Subject: Last Call: <draft-ietf-v6ops-v6nd-problems-04.txt> (Operational Neighbor Discovery Problems) to Informational RFC

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:02:14 -0800

The IESG has received a request from the IPv6 Operations WG (v6ops) to
consider the following document:
- 'Operational Neighbor Discovery Problems'
  <draft-ietf-v6ops-v6nd-problems-04.txt> as an Informational RFC

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
[email-masked] mailing lists by 2012-02-20. Exceptionally, comments may be
sent to [email-masked] instead. In either case, please retain the
beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.

Abstract

   In IPv4, subnets are generally small, made just large enough to cover
   the actual number of machines on the subnet.  In contrast, the
   default IPv6 subnet size is a /64, a number so large it covers
   trillions of addresses, the overwhelming number of which will be
   unassigned.  Consequently, simplistic implementations of Neighbor
   Discovery (ND) can be vulnerable to deliberate or accidental denial
   of service, whereby they attempt to perform address resolution for
   large numbers of unassigned addresses.  Such denial of attacks can be
   launched intentionally (by an attacker), or result from legitimate
   operational tools or accident conditions.  As a result of these
   vulnerabilities, new devices may not be able to "join" a network, it
   may be impossible to establish new IPv6 flows, and existing IPv6
   transported flows may be interrupted.

   This document describes the potential for DOS in detail and suggests
   possible implementation improvements as well as operational
   mitigation techniques that can in some cases be used to protect
   against or at least alleviate the impact of such attacks.

The file can be obtained via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-v6ops-v6nd-problems/

IESG discussion can be tracked via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-v6ops-v6nd-problems/

No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.