Network Working Group M. Blanchet Internet-Draft Viagenie Expires: November 5, 2001 May 6, 2001 IPv6 Test Address Space Reserved for Documentation, Examples and Private Testing draft-blanchet-ipngwg-testadd-00 Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. 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." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on November 5, 2001. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001). All Rights Reserved. Abstract To reduce the likelihood of conflict and confusion, an IPv6 prefix is reserved for use in private testing or as examples in other RFCs, documentation, and the like. Since site local addresses have special meaning in IPv6, these cannot be used in many example situations and are confusing. Instead, an IPv6 prefix is reserved in the range of the test address space. 1. Rationale IPv6 introduces many types of addresses in its addressing architecture RFC 2373[1], like scoped addresses (link-local, site-local) and global addresses. It also introduces mechanisms for renumbering RFC 2462[2],RFC 2894[5]. Organisations might want to make tests networks, using the different kinds of addresses and try renumbering. For example, one could have site-local as well as a global prefix and try to renumber to another global prefix while preserving its site-local addresses live. RFCs, vendor documentation, books and the like also give examples with addresses. Authors always have an issue of using: already allocated addresses, not currently allocated addresses or private (site-local) addresses in their examples. Using the configuration examples in a real environment can cause a problem. If the example uses site-local as global address example, then the actual mechanism for handling scoped addresses with site-local scoping can not be done. If allocated addresses are used, then this obviously can make address spoofing inadvertly if the environment is connected to the internet. Same could happen later for a non-currently allocated address space that becomes allocated. Similar, but different, discussion also applies to top level domain names and some have been reserved for the same purposes RFC 2606[4]. 2. Assignment The prefix 3ffe:ff00/24, out of the test address spaceRFC 2471[3]. currently used on the 6bone is reserved for any documentation or private testing purposes. The 6bone will never use that prefix. 3. IANA Considerations IANA reserve 3ffe:ff00/24 address space out of the test address space so that no one will ever receive this allocation. 4. Security Considerations This document encourages the use of test addresses in private testing and documentation so that less issues will arise from people that could instead use address space already allocated or to be allocated in the future. These could cause ip address spoofing. This proposal minimize such possible conflicts. References [1] Hinden, R.M. and S.E. Deering, "IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture", RFC 2373, July 1998. [2] Thomson, S. and T. Narten, "IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration", RFC 2462, December 1998. [3] Hinden, R.M., Fink, R. and J. Postel, "IPv6 Testing Address Allocation", RFC 2471, December 1998. [4] Eastlake, D. and A. Panitz, "Reserved Top Level DNS Names", BCP 32, RFC 2606, June 1999. [5] Crawford, M., "Router Renumbering for IPv6", RFC 2894, August 2000. Author's Address Marc Blanchet Viagenie 2875 boul. Laurier, bureau 300 Sainte-Foy, QC G1V 2M2 Canada Phone: +1 418 656 9254 EMail: Marc.Blanchet@viagenie.qc.ca URI: http://www.viagenie.qc.ca/ Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001). 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 implmentation 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. 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