IEEE 802.15.4 Information Element for IETF
draft-kivinen-802-15-ie-03

Network Working Group                                         T. Kivinen
Internet-Draft                                             INSIDE Secure
Intended status: Standards Track                               P. Kinney
Expires: April 14, 2017                            Kinney Consulting LLC
                                                        October 11, 2016

               IEEE 802.15.4 Information Element for IETF
                     draft-kivinen-802-15-ie-03.txt

Abstract

   IEEE Std 802.15.4 has Information Elements (IE) that can be used to
   extend 802.15.4 in an interoperable manner.  The IEEE 802.15 Assigned
   Numbers Authority (ANA) manages the registry of the Information
   Elements, and this document requests ANA to allocate a number for the
   IETF, and provides information on how the IE is formatted to provide
   sub types.

Status of This Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on April 14, 2017.

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   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Users of the IETF IE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  IETF IE Subtype Format  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  Vendor Specific IE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  Request to allocate IETF IE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   9.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     9.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     9.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5

1.  Introduction

   IEEE Std. 802.15.4 [IEEE-802-15-4] has Information Elements (IE) that
   can be used to extend 802.15.4 in an interoperable manner.  There are
   two different IE types, Header IE and Payload IE.  The Header IEs are
   part of the Medium Access Control (MAC) header, and are never
   encrypted, but they may be authenticated.  Most of the Header IE
   processing is done by the MAC, and IETF protocols should not need to
   extend them.  The Payload IEs are part of the MAC payload and they
   may be encrypted and authenticated.

   IETF protocols will need to include information in the 802.15.4
   frames; the standard 802.15.4 way of doing this is to include one or
   more payload IEs in the frame that will contain the information.
   Because of this, the IETF needs to obtain a dedicated Payload IE from
   the IEEE 802.15 Assigned Numbers Authority (ANA) [IEEE-802-15-ANA].
   The up-to-date 802.15 ANA database can be found at
   [IEEE-802-15-ANA-DB].

   The 802.15.4 operations manual [IEEE-802-15-OPS] provides information
   on how a standardization organization may request an allocation of an
   IE.  To make this request the standardization organization needs to:
   provide the reason for the request; a description of the protocol
   format that shows there is sufficient subtype capability; a statement
   that the external organization understands that only one ID number
   will be issued.

   This document provides the information needed for the request.

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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].

3.  Users of the IETF IE

   There are several IETF working groups such as 6TiSCH, 6lo, CoRE etc,
   which could benefit from the IETF IE.  The 6TiSCH working group has
   already expressed the need for the IE, and this allocation should
   provide them a way forward.

4.  IETF IE Subtype Format

   The maximum length of the Payload IE content is 2047 octets, and
   802.15.4 frame contains a list of payload IEs, i.e. a single frame
   can have multiple payload IEs, terminated with the payload IE
   terminator, and may be followed by the payload.

   Because the frame contains a list of payloads, there is no need to
   provide internal structure inside the IETF IE.  The Payload IE format
   of the 802.15.4 contains the Length field, so the length of the Sub-
   Type Content can be calculated from the Length field of the IETF IE.

   The format of the IETF IE is 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
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   | Sub-Type ID   |                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+                                               |
   ~                       Sub-Type Content                        ~
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                     Figure 1: IETF IE Subtype Format

   o  Sub-Type ID is the IANA allocated number specifying the sub-type
      of the IETF IE.  Value 0 is reserved for future extensibility,
      i.e., in case a longer Sub-Type ID field is needed.

   o  Sub-Type Content is the actual content of the information element,
      and its length can be calculated from the Length field of the IETF
      IE.

   One IEEE 802.15.4 frame can contain multiple IETF IEs with the same
   or different sub types.

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5.  Vendor Specific IE

   IEEE 802.15.4 has already several numbers for different Vendor
   Specific IE types.  There is one for the Vendor Specific Header IE
   for Header IEs.  There is one incorrectly named Vendor Specific
   Nested IE for Payload IEs, and there is another one with exactly the
   same name, but under the MLME Nested IE long format.  All of the
   Vendor Specific IEs start with a 3-octet vendor OUI to identify the
   organization.

   Because of this, there is no need to reserve the specific Sub-Type
   IDs for the vendor-specific uses, as those other IE types can be used
   for that.

6.  Request to allocate IETF IE

   IETF would request the 802.15.4 Working Group to allocate a Payload
   IE for IETF use.  Furthermore IETF understands that only one ID will
   be issued to it.

7.  Security Considerations

   This document creates an IANA registry for IETF IE Sub-type IDs, and
   the security of the protocols using the IEs needs to be described in
   the actual documents allocating values from this registry.

   The IEEE Std 802.15.4-2015 [IEEE-802-15-4] contains methods where
   security of the IE can be enforced when a frame is received, but this
   is only per IE type, thus all IETF IEs will have same security level
   requirements regardless of the Sub-Type ID used.  This can cause
   issues if different security processing would be needed and any of
   those IEs would need to be processed in the MAC level.  Fortunately,
   everything IETF does should be in a higher level than the MAC level,
   thus the higher layer processing for these IEs needs to perform
   separate security policy checking based on the IETF IE Sub-Type ID in
   addition to the checks done by the MAC.

8.  IANA Considerations

   This document creates a new registry for IETF IE Sub-type IDs
   registry:

   Value     Sub-type ID
   0         Reserved
   1-200     Unassigned
   201-255   Experimental Use

   Changes and additions to this registry is by expert review.

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9.  References

9.1.  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,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

9.2.  Informative References

   [IEEE-802-15-4]
              "IEEE Standard for Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area
              Networks (WPANs)", IEEE Standard 802.15.4, 2015.

   [IEEE-802-15-ANA]
              "IEEE 802.15 Assigned Numbers Authority",
              <http://www.ieee802.org/15/ANA.html>.

   [IEEE-802-15-ANA-DB]
              "IEEE 802.15 ANA database",
              <https://mentor.ieee.org/802.15/
              documents?is_dcn=257&is_group=0000>.

   [IEEE-802-15-OPS]
              "IEEE 802.15 Operations Manual",
              <https://mentor.ieee.org/802.15/
              documents?is_dcn=235&is_group=0000>.

Authors' Addresses

   Tero Kivinen
   INSIDE Secure
   Eerikinkatu 28
   HELSINKI  FI-00180
   FI

   Email: kivinen@iki.fi

   Pat Kinney
   Kinney Consulting LLC

   Email: pat.kinney@kinneyconsultingllc.com

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