Tech-invite3GPPspaceIETFspace
959493929190898887868584838281807978777675747372717069686766656463626160595857565554535251504948474645444342414039383736353433323130292827262524232221201918171615141312111009080706050403020100
in Index   Prev   Next

RFC 5014

IPv6 Socket API for Source Address Selection

Pages: 24
Informational

Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 1
Network Working Group                                        E. Nordmark
Request for Comments: 5014                        Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Category: Informational                                   S. Chakrabarti
                                                         Azaire Networks
                                                             J. Laganier
                                                        DoCoMo Euro-Labs
                                                          September 2007


              IPv6 Socket API for Source Address Selection

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.

Abstract

The IPv6 default address selection document (RFC 3484) describes the rules for selecting source and destination IPv6 addresses, and indicates that applications should be able to reverse the sense of some of the address selection rules through some unspecified API. However, no such socket API exists in the basic (RFC 3493) or advanced (RFC 3542) IPv6 socket API documents. This document fills that gap partially by specifying new socket-level options for source address selection and flags for the getaddrinfo() API to specify address selection based on the source address preference in accordance with the socket-level options that modify the default source address selection algorithm. The socket API described in this document will be particularly useful for IPv6 applications that want to choose between temporary and public addresses, and for Mobile IPv6 aware applications that want to use the care-of address for communication. It also specifies socket options and flags for selecting Cryptographically Generated Address (CGA) or non-CGA source addresses.
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 2

Table of Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. Definition Of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3. Usage Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4. Design Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 5. Address Preference Flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 6. Additions to the Socket Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 7. Additions to the Protocol-Independent Nodename Translation . . 10 8. Application Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 9. Usage Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 10. Implementation Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 11. Mapping to Default Address Selection Rules . . . . . . . . . . 14 12. IPv4-Mapped IPv6 Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 13. Validating Source Address Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 14. Summary of New Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 15. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 16. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 17. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 17.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 17.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Appendix A. Per-Packet Address Selection Preference . . . . . . . 21 Appendix B. Intellectual Property Statement . . . . . . . . . . . 22

1. Introduction

[RFC3484] specifies the default address selection rules for IPv6 [RFC2460]. This document defines socket API extensions that allow applications to override the default choice of source address selection. It therefore indirectly affects the destination address selection through getaddrinfo(). Privacy considerations [RFC3041] have introduced "public" and "temporary" addresses. IPv6 Mobility [RFC3775] introduces "home address" and "care-of address" definitions in the mobile systems. The default address selection rules in [RFC3484], in summary, are that a public address is preferred over a temporary address, that a mobile IPv6 home address is preferred over a care-of address, and that a larger scope address is preferred over a smaller scope address. Although it is desirable to have default rules for address selection, an application may want to reverse certain address selection rules for efficiency and other application-specific reasons. Currently, IPv6 socket API extensions provide mechanisms to choose a specific source address through simple bind() operation or IPV6_PKTINFO socket option [RFC3542]. However, in order to use bind() or IPV6_PKTINFO socket option, the application itself must
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 3
   make sure that the source address is appropriate for the destination
   address (e.g., with respect to the interface used to send packets to
   the destination).  The application also needs to verify the
   appropriateness of the source address scope with respect to the
   destination address and so on.  This can be quite complex for the
   application, since in effect, it needs to implement all the default
   address selection rules in order to change its preference with
   respect to one of the rules.

   The mechanism presented in this document allows the application to
   specify attributes of the source addresses it prefers while still
   having the system perform the rest of the address selection rules.
   For instance, if an application specifies that it prefers to use a
   care-of address over a home address as the source address and if the
   host has two care-of addresses, one public and one temporary, then
   the host would select the public care-of address by following the
   default address selection rule for preferring a public over a
   temporary address.

   A socket option has been deemed useful for this purpose, as it
   enables an application to specify address selection preferences on a
   per-socket basis.  It can also provide the flexibility of enabling
   and disabling address selection preferences in non-connected (UDP)
   sockets.  The socket option uses a set of flags for specifying
   address selection preferences.  Since the API should not assume a
   particular implementation method of the address selection [RFC3484]
   in the network layer or in getaddrinfo(), the corresponding set of
   flags are also defined for getaddrinfo(), as it depends on the source
   address selection.

   As a result, this document introduces several flags for address
   selection preferences that alter the default address selection
   [RFC3484] for a number of rules.  It analyzes the usefulness of
   providing API functionality for different default address selection
   rules; it provides API to alter only those rules that are possibly
   used by certain classes of applications.  In addition, it also
   considers CGA [RFC3972] and non-CGA source addresses when CGA
   addresses are available in the system.  In the future, more source
   flags may be added to expand the API as the needs may arise.

   The approach in this document is to allow the application to specify
   preferences for address selection and not to be able to specify hard
   requirements.  For instance, an application can set a flag to prefer
   a temporary source address, but if no temporary source addresses are
   available at the node, a public address would be chosen instead.

   Specifying hard requirements for address selection would be
   problematic for several reasons.  The major one is that, in the vast
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 4
   majority of cases, the application would like to be able to
   communicate even if an address with the 'optimal' attributes is not
   available.  For instance, an application that performs very short,
   e.g., UDP, transactional exchanges (e.g., DNS queries), might prefer
   to use a care-of address when running on a mobile host that is away
   from home since this provides a short roundtrip time in many cases.
   But if the application is running on a mobile host that is at home,
   or running on a host that isn't providing Mobile IPv6, then it
   doesn't make sense for the application to fail due to no care-of
   address being available.  Also, in particular, when using UDP sockets
   and the sendto() or sendmsg() primitives, the use of hard
   requirements would have been problematic, since the set of available
   IP addresses might very well have changed from when the application
   called getaddrinfo() until it called sendto() or sendmsg(), which
   would introduce new failure modes.

   For the few applications that have hard requirements on the
   attributes of the IP addresses they use, this document defines a
   verification function that allows such applications to properly fail
   to communicate when their address selection requirements are not met.

   Furthermore, the approach is to define two flags for each rule that
   can be modified so that an application can specify its preference for
   addresses selected as per the rule, the opposite preference (i.e., an
   address selected as per the rule reverted), or choose not to set
   either of the flags relating to that rule and leave it up to the
   system default (Section 4).  This approach allows different
   implementations to have different system defaults, and works with
   getaddrinfo() as well as setsockopt().  (For setsockopt, a different
   approach could have been chosen, but that would still require the
   same approach for getaddrinfo.)

   Note that this document does not directly modify the destination
   address selection rules described in [RFC3484].  An analysis has been
   done to see which destination address rules may be altered by the
   applications.  Rule number 4(prefer home address), 8(prefer smaller
   scope), 7(prefer native interfaces) of default address selection
   document [RFC3484] were taken into consideration for destination
   address alteration.  But as of this writing, there was not enough
   practical usage for applications to alter destination address
   selection rules directly by applying the setsockopt() with a
   preferred destination type of address flag.  However, this document
   does not rule out any possibility of adding flags for preferred
   destination address selection.  However, [RFC3484] destination
   address selection rules are dependent on source address selections,
   thus by altering the default source address selection by using the
   methods described in this document, one indirectly influences the
   choice of destination address selection.  Hence, this document
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 5
   explains how getaddrinfo() can be used to select the destination
   address while taking the preferred source addresses into
   consideration (Section 11).

   This document specifies extensions only to the Basic IPv6 socket API
   specified in [RFC3493].  The intent is that this document serves as a
   model for expressing preferences for attributes of IP addresses that
   also need to be expressible in other networking API, such as those
   found in middleware systems and the Java environment.  A similar
   model is also applicable for other socket families.

2. Definition Of Terms

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119]. Address preference flag: A flag expressing a preference for a particular type of address (e.g., temporary, public). Opposite flags: Each flag expressing an address preference has an "opposite flag" expressing the opposite preference: * Home address preference flag is the opposite of the care-of address preference flag. * Temporary address preference flag is the opposite of the public address preference flag. * CGA address preference flag is the opposite of the non-CGA address preference flag. Contradictory flags: Any combination of flags including both a flag expressing a given address preference and a flag expressing the opposite preference constitutes contradictory flags. Such flags are contradictory by definition of their usefulness with respect to source address selection. For example, consider a set of flags, including both the home address preference flag and the care-of address preference flag. When considering source address selection, the selected address can be a home address, or a care-of address, but it cannot be both at the same time. Hence, to prefer an address that is both a home address and a care-of address is contradictory.
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 6

3. Usage Scenario

The examples discussed here are limited to applications supporting Mobile IPv6, IPv6 Privacy Extensions, and Cryptographically Generated Addresses. Address selection document [RFC3484] recommends that home addresses should be preferred over care-of address when both are configured. However, a mobile node may want to prefer a care-of address as the source address for a DNS query in the foreign network, as it normally means a shorter and local return path compared to the route via the mobile node's home-agent when the query contains a home address as the source address. Another example is the IKE application, which requires a care-of address as its source address for the initial security association pair with a Home Agent [RFC3775] while the mobile node boots up at the foreign network and wants to do the key exchange before a successful home-registration. Also, a Mobile IPv6 aware application may want to toggle between the home address and care-of address, depending on its location and state of the application. It may also want to open different sockets and use the home address as the source address for one socket and a care-of address for the others. In a non-mobile environment, an application may similarly prefer to use a temporary address as the source address for certain cases. By default, the source address selection rule selects "public" address when both are available. For example, an application supporting Web browser and mail-server may want to use a "temporary" address for the former and a "public" address for the mail-server, as a mail-server may require a reverse path for DNS records for anti-spam rules. Similarly, a node may be configured to use Cryptographically Generated Addresses [RFC3972] by default, as in Secure Neighbor Discovery [RFC3971], but an application may prefer not to use it; for instance, fping [FPING], a debugging tool that tests basic reachability of multiple destinations by sending packets in parallel. These packets may end up initiating neighbor discovery signaling that uses SEND if used with a CGA source address. SEND performs some cryptographic operations to prove ownership of the said CGA address. If the application does not require this feature, it would like to use a non-CGA address to avoid potentially expensive computations performed by SEND. On the other hand, when a node is not configured for CGA as default, an application may prefer using CGA by setting the corresponding preference.

4. Design Alternatives

Some suggested to have per-application flags instead of per-socket and per-packet flags. However, this design stays with per-socket and per-packet flags for the following reasons:
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 7
   o  While some systems have per-environment/application flags (such as
      environment variables in Unix systems) this might not be available
      in all systems that implement the socket API.

   o  When an application links with some standard library, that library
      might use the socket API while the application is unaware of that
      fact.  Mechanisms that would provide per-application flags may
      affect not only the application itself but also the libraries,
      hence, creating risks of unintended consequences.

   Instead of the pair of 'flag' and 'opposite flag' for each rule that
   can be modified, the socket option could have been defined to use a
   single 'flag' value for each rule.  This would still have allowed
   different implementations to have different default settings as long
   as the applications were coded to first retrieve the default setting
   (using getsockopt()), and then clear or set the 'flag' according to
   their preferences, and finally set the new value with setsockopt().

   But such an approach would not be possible for getaddrinfo() because
   all the preferences would need to be expressible in the parameters
   that are passed with a single getaddrinfo() call.  Hence, for
   consistency, the 'flag' and 'opposite flag' approach is used for both
   getaddrinfo() and setsockopt().

   Thus, in this API document, an application has three choices on
   source address selection:

      a) The application wants to use an address with flag X: Set flag
      X; unset opposite/contradictory flags of X if they are set before.

      b) The application wants to use an address with 'opposite' or
      contradictory flag of X: Set opposite or contradictory flag of X;
      unset flag X, if already set.

      c) The application does not care about the presence of flag X and
      would like to use default: No need to set any address preference
      flags through setsockopt() or getaddrinfo(); unset any address
      preference flags if they are set before by the same socket.

5. Address Preference Flags

The following flags are defined to alter or set the default rule of source address selection rules discussed in default address selection specification [RFC3484]. IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME /* Prefer Home address as source */ IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA /* Prefer Care-of address as source */
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 8
      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP /* Prefer Temporary address as source */

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_PUBLIC /* Prefer Public address as source */

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_CGA /* Prefer CGA address as source */

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_NONCGA /* Prefer a non-CGA address as source */

   These flags can be combined together in a flag-set to express more
   complex address preferences.  However, such combinations can result
   in a contradictory flag-set, for example:

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_PUBLIC | IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME | IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME | IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA | IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_CGA | IPV6_PREFER_SRC_NONCGA

      Etc.

   Examples of valid combinations of address selection flags are given
   below:

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME | IPV6_PREFER_SRC_PUBLIC

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME | IPV6_PREFER_SRC_CGA

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA | IPV6_PREFER_SRC_PUBLIC | IPV6_PREFER_SRC_CGA

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME | IPV6_PREFER_SRC_NONCGA

   If a flag-set includes a combination of 'X' and 'Y', and if 'Y' is
   not applicable or available in the system, then the selected address
   has attribute 'X' and system default for the attribute 'Y'.  For
   example, on a system that has only public addresses, the valid
   combination of flags:

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP | IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME

   would result in the selected address being a public home address,
   since no temporary addresses are available.
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 9

6. Additions to the Socket Interface

The IPv6 Basic Socket API [RFC3493] defines socket options for IPv6. To allow applications to influence address selection mechanisms, this document adds a new socket option at the IPPROTO_IPV6 level. This socket option is called IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES. It can be used with setsockopt() and getsockopt() calls to set and get the address selection preferences affecting all packets sent via a given socket. The socket option value (optval) is a 32-bit unsigned integer argument. The argument consists of a number of flags where each flag indicates an address selection preference that modifies one of the rules in the default address selection specification. The following flags are defined to alter or set the default rule of source address selection rules discussed in default address selection specification [RFC3484]. They are defined as a result of including the <netinet/in.h> header: IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME /* Prefer Home address as source */ IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA /* Prefer Care-of address as source */ IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP /* Prefer Temporary address as source */ IPV6_PREFER_SRC_PUBLIC /* Prefer Public address as source */ IPV6_PREFER_SRC_CGA /* Prefer CGA address as source */ IPV6_PREFER_SRC_NONCGA /* Prefer a non-CGA address as source */ NOTE: No source preference flag for the longest matching prefix is defined here because it is believed to be handled by the policy table defined in the default address selection specification. When the IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES is successfully set with setsockopt(), the option value given is used to specify the address preference for any connection initiation through the socket and all subsequent packets sent via that socket. If no option is set, the system selects a default value as per default address selection algorithm or by some other equivalent means. Setting contradictory flags at the same time results in the error EINVAL.
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 10

7. Additions to the Protocol-Independent Nodename Translation

Section 8 of the Default Address Selection [RFC3484] document indicates possible implementation strategies for getaddrinfo() [RFC3493]. One of them suggests that getaddrinfo() collects available source/destination pairs from the network layer after being sorted at the network layer with full knowledge of source address selection. Another strategy is to call down to the network layer to retrieve source address information and then sort the list in the context of getaddrinfo(). This implies that getaddrinfo() should be aware of the address selection preferences of the application, since getaddrinfo() is independent of any socket the application might be using. Thus, if an application alters the default address selection rules by using setsockopt() with the IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES option, the application should also use the corresponding address selection preference flags with its getaddrinfo() call. For that purpose, the addrinfo data structure defined in Basic IPV6 Socket API Extension [RFC3493] has been extended with an extended "ai_eflags" flag-set field to provide the designers freedom from adding more flags as necessary without crowding the valuable bit space in the "ai_flags" flag-set field. The extended addrinfo data structure is defined as a result of including the <netdb.h> header: struct addrinfo { int ai_flags; /* input flags */ int ai_family; /* protocol family for socket */ int ai_socktype; /* socket type */ int ai_protocol; /* protocol for socket */ socklen_t ai_addrlen; /* length of socket address */ char *ai_canonname; /* canonical name for hostname */ struct sockaddr *ai_addr; /* socket address for socket */ struct addrinfo *ai_next; /* pointer to next in list */ int ai_eflags; /* Extended flags for special usage */ }; Note that the additional field for extended flags are added at the bottom of the addrinfo structure to preserve binary compatibility of the new functionality with the old applications that use the existing addrinfo data structure. A new flag (AI_EXTFLAGS) is defined for the "ai_flags" flag-set field of the addrinfo data structure to tell the system to look for the "ai_eflags" extended flag-set field in the addrinfo structure. It is defined in the <netdb.h> header:
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 11
      AI_EXTFLAGS /* extended flag-set present */

   If the AI_EXTFLAGS flag is set in "ai_flags" flag-set field of the
   addrinfo data structure, then the getaddrinfo() implementation MUST
   look for the "ai_eflags" values stored in the extended flag-set field
   "ai_eflags" of the addrinfo data structure.  The flags stored in the
   "ai_eflags" field are only meaningful if the AI_EXTFLAGS flag is set
   in the "ai_flags" flag-set field of the addrinfo data structure.  By
   default, AI_EXTFLAGS is not set in the "ai_flags" flag-set field.  If
   AI_EXTFLAGS is set in the "ai_flags" flag-set field, and the
   "ai_eflags" extended flag-set field is 0 (zero) or undefined, then
   AI_EXTFLAGS is ignored.

   The IPV6 source address preference values (IPV6_PREFER_SRC_*) defined
   for the IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES socket option are also defined as
   address selection preference flags for the "ai_eflags" extended flag-
   set field of the addrinfo data structure, so that getaddrinfo() can
   return matching destination addresses corresponding to the source
   address preferences expressed by the caller application.

   Thus, an application passes source address selection hints to
   getaddrinfo by setting AI_EXTFLAGS in the "ai_flags" field of the
   addrinfo structure, and the corresponding address selection
   preference flags (IPV6_PREFER_SRC_*) in the "ai_eflags" field.

   Currently, AI_EXTFLAGS is defined for the AF_INET6 socket protocol
   family only.  But its usage should be extendable to other socket
   protocol families -- such as AF_INET or as appropriate.

   If contradictory flags, such as IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME and
   IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA, are set in ai_eflags, the getaddrinfo() fails
   and return the value EAI_BADEXTFLAGS, defined as a result of
   including the <netdb.h> header.  This error value MUST be interpreted
   into a descriptive text string when passed to the gai_strerror()
   function [RFC3493].

8. Application Requirements

An application should call getsockopt() prior to calling setsockopt() if the application needs to be able to restore the socket back to the system default preferences. Note that this is suggested for portability. An application that does not have this requirement can just use getaddrinfo() while specifying its preferences, followed by:
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 12
      uint32_t flags = IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP;

      if (setsockopt(s, IPPROTO_IPV6, IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES,
                     (void *) &flags, sizeof (flags)) == -1) {
          perror("setsockopt IPV6_ADDR_REFERENCES");
          }

   An application that needs to be able to restore the default settings
   on the socket would instead do this:

      uint32_t save_flags, flags;
      int optlen = sizeof (save_flags);

      /* Save the existing IPv6_ADDR_PREFERENCE flags now */

      if (getsockopt(s, IPPROTO_IPV6, IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES,
                     (void *) &save_flags, &optlen) == -1 {
          perror("getsockopt IPV6_ADDR_REFERENCES");
          }

      /* Set the new flags */
      flags = IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP;
      if (setsockopt(s, IPPROTO_IPV6, IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES,
                  (void *) &flags, sizeof (flags)) == -1) {
          perror("setsockopt IPV6_ADDR_REFERENCES");
          }

      /*
       *
       *  Do some work with the socket here.
       *
       */

      /* Restore the flags */

      if (setsockopt(s, IPPROTO_IPV6, IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES,
                  (void *) &save_flags, sizeof (save_flags)) == -1) {
          perror("setsockopt IPV6_ADDR_REFERENCES");
          }

   Applications should not set contradictory flags at the same time.

   In order to allow different implementations to do different parts of
   address selection in getaddrinfo() and in the protocol stack, this
   specification requires that applications set the semantically
   equivalent flags when calling getaddrinfo() and setsockopt().  For
   example, if the application sets the IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA flag, it
   MUST use the same for the "ai_eflag" field of the addrinfo data
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 13
   structure when calling getaddrinfo().  If applications are not
   setting the semantically equivalent flags, the behavior of the
   implementation is undefined.

9. Usage Example

An example of usage of this API is given below: struct addrinfo hints, *ai, *ai0; uint32_t preferences; preferences = IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP; hints.ai_flags |= AI_EXTFLAGS; hints.ai_eflags = preferences; /* Chosen address preference flag */ /* Fill in other hints fields */ getaddrinfo(....,&hints,. &ai0..); /* Loop over all returned addresses and do connect */ for (ai = ai0; ai; ai = ai->ai_next) { s = socket(ai->ai_family, ...); setsockopt(s, IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES, (void *) &preferences, sizeof (preferences)); if (connect(s, ai->ai_addr, ai->ai_addrlen) == -1){ close (s); s = -1; continue; } break; } freeaddrinfo(ai0);

10. Implementation Notes

o Within the same application, if a specific source address is set by either bind() or IPV6_PKTINFO socket option, while at the same time an address selection preference is expressed with the IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES socket option, then the source address setting carried by bind() or IPV6_PKTINFO takes precedence over the address selection setting.
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 14
   o  setsockopt() and getaddrinfo() should silently ignore any address
      preference flags that are not supported in the system.  For
      example, a host that does not implement Mobile IPv6, should not
      fail setsockopt() or getaddrinfo() that specify preferences for
      home or care-of addresses.  The socket option calls should return
      error (-1) and set errno to EINVAL when contradictory flags values
      are passed to them.

   o  If an implementation supports both stream and datagram sockets, it
      should implement the address preference mechanism API described in
      this document on both types of sockets.

   o  An implementation supporting this API MUST implement both
      getaddrinfo() extension flags and socket option flags processing
      for portability of applications.

   o  The following flags are set as default values on a system (which
      is consistent with [RFC3484] defaults):

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_PUBLIC

      IPV6_PREFER_SRC_CGA

11. Mapping to Default Address Selection Rules

This API defines only those flags that are deemed to be useful by the applications to alter default address selection rules. Thus, we discuss the mapping of each set of flags to the corresponding rule number in the address selection document [RFC3484]. Source address selection rule #4 (prefer home address): IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME (default) IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA Source address selection rule #7 (prefer public address): IPV6_PREFER_SRC_PUBLIC (default) IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP At this time, this document does not define flags to alter source address selection rule #2 (prefer appropriate scope for destination) and destination address selection rule #8 (prefer smaller scope), as the implementers felt that there were no practical applications that
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 15
   can take advantage of reverting the scoping rules of IPv6 default
   address selection.  Flags altering other destination address
   selection rules (#4, prefer home address and #7, prefer native
   transport) could have applications, but the problem is that the local
   system cannot systematically determine whether a destination address
   is a tunnel address for destination rule #7 (although it can when the
   destination address is one of its own, or can be syntactically
   recognized as a tunnel address, e.g., a 6-to-4 address.)  The flags
   defined for source address selection rule #4 (prefer home address)
   should also take care of destination address selection rule #4.
   Thus, at this point, it was decided not to define flags for these
   destination rules.

   Also, note that there is no corresponding destination address
   selection rule for source address selection rule #7 (prefer public
   addresses) of default address selection document [RFC3484].  However,
   this API provides a way for an application to make sure that the
   source address preference set in setsockopt() is taken into account
   by the getaddrinfo() function.  Let's consider an example to
   understand this scenario.  DA and DB are two global destination
   addresses and the node has two global source addresses SA and SB
   through interface A and B respectively.  SA is a temporary address
   while SB is a public address.  The application has set
   IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP in the setsockopt() flag.  The route to DA points
   to interface A and the route to DB points to interface B. Thus, when
   AI_EXTFLAGS in ai_flags and IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP in ai_eflags are set,
   getaddrinfo() returns DA before DB in the list of destination
   addresses and thus, SA will be used to communicate with the
   destination DA.  Similarly, getaddrinfo() returns DB before DA when
   AI_EXTFLAGS and ai_eflags are set to IPV6_PREFER_SRC_PUBLIC.  Thus,
   the source address preference is taking effect into destination
   address selection as well as source address selection by the
   getaddrinfo() function.

   The following numerical example clarifies the above further.

   Imagine a host with two addresses:

      1234::1:1 public

      9876::1:2 temporary

   The destination has the following two addresses:

      1234::9:3

      9876::9:4
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 16
   By default, getaddrinfo() will return the destination addresses in
   the following order:

      1234::9:3

      9876::9:4

   because the public source is preferred and 1234 matches more bits
   with the public source address.  On the other hand, if ai_flags is
   set to AI_EXTFLAGS and ai_eflags to IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP, getaddrinfo
   will return the addresses in the reverse order since the temporary
   source address will be preferred.

   Other source address rules (that are not mentioned here) were also
   deemed not applicable for changing its default on a per-application
   basis.

12. IPv4-Mapped IPv6 Addresses

IPv4-mapped IPv6 addresses for AF_INET6 sockets are supported in this API. In some cases, the application of IPv4-mapped addresses are limited because the API attributes are IPv6 specific. For example, IPv6 temporary addresses and cryptographically generated addresses have no IPv4 counterparts. Thus, the IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP or IPV6_PREFER_SRC_CGA are not directly applicable to an IPv4-mapped IPv6 address. However, the IPv4-mapped address support may be useful for mobile-IPv4 applications shifting the source address between the home address and the care-of address. Thus, the IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA and IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME are applicable to an IPv4-mapped IPv6 address. At this point, it is not well understood whether this particular API has any value to IPv4 addresses or AF_INET family of sockets, but a similar model still applies to AF_INET socket family if corresponding address flags are defined.

13. Validating Source Address Preferences

Sometimes an application may have a requirement to only use addresses with some particular attribute, and if no such address is available, the application should fail to communicate instead of communicating using the 'wrong' address. In that situation, address selection preferences do not guarantee that the application requirements are met. Instead, the application has to use a new call that binds a socket to the source address that would be selected to communicate with a given destination address, according to its preferences, and then explicitly verify that the chosen address satisfies its requirements using a validation function. Such an application would go through the following steps:
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 17
   1.  The application specifies one or more IPV6_PREFER_SRC_* flags and
       AI_EXTFLAGS ai_flags with getaddrinfo().

   2.  The application specifies the same IPV6_PREFER_SRC_* flags with
       setsockopt().

   3.  The application calls the stack to select a source address to
       communicate with the specified destination address, according to
       the expressed address selection preferences.  This is achieved
       with a connect() call, or a bind2addrsel() call as specified
       below.  The connect() function must not be used when the
       application uses connection-oriented communication (e.g., TCP)
       and want to ensure that no single packet (e.g., TCP SYN) is sent
       before the application could verify that its requirements were
       fulfilled.  Instead, the application must use the newly
       introduced bind2addrsel() call, which binds a socket to the
       source address that would be selected to communicate with a given
       destination address, according to the application's preferences.
       For datagram-oriented communications (e.g., UDP), the connect()
       call can be used since it results in the stack selecting a source
       address without sending any packets.

   4.  Retrieve the selected source address using the getsockname() API
       call.

   5.  Verify with the validation function that the retrieved address is
       satisfactory as specified below.  If not, abort the
       communication, e.g., by closing the socket.

   The binding of the socket to the address that would be selected to
   communicate with a given destination address, according to the
   application preferences, is accomplished via a new binding function
   defined for this purpose:

      #include <netinet/in.h>

      int bind2addrsel(int s, const struct sockaddr *dstaddr,
                       socklen_t dstaddrlen);

   where s is the socket that source address selection preferences have
   been expressed by the application, the dstaddr is a non-NULL pointer
   to a sockaddr_in6 structure initialized as follows:

   o  sin6_addr is a 128-bit IPv6 destination address with which the
      local node wants to communicate;

   o  sin6_family MUST be set to AF_INET6;
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 18
   o  sin6_scope_id MUST be set if the address is link-local;

   and dstaddrlen is the size of the sockaddr structure passed as
   argument.

   The bind2addrsel() call is defined to return the same values as the
   bind() call, i.e., 0 if successful, -1 otherwise while the global
   variable errno is set to indicate the error.  The bind2addrsel() call
   fails for the same reasons that the bind() call.

   The verification of temporary vs. public, home vs. care-of, CGA vs.
   not, are performed by a new validation function defined for this
   purpose:

      #include <netinet/in.h>

      short inet6_is_srcaddr(struct sockaddr_in6 *srcaddr,
                             uint32_t flags);

   where the flags contain the specified IPV6_PREFER_SRC_* source
   preference flags, and the srcaddr is a non-NULL pointer to a
   sockaddr_in6 structure initialized as follows:

   o  sin6_addr is a 128-bit IPv6 address of the local node.

   o  sin6_family MUST be set to AF_INET6.

   o  sin6_scope_id MUST be set if the address is link-local.

   inet6_is_srcaddr() is defined to return three possible values (0, 1,
   -1): The function returns true (1) when the IPv6 address corresponds
   to a valid address in the node and satisfies the given preference
   flags.  If the IPv6 address input value does not correspond to any
   address in the node or if the flags are not one of the valid
   preference flags, it returns a failure (-1).  If the input address
   does not match an address that satisfies the preference flags
   indicated, the function returns false (0.)

   This function can handle multiple valid preference flag combinations
   as its second parameter, for example, IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA |
   IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP, which means that all flags MUST be satisfied for
   the result to be true.  Contradictory flag values result in a false
   return value.

   The function will return true for IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME even if the
   host is not implementing mobile IPv6, as well as for a mobile node
   that is at home (i.e., does not have any care-of address).
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 19

14. Summary of New Definitions

The following list summarizes the constants, structure, and extern definitions discussed in this memo, sorted by header. <netdb.h> AI_EXTFLAGS <netdb.h> IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME <netdb.h> IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA <netdb.h> IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP <netdb.h> IPV6_PREFER_SRC_PUBLIC <netdb.h> IPV6_PREFER_SRC_CGA <netdb.h> IPV6_PREFER_SRC_NONCGA <netdb.h> EAI_BADEXTFLAGS <netdb.h> struct addrinfo{}; <netinet/in.h> IPV6_PREFER_SRC_HOME <netinet/in.h> IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA <netinet/in.h> IPV6_PREFER_SRC_TMP <netinet/in.h> IPV6_PREFER_SRC_PUBLIC <netinet/in.h> IPV6_PREFER_SRC_CGA <netinet/in.h> IPV6_PREFER_SRC_NONCGA <netinet/in.h> short inet6_is_srcaddr(struct sockaddr_in6 *, uint32_t); <netinet/in.h> int bind2addrsel(int, const struct sockaddr *, socklen_t);

15. Security Considerations

This document conforms to the same security implications as specified in the Basic IPv6 socket API [RFC3493] and address selection rules [RFC3484]. Allowing applications to specify a preference for temporary addresses provides per-application (and per-socket) ability to use the privacy benefits of the temporary addresses. The setting of certain address preferences (e.g., not using a CGA address, or not using a temporary address) may be restricted to privileged processes because of security implications.

16. Acknowledgments

The authors like to thank members of Mobile-IP and IPV6 working groups for useful discussion on this topic. Richard Draves and Dave Thaler suggested that getaddrinfo also needs to be considered along with the new socket option. Gabriel Montenegro suggested that CGAs may also be considered in this document. Thanks to Alain Durand, Renee Danson, Alper Yegin, Francis Dupont, Keiichi Shima, Michael Hunter, Sebastien Roy, Robert Elz, Pekka Savola, Itojun, Jim Bound, Jeff Boote, Steve Cipolli, Vlad Yasevich, Mika Liljeberg, Ted Hardie, Vidya Narayanan, and Lars Eggert for useful discussions and
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 20
   suggestions.  Thanks to Remi Denis-Courmont, Brian Haberman, Brian
   Haley, Bob Gilligan, Jack McCann, Jim Bound, Jinmei Tatuya, Suresh
   Krishnan, Hilarie Orman, Geoff Houston, Marcelo Bungulo, and Jari
   Arkko for the review of this document and suggestions for
   improvement.

17. References

17.1. Normative References

[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC3484] Draves, R., "Default Address Selection for Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 3484, February 2003. [RFC3493] Gilligan, R., Thomson, S., Bound, J., McCann, J., and W. Stevens, "Basic Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6", RFC 3493, February 2003.

17.2. Informative References

[FPING] "Fping - a program to ping hosts in parallel", Online web site http://www.fping.com. [RFC2460] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998. [RFC3041] Narten, T. and R. Draves, "Privacy Extensions for Stateless Address Autoconfiguration in IPv6", RFC 3041, January 2001. [RFC3542] Stevens, W., Thomas, M., Nordmark, E., and T. Jinmei, "Advanced Sockets Application Program Interface (API) for IPv6", RFC 3542, May 2003. [RFC3775] Johnson, D., Perkins, C., and J. Arkko, "Mobility Support in IPv6", RFC 3775, June 2004. [RFC3971] Arkko, J., Kempf, J., Zill, B., and P. Nikander, "SEcure Neighbor Discovery (SEND)", RFC 3971, March 2005. [RFC3972] Aura, T., "Cryptographically Generated Addresses (CGA)", RFC 3972, March 2005.
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 21

Appendix A. Per-Packet Address Selection Preference

This document discusses setting source address selection preferences on a per-socket basis with the new IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES socket option used in setsockopt(). The document does not encourage setting the source address selection preference on a per-packet basis through the use of ancillary data objects with sendmsg(), or setsockopt() with unconnected datagram sockets. Per-packet source address selection is expensive, as the system will have to determine the source address indicated by the application preference before sending each packet, while setsockopt() address preference on a connected socket makes the selection once and uses that source address for all packets transmitted through that socket endpoint, as long as the socket option is set. However, this document provides guidelines for those implementations that like to have an option on implementing transmit-side ancillary data object support for altering default source address selection. Therefore, if an application chooses to use the per-packet source address selection, then the implementation should process at the IPPROTO_IPV6 level (cmsg_level) ancillary data object of type (cmsg_type) IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES containing as data (cmsg_data[]) a 32-bit unsigned integer encoding the source address selection preference flags (e.g., IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA | IPV6_PREFER_SRC_PUBLIC) in a fashion similar to the advanced IPV6 Socket API [RFC3542]. This address selection preference ancillary data object may be present along with other ancillary data objects. The implementation processing the ancillary data object is responsible for the selection of the preferred source address as indicated in the ancillary data object. Thus, an application can use sendmsg() to pass an address selection preference ancillary data object to the IPv6 layer. The following example shows usage of the ancillary data API for setting address preferences:
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 22
   void *extptr;
   socklen_t extlen;
   struct msghdr msg;
   struct cmsghdr *cmsgptr;
   int cmsglen;
   struct sockaddr_in6 dest;
   uint32_t flags;

   extlen = sizeof(flags);
   cmsglen = CMSG_SPACE(extlen);
   cmsgptr = malloc(cmsglen);
   cmsgptr->cmsg_len = CMSG_LEN(extlen);
   cmsgptr->cmsg_level = IPPROTO_IPV6;
   cmsgptr->cmsg_type = IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES;

   extptr = CMSG_DATA(cmsgptr);

   flags = IPV6_PREFER_SRC_COA;
   memcpy(extptr, &flags, extlen);

   msg.msg_control = cmsgptr;
   msg.msg_controllen = cmsglen;

   /* finish filling in msg{} */

   msg.msg_name = dest;

   sendmsg(s, &msg, 0);


   Thus, when an IPV6_ADDR_PREFERENCES ancillary data object is passed
   to sendmsg(), the value included in the object is used to specify
   address preference for the packet being sent by sendmsg().

Appendix B. Intellectual Property Statement

This document only defines a source preference flag to choose Cryptographically Generated Address (CGA) as the source address when applicable. CGAs are obtained using public keys and hashes to prove address ownership. Several IPR claims have been made about such methods.
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 23

Authors' Addresses

Erik Nordmark Sun Microsystems, Inc. 17 Network Circle Menlo Park, CA 94025 USA EMail: Erik.Nordmark@Sun.com Samita Chakrabarti Azaire Networks 3121 Jay Street, Suite 210 Santa Clara, CA 95054 USA EMail: samitac2@gmail.com Julien Laganier DoCoMo Euro-Labs Landsbergerstrasse 312 D-80687 Muenchen Germany EMail: julien.IETF@laposte.net
Top   ToC   RFC5014 - Page 24
Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).

   This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
   contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
   retain all their rights.

   This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
   "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
   OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST AND
   THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM 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.

Intellectual Property

   The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
   Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
   pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
   this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
   might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
   made any independent effort to identify any such rights.  Information
   on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
   found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
   assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
   attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
   such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
   specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
   http://www.ietf.org/ipr.

   The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
   copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
   rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
   this standard.  Please address the information to the IETF at
   ietf-ipr@ietf.org.