Subject: Document Action: 'Design and Application Spaces for 6LoWPANs' to Informational RFC (draft-ietf-6lowpan-usecases-10.txt)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:35:25 -0800

The IESG has approved the following document:
- 'Design and Application Spaces for 6LoWPANs'
  (draft-ietf-6lowpan-usecases-10.txt) as an Informational RFC

This document is the product of the IPv6 over Low power WPAN Working
Group.

The IESG contact persons are Ralph Droms and Jari Arkko.

A URL of this Internet Draft is:
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-6lowpan-usecases/

Technical Summary

  This document investigates potential application scenarios and use
  cases for low-power wireless personal area networks (LoWPANs).  This
  document provides dimensions of design space for LoWPAN
  applications.

Working Group Summary

   This document completed WGLC. 

Document Quality

   This document was well reviewed by the 6lowpan WG.

Personnel

   Geoff Mulligan <[email-masked]> is the document shepherd.
   Ralph Droms <[email-masked]@gmail.com> is the responsible AD.

RFC Editor Note

Change fourth paragraph of Section 4:

OLD:

   While IPsec is mandatory with IPv6 [4], considering the power
   constraints and limited processing capabilities of IEEE802.15.4
   devices, IPsec is computationally expensive; Internet key exchange
   (IKEv2) messaging described in [5] is not suited for LoWPANs as the
   amount of signaling in these networks should be minimized.  Thus,
   LoWPANs may need to define their own keying management method that
   requires minimum overhead in terms of packet size and message
   exchange [12].  IPsec provides authentication and confidentiality
   between end nodes and across multiple LoWPAN links, and may be useful
   only when two nodes want to apply security to all exchanged messages.
   However, in many cases, the security may be requested at the
   application layer as needed, while other messages can flow in the
   network without security overhead.

NEW:

   While IPsec is mandatory with IPv6 [4], considering the power
   constraints and limited processing capabilities of IEEE802.15.4
   devices, IPsec is computationally expensive; Internet key exchange
   (IKEv2) messaging described in [5] is not suited for LoWPANs as the
   amount of signaling in these networks should be minimized.  Thus,
   LoWPANs may need to define their own keying management method that
   requires minimum overhead in terms of packet size and message
   exchange [12].  IPsec provides authentication and confidentiality
   between end nodes and across multiple LoWPAN links, and may be
   useful only when two nodes want to apply security to all exchanged
   messages.  However, in many cases, the security may be requested at
   the application layer as needed, while other messages can flow in
   the network without security overhead.  Recent work [13] shows some
   promise for minimal IKEv2 implementations.

Add to Section 7.2:

   [13] T. Kivinen, "Minimal IKEv2",
        kivinen-ipsecme-ikev2-minimal-00.txt, work-in-progress,
        February 2011.