Network Working Group T. Herbert Internet-Draft SiPanda Intended status: Experimental 2 October 2023 Expires: 4 April 2024 Infight Removal of IPv6 Hop-by-Hop and Routing Headers draft-herbert-eh-inflight-removal-01 Abstract This document specifies an experimental method to allow routers to remove IPv6 Hop-by-Hop Options Headers or Routing Headers from packets in flight. The goal is to reduce the probability of packets being dropped, because they contain these extension headers, without impacting functionality. An additional benefit is to limit visibility of information in extension headers to those nodes that need to process the headers. 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 4 April 2024. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2023 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 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 Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.1. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.1. Hop-by-Hop Options drop rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.2. Routing Header domain firewall . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.3. Removing extension headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.3.1. Removal by egress routers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.3.2. Removal by ingress routers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.4. Alternatives to extension header removal . . . . . . . . 6 2.4.1. Host routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.4.2. Probing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.4.3. IPinIP Encapsulation from source . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.4.4. IPinIP Encapsulation from egress router . . . . . . . 8 3. Arguments against in-flight extension header removal . . . . 9 3.1. Implementation Bugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3.2. Partial Node Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 3.3. Operator Configuration Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4. Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.1. Reflection of Hop-by-Hop Options . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.2. End host processing of Routing Headers . . . . . . . . . 11 4.3. ICMP errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 5. Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 6. Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 6.1. Removing a Hop-by-Hop Options Header . . . . . . . . . . 13 6.2. Removing a Routing Header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 6.3. Removing both Hop-by-Hop Options and a Routing Headers . 18 7. Implementation Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 7.1. Copying the IPv6 Header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 7.2. Scatter/gather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 1. Introduction This document specifies an experimental protocol to allow routers to remove IPv6 Hop-by-Hop Options Headers or Routing Headers from packets in flight. Current data suggests that there are very high drop rates, nearing 100%, for packets with Hop-by-Hop Options sent over the Internet. The goal of this protocol is to reduce the probability of the packet being dropped by a downstream node without reducing functionality, thereby improving the viability and usability for sending Hop-by-Hop Options. A secondary goal is to allow removal of Hop-by-Hop Options Headers or Routing Headers when packets egress a limited domain, such as a segment routing domain, in order to limit exposure of data to only those nodes that legitimately need to process it. This specification is limited to removal of the whole Hop-by-Hop Options Header or Routing Header. It does not set an requirements for removing individual Hop-by-Hop options in a Hop-by-Hop Header, nor does it specify any method of routers to insert Hop-by-Hop Options Header, options in a Hop-by-Hop Header, or a Routing Header into packets. 1.1. Terminology 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]. 2. Motivation This section provides the motivations for allowing routers to remove Hop-by-Hop Options or Routing Headers from packets. 2.1. Hop-by-Hop Options drop rate Current measurements indicate that packets with Hop-by-Hop Options Headers have high drop rates when sent over the Internet. From [APNIC-EH]: The HBH option was experiencing an average packet drop rate of 99.5% across all HBH option sizes Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 The reported drops rates for Hop-by-Hop Options are greater than that of packets with Destination Options Headers or Fragment Headers. A plausible explanation for this difference is that Hop-by-Hop Options are intended to be processed by intermediate nodes in a network, and hence a network operator may be motivated to drop packets with Hop- by-Hop options entering their network to protect their network infrastructure. This is mentioned in [RFC9098] as a reason that packets containing IPv6 Hop-by-Hop Options Headers are dropped: The Hop-by-Hop Options Header has been particularly challenging since, in most circumstances, the corresponding packet is punted to the control plane for processing. As a result, many operators drop IPv6 packets containing this extension header [RFC7872]. Given that there doesn't seem to be a easy fix to make Hop-by-Hop Options work over the Internet, the commonly proposed alternative is to limit use of Hop-by-Hop Options to limited domains [RFC8799]. It can be noted that Hop-by-Hop Options are only useful when at least some of the nodes in the path process them, and a network operator would likely only allow and deploy routers that process Hop-by-Hop Options if they perceived Hop-by-Hop Options provide some value. A possible example of such an option is FAST [I-D.herbert-fast] which allows the network infrastructure to provide fine grained QoS and monetize network services on a per packet basis. If a network supports value add services that use Hop-by-Hop Options, it stands to reason that packets with Hop-by-Hop Options wouldn't be dropped while their within the limited domain of the network operator. If a destination is outside the limited domain of the source host, a source host might still desire to use Hop-by-Hop Options to affect packet processing in the part of the path that is within the limited domain. In this case, a packet might be created with a Hop-by-Hop Options Header, the packet traverses the local network to an egress router, and at the egress router the packet is forwarded outside of the limited domain without Hop-by-Hop Options. In this case, the Hop-by-Hop Options Header may be useful only in the origin limited domain, however when forwarded outside of the domain it may still be dropped by a node that discards all packets with extension headers as a matter of policy. Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 2.2. Routing Header domain firewall When a host sends a packet with a Routing Header, for example a Segment Routing Header, the intermediate destinations are considered to be in the same limited domain; for example, in Segment Routing all of the intermediate destinations in the Segment Routing Header must be in the same segment routing domain. The final destination of a Routing Header might not be in the routing domain. It may, in fact, be outside of the limited domain. An example use case of this would be if a Routing Header were used to route a packet to an egress router of the domain. The egress router would be the penultimate destination in the segment list such that the Segments Left field is set to zero and all downstream nodes would ignore the Routing Header. In this case, the packets can forwarded beyond the limited domain without a Routing Header which would have no impact on behavior. Thus there is motivation to remove the extension header both to reduce the chances that the packet is dropped and also to avoid exposing network specific information in the Routing Header. 2.3. Removing extension headers 2.3.1. Removal by egress routers To contain the Hop-by-Hop Options Headers and Routing Headers to their limited domain, this specification proposes that egress routers could remove the extension headers from packets before forwarding them beyond the limited domain. Hop-by-Hop Options would be removed by an egress router in order to increase the likelihood that packets sent with Hop-by-Hop Options are successfully delivered to their destination. The assumption is that Hop-by-Hop Options Headers are most likely not useful beyond the limited domain, so removing them from packets when they exit their domain would have no impact on functionality. Option reflection to affect processing in the reverse direction of a flow, such as defined in FAST [I-D.herbert-fast], is one case where it would be useful to send outside of a limited domain (discussed below). A Routing Header would be removed at an egress router when its being used to route a packet from a host beyond the limited domain. Note that when the penultimate destination processes the Routing Header it sets the final Destination Address and Segments Left to zero, so at that point the Routing Header can be removed without impacting downstream processing of the packet since no downstream routers nor the destintaion host process the Routing Header. Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 2.3.2. Removal by ingress routers Hop-by-Hop Options could be removed from packets by ingress routers as an alternative to the current practice of dropping the packets with Hop-by-Hop Options. In this case, the network operator doesn't process Hop-by-Hop Options, or it might only processes Hop-by-Hop Options from source hosts in the local domain that it trusts. Removing Hop-by-Hop Options instead of discarding them allows packets to be delivered without loss of functionality or risk to the network infrastructure. 2.4. Alternatives to extension header removal This section discusses some of the alternatives to extension header removal that have been proposed. 2.4.1. Host routing It is conceivable that a host network stack could maintain routes to destinations or networks with an indication that the destination is within the same limited domain of the host. So when a packet is being created, the routing table could be consulted to determine if it's safe to send packets with Hop-by-Hop Options to the destination. The main drawback of this approach is that it requires significant changes to the host networking stack: in the routing infrastructure in the host, the APIs presented to the application trying to set Hop- by-Hop Options, and probably applications themselves. Additionally, it isn't always obvious just given an address whether the host could determine if destination is in the same limited domain as the host. In some simpler topologies it might be possible to configure hosts with all the network prefixes that belong to the limited domain, however for a more complex topology hosts may need to participate in a routing protocol or a discovery protocol with the network. 2.4.2. Probing Capabilities probing has been successfully employed in other contexts such as "Happy Eyeballs" for IPv6. Probing could similarly be used to determine the viability of Hop-by-Hop Options to a destination. In this case, a host could probe each destination to determine if Hop-by-Hop Options are viable. The advantage of this method is that it requires no special assistance from the network. The main drawback of this approach is the complexity in the host stack and applications. Probing assumes bidirectional communications, state needs to be maintained for each destination or Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 flow, procedures need to be specified for probing, backoff, and periodic re-probing may be needed in case a route changes that might affect the disposition of packets with Hop-by-Hop Options in the network. Additionally, the implementation for probing would be different for UDP and TCP: probing in the UDP case would most likely need support in the application and userspace libraries, probing for TCP could be supported in the kernel itself transparent to the application. 2.4.3. IPinIP Encapsulation from source In order to use Hop-by-Hop Options in the part of the path in a limited domain, a source host may encapsulate the packet in an IPinIP encapsulation [RFC2473]. The outer IPv6 header would contain the Hop-by-Hop Options Header and the destination would be the address of an egress router for the limited domain. At the egress router, the packet would be decapsulated and the packet can be forwarded without Hop-by-Hop Options. The main problem to this approach is that the sending host would need to known the correct Destination Address to set in the encapsulating header; that is, the host would need to know the address of the correct egress router for the packet. That information is generally not available to hosts and might not even be available to intermediate nodes including the first hop router. In a complex, multi-homed, network topology that might support mobile hosts, the only way to determine the current egress router for a packet may be to actually route through the network to the external destination address. If the network did maintain the association between destinations and the egress router, then conceptually it could share that information with hosts using a routing protocol or discovery protocol. This information could be saved in an augmented routing table on the host similar to that described in the "Host routing" section. But as discussed in that section, this is significant complexity to implement in hosts. If the network provides the addresses of egress routers then it is potentially divulging network topology information to the hosts and that could be considered a security risk. Conceivably, a host could be configured with a single anycast address to be used as Destination Address of the egress router when encapsulating. If the host routing table includes limited domain information, as described in the Host Routing section, then this would be sufficient to route packets to an egress router. In this case though, the anycast address represents a default router which Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 7] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 might not be the same one had the packet been routed based on its final destination-- this could be suboptimal routing or cause out-of- order packets if not all packets of a flow are encapsulated. This solution is complex from a host implementation point of view. An IPinIP encapsulation adds at least forty bytes of overhead to the packet, which reduces the effective MTU for the application and requires special end host processing that may be prohibitive on low end devices. Even if an anycast address is configured, a host stack will need to maintain routing information to determine which packets need to be encapsulated. Furthermore, setting the Hop-by-Hop Options is currently done by the application without regard to whether the packet is being encapsulated. When a packet is sent and it needs to encapsulated, the host stack will need to remove the Hop-by-Hop Options from the original packet and set them in the encapsulating IPv6 headers. 2.4.4. IPinIP Encapsulation from egress router Another solution using IPinIP encapsulation would be for an egress router to encapsulate packets containing Hop-by-Hop Options in IPinIP. The outer IPv6 header would contain no Hop-by-Hop Options and the inner IPv6 header contains the options. The Destination Address in the outer and inner IP headers would be the same. This solution is not robust since encapsulation increases packet size and reduces the Path MTU seen by the sender which can cause systematic packet drops. For example, suppose a host sends a packet with minimum MTU size of 1,280, and an egress router encapsulates the packet so that its length increases to 1,320 bytes. If a downstream router has link MTU of 1,280 then the packet will be dropped since its length exceeds the link MTU. Since the host sent a minimum MTU sized packet, it cannot fallback to a smaller MTU using PLMTUD hence there is no recovery. Note the encapsulation is being done when packet egress a domain and so there is no expectation that all the potential paths outside of the domain have a sufficiently large MTU to accommodate encapsulation. Sending encapsulated packets into the Internet requires that they can successfully transit the Internet. The IPinIP encapsulation protocol number (41) could be filtered by some networks (similar to how networks can block packets with Hop-by-Hop Options Header). Using a UDP encapsulation, such as VXLAN, might have better success than IPinIP. Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 8] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 For this method to be viable, all potential receivers would need to do decapsulation. This could be modeled as an anonymous encapsulation. Currently, this is not enabled on commodity host stacks, and would be a major change to support in deployment. Packets to a destination may undergo network address translation such that the outer addresses might not match the inner addresses of an encapsulation. If a flow contains a mix of encapsulated and non- encapsulated packets then the destination may percieve packets in the same flow as being in different flows. In order to prevent this, a router could encapsulate all packets, but that would be very costly for what is currently a narrow use case. 3. Arguments against in-flight extension header removal Section 4 of [draft-smith-6man-in-flight-eh-insertion-harmful] presents the failure causes of in-flight extension header removal. These are: * Implementation bugs * Partial Node Failure * Operator Configuration Error This section discusses these failure cases and mitigating factors. 3.1. Implementation Bugs It is true that a router could have implementation bugs in extension header removal. But, it's also true that any router feature may have implementation bugs. The algorithm for removing extension headers is fairly straightforward and there is no reason to believe that extension header removal would be inherently prone to bugs (at least any more than other router features that have been implemented). However, if there were an implementation bug in extension header removal, we can consider what the worst case effects are. [draft-smith-6man-in-flight-eh-insertion-harmful] states that a bug may cause packets to not have their extension headers removed. Given the current data, the most probable effect is that those packets will be dropped in the Internet. If they're not dropped then the extension headers might be processed by downstream routers which is still correct behavior that should not have detrimental effects. The purpose of dropping Hop-by-Hop Headers or Routing Headers is to avoid packet loss and to avoiding leaking information into the Internet. Even if extension header removal is not enabled, a network may still need to firewall packets with Routing Headers or Hop-by-Hop Options Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 9] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 Headers. The implementation of such firewall functionality may similarly be subject to its own bugs that could allow packets with these headers to leak outside the limited domain. 3.2. Partial Node Failure As described in [draft-smith-6man-in-flight-eh-insertion-harmful] a partial node failure, such as a hardware fault, could cause extension removal to function improperly. Similar to implementation bugs, partial node failures are not unique to extension header removal; for instance, a partial node failure could affect the routing in a router such that packets are misrouted. The effects of a failure would be the same as those for implementation bugs. 3.3. Operator Configuration Error As described in [draft-smith-6man-in-flight-eh-insertion-harmful] a configuration error may cause extension header removal to improperly function. Similar to implementation bugs and partial node failures, extension header removal is no uniquely susceptible to misconfiguration; cases of router misconfigurations that caused packets to be mis-routed and dropped are well documented. The effects of operator configuration errors are the same as those for implementation bugs and partial node failures. 4. Considerations 4.1. Reflection of Hop-by-Hop Options Some Hop-by-Hop options are designed to be reflected by a remote host back to the sender. IOAM Loopback [RFC9332] is used to report measurements on the forward path of a sender, the Minimum Path MTU Hop-by-Hop Option [RFC9268] returns the path MTU of the forward path to a sender, and FAST [I-D.herbert-fast] allows tickets to be reflected to affect packet processing in the return path of a flow. Note that Hop-by-Hop Options reflection is not guaranteed and hence is reflection is a best effort mechanism; it cannot be assumed that options will always be reflected. If extension headers to be reflected are removed in the network then the worst case effect is loss of an opportunistic optimization. In order to preserve the benefits of reflection, intermediate nodes might only remove Hop-by-Hops that might include options to be reflected as a last resort to prevent the packets being dropped by a downstream node. Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 10] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 4.2. End host processing of Routing Headers Per [RFC8200], "If Segments Left is zero, the node must ignore the Routing Header and proceed to process the next header in the packet". Effectively, this means that once the last segment has been processed and the final destination is set then the Routing Header carries no useful information to downstream nodes, so removal of the extension header cannot affect the how the packet is processed (assuming the typical case that the packet doesn't contain an Authentication Header that would cover the Routing Header). A possible exception is that the destination host may elect to validate the Routing Header. For instance, the end host may validate the HMAC TLV in a Segment Routing Header. Since Routing Headers are most likely used only in limited domains, which is an explicit requirement in Segment Routing, the network nodes processing the Routing Reader should know if the final destination participates is required to validate the Routing Header-- if it's not then the header can be removed. 4.3. ICMP errors When an ICMP error message is sent for a packet with removed extension headers, the packet headers in the ICMP data will be different than what the host sent. Operationally, this should not be an issue since a sender doesn't normally need to correlate packet with Hop-by-Hop options that were originally sent and the host stack doesn't usually maintain sufficient state to make a precise correlation. It is possible that a packet may be dropped because it does not have an expected Hop-by-Hop Options, such as a firewall ticket. In this case, the ICMP error does contain relevant information that can be logged and used for debugging. Note that extension header removal is not unique in this regard, if an ICMP error is sent for a packet that has been through a NAT device then the addresses in ICMP may not match the addresses of the original packet. 5. Requirements This section articulates the requirements for Hop-by-Hop Options Header and Routing Header removal. An intermediate node MAY remove a Hop-by-Hop Options Header from a packet if the following conditions are met: Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 11] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 * The packet does not contain an Authentication Header. If the packet contains an Authentication Header then the Hop-by-Hop Options Header MUST NOT be removed * The Payload Length of the packet is non-zero and the Hop-by-Hop options does not include a Jumbo Payload Option (if the packet contains a Jumbo Payload option then the Payload Length should be zero). If the packet contains a Jumbo Payload Option then the Hop-by-Hop Options Header MUST NOT be removed. An intermediate node MAY remove a Routing Header Header from a packet if the following conditions are met: * The Destination Address has been set to the address of the final destination and the Segments Left field is zero. If Segments Left is not zero then the Routing Header MUST NOT be removed * The packet does not contain an Authentication Header. If the packet contains an Authentication Header then the Routing Header MUST NOT be removed * There are no extension headers that precede the Routing Header in the packet. An exception is if the Routing Header immediately follow a Hop-by-Hop Options extension header that is also being removed. If there are extension headers preceding a Routing Header other than a Hop-by-Hop Options Header that is also being removed, then the Routing Header MUST NOT be removed * The final destination is not required to process or validate the Routing Header. This requirement would be determined by the requirements of specific types of Routing Headers. * The Routing Header does not contain options (segment routing TLVs for instance), or the destination host doesn't need to process or validate the options. This requirement would be determined by the requirements of specific types of Routing Headers. Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 12] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 6. Procedures This section describes the procedures for removing a Hop-by-Hop Options Header, removing a Routing Header, and removing a Hop-by-Hop Options Header and Routing Header at the same time. 6.1. Removing a Hop-by-Hop Options Header The procedures for removing a Hop-by-Hop Options Header are: 1. Save the value in the Next Header field of the Hop-by-Hop Options extension header in a temporary variable 2. Determine the length of the Hop-by-Hop Header and save in a temporary variable. This is equal to the value of the Hdr Ext Len field times eight plus eight 3. Determine the offset of the first byte in the following the Hop- by-Hop Options Header. This is equal to the forty plus the length of the Hop-by-Hop Options Header derived in step 2 4. Copy the IPv6 header with length, forty bytes, to the offset derived in step 3 minus forty. Reset the starting offset of the packet to be the offset of the copied IPv6 header (modify the packet pointer for instance) 5. Set the Next Header field in the copied IPv6 header to the value saved in step 1 6. Subtract the length of the Hop-by-Hop Options Header, determined in step 2, from the Payload Length in the copied IPv6 header. Set the result as the Payload Length in the copied IPv6 header An example of removing Hop-by-Hop Options Header is shown in the diagrams below. The diagram below illustrates shows an example TCP/IPv6 packet with a Hop-by-Hop Options Header before extension header removal; the Payload Length is 1200 bytes and the length of the Hop-by-Hop Options Header is sixty-four bytes. Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 13] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |Version| Traffic Class | Flow Label | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Payload Length = 1200 | Next Hdr = 0 | Hop Limit | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | + + | | + Source Address + | | + + | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | + + | | + Destination Address + | | + + | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Next Hdr = 6 | EH Len = 7 | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | | . . . Options . . . | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | . . . TCP packet and payload . . . | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ The diagram below illustrates the packet after the Hop-by-Hop Options Header has been removed. Note that the Payload Length is now 1,136 bytes which is the original payload length minus the length of the Hop-by-Hop Options Header that was removed. Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 14] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |Version| Traffic Class | Flow Label | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Payload Length = 1136 | Next Hdr = 6 | Hop Limit | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | + + | | + Source Address + | | + + | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | + + | | + Destination Address + | | + + | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | . . . TCP packet and payload . . . | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ 6.2. Removing a Routing Header The procedures for removing a Routing Header are: 1. Save the value in the Next Header field of the Routing Header in a temporary variable 2. Determine the length of the Routing Header and save in a temporary variable. This is equal to the value of the Hdr Ext Len field times eight plus eight 3. Determine the offset of the first byte in the following the Routing Header. This is equal to the forty plus the length of the Routing Header derived in step 2 4. Copy the IPv6 header with length, forty bytes, to the offset derived in set 3 minus forty. Reset the starting offset of the packet to be the offset of the copied IPv6 header (modify the packet pointer for instance) Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 15] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 5. Set the Next Header field in the copied IPv6 header to the value saved in step 1 6. Subtract the length of the Routing Header, determined in step 2, from the Payload Length in the copied IPv6 header. Set the result as the Payload Length in the copied IPv6 header An example of removing Routing Header is shown in the diagrams below. The diagram below illustrates shows an example TCP/IPv6 packet with a Routing Header before extension header removal; the Payload Length is 1400 bytes and the length of the Routing Header is 160 bytes. The Segments Left field is set to zero so that the Routing Header may be removed. Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 16] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |Version| Traffic Class | Flow Label | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Payload Length = 1400 | Next Hdr = 43| Hop Limit | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | + + | | + Source Address + | | + + | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | + + | | + Destination Address + | | + + | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Next Hdr = 6 | EH Len = 19 | Routing Type | Segs Left = 0 | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | . . . type-specific data . . . | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | . . . TCP packet and payload . . . | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ The diagram below illustrates the packet after the Routing Header has been removed. Note that the Payload Length is now 1,240 bytes which is the original payload length minus the length of the Routing Header that was removed. Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 17] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |Version| Traffic Class | Flow Label | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Payload Length = 1240 | Next Hdr = 6 | Hop Limit | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | + + | | + Source Address + | | + + | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | + + | | + Destination Address + | | + + | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | . . . TCP packet and payload . . . | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ 6.3. Removing both Hop-by-Hop Options and a Routing Headers The procedures for removing both a Hop-by-Hop Options Header and a Routing Header are: 1. Save the value in the Next Header field of the Routing Header extension header in a temporary variable 2. Determine the length of the Hop-by-Hop Options Header and save in a temporary variable. This is equal to the value of the Hdr Ext Len field of the Hop-by-Hop Options Header times eight plus eight 3. Determine the length of the Routing Header and save in a temporary variable. This is equal to the value of the Hdr Ext Len field of the Routing Header times eight plus eight 4. Determine the offset of the first byte in the packet following the Routing Header. This is equal to the forty plus the length of the Hop-by-Hop Options Header derived in step 2 plus the length of the Routing Header derived in step 3 Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 18] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 5. Copy the IPv6 header with length, forty bytes, to the offset derived in set 3 minus forty. Reset the starting offset of the packet to be the offset of the copied IPv6 header (modify the packet pointer for instance) 6. Set the Next Header field in the copied IPv6 header to the value saved in step 1 7. Subtract the length of the Hop-by-Hop Options Header plus the length of the Routing Header (values determined in step 2 and step 3) from the Payload Length in the copied IPv6 header. Set the result as the Payload Length in the copied IPv6 header An example of removing a Hop-by-Hop Options Header and a Routing Header is shown in the diagrams below. The diagram below illustrates an example TCP/IPv6 packet with both a Hop-by-Hop Options Header and a Routing Header before extension header removal; the Payload Length is 1,300 bytes, the length of the Hop-by-Hop Options Header is sixty-four bytes, the length of the Routing Header is 160 bytes. The Segments Left field is set to zero so that the Routing Header may be removed. Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 19] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |Version| Traffic Class | Flow Label | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Payload Length = 1300 | Next Hdr = 0 | Hop Limit | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | + + | | + Source Address + | | + + | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | + + | | + Destination Address + | | + + | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Next Hdr = 43 | EH Len = 7 | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | | . . . Options . . . | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Next Hdr = 6 | EH Len = 19 | Routing Type | Segs Left = 0 | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | . . . type-specific data . . . | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | . . . TCP packet and payload . . . | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 20] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 The diagram below illustrates the packet after the Hop-by-Hop Options Header and the Routing Header have been removed. Note that the Payload Length is now 1,076 bytes which is the original payload length minus the length of the Hop-by-Hop Options Header and the Routing Header that were removed. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |Version| Traffic Class | Flow Label | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Payload Length = 1076 | Next Hdr = 6 | Hop Limit | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | + + | | + Source Address + | | + + | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | + + | | + Destination Address + | | + + | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | . . . TCP packet and payload . . . | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ 7. Implementation Considerations Removal of extension headers must be efficient and is considered a "fast path" operation in a router [I-D.ietf-6man-hbh-processing]. The most computationally complex part of removing extension headers is moving the IPv6 header. There are two methods to move the bits of the IPv6 header: memory copy and scatter/gather. Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 21] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 7.1. Copying the IPv6 Header Extension header removal can be accomplished by performing a data copy of the IPv4 header (forty bytes) to the offset after the extension header being removed minus forty bytes. Since the number of bytes being moved is fixed, relatively small, and fits within a typical cache line, the data copy is amenable to efficient implementation in hardware or software. Once the copy completes, the pointer to the packet is advanced by the length of data removed. Note that an implementation may choose to move the link layer header as appropriate. 7.2. Scatter/gather Scatter/gather allows a packet to be constructed from a list of memory buffers where each buffer has a data pointer and length. To use scatter/gather for extension header removal, a receiver might employ header/data split to store the packet as two buffers in memory: the first buffer contains the link layer and IPv6 headers, and the second buffer contains the data following the IPv6 header. Removing an extension headers entails advancing the pointer to the second buffer by the length of the extension header being removed. 8. Security Considerations Hop-by-Hop Options Header and Routing Header removal have a security benefit to limit visibility of information that is not needed by external parties. This specification does not otherwise introduce any new security concerns, 9. IANA Considerations There are no IANA considerations in this specification. 10. References 10.1. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, . Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 22] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 [RFC8200] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6) Specification", STD 86, RFC 8200, DOI 10.17487/RFC8200, July 2017, . 10.2. Informative References [APNIC-EH] Huston, G., "IPv6 extension headers revisited", October 2022, . [I-D.herbert-fast] Herbert, T., "Firewall and Service Tickets (FAST)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-herbert-fast-06, 4 August 2023, . [I-D.ietf-6man-hbh-processing] Hinden, R. M. and G. Fairhurst, "IPv6 Hop-by-Hop Options Processing Procedures", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-6man-hbh-processing-10, 26 September 2023, . [RFC2473] Conta, A. and S. Deering, "Generic Packet Tunneling in IPv6 Specification", RFC 2473, DOI 10.17487/RFC2473, December 1998, . [RFC7872] Gont, F., Linkova, J., Chown, T., and W. Liu, "Observations on the Dropping of Packets with IPv6 Extension Headers in the Real World", RFC 7872, DOI 10.17487/RFC7872, June 2016, . [RFC8799] Carpenter, B. and B. Liu, "Limited Domains and Internet Protocols", RFC 8799, DOI 10.17487/RFC8799, July 2020, . [RFC9098] Gont, F., Hilliard, N., Doering, G., Kumari, W., Huston, G., and W. Liu, "Operational Implications of IPv6 Packets with Extension Headers", RFC 9098, DOI 10.17487/RFC9098, September 2021, . [RFC9268] Hinden, R. and G. Fairhurst, "IPv6 Minimum Path MTU Hop- by-Hop Option", RFC 9268, DOI 10.17487/RFC9268, August 2022, . Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 23] Internet-Draft Inflight-EH-Removal October 2023 [RFC9332] De Schepper, K., Briscoe, B., Ed., and G. White, "Dual- Queue Coupled Active Queue Management (AQM) for Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable Throughput (L4S)", RFC 9332, DOI 10.17487/RFC9332, January 2023, . Author's Address Tom Herbert SiPanda Santa Clara, CA, United States of America Email: tom@herbertland.com Herbert Expires 4 April 2024 [Page 24]