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LLN Fragment Forwarding and Recovery
draft-thubert-6lo-forwarding-fragments-00

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Replaced".
Authors Pascal Thubert , Jonathan Hui
Last updated 2013-10-17
Replaced by draft-thubert-6lo-fragment-recovery
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draft-thubert-6lo-forwarding-fragments-00
ROLL                                                     P. Thubert, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                     cisco
Intended status: Standards Track                                J.W. Hui
Expires: April 18, 2014                                            Cisco
                                                        October 17, 2013

                  LLN Fragment Forwarding and Recovery
               draft-thubert-6lo-forwarding-fragments-00

Abstract

   In order to be routed, a fragmented packet must be reassembled at
   every hop of a multihop link where lower layer fragmentation occurs.
   Considering that the IPv6 minimum MTU is 1280 bytes and that an an
   802.15.4 frame can have a payload limited to 74 bytes in the worst
   case, a packet might end up fragmented into as many as 18 fragments
   at the 6LoWPAN shim layer.  If a single one of those fragments is
   lost in transmission, all fragments must be resent, further
   contributing to the congestion that might have caused the initial
   packet loss.  This draft introduces a simple protocol to forward and
   recover individual fragments that might be lost over multiple hops
   between 6LoWPAN endpoints.

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 http://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 April 18, 2014.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://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 Simplified BSD License text
   as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
   2.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   3.  Rationale  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   4.  Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   5.  Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   6.  New Dispatch types and headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     6.1.  Recoverable Fragment Dispatch type and Header  . . . . . .  7
     6.2.  Fragment Acknowledgement Dispatch type and Header  . . . .  7
   7.  Fragments Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   8.  Forwarding Fragments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     8.1.  Upon the first fragment  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     8.2.  Upon the next fragments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     8.3.  Upon the fragment acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   9.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   10. IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   11. Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     12.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     12.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

1.  Introduction

   In most Low Power and Lossy Network (LLN) applications, the bulk of
   the traffic consists of small chunks of data (in the order few bytes
   to a few tens of bytes) at a time.  Given that an 802.15.4 frame can
   carry 74 bytes or more in all cases, fragmentation is usually not
   required.  However, and though this happens only occasionally, a
   number of mission critical applications do require the capability to
   transfer larger chunks of data, for instance to support a firmware
   upgrades of the LLN nodes or an extraction of logs from LLN nodes.
   In the former case, the large chunk of data is transferred to the LLN
   node, whereas in the latter, the large chunk flows away from the LLN
   node.  In both cases, the size can be on the order of 10K bytes or
   more and an end-to-end reliable transport is required.

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   Mechanisms such as TCP or application-layer segmentation will be used
   to support end-to-end reliable transport.  One option to support bulk
   data transfer over a frame-size-constrained LLN is to set the Maximum
   Segment Size to fit within the link maximum frame size.  Doing so,
   however, can add significant header overhead to each 802.15.4 frame.
   This causes the end-to-end transport to be intimately aware of the
   delivery properties of the underlaying LLN, which is a layer
   violation.

   An alternative mechanism combines the use of 6LoWPAN fragmentation in
   addition to transport or application-layer segmentation.  Increasing
   the Maximum Segment Size reduces header overhead by the end-to-end
   transport protocol.  It also encourages the transport protocol to
   reduce the number of outstanding datagrams, ideally to a single
   datagram, thus reducing the need to support out-of-order delivery
   common to LLNs.

   [RFC4944] defines a datagram fragmentation mechanism for LLNs.
   However, because [RFC4944] does not define a mechanism for recovering
   fragments that are lost, datagram forwarding fails if even one
   fragment is not delivered properly to the next IP hop.  End-to-end
   transport mechanisms will require retransmission of all fragments,
   wasting resources in an already resource-constrained network.

   Past experience with fragmentation has shown that missassociated or
   lost fragments can lead to poor network behavior and, eventually,
   trouble at application layer.  The reader is encouraged to read
   [RFC4963] and follow the references for more information.  That
   experience led to the definition of the Path MTU discovery [RFC1191]
   protocol that limits fragmentation over the Internet.

   For one-hop communications, a number of media propose a local
   acknowledgement mechanism that is enough to protect the fragments.
   In a multihop environment, an end-to-end fragment recovery mechanism
   might be a good complement to a hop-by-hop MAC level recovery.  This
   draft introduces a simple protocol to recover individual fragments
   between 6LoWPAN endpoints.  Specifically in the case of UDP, valuable
   additional information can be found in UDP Usage Guidelines for
   Application Designers [RFC5405].

2.  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].

   Readers are expected to be familiar with all the terms and concepts
   that are discussed in "IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area
   Networks (6LoWPANs): Overview, Assumptions, Problem Statement, and
   Goals" [RFC4919] and "Transmission of IPv6 Packets over IEEE 802.15.4
   Networks" [RFC4944].

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      Error Recovery Procedure.

      The LLN nodes in charge of generating or expanding a 6LoWPAN
      header from/to a full IPv6 packet.  The 6LoWPAN endpoints are the
      points where fragmentation and reassembly take place.

3.  Rationale

   There are a number of uses for large packets in Wireless Sensor
   Networks.  Such usages may not be the most typical or represent the
   largest amount of traffic over the LLN; however, the associated
   functionality can be critical enough to justify extra care for
   ensuring effective transport of large packets across the LLN.

   The list of those usages includes:

   Towards the LLN node: 

      Packages of Commands: A number of commands or a full configuration
         can by packaged as a single message to ensure consistency and
         enable atomic execution or complete roll back.  Until such
         commands are fully received and interpreted, the intended
         operation will not take effect.

      Firmware update: For example, a new version of the LLN node
         software is downloaded from a system manager over unicast or
         multicast services.  Such a reflashing operation typically
         involves updating a large number of similar LLN nodes over a
         relatively short period of time.

   From the LLN node: 

      Waveform captures: A number of consecutive samples are measured at
         a high rate for a short time and then transferred from a sensor
         to a gateway or an edge server as a single large report.

      Data logs: LLN nodes may generate large logs of sampled data for
         later extraction.  LLN nodes may also generate system logs to
         assist in diagnosing problems on the node or network.

      Large data packets: Rich data types might require more than one
         fragment.

   Uncontrolled firmware download or waveform upload can easily result
   in a massive increase of the traffic and saturate the network.

   When a fragment is lost in transmission, all fragments are resent,
   further contributing to the congestion that caused the initial loss,
   and potentially leading to congestion collapse.

   This saturation may lead to excessive radio interference, or random
   early discard (leaky bucket) in relaying nodes.  Additional queuing

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   and memory congestion may result while waiting for a low power next
   hop to emerge from its sleeping state.

   To demonstrate the severity of the problem, consider a fairly
   reliable 802.15.4 frame delivery rate of 99.9% over a single 802.15.4
   hop.  The expected delivery rate of a 5-fragment datagram would be
   about 99.5% over a single 802.15.4 hop.  However, the expected
   delivery rate would drop to 95.1% over 10 hops, a reasonable network
   diameter for LLN applications.  The expected delivery rate for a
   1280-byte datagram is 98.4% over a single hop and 85.2% over 10 hops.

   Considering that  [RFC4944] defines an MTU is 1280 bytes and that in
   most incarnations (but 802.15.4G) a 802.15.4 frame can limit the MAC
   payload to as few as 74 bytes, a packet might be fragmented into at
   least 18 fragments at the 6LoWPAN shim layer.  Taking into account
   the worst-case header overhead for 6LoWPAN Fragmentation and Mesh
   Addressing headers will increase the number of required fragments to
   around 32.  This level of fragmentation is much higher than that
   traditionally experienced over the Internet with IPv4 fragments.  At
   the same time, the use of radios increases the probability of
   transmission loss and Mesh-Under techniques compound that risk over
   multiple hops.

4.  Requirements

   This paper proposes a method to recover individual fragments between
   LLN endpoints.  The method is designed to fit the following
   requirements of a LLN (with or without a Mesh-Under routing
   protocol):

      The recovery mechanism must support highly fragmented packets,
      with a maximum of 32 fragments per packet.

      Because the radio is half duplex, and because of silent time spent
      in the various medium access mechanisms, an acknowledgment
      consumes roughly as many resources as data fragment.

      The recovery mechanism should be able to acknowledge multiple
      fragments in a single message and not require an acknowledgement
      at all if fragments are already protected at a lower layer.

      The recovery mechanism must succeed or give up within the time
      boundary imposed by the recovery process of the Upper Layer
      Protocols.

      A Mesh-Under load balancing mechanism such as the ISA100 Data Link
      Layer can introduce out-of-sequence packets.

      The recovery mechanism must account for packets that appear lost
      but are actually only delayed over a different path.

      The aggregation of multiple concurrent flows may lead to the
      saturation of the radio network and congestion collapse.

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      The recovery mechanism should provide means for controlling the
      number of fragments in transit over the LLN.

5.  Overview

   Considering that a multi-hop LLN can be a very sensitive environment
   due to the limited queuing capabilities of a large population of its
   nodes, this draft recommends a simple and conservative approach to
   congestion control, based on TCP congestion avoidance.

   Congestion on the forward path is assumed in case of packet loss, and
   packet loss is assumed upon time out.

   Congestion on the forward path can also be indicated by an Explicit
   Congestion Notification (ECN) mechanism.  Though whether and how ECN
   [RFC3168] is carried out over the LoWPAN is out of scope, this draft
   provides a way for the destination endpoint to echo an ECN indication
   back to the source endpoint in an acknowledgment message as
   represented in Figure 5 in Section 6.2.

   From the standpoint of a source 6LoWPAN endpoint, an outstanding
   fragment is a fragment that was sent but for which no explicit
   acknowledgment was received yet.  This means that the fragment might
   be on the way, received but not yet acknowledged, or the
   acknowledgment might be on the way back.  It is also possible that
   either the fragment or the acknowledgment was lost on the way.

   Because a meshed LLN might deliver frames out of order, it is
   virtually impossible to differentiate these situations.  In other
   words, from the sender standpoint, all outstanding fragments might
   still be in the network and contribute to its congestion.  There is
   an assumption, though, that after a certain amount of time, a frame
   is either received or lost, so it is not causing congestion anymore.
   This amount of time can be estimated based on the round trip delay
   between the 6LoWPAN endpoints.  The method detailed in [RFC6298] is
   recommended for that computation.

   The reader is encouraged to read through "Congestion Control
   Principles" [RFC2914].  Additionally [RFC2309] and [RFC5681] provide
   deeper information on why this mechanism is needed and how TCP
   handles Congestion Control.  Basically, the goal here is to manage
   the amount of fragments present in the network; this is achieved by
   to reducing the number of outstanding fragments over a congested path
   by throttling the sources.

   Section 7 describes how the sender decides how many fragments are
   (re)sent before an acknowledgment is required, and how the sender
   adapts that number to the network conditions.

6.  New Dispatch types and headers

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   This specification extends "Transmission of IPv6 Packets over IEEE
   802.15.4 Networks" [RFC4944] with 4 new dispatch types, for
   Recoverable Fragments (RFRAG) headers with or without Acknowledgment
   Request, and for the Acknowledgment back, with or without ECN Echo.

           Pattern    Header Type
         +------------+-----------------------------------------------+
         | 11  101000 | RFRAG      - Recoverable Fragment             |
         | 11  101001 | RFRAG-AR   - RFRAG with Ack Request           |
         | 11  101010 | RFRAG-ACK  - RFRAG Acknowledgment             |
         | 11  101011 | RFRAG-AEC  - RFRAG Ack with ECN Echo          |
         +------------+-----------------------------------------------+

   In the following sections, the semantics of "datagram_tag,"
   "datagram_offset" and "datagram_size" and the reassembly process are
   changed from   [RFC4944] Section 5.3.  "Fragmentation Type and
   Header."  The size and offset are expressed on the compressed packet
   per [RFC6282] as opposed to the uncompressed - native packet - form.

6.1.  Recoverable Fragment Dispatch type and Header

                           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
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |1 1 1 0 1 0 0 X|datagram_offset|         datagram_tag          |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |Sequence |    datagram_size    |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
                                                 X set == Ack Requested

   X: 1 bit; When set, the sender requires an Acknowledgment from the
      receiver

   Sequence: 5 bits; The sequence number of the fragment.  Fragments are
      numbered [0..N] where N is in [0..31].

6.2.  Fragment Acknowledgement Dispatch type and Header

   The specification also defines a 4-octet acknowledgement bitmap that
   is used to carry selective acknowlegements for the received
   fragments.  A given offset in the bitmap maps one to one with a given
   sequence number.

   The offset of the bit in the bitmap indicates which fragment is
   acknowledged as follows:

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                            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
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |           Acknowledgment Bitmap                               |
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
        ^                   ^
        |                   |    bitmap indicating whether:
        |                   +--- Fragment with sequence 10 was received
        +----------------------- Fragment with sequence 00 was received

   So in the example below Figure 4 it appears that all fragments from
   sequence 0 to 20 were received but for sequence 1, 2 and 16 that were
   either lost or are still in the network over a slower path.

                            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
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |1|0|0|1|1|1|1|1|1|1|1|1|1|1|1|1|0|1|1|1|1|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   The acknowledgement bitmap is carried in a  Fragment Acknowledgement
   as follows:

                           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
                      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
                      |1 1 1 0 1 0 1 Y|         datagram_tag          |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |          Acknowledgment Bitmap (32 bits)                      |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   Y: 1 bit; Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) signalling

      When set, the sender indicates that at least one of the
      acknowledged fragments was received with an Explicit Congestion
      Notification, indicating that the path followed by the fragments
      is subject to congestion.

      An acknowledgement bitmap, whereby but at offset x indicates that
      fragment x was received.

7.  Fragments Recovery

   The  Recoverable Fragments header  RFRAG and RFRAG-AR deprecate the
   original fragment headers from [RFC4944] and replace them in the
   fragmented packets.  The Fragment Acknowledgement RFRAG-ACK is
   introduced as a standalone header in message that is sent back to the
   fragment source endpoint as known by its MAC address.  This assumes
   that the source MAC address in the fragment (is any) and datagram_tag
   are enough information to send the Fragment Acknowledgement back to
   the source fragmentation endpoint.

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   The 6LoWPAN endpoint that fragments the packets at 6LoWPAN level (the
   sender) controls the Fragment Acknowledgements.  If may do that at
   any fragment to implement its own policy or perform congestion
   control which is out of scope for this document.  When the sender of
   the fragment knows that an underlying mechanism protects the
   Fragments already it MAY refrain from using the Acknowledgement
   mechanism, and never set the Ack Requested bit.  The 6LoWPAN endpoint
   that recomposes the packets at 6LoWPAN level (the receiver) MUST
   acknowledge the fragments it has received when asked to, and MAY
   slightly defer that acknowledgement.

   The sender transfers a controlled number of fragments and MAY flag
   the last fragment of a series with an acknowledgment request.  The
   received MUST acknowledge a fragment with the acknowledgment request
   bit set.  If any fragment immediately preceding an acknowledgment
   request is still missing, the receiver MAY intentionally delay its
   acknowledgment to allow in-transit fragments to arrive.  delaying the
   acknowledgement might defeat the round trip delay computation so it
   should be configurable and not enabled by default.

   The receiver interacts with the sender using an Acknowledgment
   message with a bitmap that indicates which fragments were actually
   received.  The bitmap is a 32bit SWORD, which accommodates up to 32
   fragments and is sufficient for the 6LoWPAN MTU.  For all n in
   [0..31], bit n is set to 1 in the bitmap to indicate that fragment
   with sequence n was received, otherwise the bit is set to 0. All
   zeroes is a NULL bitmap that indicates that the fragmentation process
   was cancelled by the receiver for that datagram.

   The receiver MAY issue unsolicited acknowledgments.  An unsolicited
   acknowledgment enables the sender endpoint to resume sending if it
   had reached its maximum number of outstanding fragments or indicate
   that the receiver has cancelled the process of an individual
   datagram.  Note that acknowledgments might consume precious resources
   so the use of unsolicited acknowledgments should be configurable and
   not enabled by default.

   The sender arms a retry timer to cover the fragment that carries the
   Acknowledgment request.  Upon time out, the sender assumes that all
   the fragments on the way are received or lost.  The process must have
   completed within an acceptable time that is within the boundaries of
   upper layer retries.  The method detailed in [RFC6298] is recommended
   for the computation of the retry timer.  It is expected that the
   upper layer retries obey the same or friendly rules in which case a
   single round of fragment recovery should fit within the upper layer
   recovery timers.

   Fragments are sent in a round robin fashion: the sender sends all the
   fragments for a first time before it retries any lost fragment; lost

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   fragments are retried in sequence, oldest first.  This mechanism
   enables the receiver to acknowledge fragments that were delayed in
   the network before they are actually retried.

   When the sender decides that a packet should be dropped and the
   fragmentation process canceled, it sends a pseudo fragment with the
   datagram_offset, sequence and datagram_size all set to zero, and no
   data.  Upon reception of this message, the receiver should clean up
   all resources for the packet associated to the datagram_tag.  If an
   acknowledgement is requested, the receiver responds with a NULL
   bitmap.

   The receiver might need to cancel the process of a fragmented packet
   for internal reasons, for instance if it is out of recomposition
   buffers, or considers that this packet is already fully recomposed
   and passed to the upper layer.  In that case, the receiver SHOULD
   indicate so to the sender with a NULL bitmap.  Upon an
   acknowledgement with a NULL bitmap, the sender MUST drop the
   datagram.

8.  Forwarding Fragments

   This specification enables intermediate routers to forward fragments
   with no intermediate reconstruction of the entire packet.  Upon the
   first fragment, the routers lay an label along the path that is
   followed by that fragment (that is IP routed), and all further
   fragments are label switched along that path.  As a consequence,
   alternate routes not possible for individual fragments.  The datagram
   tag is used to carry the label, that is swapped at each hop.

8.1.  Upon the first fragment

   In route over the L2 source changes at each hop.  The label that is
   formed adnd placed in the datagram tag is associated to the source
   MAC and only valid (and unique) for that source MAC. Say the first
   fragment has:

      Source IPv6 address = IP_A (maybe hops away)

      Destination IPv6 address = IP_B (maybe hops away)

      Source MAC = MAC_prv (prv as previous)

      Datagram_tag= DT_prv

   The intermediate router that forwards individual fragments does the
   following:

      a route lookup to get Next hop IPv6 towards IP_B, which resolves
      as IP_nxt (nxt as next)

      a ND resolution to get the MAC address associated to IP_nxt, which
      resolves as MAC_nxt

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   Since it is a first fragment of a packet from that source MAC address
   MAC_prv for that tag DT_prv, the router:

      cleans up any leftover resource associated to the tupple (MAC_prv,
      DT_prv)

      allocates a new label for that flow, DT_nxt, from a Least Recently
      Used pool or some siumilar procedure.

      allocates a Label swap structure indexed by (MAC_prv, DT_prv) that
      contains (MAC_nxt, DT_nxt)

      allocates a Label swap structure indexed by (MAC_nxt, DT_nxt) that
      contains (MAC_prv, DT_prv)

      swaps the MAC info to from self to MAC_nxt

      Swaps the datagram_tag to DT_nxt

   At this point the router is all set and can forward the packet to
   nxt.

8.2.  Upon the next fragments

   Upon next fragments (that are not first fragment), the router expects
   to have already Label swap structure indexed by (MAC_prv, DT_prv).
   The router:

      lookups up the Label swap entry for (MAC_prv, DT_prv), which
      resolves as (MAC_nxt, DT_nxt)

      swaps the MAC info to from self to MAC_nxt;

      Swaps the datagram_tag to DT_nxt

   At this point the router is all set and can forward the packet to
   nxt.

   if the Label swap entry for (MAC_src, DT_src) is not found, the
   router builds an RFRAG-ACK to indicate the error.  The acknowledgment
   message has the following information:

      MAC info set to from self to MAC_prv as found in the fragment

      Swaps the datagram_tag set to DT_prv

      Bitmap of all zeroes to indicate the error

   At this point the router is all set and can send the RFRAG-ACK back
   ot the previous router.

8.3.  Upon the fragment acknowledgements

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   Upon fragment acknowledgements next fragments (that are not first
   fragment), the router expects to have already Label swap structure
   indexed by (MAC_nxt, DT_nxt). The router:

      lookups up the Label swap entry for (MAC_nxt, DT_nxt), which
      resolves as (MAC_prv, DT_prv)

      swaps the MAC info to from self to MAC_prv;

      Swaps the datagram_tag to DT_prv

   At this point the router is all set and can forward the RFRAG-ACK to
   prv.

   if the Label swap entry for (MAC_nxt, DT_nxt) is not found, it simply
   drops the packet.

   if the RFRAG-ACK indicates either an error or that the fragment was
   fully receive, the router schedules the Label swap entries for
   recycling.  If the RFRAG-ACK is lost on the way back, the source may
   retry the last fragments, which will result as an error RFRAG-ACK
   from the first router on the way that has already cleaned up.

9.  Security Considerations

   The process of recovering fragments does not appear to create any
   opening for new threat compared to "Transmission of IPv6 Packets over
   IEEE 802.15.4 Networks" [RFC4944].

10.  IANA Considerations

   Need extensions for formats defined in "Transmission of IPv6 Packets
   over IEEE 802.15.4 Networks" [RFC4944].

11.  Acknowledgments

   The author wishes to thank Jay Werb, Christos Polyzois, Soumitri
   Kolavennu and Harry Courtice for their contribution and review.

12.  References

12.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC4944]  Montenegro, G., Kushalnagar, N., Hui, J. and D. Culler,
              "Transmission of IPv6 Packets over IEEE 802.15.4
              Networks", RFC 4944, September 2007.

   [RFC6282]  Hui, J. and P. Thubert, "Compression Format for IPv6
              Datagrams over IEEE 802.15.4-Based Networks", RFC 6282,
              September 2011.

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   [RFC6298]  Paxson, V., Allman, M., Chu, J. and M. Sargent, "Computing
              TCP's Retransmission Timer", RFC 6298, June 2011.

12.2.  Informative References

   [RFC1191]  Mogul, J. and S. Deering, "Path MTU discovery", RFC 1191,
              November 1990.

   [RFC2309]  Braden, B., Clark, D.D., Crowcroft, J., Davie, B.,
              Deering, S., Estrin, D., Floyd, S., Jacobson, V.,
              Minshall, G., Partridge, C., Peterson, L., Ramakrishnan,
              K.K., Shenker, S., Wroclawski, J. and L. Zhang,
              "Recommendations on Queue Management and Congestion
              Avoidance in the Internet", RFC 2309, April 1998.

   [RFC2914]  Floyd, S., "Congestion Control Principles", BCP 41, RFC
              2914, September 2000.

   [RFC3168]  Ramakrishnan, K., Floyd, S. and D. Black, "The Addition of
              Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP", RFC 3168,
              September 2001.

   [RFC4919]  Kushalnagar, N., Montenegro, G. and C. Schumacher, "IPv6
              over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPANs):
              Overview, Assumptions, Problem Statement, and Goals", RFC
              4919, August 2007.

   [RFC4963]  Heffner, J., Mathis, M. and B. Chandler, "IPv4 Reassembly
              Errors at High Data Rates", RFC 4963, July 2007.

   [RFC5405]  Eggert, L. and G. Fairhurst, "Unicast UDP Usage Guidelines
              for Application Designers", BCP 145, RFC 5405, November
              2008.

   [RFC5681]  Allman, M., Paxson, V. and E. Blanton, "TCP Congestion
              Control", RFC 5681, September 2009.

Authors' Addresses

   Pascal Thubert, editor
   Cisco Systems, Inc
   Building D
   45 Allee des Ormes - BP1200
   MOUGINS - Sophia Antipolis, 06254
   FRANCE
   
   Phone: +33 497 23 26 34
   Email: pthubert@cisco.com

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   Jonathan W. Hui
   Cisco Systems
   560 McCarthy Blvd.
   MILPITAS, California 95035
   USA
   
   Email: johui@cisco.com

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