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IETF RFC 6384
Last modified on Thursday, October 6th, 2011
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) I. van Beijnum
Request for Comments: 6384 Institute IMDEA Networks
Category: Standards Track October 2011
ISSN: 2070-1721
An FTP Application Layer Gateway (ALG) for IPv6-to-IPv4 Translation
 Abstract
The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) has a very long history, and despite
the fact that today other options exist to perform file transfers,
FTP is still in common use. As such, in situations where some client
computers only have IPv6 connectivity while many servers are still
IPv4-only and IPv6-to-IPv4 translators are used to bridge that gap,
it is important that FTP is made to work through these translators to
the best possible extent.
FTP has an active and a passive mode, both as original commands that
are IPv4-specific and as extended, IP version agnostic commands. The
only FTP mode that works without changes through an IPv6-to-IPv4
translator is extended passive. However, many existing FTP servers
do not support this mode, and some clients do not ask for it. This
document specifies a middlebox that may solve this mismatch.
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/RFC 6384.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2011 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
Van Beijnum Standards Track PAGE 1 
RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
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. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. ALG Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Control Channel Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5.1. Language Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. EPSV to PASV Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
7. EPRT to PORT Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7.1. Stateless EPRT Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7.2. Stateful EPRT Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8. Default Port 20 Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
9. Both PORT and PASV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
10. Default Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
11. The ALGS Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
12. Timeouts and Translating to NOOP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
13. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
14. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
15. Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
16. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
17. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
17.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
17.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1. Introduction
[RFC 959] specifies two modes of operation for FTP: active mode, in
which the server connects back to the client, and passive mode, in
which the server opens a port for the client to connect to. Without
additional measures, active mode with a client-supplied port does not
work through NATs or firewalls. With active mode, the PORT command
has an IPv4 address as its argument, and with passive mode, the
server responds to the PASV command with an IPv4 address. This makes
both the passive and active modes, as originally specified in
[RFC 959], incompatible with IPv6. These issues were solved in
[RFC 2428], which introduces the EPSV (extended passive) command,
where the server only responds with a port number and the EPRT
(extended port) command, which allows the client to supply either an
IPv4 or an IPv6 address (and a port) to the server.
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RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
A survey done in April 2009 of 25 randomly picked and/or well-known
FTP sites reachable over IPv4 showed that only 12 of them supported
EPSV over IPv4. Additionally, only 2 of those 12 indicated that they
supported EPSV in response to the FEAT command introduced in
[RFC 2389] that asks the server to list its supported features. One
supported EPSV but not FEAT. In 5 cases, issuing the EPSV command to
the server led to a significant delay; in 3 of these cases, a control
channel reset followed the delay. Due to lack of additional
information, it is impossible to determine conclusively why certain
FTP servers reset the control channel connection some time after
issuing an EPSV command. However, a reasonable explanation would be
that these FTP servers are located behind application-aware firewalls
that monitor the control channel session and only allow the creation
of data channel sessions to the ports listed in the responses to PASV
(and maybe PORT) commands. As the response to an EPSV command is
different (a 229 code rather than a 227 code), a firewall that is
unaware of the EPSV command would block the subsequent data channel
setup attempt. If no data channel connection has been established
after some time, the FTP server may decide to terminate the control
channel session in an attempt to leave this ambiguous state.
All 25 tested servers were able to successfully complete a transfer
in traditional PASV passive mode as required by [RFC 1123]. More
testing showed that the use of an address family argument with the
EPSV command is widely misimplemented or unimplemented in servers.
Additional tests with more servers showed that approximately 65% of
FTP servers support EPSV successfully and around 96% support PASV
successfully. Clients were not extensively tested, but the author's
previous experience suggests that most clients support PASV, with the
notable exception of the command line client included with Windows,
which only supports active mode. This FTP client uses the original
PORT command when running over IPv4 and EPRT when running over IPv6.
Although these issues can and should be addressed by modifying
clients and servers to support EPSV successfully, such modifications
may not appear widely in a timely fashion. Also, network operators
who may want to deploy IPv6-to-IPv4 translation generally do not have
control over client or server implementations. As such, this
document standardizes an FTP Application Layer Gateway (ALG) that
will allow unmodified IPv6 FTP clients to interact with unmodified
IPv4 FTP servers successfully when using FTP for simple file
transfers between a single client and a single server.
Clients that want to engage in more complex behavior, such as server-
to-server transfers, may make an FTP Application Layer Gateway (ALG)
go into transparent mode by issuing the ALGS command as explained in
Section 5.
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RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
The recommendations and specifications in this document apply to all
forms of IPv6-to-IPv4 translation, including stateless translation
such as [RFC 6145] as well as stateful translation such as [RFC 6146].
This documentation does not deal with the LPRT and LPSV commands
specified in [RFC 1639] as these commands do not appear to be in
significant use.
2. Notational Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC 2119].
3. Terminology
Within the context of this document, the words "client" and "server"
refer to FTP client and server implementations, respectively. An FTP
server is understood to be an implementation of the FTP protocol
running on a server system with a stable address, waiting for clients
to connect and issue commands that eventually start data transfers.
Clients interact with servers using the FTP protocol; they store
(upload) files to and retrieve (download) files from one or more
servers. This either happens interactively under control of a user
or is done as an unattended background process. Most operating
systems provide a web browser that implements a basic FTP client as
well as a command line client. Third-party FTP clients are also
widely available.
Other terminology is derived from the documents listed in the
References section. Note that this document cannot be fully
understood on its own; it depends on background and terminology
outlined in the references.
4. ALG Overview
The most robust way to solve an IP version mismatch between FTP
clients and FTP servers would be by changing clients and servers
rather than using an IPv6-to-IPv4 translator for the data channel and
using an Application Layer Gateway on the control channel. As such,
it is recommended to update FTP clients and servers as required for
IPv6-to-IPv4 translation support where possible to allow proper
operation of the FTP protocol without the need for ALGs.
On the other hand, network operators or even network administrators
within an organization often have little influence over the FTP
client and server implementations used over the network. For those
operators and administrators, deploying an ALG may be the only way to
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RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
provide a satisfactory customer experience. So, even though not the
preferred solution, this document standardizes the functionality of
such an ALG in order to promote consistent behavior between ALGs in
an effort to minimize their harmful effects.
Operators and administrators are encouraged to only deploy an FTP ALG
for IPv6-to-IPv4 translation when the FTP ALG is clearly needed. In
the presence of the ALG, EPSV commands that could be handled directly
by conforming servers are translated into PASV commands, introducing
additional complexity and reducing robustness. As such, a "set and
forget" policy on ALGs is not recommended.
Note that the translation of EPSV through all translators and EPRT
through a stateless translator is relatively simple, but supporting
translation of EPRT through a stateful translator is relatively
difficult, because in the latter case, a translation mapping must be
set up for each data transfer using parameters that must be learned
from the client/server interaction over the control channel. This
needs to happen before the EPRT command can be translated into a PORT
command and passed on to the server. As such, an ALG used with a
stateful translator MUST support EPSV translation and MAY support
EPRT translation. However, an ALG used with a stateless translator
MUST support EPSV translation and SHOULD also support EPRT
translation.
The ALG functionality is described as a function separate from the
IPv6-to-IPv4 translation function. However, in the case of EPRT
translation, the ALG and translator functions need to be tightly
coupled, so if EPRT translation is supported, it is assumed that the
ALG and IPv6-to-IPv4 translation functions are integrated within a
single device.
5. Control Channel Translation
The IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG intercepts all TCP sessions towards port 21
for IPv6 destination addresses that map to IPv4 destinations
reachable through an IPv6-to-IPv4 translator. The FTP ALG implements
the Telnet protocol ([RFC 854]), used for control channel
interactions, to the degree necessary to interpret commands and
responses and re-issue those commands and responses, modifying them
as outlined below. Telnet option negotiation attempts by either the
client or the server, except for those allowed by [RFC 1123], MUST be
refused by the FTP ALG without relaying those attempts. For the
purpose of Telnet option negotiation, an FTP ALG MUST follow the
behavior of an FTP server as specified in [RFC 1123], Section
4.1.2.12. This avoids the situation where the client and the server
negotiate Telnet options that are unimplemented by the FTP ALG.
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RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
There are two ways to implement the control channel ALG:
1. The ALG terminates the IPv6 TCP session, sets up a new IPv4 TCP
session towards the IPv4 FTP server, and relays commands and
responses back and forth between the two sessions.
2. Packets that are part of the control channel are translated
individually.
As they ultimately provide the same result, either implementation
strategy, or any other that is functionally equivalent, can be used.
In the second case, an implementation MUST have the ability to track
and update TCP sequence numbers when translating packets as well as
the ability to break up packets into smaller packets after
translation, as the control channel translation could modify the
length of the payload portion of the packets in question. Also, FTP
commands/responses or Telnet negotiations could straddle packet
boundaries, so in order to be able to perform the ALG function, it
can prove necessary to reconstitute Telnet negotiations and FTP
commands and responses from multiple packets.
Some FTP clients use the TCP urgent data feature when interrupting
transfers. An ALG MUST either maintain the semantics of the urgent
pointer when translating control channel interactions, even when
crossing packet boundaries, or clear the URG bit in the TCP header.
If the client issues the AUTH command, then the client is attempting
to negotiate [RFC 2228] security mechanisms that are likely to be
incompatible with the FTP ALG function. For instance, if the client
attempts to negotiate Transport Layer Security (TLS) protection of
the control channel ([RFC 4217]), an ALG can do one of three things:
1. Transparently copy data transmitted over the control channel back
and forth, so the TLS session works as expected but the client
commands and server responses are now hidden from the ALG.
2. Block the negotiation of additional security, which will likely
make the client and/or the server break off the session, or if
not, perform actions in the clear that were supposed to be
encrypted.
3. Negotiate with both the client and the server so two separate
protected sessions are set up and the ALG is still able to modify
client commands and server responses. Again, clients and servers
are likely to reject the session because this will be perceived
as a man-in-the-middle attack.
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RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
An ALG MUST adopt the first option and allow a client and a server to
negotiate security mechanisms. To ensure consistent behavior, as
soon as the initial AUTH command is issued by the client, an ALG MUST
stop translating commands and responses, and start transparently
copying TCP data sent by the server to the client and vice versa.
The ALG SHOULD ignore the AUTH command and not go into transparent
mode if the server response is in the 4xx or 5xx ranges.
It is possible that commands or responses that were sent through the
ALG before the AUTH command was issued were changed in length so TCP
sequence numbers in packets entering the ALG and packets exiting the
ALG no longer match. In transparent mode, the ALG MUST continue to
adjust sequence numbers if it was doing so before entering
transparent mode as the result of the AUTH command. The ALGS command
(Section 11) can also be used to disable the ALG functionality, but
the control channel MUST then still be monitored for subsequent ALGS
commands that re-enable the ALG functionality.
5.1. Language Negotiation
[RFC 2640] specifies the ability for clients and servers to negotiate
the language used between the two of them in the descriptive text
that accompanies server response codes. Ideally, IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP
ALGs would support this feature, so that if a non-default language is
negotiated by a client and a server, the ALG also transmits its text
messages for translated responses in the negotiated language.
However, even if the ALG supports negotiation of the feature, there
is no way to make sure that the ALG has text strings for all possible
languages. Thus, the situation where the client and server try to
negotiate a language not supported by the ALG is unavoidable. The
proper behavior for an FTP ALG in this situation may be addressed in
a future specification, as the same issue is present in IPv4-to-IPv4
FTP ALGs. For the time being, ALG implementations MAY employ one of
the following strategies regarding LANG negotiation:
1. Monitor LANG negotiation and send text in the negotiated language
if text in that language is available. If not, text is sent in
the default language.
2. Not monitor LANG negotiation. Text is sent in the default
language.
3. Block LANG negotiation by translating the LANG command to a NOOP
command and translating the resulting 200 response into a 502
response, which is appropriate for unsupported commands. Text is
sent in the default language.
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RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
In the first two cases, if a language is negotiated, text transmitted
by the client or the server MUST be assumed to be encoded in UTF-8
[RFC 3629] rather than be limited to 7-bit ASCII. An ALG that
implements the first or second option MUST translate and/or forward
commands and responses containing UTF-8-encoded text when those
occur. The ALG itself MUST NOT generate characters outside the 7-bit
ASCII range unless it implements the first option and a language was
negotiated.
Note that Section 3.1 of [RFC 2640] specifies new handling for spaces
and the carriage return (CR) character in pathnames. ALGs that do
not block LANG negotiation SHOULD comply with the specified rules for
path handling. Implementers should especially note that the NUL
(%x00) character is used as an escape whenever a CR character occurs
in a pathname.
In the sections that follow, a number of well-known response numbers
are shown, along with the descriptive text that is associated with
that response number. However, this text is not part of the
specification of the response. As such, implementations MAY use the
response text shown, or they MAY show a different response text for a
given response number. Requirements language only applies to the
response number.
6. EPSV to PASV Translation
Although many IPv4 FTP servers support the EPSV command, some servers
react adversely to this command (see Section 1 for examples), and
there is no reliable way to detect in advance that this will happen.
As such, an FTP ALG SHOULD translate all occurrences of the EPSV
command issued by the client to the PASV command and reformat a 227
response as a corresponding 229 response. However, an ALG MAY forego
EPSV to PASV translation if it has positive knowledge, either gained
through administrative configuration or learned dynamically, that
EPSV will be successful without translation to PASV.
For instance, if the client issues EPSV (or EPSV 2 to indicate IPv6
as the network protocol), this is translated to the PASV command. If
the server with address 192.0.2.31 then responds with:
227 Entering Passive Mode (192,0,2,31,237,19)
The FTP ALG reformats this as:
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||60691|)
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RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
The ALG SHOULD ignore the IPv4 address in the server's 227 response.
This is the behavior that is exhibited by most clients and is needed
to work with servers that include [RFC 1918] addresses in their 227
responses. However, if the 227 response contains an IPv4 address
that does not match the destination of the control channel, the FTP
ALG MAY send a 425 response to the client instead of the 229
response, for example:
425 Can't open data connection
It is important that the response is in the 4xx range to indicate a
temporary condition.
If the client issues an EPSV command with a numeric argument other
than 2, the ALG MUST NOT pass the command on to the server but rather
respond with a 522 error, for example:
522 Network protocol not supported
If the client issues EPSV ALL, the FTP ALG MUST NOT pass this command
to the server, but respond with a 504 error, for example:
504 Command not implemented for that parameter
This avoids the situation where an FTP server reacts adversely to
receiving a PASV command after the client used the EPSV ALL command
to indicate that it will only use EPSV during this session.
7. EPRT to PORT Translation
Should the IPv6 client issue an EPRT command, the FTP ALG MAY
translate this EPRT command to a PORT command. The translation is
different depending on whether the translator is a stateless one-to-
one translator or a stateful one-to-many translator.
7.1. Stateless EPRT Translation
If the address specified in the EPRT command is the IPv6 address used
by the client for the control channel session, then the FTP ALG
reformats the EPRT command into a PORT command with the IPv4 address
that maps to the client's IPv6 address. The port number MUST be
preserved for compatibility with stateless translators. For
instance, if the client with IPv6 address 2001:db8:2::31 issues the
following EPRT command:
EPRT |2|2001:db8:2::31|5282|
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RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
Assuming the IPv4 address that goes with 2001:db8:2::31 is
192.0.2.31, the FTP ALG reformats this as:
PORT 192,0,2,31,20,162
If the address specified in the EPRT command is an IPv4 address or an
IPv6 address that is not the IPv6 address used by the client for the
control session, the ALG SHOULD NOT attempt any translation but pass
along the command unchanged.
7.2. Stateful EPRT Translation
If the address in the EPRT command is the IPv6 address used by the
client for the control channel, the stateful translator selects an
unused port number in combination with the IPv4 address used for the
control channel towards the FTP server and sets up a mapping from
that transport address to the one specified by the client in the EPRT
command. The PORT command with the IPv4 address and port used on the
IPv4 side of the mapping is only issued towards the server once the
mapping is created. Initially, the mapping is such that either any
transport address or the FTP server's IPv4 address with any port
number is accepted as a source, but once the three-way handshake is
complete, the mapping SHOULD be narrowed to only match the negotiated
TCP session.
If the address specified in the EPRT command is an IPv4 address or an
IPv6 address that is not the IPv6 address used by the client for the
control session, the ALG SHOULD NOT attempt any translation but pass
along the command unchanged.
If the client with IPv6 address 2001:db8:2::31 issues the EPRT
command:
EPRT |2|2001:db8:2::31|5282|
And the stateful translator uses the address 192.0.2.31 on its IPv4
interface, a mapping with destination address 192.0.2.31 and
destination port 60192 towards 2001:db8:2::31 port 5282 may be
created, after which the FTP ALG reformats the EPRT command as:
PORT 192,0,2,31,235,32
8. Default Port 20 Translation
If the client does not issue an EPSV/PASV or EPRT/PORT command prior
to initiating a file transfer, it is invoking the default active FTP
behavior where the server sets up a TCP session towards the client.
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RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
In this situation, the source port number is the default FTP data
port (port 20), and the destination port is the port the client uses
as the source port for the control channel session.
In the case of a stateless translator, this does not pose any
problems. In the case of a stateful translator, the translator MAY
accept incoming connection requests from the server on the IPv4 side
if the transport addresses match that of an existing FTP control
channel session, with the exception that the control channel session
uses port 21 and the new session port 20. In this case, a mapping is
set up towards the same transport address on the IPv6 side that is
used for the matching FTP control channel session.
An ALG/translator MAY monitor the progress of FTP control channels
and only attempt to perform a mapping when an FTP client has started
a file transfer without issuing the EPSV, PASV, EPRT, or PORT
commands.
9. Both PORT and PASV
[RFC 959] allows a client to issue both PORT and PASV to use non-
default ports on both sides of the connection. However, this is
incompatible with the notion that with PASV, the data connection is
made from the client to the server, while PORT reaffirms the default
behavior where the server connects to the client. As such, the
behavior of an ALG is undefined when a client issues both PASV and
PORT. Implementations SHOULD NOT try to detect the situation where
both PASV and PORT commands are issued prior to a command that
initiates a transfer, but rather, translate commands as they occur.
So, if a client issues PASV, PASV is then translated to EPSV. If
after that, but before any transfers have occurred, the client issues
PORT and the ALG supports PORT translation for this session, the ALG
translates PORT to EPRT.
10. Default Behavior
Whenever the client issues a command that the ALG is not set up to
translate (because the command is not specified in this document, the
command is not part of any FTP specification, the ALG functionality
is disabled administratively for the command in question, or
translation does not apply for any other reason), the command MUST be
passed on to the server without modification, and the server response
MUST be passed on to the client without modification. For example,
if the client issues the PASV command, this command is passed on to
the server transparently, and the server's response is passed on to
the client transparently.
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RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
11. The ALGS Command
ALGs MUST support the new ALGS (ALG status) command that allows
clients to query and set the ALG's status. FTP servers (as opposed
to ALGs) MUST NOT perform any actions upon receiving the ALGS
command. However, FTP servers MUST still send a response. If FTP
servers recognize the ALGS command, the best course of action would
be to return a 202 response:
202 Command not implemented, superfluous at this site
However, there is no reason for FTP servers to specifically recognize
this command; returning any 50x response that is normally returned
when commands are not recognized is appropriate.
A client can use the ALGS command to request the ALG's status and to
enable and disable EPSV to PASV translation and, if implemented, EPRT
to PORT translation. There are three possible arguments to the ALGS
command:
ALGS STATUS64 The ALG is requested to return the EPSV and EPRT
translation status.
ALGS ENABLE64 The ALG is requested to enable translation.
ALGS DISABLE64 The ALG is requested to disable translation.
The ALG MUST enable or disable EPSV to PASV translation as requested.
If EPRT to PORT translation is supported, ALGS ENABLE64 SHOULD enable
it, and ALGS DISABLE64 MUST disable it along with enabling or
disabling EPSV to PASV translation, respectively. If EPRT to PORT
translation is not supported, ALGS ENABLE64 only enables EPSV to PASV
translation. After an ALGS command with any of the three supported
arguments, the ALG MUST return a 216 response indicating the type of
translation that will be performed.
216 NONE Neither EPSV nor EPRT translation is performed.
216 EPSV EPSV is translated to PASV; no EPRT translation is
performed.
216 EPSVEPRT EPSV is translated to PASV; EPRT is translated to
PORT.
The translation type MAY be followed by a space and additional
descriptive text until end-of-line. If the ALG is unable to set the
requested translation mode, for instance, because of lack of certain
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RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
resources, this is not considered an error condition. In those
cases, the ALG returns a 216 response followed by the keyword that
indicates the current translation status of the ALG.
If there is no argument to the ALGS command, or the argument is not
one of STATUS64, ENABLE64, or DISABLE64 (or an argument specified by
a supported newer document), a 504 or 502 error SHOULD be returned.
The Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF) notation (see [RFC 5234]) of the
ALGS command and its response are as follows:
algs-command = "ALGS" SP algs-token CRLF
algs-token = "STATUS64" / "ENABLE64" / "DISABLE64"
algs-response = (ok-response / error-response) CRLF
ok-response = "216" SP response-token [ freetext ]
response-token = "NONE" / "EPSV" / "EPSVEPRT"
error-response = not-implemented / invalid-parameter
not-implemented = "502" [ freetext ]
invalid-parameter = "504" [ freetext ]
freetext = (SP *VCHAR)
12. Timeouts and Translating to NOOP
Wherever possible, control channels SHOULD NOT time out while there
is an active data channel. A timeout of at least 30 seconds is
RECOMMENDED for data channel mappings created by the FTP ALG that are
waiting for initial packets.
Whenever a command from the client is not propagated to the server,
the FTP ALG instead issues a NOOP command in order to keep the
keepalive state between the client and the server synchronized. The
response to the NOOP command MUST NOT be relayed back to the client.
An implementation MAY wait for the server to return the 200 response
to the NOOP command and translate that 200 response into the response
the ALG is required to return to the client. This way, the ALG never
has to create new packets to send to the client, but it can limit
itself to modifying packets transmitted by the server. If the server
responds with something other than a 200 response to the NOOP
command, the ALG SHOULD tear down the control channel session and log
an error.
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RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
13. IANA Considerations
IANA has added the following entry to the "FTP Commands and
Extensions" registry:
Command Name ALGS
FEAT Code -N/A-
Description FTP64 ALG status
Command Type -N/A-
Conformance Requirements o
Reference RFC 6384 Section 11
14. Security Considerations
In the majority of cases, FTP is used without further security
mechanisms. This allows an attacker with passive interception
capabilities to obtain the login credentials and an attacker that can
modify packets to change the data transferred. However, FTP can be
used with TLS in order to solve these issues. IPv6-to-IPv4
translation and the FTP ALG do not impact the security issues in the
former case nor the use of TLS in the latter case. However, if FTP
is used with TLS as per [RFC 4217], or another authentication
mechanism that the ALG is aware of, the ALG function is not performed
so only passive transfers from a server that implements EPSV or a
client that supports PASV will succeed.
For general FTP security considerations, see [RFC 2577].
15. Contributors
Dan Wing, Kentaro Ebisawa, Remi Denis-Courmont, Mayuresh Bakshi,
Sarat Kamisetty, Reinaldo Penno, Alun Jones, Dave Thaler, Mohammed
Boucadair, Mikael Abrahamsson, Dapeng Liu, Michael Liu, Andrew
Sullivan, Anthony Bryan, Ed Jankiewicz Pekka Savola, Fernando Gont,
Rockson Li, and Donald Eastlake contributed ideas and comments. Dan
Wing's experiments with a large number of FTP servers were very
illuminating; many of the choices underlying this document are based
on his results.
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RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
16. Acknowledgements
Iljitsch van Beijnum is partly funded by Trilogy, a research project
supported by the European Commission under its Seventh Framework
Program.
17. References
17.1. Normative References
[RFC 854] Postel, J. and J. Reynolds, "Telnet Protocol
Specification", STD 8, RFC 854, May 1983.
[RFC 959] Postel, J. and J. Reynolds, "File Transfer Protocol",
STD 9, RFC 959, October 1985.
[RFC 1123] Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts - Application
and Support", STD 3, RFC 1123, October 1989.
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC 2228] Horowitz, M., "FTP Security Extensions", RFC 2228,
October 1997.
[RFC 2428] Allman, M., Ostermann, S., and C. Metz, "FTP Extensions
for IPv6 and NATs", RFC 2428, September 1998.
[RFC 3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003.
[RFC 5234] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008.
17.2. Informative References
[RFC 1639] Piscitello, D., "FTP Operation Over Big Address Records
(FOOBAR)", RFC 1639, June 1994.
[RFC 1918] Rekhter, Y., Moskowitz, R., Karrenberg, D., Groot, G., and
E. Lear, "Address Allocation for Private Internets",
BCP 5, RFC 1918, February 1996.
[RFC 2389] Hethmon, P. and R. Elz, "Feature negotiation mechanism for
the File Transfer Protocol", RFC 2389, August 1998.
[RFC 2577] Allman, M. and S. Ostermann, "FTP Security
Considerations", RFC 2577, May 1999.
Van Beijnum Standards Track PAGE 15
RFC 6384 An IPv6-to-IPv4 FTP ALG October 2011
[RFC 2640] Curtin, B., "Internationalization of the File Transfer
Protocol", RFC 2640, July 1999.
[RFC 4217] Ford-Hutchinson, P., "Securing FTP with TLS", RFC 4217,
October 2005.
[RFC 6145] Li, X., Bao, C., and F. Baker, "IP/ICMP Translation
Algorithm", RFC 6145, April 2011.
[RFC 6146] Bagnulo, M., Matthews, P., and I. van Beijnum, "Stateful
NAT64: Network Address and Protocol Translation from IPv6
Clients to IPv4 Servers", RFC 6146, April 2011.
Author's Address
Iljitsch van Beijnum
Institute IMDEA Networks
Avda. del Mar Mediterraneo, 22
Leganes, Madrid 28918
Spain
EMail: iljitsch@muada.com
Van Beijnum Standards Track PAGE 16
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 38126 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Thursday, October 6th, 2011
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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