Internet Draft                                                   I. Chen
<draft-halpern-6man-nd-pre-resolve-addr-00.txt>               J. Halpern
Category: Informational                                         Ericsson
Expires in 6 months                                     January 10, 2014

          Triggering ND Address Resolution on Receiving DAD-NS
            <draft-halpern-6man-nd-pre-resolve-addr-00.txt>

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Abstract

   This draft proposes a new optional event to trigger address



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   resolution using IPv6 Neighbor Discovery.  This helps optimize router
   performance, and can help mitigate certain potential ND-related
   denial-of-service attacks.  Upon receiving a DAD-NS message, the
   neighbor solicitation message used to detect duplicate addresses, if
   the target address encoded in the DAD-NS is not a duplicate address,
   the receiving device responds by triggering address resolution for
   the target address in the DAD-NS, in preparation for expectant future
   communication with the sending device.











































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Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................3
   2. Proposed Trigger for Address Resolution .........................4
   3. Which Devices to Upgrade and the Consequences ...................6
   4. Security Considerations .........................................6
   5. IANA Considerations .............................................6
   6. References ......................................................6

1.  Introduction

   Due to the large address space for IPv6 [RFC2460] and a large /64
   default subnet size, Neighbor Discovery (ND) for IPv6 [RFC4861] could
   suffer from off-link flooding Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks
   [RFC6583].  In such an attack, a remote malicious device could flood
   a router with packets destined to billions of unassigned IPv6
   addresses.  Although these packets are destined to unused IPv6
   addresses, cache misses could occur nonetheless.  Without special
   handling of cache misses, the router would trigger address resolution
   for billions of unused IPv6 addresses.  The sheer volume of IPv6
   addresses could overwhelm the router's normal ND protocol processing
   and ultimately prevent the router from forwarding packets destined to
   legitimate IPv6 addresses.

   [RFC6583] proposes implementation and operational practices to reduce
   the impact of an off-link flooding DoS attack without modifying the
   ND protocol.  The Internet Draft [ndmit] goes further and poses the
   question whether cache misses, an important trigger for address
   resolution in the ND protocol, are necessary.  If cache misses can be
   ignored, then an off-link flooding DoS attack that uses cache misses
   to compromise a router can be neutralized.  To eliminate the need for
   cache misses, a router should retain the neighbor cache entries of
   all legitimate neighbors on the physical link.

   This draft proposes that a router further triggers address resolution
   based on an event other than a cache miss.  In addition to waiting
   for a cache miss to trigger address resolution, a router should
   initiate address resolution for the target address in a DAD-NS,
   provided that the target address is not a duplicate address of the
   receiving device or a resolved neighbor.

   Consequently, to optimize IPv6 router performance and to avoid
   neighbor cache overrun by remote exploration, an IPv6 device:

      1) SHOULD NOT remove a populated cache entry to make room for a
         pending entry based on a received packet trigger.

      2) SHOULD NOT remove a DAD triggered pending entry to make room



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         for a remote received packet triggered entry.

      3) SHOULD remove remote trigger pending entries if needed to make
         room for DAD triggered pending entries.

   For an even stronger solution to prevent neighbor cache overrun by
   remote exploration, a router can implement [ndmit] in conjunction
   with the mechanism in this draft.

2.  Proposed Trigger for Address Resolution

   In IPv6, when a device initializes an interface, a special Neighbor
   Solicitation (NS) message is sent to perform Duplicate Address
   Detection (DAD) [RFC4862] to determine whether a particular address
   is already assigned to a different interface on the same multi-access
   link.  This special message, referred to as DAD-NS in the rest of
   this draft, is an NS message with an unspecified source address.  The
   target address of this DAD-NS is the IPv6 unicast address that is
   intended for new interface.

   In addition to the detection of duplicate addresses, a DAD-NS can
   also be treated as an announcement for a new address, the target
   address in the DAD-NS, which will be used in the near future, after
   the DAD algorithm has been completed.  Consequently, after allowing
   time for the DAD algorithm to be completed, rather than waiting for a
   cache miss, the router that received the DAD-NS can perform address
   resolution for the target address in the DAD-NS.

   The proposed steps are similar to how address resolution is initiated
   when a device receives a regular NS message, one that has a specified
   source address.  The difference in the mechanism proposed by this
   draft is that the address resolution is not triggered immediately
   after receiving the DAD-NS.  Instead, address resolution is triggered
   with a time delay to accommodate the DAD algorithm.

   For example in Figure 1, when DEV2 initializes an interface that is
   expected to use the IP address 2001::15, a DAD-NS with an unspecified
   source address and a target address of 2001::15 is multicast on the
   physical link.  Following the DAD algorithm in [RFC4862], when DEV1
   on the physical link receives such a DAD-NS, the DEV1 device does not
   respond to the DAD-NS if the target address 2001::15 is not used by
   one of its interfaces.  Assuming that DEV1 implements the proposed
   DAD-NS response in this draft, then after allowing for the DAD
   algorithm to be completed, DEV1 can trigger address resolution for
   2001::15, the target address announced in the previous DAD-NS,
   without waiting for a cache miss to occur.

   Furthermore, when DEV2 receives the NS to query for target address



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   2001::15, [RFC4861] Section 7.2.3 specifies that DEV2 respond with an
   NS query of its own for the source address of the NS that DEV2 just
   received.  Thus, at the end of the DAD-NS, NS, and Neighbor
   Advertisement (NA) message exchanges that are triggered by the
   initialization of DEV2's interface, DEV1 and DEV2 have each others'
   neighbor entries.  The two devices can immediately begin
   communication shortly after DEV2 sends the DAD-NS and very likely
   before any cache miss occurs.

                                +
   +----+                       |
   |DEV1|-----------------------|
   +----+                       |                        +----+
                                |------------------------|DEV2|
                                |                        +----+
                                +
2001::1/MAC1   ASSIGNED                        2001::15/MAC2  TENTATIVE

     DAD-NS (source address UNSPECIFIED) (target address 2001::15)
     <------------------------------------------------------------

Neighbor entry
2001::15     INCOMPLETE

                                               2001::15/MAC2  ASSIGNED

      NS (source address 2001::1) (target address 2001::15)
      ---------------------------------------------------->

                                               Neighbor entry
                                               2001::1        INCOMPLETE

      NA (source address 2001:15) (target address 2001::15) (MAC2)
      <-----------------------------------------------------------

Neighbor entry
2001::15/MAC2    REACH

      NS (source address 2001::15) (target address 2001::1)
      <----------------------------------------------------

      NA (source address 2001::1) (target address 2001::1) (MAC1)
      ---------------------------------------------------------->

                                               Neighbor entry
                                               2001::1/MAC1   REACH

     Figure 1. An example of DAD-NS triggering address resolution.



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3.  Which Devices to Upgrade and the Consequences

   This proposed mechanism does not require changes to [RFC4861].
   Further, devices that implement this proposal can interoperate with
   devices that do not implement this proposal.  Ericsson's Smart
   Services Router implemented this change in early 2013, is deployed in
   operational IPv6 networks, and has not encountered any problems.

   The proposed mechanism probably is more useful for routers than for
   hosts, although nothing prevents a host from implementing this
   proposal and hosts might benefit from implementing this proposal.

   If all devices, both routers and hosts, on a physical link implement
   the proposed change, then when a device restarts, the restarting
   device can easily recover all the pre-restart neighbor cache entries.
   Using Figure 1 as an example, assume that DEV2 restarts and re-
   initializes its interface, and once again wishes to assign its
   interface the address 2001::15.  Because DEV1 implements this draft
   and responds to the DAD-NS by querying for 2001::15, both DEV1 and
   DEV2 end up with the same neighbor cache entries from before DEV2
   restarted.

4.  Security Considerations

   The proposed trigger for address resolution might suffer from certain
   attacks if the attacker is on the same physical link as the new IPv6
   device and sends bogus DAD-NS messages.  However, no mechanism can
   protect a device when the attacker is on the same physical link as
   the device, other than ensuring that only authorized devices have
   access to a physical link (e.g., by using link-layer security
   mechanisms, such as IEEE 802.1AE link encryption [802.1AE]).

5.  IANA Considerations

   No actions are required from IANA as result of the publication of
   this document.

6.  References

6.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2460]  Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
              (IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998.

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




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   [RFC4862]  Thomson, S., Narten, T., and T. Jinmei, "IPv6 Stateless
              Address Autoconfiguration", RFC 4862, September 2007.

6.2.  Informative References

   [RFC6583]  Gashinsky, I., Jaeggli, J., and W. Kumari, "Operational
              Neighbor Discovery Problems", RFC 6583, March 2012.

   [ndmit]    Halpern, J, Work in progress, "draft-halpern-6man-nddos-
              mitigation-00", October 2011.

   [802.1AE]  IEEE Standards Association, "IEEE Standard for Local and
              Metropolitan Area Networks: Media Access Control (MAC)
              Security", IEEE Standard 802.1AE, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ,
              USA, August 18, 2006.

Authors' Addresses

   I. Chen
   Ericsson
   Email: ing-wher.chen@ericsson.com

   J. Halpern
   Ericsson
   EMail: joel.halpern@ericsson.com


























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