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IETF RFC 7620
Last modified on Saturday, August 15th, 2015
 Permanent link to RFC 7620
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Independent Submission M. Boucadair, Ed.
Request for Comments: 7620 B. Chatras
Category: Informational Orange
ISSN: 2070-1721 T. Reddy
Cisco Systems
B. Williams
Akamai, Inc.
B. Sarikaya
Huawei
August 2015
Scenarios with Host Identification Complications
 Abstract
This document describes a set of scenarios in which complications
when identifying which policy to apply for a host are encountered.
This problem is abstracted as "host identification". Describing
these scenarios allows commonalities between scenarios to be
identified, which is helpful during the solution design phase.
This document does not include any solution-specific discussions.
IESG Note
This document describes use cases where IP addresses are overloaded
with both location and identity properties. Such semantic
overloading is seen as a contributor to a variety of issues within
the routing system [RFC 4984]. Additionally, these use cases may be
seen as a way to justify solutions that are not consistent with IETF
Best Current Practices on protecting privacy [BCP160] [BCP188].
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This is a contribution to the RFC Series, independently of any other
RFC stream. The RFC Editor has chosen to publish this document at
its discretion and makes no statement about its value for
implementation or deployment. Documents approved for publication by
the RFC Editor are not 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 7620.
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 1 
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2015 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.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Scenario 1: Carrier-Grade NAT (CGN) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Scenario 2: Address plus Port (A+P) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. Scenario 3: On-Premise Application Proxy Deployment . . . . . 6
6. Scenario 4: Distributed Proxy Deployment . . . . . . . . . . 7
7. Scenario 5: Overlay Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
8. Scenario 6: Policy and Charging Control Architecture (PCC) . 10
9. Scenario 7: Emergency Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
10. Other Deployment Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
10.1. Open WLAN or Provider WLAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
10.2. Cellular Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
10.3. Femtocells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
10.4. Traffic Detection Function (TDF) . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
10.5. Fixed and Mobile Network Convergence . . . . . . . . . . 18
11. Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
12. Privacy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
13. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
14. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 2
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
1. Introduction
The goal of this document is to enumerate scenarios that encounter
the issue of uniquely identifying a host among those sharing the same
IP address. Within this document, a host can be any device directly
connected to a network operated by a network provider, a Home
Gateway, or a roaming device located behind a Home Gateway.
An exhaustive list of encountered issues for the Carrier-Grade NAT
(CGN), Address plus Port (A+P), and application proxies scenarios are
documented in [RFC 6269]. In addition to those issues, some of the
scenarios described in this document suffer from additional issues
such as:
o Identifying which policy to enforce for a host (e.g., limit access
to the service based on some counters such as volume-based service
offerings); enforcing the policy will have an impact on all hosts
sharing the same IP address.
o Needing to correlate between the internal address:port and
external address:port to generate and therefore enforce policies.
o Querying a location server for the location of an emergency caller
based on the source IP address.
The goal of this document is to identify scenarios the authors are
aware of and that share the same complications in identifying which
policy to apply for a host. This problem is abstracted as the host
identification problem.
The analysis of the scenarios listed in this document indicates
several root causes for the host identification issue:
1. Presence of address sharing (CGN, A+P, application proxies,
etc.).
2. Use of tunnels between two administrative domains.
3. Combination of address sharing and presence of tunnels in the
path.
Even if these scenarios share the same root causes, describing the
scenario allows to identify what is common between the scenarios, and
then this information would help during the solution design phase.
2. Scope
This document can be used as a tool to design a solution(s) that
mitigates the encountered issues. Note, [RFC 6967] focuses only on
the CGN, A+P, and application proxies cases. The analysis in
[RFC 6967] may not be accurate for some of the scenarios that do not
span multiple administrative domains (e.g., Section 10.1).
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 3
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
This document does not target means that would lead to exposing a
host beyond what the original packet, issued from that host, would
have already exposed. Such means are not desirable nor required to
solve the issues encountered in the scenarios discussed in this
document. The focus is exclusively on means to restore the
information conveyed in the original packet issued by a given host.
These means are intended to help in identifying which policy to apply
for a given flow. These means may rely on some bits of the source IP
address and/or port number(s) used by the host to issue packets.
To prevent side effects and misuses of such means on privacy, a
solution specification document(s) should explain, in addition to
what is already documented in [RFC 6967], the following:
o To what extent the solution can be used to nullify the effect of
using address sharing to preserve privacy (see, for example,
[EFFOpenWireless]). Note, this concern can be mitigated if the
address-sharing platform is under the responsibility of the host's
owner and the host does not leak information that would interfere
with the host's privacy protection tool.
o To what extent the solution can be used to expose privacy
information beyond what the original packet would have already
exposed. Note, the solutions discussed in [RFC 6967] do not allow
extra information to be revealed other than what is conveyed in
the original packet.
This document covers both IPv4 and IPv6.
This document does not include any solution-specific discussions. In
particular, the document does not elaborate whether explicit
authentication is enabled or not.
This document does not discuss whether specific information is needed
to be leaked in packets, whether this is achieved out of band, etc.
Those considerations are out of scope.
3. Scenario 1: Carrier-Grade NAT (CGN)
Several flavors of stateful CGN have been defined. A non-exhaustive
list is provided below:
1. IPv4-to-IPv4 NAT (NAT44) [RFC 6888] [STATELESS-NAT44]
2. DS-Lite NAT44 [RFC 6333]
3. Network Address and Protocol Translation from IPv6 Clients to
IPv4 Servers (NAT64) [RFC 6146]
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 4
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
4. IPv6-to-IPv6 Network Prefix Translation (NPTv6) [RFC 6296]
As discussed in [RFC 6967], remote servers are not able to distinguish
between hosts sharing the same IP address (Figure 1). As a reminder,
remote servers rely on the source IP address for various purposes
such as access control or abuse management. The loss of the host
identification will lead to issues discussed in [RFC 6269].
+-----------+
| HOST_1 |----+
+-----------+ | +--------------------+ +------------+
| | |------| Server 1 |
+-----------+ +-----+ | | +------------+
| HOST_2 |--| CGN |----| INTERNET | ::
+-----------+ +-----+ | | +------------+
| | |------| Server n |
+-----------+ | +--------------------+ +------------+
| HOST_3 |-----+
+-----------+
Figure 1: CGN Reference Architecture
Some of the above-referenced CGN scenarios will be satisfied by
eventual completion of the transition to IPv6 across the Internet
(e.g., NAT64), but this is not true of all CGN scenarios (e.g., NPTv6
[RFC 6296]) for which some of the issues discussed in [RFC 6269] will
be encountered (e.g., impact on geolocation).
Privacy-related considerations discussed in [RFC 6967] apply for this
scenario.
4. Scenario 2: Address plus Port (A+P)
A+P [RFC 6346] [RFC 7596] [RFC 7597] denotes a flavor of address-sharing
solutions that does not require any additional NAT function to be
enabled in the service provider's network. A+P assumes subscribers
are assigned with the same IPv4 address together with a port set.
Subscribers assigned with the same IPv4 address should be assigned
non-overlapping port sets. Devices connected to an A+P-enabled
network should be able to restrict the IPv4 source port to be within
a configured range of ports. To forward incoming packets to the
appropriate host, a dedicated entity called the Port-Range Router
(PRR) [RFC 6346] is needed (Figure 2).
Similar to the CGN case, remote servers rely on the source IP address
for various purposes such as access control or abuse management. The
loss of the host identification will lead to the issues discussed in
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RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
[RFC 6269]. In particular, it will be impossible to identify hosts
sharing the same IP address by remote servers.
+-----------+
| HOST_1 |----+
+-----------+ | +--------------------+ +------------+
| | |------| Server 1 |
+-----------+ +-----+ | | +------------+
| HOST_2 |--| PRR |----| INTERNET | ::
+-----------+ +-----+ | | +------------+
| | |------| Server n |
+-----------+ | +--------------------+ +------------+
| HOST_3 |-----+
+-----------+
Figure 2: A+P Reference Architecture
Privacy-related considerations discussed in [RFC 6967] apply for this
scenario.
5. Scenario 3: On-Premise Application Proxy Deployment
This scenario is similar to the CGN scenario (Section 3).
Remote servers are not able to distinguish hosts located behind the
proxy. Applying policies on the perceived external IP address as
received from the proxy will impact all hosts connected to that
proxy.
Figure 3 illustrates a simple configuration involving a proxy. Note
several (per-application) proxies may be deployed. This scenario is
a typical deployment approach used within enterprise networks.
+-----------+
| HOST_1 |----+
+-----------+ | +--------------------+ +------------+
| | |------| Server 1 |
+-----------+ +-----+ | | +------------+
| HOST_2 |--|Proxy|----| INTERNET | ::
+-----------+ +-----+ | | +------------+
| | |------| Server n |
+-----------+ | +--------------------+ +------------+
| HOST_3 |-----+
+-----------+
Figure 3: Proxy Reference Architecture
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RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
The administrator of the proxy may have many reasons for wanting to
proxy traffic - including caching, policy enforcement, malware
scanning, reporting on network or user behavior for compliance, or
security monitoring.
The same administrator may also wish to selectively hide or expose
the internal host identity to servers. He/she may wish to hide the
identity to protect end-user privacy or to reduce the ability of a
rogue agent to learn the internal structure of the network. He/she
may wish to allow upstream servers to identify hosts to enforce
access policies (for example, on documents or online databases), to
enable account identification (on subscription-based services) or to
prevent spurious misidentification of high-traffic patterns as a DoS
attack. Application-specific protocols exist for enabling such
forwarding on some plaintext protocols (e.g., Forwarded headers on
HTTP [RFC 7239] or time-stamp-line headers in SMTP [RFC 5321]).
Servers not receiving such notifications but wishing to perform host
or user-specific processing are obliged to use other application-
specific means of identification (e.g., cookies [RFC 6265]).
Packets/connections must be received by the proxy regardless of the
IP address family in use. The requirements of this scenario are not
satisfied by eventual completion of the transition to IPv6 across the
Internet. Complications will arise for both IPv4 and IPv6.
Privacy-related considerations discussed in [RFC 6967] apply for this
scenario.
6. Scenario 4: Distributed Proxy Deployment
This scenario is similar to the proxy deployment scenario (Section 5)
with the same use cases. However, in this instance part of the
functionality of the application proxy is located in a remote site.
This may be desirable to reduce infrastructure and administration
costs or because the hosts in question are mobile or roaming hosts
tied to a particular administrative zone of control but not to a
particular network.
In some cases, a distributed proxy is required to identify a host on
whose behalf it is performing the caching, filtering, or other
desired service - for example, to know which policies to enforce.
Typically, IP addresses are used as a surrogate. However, in the
presence of CGN, this identification becomes difficult. Alternative
solutions include the use of cookies, which only work for HTTP
traffic, tunnels, or proprietary extensions to existing protocols.
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RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
+-----------+ +----------+
| HOST_1 |-------------| |
+-----------+ | | +-------+ +----------+
| | | |----| Server 1 |
+-----------+ | | | | +----------+
| HOST_2 |----+ | INTERNET |---| Proxy | ::
+-----------+ +-----+ | | | | +----------+
|Proxy|----| | | |----| Server n |
+-----------+ +-----+ | | +-------+ +----------+
| HOST_3 |----+ +----------+
+-----------+
Figure 4: Distributed Proxy Reference Architecture (1)
+-----------+ +---+ +---+ +----------+
| HOST_1 +---------+ I | | I +--+ Server 1 |
+-----------+ | N | +---+ | N | +----------+
| T | | P | | T |
+-----------+ +---+ | E | | r | | E | +----------+
| HOST_2 +--+ P | | R +--+ o +--+ R +--+ Server 2 |
+-----------+ | r | | N | | x | | N | +----------+
| o |--+ E | | y | | E | ::
+-----------+ | x | | T | +---+ | T | +----------+
| HOST_3 +--+ y | | | | +--+ Server N |
+-----------+ +---+ +---+ +---+ +----------+
Figure 5: Distributed Proxy Reference Architecture (2)
Packets/connections must be received by the proxy regardless of the
IP address family in use. The requirements of this scenario are not
satisfied by eventual completion of the transition to IPv6 across the
Internet. Complications will arise for both IPv4 and IPv6.
If the proxy and the servers are under the responsibility of the same
administrative entity (Figure 4), no privacy concerns are raised.
Nevertheless, privacy-related considerations discussed in [RFC 6967]
apply if the proxy and the servers are not managed by the same
administrative entity (Figure 5).
7. Scenario 5: Overlay Network
An overlay network is a network of machines distributed throughout
multiple autonomous systems within the public Internet that can be
used to improve the performance of data transport (see Figure 6). IP
packets from the sender are delivered first to one of the machines
that make up the overlay network. That machine then relays the IP
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 8
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
packets to the receiver via one or more machines in the overlay
network, applying various performance enhancement methods.
+------------------------------------+
| |
| INTERNET |
| |
+-----------+ | +------------+ |
| HOST_1 |-----| OVRLY_IN_1 |-----------+ |
+-----------+ | +------------+ | |
| | |
+-----------+ | +------------+ +-----------+ | +--------+
| HOST_2 |-----| OVRLY_IN_2 |-----| OVRLY_OUT |-----| Server |
+-----------+ | +------------+ +-----------+ | +--------+
| | |
+-----------+ | +------------+ | |
| HOST_3 |-----| OVRLY_IN_3 |-----------+ |
+-----------+ | +------------+ |
| |
+------------------------------------+
Figure 6: Overlay Network Reference Architecture
Such overlay networks are used to improve the performance of content
delivery [IEEE1344002]. Overlay networks are also used for
peer-to-peer data transport [RFC 5694], and they have been suggested
for use in both improved scalability for the Internet routing
infrastructure [RFC 6179] and provisioning of security services
(intrusion detection, anti-virus software, etc.) over the public
Internet [IEEE101109].
In order for an overlay network to intercept packets and/or
connections transparently via base Internet connectivity
infrastructure, the overlay ingress and egress hosts (OVERLAY_IN and
OVERLAY_OUT) must be reliably in path in both directions between the
connection-initiating HOST and the SERVER. When this is not the
case, packets may be routed around the overlay and sent directly to
the receiving host, presumably without invoking some of the advanced
service functions offered by the overlay.
For public overlay networks, where the ingress and/or egress hosts
are on the public Internet, packet interception commonly uses network
address translation for the source (SNAT) or destination (DNAT)
addresses in such a way that the public IP addresses of the true
endpoint hosts involved in the data transport are invisible to each
other (see Figure 7). For example, the actual sender and receiver
may use two completely different pairs of source and destination
addresses to identify the connection on the sending and receiving
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RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
networks in cases where both the ingress and egress hosts are on the
public Internet.
IP hdr contains: IP hdr contains:
SENDER -> src = sender --> OVERLAY --> src = overlay2 --> RECEIVER
dst = overlay1 dst = receiver
Figure 7: NAT Operations in an Overlay Network
In this scenario, the remote server is not able to distinguish among
hosts using the overlay for transport. In addition, the remote
server is not able to determine the overlay ingress point being used
by the host, which can be useful for diagnosing host connectivity
issues.
In some of the above-referenced scenarios, IP packets traverse the
overlay network fundamentally unchanged, with the overlay network
functioning much like a CGN (Section 3). In other cases, connection-
oriented data flows (e.g., TCP) are terminated by the overlay in
order to perform object caching and other such transport and
application-layer optimizations, similar to the proxy scenario
(Section 5). In both cases, address sharing is a requirement for
packet/connection interception, which means that the requirements for
this scenario are not satisfied by the eventual completion of the
transition to IPv6 across the Internet.
More details about this scenario are provided in [OVERLAYPATH].
This scenario does not introduce privacy concerns since the
identification of the host is local to a single administrative domain
(i.e., Content Delivery Network (CDN) Overlay Network) or passed to a
remote server to help forwarding back the response to the appropriate
host. The host identification information is not publicly available
nor can be disclosed to other hosts connected to the Internet.
8. Scenario 6: Policy and Charging Control Architecture (PCC)
This issue is related to the PCC framework defined by 3GPP in
[TS23.203] when a NAT is located between the Policy and Charging
Enforcement Function (PCEF) and the Application Function (AF) as
shown in Figure 8.
The main issue is: PCEF, the Policy and Charging Rule Function
(PCRF), and AF all receive information bound to the same User
Equipment (UE) but without being able to correlate between the piece
of data visible for each entity. Concretely,
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RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
o PCEF is aware of the International Mobile Subscriber Identity
(IMSI) and an internal IP address assigned to the UE.
o AF receives an external IP address and port as assigned by the NAT
function.
o PCRF is not able to correlate between the external IP address/port
assigned by the NAT (received from the AF) and the internal IP
address and IMSI of the UE (received from the PCEF).
+------+
| PCRF |-----------------+
+------+ |
| |
+----+ +------+ +-----+ +-----+
| UE |------| PCEF |---| NAT |----| AF |
+----+ +------+ +-----+ +-----+
Figure 8: NAT Located between AF and PCEF
This scenario can be generalized as follows (Figure 9):
o Policy Enforcement Point (PEP) [RFC 2753]
o Policy Decision Point (PDP) [RFC 2753]
+------+
| PDP |-----------------+
+------+ |
| |
+----+ +------+ +-----+ +------+
| UE |------| PEP |---| NAT |----|Server|
+----+ +------+ +-----+ +------+
Figure 9: NAT Located between PEP and the Server
Note that an issue is encountered to enforce per-UE policies when the
NAT is located before the PEP function (see Figure 10):
+------+
| PDP |------+
+------+ |
| |
+----+ +------+ +-----+ +------+
| UE |------| NAT |---| PEP |----|Server|
+----+ +------+ +-----+ +------+
Figure 10: NAT Located before PEP
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 11
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
This scenario does not introduce privacy concerns since the
identification of the host is local to a single administrative domain
and is meant to help identify which policy to select for a UE.
9. Scenario 7: Emergency Calls
Voice Service Providers (VSPs) operating under certain jurisdictions
are required to route emergency calls from their subscribers and have
to include information about the caller's location in signaling
messages they send towards Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs)
[RFC 6443] via an Emergency Service Routing Proxy (ESRP) [RFC 6443].
This information is used both for the determination of the correct
PSAP and to reveal the caller's location to the selected PSAP.
In many countries, regulation bodies require that this information be
provided by the network rather than the user equipment, in which case
the VSP needs to retrieve this information (by reference or by value)
from the access network where the caller is attached.
This requires the VSP call server receiving an emergency call request
to identify the relevant access network and to query a Location
Information Server (LIS) in this network using a suitable lookup key.
In the simplest case, the source IP address of the IP packet carrying
the call request is used both for identifying the access network
(thanks to a reverse DNS query) and as a lookup key to query the LIS.
Obviously, the user-id as known by the VSP (e.g., telephone number or
email-formatted URI) can't be used as it is not known by the access
network.
The above mechanism is broken when there is a NAT between the user
and the VSP and/or if the emergency call is established over a VPN
tunnel (e.g., an employee remotely connected to a company Voice over
IP (VoIP) server through a tunnel wishes to make an emergency call).
In such cases, the source IP address received by the VSP call server
will identify the NAT or the address assigned to the caller equipment
by the VSP (i.e., the address inside the tunnel). This is similar to
the CGN case in (Section 3) and overlay network case (Section 7) and
applies irrespective of the IP versions used on both sides of the NAT
and/or inside and outside the tunnel.
Therefore, the VSP needs to receive an additional piece of
information that can be used to both identify the access network
where the caller is attached and query the LIS for his/her location.
This would require the NAT or the tunnel endpoint to insert this
extra information in the call requests delivered to the VSP call
servers. For example, this extra information could be a combination
of the local IP address assigned by the access network to the
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RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
caller's equipment with some form of identification of this access
network.
However, because it shall be possible to set up an emergency call
regardless of the actual call control protocol used between the user
and the VSP (e.g., SIP [RFC 3261], Inter-Asterisk eXchange (IAX)
[RFC 5456], tunneled over HTTP, or proprietary protocol, possibly
encrypted), this extra information has to be conveyed outside the
call request, in the header of lower-layer protocols.
Privacy-related considerations discussed in [RFC 6967] apply for this
scenario.
10. Other Deployment Scenarios
This section lists deployment scenarios that are variants of
scenarios described in previous sections.
10.1. Open WLAN or Provider WLAN
In the context of Provider WLAN, a dedicated Service Set Identifier
(SSID) can be configured and advertised by the Residential Gateway
(RG) for visiting terminals. These visiting terminals can be mobile
terminals, PCs, etc.
Several deployment scenarios are envisaged:
1. Deploy a dedicated node in the service provider's network that
will be responsible for intercepting all the traffic issued from
visiting terminals (see Figure 11). This node may be co-located
with a CGN function if private IPv4 addresses are assigned to
visiting terminals. Similar to the CGN case discussed in
Section 3, remote servers may not be able to distinguish visiting
hosts sharing the same IP address (see [RFC 6269]).
2. Unlike the previous deployment scenario, IPv4 addresses are
managed by the RG without requiring any additional NAT to be
deployed in the service provider's network for handling traffic
issued from visiting terminals. Concretely, a visiting terminal
is assigned with a private IPv4 address from the IPv4 address
pool managed by the RG. Packets issued from a visiting terminal
are translated using the public IP address assigned to the RG
(see Figure 12). This deployment scenario induces the following
identification concerns:
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RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
* The provider is not able to distinguish the traffic belonging
to the visiting terminal from the traffic of the subscriber
owning the RG. This is needed to identify which policies are
to be enforced such as: accounting, Differentiated Services
Code Point (DSCP) remarking, black list, etc.
* Similar to the CGN case Section 3, a misbehaving visiting
terminal is likely to have some impact on the experienced
service by the subscriber owning the RG (e.g., some of the
issues are discussed in [RFC 6269]).
+-------------+
|Local_HOST_1 |----+
+-------------+ |
| |
+-------------+ +-----+ | +-----------+
|Local_HOST_2 |--| RG |-|--|Border Node|
+-------------+ +-----+ | +----NAT----+
| |
+-------------+ | | Service Provider
|Visiting Host|-----+
+-------------+
Figure 11: NAT Enforced in a Service Provider's Node
+-------------+
|Local_HOST_1 |----+
+-------------+ |
| |
+-------------+ +-----+ | +-----------+
|Local_HOST_2 |--| RG |-|--|Border Node|
+-------------+ +-NAT-+ | +-----------+
| |
+-------------+ | | Service Provider
|Visiting Host|-----+
+-------------+
Figure 12: NAT Located in the RG
This scenario does not introduce privacy concerns since the
identification of the host is local to a single administrative domain
and is meant to help identify which policy to select for a visiting
UE.
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RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
10.2. Cellular Networks
Cellular operators allocate private IPv4 addresses to mobile
terminals and deploy NAT44 function, generally co-located with
firewalls, to access public IP services. The NAT function is located
at the boundaries of the Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN).
IPv6-only strategy, consisting in allocating IPv6 prefixes only to
mobile terminals, is considered by various operators. A NAT64
function is also considered in order to preserve IPv4 service
continuity for these customers.
These NAT44 and NAT64 functions bring some issues that are very
similar to those mentioned in Figure 1 and Section 8. These issues
are particularly encountered if policies are to be applied on the Gi
interface.
Note: 3GPP defines the Gi interface as the reference point between
the Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) and an external Packet Domain
Network (PDN). This interface reference point is called SGi in 4G
networks (i.e., between the PDN Gateway and an external PDN).
Because private IP addresses are assigned to the mobile terminals,
there is no correlation between the internal IP address and the
external address:port assigned by the NAT function, etc.
Privacy-related considerations discussed in [RFC 6967] apply for this
scenario.
10.3. Femtocells
This scenario can be seen as a combination of the scenarios described
in Sections 8 and 10.1.
The reference architecture is shown in Figure 13.
A Femto Access Point (FAP) is defined as a home base station used to
graft a local (femto) cell within a user's home to a mobile network.
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 15
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
+---------------------------+
| +----+ +--------+ +----+ | +-----------+ +-------------------+
| | UE | | Stand- |<=|====|=|===|===========|==|=>+--+ +--+ |
| +----+ | Alone | | RG | | | | | | | | | Mobile |
| | FAP | +----+ | | | | |S | |F | Network|
| +--------+ (NAPT) | | Broadband | | |e | |A | |
+---------------------------+ | Fixed | | |G |-|P | +-----+|
| (BBF) | | |W | |G |-| Core||
+---------------------------+ | Network | | | | |W | | Ntwk||
| +----+ +------------+ | | | | | | | | +-----+|
| | UE | | Integrated |<====|===|===========|==|=>+--+ +--+ |
| +----+ | FAP (NAPT) | | +-----------+ +-------------------+
| +------------+ |
+---------------------------+
<=====> IPsec Tunnel
CoreNtwk Core Network
FAPGW FAP Gateway
NAPT Network Address Port Translator
SeGW Security Gateway
Figure 13: Femtocell Reference Architecture
UE is connected to the FAP at the RG, which is routed back to the
3GPP Evolved Packet Core (EPC). It is assumed that each UE is
assigned an IPv4 address by the mobile network. A mobile operator's
FAP leverages the IPsec Internet Key Exchange Protocol Version 2
(IKEv2) to interconnect FAP with the SeGW over the Broadband Fixed
(BBF) network. Both the FAP and the SeGW are managed by the mobile
operator, which may be a different operator for the BBF network.
An investigated scenario is when the mobile operator passes on its
mobile subscriber's policies to the BBF to support traffic policy
control. But most of today's broadband fixed networks are relying on
the private IPv4 addressing plan (+NAPT) to support its attached
devices, including the mobile operator's FAP. In this scenario, the
mobile network needs to:
o determine the FAP's public IPv4 address to identify the location
of the FAP to ensure its legitimacy to operate on the license
spectrum for a given mobile operator prior to the FAP being ready
to serve its mobile devices.
o determine the FAP's public IPv4 address together with the
translated port number of the UDP header of the encapsulated IPsec
tunnel for identifying the UE's traffic at the fixed broadband
network.
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 16
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
o determine the corresponding FAP's public IPv4 address associated
with the UE's inner IPv4 address that is assigned by the mobile
network to identify the mobile UE, which allows the PCRF to
retrieve the special UE's policy (e.g., QoS) to be passed onto the
Broadband Policy Control Function (BPCF) at the BBF network.
SeGW would have the complete knowledge of such mapping, but the
reasons for being unable to use SeGW for this purpose are explained
in Section 2 of [IKEv2-CP-EXT].
This scenario involves PCRF/BPCF, but it is valid in other deployment
scenarios making use of Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting
(AAA) servers.
The issue of correlating the internal IP address and the public IP
address is valid even if there is no NAT in the path.
This scenario does not introduce privacy concerns since the
identification of the host is local to a single administrative domain
and is meant to help identify which policy to select for a UE.
10.4. Traffic Detection Function (TDF)
Operators expect that the traffic subject to the packet inspection is
routed via the Traffic Detection Function (TDF) as per the
requirement specified in [TS29.212]; otherwise, the traffic may
bypass the TDF. This assumption only holds if it is possible to
identify individual UEs behind the Basic NAT or NAPT invoked in the
RG connected to the fixed broadband network, as shown in Figure 14.
As a result, additional mechanisms are needed to enable this
requirement.
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RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
+--------+
| |
+-------+ PCRF |
| | |
| +--------+
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +----+----+
| | | | | +-----+ |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | | | TDF | / \
| ****************************************************************** |
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +----+----+ | |
| | | +-------+ | | |Service|
| | | | | | | \ /
| | | | | | | +--------+
| | | | | | +--------+ PDN |
| >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> |
| UE | | RG | | BNG +------------------+ Gateway|
+--------+ +--------+ +--------+ +--------+
Legend:
--------- 3GPP UE User-Plane Traffic Offloaded subject to packet
inspection
********* 3GPP UE User-Plane Traffic Offloaded not subject to packet
inspection
>>>>>>>>> 3GPP UE User-Plane Traffic Home Routed
BNG Broadband Network Gateway
Figure 14: UE's Traffic Routed with TDF
This scenario does not introduce privacy concerns since the
identification of the host is local to a single administrative domain
and is meant to help identify which policy to select for a UE.
10.5. Fixed and Mobile Network Convergence
In the Policy for Convergence of Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC)
scenario, the fixed broadband network must partner with the mobile
network to acquire the policies for the terminals or hosts attaching
to the fixed broadband network, shown in Figure 15, so that host-
specific QoS and accounting policies can be applied.
A UE is connected to the RG, which is routed back to the mobile
network. The mobile operator's PCRF needs to maintain the
interconnect with the BPCF in the BBF network for PCC (Section 8).
The hosts (i.e., UEs) attaching to a fixed broadband network with a
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 18
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
Basic NAT or NAPT deployed should be identified. Based on the UE
identification, the BPCF can acquire the associated policy rules of
the identified UE from the PCRF in the mobile network so that it can
enforce policy rules in the fixed broadband network. Note, this
scenario assumes private IPv4 addresses are assigned in the fixed
broadband network. Requirements similar to those in Section 10.3 are
raised in this scenario.
+------------------------------+ +-------------+
| | | |
| +------+ | | +------+ |
| | BPCF +---+---+-+ PCRF | |
| +--+---+ | | +---+--+ |
+-------+ | | | | | |
|HOST_1 | Private IP1 +--+---+ | | +---+--+ |
+-------+ | +----+ | | | | | | |
| | RG | | | | | | | |
| |with+-------------+ BNG +--------+ PGW | |
+-------+ | | NAT| | | | | | | |
|HOST_2 | | +----+ | | | | | | |
+-------+ Private IP2 +------+ | | +------+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| Fixed | | Mobile |
| Broadband | | Network |
| Network | | |
| | | |
+------------------------------+ +-------------+
Figure 15: Reference Architecture for Policy for Convergence in Fixed
and Mobile Network Convergence (1)
In an IPv6 network, similar issues exist when the IPv6 prefix is
shared between multiple UEs attaching to the RG (see Figure 16). The
case applies when RG is assigned a single prefix, the home network
prefix, e.g., using DHCPv6 Prefix Delegation [RFC 3633] with the edge
router, and BNG acts as the Delegating Router (DR). RG uses the home
network prefix in the address configuration using stateful (DHCPv6)
or stateless address autoconfiguration (SLAAC) techniques.
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RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
+------------------------------+ +-------------+
| | | |
| | | +------+ |
| +-------------+ PCRF | |
| | | | +---+--+ |
+-------+ | | | | | |
|HOST_1 |--+ +--+---+ | | +---+--+ |
+-------+ | +----+ | | | | | | |
| | RG | | | | | | | |
| | +------------+ BNG +---------+ PGW | |
+-------+ | | | | | | | | | |
|HOST_2 |--+ +----+ | | | | | | |
+-------+ | +------+ | | +------+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| Fixed | | Mobile |
| Broadband | | Network |
| Network | | |
| | | |
+------------------------------+ +-------------+
Figure 16: Reference Architecture for Policy for Convergence in Fixed
and Mobile Network Convergence (2)
BNG acting as PCEF initiates an IP Connectivity Access Network
(IP-CAN) session with the policy server, a.k.a. Policy and Charging
Rules Function (PCRF), to receive the Quality of Service (QoS)
parameters and charging rules. BNG provides the PCRF with the IPv6
prefix assigned to the host; in this case, it's the home network
prefix and an ID that has to be equal to the RG-specific home network
line ID.
HOST_1 in Figure 16 creates a 128-bit IPv6 address using this prefix
and adding its interface ID. Having completed the address
configuration, the host can start communication with a remote host
over the Internet. However, no specific IP-CAN session can be
assigned to HOST_1, and consequently the QoS and accounting performed
will be based on RG subscription.
Another host, e.g., HOST_2, attaches to the RG and also establishes
an IPv6 address using the home network prefix. The edge router, or
BNG, is not involved with this or any other such address assignments.
This leads to the case where no specific IP-CAN session/sub-session
can be assigned to the hosts, HOST_1, HOST_2, etc., and consequently
the QoS and accounting performed can only be based on RG subscription
and is not host specific. Therefore, IPv6 prefix sharing in the
Policy for Convergence scenario leads to similar issues as the
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 20
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
address sharing as explained in the previous scenarios in this
document.
11. Synthesis
The following table shows whether each scenario is valid for IPv4/
IPv6 and if it is within one single administrative domain or spans
multiple domains. The table also identifies the root cause of the
identification issues.
The IPv6 column indicates for each scenario whether IPv6 is supported
at the client's side and/or server's side.
+-------------------+----+-------------+------+-----------------+
| | | IPv6 |Single| Root Cause |
| Scenario | |------+------|Domain+-------+---------+
| |IPv4|Client|Server| |Address|Tunneling|
| | | | | |sharing| |
+-------------------+----+------+------+------+-------+---------+
| CGN |Yes |Yes(1)| No | No | Yes | No |
| A+P |Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| Application Proxy |Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Distributed Proxy |Yes | Yes | Yes |Yes/No| Yes | No |
| Overlay Networks |Yes |Yes(2)|Yes(2)| No | Yes | No |
| PCC |Yes |Yes(1)| No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Emergency Calls |Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Provider WLAN |Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Cellular Networks |Yes |Yes(1)| No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Femtocells |Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| TDF |Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| FMC |Yes |Yes(1)| No | No | Yes | No |
+-------------------+----+------+------+------+-------+---------+
Notes:
(1) For example, NAT64
(2) This scenario is a combination of CGN and application proxies
Table 1: Synthesis
12. Privacy Considerations
Privacy-related considerations that apply to means to reveal a host
identifier are discussed in [RFC 6967]. This document does not
introduce additional privacy issues than those discussed in
[RFC 6967].
None of the scenarios inventoried in this document aim at revealing a
customer identifier, account identifier, profile identifier, etc.
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 21
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
Particularly, none of these scenarios are endorsing the functionality
provided by the following proprietary headers (but not limited to)
that are known to be used to leak subscription-related information:
HTTP_MSISDN, HTTP_X_MSISDN, HTTP_X_UP_CALLING_LINE_ID,
HTTP_X_NOKIA_MSISDN, HTTP_X_HTS_CLID, HTTP_X_MSP_CLID,
HTTP_X_NX_CLID, HTTP__RAPMIN, HTTP_X_WAP_MSISDN, HTTP_COOKIE,
HTTP_X_UP_LSID, HTTP_X_H3G_MSISDN, HTTP_X_JINNY_CID,
HTTP_X_NETWORK_INFO, etc.
13. Security Considerations
This document does not define an architecture nor a protocol; as such
it does not raise any security concerns. Security considerations
that are related to the host identifier are discussed in [RFC 6967].
14. Informative References
[BCP160] Barnes, R., Lepinski, M., Cooper, A., Morris, J.,
Tschofenig, H., and H. Schulzrinne, "An Architecture for
Location and Location Privacy in Internet Applications",
BCP 160, RFC 6280, July 2011.
[BCP188] Farrell, S. and H. Tschofenig, "Pervasive Monitoring Is an
Attack", BCP 188, RFC 7258, May 2014.
[EFFOpenWireless]
EFF, "Open Wireless", 2014, <https://www.eff.org/issues/
open-wireless>.
[IEEE101109]
Salah, K., Calero, J., Zeadally, S., Almulla, S., and M.
ZAaabi, "Using Cloud Computing to Implement a Security
Overlay Network", IEEE Computer Society Digital Library,
IEEE Security & Privacy, Vol. 11, Issue 1, pp. 44-53,
DOI 10.1109/MSP.2012.88, Jan-Feb 2013.
[IEEE1344002]
Byers, J., Considine, J., Mitzenmacher, M., and S. Rost,
"Informed content delivery across adaptive overlay
networks", IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 12,
Issue 5, pp. 767-780, DOI 10.1109/TNET.2004.836103,
October 2004.
[IKEv2-CP-EXT]
So, T., "IKEv2 Configuration Payload Extension for Private
IPv4 Support for Fixed Mobile Convergence", Work in
Progress, draft-so-ipsecme-ikev2-cpext-02, June 2012.
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 22
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
[OVERLAYPATH]
Williams, B., "Overlay Path Option for IP and TCP", Work
in Progress, draft-williams-overlaypath-ip-tcp-RFC 4,
June 2013.
[RFC 2753] Yavatkar, R., Pendarakis, D., and R. Guerin, "A Framework
for Policy-based Admission Control", RFC 2753,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 2753, January 2000,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 2753>.
[RFC 3261] Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston,
A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., and E.
Schooler, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 3261, June 2002,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 3261>.
[RFC 3633] Troan, O. and R. Droms, "IPv6 Prefix Options for Dynamic
Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) version 6", RFC 3633,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 3633, December 2003,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 3633>.
[RFC 4984] Meyer, D., Ed., Zhang, L., Ed., and K. Fall, Ed., "Report
from the IAB Workshop on Routing and Addressing",
RFC 4984, DOI 10.17487/RFC 4984, September 2007,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 4984>.
[RFC 5321] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 5321,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 5321, October 2008,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5321>.
[RFC 5456] Spencer, M., Capouch, B., Guy, E., Ed., Miller, F., and K.
Shumard, "IAX: Inter-Asterisk eXchange Version 2",
RFC 5456, DOI 10.17487/RFC 5456, February 2010,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5456>.
[RFC 5694] Camarillo, G., Ed. and IAB, "Peer-to-Peer (P2P)
Architecture: Definition, Taxonomies, Examples, and
Applicability", RFC 5694, DOI 10.17487/RFC 5694, November
2009, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5694>.
[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, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6146,
April 2011, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6146>.
[RFC 6179] Templin, F., Ed., "The Internet Routing Overlay Network
(IRON)", RFC 6179, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6179, March 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6179>.
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 23
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
[RFC 6265] Barth, A., "HTTP State Management Mechanism", RFC 6265,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 6265, April 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6265>.
[RFC 6269] Ford, M., Ed., Boucadair, M., Durand, A., Levis, P., and
P. Roberts, "Issues with IP Address Sharing", RFC 6269,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 6269, June 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6269>.
[RFC 6296] Wasserman, M. and F. Baker, "IPv6-to-IPv6 Network Prefix
Translation", RFC 6296, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6296, June 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6296>.
[RFC 6333] Durand, A., Droms, R., Woodyatt, J., and Y. Lee, "Dual-
Stack Lite Broadband Deployments Following IPv4
Exhaustion", RFC 6333, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6333, August 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6333>.
[RFC 6346] Bush, R., Ed., "The Address plus Port (A+P) Approach to
the IPv4 Address Shortage", RFC 6346,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 6346, August 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6346>.
[RFC 6443] Rosen, B., Schulzrinne, H., Polk, J., and A. Newton,
"Framework for Emergency Calling Using Internet
Multimedia", RFC 6443, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6443, December
2011, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6443>.
[RFC 6888] Perreault, S., Ed., Yamagata, I., Miyakawa, S., Nakagawa,
A., and H. Ashida, "Common Requirements for Carrier-Grade
NATs (CGNs)", BCP 127, RFC 6888, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6888,
April 2013, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6888>.
[RFC 6967] Boucadair, M., Touch, J., Levis, P., and R. Penno,
"Analysis of Potential Solutions for Revealing a Host
Identifier (HOST_ID) in Shared Address Deployments",
RFC 6967, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6967, June 2013,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6967>.
[RFC 7239] Petersson, A. and M. Nilsson, "Forwarded HTTP Extension",
RFC 7239, DOI 10.17487/RFC 7239, June 2014,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7239>.
[RFC 7596] Cui, Y., Sun, Q., Boucadair, M., Tsou, T., Lee, Y., and I.
Farrer, "Lightweight 4over6: An Extension to the Dual-
Stack Lite Architecture", RFC 7596, DOI 10.17487/RFC 7596,
July 2015, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7596>.
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 24
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
[RFC 7597] Troan, O., Ed., Dec, W., Li, X., Bao, C., Matsushima, S.,
Murakami, T., and T. Taylor, Ed., "Mapping of Address and
Port with Encapsulation (MAP-E)", RFC 7597,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 7597, July 2015,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7597>.
[STATELESS-NAT44]
Tsou, T., Liu, W., Perreault, S., Penno, R., and M. Chen,
"Stateless IPv4 Network Address Translation", Work in
Progress, draft-tsou-stateless-nat44-02, October 2012.
[TS23.203] 3GPP, "Policy and charging control architecture (Release
11)", 3GPP TS23.203, September 2012.
[TS29.212] 3GPP, "Policy and Charging Control (PCC); Reference points
(Release 11)", 3GPP TS29.212, December 2013.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to F. Klamm, D. Wing, D. von Hugo, G. Li, D. Liu, and
Y. Lee for their review.
J. Touch, S. Farrel, and S. Moonesamy provided useful comments in the
intarea mailing list.
Figure 8 and part of the text in Section 10.3 were inspired by
[IKEv2-CP-EXT].
Contributors
Many thanks to the following people for contributing text and
comments to the document:
o David Binet
o Sophie Durel
o Li Xue
o Richard Stewart Wheeldon
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 25
RFC 7620 Host Identification: Scenarios August 2015
Authors' Addresses
Mohamed Boucadair (editor)
Orange
Rennes 35000
France
Email: mohamed.boucadair@orange.com
Bruno Chatras
Orange
Paris
France
Email: bruno.chatras@orange.com
Tirumaleswar Reddy
Cisco Systems
Cessna Business Park, Varthur Hobli
Sarjapur Marathalli Outer Ring Road
Bangalore, Karnataka 560103
India
Email: tireddy@cisco.com
Brandon Williams
Akamai, Inc.
Cambridge MA
United States
Email: brandon.williams@akamai.com
Behcet Sarikaya
Huawei
5340 Legacy Dr. Building 3,
Plano, TX 75024
United States
Email: sarikaya@ieee.org
Boucadair, et al. Informational PAGE 26
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 60354 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Saturday, August 15th, 2015
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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