the stub network. When infrastructure-provided NAT64 service is not present or is not usable, and when no other NAT64 service is already advertised on the stub network, SNAC routers MUST, by default, enable their own NAT64 service and advertise it on the stub network.¶
To provide NAT64 service, a SNAC router must allocate a NAT64 prefix. For convenience, the stub network allocates a single prefix out of the ULA Site Prefix that it maintains. Out of the 2^16 possible subnets of the /48, the SNAC router SHOULD use the numerically highest /64 prefix.¶
If there are multiple SNAC routers providing connectivity between the stub network and infrastructure, each stub network uses its own NAT64 prefix—there is no common NAT64 prefix. The reason for this is that NAT64 translation is not stateless, and is tied to the SNAC router's IPv4 address. Therefore each NAT64 egress is not equivalent.¶
A stub network that services a Wi-Fi stub network SHOULD provide DNS64 translation: hosts on the stub network cannot be assumed to be able to do DNS64 synthesis in the stub resolver. In this case the DNS resolver on the SNAC router MUST honor the 'CD' and 'DO' flag bits if received in a request, since this indicates that the stub resolver on the requestor intends to do DNSSEC validation. In this case, the resolver on the SNAC router MUST NOT perform DNS64 synthesis.¶
On specific stub networks it may be desirable to require the stub network device to perform DNS64 synthesis. Stub network routers for such networks do not need to provide DNS64 synthesis. Instead, they MUST provide an ipv4only.arpa answer that advertises the NAT64 prefix for that SNAC router, and MUST provide an explicit route to that NAT64 prefix on the stub network using RA or whatever technology is specific to that stub network type.¶
In constrained networks it can be very useful if stub network resolvers provide the information required to do DNS64 translation in the answer to the AAAA query. If the answer to an AAAA query comes back with "no data" (not NXDOMAIN), this suggests that there may be an A record. In this case, the stub network's resolver SHOULD attempt to look up an A record on the same name. If such a record exists, the resolver SHOULD return no data in the Answer section of the DNS response, and SHOULD provide any CNAME records that were involved in returning the "no data" answer to the AAAA query, and SHOULD provide any A records that were ultimately returned, in the Additional section. The resolver should also include an ipv4only.arpa record in the Additional section.¶
Some technologies used for stub networks, for example Thread or 6LoWPAN mesh networks, can produce partitioned networks, where what is notionally the same stub network winds up looking like two or more discrete links. For mesh networks, such partitions can form and rejoin over time as a result of either changes in radio propagation or the addition of, or removal of, devices on the mesh.¶
On stub networks that can partition, one way of detecting that a partition has occurred is to notice that the SNAC router that has advertised the on-link prefix for the stub network is no longer reachable via the stub network. When this occurs, SNAC routers that notice this loss of reachability MUST advertise a ULA Link Prefix derived from their ULA Site Prefix on the stub network.¶
An implication of this is that when such a partition forms, the same ULA Link Prefix can’t be advertised on both partitions, since this will result in ambiguous routing. We address this problem by requiring that each SNAC router generate its own ULA Site Prefix. This prefix is then available for two purposes: providing addressing on the AIL, if needed, and providing addressing on the stub network, if needed.¶
When partitions of this type occur, they may also heal. When a partition heals in a situation where two SNAC routers have both been advertising a prefix, it will now appear that there are two prefixes on the stub network.¶
When the time comes to deprecate one or more prefixes as a result of a network partition healing, only one prefix should remain. If there are any GUA prefixes, and if there is no specific configuration contradicting this, the GUA prefix that is numerically lowest should be kept, and all others deprecated. If there are no GUA prefixes, then the ULA Link Prefix that is numerically lowest should be kept, and the others deprecated. By using this approach, it is not necessary for the routers to coordinate in advance.¶
In order to provide network access, SNAC routers must provide some network services to the stub network. We have previously discussed the following services:¶
This document has no IANA actions.¶
Because a SNAC router operates as an IPv6 router that sends and receives IPv6 Neighbor Discovery protocol messages, the security considerations of Section 11 of [RFC4861] apply. No additional security considerations are identified.¶
In this scenario, a non-expert home user connects SNAC router to own unmanaged home network. This is the key intended use case for stub networks. This document describes how to implement a SNAC router such that it operates correctly in this situation, whether the ISP is providing IPv6 reachability to the Internet or not.¶
In some unmanaged network settings, there is a "guest" network in addition to the main network. In this configuration, if a SNAC router is added to the guest infrastructure network, no communication will be possible. The general intended behavior of the guest network is to isolate untrusted hosts. Since this would be the intended behavior on the part of the owner of the network, it won't be a surprise to them, since they had to explicitly give the SNAC router's owner the guest network credentials and not the main network credentials. This should also mean that the owner of the SNAC router will not expect it to function in this scenario.¶
An additional feature of some unmanaged networks is that the owner of the network can choose to isolate all devices on the network, so that devices on the network are able to use the Internet, but not communicate with each other. This is essentially the same as being connected to the guest network, except that there is no other network. In this case we would expect that the owner of the network doesn't expect any devices attached to the network to be able to communicate with any other device, so the failure of devices connected to infrastructure to communicate with devices on the stub network would not be a surprise. The owner of the SNAC router might be surprised in this case, but ultimately the owner of the infrastructure network gets to make this decision, and there isn't anything we can or should do on behalf of the SNAC router's owner in this case.¶
In this scenario we have a site that is not a home, so perhaps a restaurant or business, where there is no network operator per se, and the network is deployed similarly to a home network. There is little difference between this scenario and an unmanaged home network, but expectations may be different. In particular, it is very common in such settings for there to be a guest network for visitors, or for the network to enforce isolation between all nodes connected to it.¶
In this scenario, a non-expert user attaches a SNAC router to an infrastructure network that's managed. This network has correctly deployed RA Guard and/or port-based access control. As a result, the SNAC router won't succeed in advertising a prefix on the managed network. Communications originating on the stub network that are able to communicate using NAT64 will still work.¶
In the managed network case, it's possible that the network operator is willing to permit SNAC routers to be attached to the network by users. In this case, they might either not deploy RA guard, or they might deploy working DHCPv6 prefix delegation. This could be PD-per-host (where hosts are encouraged to use prefix delegation) or just ordinary prefix delegation (where hosts are given prefix delegation if they ask for it, but not encouraged to ask for it).¶
In such a situation, if DHCPv6 PD works on the infrastructure link, the SNAC router will function correctly, because the delegated prefix will be correctly routed.¶
It's worth noting that IPv4 devices that act similarly to SNAC routers, using NAT64, already exist and may indeed use the stub network functionality to support internal connections that aren't even apparent to the user. In this case the SNAC router is not relying on RA to function because it's using its IPv4 address and NAT64 to provide connectivity, so there is no management issue even if RA is blocked. This is a reasonable use case for IPv6, and the current stub network document does in fact enable this use case.¶
When a SNAC router is attached to an infrastructure network that has deployed RA guard and does not support DHCPv6 prefix delegation, and where that infrastructure network does allow the use of multicast DNS, services advertised on the stub network will be discoverable on the infrastructure network, but will not be reachable.¶
There can be a case where an infrastructure does not implement RA guard, does not advertise what this document considers to be an "acceptable" prefix, and does provide addressing using DHCPv6 IA_NA. In this situation, it could be the case that two ULA prefixes are being advertised as on-link and one is being advertised as permitting autonomous configuration.¶
In the case a host that is attempting to communicate with a device using a site ULA prefix on a different link may choose a ULA address as a source address. If it were to choose the autonomously-configured ULA address as its source address, this would fail, because there is no route back to the stub-network-provided ULA prefix.¶
However, this can only happen in practice if the host did not receive an address from DHCPv6. In this case, the host would not be able to communicate anyway. So the behavior we might see here is that a series of IP packets with an unexpected source address might be sent to a device on another link, and the device would be unable to send a response.¶
In such scenarios we have no way to actually know based on the network configuration what the operator's intention was. An operator that sees a problem with this can react by implementing RA guard or by blocking unknown source addresses at the router, and in so doing they would be expressing their intention. This configuration would not cause any new problem: a host that could communicate would still be able to communicate, and a host that could not communicate would not become able to communicate.¶
The one scenario where we could actually see a communication problem is when there is a GUA prefix advertised by infrastructure but no ULA prefix, but there is a ULA destination to reach. In this case, the longest-matching-prefix algorithm could choose the stub-router-provided ULA prefix as a source address to reach the site-provided ULA destination, and in this case communication would fail. Only happy eyeballs can correct this situation.¶
In this scenario, there is no IPv6 service being intentionally advertised on a managed network. Operators of such netowrks may not be aware of the possibility of configuring RA guard. In this situation, a SNAC router will connect and advertise services, which will be reachable just as they would be in a similar unmanaged network. A SNAC router that conforms to this specification will not advertise an IPv6 default route. Therefore it should not cause operational problems, just as connecting an IPv4 NAT gateway in the same scenario would not cause operational problems.¶
An active SNAC router sends periodic multicast Router Advertisements as well as unicast Router Advertisements on the infrastructure network. These Router Advertisements are filled with the following values consistent with the message format given in Section 4.2 of [RFC4861]:¶
It is expected that all RA options for a SNAC router will fit in a single RA. Therefore, we do not expect SNAC routers to send multiple RAs with different information other than to announce that some information previously advertised has changed.¶
A SNAC router sends periodic as well as solicited Router Advertisements out its advertising interfaces on the stub network. Outgoing Router Advertisements are filled with the following values consistent with the message format given in Section 4.2 of [RFC4861]:¶
Route Information Option: when a SNAC router is not advertising a default route, it MUST include one or more RIO options in router advertisements on the stub network to provide reachability to infrastructure. This is discussed in Section 5.4. The following settings apply:¶