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IETF RFC 7113
Last modified on Tuesday, February 11th, 2014
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) F. Gont
Request for Comments: 7113 Huawei Technologies
Updates: 6105 February 2014
Category: Informational
ISSN: 2070-1721
Implementation Advice for IPv6 Router Advertisement Guard (RA-Guard)
 Abstract
The IPv6 Router Advertisement Guard (RA-Guard) mechanism is commonly
employed to mitigate attack vectors based on forged ICMPv6 Router
Advertisement messages. Many existing IPv6 deployments rely on
RA-Guard as the first line of defense against the aforementioned
attack vectors. However, some implementations of RA-Guard have been
found to be prone to circumvention by employing IPv6 Extension
Headers. This document describes the evasion techniques that affect
the aforementioned implementations and formally updates RFC 6105,
such that the aforementioned RA-Guard evasion vectors are eliminated.
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 7113.
Gont Informational PAGE 1 
RFC 7113 RA-Guard Implementation Advice February 2014
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Evasion Techniques for Some RA-Guard Implementations . . . . . 3
2.1. Attack Vector Based on IPv6 Extension Headers . . . . . . 3
2.2. Attack Vector Based on IPv6 Fragmentation . . . . . . . . 4
3. RA-Guard Implementation Advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. Other Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Appendix A. Assessment Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1. Introduction
IPv6 Router Advertisement Guard (RA-Guard) is a mitigation technique
for attack vectors based on ICMPv6 Router Advertisement [RFC 4861]
messages. [RFC 6104] describes the problem statement of "Rogue IPv6
Router Advertisements", and [RFC 6105] specifies the "IPv6 Router
Advertisement Guard" functionality.
The concept behind RA-Guard is that a Layer-2 (L2) device filters
ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages, according to a number of
different criteria. The most basic filtering criterion is that
Router Advertisement messages are discarded by the L2 device unless
they are received on a specified port of the L2 device. Clearly, the
effectiveness of RA-Guard relies on the ability of the L2 device to
identify ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages.
Some popular RA-Guard implementations have been found to be easy to
circumvent by employing IPv6 Extension Headers [CPNI-IPv6]. This
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RFC 7113 RA-Guard Implementation Advice February 2014
document describes such evasion techniques and provides advice to
RA-Guard implementers such that the aforementioned evasion vectors
can be eliminated.
It should be noted that the previously mentioned techniques could
also be exploited to evade network monitoring tools such as NDPMon
[NDPMon], ramond [ramond], and rafixd [rafixd], and could probably be
exploited to perform stealth DHCPv6 [RFC 3315] attacks.
2. Evasion Techniques for Some RA-Guard Implementations
The following subsections describe two different vectors that have
been found to be effective for the evasion of popular implementations
of RA-Guard. Section 2.1 describes an attack vector based on the use
of IPv6 Extension Headers with ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages,
which may be used to circumvent the RA-Guard protection of those
implementations that fail to process an entire IPv6 header chain when
trying to identify the ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages.
Section 2.2 describes an attack method based on the use of IPv6
fragmentation, possibly in conjunction with the use of IPv6 Extension
Headers. This later vector has been found to be effective against
all existing implementations of RA-Guard.
2.1. Attack Vector Based on IPv6 Extension Headers
While there is currently no legitimate use for IPv6 Extension Headers
in ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages, Neighbor Discovery [RFC 4861]
implementations allow the use of Extension Headers with these
messages, by simply ignoring the received options. Some RA-Guard
implementations try to identify ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages
by simply looking at the "Next Header" field of the fixed IPv6
header, rather than following the entire header chain. As a result,
such implementations fail to identify any ICMPv6 Router Advertisement
messages that include any Extension Headers (for example, a Hop-by-
Hop Options header, a Destination Options header, etc.), and can be
easily circumvented.
The following figure illustrates the structure of ICMPv6 Router
Advertisement messages that implement this evasion technique:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=60| |NH=58| | |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ + +
| IPv6 Header | Dst Opt Hdr | ICMPv6 Router Advertisement |
+ + + +
| | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
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RFC 7113 RA-Guard Implementation Advice February 2014
2.2. Attack Vector Based on IPv6 Fragmentation
This section presents a different attack vector, which has been found
to be effective against all implementations of RA-Guard. The basic
idea behind this attack vector is that if the forged ICMPv6 Router
Advertisement is fragmented into at least two fragments, the L2
device implementing RA-Guard would be unable to identify the attack
packet and would thus fail to block it.
A first variant of this attack vector would be an original ICMPv6
Router Advertisement message preceded with a Destination Options
header, which results in two fragments. The following figure
illustrates the "original" attack packet, prior to fragmentation, and
the two resulting fragments that are actually sent as part of the
attack.
Original Packet:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=60| |NH=58| | |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ + +
| IPv6 Header | Dst Opt Hdr | ICMPv6 RA |
+ + + +
| | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
First Fragment:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=44| |NH=60| |NH=58| |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ +
| IPv6 Header | Frag Hdr | Dst Opt Hdr |
+ + + +
| | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Second Fragment:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=44| |NH=60| | | |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ + + +
| IPv6 Header | Frag Hdr | Dst Opt Hdr | ICMPv6 RA |
+ + + + +
| | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
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RFC 7113 RA-Guard Implementation Advice February 2014
It should be noted that the "Hdr Ext Len" field of the Destination
Options header is present in the First Fragment (rather than the
second). Therefore, it is impossible for a device processing only
the second fragment to locate the ICMPv6 header contained in that
fragment, since it is unknown how many bytes should be "skipped" to
get to the next header following the Destination Options header.
Thus, by leveraging the use of the Fragment Header together with the
use of the Destination Options header, the attacker is able to
conceal the type and contents of the ICMPv6 message he is sending (an
ICMPv6 Router Advertisement in this example). Unless the L2 device
were to implement IPv6 fragment reassembly, it would be impossible
for the device to identify the ICMPv6 type of the message.
An L2 device could, however, at least detect that an ICMPv6
message (of some type) is being sent, since the "Next Header"
field of the Destination Options header contained in the First
Fragment is set to "58" (ICMPv6).
This idea can be taken further, such that it is also impossible for
the L2 device to detect that the attacker is sending an ICMPv6
message in the first place. This can be achieved with an original
ICMPv6 Router Advertisement message preceded with two Destination
Options headers that results in two fragments. The following figure
illustrates the "original" attack packet, prior to fragmentation, and
the two resulting packets that are actually sent as part of the
attack.
Original Packet:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-//+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=60| |NH=60| |NH=58| | |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ + +
| IPv6 header | Dst Opt Hdr | Dst Opt Hdr | ICMPv6 RA |
+ + + + +
| | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-//+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
First Fragment:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=44| |NH=60| |NH=60| |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ +
| IPv6 header | Frag Hdr | Dst Opt Hdr |
+ + + +
| | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
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RFC 7113 RA-Guard Implementation Advice February 2014
Second Fragment:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=44| |NH=60| | |NH=58| | |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ + +-+-+-+ + +
| IPv6 header | Frag Hdr | Dst O Hdr | Dst Opt Hdr | ICMPv6 RA |
+ + + + + +
| | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
In this variant, the "Next Header" field of the Destination Options
header contained in the First Fragment is set to "60" (Destination
Options header); thus, it is impossible for a device processing only
the First Fragment to detect that an ICMPv6 message is being sent in
the first place.
The second fragment presents the same challenges as the second
fragment of the previous variant. That is, it would be impossible
for a device processing only the second fragment to locate the second
Destination Options header (and hence the ICMPv6 header), since the
"Hdr Ext Len" field of the first Destination Options header is
present in the First Fragment (rather than the second).
3. RA-Guard Implementation Advice
The following filtering rules must be implemented as part of an
RA-Guard implementation on ports that face interfaces that are not
allowed to send ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages, such that the
vulnerabilities discussed in this document are eliminated:
1. If the IPv6 Source Address of the packet is not a link-local
address (fe80::/10), RA-Guard must pass the packet.
RATIONALE: This prevents RA-Guard from dedicating processing
cycles to filtering packets that originate off-net and that,
if they are RA's, would not be accepted by the host. Section
6.1.2 of [RFC 4861] requires nodes to discard Router
Advertisement messages if their IPv6 Source Address is not a
link-local address.
2. If the Hop Limit is not 255, RA-Guard must pass the packet.
RATIONALE: This prevents RA-Guard from dedicating processing
cycles to filtering packets that originate off-net and that,
if they are RA's, would not be accepted by the destination
host. Section 6.1.2 of [RFC 4861] requires nodes to discard
Router Advertisement messages if their Hop Limit is not 255.
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RFC 7113 RA-Guard Implementation Advice February 2014
3. RA-Guard must parse the entire IPv6 header chain present in the
packet, to identify whether the packet is a Router Advertisement
message.
NOTE: RA-Guard implementations must not enforce a limit on the
number of bytes they can inspect (starting from the beginning
of the IPv6 packet), since this could introduce false
positives: legitimate packets could be dropped simply because
the RA-Guard device does not parse the entire IPv6 header
chain present in the packet. An implementation that has such
an implementation-specific limit must not claim compliance
with this specification, and must pass the packet when such
implementation-specific limit is reached.
4. When parsing the IPv6 header chain, if the packet is a First
Fragment (i.e., a packet containing a Fragment Header with the
Fragment Offset set to 0) and it fails to contain the entire IPv6
header chain (i.e., all the headers starting from the IPv6 header
up to, and including, the upper-layer header), RA-Guard must drop
the packet and should log the packet drop event in an
implementation-specific manner as a security fault.
RATIONALE: [RFC 7112] specifies that the First Fragment (i.e.,
the fragment with the Fragment Offset set to 0) must contain
the entire IPv6 header chain, and allows intermediate systems
such as routers to drop those packets that fail to comply with
this requirement.
NOTE: This rule should only be applied to IPv6 fragments with
a Fragment Offset of 0 (non-First Fragments can be safely
passed, since they will never reassemble into a complete
datagram if they are part of a Router Advertisement received
on a port where such packets are not allowed).
5. When parsing the IPv6 header chain, if the packet is identified
to be an ICMPv6 Router Advertisement message or the packet
contains an unrecognized Next Header value [IANA-IP-PROTO],
RA-Guard must drop the packet, and should log the packet drop
event in an implementation-specific manner as a security fault.
RA-Guard must provide a configuration knob that controls whether
packets with unrecognized Next Header values are dropped; this
configuration knob must default to "drop".
RATIONALE: By definition, Router Advertisement messages are
required to originate on-link, have a link-local IPv6 Source
Address, and have a Hop Limit value of 255 [RFC 4861].
[RFC 7045] requires that nodes be configurable with respect to
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RFC 7113 RA-Guard Implementation Advice February 2014
whether packets with unrecognized headers are forwarded, and
allows the default behavior to be that such packets be
dropped.
6. In all other cases, RA-Guard must pass the packet as usual.
NOTE: For the purpose of enforcing the RA-Guard filtering policy,
an Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) header [RFC 4303] should be
considered to be an "upper-layer protocol" (that is, it should be
considered the last header in the IPv6 header chain). This means
that packets employing ESP would be passed by the RA-Guard device
to the intended destination. If the destination host does not
have a security association with the sender of the aforementioned
IPv6 packet, the packet would be dropped. Otherwise, if the
packet is considered valid by the IPsec implementation at the
receiving host and encapsulates a Router Advertisement message, it
is up to the receiving host what to do with such a packet.
If a packet is dropped due to this filtering policy, then the packet
drop event should be logged in an implementation-specific manner as a
security fault. The logging mechanism should include a drop counter
dedicated to RA-Guard packet drops.
In order to protect current end-node IPv6 implementations, Rule #4
has been defined as a default rule to drop packets that cannot be
positively identified as not being Router Advertisement (RA) messages
(because the packet is a fragment that fails to include the entire
IPv6 header chain). This means that, at least in theory, RA-Guard
could result in false-positive blocking of some legitimate non-RA
packets that could not be positively identified as being non-RA. In
order to reduce the likelihood of false positives, Rule #1 and Rule
#2 require that packets that would not pass the required validation
checks for RA messages (Section 6.1.2 of [RFC 4861]) be passed without
further inspection. In any case, as noted in [RFC 7112], IPv6 packets
that fail to include the entire IPv6 header chain are virtually
impossible to police with state-less filters and firewalls and,
hence, are unlikely to survive in real networks. [RFC 7112] requires
that hosts employing fragmentation include the entire IPv6 header
chain in the First Fragment (the fragment with the Fragment Offset
set to 0), thus eliminating the aforementioned false positives.
This filtering policy assumes that host implementations require that
the IPv6 Source Address of ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages be a
link-local address and that they discard the packet if this check
fails, as required by the current IETF specifications [RFC 4861].
Additionally, it assumes that hosts require the Hop Limit of Neighbor
Discovery messages to be 255, and that they discard those packets
otherwise.
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RFC 7113 RA-Guard Implementation Advice February 2014
The aforementioned filtering rules implicitly handle the case of
fragmented packets: if the RA-Guard device fails to identify the
upper-layer protocol as a result of the use of fragmentation, the
corresponding packets would be dropped.
Finally, we note that IPv6 implementations that allow overlapping
fragments (i.e., that do not comply with [RFC 5722]) might still be
subject of RA-based attacks. However, a recent assessment of IPv6
implementations [SI6-FRAG] with respect to their fragment reassembly
policy seems to indicate that most current implementations comply
with [RFC 5722].
4. Other Implications
A similar concept to that of RA-Guard has been implemented for
protecting against forged DHCPv6 messages. Such protection can be
circumvented with the same techniques discussed in this document, and
the countermeasures for such evasion attack are analogous to those
described in Section 3 of this document.
[DHCPv6-Shield] specifies a mechanism to protect against rogue
DHCPv6 servers, while taking into consideration the evasion
techniques discussed in this document.
5. Security Considerations
This document describes a number of techniques that have been found
to be effective to circumvent popular RA-Guard implementations and
provides advice to RA-Guard implementers such that those evasion
vulnerabilities are eliminated.
As noted in Section 3, IPv6 implementations that allow overlapping
fragments (i.e., that do not comply with [RFC 5722]) might still be
subject of RA-based attacks. However, most current
implementations seem to comply with [RFC 5722].
We note that if an attacker sends a fragmented ICMPv6 Router
Advertisement message on a port not allowed to send such packets, the
First Fragment would be dropped, and the rest of the fragments would
be passed. This means that the victim node would tie memory buffers
for the aforementioned fragments, which would never reassemble into a
complete datagram. If a large number of such packets were sent by an
attacker, and the victim node failed to implement proper resource
management for the IPv6 fragment reassembly buffer, this could lead
to a Denial of Service (DoS). However, this does not really
introduce a new attack vector, since an attacker could always perform
the same attack by sending forged fragmented datagrams in which at
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RFC 7113 RA-Guard Implementation Advice February 2014
least one of the fragments is missing. [CPNI-IPv6] discusses some
resource management strategies that could be implemented for the IPv6
fragment reassembly buffer.
We note that the most effective and efficient mitigation for these
attacks would rely on the prohibiting the use of IPv6 fragmentation
with Router Advertisement messages (as specified by [RFC 6980]), such
that the RA-Guard functionality is easier to implement. However,
since such mitigation would require an update to existing
implementations, it cannot be relied upon in the short or near term.
Finally, we note that RA-Guard only mitigates attack vectors based on
ICMPv6 Router advertisement messages. Protection against similar
attacks based on other messages (such as DCHPv6) is considered out of
the scope of this document and is left for other documents (e.g.,
[DHCPv6-Shield]).
6. Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Ran Atkinson, who provided very
detailed comments and suggested text that was incorporated into this
document.
The author would like to thank Ran Atkinson, Karl Auer, Robert
Downie, Washam Fan, David Farmer, Mike Heard, Marc Heuse, Nick
Hilliard, Ray Hunter, Joel Jaeggli, Simon Perreault, Arturo Servin,
Gunter van de Velde, James Woodyatt, and Bjoern A. Zeeb, for
providing valuable comments on earlier versions of this document.
The author would like to thank Arturo Servin, who presented this
document at IETF 81.
This document resulted from the project "Security Assessment of the
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)" [CPNI-IPv6], carried out by
Fernando Gont on behalf of the UK Centre for the Protection of
National Infrastructure (CPNI).
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[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 4303] Kent, S., "IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)",
RFC 4303, December 2005.
Gont Informational PAGE 10
RFC 7113 RA-Guard Implementation Advice February 2014
[RFC 4861] Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and H.
Soliman, "Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6
(IPv6)", RFC 4861, September 2007.
[RFC 5722] Krishnan, S., "Handling of Overlapping IPv6
Fragments", RFC 5722, December 2009.
[RFC 6105] Levy-Abegnoli, E., Van de Velde, G., Popoviciu, C.,
and J. Mohacsi, "IPv6 Router Advertisement Guard",
RFC 6105, February 2011.
[RFC 6980] Gont, F., "Security Implications of IPv6
Fragmentation with IPv6 Neighbor Discovery",
RFC 6980, August 2013.
[RFC 7045] Carpenter, B. and S. Jiang, "Transmission and
Processing of IPv6 Extension Headers", RFC 7045,
December 2013.
[RFC 7112] Gont, F., Manral, V., and R. Bonica, "Implications
of Oversized IPv6 Header Chains", RFC 7112,
January 2014.
7.2. Informative References
[CPNI-IPv6] Gont, F., "Security Assessment of the Internet
Protocol version 6 (IPv6)", UK Centre for the
Protection of National Infrastructure, (available on
request).
[DHCPv6-Shield] Gont, F., Liu, W., and G. Van de Velde, "DHCPv6-
Shield: Protecting Against Rogue DHCPv6 Servers",
Work in Progress, October 2013.
[IANA-IP-PROTO] IANA, "Assigned Internet Protocol Numbers",
<http://www.iana.org/assignments/protocol-numbers/>.
[NDPMon] "NDPMon - IPv6 Neighbor Discovery Protocol Monitor",
<http://ndpmon.sourceforge.net/>.
[RFC 6104] Chown, T. and S. Venaas, "Rogue IPv6 Router
Advertisement Problem Statement", RFC 6104,
February 2011.
[SI6-FRAG] SI6 Networks, "IPv6 NIDS evasion and improvements in
IPv6 fragmentation/reassembly", 2012,
<http://blog.si6networks.com/2012/02/
ipv6-nids-evasion-and-improvements-in.html>.
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RFC 7113 RA-Guard Implementation Advice February 2014
[SI6-IPv6] "SI6 Networks' IPv6 toolkit",
<http://www.si6networks.com/tools/ipv6toolkit>.
[THC-IPV6] "The Hacker's Choice IPv6 Attack Toolkit",
<http://www.thc.org/thc-ipv6/>.
[rafixd] "rafixd", <http://www.kame.net/dev/cvsweb2.cgi/kame/
kame/kame/rafixd/>.
[ramond] "ramond", <http://ramond.sourceforge.net/>.
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RFC 7113 RA-Guard Implementation Advice February 2014
Appendix A. Assessment Tools
[SI6-IPv6] is a publicly available set of tools (for Linux, *BSD, and
Mac OS) that implements the techniques described in this document.
[THC-IPV6] is a publicly available set of tools (for Linux) that
implements some of the techniques described in this document.
Author's Address
Fernando Gont
Huawei Technologies
Evaristo Carriego 2644
Haedo, Provincia de Buenos Aires 1706
Argentina
Phone: +54 11 4650 8472
EMail: fgont@si6networks.com
Gont Informational PAGE 13
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 29272 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Tuesday, February 11th, 2014
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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