Neighbor Unreachability Detection is too impatient
draft-ietf-6man-impatient-nud-00

6MAN WG                                                      E. Nordmark
Internet-Draft                                       Cisco Systems, Inc.
Expires: May 17, 2012                                       I. Gashinsky
                                                                  Yahoo!
                                                       November 14, 2011

           Neighbor Unreachability Detection is too impatient
                  draft-ietf-6man-impatient-nud-00.txt

Abstract

   IPv6 Neighbor Discovery includes Neighbor Unreachability Detection.
   That function is very useful when a host has an alternative, for
   instance multiple default routers, since it allows the host to switch
   to the alternative in short time.  This time is 3 seconds after the
   node starts probing.  However, if there are no alternatives, this is
   far too impatient.  This document proposes an approach where an
   implementation can choose the timeout behavior to be different based
   on whether or not there are alternatives.

Status of this Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on May 17, 2012.

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   Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
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   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   2.  Definition Of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   3.  Proposed Remedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   4.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   7.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
     7.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
     7.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

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1.  Introduction

   IPv6 Neighbor Discovery [RFC4861] includes Neighbor Unreachability
   Detection, which detects when a neighbor is no longer reachable.  The
   timeouts specified are very short (three transmissions spaced one
   second apart).  That can be appropriate when there are alternative
   paths the packet can be sent.  For example, if a host has multiple
   default routers in its Default Router List, or if the host has a
   Neigbor Cache Entry (NCE) created by a Redirect message.  The effect
   of NUD reporting a failure in those cases is that the host will try
   the alternative; the next router in the Default Router List, or
   discard the NCE which will also send using a different router.

   For that reason the timeouts where chosen to be short; this ensures
   that if a default router fails the host can use the next router in
   less than 45 seconds.

   However, where there is no alternative there are several benefits in
   making NUD try probing for a longer time.  One of those benefits is
   to be more robust against transient failures, such as spanning tree
   recovergence and other layer 2 issues that can take many seconds to
   resolve.  Marking the NCE as unreachable in that case causes
   additional multicast on the network.  Assuming there are IP packets
   to send, the lack of an NCE will result in multicast Neighbor
   Solicitations every second instead of the unicast Neighbor
   Solicitations that NUD sends.

   As a result IPv6 is operationally more brittle than IPv4.  For IPv4
   there is no mandatory time limit on the retransmission behavior for
   ARP [RFC0826] which allows implementors to pick more robust schemes.

   The following constant values in [RFC4861] seem to have been made
   part of IPv6 conformance testing: MAX_MULTICAST_SOLICIT,
   MAX_UNICAST_SOLICIT, RETRANS_TIMER.  While such strict conformance
   testing seems consistent with the the specificiation, it means that
   we need to update the standard if we want to allow IPv6 Neighbor
   Discovery to be as operationally robust as ARP.

   Additional motivations for making IPv6 Neighbor Discovery as robust
   as ARP are covered in [I-D.gashinsky-v6nd-enhance].

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].

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3.  Proposed Remedy

   We can clarify that the giving up after three packets spaced one
   second apart is only REQUIRED when there is an alternative, such as
   an additional default route or a redirect.

   If implementations transmit more than MAX_*CAST_SOLICIT packets they
   MAY use binary exponential backoff of the retransmit timer.  This is
   so that if we end up with implementations that try for a very long
   time we don't end up with a steady background level of
   retransmissions.

   However, even if there is no alternative, we still need to be able to
   handle the case when the link-layer address of the destination has
   changed.  Thus at some point in time we need to switch to multicast
   Neighbor Solicitations.

   A possible way to describe a node behavior which captures all the
   cases is to introduce a new, optional, UNREACHABLE state in the
   conceptual model described in [RFC4861].  A NCE in the UNREACHABLE
   state retains the link-layer address, and IPv6 packets continue to be
   sent to that link-layer address.  But the Neighbor Soliciations are
   multicast, using a timeout that follows a binary exponential backoff.

   In the places where RFC4861 says to to discard/delete the NCE after N
   probes (Section 7.3, 7.3.3 and Appendix C) we will instead transition
   to the UNREACHABLE state.

   If the Neighbor Cache Entry was created by a redirect, a node MAY
   delete the NCE instead of changing its state to UNREACHABLE.  In any
   case, the node SHOULD NOT use an NCE created by a Redirect to send
   packets if that NCE is in unreachable state.  Packets should be sent
   following the next-hop selection algorithm in section XXX which
   disregards NCEs that are not reachable.

   The default router selection in section 6.3.6 says to prefer default
   routers that are "known to be reachable".  For the purposes of that
   section, if the NCE for the router is in UNREACHABLE state, it is not
   known to be reachable.  Thus the particular text in section 6.3.6
   which says "in any state other than INCOMPLETE" needs to be extended
   to say "in any state other than INCOMPLETE or UNREACHABLE".

   Apart from the use of multicast NS instead of unicast NS, and the
   binary exponential backoff of the timer, the UNREACHABLE state works
   the same as the current PROBE state.

   A node MAY garbage collect a Neighbor Cache Entry as any time as
   specified in RFC 4861.  This does not change with the introduction of

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   the UNREACHABLE state in the coneptual model.

   The UNREACHABLE state is conceptual and not a required part of this
   specification.  A node merely needs to satisfy the externally
   observable behavior of this specificiation.

   There is a non-obvious extension to the state machine description in
   Appendix C in RFC 4861 in the case for "NA, Solicited=1, Override=0.
   Different link-layer address than cached".  There we need to add
   "UNREACHABLE" to the current list of "STALE, PROBE, Or DELAY".  That
   is, the NCE would be unchanged.  Note that there is no corresponding
   change necessary to the text in section 7.2.5 since it is phrased
   using "Otherwise" instead of explicitly listing the three states.

   The other state transitions described in Appendix C handle the
   introduction of the UNREACHABLE state without any change, since they
   are described using "not INCOMPLETE".

   There is also the more obvious change already described above.  RFC
   4861 has this:

   PROBE           Retransmit timeout,     Discard entry         -
                   N or more
                   retransmissions.

   That needs to be replaced by:

   PROBE           Retransmit timeout,     Double timeout    UNREACHABLE
                   N or more               Send multicast NS
                   retransmissions.

   UNREACHABLE     Retransmit timeout      Double timeout    UNREACHABLE
                                           Send multicast NS

   The binary exponential backoff SHOULD be clamped at some reasonable
   maximum retransmit timeout, such as 60 seconds.  And if there is no
   IPv6 packets sent using the UNREACHABLE NCE, then it makes sense to
   stop the retransmits of the multicast NS until either the NCE is
   garbage collected, or there are IPv6 packets sent using the NCE.  In
   essence the multicast NS and associated binary exponential backoff
   can be conditioned on the continued use of the NCE to send IPv6
   packets to the recorded link-layer address.

   A node MAY unicast the first few Neighbor Soliciation messages while
   in UNREACHABLE state, but it MUST switch to multicast Neighbor
   Soliciations.  Otherwise it would not detect a link-layer address
   change for the target.

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4.  Acknowledgements

   The comments from Thomas Narten and Philip Homburg have helped
   improve this draft.

5.  Security Considerations

   Relaxing the retransmission behavior for NUD has no impact on
   security.  In particular, it doesn't impact applying Secure Neighbor
   Discovery [RFC3971].

6.  IANA Considerations

   This are no IANA considerations for this document.

7.  References

7.1.  Normative References

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

   [RFC3971]  Arkko, J., Kempf, J., Zill, B., and P. Nikander, "SEcure
              Neighbor Discovery (SEND)", RFC 3971, March 2005.

   [RFC4861]  Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and H. Soliman,
              "Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 4861,
              September 2007.

7.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.gashinsky-v6nd-enhance]
              Kumari, W., "Operational Neighbor Discovery Problems and
              Enhancements.", draft-gashinsky-v6nd-enhance-00 (work in
              progress), June 2011.

   [RFC0826]  Plummer, D., "Ethernet Address Resolution Protocol: Or
              converting network protocol addresses to 48.bit Ethernet
              address for transmission on Ethernet hardware", STD 37,
              RFC 826, November 1982.

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Authors' Addresses

   Erik Nordmark
   Cisco Systems, Inc.
   510 McCarthy Blvd.
   Milpitas, CA, 95035
   USA

   Phone: +1 408 527 6625
   Email: nordmark@cisco.com

   Igor Gashinsky
   Yahoo!
   45 W 18th St
   New York, NY
   USA

   Email: igor@yahoo-inc.com

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