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Re: draft-ietf-v6ops-v6inixp-04.txt WGLC



On Mon, 18 Jan 2010, Fred Baker wrote:
This is to initiate a two week working group last call of draft-ietf-v6ops-v6inixp-04.txt.

I agree with earlier comments that S 6 suggestions on MD5, GTSM, IPsec etc. may not be warranted especially in looking glass, route collection or similar scenarios. The suggestions in the latter part of the 2nd paragraph seem to be talking more about IPv6 peering sessions between participants than ones to the IX. I don't think this document needs to discuss the participants' BGP sessions (for exchanging routes to forward production traffic) at all, but if it does, I strongly think it needs to be a separate section.

substantial
-----------

The exchange point addresses are intended for the peering mesh, e.g. from RIPE document: "Many Exchange Point operators require address space for the peering mesh that is independent from any of the address space in use by member networks." (http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-451.html)

The last part of Section 3 describes an IXP operators decision that the addresses need to be globally routed. The latter part discusses globally routed services by the ISP. The IXP prefix is not meant for that, and it is not generally accepted in DFZ routing. For globally routable address space, other addresses should be obtained. The last sentence in S 3 mentions it briefly but this should be clearer.

I suggest the following rewording:

======
   IPv6 prefixes for IXP LANs are typically publicly well known and
   taken from dedicated IPv6 blocks for IXP assignments reserved for
   this purpose by the different RIRs. These blocks are usually
   only meant for addressing the exchange fabric, and may be filtered
   out by DFZ (Default Free Zone) operators. When considering the
   routing of the IXP LANs two options are identified:

   o  IXPs may decide that LANs should not to be globally routed in
      order to limit the possible origins of a Denial of Service (DoS)
      attack to its participants' AS boundaries.  In this configuration
      participants may route these prefixes inside their networks (e. g.
      using BGP no-export communities or routing the IXP LANs within the
      participants' IGP) to perform fault management.  Using this
      configuration, the monitoring of the IXP LANs from outside of its
      participants' AS boundaries is not possible.

   o  IXP may decide that LANs should (attempt to be) be globally
      routed.  In this case, IXP LANs monitoring from outside its
      participants' AS boundaries may be possible but the IXP LANs
      will be vulnerable to DoS from outside of those boundaries.

   Additionally, possible IXP external services (such as dns, web
   pages, ftp servers) need to be globally routed. These should be
   addressed from separate address blocks, either from upstream
   providers' address space, or separate independent assignments.
   Strict prefix length filtering could be a reason for requesting
   more than one /48 assignment from a RIR (i.e. requesting one /48
   assignment for the IXPs LANs that may not be globally routed and a
   different, non-IXP /48 assignment for the IXP external services
   that will be globally routed).
==============

semi-editorial/substantial
--------------------------

   2.  independent LAN: an exclusive IPv6 LAN is created for IPv6
       traffic.  If IXP participants are already using Virtual LAN
       (VLAN) tagging on the interfaces of their routers that are facing
       the IXP switch, this only requires passing one additional VLAN
       tag across the interconnection.  If participants are using
       untagged interconnections with the IXP switch and wish to
       continue doing so, they will need to provision a separate
       physical port to access the IPv6-specific LAN.

.. the last sentence assumes untagged VLAN which is not given. From textual perspective, "If participants are using.." is confusing. This is the design decision of the IXP _operator_, not the (individual) participants. Example rewording:

   2.  independent LAN: an exclusive IPv6 LAN is created for IPv6
       traffic.  If IXP already uses Virtual LAN (VLAN) tagging,
       participants are only required to passing one additional VLAN
       tag across the interconnection.  If IXP does not use VLAN
       tagging, VLAN tagging needs to be established.  Previous use
       may continue untagged as a "native VLAN" or be transitioned to
       a tagged VLAN.

   The "independent LAN" configuration provides a physical separation
   for IPv4 and IPv6 traffic simplifying separate analysis for IPv4 and
   IPv6 traffic.  However, it can be more costly in both capital
   expenses (if new ports are needed) and operational expends.

.. The last sentence is not the whole picture, and should be deleted or rephrased. Additional ports are not necessary, see above. FWIW, typically participants terminate IPv4 and IPv6 LANs at the same device and these are just logical subinterfaces. As such the next sentence also requires rewording as its unnecessarily biased:

   Conversely, the dual-stack implementation allows a quick and capital
   cost-free start-up for IPv6 support in the IXP, allowing the IXP to
   avoid transforming untagged ports into tagged ports.

   The only technical requirement for IPv6 referring link MTUs is that
   they need to be greater than or equal to 1280 octets [RFC2460].
   Common MTU sizes in IXPs are 1500, 4470, or 9216 bytes.

.. is this IP MTU? I do not think 9216 is true in this case. E.g. in Juniper equipment (common in IXP PE routers) the max _Ethernet_ MTU is 9192 bytes (9188 IP MTU). I do not believe there are common router products that even support IP MTU of 9216 bytes (yes, some switches support ethernet mtu of 9216 bytes but that's different). Because eth mtu changes depending on vlan tagging and/or whether you count various ethernet stuff in it, it's best to only discuss IP mtu here.

   The MTU size
   for every LAN in an IXP should be well known by all its
   participants.

.. you could also make this stronger and replace "well known and uniformally adhered to" -- there will be blackholing if everyone is not using the same MTU (esp. issues with jumbo sizes! and if you change vlan tagging, the mtu "calculations" might change unless you're careful!)

7. External and Internal support


   Some external services that need to have IPv6 support are traffic
   graphics, DNS, FTP, Web, Route Server and Looking Glass. [...]

.. I'd maybe add that "In many cases, these are subcontracted or otherwise acquired from exchange participants or third parties." This is the "ISP-side" of IXP business and that should be kept distinct from the IPv6 peering fabric issues.

10. Security Considerations


   This memo includes procedures for monitoring and/or avoiding
   particular ICMPv6 traffic at IXPs' LANs.  It also mentions how to
   limit IPv6 DoS attacks to the IXP switch fabric by not globally
   announce the IXP LANs prefix.


.. Maybe it should be mentioend here that neither the IPv4 ARP filtering, nor the describes IPv6 multicast filtering will prevent Ethernet loops from causing mischief in the LAN.

The latter sentence should be removed or rephrased per above.

nits
----

- p3 reference to SNMP (RFC1157) should be updated as 1157 is Histroci.
- p3 spell out "LAN" when first used

--
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings