Textual Conventions for Internet Network Addresses
RFC 3291

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Network Working Group                                         M. Daniele
Request for Comments: 3291                                    Consultant
Obsoletes: 2851                                              B. Haberman
Category: Standards Track                                     Consultant
                                                             S. Routhier
                                                Wind River Systems, Inc.
                                                        J. Schoenwaelder
                                                         TU Braunschweig
                                                                May 2002

           Textual Conventions for Internet Network Addresses

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This MIB module defines textual conventions to represent commonly
   used Internet network layer addressing information.  The intent is
   that these textual conventions (TCs) will be imported and used in MIB
   modules that would otherwise define their own representations.

   This document obsoletes RFC 2851.

Daniele, et. al.            Standards Track                     [Page 1]
RFC 3291           TCs for Internet Network Addresses           May 2002

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
   2.  The SNMP Management Framework  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   3.  Definitions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   4.  Usage Hints  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   4.1 Table Indexing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   4.2 Uniqueness of Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   4.3 Multiple Addresses per Host  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   4.4 Resolving DNS Names  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   5.  Table Indexing Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   6.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   7.  Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   8.  Intellectual Property Notice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   9.  Changes from RFC 2851  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

1. Introduction

   Several standards-track MIB modules use the IpAddress SMIv2 base
   type.  This limits the applicability of these MIB modules to IP
   Version 4 (IPv4) since the IpAddress SMIv2 base type can only contain
   4 byte IPv4 addresses.  The IpAddress SMIv2 base type has become
   problematic with the introduction of IP Version 6 (IPv6) addresses
   [19].

   This document defines multiple textual conventions as a mechanism to
   express generic Internet network layer addresses within MIB module
   specifications.  The solution is compatible with SMIv2 (STD 58) and
   SMIv1 (STD 16).  New MIB definitions which need to express network
   layer Internet addresses SHOULD use the textual conventions defined
   in this memo.  New MIB modules SHOULD NOT use the SMIv2 IpAddress
   base type anymore.

   A generic Internet address consists of two objects, one whose syntax
   is InetAddressType, and another whose syntax is InetAddress.  The
   value of the first object determines how the value of the second
   object is encoded.  The InetAddress textual convention represents an
   opaque Internet address value.  The InetAddressType enumeration is
   used to "cast" the InetAddress value into a concrete textual
   convention for the address type.  This usage of multiple textual
   conventions allows expression of the display characteristics of each
   address type and makes the set of defined Internet address types
   extensible.

Daniele, et. al.            Standards Track                     [Page 2]
RFC 3291           TCs for Internet Network Addresses           May 2002

   The textual conventions defined in this document can also be used to
   represent generic Internet subnets and Internet address ranges.  A
   generic Internet subnet is represented by three objects, one whose
   syntax is InetAddressType, a second one whose syntax is InetAddress
   and a third one whose syntax is InetAddressPrefixLength.  The
   InetAddressType value again determines the concrete format of the
   InetAddress value while the InetAddressPrefixLength identifies the
   Internet network address prefix.