





Network Working Group                                       C. Partridge
Request for Comments: 1726                  BBN Systems and Technologies
Category: Informational                                    F. Kastenholz
                                                            FTP Software
                                                           December 1994

                    Technical Criteria for Choosing
                     IP The Next Generation (IPng)

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  This memo
   does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of
   this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   This document was submitted to the IPng Area in response to RFC 1550.
   Publication of this document does not imply acceptance by the IPng
   Area of any ideas expressed within.  Comments should be submitted to
   the big-internet@munnari.oz.au mailing list.  This RFC specifies
   criteria related to mobility for consideration in design and
   selection of the Next Generation of IP.

Table of Contents

  1.        Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
  2.        Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
  3.        Note on Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
  4.        General Principles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
    4.1     Architectural Simplicity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
    4.2     One Protocol to Bind Them All . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
    4.3     Live Long . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
    4.4     Live Long AND Prosper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
    4.5     Co-operative Anarchy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
  5.        Criteria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
    5.1     Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
    5.2     Topological Flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
    5.3     Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
    5.4     Robust Service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
    5.5     Transition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
    5.6     Media Independence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
    5.7     Unreliable Datagram Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
    5.8     Configuration, Administration, and Operation. . . . . . . 16
    5.9     Secure Operation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
    5.10    Unique Naming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
    5.11    Access. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
    5.12    Multicast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20



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    5.13    Extensibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
    5.13.1  Algorithms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
    5.13.2  Headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
    5.13.3  Data Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
    5.13.4  Packets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
    5.14    Network Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
    5.15    Support for Mobility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
    5.16    Control Protocol. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
    5.17    Private Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
  6.        Things We Chose Not to Require. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
    6.1     Fragmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
    6.2     IP Header Checksum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
    6.3     Firewalls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
    6.4     Network Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
    6.5     Accounting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
    6.6     Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
    6.6.1   Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
    6.6.2   Policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
    6.6.3   QOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
    6.6.4   Feedback. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
    6.6.5   Stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
    6.6.6   Multicast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
  7.       References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
  8.        Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
  9.        Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
 10.        Authors' Addresses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

1. Introduction

   This version of this memo was commissioned by the IPng area of the
   IETF in order to define a set of criteria to be used in evaluating
   the protocols being proposed for adoption as the next generation of
   IP.

   The criteria presented here were culled from several sources,
   including "IP Version 7" [1], "IESG Deliberations on Routing and
   Addressing" [2], "Towards the Future Internet Architecture" [3], the
   IPng Requirements BOF held at the Washington D.C. IETF Meeting in
   December of 1992, the IPng Working Group meeting at the Seattle IETF
   meeting in March 1994, the discussions held on the Big-Internet
   mailing list (big-internet@munnari.oz.au, send requests to join to
   big-internet-request@munnari.oz.au), discussions with the IPng Area
   Directors and Directorate, and the mailing lists devoted to the
   individual IPng efforts.

   This document presumes that a new IP-layer protocol is actually
   desired. There is some discussion in the community as to whether we
   can extend the life of IPv4 for a significant amount of time by



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   better engineering of, e.g., routing protocols, or we should develop
   IPng now.  This question is not addressed in this document.

   We would like to gratefully acknowledge the assistance of literally
   hundreds of people who shared their views and insights with us.
   However, this memo is solely the personal opinion of the authors and
   in no way represents, nor should it be construed as representing, the
   opinion of the ISOC, the IAB, the IRTF, the IESG, the IETF, the
   Internet community as a whole, nor the authors' respective employers.

2. Goals

   We believe that by developing a list of criteria for evaluating
   proposals for IP The Next Generation (IPng), the IETF will make it
   easier for developers of proposals to prioritize their work and
   efforts and make reasoned choices as to where they should spend
   relatively more and less time.  Furthermore, a list of criteria may
   help the IETF community determine which proposals are serious
   contenders for a next generation IP, and which proposals are
   insufficient to the task.  Note that these criteria are probably not
   sufficient to make final decisions about which proposal is best.
   Questions such as whether to trade a little performance (e.g.,
   packets per second routed) for slightly more functionality (e.g.,
   more flexible routing) cannot be easily addressed by a simple list of
   criteria.  However, at minimum, we believe that protocols that meet
   these criteria are capable of serving as the future IPng.

   This set of criteria originally began as an ordered list, with the
   goal of ranking the importance of various criteria.  Eventually, the
   layout evolved into the current form, where each criterion was
   presented without weighting, but a time frame, indicating
   approximately when a specific criterion, or feature of a criterion,
   should be available was added to the specification.

   We have attempted to state the criteria in the form of goals or
   requirements and not demand specific engineering solutions.  For
   example, there has been talk in the community of making route
   aggregation a requirement.  We believe that route aggregation is not,
   in and of itself, a requirement but rather one part of a solution to
   the real problem of scaling to some very large, complex topology.
   Therefore, route aggregation is NOT listed as a requirement; instead,
   the more general functional goal of having the routing scale is
   listed instead of the particular mechanism of route aggregation.

   In determining the relative timing of the various criteria, we have
   had two guiding principles.  First, IPng must offer an internetwork
   service akin to that of IPv4, but improved to handle the well-known
   and widely-understood problems of scaling the Internet architecture



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   to more end-points and an ever increasing range of bandwidths.
   Second, it must be desirable for users and network managers to
   upgrade their equipment to support IPng.  At a minimum, this second
   point implies that there must be a straightforward way to transition
   systems from IPv4 to IPng.  But it also strongly suggests that IPng
   should offer features that IPv4 does not; new features provide a
   motivation to deploy IPng more quickly.

3. Note on Terminology

   The existing proposals tend distinguish between end-point
   identification of, e.g., individual hosts, and topological addresses
   of network attachment points.  In this memo we do not make that
   distinction. We use the term "address" as it is currently used in
   IPv4; i.e., for both the identification of a particular endpoint or
   host AND as the topological address of a point on the network. We
   presume that if the endpoint/ address split remains, the proposals
   will make the proper distinctions with respect to the criteria
   enumerated below.

4. General Principles

4.1 Architectural Simplicity

         In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not
         when there is no longer anything to add, but when there
         is no longer anything to take away.

                                          Antoine de Saint-Exupery

   We believe that many communications functions are more appropriately
   performed at protocol layers other than the IP layer.  We see
   protocol stacks as hourglass-shaped, with IPng in the middle, or
   waist, of the hourglass.  As such, essentially all higher-layer
   protocols make use of and rely upon IPng.  Similarly IPng, by virtue
   of its position in the "protocol hourglass" encompasses a wide
   variety of lower-layer protocols.  When IPng does not perform a
   particular function or provide a certain service, it should not get
   in the way of the other elements of the protocol stack which may well
   wish to perform the function.

4.2 One Protocol to Bind Them All

   One of the most important aspects of The Internet is that it provides
   global IP-layer connectivity. The IP layer provides the point of
   commonality among all of the nodes on the Internet. In effect, the
   main goal of the Internet is to provide an IP Connectivity Service to
   all who wish it.



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   This does NOT say that the Internet is a One-Protocol Internet. The
   Internet is today, and shall remain in the future, a Multi-Protocol
   Internet.  Multi-Protocol operations are required to allow for
   continued testing, experimentation, and development and because
   service providers' customers clearly want to be able to run protocols
   such as CLNP, DECNET, and Novell over their Internet connections.

4.3 Live Long

   It is very difficult to change a protocol as central to the workings
   of the Internet as IP. Even more problematic is changing such a
   protocol frequently.  This simply can not be done. We believe that it
   is impossible to expect the community to make significant, non-
   backward compatible changes to the IP layer more often than once
   every 10-15 years. In order to be conservative, we strongly urge
   protocol developers to consider what the Internet will look like in
   20 years and design their protocols to fit that vision.

   As a data point, the SNMP community has had great difficulty moving
   from SNMPv1 to SNMPv2.  Frequent changes in software are hard.

4.4 Live Long AND Prosper

   We believe that simply allowing for bigger addresses and more
   efficient routing is not enough of a benefit to encourage vendors,
   service providers, and users to switch to IPng, with its attendant
   disruptions of service, etc.  These problems can be solved much more
   simply with faster routers, balkanization of the Internet address
   space, and other hacks.

   We believe that there must be positive functional or operational
   benefits to switching to IPng.

   In other words, IPng must be able to live for a long time AND it must
   allow the Internet to prosper and to grow to serve new applications
   and user needs.

4.5 Co-operative Anarchy

   A major contributor to the Internet's success is the fact that there
   is no single, centralized, point of control or promulgator of policy
   for the entire network.  This allows individual constituents of the
   network to tailor their own networks, environments, and policies to
   suit their own needs.  The individual constituents must cooperate
   only to the degree necessary to ensure that they interoperate.






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   We believe that this decentralized and decoupled nature of the
   Internet must be preserved.  Only a minimum amount of centralization
   or forced cooperation will be tolerated by the community as a whole.

   We also believe that there are some tangible benefits to this
   decoupled nature. For example,

   * It is easier to experiment with new protocols and services and then
     roll out intermediate and final results in a controlled fashion.
   * By eliminating a single point of control, a single point of failure
     is also eliminated, making it much less likely that the entire
     network will fail.
   * It allows the administrative tasks for the network to be more
     widely distributed.

   An example of the benefits of this "Cooperative Anarchy" can be seen
   in the benefits derived from using the Domain Naming System over the
   original HOSTS.TXT system.

5. Criteria

   This section enumerates the criteria against which we suggest the IP
   The Next Generation proposals be evaluated.

   Each criterion is presented in its own section. The first paragraph
   of each section is a short, one or two sentence statement of the
   criterion.  Additional paragraphs then explain the criterion in more
   detail, clarify what it does and does not say and provide some
   indication of its relative importance.

   Also, each criterion includes a subsection called "Time Frame".  This
   is intended to give a rough indication of when the authors believe
   that the particular criterion will become "important".  We believe
   that if an element of technology is significant enough to include in
   this document then we probably understand the technology enough to
   predict how important that technology will be.  In general, these
   time frames indicate that, within the desired time frame, we should
   be able to get an understanding of how the feature will be added to a
   protocol, perhaps after discussions with the engineers doing the
   development.  Time Frame is not a deployment schedule since
   deployment schedules depend on non-technical issues, such as vendors
   determining whether a market exists, users fitting new releases into
   their systems, and so on.








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5.1 Scale

   CRITERION
      The IPng Protocol must scale to allow the identification and
      addressing of at least 10**12 end systems (and preferably much
      more).  The IPng Protocol, and its associated routing protocols
      and architecture must allow for at least 10**9 individual networks
      (and preferably more).  The routing schemes must scale at a rate
      that is less than the square root of the number of constituent
      networks [10].

   DISCUSSION
      The initial, motivating, purpose of the IPng effort is to allow
      the Internet to grow beyond the size constraints imposed by the
      current IPv4 addressing and routing technologies.

      Both aspects of scaling are important.  If we can't route then
      connecting all these hosts is worthless, but without connected
      hosts, there's no point in routing, so we must scale in both
      directions.

      In any proposal, particular attention must be paid to describing
      the routing hierarchy, how the routing and addressing will be
      organized, how different layers of the routing interact, and the
      relationship between addressing and routing.

      Particular attention must be paid to describing what happens when
      the size of the network approaches these limits. How are network,
      forwarding, and routing performance affected? Does performance
      fall off or does the network simply stop as the limit is neared.

      This criterion is the essential problem motivating the transition
      to IPng.  If the proposed protocol does not satisfy this criteria,
      there is no point in considering it.

      We note that one of the white papers solicited for the IPng
      process [5] indicates that 10**12 end nodes is a reasonable
      estimate based on the expected number of homes in the world and
      adding two orders of magnitude for "safety".  However, this white
      paper treats each home in the world as an end-node of a world-wide
      Internet.  We believe that each home in the world will in fact be
      a network of the world-wide Internet.  Therefore, if we take [5]'s
      derivation of 10**12 as accurate, and change their assumption that
      a home will be an end-node to a home being a network, we may
      expect that there will be the need to support at least 10**12
      networks, with the possibility of supporting up to 10**15 end-
      nodes.




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   Time Frame
      Any IPng proposal should be able to show immediately that it has
      an architecture for the needed routing protocols, addressing
      schemes, abstraction techniques, algorithms, data structures, and
      so on that can support growth to the required scales.

      Actual development, specification, and deployment of the needed
      protocols can be deferred until IPng deployment has extended far
      enough to require such protocols.  A proposed IPng should be able
      to demonstrate ahead of time that it can scale as needed.

5.2 Topological Flexibility

   CRITERION
      The routing architecture and protocols of IPng must allow for many
      different network topologies.  The routing architecture and
      protocols must not assume that the network's physical structure is
      a tree.

   DISCUSSION
      As the Internet becomes ever more global and ubiquitous, it will
      develop new and different topologies. We already see cases where
      the network hierarchy is very "broad" with many subnetworks, each
      with only a few hosts and where it is very "narrow", with few
      subnetworks each with many hosts.  We can expect these and other
      topological forms in the future.  Furthermore, since we expect
      that IPng will allow for many more levels of hierarchy than are
      allowed under IPv4, we can expect very "tall" and very "short"
      topologies as well.

      Constituent organizations of the Internet should be allowed to
      structure their internal topologies in any manner they see fit.
      Within reasonable implementation limits, organizations should be
      allowed to structure their addressing in any manner.  We
      specifically wish to point out that if the network's topology or
      addressing is hierarchical, constituent organizations should be
      able to allocate to themselves as many levels of hierarchy as they
      wish.

      It is very possible that the diameter of the Internet will grow to
      be extremely large; perhaps larger than 256 hops.

      Neither the current, nor the future, Internet will be physically
      structured as a tree, nor can we assume that connectivity can
      occur only between certain points in the graph.  The routing and
      addressing architectures must allow for multiply connected
      networks and be able to utilize multiple paths for any reason,
      including redundancy, load sharing, type- and quality-of-service



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      differentiation.

   Time Frame
      We believe that Topological Flexibility is an inherent element of
      a protocol and therefore should be immediately demonstrable in an
      IPng proposal.

5.3 Performance

   CRITERION
      A state of the art, commercial grade router must be able to
      process and forward IPng traffic at speeds capable of fully
      utilizing common, commercially available, high-speed media at the
      time.  Furthermore, at a minimum, a host must be able to achieve
      data transfer rates with IPng comparable to the rates achieved
      with IPv4, using similar levels of host resources.

   DISCUSSION
      Network media speeds are constantly increasing.  It is essential
      that the Internet's switching elements (routers) be able to keep
      up with the media speeds.

      We limit this requirement to commercially available routers and
      media.  If some network site can obtain a particular media
      technology "off the shelf", then it should also be able to obtain
      the needed routing technology "off the shelf." One can always go
      into some laboratory or research center and find newer, faster,
      technologies for network media and for routing.  We do believe,
      however, that IPng should be routable at a speed sufficient to
      fully utilize the fastest available media, though that might
      require specially built, custom, devices.

      We expect that more and more services will be available over the
      Internet. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to expect that the
      ratio of "local" traffic (i.e., the traffic that stays on one's
      local network) to "export" traffic (i.e., traffic destined to or
      sourced from a network other than one's own local network) will
      change, and the percent of export traffic will increase.

      We note that the host performance requirement should not be taken
      to imply that IPng need only be as good as IPv4.  If an IPng
      candidate can achieve better performance with equivalent resources
      (or equivalent transfer rates with fewer resources) vis-a-vis IPv4
      then so much the better.  We also observe that many researchers
      believe that a proper IPng router should be capable of routing
      IPng traffic over links at speeds that are capable of fully
      utilizing an ATM switch on the link.




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      Some developments indicate that the use of very high speed point-
      to-point connections may become commonplace.  In particular, [5]
      indicates that OC-3 speeds may be widely used in the Cable TV
      Industry and there may be many OC-3 speed lines connecting to
      central switching elements.

      Processing of the IPng header, and subsequent headers (such as the
      transport header), can be made more efficient by aligning fields
      on their natural boundaries and making header lengths integral
      multiples of typical word lengths (32, 64, and 128 bits have been
      suggested) in order to preserve alignment in following headers.

      We point out that optimizing the header's fields and lengths only
      to today's processors may not be sufficient for the long term.
      Processor word and cache-line lengths, and memory widths are
      constantly increasing.  In doing header optimizations, the
      designer should predict word-widths one or two CPU generations
      into the future and optimize accordingly. If IPv4 and TCP had been
      optimized for processors common when they were designed, they
      would be very efficient for 6502s and Z-80s.

   Time Frame
      An IPng proposal must provide a plausible argument of how it will
      scale up in performance.  (Obviously no one can completely predict
      the future, but the idea is to illustrate that if technology
      trends in processor performance and memory performance continue,
      and perhaps using techniques like parallelism, there is reason to
      believe the proposed IPng will scale as technology scales).

5.4 Robust Service

   CRITERION
      The network service and its associated routing and control
      protocols must be robust.

   DISCUSSION
      Murphy's Law applies to networking.  Any proposed IPng protocol
      must be well-behaved in the face of malformed packets, mis-
      information, and occasional failures of links, routers and hosts.
      IPng should perform gracefully in response to willful management
      and configuration mistakes (i.e., service outages should be
      minimized).

      Putting this requirement another way, IPng must make it possible
      to continue the Internet tradition of being conservative in what
      is sent, but liberal in what one is willing to receive.





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      We note that IPv4 is reasonably robust and any proposed IPng must
      be at least as robust as IPv4.

      Hostile attacks on the network layer and Byzantine failure modes
      must be dealt with in a safe and graceful manner.

      We note that Robust Service is, in some form, a part of security
      and vice-versa.

      The detrimental effects of failures, errors, buggy
      implementations, and misconfigurations must be localized as much
      as possible.  For example, misconfiguring a workstation's IP
      Address should not break the routing protocols.  in the event of
      misconfigurations, IPng must to be able to detect and at least
      warn, if not work around, any misconfigurations.

      Due to its size, complexity, decentralized administration, error-
      prone users and administrators, and so on, The Internet is a very
      hostile environment. If a protocol can not be used in such a
      hostile environment then it is not suitable for use in the
      Internet.

      Some predictions have been made that, as the Internet grows and as
      more and more technically less-sophisticated sites get connected,
      there will be more failures in the network.  These failures may be
      a combination of simple size; if the size of the network goes up
      by a factor of n, then the total number of failures in the network
      can be expected to increase by some function of n.  Also, as the
      network's users become less sophisticated, it can be assumed that
      they will make more, innocent and well meaning, mistakes, either
      in configuration or use of their systems.

      The IPng protocols should be able to continue operating in an
      environment that suffers more, total, outages than we are
      currently used to.  Similarly, the protocols must protect the
      general population from errors (either of omission or commission)
      made by individual users and sites.

   Time Frame
      We believe that the elements of Robust Service should be available
      immediately in the protocol with two exceptions.

      The security aspects of Robust Service are, in fact, described
      elsewhere in this document.







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RFC 1726                IPng Technical Criteria            December 1994


      Protection against Byzantine failure modes is not needed
      immediately.  A proposed architecture for it should be done
      immediately.  Prototype development should be completed in 12-18
      months, with final deployment as needed.

5.5 Transition

   CRITERION
      The protocol must have a straightforward transition plan from the
      current IPv4.

   DISCUSSION
      A smooth, orderly, transition from IPv4 to IPng is needed.  If we
      can't transition to the new protocol, then no matter how wonderful
      it is, we'll never get to it.

      We believe that it is not possible to have a "flag-day" form of
      transition in which all hosts and routers must change over at
      once. The size, complexity, and distributed administration of the
      Internet make such a cutover impossible.

      Rather, IPng will need to co-exist with IPv4 for some period of
      time.  There are a number of ways to achieve this co-existence
      such as requiring hosts to support two stacks, converting between
      protocols, or using backward compatible extensions to IPv4.  Each
      scheme has its strengths and weaknesses, which have to be weighed.

      Furthermore, we note that, in all probability, there will be IPv4
      hosts on the Internet effectively forever.  IPng must provide
      mechanisms to allow these hosts to communicate, even after IPng
      has become the dominant network layer protocol in the Internet.

      The absence of a rational and well-defined transition plan is not
      acceptable.  Indeed, the difficulty of running a network that is
      transitioning from IPv4 to IPng must be minimized.  (A good target
      is that running a mixed IPv4-IPng network should be no more and
      preferably less difficult than running IPv4 in parallel with
      existing non-IP protocols).

      Furthermore, a network in transition must still be robust.  IPng
      schemes which maximize stability and connectivity in mixed IPv4-
      IPng networks are preferred.

      Finally, IPng is expected to evolve over time and therefore, it
      must be possible to have multiple versions of IPng, some in
      production use, some in experimental, developmental, or evaluation
      use, to coexist on the network.  Transition plans must address
      this issue.



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      The transition plan must address the following general areas of
      the Internet's infrastructure:

         Host Protocols and Software
         Router Protocols and Software
         Security and Authentication
         Domain Name System
         Network Management
         Operations Tools (e.g., Ping and Traceroute)
         Operations and Administration procedures

      The impact on protocols which use IP addresses as data (e.g., DNS,
      distributed file systems, SNMP and FTP) must be specifically
      addressed.

      The transition plan should address the issue of cost distribution.
      That is, it should identify what tasks are required of the service
      providers, of the end users, of the backbones and so on.

   Time Frame
      A transition plan is required immediately.

5.6 Media Independence

   CRITERION
      The protocol must work across an internetwork of many different
      LAN, MAN, and WAN media, with individual link speeds ranging from
      a ones-of-bits per second to hundreds of gigabits per second.
      Multiple-access and point-to-point media must be supported, as
      must media supporting both switched and permanent circuits.

   DISCUSSION
      The joy of IP is that it works over just about anything.  This
      generality must be preserved.  The ease of adding new
      technologies, and ability to continue operating with old
      technologies must be maintained.

      We believe this range of speed is right for the next twenty years,
      though we may wish to require terabit performance at the high-end.
      We believe that, at a minimum, media running at 500 gigabits per
      second will be commonly available within 10 years.  The low end of
      the link-speed range is based on the speed of systems like pagers
      and ELF (ELF connects to submerged submarines and has a "speed" on
      the order of <10 characters per second).

      By switched circuits we mean both "permanent" connections such as
      X.25 and Frame Relay services AND "temporary" types of dialup
      connections similar to today's SLIP and dialup PPP services, and



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RFC 1726                IPng Technical Criteria            December 1994


      perhaps, ATM SVCs.  The latter form of connection implies that
      dynamic network access (i.e., the ability to unplug a machine,
      move it to a different point on the network topology, and plug it
      back in, possibly with a changed IPng address) is required. We
      note that this is an aspect of mobility.

      By work, we mean we have hopes that a stream of IPng datagrams
      (whether from one source, or many) can come close to filling the
      link at high speeds, but also scales gracefully to low speeds.

      Many network media are multi-protocol.  It is essential that IPng
      be able to peacefully co-exist on such media with other protocols.
      Routers and hosts must be able to discriminate among the protocols
      that might be present on such a medium.  For example, on an
      Ethernet, a specific, IPng Ethernet Type value might be called
      for; or the old IPv4 Ethernet type is used and the first four
      (version number in the old IPv4 header) bits would distinguish
      between IPv4 and IPng.

      Different media have different MAC address formats and schemes.
      It must be possible for a node to dynamically determine the MAC
      address of a node given that node's IP address.  We explicitly
      prohibit using static, manually configured mappings as the
      standard approach.

      Another aspect of this criterion is that many different MTUs will
      be found in an IPng internetwork.  An IPng must be able to operate
      in such a multi-MTU environment.  It must be able to adapt to the
      MTUs of the physical media over which it operates.  Two possible
      techniques for dealing with this are path MTU discovery and
      fragmentation and reassembly; other techniques might certainly be
      developed.

      We note that, as of this writing (mid 1994), ATM seems to be set
      to become a major network media technology.  Any IPng should be
      designed to operate over ATM.  However, IPng still must be able to
      operate over other, more "traditional" network media.
      Furthermore, a host on an ATM network must be able to interoperate
      with a host on another, non-ATM, medium, with no more difficulty
      or complexity than hosts on different media can interoperate today
      using IPv4.

      IPng must be able to deal both with "dumb" media, such as we have
      today, and newer, more intelligent, media.  In particular, IPng
      functions must be able to exist harmoniously with lower-layer
      realizations of the same, or similar, functions. Routing and
      resource management are two areas where designers should pay
      particular attention.  Some subnetwork technologies may include



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      integral accounting and billing capabilities, and IPng must
      provide the correct control information to such subnetworks.

   Time Frame
      Specifications for current media encapsulations (i.e., all
      encapsulations that are currently Proposed standards, or higher,
      in the IETF) are required immediately.  These specifications must
      include any auxiliary protocols needed (such as an address
      resolution mechanism for Ethernet or the link control protocol for
      PPP).  A general 'guide' should also be available immediately to
      help others develop additional media encapsulations.  Other,
      newer, encapsulations can be developed as the need becomes
      apparent.

      Van Jacobson-like header compression should be shown immediately,
      as should any other aspects of very-low-speed media.  Similarly,
      any specific aspects of high-speed media should be shown
      immediately.

5.7 Unreliable Datagram Service

   CRITERION
      The protocol must support an unreliable datagram delivery service.

   DISCUSSION
      We like IP's datagram service and it seems to work very well.  So
      we must keep it.  In particular, the ability, within IPv4, to send
      an independent datagram, without prearrangement, is extremely
      valuable (in fact, may be required for some applications such as
      SNMP) and must be retained.

      Furthermore, the design principle that says that we can take any
      datagram and throw it away with no warning or other action, or
      take any router and turn it off with no warning, and have datagram
      traffic still work, is very powerful.  This vastly enhances the
      robustness of the network and vastly eases administration and
      maintenance of the network.  It also vastly simplifies the design
      and implementation of software [14].

      Furthermore, the Unreliable Datagram Service should support some
      minimal level of service; something that is approximately
      equivalent to IPv4 service.  This has two functions; it eases the
      task of IPv4/IPng translating systems in mapping IPv4 traffic to
      IPng and vice versa, and it simplifies the task of fitting IPng
      into small, limited environments such as boot ROMs.

   Time Frame
      Unreliable Datagram Service must be available immediately.



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5.8 Configuration, Administration, and Operation

   CRITERION
      The protocol must permit easy and largely distributed
      configuration and operation. Automatic configuration of hosts and
      routers is required.

   DISCUSSION
      People complain that IP is hard to manage.  We cannot plug and
      play.  We must fix that problem.

      We do note that fully automated configuration, especially for
      large, complex networks, is still a topic of research.  Our
      concern is mostly for small and medium sized, less complex,
      networks; places where the essential knowledge and skills would
      not be as readily available.

      In dealing with this criterion, address assignment and delegation
      procedures and restrictions should be addressed by the proposal.
      Furthermore, "ownership" of addresses (e.g., user or service
      provider) has recently become a concern and the issue should be
      addressed.

      We require that a node be able to dynamically obtain all of its
      operational, IP-level parameters at boot time via a dynamic
      configuration mechanism.

      A host must be able to dynamically discover routers on the host's
      local network.  Ideally, the information which a host learns via
      this mechanism would also allow the host to make a rational
      selection of which first-hop router to send any given packet to.
      IPng must not mandate that users or administrators manually
      configure first-hop routers into hosts.

      Also, a strength of IPv4 has been its ability to be used on
      isolated subnets.  IPng hosts must be able to work on networks
      without routers present.

      Additional elements of this criterion are:

      * Ease of address allocation.
      * Ease of changing the topology of the network within a particular
        routing domain.
      * Ease of changing network provider.
      * Ease of (re)configuring host/endpoint parameters such as
        addressing and identification.
      * Ease of (re)configuring router parameters such as addressing and
        identification.



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      * Address allocation and assignment authority must be delegated as
        far 'down' the administrative hierarchy as possible.

      The requirements of this section apply only to IPng and its
      supporting protocols (such as for routing, address resolution, and
      network-layer control).  Specifically, as far as IPng is
      concerned, we are concerned only with how routers and hosts get
      their configuration information.

      We note that in general, automatic configuration of hosts is a
      large and complex problem and getting the configuration
      information into hosts and routers is only one, small, piece of
      the problem.  A large amount of additional, non-Internet-layer
      work is needed in order to be able to do "plug-and-play"
      networking.  Other aspects of "plug-and-play" networking include
      things like: Autoregistration of new nodes with DNS, configuring
      security service systems (e.g., Kerberos), setting up email relays
      and mail servers, locating network resources, adding entries to
      NFS export files, and so on.  To a large degree, these
      capabilities do not have any dependence on the IPng protocol
      (other than, perhaps, the format of addresses).

      We require that any IPng proposal not impede or prevent, in any
      way, the development of "plug-and-play" network configuration
      technologies.

      Automatic configuration of network nodes must not prevent users or
      administrators from also being able to manually configure their
      systems.

   Time Frame
      A method for plug and play on small subnets is immediately
      required.

      We believe that this is an extremely critical area for any IPng as
      a major complaint of the IP community as a whole is the difficulty
      in administering large IP networks.  Furthermore, ease of
      installation is likely to speed the deployment of IPng.

5.9 Secure Operation

   CRITERION
      IPng must provide a secure network layer.

   DISCUSSION
      We need to be sure that we have not created a network that is a
      cracker's playground.




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      In order to meet the Robustness criterion, some elements of what
      is commonly shrugged off as "security" are needed; e.g., to prevent
      a villain from injecting bogus routing packets, and destroying the
      routing system within the network.  This criterion covers those
      aspects of security that are not needed to provide the Robustness
      criterion.

      Another aspect of security is non-repudiation of origin.  In order
      to adequately support the expected need for simple accounting, we
      believe that this is a necessary feature.

      In order to safely support requirements of the commercial world,
      IPng-level security must have capabilities to prevent
      eavesdroppers from monitoring traffic and deducing traffic
      patterns.  This is particularly important in multi-access networks
      such as cable TV networks [5].

      Aspects of security at the IP level to be considered include:

      * Denial of service protections [6],
      * Continuity of operations [6],
      * Precedence and preemption [6],
      * Ability to allow rule-based access control technologies [6]
      * Protection of routing and control-protocol operations [9],
      * Authentication of routing information exchanges, packets, data,
        and sources (e.g., make sure that the routing packet came from a
        router) [9],
      * QOS security (i.e., protection against improper use of network-
        layer resources, functions, and capabilities),
      * Auto-configuration protocol operations in that the host must be
        assured that it is getting its information from proper sources,
      * Traffic pattern confidentiality is strongly desired by several
        communities [9] and [5].

   Time Frame
      Security should be an integral component of any IPng from the
      beginning.

5.10 Unique Naming

   CRITERION
      IPng must assign all IP-Layer objects in the global, ubiquitous,
      Internet unique names.  These names may or may not have any
      location, topology, or routing significance.

   DISCUSSION
      We use the term "Name" in this criterion synonymously with the
      term "End Point Identifier" as used in the NIMROD proposal, or as



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      IP Addresses uniquely identify interfaces/hosts in IPv4.  These
      names may or may not carry any routing or topology information.
      See [11] for more discussion on this topic.

      IPng must provide identifiers which are suitable for use as
      globally unique, unambiguous, and ubiquitous names for endpoints,
      nodes, interfaces, and the like.  Every datagram must carry the
      identifier of both its source and its destination (or some method
      must be available to determine these identifiers, given a
      datagram).  We believe that this is required in order to support
      certain accounting functions.

      Other functions and uses of unique names are:

      * To uniquely identify endpoints (thus if the unique name and
        address are not the same, the TCP pseudo-header should include
        the unique name rather than the address)
      * To allow endpoints to change topological location on the network
        (e.g., migrate) without changing their unique names.
      * To give one or more unique names to a node on the network (i.e.,
        one node may have multiple unique names)

      An identifier must refer to one and only one object while that
      object is in existence.  Furthermore, after an object ceases to
      exist, the identifier should be kept unused long enough to ensure
      that any packets containing the identifier have drained out of the
      Internet system, and that other references to the identifier have
      probably been lost.  We note that the term "existence" is as much
      an administrative issue as a technical one.  For example, if a
      workstation is reassigned, given a new IP address and node name,
      and attached to a new subnetwork, is it the same object or not.
      This does argue for a namespace that is relatively large and
      relatively stable.

   Time Frame
      We see this as a fundamental element of the IP layer and it should
      be in the protocol from the beginning.

5.11 Access

   CRITERION
      The protocols that define IPng, its associated protocols (similar
      to ARP and ICMP in IPv4) and the routing protocols (as in OSPF,
      BGP, and RIP for IPv4) must be published as standards track RFCs
      and must satisfy the requirements specified in RFC1310.  These
      documents should be as freely available and redistributable as the
      IPv4 and related RFCs.  There must be no specification-related
      licensing fees for implementing or selling IPng software.



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   DISCUSSION
      An essential aspect of the development of the Internet and its
      protocols has been the fact that the protocol specifications are
      freely available to anyone who wishes a copy.  Beyond simply
      minimizing the cost of learning about the technology, the free
      access to specifications has made it easy for researchers and
      developers to easily incorporate portions of old protocol
      specifications in the revised specifications.  This type of easy
      access to the standards documents is required for IPng.

   Time Frame
      An IPng and its related protocols must meet these standards for
      openness before an IPng can be approved.

5.12 Multicast

   CRITERION
      The protocol must support both unicast and multicast packet
      transmission.  Part of the multicast capability is a requirement
      to be able to send to "all IP hosts on a given subnetwork".
      Dynamic and automatic routing of multicasts is also required.

   DISCUSSION
      IPv4 has made heavy use of the ability to multicast requests to
      all IPv4 hosts on a subnet, especially for autoconfiguration.
      This ability must be retained in IPng.

      Unfortunately, IPv4 currently uses the local media broadcast
      address to multicast to all IP hosts.  This behavior is anti-
      social in mixed-protocol networks and should be fixed in IPng.
      There's no good reason for IPng to send to all hosts on a subnet
      when it only wishes to send to all IPng hosts.  The protocol must
      make allowances for media that do not support true multicasting.

      In the past few years, we have begun to deploy support for wide-
      area multicast addressing in the Internet, and it has proved
      valuable.  This capability must not be lost in the transition to
      IPng.

      The ability to restrict the range of a multicast to specific
      networks is also important.  Furthermore, it must be possible to
      "selectively" multicast packets. That is, it must be possible to
      send a multicast to a remote, specific portion or area of the
      Internet (such as a specific network or subnetwork) and then have
      that multicast limited to just that specific area.  Furthermore,
      any given network or subnetwork should be capable of supporting
      2**16 "local" multicast groups, i.e., groups that are not
      propagated to other networks.  See [8].



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RFC 1726                IPng Technical Criteria            December 1994


      It should be noted that addressing -- specifically the syntax and
      semantics of addresses -- has a great impact on the scalability of
      the architecture.

      Currently, large-scale multicasts are routed manually through the
      Internet.  While this is fine for experiments, a "production"
      system requires that multicast-routing be dynamic and automatic.
      Multicast groups must be able to be created and destroyed, hosts
      must be able to join and leave multicast groups and the network
      routing infrastructure must be able to locate new multicast groups
      and destinations and route traffic to those destinations all
      without manual intervention.

      Large, topologically dispersed, multicast groups (with up to 10**6
      participants) must be supported.  Some applications are given in
      [8].

   Time Frame
      Obviously, address formats, algorithms for processing and
      interpreting the multicast addresses must be immediately available
      in IPng.  Broadcast and Multicast transmission/reception of
      packets are required immediately.  Dynamic routing of multicast
      packets must be available within 18 months.

      We believe that Multicast Addressing is vital to support future
      applications such as remote conferencing.  It is also used quite
      heavily in the current Internet for things like service location
      and routing.

5.13 Extensibility

   CRITERION
      The protocol must be extensible; it must be able to evolve to meet
      the future service needs of the Internet. This evolution must be
      achievable without requiring network-wide software upgrades.  IPng
      is expected to evolve over time. As it evolves, it must be able to
      allow different versions to coexist on the same network.

   DISCUSSION
      We do not today know all of the things that we will want the
      Internet to be able to do 10 years from now.  At the same time, it
      is not reasonable to ask users to transition to a new protocol
      with each passing decade.  Thus, we believe that it must be
      possible to extend IPng to support new services and facilities.
      Furthermore, it is essential that any extensions can be
      incrementally deployed to only those systems which desire to use
      them. Systems upgraded in this fashion must still be able to
      communicate with systems which have not been so upgraded.



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      There are several aspects to extensibility:

   5.13.1 Algorithms
         The algorithms used in processing IPng information should be
         decoupled from the protocol itself.  It should be possible to
         change these algorithms without necessarily requiring protocol,
         datastructure, or header changes.

   5.13.2 Headers
         The content of packet headers should be extensible.  As more
         features and functions are required of IPng, it may be
         necessary to add more information to the IPng headers.  We note
         that for IPv4, the use of options has proven less than entirely
         satisfactory since options have tended to be inefficient to
         process.

   5.13.3 Data Structures
         The fundamental data structures of IPng should not be bound
         with the other elements of the protocol.  E.g., things like
         address formats should not be intimately tied with the routing
         and forwarding algorithms in the way that the IPv4 address
         class mechanism was tied to IPv4 routing and forwarding.

   5.13.4 Packets
         It should be possible to add additional packet-types to IPng.
         These could be for, _e._g., new control and/or monitoring
         operations.

      We note that, everything else being equal, having larger,
      oversized, number spaces is preferable to having number spaces
      that are "just large enough".  Larger spaces afford more
      flexibility on the part of network designers and operators and
      allow for further experimentation on the part of the scientists,
      engineers, and developers.  See [7].

   Time Frame
      A framework showing mechanisms for extending the protocol must be
      provided immediately.

5.14 Network Service

   CRITERION
      The protocol must allow the network (routers, intelligent media,
      hosts, and so on) to associate packets with particular service
      classes and provide them with the services specified by those
      classes.





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   DISCUSSION
      For many reasons, such as accounting, security and multimedia, it
      is desirable to treat different packets differently in the
      network.

      For example, multimedia is now on our desktop and will be an
      essential part of future networking.  So we have to find ways to
      support it; and a failure to support it may mean users choose to
      use protocols other than IPng.

      The IETF multicasts have shown that we can currently support
      multimedia over internetworks with some hitches.  If the network
      can be guaranteed to provide the necessary service levels for this
      traffic, we will dramatically increase its success.

      This criterion includes features such as policy-based routing,
      flows, resource reservation, network service technologies, type-
      of-service and quality-of-service and so on.

      In order to properly support commercial provision and use of
      Internetwork service, and account for the use of these services
      (i.e., support the economic principle of "value paid for value
      received") it must be possible to obtain guarantees of service
      levels.  Similarly, if the network can not support a previously
      guaranteed service level, it must report this to those to whom it
      guaranteed the service.

      Network service provisions must be secure.  The network-layer
      security must generally prevent one host from surreptitiously
      obtaining or disrupting the use of resources which another host
      has validly acquired.  (Some security failures are acceptable, but
      the failure rate must be very low and the rate should be
      quantifiable).

      One of the parameters of network service that may be requested
      must be cost-based.

      As far as possible, given the limitations of underlying media and
      IP's model of a robust internet datagram service, real-time,
      mission-critical applications must be supported by IPng [6].

      Users must be able to confirm that they are, in fact, getting the
      services that they have requested.

   Time Frame
      This should be available within 24 months.





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RFC 1726                IPng Technical Criteria            December 1994


5.15 Support for Mobility

   CRITERION
      The protocol must support mobile hosts, networks and
      internetworks.

   DISCUSSION
      Again, mobility is becoming increasingly important.  Look at the
      portables that everyone is carrying.  Note the strength of the
      Apple commercial showing someone automatically connecting up her
      Powerbook to her computer back in the office.  There have been a
      number of pilot projects showing ways to support mobility in IPv4.
      All have some drawbacks.  But like network service grades, if we
      can support mobility, IPng will have features that will encourage
      transition.

      We use an encompassing definition of "mobility" here.  Mobility
      typically means one of two things to people: 1) Hosts that
      physically move and remain connected (via some wireless datalink)
      with sessions and transport-layer connections remaining 'open' or
      'active' and 2) Disconnecting a host from one spot in the network,
      connecting it back in another arbitrary spot and continuing to
      work.  Both forms are required.

      Reference [6] discusses possible future use of IP-based networks
      in the US Navy's ships, planes, and shore installations.  Their
      basic model is that each ship, plane and shore installation
      represents at least one IP network.  The ship- and plane-based
      networks, obviously, are mobile as these craft move around the
      world. Furthermore, most, if not all, Naval surface combatants
      carry some aircraft (at a minimum, a helicopter or two). So, not
      only must there be mobile networks (the ships that move around),
      but there must be mobile internetworks: the ships carrying the
      aircraft where each aircraft has its own network, which is
      connected to the ship's network and the whole thing is moving.

      There is also the requirement for dynamic mobility; a plane might
      take off from aircraft carrier A and land on carrier B so it
      obviously would want to "connect" to B's network.  This situation
      might be even more complex since the plane might wish to retain
      connectivity to its "home" network; that is, the plane might
      remain connected to the ship-borne networks of both aircraft
      carriers, A and B.

      These requirements are not limited to just the navy.  They apply
      to the civilian and commercial worlds as well.  For example, in
      civil airliners, commercial cargo and passenger ships, trains,
      cars and so on.



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RFC 1726                IPng Technical Criteria            December 1994


   Time Frame
      The mobility algorithms are stabilizing and we would hope to see
      an IPng mobility framework within a year.

5.16 Control Protocol

   CRITERION
      The protocol must include elementary support for testing and
      debugging networks.

   DISCUSSION
      An important feature of IPv4 is the ICMP and its debugging,
      support, and control features.  Specific ICMP messages that have
      proven extraordinarily useful within IPv4 are Echo Request/Reply
      (a.k.a ping), Destination Unreachable and Redirect.  Functions
      similar to these should be in IPng.

      This criterion explicitly does not concern itself with
      configuration related messages of ICMP.  We believe that these are
      adequately covered by the configuration criterion in this memo.

      One limitation of today's ICMP that should be fixed in IPng's
      control protocol is that more than just the IPng header plus 64
      bits of a failed datagram should be returned in the error message.
      In some situations, this is too little to carry all the critical
      protocol information that indicates why a datagram failed.  At
      minimum, any IPng control protocol should return the entire IPng
      and transport headers (including options or nested headers).

   Time Frame
      Support for these functions is required immediately.

5.17 Private Networks

   CRITERION
      IPng must allow users to build private internetworks on top of the
      basic Internet Infrastructure.  Both private IP-based
      internetworks and private non-IP-based (e.g., CLNP or AppleTalk)
      internetworks must be supported.

   DISCUSSION
      In the current Internet, these capabilities are used by the
      research community to develop new IP services and capabilities
      (e.g., the MBone) and by users to interconnect non-IP islands over
      the Internet (e.g., CLNP and DecNet use in the UK).

      The capability of building networks on top of the Internet have
      been shown to be useful.  Private networks allow the Internet to



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      be extended and modified in ways that 1) were not foreseen by the
      original builders and 2) do not disrupt the day-to-day operations
      of other users.

      We note that, today in the IPv4 Internet, tunneling is widely used
      to provide these capabilities.

      Finally, we note that there might not be any features that
      specifically need to be added to IPng in order to support the
      desired functions (i.e., one might treat a private network protocol
      simply as another IP client protocol, just like TCP or UDP). If
      this is the case, then IPng must not prevent these functions from
      being performed.

   Time Frame
      Some of these capabilities may be required to support other
      criteria (e.g., transition) and as such, the timing of the
      specifications is governed by the other criteria (e.g., immediately
      in the case of transition).  Others may be produced as desired.

6. Things We Chose Not to Require

   This section contains items which we felt should not impact the
   choice of an IPng.  Listing an item here does not mean that a
   protocol MUST NOT do something. It means that the authors do not
   believe that it matters whether the feature is in the protocol or
   not. If a protocol includes one of the items listed here, that's
   cool. If it doesn't; that's cool too. A feature might be necessary in
   order to meet some other criterion.  Our point is merely that the
   feature need not be required for its own sake.

6.1 Fragmentation

   The technology exists for path MTU discovery.  Presumably, IPng will
   continue to provide this technology.  Therefore, we believe that IPng
   Fragmentation and Reassembly, as provided in IPv4, is not necessary.
   We note that fragmentation has been shown to be detrimental to
   network performance and strongly recommend that it be avoided.

6.2 IP Header Checksum

   There has been discussion indicating that the IP Checksum does not
   provide enough error protection to warrant its performance impact.
   The argument states that there is almost always a stronger datalink
   level CRC, and that end-to-end protection is provided by the TCP
   checksum. Therefore we believe that an IPng checksum is not required
   per-se.




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RFC 1726                IPng Technical Criteria            December 1994


6.3 Firewalls

   Some have requested that IPng include support for firewalls.  The
   authors believe that firewalls are one particular solution to the
   problem of security and, as such, do not consider that support for
   firewalls is a valid requirement for IPng.  (At the same time, we
   would hope that no IPng is hostile to firewalls without offering some
   equivalent security solution).

6.4 Network Management

   Network Management properly is a task to be carried out by additional
   protocols and standards, such as SNMP and its MIBs.  We believe that
   network management, per se, is not an attribute of the IPng protocol.
   Furthermore, network management is viewed as a support, or service,
   function. Network management should be developed to fit IPng and not
   the other way round.

6.5 Accounting

   We believe that accounting, like network management, must be designed
   to fit the IPng protocol, and not the other way round.  Therefore,
   accounting, in and of itself, is not a requirement of IPng.  However,
   there are some facets of the protocol that have been specified to
   make accounting easier, such as non-repudiation of origin under
   security, and the unique naming requirement for sorting datagrams
   into classes.  Note that a parameter of network service that IPng
   must support is cost.

6.6 Routing

   Routing is a very critical part of the Internet.  In fact, the
   Internet Engineering Task Force has a separate Area which is
   chartered to deal only with routing issues.  This Area is separate
   from the more general Internet Area.

   We see that routing is also a critical component of IPng.  There are
   several criteria, such as Scaling, Addressing, and Network Services,
   which are intimately entwined with routing.  In order to stress the
   critical nature and importance of routing, we have chosen to devote a
   separate chapter to specifically enumerating some of the requirements
   and issues that IPng routing must address.  All of these issues, we
   believe, fall out of the general criteria presented in the previous
   chapter.







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   6.6.1 Scale

      First and foremost, the routing architecture must scale to support
      a very large Internet.  Current expectations are for an Internet
      of about 10**9 to 10**12 networks.  The routing architecture must
      be able to deal with networks of this size.  Furthermore, the
      routing architecture must be able to deal with this size without
      requiring massive, global databases and algorithms.  Such
      databases or algorithms would, in effect, be single points of
      failure in the architecture (which is not robust), and because of
      the nature of Internet administration (cooperative anarchy), it
      would be impossible to maintain the needed consistency.

   6.6.2 Policy

      Networks (both transit and non-transit) must be able to set their
      own policies for the types of traffic that they will admit.  The
      routing architecture must make these policies available to the
      network as a whole.  Furthermore, nodes must be able to select
      routes for their traffic based on the advertised policies.

   6.6.3 QOS

      A key element of the network service criteria is that differing
      applications wish to acquire differing grades of network service.
      It is essential that this service information be propagated around
      the network.

   6.6.4 Feedback

      As users select specific routes over which to send their traffic,
      they must be provided feedback from the routing architecture. This
      feedback should allow the user to determine whether the desired
      routes are actually available or not, whether the desired services
      are being provided, and so forth.

      This would allow users to modify their service requirements or
      even change their routes, as needed.

   6.6.5 Stability

      With the addition of additional data into the routing system
      (i.e., routes are based not only on connectivity, as in IPv4, but
      also on policies, service grades, and so on), the stability of the
      routes may suffer.  We offer as evidence the early ARPANET which
      experimented with load-based routing. Routes would remain in flux,
      changing from one saturated link, to another, unused, link.




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      This must not be allowed to happen.  If anything, routes should be
      even more stable under IPng's routing architecture than under the
      current architecture.

   6.6.6 Multicast

      Multicast will be more important in IPng than it is today in IPv4.
      Multicast groups may be very large and very distributed.
      Membership in multicast groups will be very dynamic.  The routing
      architecture must be able to cope with this.

      Furthermore, the routing architecture must be able to build
      multicast routes dynamically, based on factors such as group
      membership, member location, requested and available qualities of
      service, and so on.

7. References

   [1] Internet Architecture Board, "IP Version 7", Draft 8, Work in
       Progress, July, 1992.

   [2] Gross, P., and P. Almquist, "IESG Deliberations on Routing and
       Addressing", RFC 1380, IESG Chair, IESG Internet AD, November
       1992.

   [3] Clark, D., Chapin, L., Cerf, V., Braden, R., and R. Hobby,
       "Toward the Future Internet Architecture", RFC 1287, MIT, BBN,
       CNRI, USC/Information Sciences Institute, UC Davis, December
       1991.

   [4] Dave Clark's paper at SIGCOMM '88 where he pointed out that the
       design of TCP/IP was guided, in large part, by an ordered list of
       requirements.

   [5] Vecchi, M., "IPng Requirements: A Cable Television Industry
       Viewpoint", RFC 1686, Time Warner Cable, August 1994.

   [6] Green, D., Irey, P., Marlow, D. and K. O'Donoghue, "HPN Working
       Group Input to the IPng Requirements Solicitation, RFC 1679,
       NSWC-DD, August 1994.

   [7] Bellovin, S., "On Many Addresses per Host", RFC 1681, AT&T Bell
       Laboratories, August 1994.

   [8] Symington, S., Wood, D., and J. Pullen, "Modelling and Simulation
       Requirements for IPng", RFC 1667, Mitre Corporation and George
       Mason University, August 1994.




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   [9] Internet Architecture Board, "Report of the IAB Workshop on
       Security in the Internet Architecture, RFC 1636, IAB, June 1994.

  [10] Private EMAIL from Tony Li to IPNG Directorate Mailing List, 18
       April 1994 18:42:05.

  [11] Saltzer, J., On the Naming and Binding of Network Destinations",
       RFC 1498, M.I.T. Laboratory for Computer Science, August 1993.

  [12] Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol - DARPA Internet
       Program Protocol Specification", STD 7, RFC 793, DARPA, September
       1981.

  [13] EMAIL from Robert Elz to the Big Internet mailing list,
       approximately 4 May 1994.

  [14] Chiappa, N., "Nimrod and IPng Technical Requirements", Work in
       Progress.

8. Security Considerations

   Security is not directly addressed by this memo.  However, as this
   memo codifies goals for a new generation of network layer protocol,
   the security provided by such a protocol is addressed.  Security has
   been raised as an issue in several of the requirements stated in this
   memo.  Furthermore, a specific requirement for security has been
   made.

9. Acknowledgements

   The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance and input provided
   by the many people who have reviewed and commented upon this
   document.


















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10. Authors' Addresses

   Craig Partridge
   BBN Systems and Technologies
   10 Moulton St.
   Cambridge, MA 02138

   EMail: craig@aland.bbn.com


   Frank Kastenholz
   FTP Software, Inc.
   2 High St.
   North Andover, MA, 01845-2620 USA

   EMail: kasten@ftp.com



































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