IPv6 Router Advertisement Option for Network Boot
draft-qin-6man-nb-option-00

Abstract

This document specifies an IPv6 Router Advertisement (RA) option (called "Boot File URL option") to allow IPv6 routers to advertise configuration information for booting a node from the network.

Status of This Memo

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This Internet-Draft will expire on December 16, 2018.

Copyright Notice

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Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 1.1. Requirements Language
• 2. Option
• 2.1. Boot File Uniform Resource Locator (URL) Option
• 3. Deployment Considerations
• 4. IANA Considerations
• 5. Security Considerations
• 6. Acknowledgements
• 7. References
• 7.1. Normative References
• 7.2. Informative References
• Authors' Addresses

1. Introduction

This document describes an IPv6 Neighbor Discovery (ND) option (called BFURL option) that can be used to provide configuration information for nodes to be booted from network instead of local media.

IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (SLAAC) [RFC4862] and IPv6 Neighbor Discovery (ND) [RFC4861] define ways to configure IPv6 addresses, on-link prefix list, default routers and other parameters.

The existing ND message (RA) is used to carry this network boot information. Nodes can get the boot file url and parameters through RA messages via BFRUL option.

This approach is useful in networks with no DHCPv6 infrastructure. The intention is to simplify the implementation on both node side (i.e. PXE firmware), and network side.

A boot file can be a boot-loader program or a minimal OS kernel. The node firmware needs to download the boot file and execute it. The distribution of additional information and further communications between the node and network side (e.g., an install server) should be handled by applications built in the boot file.

The configuration of a Boot-File-URL would be required into routers sending RA messages. The configuration mechanism ( manual or automatic) is out of scope of this document.

1.1. Requirements Language

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 RFC 2119.

2. Option

The option formats comply with ND options per [RFC4861] (Section 4.6).

2.1. Boot File Uniform Resource Locator (URL) Option

Routers send this option to nodes with a URL to a boot file.

 0                   1                   2                   3
 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|     Type      |    Length     |           Reserved            |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|                                                               |
~                Boot-File-URL (variable length)                ~
|                                                               |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
             

Figure 1

Fields description:

Type

TBD.

Length

The length of this option (including the Type and Length fields) in octets.

Boot-File-URL

The URL for a boot file in string. Its format Must comply with [RFC3986].

3. Deployment Considerations

TBD.

4. IANA Considerations

This document requires a new ND option type to be allocated.

Option Name

Type

Boot-File-URL

TBD.

5. Security Considerations

TBD.

6. Acknowledgements

TBD.

7. References

7.1. Normative References

7.2. Informative References

Authors' Addresses