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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Request for Comments: 6814
Obsoletes: 1385, 1393, 1475, 1770
Category: Standards Track
ISSN: 2070-1721
C. Pignataro
Cisco Systems
F. Gont
UTN-FRH / SI6 Networks
November 2012

Formally Deprecating Some IPv4 Options

Abstract

A number of IPv4 options have become obsolete in practice, but have never been formally deprecated. This document deprecates such IPv4 options, thus cleaning up the corresponding IANA registry. Additionally, it obsoletes RFCs 1385, 1393, 1475, and 1770, and requests that the RFC Editor change their status to Historic.

Status of This Memo

This is an Internet Standards Track document.

This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.

Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6814.

Copyright Notice

Copyright © 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
   2.  Discussion of Deprecated Options  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
     2.1.  Stream ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
     2.2.  Extended Internet Protocol  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
     2.3.  Traceroute  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
     2.4.  ENCODE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
     2.5.  VISA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
     2.6.  Address Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
     2.7.  Selective Directed Broadcast  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
     2.8.  Dynamic Packet State  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
     2.9.  Upstream Multicast Pkt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   3.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   4.  Changing the Status of the Corresponding RFCs to Historic . . . 4
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   6.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   7.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
     7.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
     7.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1. Introduction

The Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) [RFC791] provides for expansion of the protocol by supporting a number of "options" in the variable-length IPv4 header. IPv4 options are identified by an option "type" value, whose registration is managed by IANA [IANA-IP]. A number of IPv4 options have become obsolete in practice, but have never been formally deprecated. This document deprecates such IPv4 options, thus cleaning up the corresponding IANA registry. 

   This document also obsoletes [RFC1385], [RFC1393], [RFC1475], and
   [RFC1770], and requests that the RFC Editor change their status to
   Historic.

2. Discussion of Deprecated Options

The following subsections discuss the options being deprecated. No other reference information has been found.

2.1. Stream ID

The Stream ID option is obsolete. It is specified in RFC 791 [RFC791], and is deprecated in Section 3.2.1.8 of RFC 1122 [RFC1122] and Section 4.2.2.1 of RFC 1812 [RFC1812].

2.2. Extended Internet Protocol

The Extended Internet Protocol option is defined in [RFC1385] and is superseded by [RFC2460].

2.3. Traceroute

The Traceroute option is defined in [RFC1393]. The Traceroute option is defined as Experimental; it was never widely deployed on the public Internet.

2.4. ENCODE

This option was used for experimentation around IP-layer encryption. No products are known to ever have shipped with support for this option.

2.5. VISA

This option was part of an experiment [VISA87] [VISA89] at USC and was never widely deployed.

2.6. Address Extension

The Address Extension option is defined in an Experimental RFC [RFC1475] and marked as IPv7. IPv7 was never widely deployed.

2.7. Selective Directed Broadcast

The Selective Directed Broadcast option was originally defined in [RFC1770]. This option was never widely deployed and the approach was abandoned.

2.8. Dynamic Packet State

The Dynamic Packet State option was specified in [DIFFSERV-DPS]. The aforementioned document was meant to be published as Experimental, but it never became an RFC. The IP option was never widely deployed.

2.9. Upstream Multicast Pkt.

This option was originally specified in [BIDIR-PIM]. Its use was deprecated by [RFC5015], which employs a control-plane mechanism to solve the problem of doing upstream forwarding of multicast packets on a multi-access LAN.

3. IANA Considerations

The "IP OPTION NUMBERS" registry [IANA-IP] contains the list of currently assigned IP option numbers. This registry also denotes a deprecated IP Option Number by marking it with a footnote.

This document formally deprecates the following options. IANA has marked them as such in the corresponding registry [IANA-IP]. 

   Copy Class Number Value Name                                Reference
   ---- ----- ------ ----- -------------------------------  ------------
      1     0      8   136 SID    - Stream ID               [RFC791,JBP]
      1     0     14   142 VISA   - Experimental Access Control [Estrin]
      0     0     15    15 ENCODE - ???                       [VerSteeg]
      1     0     17   145 EIP    - Extended Internet Protocol [RFC1385]
      0     2     18    82 TR     - Traceroute                 [RFC1393]
      1     0     19   147 ADDEXT - Address Extension     [Ullmann IPv7]
      1     0     21   149 SDB    - Selective Directed Broadcast [Graff]
      1     0     23   151 DPS    - Dynamic Packet State         [Malis]
      1     0     24   152 UMP    - Upstream Multicast Pkt.  [Farinacci]

The IP options "MTU Probe" (MTUP, value 11) and "MTU Reply" (MTUR, value 12) were initially defined in [RFC1063] and have already been deprecated by [RFC1191].

4. Changing the Status of the Corresponding RFCs to Historic

   Per this document, the RFC Editor has changed the status of
   [RFC1385], [RFC1393], [RFC1475], and [RFC1770] to Historic.

5. Security Considerations

This document does not modify the security properties of the IPv4 options being deprecated.

6. Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Ron Bonica for his guidance.

The authors would like to thank Ran Atkinson, Fred Baker, Deborah Estrin, Dino Farinacci, Andrew Malis, Gene Tsudik, and Bill VerSteeg for providing insights on some of the options being formally deprecated by this document.

7. References

7.1. Normative References

   [RFC791]   Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791, September
              1981.
   
   [RFC1122]  Braden, R., Ed., "Requirements for Internet Hosts -
              Communication Layers", STD 3, RFC 1122, October 1989.

7.2. Informative References

   [BIDIR-PIM] Estrin, D. and D. Farinacci, "Bi-Directional Shared Trees
              in PIM-SM",  Work in Progress, May 1999.

[DIFFSERV-DPS] 

              Stoica, I., Zhang, H., Venkitaraman, N., and J. Mysore,
              "Per Hop Behaviors Based on Dynamic Packet State", Work in
              Progress, October 2002.
   
   [IANA-IP]  Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, "IP OPTION NUMBERS",
              <http://www.iana.org/assignments/ip-parameters>.
   
   [RFC1063]  Mogul, J., Kent, C., Partridge, C., and K. McCloghrie, "IP
              MTU discovery options", RFC 1063, July 1988.
   
   [RFC1191]  Mogul, J. and S. Deering, "Path MTU discovery", RFC 1191,
              November 1990.
   
   [RFC1385]  Wang, Z., "EIP: The Extended Internet Protocol", RFC 1385,
              November 1992.
   
   [RFC1393]  Malkin, G., "Traceroute Using an IP Option", RFC 1393,
              January 1993.
   
   [RFC1475]  Ullmann, R., "TP/IX: The Next Internet", RFC 1475, June
              1993.
   
   [RFC1770]  Graff, C., "IPv4 Option for Sender Directed Multi-
              Destination Delivery", RFC 1770, March 1995.
   
   [RFC1812]  Baker, F., Ed., "Requirements for IP Version 4 Routers",
              RFC 1812, June 1995.
   
   [RFC2460]  Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
              (IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998.
   
   [RFC5015]  Handley, M., Kouvelas, I., Speakman, T., and L. Vicisano,
              "Bidirectional Protocol Independent Multicast (BIDIR-
              PIM)", RFC 5015, October 2007.
   
   [VISA87]   Estrin, D. and G. Tsudik, "VISA Scheme for Inter-
              Organizational Network Security", IEEE Symposium on
              Security and Privacy (S&P), 1987.
   
   [VISA89]   Estrin, D., Mogul, J., and G. Tsudik, "VISA Protocols for
              Controlling Inter-Organizational Datagram Flow", IEEE
              Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 1989.

Authors' Addresses

   Carlos Pignataro
   Cisco Systems
   7200-12 Kit Creek Road
   Research Triangle Park, NC  27709
   United States

EMail: 

          cpignata@cisco.com
   
   Fernando Gont
   UTN-FRH / SI6 Networks
   Evaristo Carriego 2644
   Haedo, Provincia de Buenos Aires  1706
   Argentina
   
   Phone: +54 11 4650 8472
   EMail: fgont@si6networks.com
   URI:   http://www.si6networks.com