Subject: Protocol Action: 'Implications of Oversized IPv6 Header Chains' to Proposed Standard (draft-ietf-6man-oversized-header-chain-09.txt)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2013 10:23:32 -0800

The IESG has approved the following document:
- 'Implications of Oversized IPv6 Header Chains'
  (draft-ietf-6man-oversized-header-chain-09.txt) as Proposed Standard

This document is the product of the IPv6 Maintenance Working Group.

The IESG contact persons are Brian Haberman and Ted Lemon.

A URL of this Internet Draft is:
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-6man-oversized-header-chain/

Technical Summary:

  The IPv6 specification allows IPv6 header chains of an arbitrary
  size.  The specification also allows options which can in turn extend
  each of the headers.  In those scenarios in which the IPv6 header
  chain or options are unusually long and packets are fragmented, or
  scenarios in which the fragment size is very small, the first
  fragment of a packet may fail to include the entire IPv6 header
  chain.  This document discusses the interoperability and security
  problems of such traffic, and updates RFC 2460 such that the first
  fragment of a packet is required to contain the entire IPv6 header
  chain.

Working Group Summary:

This document is the product of the IPv6 WG. It has undergone
significant revision over eight versions. The final version reflects
strong WG consensus.

Document Quality:

In the 6man working group, the chairs do a detailed review
and also ask one or two volunteers (or hand picked experts) to
do a thorough review of documents before the are being
advanced to the IESG.

Brian Carpenter performed a detailed review of the final version. Ran
Atkinson and others have reviewed recent versions.

Implementations: Several devices that implement stateless firewalls
already discard packets when the entire header chain is not included
in the first fragment.

Personnel:

Ole Troan is the document Shepherd. Brian Haberman is the Area Director.