Addresses in the Domain Name System (DNS)
RFC 3364: Tradeoffs in Domain Name System (DNS) Support
for Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)
340 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
340 lines
11 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Network Working Group R. Bush
|
|
Request for Comments: 3363 A. Durand
|
|
Updates: 2673, 2874 B. Fink
|
|
Category: Informational O. Gudmundsson
|
|
T. Hain
|
|
Editors
|
|
August 2002
|
|
|
|
|
|
Representing Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)
|
|
Addresses in the Domain Name System (DNS)
|
|
|
|
Status of this Memo
|
|
|
|
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
|
|
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
|
|
memo is unlimited.
|
|
|
|
Copyright Notice
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002). All Rights Reserved.
|
|
|
|
Abstract
|
|
|
|
This document clarifies and updates the standards status of RFCs that
|
|
define direct and reverse map of IPv6 addresses in DNS. This
|
|
document moves the A6 and Bit label specifications to experimental
|
|
status.
|
|
|
|
1. Introduction
|
|
|
|
The IETF had begun the process of standardizing two different address
|
|
formats for IPv6 addresses AAAA [RFC1886] and A6 [RFC2874] and both
|
|
are at proposed standard. This had led to confusion and conflicts on
|
|
which one to deploy. It is important for deployment that any
|
|
confusion in this area be cleared up, as there is a feeling in the
|
|
community that having more than one choice will lead to delays in the
|
|
deployment of IPv6. The goal of this document is to clarify the
|
|
situation.
|
|
|
|
This document also discusses issues relating to the usage of Binary
|
|
Labels [RFC 2673] to support the reverse mapping of IPv6 addresses.
|
|
|
|
This document is based on extensive technical discussion on various
|
|
relevant working groups mailing lists and a joint DNSEXT and NGTRANS
|
|
meeting at the 51st IETF in August 2001. This document attempts to
|
|
capture the sense of the discussions and reflect them in this
|
|
document to represent the consensus of the community.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bush, et. al. Informational [Page 1]
|
|
|
|
RFC 3363 Representation of IPv6 Addresses in DNS August 2002
|
|
|
|
|
|
The main arguments and the issues are covered in a separate document
|
|
[RFC3364] that reflects the current understanding of the issues.
|
|
This document summarizes the outcome of these discussions.
|
|
|
|
The issue of the root of reverse IPv6 address map is outside the
|
|
scope of this document and is covered in a different document
|
|
[RFC3152].
|
|
|
|
1.1 Standards Action Taken
|
|
|
|
This document changes the status of RFCs 2673 and 2874 from Proposed
|
|
Standard to Experimental.
|
|
|
|
2. IPv6 Addresses: AAAA RR vs A6 RR
|
|
|
|
Working group consensus as perceived by the chairs of the DNSEXT and
|
|
NGTRANS working groups is that:
|
|
|
|
a) AAAA records are preferable at the moment for production
|
|
deployment of IPv6, and
|
|
|
|
b) that A6 records have interesting properties that need to be better
|
|
understood before deployment.
|
|
|
|
c) It is not known if the benefits of A6 outweigh the costs and
|
|
risks.
|
|
|
|
2.1 Rationale
|
|
|
|
There are several potential issues with A6 RRs that stem directly
|
|
from the feature that makes them different from AAAA RRs: the ability
|
|
to build up addresses via chaining.
|
|
|
|
Resolving a chain of A6 RRs involves resolving a series of what are
|
|
nearly-independent queries. Each of these sub-queries takes some
|
|
non-zero amount of time, unless the answer happens to be in the
|
|
resolver's local cache already. Other things being equal, we expect
|
|
that the time it takes to resolve an N-link chain of A6 RRs will be
|
|
roughly proportional to N. What data we have suggests that users are
|
|
already impatient with the length of time it takes to resolve A RRs
|
|
in the IPv4 Internet, which suggests that users are not likely to be
|
|
patient with significantly longer delays in the IPv6 Internet, but
|
|
terminating queries prematurely is both a waste of resources and
|
|
another source of user frustration. Thus, we are forced to conclude
|
|
that indiscriminate use of long A6 chains is likely to lead to
|
|
increased user frustration.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bush, et. al. Informational [Page 2]
|
|
|
|
RFC 3363 Representation of IPv6 Addresses in DNS August 2002
|
|
|
|
|
|
The probability of failure during the process of resolving an N-link
|
|
A6 chain also appears to be roughly proportional to N, since each of
|
|
the queries involved in resolving an A6 chain has roughly the same
|
|
probability of failure as a single AAAA query.
|
|
|
|
Last, several of the most interesting potential applications for A6
|
|
RRs involve situations where the prefix name field in the A6 RR
|
|
points to a target that is not only outside the DNS zone containing
|
|
the A6 RR, but is administered by a different organization entirely.
|
|
While pointers out of zone are not a problem per se, experience both
|
|
with glue RRs and with PTR RRs in the IN-ADDR.ARPA tree suggests that
|
|
pointers to other organizations are often not maintained properly,
|
|
perhaps because they're less susceptible to automation than pointers
|
|
within a single organization would be.
|
|
|
|
2.2 Recommended Standard Action
|
|
|
|
Based on the perceived consensus, this document recommends that RFC
|
|
1886 stay on standards track and be advanced, while moving RFC 2874
|
|
to Experimental status.
|
|
|
|
3. Bitlabels in the Reverse DNS Tree
|
|
|
|
RFC 2673 defines a new DNS label type. This was the first new type
|
|
defined since RFC 1035 [RFC1035]. Since the development of 2673 it
|
|
has been learned that deployment of a new type is difficult since DNS
|
|
servers that do not support bitlabels reject queries containing bit
|
|
labels as being malformed. The community has also indicated that
|
|
this new label type is not needed for mapping reverse addresses.
|
|
|
|
3.1 Rationale
|
|
|
|
The hexadecimal text representation of IPv6 addresses appears to be
|
|
capable of expressing all of the delegation schemes that we expect to
|
|
be used in the DNS reverse tree.
|
|
|
|
3.2 Recommended Standard Action
|
|
|
|
RFC 2673 standard status is to be changed from Proposed to
|
|
Experimental. Future standardization of these documents is to be
|
|
done by the DNSEXT working group or its successor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bush, et. al. Informational [Page 3]
|
|
|
|
RFC 3363 Representation of IPv6 Addresses in DNS August 2002
|
|
|
|
|
|
4. DNAME in IPv6 Reverse Tree
|
|
|
|
The issues for DNAME in the reverse mapping tree appears to be
|
|
closely tied to the need to use fragmented A6 in the main tree: if
|
|
one is necessary, so is the other, and if one isn't necessary, the
|
|
other isn't either. Therefore, in moving RFC 2874 to experimental,
|
|
the intent of this document is that use of DNAME RRs in the reverse
|
|
tree be deprecated.
|
|
|
|
5. Acknowledgments
|
|
|
|
This document is based on input from many members of the various IETF
|
|
working groups involved in this issues. Special thanks go to the
|
|
people that prepared reading material for the joint DNSEXT and
|
|
NGTRANS working group meeting at the 51st IETF in London, Rob
|
|
Austein, Dan Bernstein, Matt Crawford, Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino,
|
|
Christian Huitema. Number of other people have made number of
|
|
comments on mailing lists about this issue including Andrew W.
|
|
Barclay, Robert Elz, Johan Ihren, Edward Lewis, Bill Manning, Pekka
|
|
Savola, Paul Vixie.
|
|
|
|
6. Security Considerations
|
|
|
|
As this document specifies a course of action, there are no direct
|
|
security considerations. There is an indirect security impact of the
|
|
choice, in that the relationship between A6 and DNSSEC is not well
|
|
understood throughout the community, while the choice of AAAA does
|
|
leads to a model for use of DNSSEC in IPv6 networks which parallels
|
|
current IPv4 practice.
|
|
|
|
7. IANA Considerations
|
|
|
|
None.
|
|
|
|
Normative References
|
|
|
|
[RFC1035] Mockapetris, P., "Domain Names - Implementation and
|
|
Specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, November 1987.
|
|
|
|
[RFC1886] Thompson, S. and C. Huitema, "DNS Extensions to support IP
|
|
version 6", RFC 1886, December 1995.
|
|
|
|
[RFC2673] Crawford, M., "Binary Labels in the Domain Name System",
|
|
RFC 2673, August 1999.
|
|
|
|
[RFC2874] Crawford, M. and C. Huitema, "DNS Extensions to Support
|
|
IPv6 Address Aggregation and Renumbering", RFC 2874, July
|
|
2000.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bush, et. al. Informational [Page 4]
|
|
|
|
RFC 3363 Representation of IPv6 Addresses in DNS August 2002
|
|
|
|
|
|
[RFC3152] Bush, R., "Delegation of IP6.ARPA", BCP 49, RFC 3152
|
|
August 2001.
|
|
|
|
Informative References
|
|
|
|
[RFC3364] Austein, R., "Tradeoffs in Domain Name System (DNS)
|
|
Support for Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 3364,
|
|
August 2002.
|
|
|
|
Editors' Addresses
|
|
|
|
Randy Bush
|
|
EMail: randy@psg.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
Alain Durand
|
|
EMail: alain.durand@sun.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bob Fink
|
|
EMail: fink@es.net
|
|
|
|
|
|
Olafur Gudmundsson
|
|
EMail: ogud@ogud.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tony Hain
|
|
EMail: hain@tndh.net
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bush, et. al. Informational [Page 5]
|
|
|
|
RFC 3363 Representation of IPv6 Addresses in DNS August 2002
|
|
|
|
|
|
Full Copyright Statement
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002). All Rights Reserved.
|
|
|
|
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
|
|
others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
|
|
or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
|
|
and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
|
|
kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
|
|
included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
|
|
document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
|
|
the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
|
|
Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
|
|
developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
|
|
copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
|
|
followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
|
|
English.
|
|
|
|
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
|
|
revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
|
|
|
|
This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
|
|
"AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
|
|
TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
|
|
BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
|
|
HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
|
|
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
|
|
|
|
Acknowledgement
|
|
|
|
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
|
|
Internet Society.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bush, et. al. Informational [Page 6]
|
|
|