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IETF RFC 6977
Last modified on Wednesday, July 17th, 2013
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) M. Boucadair
Request for Comments: 6977 X. Pougnard
Category: Standards Track France Telecom
ISSN: 2070-1721 July 2013
Triggering DHCPv6 Reconfiguration from Relay Agents
 Abstract
This document defines two new DHCPv6 messages: Reconfigure-Request
and Reconfigure-Reply. The Reconfigure-Request message is sent by a
DHCPv6 relay agent to notify a DHCPv6 server about a configuration
information change, so that the DHCPv6 server can send a Reconfigure
message accordingly. The Reconfigure-Reply message is used by the
server to acknowledge the receipt of the Reconfigure-Request message.
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 6977.
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.
Boucadair & Pougnard Standards Track PAGE 1 
RFC 6977 DHCPv6 Relay-Triggered Reconfiguration July 2013
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Solution Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Link Address Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6. Detailed Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6.1. Messages Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6.2. Messages Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.2.1. Reconfigure-Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.2.2. Reconfigure-Reply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.3. Creation and Transmission of a Reconfigure-Request . . . 7
6.4. Intermediate Relay Agents Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6.5. Server Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6.6. Receipt of a Reconfigure-Reply . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7. Rate-Limiting Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
10. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
11.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
11.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1. Introduction
This document specifies two new DHCPv6 messages [RFC 3315]:
Reconfigure-Request and Reconfigure-Reply.
Section 3 describes a typical problem scenario encountered that
triggers the DHCPv6 server to issue a Reconfigure message when the
configuration data is supplied by the relay agent. This problem may
be encountered in other contexts. It is out of scope of this
document to list all these cases.
Section 4 describes the proposed solution that relies on the use of
Reconfigure-Request and Reconfigure-Reply messages. The Reconfigure-
Request message is sent by a DHCPv6 relay agent to notify a DHCPv6
server about a configuration-information change, so that the DHCPv6
server can send a Reconfigure message accordingly. The Reconfigure-
Reply message is used by the server to acknowledge the receipt of
Reconfigure-Request.
Section 5 specifies the Link Address Option used by the relay agent
to indicate the link on which the client is located to the server.
Section 6 provides the detailed specification of the procedure to
trigger Reconfigure messages by DHCPv6 relay agents.
Boucadair & Pougnard Standards Track PAGE 2
RFC 6977 DHCPv6 Relay-Triggered Reconfiguration July 2013
2. Requirements Language
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. Problem Statement
For cases where the DHCPv6 relay agent possesses some information
that would be useful to the DHCPv6 client, [RFC 6422] specifies a
mechanism whereby the DHCPv6 relay agent can provide such information
to the DHCPv6 server, which can, in turn, pass this information on to
the DHCP client. This is achieved by use of RSOO (Relay-Supplied
Options option), which carries configuration data to the DHCPv6
server. The data conveyed in an RSOO is then sent back by the DHCPv6
server to the requesting DHCPv6 client.
An example of RSOO usage is shown in Figure 1; only a subset of
exchanged DHCPv6 and RADIUS messages is represented. Figure 1 shows
a broadband network scenario in which the Network Access Server (NAS)
embeds a DHCPv6 relay agent.
+-------+ +-------+ +-------+
|DHCPv6 | | NAS | |Radius |
|Client | |(DHCPv6| |Server |
| | | Relay)| | |
+-------+ +-------+ +-------+
| | |
|---Solicit---------------->| |
| |---Access-Request---------->|
|<--Access-Accept------------|
| (e.g., DS-Lite-Tunnel-Name)|
....
| +-------+
| |DHCPv6 |
| |Server |
| | |
| +-------+
| |
|---Relay-Forward----------->|
| (RSOO(OPTION_AFTR_NAME)) |
| |
| |<--Relay-Reply--------------|
|<--Advertise---------------| (e.g., OPTION_AFTR_NAME) |
| (e.g., OPTION_AFTR_NAME) |
....
Figure 1: An Example of the RSOO Usage
Boucadair & Pougnard Standards Track PAGE 3
RFC 6977 DHCPv6 Relay-Triggered Reconfiguration July 2013
A configuration change may result in an exchange of CoA (Change-of-
Authorization) [RFC 5176] messages between the NAS/DHCPv6 relay agent
and Dynamic Authorization Client (DAC) server as shown in Figure 2.
In this example, the NAS answers with a CoA-Ack message to notify the
DAC that the CoA-Request has been successfully handled.
Note that the change of the configuration in the DHCPv6 relay agent
can be triggered by any other out-of-band mechanism.
+-------+ +-------+ +-------+
|DHCPv6 | | NAS | |Radius |
|Client | |(DHCPv6| |Server/|
| | | Relay)| | DAC |
+-------+ +-------+ +-------+
| | |
|<-----CoA-Request-----------|
|(e.g., DS-Lite-Tunnel-Name) |
|------CoA-Ack-------------->|
....
Figure 2: Change of Configuration
Whenever the configuration information sent by the DHCPv6 relay agent
to the DHCPv6 server changes, the DHCPv6 server has no means of
detecting the change so that it can send a Reconfigure message
accordingly. A solution is sketched in Section 4.
4. Solution Overview
To solve the problem described in Section 3, this document proposes a
new DHCP message called Reconfigure-Request. In the example depicted
in Figure 3, a Reconfigure-Request message is sent by the DHCPv6
relay agent to a DHCPv6 server as soon as the configuration data
conveyed in an RSOO has changed. Upon receipt of this message, and
if it is configured to support such a mode, the DHCPv6 server must
build Reconfigure-Reply and Reconfigure messages. Reconfigure-Reply
is used to acknowledge the receipt of Reconfigure-Request. The
Reconfigure message encapsulated in Relay-Reply is sent to the DHCPv6
relay, which in turn will forward the message to the appropriate
DHCPv6 client.
This setup assumes the relay has a record of the client, so that it
has enough information to send the Reconfigure-Request message to the
server. How the state is recorded in the relay is out of scope of
this document. For better resilience of the proposed solution, means
to recover state in the event of failure (e.g., use of stable
storage, DHCPv6 Bulk Leasequery [RFC 5460]) need to be supported.
These state recovery solutions are not discussed in this document.
Boucadair & Pougnard Standards Track PAGE 4
RFC 6977 DHCPv6 Relay-Triggered Reconfiguration July 2013
+-------+ +-------+ +-------+
|DHCPv6 | | NAS | |Radius |
|Client | |(DHCPv6| |Server/|
| | | Relay)| | DAC |
+-------+ +-------+ +-------+
| | |
|<-----CoA-Request-----------|
|(e.g., DS-Lite-Tunnel-Name) |
| |
|------CoA-Ack-------------->|
....
| +-------+
| |DHCPv6 |
| |Server |
| | |
| +-------+
| |
|---Reconfigure-Request----->|
|<--Reconfigure-Reply--------|
| |
| |<--Relay-Reply -------------|
|<--Reconfigure-------------| (Reconfigure) |
| | |
....
Figure 3: Flow Example with Reconfigure-Request
The support of Reconfigure-Reply messages simplifies the
retransmission procedure of the relay as it provides an explicit
indication from the server (see Section 6.3 for more details). An
alternative approach is the relay monitors' Reconfigure messages
received from the server to conclude whether or not the Reconfigure-
Request was successfully handled. Nevertheless, this implicit
approach may fail to achieve its goals in some cases: for example,
the server accepts the request but it delays generating the
corresponding Reconfigure messages due to its rate-limiting policies,
the request was partially failed for some clients, etc. To avoid
useless reconfigure cycles (e.g., due to the loss of Reconfigure-
Reply messages), the approach adopted in this document allows the
relay to correct the content of a retransmitted Reconfigure-Request
based on some observed events (e.g., the client has retrieved the
updated configuration). If the relay has no client to be
reconfigured, it stops sending Reconfigure-Request messages.
The Reconfigure-Request message can also be used in scenarios other
than those that assume the use of RSOO. It is out of scope of this
document to describe all these scenarios.
Boucadair & Pougnard Standards Track PAGE 5
RFC 6977 DHCPv6 Relay-Triggered Reconfiguration July 2013
5. Link Address Option
Figure 4 shows the format of the Link Address Option.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| OPTION_LINK_ADDRESS | option-len |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
| link-address (IPv6 address) |
| |
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 4: Message Format of Link Address Option
The description of the fields are as follows:
option-code: OPTION_LINK_ADDRESS (80)
option-len: 16 (octets)
link-address: An IPv6 address used by the server to identify the
link on which the client is located.
The Link Address Option is used by the relay agent to indicate to the
server the link on which the client is located. The relay agent MUST
use a link-address value that is equivalent to the value used when
relaying messages from the client to the server. Two link-address
values are said to be equivalent if both values are IPv6 addresses
that are on-link for the network link to which the client is
connected.
To defend against poor implementations that do not correctly evaluate
equivalence, the relay agent SHOULD use the same value that was sent
to the DHCPv6 server when relaying messages from the client to the
server, as in Section 20.1.1 of [RFC 3315].
6. Detailed Specification
6.1. Messages Format
Two new message type codes are defined:
o RECONFIGURE-REQUEST (18)
o RECONFIGURE-REPLY (19)
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RFC 6977 DHCPv6 Relay-Triggered Reconfiguration July 2013
Reconfigure-Request and Reconfigure-Reply use the same format as
defined in Section 6 of [RFC 3315].
6.2. Messages Validation
6.2.1. Reconfigure-Request
Clients MUST silently discard any received Reconfigure-Request
messages.
Servers MUST discard any received Reconfigure-Request messages that
meet any of the following conditions:
o the message does not include a Client Identifier Option [RFC 3315].
o the message does not include a Link Address Option (Section 5).
o the message includes a Server Identifier Option [RFC 3315] but the
contents of the Server Identifier Option do not match the server's
identifier.
6.2.2. Reconfigure-Reply
Clients and servers MUST silently discard any received Reconfigure-
Reply messages.
The relay MUST silently discard any received Reconfigure-Reply
messages that meet any of the following conditions:
o the "transaction-id" field in the message does not match the value
used in the original message.
o the message does not include a Server Identifier Option.
o the message does not include a Status Code Option [RFC 3315].
6.3. Creation and Transmission of a Reconfigure-Request
For any event (e.g., modification of the configuration information)
that requires the server to issue a Reconfigure message, the relay
agent determines the client(s) affected by the change and then builds
a Reconfigure-Request message: the relay agent sets the "msg-type"
field to RECONFIGURE-REQUEST, generates a transaction ID, and inserts
it in the "transaction-id" field.
The relay agent MUST include one or more Client Identifier Options
[RFC 3315] and a Link Address Option (Section 5) so that the DHCPv6
Boucadair & Pougnard Standards Track PAGE 7
RFC 6977 DHCPv6 Relay-Triggered Reconfiguration July 2013
server can identify the corresponding client and the link on which
the client is located.
The relay agent MAY include a Relay Identifier Option [RFC 5460].
The relay agent MAY supply the updated configuration in the RSOO
[RFC 6422]. The relay agent MAY supply a Reconfigure Message Option
to indicate which form of Reconfigure to use. The relay agent MAY
include any option (e.g., Interface Identifier [RFC 3315]) that it
might insert when relaying a message received from a client.
When several clients on the same link are affected by a configuration
change, the relay MUST include several Client Identifier Options;
each of these options identifies a specific client. If including the
Client Identifier Options of all impacted clients exceeds the maximum
message size (see Section 7), the relay MUST generate several
Reconfigure-Request messages required to carry all Client Identifier
Options. Rate-limit considerations are discussed in Section 7.
The relay sets the destination address of the Reconfigure-Request
message to the IP address it would have sent a Relay-Forward message
(see Section 20 of [RFC 3315]).
In case multiple servers are configured to the relay agent, several
Reconfigure-Request messages are to be built. The behavior of the
relay agent to disambiguate responses when multiple servers are
configured is implementation specific. For example, an
implementation may generate a distinct "transaction-id" per server
while another implementation may use the content of the "transaction-
id" field and the Server Identifier Option to disambiguate the
responses.
The relay transmits Reconfigure-Request messages according to
Section 14 of [RFC 3315], using the following parameters:
IRT (Initial retransmission time): 1 sec
MRT (Maximum retransmission time): 10 secs
MRC (Maximum retransmission count): 5
MRD (Maximum retransmission duration): 0
The relay MAY remove clients from the client identifier list in
subsequent retransmissions, but MUST NOT add clients to the client
identifier list. This decision is local to the relay (e.g., it may
be based on observed events such as one or more clients were
reconfigured on their own).
The relay may receive Reconfigure encapsulated in Relay-Reply before
Reconfigure-Reply. The relay SHOULD NOT interpret it as if the
Boucadair & Pougnard Standards Track PAGE 8
RFC 6977 DHCPv6 Relay-Triggered Reconfiguration July 2013
Reconfigure-Request was successfully handled by the server. The
relay SHOULD use Reconfigure-Reply, not the Reconfigure message, to
determine if the request was successful (see the discussion in
Section 4).
6.4. Intermediate Relay Agents Behavior
The relay agent MUST be configurable to accept or reject Reconfigure-
Request messages received from other relay agents. If no indication
is explicitly configured to the relay, the default behavior is to
accept Reconfigure-Request messages.
If the relay is configured not to allow Reconfigure-Request messages,
the relay MUST silently discard any Reconfigure-Request message it
receives. If the relay is configured to accept Reconfigure-Request
messages, these messages are relayed as specified in Section 20.1.1
of [RFC 3315].
6.5. Server Behavior
The server MUST be configurable to accept or reject Reconfigure-
Request messages. If no indication is explicitly configured to the
server, the default behavior is to reject Reconfigure-Request
messages.
Upon receipt of a valid Reconfigure-Request message from a DHCPv6
relay agent (see Section 6.2), the server determines the client(s)
for which a Reconfigure message is to be sent.
The server constructs a Reconfigure-Reply message by setting the
"msg-type" field to RECONFIGURE-REPLY and copying the transaction ID
from the Reconfigure-Request message into the "transaction-id" field.
The server includes its server identifier in a Server Identifier
Option. The server MUST include a Status Code Option [RFC 3315]
indicating whether the request has been successfully processed,
failed, or partially failed.
o If the server fails to process the request, the server MUST set
the Status Code Option to the appropriate status code (e.g.,
UnspecFail, NotAllowed, etc.). In particular,
* UnspecFail MUST be returned if the Reconfigure-Request message
is malformed.
* NotAllowed MUST be returned if the server is not configured to
allow Reconfigure-Request.
Boucadair & Pougnard Standards Track PAGE 9
RFC 6977 DHCPv6 Relay-Triggered Reconfiguration July 2013
* NotConfigured MUST be returned if the server has no record of
the link [RFC 5007].
o If the Reconfigure-Request is successfully validated, the server
MUST return a Status Code Option indicating "Success". In
addition, the server MUST include a list of all the Client
Identifier Options of the clients to which Reconfigure messages
will not be sent (e.g., the server has no record of the client or
the client did not negotiate for Reconfigure support). Note that
this means that "Success" will be returned even if Reconfigure
messages will not be sent to any of the clients.
If RSOO is supplied, the server might use its content to double check
whether a Reconfigure is required to be sent to the client. This
assumes the server stored the content of RSOO it used to generate the
configuration data sent to requesting clients.
The server might use the content of the Reconfigure Message Option
supplied by the relay agent to determine which form of Reconfigure to
use.
Then, the server MUST follow the procedure defined in Section 19.1 of
[RFC 3315] to construct a Reconfigure message.
Rate-limit considerations are discussed in Section 7.
6.6. Receipt of a Reconfigure-Reply
Depending on the status code enclosed in a received Reconfigure-Reply
message, the relay may decide to terminate the request (e.g.,
NotAllowed, NotConfigured, and Success) or try a different corrected
Reconfigure-Request (e.g., UnspecFail).
When multiple servers are configured, the relay should expect to
receive several Reconfigure-Reply messages. As mentioned in
Section 6.3, the relay should be able to disambiguate these responses
and associate them with a given server. The relay agent assumes the
request is successfully handled for a client if there is at least one
Reconfigure-Reply message in which the corresponding Client
Identifier Option does not appear.
7. Rate-Limiting Considerations
The relay MUST rate-limit Reconfigure-Request messages to be sent to
the server. The relay MUST be configured with required rate-limit
parameters. The maximum Reconfigure-Request packet size SHOULD be
configurable and the default value MUST be 1280 octets.
Boucadair & Pougnard Standards Track PAGE 10
RFC 6977 DHCPv6 Relay-Triggered Reconfiguration July 2013
The server MUST rate-limit Reconfigure messages triggered by
Reconfigure-Request messages. The server MUST be configured with
required rate-limit parameters.
8. IANA Considerations
IANA has assigned the following new DHCPv6 Message types in the
registry maintained in
http://www.iana.org/assignments/dhcpv6-parameters:
RECONFIGURE-REQUEST
RECONFIGURE-REPLY
IANA has assigned the following new DHCPv6 Option Codes in the
registry maintained in
http://www.iana.org/assignments/dhcpv6-parameters:
OPTION_LINK_ADDRESS
9. Security Considerations
Security considerations elaborated in [RFC 3315] (in particular
Section 21.1) and [RFC 6422] must be taken into account. In addition,
DHCPv6 servers MAY be configured to reject relayed Reconfigure-
Request messages or restrict relay chaining (see [RFC 5007] for more
discussion about the rationale of this recommended behavior).
Section 6.5 specifies the error code to return when the server is
configured to reject Reconfigure-Request messages.
Relay agents SHOULD implement appropriate means to prevent using
Reconfigure-Request messages as a denial-of-service attack on the
DHCPv6 servers.
Because the Reconfigure-Request message provides a mechanism for
triggering the DHCPv6 Reconfigure message, and the DHCPv6 Reconfigure
message can raise security threats (e.g., to control the timing of a
DHCPv6 renewal), the DHCPv6 server MUST have some mechanism for
determining that the relay agent is a trusted entity. DHCPv6 servers
and relay agents MUST implement relay message authentication as
described in Section 21.1 of [RFC 3315]. DHCPv6 servers MAY also
implement a control policy based on the content of a received Relay
Identifier Option [RFC 5460]. Administrators are strongly advised to
configure one of these security mechanisms.
In an environment where the network connecting the relay agent to the
DHCPv6 server is physically secure and does not contain devices not
controlled by the server administrator, it may be sufficient to trust
Boucadair & Pougnard Standards Track PAGE 11
RFC 6977 DHCPv6 Relay-Triggered Reconfiguration July 2013
the Relay Agent Identifier provided by the relay agent. In networks
where the security of the machines with access to the data path is
not under the control of the server administrator, IPsec [RFC 4301] is
necessary to prevent spoofing of Reconfigure-Request messages.
DHCPv6 servers MUST silently discard Reconfigure-Request messages
originating from unknown relay agents.
10. Acknowledgements
Many thanks to R. Maglione, A. Kostur, G. Halwasia, C. Jacquenet, B.
Leiba, R. Sparks, A. Farrel, B. Claise, J. Jaeggli, and P. Resnick
for the comments and review.
Special thanks to T. Lemon, B. Volz, and T. Mrugalski who provided a
detailed review.
11. References
11.1. Normative References
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC 3315] Droms, R., Bound, J., Volz, B., Lemon, T., Perkins, C.,
and M. Carney, "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for
IPv6 (DHCPv6)", RFC 3315, July 2003.
[RFC 6422] Lemon, T. and Q. Wu, "Relay-Supplied DHCP Options", RFC
6422, December 2011.
11.2. Informative References
[RFC 4301] Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, December 2005.
[RFC 5007] Brzozowski, J., Kinnear, K., Volz, B., and S. Zeng,
"DHCPv6 Leasequery", RFC 5007, September 2007.
[RFC 5176] Chiba, M., Dommety, G., Eklund, M., Mitton, D., and B.
Aboba, "Dynamic Authorization Extensions to Remote
Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)", RFC 5176,
January 2008.
[RFC 5460] Stapp, M., "DHCPv6 Bulk Leasequery", RFC 5460, February
2009.
Boucadair & Pougnard Standards Track PAGE 12
RFC 6977 DHCPv6 Relay-Triggered Reconfiguration July 2013
Authors' Addresses
Mohamed Boucadair
France Telecom
Rennes 35000
France
EMail: mohamed.boucadair@orange.com
Xavier Pougnard
France Telecom
Lannion
France
EMail: xavier.pougnard@orange.com
Boucadair & Pougnard Standards Track PAGE 13
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 29769 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Wednesday, July 17th, 2013
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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