Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) J. Linkova
Request for Comments: 8475 Google
Category: Informational M. Stucchi
ISSN: 2070-1721 RIPE NCC
October 2018
Using Conditional Router Advertisements for Enterprise Multihoming
Abstract
This document discusses the most common scenarios of connecting an
enterprise network to multiple ISPs using an address space assigned
by an ISP and how the approach proposed in "Enterprise Multihoming
using Provider-Assigned Addresses without Network Prefix Translation:
Requirements and Solution" could be applied in those scenarios. The
problem of enterprise multihoming without address translation of any
form has not been solved yet as it requires both the network to
select the correct egress ISP based on the packet source address and
hosts to select the correct source address based on the desired
egress ISP for that traffic. The aforementioned document proposes a
solution to this problem by introducing a new routing functionality
(Source Address Dependent Routing) to solve the uplink selection
issue. It also proposes using Router Advertisements to influence the
host source address selection. It focuses on solving the general
problem and covering various complex use cases, and this document
adopts its proposed approach to provide a solution for a limited
number of common use cases. In particular, the focus of this
document is on scenarios in which an enterprise network has two
Internet uplinks used either in primary/backup mode or simultaneously
and hosts in that network might not yet properly support multihoming
as described in RFC 8028.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
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). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are candidates for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8475.
Linkova & Stucchi Informational [Page 1]RFC 8475 Conditional RAs October 2018
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2018 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
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
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to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
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the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Common Enterprise Multihoming Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Two ISP Uplinks, Primary and Backup . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Two ISP Uplinks, Used for Load-Balancing . . . . . . . . 5
3. Conditional Router Advertisements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1. Solution Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1.1. Uplink Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1.2. Source Address Selection and Conditional RAs . . . . 5
3.2. Example Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2.1. Single Router, Primary/Backup Uplinks . . . . . . . . 8
3.2.2. Two Routers, Primary/Backup Uplinks . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2.3. Single Router, Load-Balancing between Uplinks . . . . 12
3.2.4. Two Routers, Load-Balancing between Uplinks . . . . . 12
3.2.5. Topologies with Dedicated Border Routers . . . . . . 13
3.2.6. Intrasite Communication during Simultaneous Uplinks
Outage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2.7. Uplink Damping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2.8. Routing Packets When the Corresponding Uplink Is
Unavailable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.3. Solution Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.3.1. Connections Preservation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.1. Privacy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Linkova & Stucchi Informational [Page 2]RFC 8475 Conditional RAs October 2018
1. Introduction
Multihoming is an obvious requirement for many enterprise networks to
ensure the desired level of network reliability. However, using more
than one ISP (and address space assigned by those ISPs) introduces
the problem of assigning IP addresses to hosts. In IPv4, there is no
choice but using address space [RFC1918] and NAT [RFC3022] at the
network edge [RFC4116]. Using Provider Independent (PI) address
space is not always an option, since it requires running BGP between
the enterprise network and the ISPs. The administrative overhead of
obtaining and managing PI address space can also be a concern. As
IPv6 hosts can, by design, have multiple addresses of the global
scope [RFC4291], multihoming using provider addresses looks even
easier for IPv6: each ISP assigns an IPv6 block (usually /48), and
hosts in the enterprise network have addresses assigned from each ISP
block. However, using IPv6 provider-assigned (PA) blocks in a
multihoming scenario introduces some challenges, including, but not
limited to:
o Selecting the correct uplink based on the packet source address;
o Signaling to hosts that some source addresses should or should not
be used (e.g., an uplink to the ISP went down or became available
again).
[PROVIDER-ASSIGNED] discusses these and other related challenges in
detail in relation to the general multihoming scenario for enterprise
networks. It proposes a solution that relies heavily on Rule 5.5 of
the default address selection algorithm [RFC6724]. Rule 5.5 makes
hosts prefer source addresses in a prefix advertised by the next hop
and, therefore, is very useful in multihomed scenarios when different
routers may advertise different prefixes. While [RFC6724] defines
Rule 5.5 as optional, the recent [RFC8028] recommends that multihomed
hosts SHOULD support it. Unfortunately, that rule has not been
widely implemented at the time of writing. Therefore, network
administrators in enterprise networks can't yet assume that all
devices in their network support Rule 5.5, especially in the quite
common BYOD ("Bring Your Own Device") scenario. However, while it
does not seem feasible to solve all the possible multihoming
scenarios without relying on Rule 5.5, it is possible to provide IPv6
multihoming using PA address space for the most common use cases.
This document discusses how the general approach described in
[PROVIDER-ASSIGNED] can be applied to solve multihoming scenarios
when:
o An enterprise network has two or more ISP uplinks;
Linkova & Stucchi Informational [Page 3]RFC 8475 Conditional RAs October 2018
o Those uplinks are used for Internet access in active/backup or
load-sharing mode without any sophisticated traffic engineering
requirements;
o Each ISP assigns the network a subnet from its own PA address
space; and
o Hosts in the enterprise network are not expected to support Rule
5.5 of the default address selection algorithm [RFC6724].
1.1. Requirements Language
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.
2. Common Enterprise Multihoming Scenarios
2.1. Two ISP Uplinks, Primary and Backup
This scenario has the following key characteristics:
o The enterprise network uses uplinks to two (or more) ISPs for
Internet access;
o Each ISP assigns IPv6 PA address space for the network;
o Uplink(s) to one ISP is a primary (preferred) one. All other
uplinks are backup and are not expected to be used while the
primary one is operational;
o If the primary uplink is operational, all Internet traffic should
flow via that uplink;
o When the primary uplink fails, the Internet traffic needs to flow
via the backup uplinks;
o Recovery of the primary uplink needs to trigger the traffic
switchover from the backup uplinks back to the primary one;
o Hosts in the enterprise network are not expected to support Rule
5.5 of the default address selection algorithm [RFC6724].
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2.2. Two ISP Uplinks, Used for Load-Balancing
This scenario has the following key characteristics:
o The enterprise network is using uplinks to two (or more) ISPs for
Internet access;
o Each ISP assigns an IPv6 PA address space;
o All the uplinks may be used simultaneously, with the traffic flows
being randomly (not necessarily equally) distributed between them;
o Hosts in the enterprise network are not expected to support Rule
5.5 of the default address selection algorithm [RFC6724].
3. Conditional Router Advertisements
3.1. Solution Overview
3.1.1. Uplink Selection
As discussed in [PROVIDER-ASSIGNED], one of the two main problems to
be solved in the enterprise multihoming scenario is the problem of
the next-hop (uplink) selection based on the packet source address.
For example, if the enterprise network has two uplinks, to ISP_A and
ISP_B, and hosts have addresses from subnet_A and subnet_B (belonging
to ISP_A and ISP_B, respectively), then packets sourced from subnet_A
must be sent to the ISP_A uplink while packets sourced from subnet_B
must be sent to the ISP_B uplink. Sending packets with source
addresses belonging to one ISP address space to another ISP might
cause those packets to be filtered out if those ISPs or their uplinks
implement antispoofing ingress filtering [RFC2827][RFC3704].
While some work is being done in the Source Address Dependent Routing
(SADR) (such as [DESTINATION]), the simplest way to implement the
desired functionality currently is to apply a policy that selects a
next hop or an egress interface based on the packet source address.
Currently, most SMB/Enterprise-grade routers have such functionality
available.
3.1.2. Source Address Selection and Conditional RAs
Another problem to be solved in the multihoming scenario is the
source address selection on hosts. In the normal situation (all
uplinks are up/operational), hosts have multiple global unique
addresses and can rely on the default address selection algorithm
[RFC6724] to pick up a source address, while the network is
responsible for choosing the correct uplink based on the source
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address selected by a host, as described in Section 3.1.1. However,
some network topology changes (i.e., changing uplink status) might
affect the global reachability for packets sourced from particular
prefixes; therefore, such changes have to be signaled back to the
hosts. For example:
o An uplink to ISP_A went down. Hosts should not use addresses from
an ISP_A prefix;
o A primary uplink to ISP_A that was not operational has come back
up. Hosts should start using the source addresses from an ISP_A
prefix.
[PROVIDER-ASSIGNED] provides a detailed explanation of why Stateless
Address Autoconfiguration (SLAAC) [RFC4862] and Router Advertisements
(RAs) [RFC4861] are the most suitable mechanisms for signaling
network topology changes to hosts, thereby influencing the source
address selection. Sending an RA to change the preferred lifetime
for a given prefix provides the following functionality:
o Deprecating addresses by sending an RA with preferred_lifetime set
to 0 in the corresponding Prefix Information option (PIO)
[RFC4861]. This indicates to hosts that addresses from that
prefix should not be used;
o Making a previously unused (deprecated) prefix usable again by
sending an RA containing a PIO with nonzero preferred lifetime.
This indicates to hosts that addresses from that prefix can be
used again.
It should be noted that only the preferred lifetime for the affected
prefix needs to be changed. As the goal is to influence the source
address selection algorithm on hosts rather than prevent them from
forming addresses from a specific prefix, the valid lifetime should
not be changed. Actually, changing the valid lifetime would not even
be possible for unauthenticated RAs (which is the most common
deployment scenario), because Section 5.5.3 of [RFC4862] prevents
hosts from setting the valid lifetime for addresses to zero unless
RAs are authenticated.
To provide the desired functionality, first-hop routers are required
to:
o Send RAs triggered by defined event policies in response to an
uplink status change event; and
Linkova & Stucchi Informational [Page 6]RFC 8475 Conditional RAs October 2018
o While sending periodic or solicited RAs, set the value in the
given RA field (e.g., PIO preferred lifetime) based on the uplink
status.
The exact definition of the "uplink status" depends on the network
topology and may include conditions like:
o Uplink interface status change;
o Presence of a particular route in the routing table;
o Presence of a particular route with a particular attribute (next
hop, tag, etc.) in the routing table;
o Protocol adjacency change.
In some scenarios, when two routers are providing first-hop
redundancy via Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) [RFC5798],
the master-backup status can be considered to be a condition for
sending RAs and changing the preferred lifetime value. See
Section 3.2.2 for more details.
If hosts are provided with the IPv6 addresses of ISP DNS servers via
a Recursive DNS Server (RDNSS) (see "IPv6 Router Advertisement
Options for DNS Configuration" [RFC8106]), it might be desirable for
the conditional RAs to update the Lifetime field of the RDNSS option
as well.
The trigger is not only forcing the router to send an unsolicited RA
to propagate the topology changes to all hosts. Obviously, the
values of the RA fields (like PIO Preferred Lifetime or DNS Server
Lifetime) changed by the particular trigger need to stay the same
until another event causes the value to be updated. For example, if
an ISP_A uplink failure causes the prefix to be deprecated, all
solicited and unsolicited RAs sent by the router need to have the
preferred lifetime for that PIO set to 0 until the uplink comes back
up.
It should be noted that the proposed solution is quite similar to the
existing requirement L-13 for IPv6 Customer Edge Routers [RFC7084]
and the documented behavior of homenet devices [RFC7788]. It is
using the same mechanism of deprecating a prefix when the
corresponding uplink is not operational, applying it to an
enterprise-network scenario.
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3.2. Example Scenarios
This section illustrates how the conditional RAs solution can be
applied to the most common enterprise multihoming scenarios,
described in Section 2.
3.2.1. Single Router, Primary/Backup Uplinks
--------
,-------, / \
+----+ 2001:db8:1::/48 ,' ', : :
| |-----------------+ ISP_A +--+: :
2001:db8:1:1::/64 | | ', ,' : :
| | '-------' : :
H1-----------------| R1 | : INTERNET :
| | ,-------, : :
2001:db8:2:1::/64 | | 2001:db8:2::/48 ,' ', : :
| |-----------------+ ISP_B +--+: :
+----+ ', ,' : :
'-------' \ /
--------
Figure 1: Single Router, Primary/Backup Uplinks
Let's look at a simple network topology where a single router acts as
a border router to terminate two ISP uplinks and as a first-hop
router for hosts. Each ISP assigns a /48 to the network, and the
ISP_A uplink is a primary one, to be used for all Internet traffic,
while the ISP_B uplink is a backup, to be used only when the primary
uplink is not operational.
To ensure that packets with source addresses from ISP_A and ISP_B are
only routed to ISP_A and ISP_B uplinks, respectively, the network
administrator needs to configure a policy on R1:
IF (packet_source_address is in 2001:db8:1::/48)
and
(packet_destination_address is not in
(2001:db8:1::/48 or 2001:db8:2::/48))
THEN
default next hop is ISP_A_uplink
Linkova & Stucchi Informational [Page 8]RFC 8475 Conditional RAs October 2018
IF (packet_source_address is in 2001:db8:2::/48)
and
(packet_destination_address is not in
(2001:db8:1::/48 or 2001:db8:2::/48))
THEN
default next hop is ISP_B_uplink
Under normal circumstances, it is desirable that all traffic be sent
via the ISP_A uplink; therefore, hosts (the host H1 in the example
topology figure) should be using source addresses from
2001:db8:1:1::/64. When or if the ISP_A uplink fails, hosts should
stop using the 2001:db8:1:1::/64 prefix and start using
2001:db8:2:1::/64 until the ISP_A uplink comes back up. To achieve
this, the RA configuration on the R1 device for the interface facing
H1 needs to have the following policy:
prefix 2001:db8:1:1::/64 {
IF (ISP_A_uplink is up)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 604800
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 0
}
prefix 2001:db8:2:1::/64 {
IF (ISP_A_Uplink is up)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 0
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 604800
}
A similar policy needs to be applied to the RDNSS lifetime if ISP_A
and ISP_B DNS servers are used.
3.2.2. Two Routers, Primary/Backup Uplinks
Let's look at a more complex scenario where two border routers are
terminating two ISP uplinks (one each), acting as redundant first-hop
routers for hosts. The topology is shown in Figure 2.
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--------
,-------, / \
2001:db8:1:1::/64 +----+ 2001:db8:1::/48 ,' ', : :
_| |----------------+ ISP_A +--+: :
| | R1 | ', ,' : :
| +----+ '-------' : :
H1----------------| : INTERNET :
| +----+ ,-------, : :
|_| | 2001:db8:2::/48 ,' ', : :
| R2 |----------------+ ISP_B +--+: :
2001:db8:2:1::/64 +----+ ', ,' : :
'-------' \ /
--------
Figure 2: Two Routers, Primary/Backup Uplinks
In this scenario, R1 sends RAs with PIO for 2001:db8:1:1::/64 (ISP_A
address space), and R2 sends RAs with PIO for 2001:db8:2:1::/64
(ISP_B address space). Each router needs to have a forwarding policy
configured for packets received on its hosts-facing interface:
IF (packet_source_address is in 2001:db8:1::/48)
and
(packet_destination_address is not in
(2001:db8:1::/48 or 2001:db8:2::/48))
THEN
default next hop is ISP_A_uplink
IF (packet_source_address is in 2001:db8:2::/48)
and
(packet_destination_address is not in
(2001:db8:1::/48 or 2001:db8:2::/48))
THEN
default next hop is ISP_B_uplink
In this case, there is more than one way to ensure that hosts are
selecting the correct source address based on the uplink status. If
VRRP is used to provide first-hop redundancy, and the master router
is the one with the active uplink, then the simplest way is to use
the VRRP mastership as a condition for RA. So, if ISP_A is the
primary uplink, the routers R1 and R2 need to be configured in the
following way:
R1 is the VRRP master by default (when the ISP_A uplink is up). If
the ISP_A uplink is down, then R1 becomes a backup (the VRRP
interface-status tracking is expected to be used to automatically
Linkova & Stucchi Informational [Page 10]RFC 8475 Conditional RAs October 2018
modify the VRRP priorities and trigger the mastership switchover).
RAs on R1's interface facing H1 needs to have the following policy
applied:
prefix 2001:db8:1:1::/64 {
IF (vrrp_master)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 604800
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 0
}
R2 is VRRP backup by default. RA on R2's interface facing H1 needs
to have the following policy applied:
prefix 2001:db8:2:1::/64 {
IF(vrrp_master)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 604800
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 0
}
If VRRP is not used or interface status tracking is not used for
mastership switchover, then each router needs to be able to detect
the uplink failure/recovery on the neighboring router, so that RAs
with updated preferred lifetime values are triggered. Depending on
the network setup, various triggers can be used, such as a route to
the uplink interface subnet or a default route received from the
uplink. The obvious drawback of using the routing table to trigger
the conditional RAs is that some additional configuration is
required. For example, if a route to the prefix assigned to the ISP
uplink is used as a trigger, then the conditional RA policy would
have the following logic:
R1:
prefix 2001:db8:1:1::/64 {
IF (ISP_A_uplink is up)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 604800
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 0
}
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R2:
prefix 2001:db8:2:1::/64 {
IF (ISP_A_uplink_route is present)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 0
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 604800
}
3.2.3. Single Router, Load-Balancing between Uplinks
Let's look at the example topology shown in Figure 1, but with both
uplinks used simultaneously. In this case, R1 would send RAs
containing PIOs for both prefixes, 2001:db8:1:1::/64 and
2001:db8:2:1::/64, changing the preferred lifetime based on
particular uplink availability. If the interface status is used as
an uplink availability indicator, then the policy logic would look
like the following:
prefix 2001:db8:1:1::/64 {
IF (ISP_A_uplink is up)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 604800
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 0
}
prefix 2001:db8:2:1::/64 {
IF (ISP_B_uplink is up)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 604800
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 0
}
R1 needs a forwarding policy to be applied to forward packets to the
correct uplink based on the source address, similar to the policy
described in Section 3.2.1.
3.2.4. Two Routers, Load-Balancing between Uplinks
In this scenario, the example topology is similar to the one shown in
Figure 2, but both uplinks can be used at the same time. This means
that both R1 and R2 need to have the corresponding forwarding policy
to forward packets based on their source addresses.
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Each router would send RAs with PIO for the corresponding prefix,
setting preferred_lifetime to a nonzero value when the ISP uplink is
up and deprecating the prefix by setting preferred_lifetime to 0 in
the case of uplink failure. The uplink recovery would trigger
another RA with a nonzero preferred lifetime to make the addresses
from the prefix preferred again. The example RA policy on R1 and R2
would look like:
R1:
prefix 2001:db8:1:1::/64 {
IF (ISP_A_uplink is up)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 604800
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 0
}
R2:
prefix 2001:db8:2:1::/64 {
IF (ISP_B_uplink is up)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 604800
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 0
}
3.2.5. Topologies with Dedicated Border Routers
For simplicity, all topologies above show the ISP uplinks terminated
on the first-hop routers. Obviously, the proposed approach can be
used in more complex topologies when dedicated devices are used for
terminating ISP uplinks. In that case, VRRP mastership or interface
status cannot be used as a trigger for conditional RAs. Route
presence as described in Section 3.2.2 should be used instead.
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Let's look at the example topology shown in Figure 3:
2001:db8:1::/48 --------
2001:db8:1:1::/64 ,-------, ,' ',
+----+ +---+ +----+ ,' ', : :
_| |--| |--| R3 |----+ ISP_A +---+: :
| | R1 | | | +----+ ', ,' : :
| +----+ | | '-------' : :
H1--------| |LAN| : INTERNET :
| +----+ | | ,-------, : :
|_| | | | +----+ ,' ', : :
| R2 |--| |--| R4 |----+ ISP_B +---+: :
+----+ +---+ +----+ ', ,' : :
2001:db8:2:1::/64 '-------' ', ,'
2001:db8:2::/48 --------
Figure 3: Dedicated Border Routers
For example, if ISP_A is a primary uplink and ISP_B is a backup, then
the following policy might be used to achieve the desired behavior
(H1 is using ISP_A address space, 2001:db8:1:1::/64, while the ISP_A
uplink is up and only using the ISP_B 2001:db8:2:1::/64 prefix if the
uplink is non-operational):
R1 and R2 policy:
prefix 2001:db8:1:1::/64 {
IF (ISP_A_uplink_route is present)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 604800
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 0
}
prefix 2001:db8:2:1::/64 {
IF (ISP_A_uplink_route is present)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 0
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 604800
}
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For the load-balancing case, the policy would look slightly
different: each prefix has a nonzero preferred_lifetime only if the
corresponding ISP uplink route is present:
prefix 2001:db8:1:1::/64 {
IF (ISP_A_uplink_route is present)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 604800
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 0
}
prefix 2001:db8:2:1::/64 {
IF (ISP_B_uplink_route is present)
THEN
preferred_lifetime = 604800
ELSE
preferred_lifetime = 0
}
3.2.6. Intrasite Communication during Simultaneous Uplinks Outage
Prefix deprecation as a result of an uplink status change might lead
to a situation in which all global prefixes are deprecated (all ISP
uplinks are not operational for some reason). Even when there is no
Internet connectivity, it might be still desirable to have intrasite
IPv6 connectivity (especially when the network in question is an
IPv6-only one). However, while an address is in a deprecated state,
its use is discouraged, but not strictly forbidden [RFC4862]. In
such a scenario, all IPv6 source addresses in the candidate set
[RFC6724] are deprecated, which means that they still can be used (as
there are no preferred addresses available), and the source address
selection algorithm can pick up one of them, allowing intrasite
communication. However, some operating systems might just fall back
to IPv4 if the network interface has no preferred IPv6 global
addresses. Therefore, if intrasite connectivity is vital during
simultaneous outages of multiple uplinks, administrators might
consider using Unique Local Addresses (ULAs) [RFC4193] or
provisioning additional backup uplinks to protect the network from
double-failure cases.
3.2.7. Uplink Damping
If an actively used uplink (a primary one or one used in a load-
balancing scenario) starts flapping, it might lead to the undesirable
situation of flapping addresses on hosts: every time the uplink goes
up, hosts receive an RA with a nonzero preferred PIO lifetime, and
every time the uplink goes down, all addresses in the affected prefix
Linkova & Stucchi Informational [Page 15]RFC 8475 Conditional RAs October 2018
become deprecated. This would, undoubtedly, negatively impact the
user experience, not to mention the impact of spikes of duplicate
address detection traffic every time an uplink comes back up.
Therefore, it's recommended that router vendors implement some form
of damping policy for conditional RAs and either postpone sending an
RA with a nonzero lifetime for a PIO when the uplink comes up for a
number of seconds or (even) introduce accumulated penalties/
exponential backoff algorithm for such delays. (In the case of
multiple simultaneous uplink failure, when all but one of the uplinks
are down and the last remaining one is flapping, it might result in
all addresses being deprecated for a while after the flapping uplink
recovers.)
3.2.8. Routing Packets When the Corresponding Uplink Is Unavailable
Deprecating IPv6 addresses by setting the preferred lifetime to 0
discourages but does not strictly forbid its usage in new
communications. A deprecated address may still be used for existing
connections [RFC4862]. Therefore, when an ISP uplink goes down, the
corresponding border router might still receive packets with source
addresses belonging to that ISP address space while there is no
available uplink to send those packets to.
The expected router behavior would depend on the uplink selection
mechanism. For example, if some form of SADR is used, then such
packets will be dropped as there is no route to the destination. If
policy-based routing is used to set a next hop, then the behavior
would be implementation dependent and may vary from dropping the
packets to forwarding them based on the routing table entries. It
should be noted that there is no return path to the packet source (as
the ISP uplink is not operational). Therefore, even if the outgoing
packets are sent to another ISP, the return traffic might not be
delivered.
3.3. Solution Limitations
It should be noted that the proposed approach is not a "silver
bullet" for all possible multihoming scenarios. It would work very
well for networks with relatively simple topologies and
straightforward routing policies. The more complex the network
topology and the corresponding routing policies, the more
configuration would be required to implement the solution.
Another limitation is related to the load-balancing between the
uplinks. In the scenario in which both uplinks are active, hosts
would select the source prefix using the Default Address Selection
algorithm [RFC6724]; therefore, the load between two uplinks most
likely would not be evenly distributed. (However, the proposed
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RFC 8475 Conditional RAs October 2018
mechanism does allow a creative way of controlling uplinks load in
software-defined networks where controllers might selectively
deprecate prefixes on some hosts but not others to move egress
traffic between uplinks). Also, the prefix selection does not take
into account any other properties of uplinks (such as latency), so
egress traffic might not be sent to the nearest uplink if the
corresponding prefix is selected as a source. In general, if not all
uplinks are equal, and some uplinks are expected to be preferred over
others, then the network administrator should ensure that prefixes
from non-preferred ISP(s) are kept deprecated (so primary/backup
setup is used).
3.3.1. Connections Preservation
The proposed solution is not designed to preserve connection state
after an uplink failure. If all uplinks to an ISP go down, all
sessions to/from addresses from that ISP address space are
interrupted as there is no egress path for those packets and there is
no return path from the Internet to the corresponding prefix. In
this regard, it is similar to IPv4 multihoming using NAT, where an
uplink failure and failover to another uplink means that a public
IPv4 address changes and all existing connections are interrupted.
However, an uplink recovery does not necessarily lead to connections
interruption. In the load-sharing/balancing scenario, an uplink
recovery does not affect any existing connections at all. In the
active/backup topology, when the primary uplink recovers from the
failure and the backup prefix is deprecated, the existing sessions
(established to/from the backup ISP addresses) can be preserved if
the routers are configured as described in Section 3.2.1 and send
packets with the backup ISP source addresses to the backup uplink,
even when the primary one is operational. As a result, the primary
uplink recovery makes the usage of the backup ISP addresses
discouraged but still possible.
It should be noted that in IPv4 multihoming with NAT, when the egress
interface is chosen without taking packet source address into account
(as internal hosts usually have addresses from [RFC1918] space),
sessions might not be preserved after an uplink recovery unless
packet forwarding is integrated with existing NAT sessions tracking.
4. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.
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RFC 8475 Conditional RAs October 2018
5. Security Considerations
This memo introduces no new security considerations. It relies on
RAs [RFC4861] and the SLAAC [RFC4862] mechanism and inherits their
security properties. If an attacker is able to send a rogue RA, they
could deprecate IPv6 addresses on hosts or influence source-address-
selection processes on hosts.
The potential attack vectors include, but are not limited to:
o An attacker sends a rogue RA deprecating IPv6 addresses on hosts;
o An attacker sends a rogue RA making addresses preferred while the
corresponding ISP uplink is not operational;
o An attacker sends a rogue RA making addresses preferred for a
backup ISP, steering traffic to an undesirable (e.g., more
expensive) uplink.
Therefore, the network administrators SHOULD secure RAs, e.g., by
deploying an RA guard [RFC6105].
5.1. Privacy Considerations
This memo introduces no new privacy considerations.
6. References
6.1. Normative References
[RFC1918] Rekhter, Y., Moskowitz, B., Karrenberg, D., de Groot, G.,
and E. Lear, "Address Allocation for Private Internets",
BCP 5, RFC 1918, DOI 10.17487/RFC1918, February 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1918>.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC2827] Ferguson, P. and D. Senie, "Network Ingress Filtering:
Defeating Denial of Service Attacks which employ IP Source
Address Spoofing", BCP 38, RFC 2827, DOI 10.17487/RFC2827,
May 2000, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2827>.
Linkova & Stucchi Informational [Page 18]RFC 8475 Conditional RAs October 2018
[RFC3022] Srisuresh, P. and K. Egevang, "Traditional IP Network
Address Translator (Traditional NAT)", RFC 3022,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3022, January 2001,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3022>.
[RFC3704] Baker, F. and P. Savola, "Ingress Filtering for Multihomed
Networks", BCP 84, RFC 3704, DOI 10.17487/RFC3704, March
2004, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3704>.
[RFC4116] Abley, J., Lindqvist, K., Davies, E., Black, B., and V.
Gill, "IPv4 Multihoming Practices and Limitations",
RFC 4116, DOI 10.17487/RFC4116, July 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4116>.
[RFC4193] Hinden, R. and B. Haberman, "Unique Local IPv6 Unicast
Addresses", RFC 4193, DOI 10.17487/RFC4193, October 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4193>.
[RFC4291] Hinden, R. and S. Deering, "IP Version 6 Addressing
Architecture", RFC 4291, DOI 10.17487/RFC4291, February
2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4291>.
[RFC4862] Thomson, S., Narten, T., and T. Jinmei, "IPv6 Stateless
Address Autoconfiguration", RFC 4862,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4862, September 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4862>.
[RFC6105] Levy-Abegnoli, E., Van de Velde, G., Popoviciu, C., and J.
Mohacsi, "IPv6 Router Advertisement Guard", RFC 6105,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6105, February 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6105>.
[RFC6724] Thaler, D., Ed., Draves, R., Matsumoto, A., and T. Chown,
"Default Address Selection for Internet Protocol Version 6
(IPv6)", RFC 6724, DOI 10.17487/RFC6724, September 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6724>.
[RFC8028] Baker, F. and B. Carpenter, "First-Hop Router Selection by
Hosts in a Multi-Prefix Network", RFC 8028,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8028, November 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8028>.
[RFC8106] Jeong, J., Park, S., Beloeil, L., and S. Madanapalli,
"IPv6 Router Advertisement Options for DNS Configuration",
RFC 8106, DOI 10.17487/RFC8106, March 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8106>.
Linkova & Stucchi Informational [Page 19]RFC 8475 Conditional RAs October 2018
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
6.2. Informative References
[DESTINATION]
Lamparter, D. and A. Smirnov, "Destination/Source
Routing", Work in Progress,
draft-ietf-rtgwg-dst-src-routing-06, October 2017.
[PROVIDER-ASSIGNED]
Baker, F., Bowers, C., and J. Linkova, "Enterprise
Multihoming using Provider-Assigned Addresses without
Network Prefix Translation: Requirements and Solution",
Work in Progress,
draft-ietf-rtgwg-enterprise-pa-multihoming-07, June 2018.
[RFC4861] Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and H. Soliman,
"Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 4861,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4861, September 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4861>.
[RFC5798] Nadas, S., Ed., "Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP)
Version 3 for IPv4 and IPv6", RFC 5798,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5798, March 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5798>.
[RFC7084] Singh, H., Beebee, W., Donley, C., and B. Stark, "Basic
Requirements for IPv6 Customer Edge Routers", RFC 7084,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7084, November 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7084>.
[RFC7788] Stenberg, M., Barth, S., and P. Pfister, "Home Networking
Control Protocol", RFC 7788, DOI 10.17487/RFC7788, April
2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7788>.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the following people (in alphabetical order) for their
review and feedback: Mikael Abrahamsson, Lorenzo Colitti, Marcus
Keane, Erik Kline, David Lamparter, Dusan Mudric, Erik Nordmark, and
Dave Thaler.
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Authors' Addresses
Jen Linkova
Google
Mountain View, California 94043
United States of America
Email: furry@google.com
Massimiliano Stucchi
RIPE NCC
Stationsplein, 11
Amsterdam 1012 AB
The Netherlands
Email: mstucchi@ripe.net
Linkova & Stucchi Informational [Page 21]
