Network Working Group L. Howard Internet-Draft Retevia Intended status: Standards Track September 18, 2017 Expires: March 22, 2018 IETF: End Work on IPv4 draft-ietf-sunset4-ipv6-ietf-01 Abstract The IETF will stop working on IPv4, except where needed to mitigate documented security issues, to facilitate the transition to IPv6, or to enable IPv4 decommissioning. Status of This Memo 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/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 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." This Internet-Draft will expire on March 22, 2018. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2017 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 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Howard Expires March 22, 2018 [Page 1] Internet-Draft draft-ietf-sunset4-ipv6-ietf September 2017 Table of Contents 1. Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1. Statement The IETF has developed IPv6 to replace IPv4. Ongoing focus is required to ensure that future IETF work is capable of IPv6-only operation. Until the time when IPv4 is no longer in wide use and/or declared historic, the IETF needs to continue to update IPv4-only protocols and features for vital operational or security issues. "Vital" means "necessary for successfully operating IPv4 networks." Similarly, the IETF needs to complete the work related to IPv4-to-IPv6 transition tools for migrating more traffic to IPv6. Some changes may be necessary in IPv4 protocols to facilitate decommissioning IPv4 in a way that does not create unacceptable impact to applications or users. These sorts of IPv4-focused activities, in support of security, transition, and decommissioning, will continue, where accompanied by problem statements based on operational experience. The IESG will review proposed working group charters to ensure that work will be capable of operating without IPv4, except in cases of IPv4 security, transition, and decommissioning work. The IETF will update IPv4 protocols and features to facilitate IPv4 decommissioning. No IPv4-only feature will be added unless there's an equivalent feature added in the IPv6 version. New IETF work will explicitly support IPv6, or be IP version agnostic (because it is implemented above the network layer), except IPv4-specific transition technologies. The IETF will not initiate new IPv4 extension technology development. New IETF work must function completely on IPv6-only nodes and networks. Howard Expires March 22, 2018 [Page 2] Internet-Draft draft-ietf-sunset4-ipv6-ietf September 2017 2. Security Considerations It is possible that bugs inherent to IPv4 will yet be discovered. The IETF will document these, and may mitigate them if consensus exists that mitigation is required. 3. IANA Considerations This document does not direct IANA to alter its processes for allocating IPv4 addresses according to its processes. This is unlikely to be a significant activity for long. 4. Acknowledgements This document is based largely on draft-george-ipv6-support, and I thank Wes George for his significant work on that document. Terry Manderson was also essential in developing this document. 5. References 5.1. Normative References 5.2. Informative References Author's Address Lee Howard Retevia Fairfax, VA 22032 USA Email: Lee@asgard.org Howard Expires March 22, 2018 [Page 3]