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IETF RFC 6967
Last modified on Tuesday, June 18th, 2013
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) M. Boucadair
Request for Comments: 6967 France Telecom
Category: Informational J. Touch
ISSN: 2070-1721 USC/ISI
P. Levis
France Telecom
R. Penno
Cisco
June 2013
Analysis of Potential Solutions for Revealing a
Host Identifier (HOST_ID) in Shared Address Deployments
 Abstract
This document is a collection of potential solutions for revealing a
host identifier (denoted as HOST_ID) when a Carrier Grade NAT (CGN)
or application proxies are involved in the path. This host
identifier could be used by a remote server to sort packets according
to the sending host. The host identifier must be unique to each host
under the same shared IP address.
This document analyzes a set of potential solutions for revealing a
host identifier and does not recommend a particular solution,
although it does highlight the hazards of some approaches.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
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). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
Standard; see 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 6967.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2013 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.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. On HOST_ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. HOST_ID and Privacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. Detailed Solutions Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1. Use the Identification Field of the IPv4 Header (IP-ID) . 8
4.1.1. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1.2. Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.2. Define an IP Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2.1. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2.2. Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.3. Define a TCP Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.3.1. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.3.2. Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.4. Inject Application Protocol Message Headers . . . . . . . 11
4.4.1. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.4.2. Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.5. PROXY Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.5.1. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.5.2. Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.6. Assign Port Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.6.1. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.6.2. Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.7. Host Identity Protocol (HIP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.7.1. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.7.2. Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.8. Use of a Notification Channel (e.g., ICMP) . . . . . . . 15
4.8.1. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.8.2. Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.9. Use Out-of-Band Mechanisms (e.g., Ident) . . . . . . . . 16
4.9.1. Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.9.2. Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5. Solutions Analysis: Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
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1. Introduction
As reported in [RFC 6269], several issues are encountered when an IP
address is shared among several subscribers. These issues are
encountered in various deployment contexts, e.g., Carrier-Grade NAT
(CGN), application proxies, or Address plus Port (A+P) [RFC 6346].
Examples of such issues are: implicit identification (Section 13.2 of
[RFC 6269]), spam (Section 13.3 of [RFC 6269]), blacklisting a
misbehaving host (Section 13.1 of [RFC 6269]), or redirecting users
with infected machines to a dedicated portal (Section 5.1 of
[RFC 6269]).
In particular, some servers use the source IPv4 address as an
identifier to treat some incoming connections differently. Due to
the deployment of CGNs (e.g., NAT44 [RFC 3022], NAT64 [RFC 6146]), that
address will be shared. In particular, when a server receives
packets from the same source address, because this address is shared,
the server does not know which host is the sending host [RFC 6269].
The sole use of the IPv4 address is not sufficient to uniquely
distinguish a host. As a mitigation, it is tempting to investigate
ways that would disclose information to be used by the remote server
as a means of uniquely disambiguating packets sent from hosts using
the same IPv4 address.
The risk of not mitigating these issues include: OPEX (Operational
Expenditure) increase for IP connectivity service providers (costs
induced by calls to a hotline), revenue loss for content providers
(loss of users' audience), and customers' dissatisfaction (low
quality of experience, service segregation, etc.).
The purpose of this document is to analyze a set of alternative
channels to convey a host identifier and to assess to what extent the
alternatives solve the problem described in Section 2. The
evaluation is intended to be comprehensive, regardless of the
maturity or validity of any currently known or proposed solution.
The alternatives analyzed in the document are listed below:
o Use the Identification field of the IP header (denoted as IP-ID,
Section 4.1).
o Define a new IP option (Section 4.2).
o Define a new TCP option (Section 4.3).
o Inject application headers (Section 4.4).
o Enable Proxy Protocol (Section 4.5).
o Assign port sets (Section 4.6).
o Activate HIP (Host Identity Protocol) (Section 4.7).
o Use a notification channel (Section 4.8).
o Use an out-of-band mechanism (Section 4.9).
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A synthesis is provided in Section 5, while the detailed analysis is
elaborated in Section 4.
Section 3 discusses privacy issues common to all proposed solutions.
It is out of scope of this document to elaborate on privacy issues
specific to each solution.
This document does not include any recommendations because the
working group felt that it was too premature to include one.
2. On HOST_ID
Policies that rely on source IP addresses and that are enforced by
some servers will be applied to all hosts sharing the same IP
address. For example, blacklisting the IP address of a spammer host
will result in all other hosts that share that address having their
access to the requested service restricted. [RFC 6269] describes the
issues in detail. Therefore, due to address sharing, servers need
extra information beyond the source IP address to differentiate the
sending host. We call this information the HOST_ID.
The HOST_ID identifies a host under a shared IP address. Privacy-
related considerations are discussed in Section 3.
Within this document, a host can be any computer located behind a
Home Gateway or directly connected to an address-sharing function
located in the network provider's domain (typically this would be the
Home Gateway itself).
Because the HOST_ID is used by a remote server to sort out the
packets by sending host, the HOST_ID must be unique to each host
under the same shared IP address, where possible. In the case where
only the Home Gateway is revealed to the operator side of the
translation function, the HOST_ID need only be unique to the Home
Gateway. The HOST_ID does not need to be globally unique. Of
course, the combination of the (public) IP source address and the
identifier (i.e., HOST_ID) ends up being unique.
If the HOST_ID is conveyed at the IP level, all packets will have to
bear the identifier. If it is conveyed at a higher connection-
oriented level, the identifier is only needed once in the session
establishment phase (for instance, a TCP three-way handshake), then
all packets received in this session will be attributed to the
HOST_ID designated during the session opening.
Within this document, we assume the operator-side address-sharing
function injects the HOST_ID. Another deployment option to avoid
potential performance degradation is to let the host or Home Gateway
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inject its HOST_ID, but the address-sharing function will check its
content (just like an IP anti-spoofing function). For some
proposals, the HOST_ID is retrieved using an out-of-band mechanism or
signaled in a dedicated notification channel.
For A+P [RFC 6346] and its variants, port set announcements may be
needed as discussed in Section 4.6.
Security considerations are common to all analyzed solutions (see
Section 6). Privacy-related aspects are discussed in Section 3.
The HOST_ID can be ambiguous for hosts with multiple interfaces or
multiple addresses assigned to a single interface. HOST_IDs that are
the same may be used to imply or infer the same end system, but
HOST_IDs that are different should not be used to imply or infer
whether the end systems are the same or different.
3. HOST_ID and Privacy
IP address sharing is motivated by a number of different factors.
For years, many network operators have conserved public IPv4
addresses by making use of Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) that
assigns a single public IPv4 address to all hosts within the
customer's local area network and uses NAT [RFC 3022] to translate
between locally unique private IPv4 addresses and the CPE's public
address. With the exhaustion of IPv4 address space, address sharing
between customers on a much larger scale is likely to become much
more prevalent. While many individual users are unaware of and
uninvolved in decisions about whether their unique IPv4 addresses get
revealed when they send data via IP, some users realize privacy
benefits associated with IP address sharing, and some may even take
steps to ensure that NAT functionality sits between them and the
public Internet. IP address sharing makes the actions of all users
behind the NAT function unattributable to any single host, creating
room for abuse but also providing some identity protection for
non-abusive users who wish to transmit data with reduced risk of
being uniquely identified.
The proposals considered in this document help differentiate between
hosts that share a public IP address. The extent of that
differentiation depends on what information is included in the
HOST_ID.
The volatility of the HOST_ID information is similar to that of the
internal IP address: a distinct HOST_ID may be used by the address-
sharing function when the host reboots or gets a new internal IP
address. As with persistent IP addresses, persistent HOST_IDs
facilitate user tracking over time.
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As a general matter, the HOST_ID proposals do not seek to make hosts
any more identifiable than they would be if they were using a public,
non-shared IP address. However, depending on the solution proposal,
the addition of HOST_ID information may allow a device to be
fingerprinted more easily than it otherwise would be. To prevent
this, the following design considerations are to be taken into
account:
o It is recommended that HOST_IDs be limited to providing local
uniqueness rather than global uniqueness.
o The address-sharing function should not use permanent HOST_ID
values.
Should multiple solutions be combined (e.g., TCP option and Forwarded
header) that include different pieces of information in the HOST_ID,
fingerprinting may become even easier. To prevent this, an address-
sharing function that is able to inject HOST_IDs in several layers
should reveal the same subsets of information at each layer. For
example, if one layer references the lower 16 bits of an IPv4
address, the other layer should reference these 16 bits too.
A HOST_ID can be spoofed, as this is also the case for spoofing an IP
address. Furthermore, users of network-based anonymity services
(like Tor [TOR]) may be capable of stripping HOST_ID information
before it reaches its destination.
In order to control the information revealed to external parties, an
address-sharing function should be able to strip, rewrite, and add
HOST_ID fields.
An address-sharing function may be configured to enforce different
end-user preferences with regards to HOST_ID injection. For example,
HOST_ID injection can be disabled for some users. This feature is
policy based and deployment specific.
HOST_ID specification document(s) should explain the privacy impact
of the solutions they specify, including the extent of HOST_ID
uniqueness and persistence, assumptions made about the lifetime of
the HOST_ID, whether and how the HOST_ID can be obfuscated or
recycled, whether location information can be exposed, and the impact
of the use of the HOST_ID on device or implementation fingerprinting.
[IAB-PRIVACY] provides further guidance.
For more discussion about privacy, refer to [RFC 6462].
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4. Detailed Solutions Analysis
4.1. Use the Identification Field of the IPv4 Header (IP-ID)
4.1.1. Description
The IPv4 ID (Identification field of IP header, i.e., IP-ID) can be
used to insert information that uniquely distinguishes a host among
those sharing the same IPv4 address. Use of the IP-ID as a channel
to convey the HOST_ID is a theoretical construct (i.e., it is an
undocumented proposal).
An address-sharing function can rewrite the IP-ID field to insert a
value that is unique to the host (16 bits are sufficient to uniquely
disambiguate hosts sharing the same IP address). The address-sharing
function injecting the HOST_ID must follow the rules defined in
[RFC 6864]; in particular, the same HOST_ID is not reassigned to
another host sharing the same IP address during a given time
interval.
A variant of this approach relies upon the format of certain packets,
such as TCP SYN, where the IP-ID can be modified to contain a 16-bit
HOST_ID.
Address-sharing devices using this solution would be required to
indicate that they do so, possibly using a special DNS record.
4.1.2. Analysis
This usage is not consistent with the fragment reassembly use of the
Identification field [RFC 791] or the updated handling rules for the
Identification field [RFC 6864].
Complications may arise if the packet is fragmented before reaching
the device that is injecting the HOST_ID. To appropriately handle
those packet fragments, the address-sharing function will need to
maintain a lot of state.
Another complication to be encountered is where translation is
balanced among several NATs; setting the appropriate HOST_ID by a
given NAT would alter the coordination between those NATs. Of
course, one can argue that this coordinated NAT scenario is not a
typical deployment scenario; regardless, using the IP-ID as a channel
to convey a HOST_ID is ill-advised.
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4.2. Define an IP Option
4.2.1. Description
An alternate way to convey the HOST_ID is to define an IP option
[RFC 791]. A HOST_ID IP option can be inserted by the address-
sharing function to uniquely distinguish a host among those sharing
the same IP address. An example of such an option is documented in
[REVEAL-IP]. This IP option allows the conveyance of an IPv4
address, an IPv6 prefix, a Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) key,
an IPv6 Flow Label, etc.
An IP option may also be used as described in Section 4.6 of
[RFC 3022].
4.2.2. Analysis
This proposal can apply to any transport protocol. However, it is
widely known that routers and other middleboxes filter IP options
(e.g., drop IP packets with unknown IP options, strip unknown IP
options, etc.).
Injecting the HOST_ID IP option introduces some implementation
complexity in the following cases:
o The packet is at or close to the MTU size.
o The options space is exhausted.
Previous studies demonstrated that "IP Options are not an option"
(refer to [Not_An_Option] and [Options]).
In conclusion, using an IP option to convey a HOST_ID is not viable.
4.3. Define a TCP Option
4.3.1. Description
The HOST_ID may be conveyed in a dedicated TCP option. An example is
specified in [REVEAL-TCP]. This option encloses the TCP client's
identifier (e.g., the lower 16 bits of its IPv4 address, its VLAN ID,
VRF ID, or subscriber ID). The address-sharing device inserts this
TCP option into the TCP SYN packet.
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4.3.2. Analysis
Using a new TCP option to convey the HOST_ID does not require any
modification to the applications, but it is applicable only for
TCP-based applications. Applications relying on other transport
protocols are therefore left unsolved.
[REVEAL-TCP] discusses the interference with other TCP options.
The risk of session failure due to handling a new TCP option is low
as measured in [Options]. [REVEAL-TCP-EXP] provides a detailed
implementation and experimentation report of a HOST_ID TCP option.
This document provides an in-depth investigation of the impact of
implementing HOST_ID on the host, the address-sharing function, and
the enforcement of policies at the server side. It also reports a
failure ratio of 0.103% among the top 100,000 websites.
Some downsides have been identified with defining a TCP option to
reveal a host identity:
o Conveying an IP address in a TCP option may be seen as a violation
of OSI layers, but since IP addresses are already used for the
checksum computation, this is not seen as a blocking point.
Moreover, the updated version of [REVEAL-TCP] no longer allows
conveyance of a full IP address because the HOST_ID is encoded in
16 bits.
o TCP option space is limited and might be consumed by the TCP
client. [REVEAL-TCP-EXP] discusses two approaches to sending the
HOST_ID: sending the HOST_ID in the TCP SYN (which consumes more
bytes in the TCP header of the TCP SYN) and sending the HOST_ID in
a TCP ACK (which consumes only two bytes in the TCP SYN).
o Content providers may find it more desirable to receive the
HOST_ID in the TCP SYN, as that more closely preserves the HOST_ID
received in the source IP address as per current practices.
Moreover, sending the HOST_ID in the TCP SYN does not interfere
with [FASTOPEN]. In the ACK mode, if the server is configured to
deliver different data based on HOST_ID, then it would have to
wait for the ACK before transmitting data.
o HOST_ID mechanisms need to be aware of end-to-end (E2E) issues and
avoid interfering with them. One example of such interference
would be injecting or removing TCP options of transited packets;
another such interference involves terminating and re-originating
TCP connections not belonging to the transit device. The HOST_ID
TCP option handled by the source node avoids this issue.
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o Injecting the HOST_ID TCP option introduces some implementation
complexity if the options space is exhausted. Specification
document(s) should specify the behavior of the address-sharing
function in detail in such a case.
o It is more complicated to implement sending the HOST_ID in a TCP
ACK, as it can introduce MTU issues if the ACK packet also
contains TCP data or if a TCP segment is lost. Note that MTU
complications can be experienced if user data is included in a SYN
packet (e.g., [FASTOPEN]).
o When there are several NATs in the path, the original HOST_ID may
be lost. The loss of the original HOST_ID may not be a problem,
as the target usage is between proxies or between a CGN and
server. Only the information leaked in the last communication leg
(i.e., between the last address-sharing function and the server)
is likely to be useful.
o Interference with usages such as a Forwarded HTTP header (see
Section 4.4) should be elaborated to specify the behavior of
servers when both options are used; in particular, specify which
information to use: the content of the TCP option or what is
conveyed in the application headers.
o When load balancers or proxies are in the path, this option does
not allow the preservation of the original source IP address and
source port. Preserving such information is required for logging
purposes (e.g., [RFC 6302]). [REVEAL-TCP-EXP] defines a TCP option
that allows various combinations of source information (e.g.,
source port, source port and source IP address, source IPv6
prefix, etc.) to be revealed.
More discussion about issues raised when extending TCP can be found
at [ExtendTCP].
4.4. Inject Application Protocol Message Headers
4.4.1. Description
Another option is to not require any change within the transport or
the IP levels but to convey the required information that will be
used to disambiguate hosts at the application payload. The format of
the conveyed information and the related semantics depend on its
application (e.g., HTTP, SIP, SMTP, etc.).
Related mechanisms could be developed for other application-layer
protocols, but the discussion in this document is limited to HTTP and
similar protocols.
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For HTTP, the Forwarded header [HTTP-FRWD] can be used to display the
original IP address when an address-sharing device is involved.
Service providers operating address-sharing devices can enable the
feature of injecting the Forwarded header, which will enclose the
original IPv4 address or the IPv6 prefix part (see the example shown
in Figure 1). The address-sharing device has to strip all included
Forwarded headers before injecting its own. Servers may rely on the
contents of this field to enforce some policies such as blacklisting
misbehaving users.
Note that [HTTP-FRWD] standardizes the Forwarded header field, to
replace the de facto (and not standard) X-Forwarded-For (XFF) header.
Forwarded: for=192.0.2.1,for=[2001:db8::1]
Forwarded: proto=https;by=192.0.2.15
Figure 1: Example of Forwarded-For
4.4.2. Analysis
Not all applications impacted by address sharing can support the
ability to disclose the original IP address. Only a subset of
protocols (e.g., HTTP) can rely on this solution.
For the HTTP case, to prevent users from injecting invalid HOST_IDs,
an initiative has been launched by Wikimedia to maintain a list of
trusted ISPs (Internet Service Providers) using XFF (see the list
available at [Trusted_ISPs]). If an address-sharing device is on the
list of trusted XFF ISPs, users editing Wikimedia located behind the
address-sharing device will appear to be editing from their
"original" IP address and not from the NATed IP address. If an
offending activity is detected, individual hosts can be blacklisted
instead of blacklisting all hosts sharing the same IP address.
XFF header injection is a common practice of load balancers. When a
load balancer is in the path, the original content of any included
XFF header should not be stripped. Otherwise, the information about
the "origin" IP address will be lost.
When several address-sharing devices are crossed, the Forwarded
header can convey the list of IP addresses (e.g., Figure 1). The
origin HOST_ID can be exposed to the target server.
Injecting the Forwarded header also introduces some implementation
complexity if the HTTP message is at or close to the MTU size.
It has been reported that some HTTP proxy implementations may
encounter parsing issues when injecting an XFF header.
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Injecting the Forwarded header for all HTTPS traffic is infeasible.
This may be problematic given the current HTTPS usage trends.
4.5. PROXY Protocol
4.5.1. Description
The solution, referred to as the Proxy Protocol [Proxy], does not
require any application-specific knowledge. The proposed solution
(Proxy Protocol Version 1) would insert identification data directly
into the application-data stream prior to the actual protocol data
being sent, regardless of the protocol. Every application protocol
would begin with a textual string of "PROXY", followed by some
textual identification data, and with a CRLF; only then would the
application data be inserted. Figure 2 shows an example of a line of
data used for this purpose, in this case, for a TCP-over-IPv4
connection received from 192.0.2.1:56324 and destined to
192.0.2.15:443.
PROXY TCP4 192.0.2.1 192.0.2.15 56324 443\r\n
Figure 2: Example of PROXY Connection Report
Upon receipt of a message conveying this line, the server removes the
line from the incoming stream. The line is parsed to retrieve the
transported protocol. The content of this line is recorded in logs
and used to enforce policies.
Proxy Protocol Version 2 is designed to accommodate IPv4/IPv6 and
also non-TCP protocols (see [Proxy] for more details).
4.5.2. Analysis
This solution can be deployed in a controlled environment, but it
cannot be deployed to all access services available in the Internet.
If the remote server does not support the Proxy Protocol, the session
will fail. Other complications will arise due to the presence of
firewalls, for instance.
As a consequence, this solution is infeasible and cannot be
recommended.
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4.6. Assign Port Sets
4.6.1. Description
This solution does not require any action from the address-sharing
function to disclose a host identifier. Instead of assuming that all
transport ports are associated with one single host, each host under
the same external IP address is assigned a restricted port set.
These port sets are then advertised to remote servers using offline
means. This announcement is not required for the delivery of
internal services (i.e., offered by the service provider deploying
the address-sharing function) relying on implicit identification.
Port sets assigned to hosts may be static or dynamic.
Port set announcements to remote servers are not required to reveal
the identity of individual hosts; they are used to advertise the
enforced policy to generate non-overlapping port sets (e.g., the
transport space associated with an IP address is fragmented to
contiguous blocks of 2048 port numbers).
Examples of such an approach are documented in [RFC 6346] and
[DETERMCGN].
4.6.2. Analysis
The solution does not require defining new fields or options; it is
policy based.
The solution may contradict the port randomization [RFC 6056] as
identified in [RFC 6269]. A mitigation would be to avoid assigning
static port sets to individual hosts.
The method is convenient for the delivery of services offered by the
service provider that is also offering the Internet access service.
4.7. Host Identity Protocol (HIP)
4.7.1. Description
[RFC 5201] specifies an architecture that introduces a new namespace
to convey identity information.
4.7.2. Analysis
This solution requires both the client and the server to support HIP
[RFC 5201]. Additional architectural considerations are to be taken
into account, such as the key exchanges.
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An alternative deployment model that does not require the client to
be HIP-enabled is having the address-sharing function behave as a
UDP/TCP-HIP relay. This model is also not viable as it assumes all
servers are HIP-enabled.
This solution is a theoretical construct (i.e., the proposal is not
documented).
4.8. Use of a Notification Channel (e.g., ICMP)
4.8.1. Description
Another alternative is to convey the HOST_ID using a separate
notification channel than the one the packets issued to invoke the
service.
This solution relies on a mechanism where the address-sharing
function encapsulates the necessary host-identifying information into
an ICMP Echo Request packet that it sends in parallel with the
initial session creation (e.g., SYN). The information included in
the ICMP Request Data portion describes the five-tuples as seen on
both sides of the address-sharing function. An implementation
example is defined in [REVEAL-ICMP].
4.8.2. Analysis
o This ICMP proposal is valid for any transport protocol that uses a
port number. The address-sharing function may be configured with
the transport protocols that will trigger issuing those ICMP
messages.
o A hint should be provided to the ultimate server (or intermediate
nodes) that the ICMP Echo Request conveys a HOST_ID. This may be
implemented using magic numbers (a magic number is a self-selected
codepoint whose primary value is its unlikely collision with
values selected by others).
o Even if ICMP packets are blocked in the communication path, the
user connection does not have to be impacted.
o Implementations requiring a session establishment to be delayed
until receipt of the companion ICMP Echo Request may lead to some
user-experience degradation.
o Because of the presence of load balancers in the path, the
ultimate server receiving the SYN packet may not be the one that
receives the ICMP message conveying the HOST_ID.
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o Because of the presence of load balancers in the path, the port
number assigned by address sharing may be lost. Therefore, the
mapping information conveyed in the ICMP may not be sufficient to
associate a SYN packet with a received ICMP.
o The proposal is not compatible with the presence of cascaded NAT.
The main reason is that each NAT in the path will generate an ICMP
message to reveal the internal host identifier. Because these
messages will be translated by the downstream address-sharing
devices, the remote server will receive multiple ICMP messages and
will need to decide which host identifier to use.
o The ICMP proposal will add traffic overhead for both the server
and the address-sharing device.
o The ICMP proposal is similar to other mechanisms (e.g., IPFIX
[IPFIX-NAT] and Syslog [SYSLOG-NAT]) for reporting dynamic
mappings to a mediation platform (mainly for legal traceability
purposes). Performance degradation is likely to be experienced by
address-sharing functions because ICMP messages are sent for each
new instantiated mapping (even if the mapping exists).
o In some scenarios (e.g., Section 3 of [REVEAL-PCP]), the HOST_ID
should be interpreted by intermediate devices that embed Policy
Enforcement Points (PEP) [RFC 2753] responsible for granting access
to some services. These PEPs need to inspect all received packets
in order to find the companion (traffic) messages to be correlated
with ICMP messages conveying HOST_IDs. This induces more
complexity to these intermediate devices.
4.9. Use Out-of-Band Mechanisms (e.g., Ident)
4.9.1. Description
Another alternative is to retrieve the HOST_ID using a dedicated
query channel.
An implementation example may rely on the Identification Protocol
(Ident) [RFC 1413]. This solution assumes that the address-sharing
function implements the server part of IDENT, while remote servers
implement the client part of the protocol. IDENT needs to be updated
to be able to return a host identifier instead of the user-id as
defined in [RFC 1413]. The IDENT response syntax uses the same USERID
field described in [RFC 1413], but rather than returning a username, a
host identifier (e.g., a 16-bit value) is returned. For any new
incoming connection, the server contacts the IDENT server to retrieve
the associated identifier. During that phase, the connection may be
delayed.
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RFC 6967 Revealing HOST_ID June 2013
4.9.2. Analysis
o IDENT is specific to TCP. Alternative out-of-band mechanisms may
be designed to cover other transport protocols such as UDP.
o This solution requires the address-sharing function to embed an
IDENT server.
o A hint should be provided to the ultimate server (or intermediate
nodes) that the address-sharing function implements the IDENT
protocol, for example, publishing this capability using DNS (other
solutions can be envisaged).
o An out-of-band mechanism may require some administrative setup
(e.g., contract agreement) between the entity managing the
address-sharing function and the entity managing the remote
server. Such a deployment is not feasible in the Internet at
large because establishing and maintaining agreements between ISPs
and all service actors is burdensome and not scalable.
o Implementations requiring delay of the establishment of a session
until receipt of the companion IDENT response may lead to some
user-experience degradation.
o The IDENT proposal will add traffic overhead for both the server
and the address-sharing device.
o Performance degradation is likely to be experienced by address-
sharing functions embedding the IDENT server. This is further
exacerbated if the address-sharing function has to handle an IDENT
query for each new instantiated mapping (even if the mapping
exists).
o In some scenarios (e.g., Section 3 of [REVEAL-PCP]), the HOST_ID
should be interpreted by intermediate devices that embed Policy
Enforcement Points (PEP) [RFC 2753] responsible for granting access
to some services. These PEPs need to inspect all received packets
in order to generate the companion IDENT queries. This may induce
more complexity to these intermediate devices.
o IDENT queries may be generated by illegitimate TCP servers. This
would require the address-sharing function to enforce some
policies (e.g., rate-limit queries, filter based on the source IP
address, etc.).
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RFC 6967 Revealing HOST_ID June 2013
5. Solutions Analysis: Synthesis
Table 1 summarizes the approaches analyzed in this document.
+-----+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
|IP-ID| IP | TCP |HTTP |PROXY|Port | HIP |ICMP |IDENT|
| |Option|Option|Header| | Set | | | |
----------+-----+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
UDP | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | | Yes | No |
----------+-----+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
TCP | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | | Yes | Yes |
----------+-----+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
HTTP | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Yes | Yes |
----------+-----+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
Encrypted | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | | Yes | Yes |
Traffic | | | | | | | | | |
----------+-----+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
Success | High| Low | High | High | Low | 100%|Low |High |High |
Ratio | | | | | | | | | |
----------+-----+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
Possible | Low | High | Low | Med | High| No | N/A | High|High |
Perf | to | | to | to | | | | | |
Impact | Med | | Med | High | | | | | |
----------+-----+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
OS TCP/IP | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | | Yes | Yes |
Modif | | | | | | | | | |
----------+-----+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
Deployable| Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Today | | | | | | | | | |
----------+-----+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
Notes | (1) | (8) | (8) | (2) | (8) | (1) | (4) | (6) | (1) |
| (7) | | | | | (3) | (7) | (8) | (6) |
| | | | | | | | | (8) |
----------+-----+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+
Table 1: Summary of Analyzed Solutions
o "Encrypted Traffic" refers to TLS. The use of IPsec and its
complications traversing NATs are discussed in Section 2.2 of
[RFC 6889]. Similar to what is suggested in Section 13.5 of
[RFC 6269], HOST_ID specification document(s) should analyze the
compatibility of each IPsec mode in detail.
o "Success ratio" indicates the ratio of successful communications
with remote servers when the HOST_ID is injected using a proposed
solution. More details are provided below to explain how the
success ratio is computed for each proposed solution.
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 18
RFC 6967 Revealing HOST_ID June 2013
o "Possible Perf Impact" indicates the level of expected performance
degradation. The indicated degradation is an estimate based on
the need for processing at the IP layer.
o "OS TCP/IP Modif" indicates whether a modification of the OS
TCP/IP stack is required at the server side.
o "Deployable today" indicates if the solution can be generalized
without any constraint on current architectures and practices.
Notes:
(1) Requires mechanism to advertise that NAT is participating in
this scheme (e.g., DNS PTR record).
(2) This solution is widely deployed (e.g., HTTP severs, load
balancers, etc.).
(3) When the port set is not advertised, the solution is less
efficient for third-party services.
(4) Requires that the client and the server to be HIP-compliant and
that HIP infrastructure be deployed. If the client and the
server are HIP-enabled, the address-sharing function does not
need to insert an identifier. If the client is not HIP-enabled,
designing the device that performs address sharing to act as a
UDP/TCP-HIP relay is not viable.
(6) The solution is inefficient in some scenarios (see Section 5).
(7) The solution is a theoretical construct (i.e., the solution is
not documented).
(8) The solution is a documented proposal.
Provided success ratio figures for TCP and IP options are based on
the results documented in [Options] and [REVEAL-TCP-EXP].
The provided success ratio for the IP-ID is theoretical; it assumes
the address-sharing function follows the rules (see [RFC 6864])to
rewrite the IP Identification field.
Since PROXY and HIP are not widely deployed, the success ratio for
establishing communication with remote servers using these protocols
is low.
The success ratio for the ICMP-based solution is implementation
specific, but it is likely to be close to 100%. The success ratio
depends on how efficiently the solution is implemented on the server
side. A remote server that does not support the ICMP-based solution
will ignore received companion ICMP messages. An upgraded server
will need to delay the acceptance of a session until it receives the
companion ICMP message.
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RFC 6967 Revealing HOST_ID June 2013
The success ratio for the IDENT solution is implementation specific
but it is likely to be close to 100%. The success ratio depends on
how efficient the solution is implemented on the server side. A
remote server that does not support IDENT will accept a session
establishment request following its normal operation. An upgraded
server will need to delay the acceptance of a session until it
receives a response to the IDENT request it will send to the host.
The provided success ratio for the Port Set and HTTP header solutions
is 100% because no additional Layer 3 or Layer 4 field is needed to
convey HOST_ID for these solutions.
6. Security Considerations
If the server trusts the content of the HOST_ID field, a third-party
user can be impacted by a misbehaving user revealing a "faked"
HOST_ID (e.g., original IP address). This same security concern
applies for the injection of an IP option, TCP option, and
application-related content (e.g., the Forwarded HTTP header) by the
address-sharing device.
The HOST_ID may be used to leak information about the internal
structure of a network behind an address-sharing function. If this
behavior is undesired for the network administrator, the address-
sharing function can be configured to strip any existing HOST_ID in
received packets from internal hosts.
HOST_ID specification documents should elaborate further on threats
inherent to each individual solution used to convey the HOST_ID
(e.g., use of the IP-ID field to count hosts behind a NAT [Count]).
For more discussion of privacy issues related to the HOST_ID, see
Section 3.
7. Acknowledgments
Many thanks to D. Wing, C. Jacquenet, J. Halpern, B. Haberman, and
P. Yee for their review, comments, and inputs.
Thanks also to P McCann, T. Tsou, Z. Dong, B. Briscoe, T. Taylor, M.
Blanchet, D. Wing, and A. Yourtchenko for the discussions in Prague.
Some of the issues related to defining a new TCP option have been
raised by L. Eggert.
The privacy text was provided by A. Cooper.
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 20
RFC 6967 Revealing HOST_ID June 2013
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[RFC 791] Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791,
September 1981.
[RFC 3022] Srisuresh, P. and K. Egevang, "Traditional IP Network
Address Translator (Traditional NAT)", RFC 3022, January
2001.
[RFC 6056] Larsen, M. and F. Gont, "Recommendations for Transport-
Protocol Port Randomization", BCP 156, RFC 6056, January
2011.
8.2. Informative References
[Count] Belloven, S., "A Technique for Counting NATted Hosts",
<http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/papers/fnat.pdf>.
[DETERMCGN] Donley, C., Grundemann, C., Sarawat, V., Sundaresan, K.,
and O. Vautrin, "Deterministic Address Mapping to Reduce
Logging in Carrier Grade NAT Deployments", Work in
Progress, January 2013.
[ExtendTCP] Honda, M., Nishida, Y., Raiciu, C., Greenhalgh, A.,
Handley, M. and H. Tokuda,, "Is It Still Possible to
Extend TCP?", November 2011,
<http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/tmp/mboxes.pdf>.
[FASTOPEN] Cheng, Y., Chu, J., Radhakrishnan, S., and A. Jain, "TCP
Fast Open", Work in Progress, February 2013.
[HTTP-FRWD] Petersson, A. and M. Nilsson, "Forwarded HTTP
Extension", Work in Progress, October 2012.
[IAB-PRIVACY]
Cooper, A., Tschofenig, H., Aboba, B., Peterson, J.,
Morris, J., Hansen, M., and R. Smith, "Privacy
Considerations for Internet Protocols", Work in
Progress, July 2012.
[IPFIX-NAT] Sivakumar, S. and R. Penno, "IPFIX Information Elements
for Logging NAT Events", Work in Progress, March 2013.
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 21
RFC 6967 Revealing HOST_ID June 2013
[Not_An_Option]
R. Fonseca, G. Porter, R. Katz, S. Shenker, and I.
Stoica,, "IP Options Are Not An Option", 2005,
<http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2005/
EECS-2005-24.html>.
[Options] Medina, A, Allman, M. and S. Floyd, "Measuring
Interactions Between Transport Protocols and
Middleboxes", 2005,
<http://conferences.sigcomm.org/imc/2004/papers/
p336-medina.pdf>.
[Proxy] Tarreau, W., "The PROXY protocol", November 2010,
<http://haproxy.1wt.eu/download/1.5/doc/
proxy-protocol.txt>.
[REVEAL-ICMP]
Yourtchenko, A., "Revealing Hosts Sharing An IP Address
Using ICMP Echo Request", Work in Progress, March 2012.
[REVEAL-IP] Wu, Y., Ji, H., Chen, Q., and T. ZOU), "IPv4 Header
Option For User Identification In CGN Scenario", Work in
Progress, March 2011.
[REVEAL-PCP] Boucadair, M., Reddy, T., Patil, P., and D. Wing, "Using
PCP to Reveal a Host behind NAT", Work in Progress,
November 2012.
[REVEAL-TCP-EXP]
Abdo, E., Boucadair, M., and J. Queiroz, "HOST_ID TCP
Options: Implementation & Preliminary Test Results",
Work in Progress, July 2012.
[REVEAL-TCP] Yourtchenko, A. and D. Wing, "Revealing Hosts Sharing An
IP Address Using TCP Option", Work in Progress, December
2011.
[RFC 1413] St. Johns, M., "Identification Protocol", RFC 1413,
February 1993.
[RFC 2753] Yavatkar, R., Pendarakis, D., and R. Guerin, "A
Framework for Policy-based Admission Control", RFC 2753,
January 2000.
[RFC 5201] Moskowitz, R., Nikander, P., Jokela, P., and T.
Henderson, "Host Identity Protocol", RFC 5201, April
2008.
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 22
RFC 6967 Revealing HOST_ID June 2013
[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.
[RFC 6269] Ford, M., Boucadair, M., Durand, A., Levis, P., and P.
Roberts, "Issues with IP Address Sharing", RFC 6269,
June 2011.
[RFC 6302] Durand, A., Gashinsky, I., Lee, D., and S. Sheppard,
"Logging Recommendations for Internet-Facing Servers",
BCP 162, RFC 6302, June 2011.
[RFC 6346] Bush, R., "The Address plus Port (A+P) Approach to the
IPv4 Address Shortage", RFC 6346, August 2011.
[RFC 6462] Cooper, A., "Report from the Internet Privacy Workshop",
RFC 6462, January 2012.
[RFC 6864] Touch, J., "Updated Specification of the IPv4 ID Field",
RFC 6864, February 2013.
[RFC 6889] Penno, R., Saxena, T., Boucadair, M., and S. Sivakumar,
"Analysis of Stateful 64 Translation", RFC 6889, April
2013.
[SYSLOG-NAT] Chen, Z., Zhou, C., Tsou, T., and T. Taylor, "Syslog
Format for NAT Logging", Work in Progress, May 2013.
[TOR] Dingledine, R., Mathewson, N., and P. Syverson, "Tor:
The secondgeneration onion router", In Proceedings of
the 13th USENIX Security Symposium, August 2004.
[Trusted_ISPs]
Wikimedia, "Trusted XFF List", May 2013,
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/
index.php?title=XFF_project&oldid=5507690>.
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 23
RFC 6967 Revealing HOST_ID June 2013
Authors' Addresses
Mohamed Boucadair
France Telecom
Rennes 35000
France
EMail: mohamed.boucadair@orange.com
Joe Touch
USC/ISI
4676 Admiralty Way
Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6695
United States
Phone: +1 (310) 448-9151
EMail: touch@isi.edu
Pierre Levis
France Telecom
Caen 14000
France
EMail: pierre.levis@orange.com
Reinaldo Penno
Cisco
United States
EMail: repenno@cisco.com
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 24
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 53498 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Tuesday, June 18th, 2013
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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