<pre>Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                 B. Carpenter, Ed.
Request for Comments: 7421                             Univ. of Auckland
Category: Informational                                         T. Chown
ISSN: 2070-1721                                     Univ. of Southampton
                                                                 F. Gont
                                                  SI6 Networks / UTN-FRH
                                                                S. Jiang
                                            Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
                                                             A. Petrescu
                                                               CEA, LIST
                                                          A. Yourtchenko
                                                                   Cisco
                                                            January 2015


           <span class="h1">Analysis of the 64-bit Boundary in IPv6 Addressing</span>

Abstract

   The IPv6 unicast addressing format includes a separation between the
   prefix used to route packets to a subnet and the interface identifier
   used to specify a given interface connected to that subnet.
   Currently, the interface identifier is defined as 64 bits long for
   almost every case, leaving 64 bits for the subnet prefix.  This
   document describes the advantages of this fixed boundary and analyzes
   the issues that would be involved in treating it as a variable
   boundary.

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 <a href="./rfc5741#section-2">Section&nbsp;2 of RFC 5741</a>.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   <a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7421">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7421</a>.








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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/bcp/bcp78">BCP 78</a> and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (<a href="http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info">http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info</a>) 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

   <a href="#section-1">1</a>.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-3">3</a>
   <a href="#section-2">2</a>.  Advantages of a Fixed Identifier Length . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-4">4</a>
   <a href="#section-3">3</a>.  Arguments for Shorter Identifier Lengths  . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-5">5</a>
     <a href="#section-3.1">3.1</a>.  Insufficient Address Space Delegated  . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-5">5</a>
     <a href="#section-3.2">3.2</a>.  Hierarchical Addressing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-6">6</a>
     <a href="#section-3.3">3.3</a>.  Audit Requirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-7">7</a>
     <a href="#section-3.4">3.4</a>.  Concerns over ND Cache Exhaustion . . . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-7">7</a>
   <a href="#section-4">4</a>.  Effects of Varying the Interface Identifier Length  . . . . .   <a href="#page-8">8</a>
     <a href="#section-4.1">4.1</a>.  Interaction with IPv6 Specifications  . . . . . . . . . .   <a href="#page-8">8</a>
     <a href="#section-4.2">4.2</a>.  Possible Failure Modes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-10">10</a>
     <a href="#section-4.3">4.3</a>.  Experimental Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-12">12</a>
       4.3.1.  Survey of the processing of Neighbor Discovery
               Options with Prefixes Other than /64  . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-12">12</a>
       <a href="#section-4.3.2">4.3.2</a>.  Other Observations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-14">14</a>
     <a href="#section-4.4">4.4</a>.  Implementation and Deployment Issues  . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-14">14</a>
     <a href="#section-4.5">4.5</a>.  Privacy Issues  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-16">16</a>
   <a href="#section-5">5</a>.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-16">16</a>
   <a href="#section-6">6</a>.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-17">17</a>
     <a href="#section-6.1">6.1</a>.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-17">17</a>
     <a href="#section-6.2">6.2</a>.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-21">21</a>
   Acknowledgements .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-23">23</a>
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  <a href="#page-24">24</a>












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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-1" href="#section-1">1</a>.  Introduction</span>

   Rather than simply overcoming the IPv4 address shortage by doubling
   the address size to 64 bits, IPv6 addresses were originally chosen to
   be 128 bits long to provide flexibility and new possibilities.  In
   particular, the notion of a well-defined interface identifier was
   added to the IP addressing model.  The IPv6 addressing architecture
   [<a href="./rfc4291" title="&quot;IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture&quot;">RFC4291</a>] specifies that a unicast address is divided into n bits of
   subnet prefix followed by (128-n) bits of interface identifier (IID).
   The bits in the IID may have significance only in the process of
   deriving the IID; once it is derived, the entire identifier should be
   treated as an opaque value [<a href="./rfc7136" title="&quot;Significance of IPv6 Interface Identifiers&quot;">RFC7136</a>].  Also, since IPv6 routing is
   entirely based on variable length prefixes (also known as variable
   length subnet masks), there is no basic architectural assumption that
   n has any particular fixed value.  All IPv6 routing protocols support
   prefixes of any length up to /128.

   The IID is of basic importance in the IPv6 stateless address
   autoconfiguration (SLAAC) process [<a href="./rfc4862" title="&quot;IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration&quot;">RFC4862</a>].  However, it is
   important to understand that its length is a parameter in the SLAAC
   process, and it is determined in a separate link-type specific
   document (see the definition of "interface identifier" in <a href="./rfc4862#section-2">Section&nbsp;2
   of RFC 4862</a>).  The SLAAC protocol does not define its length or
   assume any particular length.  Similarly, DHCPv6 [<a href="./rfc3315" title="&quot;Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6)&quot;">RFC3315</a>] does not
   include a prefix length in its address assignment.

   The notion of a /64 boundary in the address was introduced after the
   initial design of IPv6, following a period when it was expected to be
   at /80.  There were two motivations for setting it at /64.  One was
   the original "8+8" proposal [<a href="#ref-ODELL" title="&quot;8+8 - An Alternate Addressing Architecture for IPv6&quot;">ODELL</a>] that eventually led to the
   Identifier-Locator Network Protocol (ILNP) [<a href="./rfc6741" title="&quot;Identifier-Locator Network Protocol (ILNP) Engineering Considerations&quot;">RFC6741</a>], which required
   a fixed point for the split between local and wide-area parts of the
   address.  The other was the expectation that 64-bit Extended Unique
   Identifier (EUI-64) Media Access Control (MAC) addresses would become
   widespread in place of 48-bit addresses, coupled with the plan at
   that time that auto-configured addresses would normally be based on
   interface identifiers derived from MAC addresses.

   As a result, <a href="./rfc4291">RFC 4291</a> describes a method of forming interface
   identifiers from IEEE EUI-64 hardware addresses [<a href="#ref-IEEE802" title="&quot;IEEE Standard for Local and Metropolitan Area Networks: Overview and Architecture&quot;">IEEE802</a>], and this
   specifies that such interface identifiers are 64 bits long.  Various
   other methods of forming interface identifiers also specify a length
   of 64 bits.  The addressing architecture, as modified by [<a href="./rfc7136" title="&quot;Significance of IPv6 Interface Identifiers&quot;">RFC7136</a>],
   states that:







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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


      For all unicast addresses, except those that start with the binary
      value 000, Interface IDs are required to be 64 bits long.  If
      derived from an IEEE MAC-layer address, they must be constructed
      in Modified EUI-64 format.

   The de facto length of almost all IPv6 interface identifiers is
   therefore 64 bits.  The only documented exception is in [<a href="./rfc6164" title="&quot;Using 127-Bit IPv6 Prefixes on Inter- Router Links&quot;">RFC6164</a>],
   which standardizes 127-bit prefixes for point-to-point links between
   routers, among other things, to avoid a loop condition known as the
   ping-pong problem.

   With that exception, and despite the comments above about the routing
   architecture and the design of SLAAC, using an IID shorter than 64
   bits and a subnet prefix longer than 64 bits is outside the current
   IPv6 specifications, so results may vary.

   The question is often asked why the subnet prefix boundary is set
   rigidly at /64.  The first purpose of this document is to explain the
   advantages of the fixed IID length.  Its second purpose is to
   analyze, in some detail, the effects of hypothetically varying the
   IID length.  The fixed-length limits the practical length of a
   routing prefix to 64 bits, whereas architecturally, and from the
   point of view of routing protocols, it could be any value up to /128,
   as in the case of host routes.  Whatever the length of the IID, the
   longest match is done on the concatenation of prefix and IID.  Here,
   we mainly discuss the question of a shorter IID, which would allow a
   longer subnet prefix.  The document makes no proposal for a change to
   the IID length.

   The following three sections describe, in turn, the advantages of the
   fixed-length IID, some arguments for shorter lengths, and the
   expected effects of varying the length.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-2" href="#section-2">2</a>.  Advantages of a Fixed Identifier Length</span>

   As mentioned in <a href="#section-1">Section 1</a>, the existence of an IID of a given length
   is a necessary part of IPv6 stateless address autoconfiguration
   (SLAAC) [<a href="./rfc4862" title="&quot;IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration&quot;">RFC4862</a>].  This length is normally the same for all nodes on
   a given link that is running SLAAC.  Even though this length is a
   parameter for SLAAC, determined separately for the link-layer media
   type of each interface, a globally fixed IID length for all link-
   layer media is the simplest solution and is consistent with the
   principles of Internet host configuration described in [<a href="./rfc5505" title="&quot;Principles of Internet Host Configuration&quot;">RFC5505</a>].

   An interface identifier of significant length, clearly separated from
   the subnet prefix, makes it possible to limit the traceability of a
   host computer by varying the identifier.  This is discussed further
   in <a href="#section-4.5">Section 4.5</a>.



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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


   An interface identifier of significant length guarantees that there
   are always enough addresses in any subnet to add one or more real or
   virtual interfaces.  There might be other limits, but IP addressing
   will never get in the way.

   The addressing architecture [<a href="./rfc4291" title="&quot;IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture&quot;">RFC4291</a>] [<a href="./rfc7136" title="&quot;Significance of IPv6 Interface Identifiers&quot;">RFC7136</a>] sets the IID length
   at 64 bits for all unicast addresses and therefore for all media
   supporting SLAAC.  An immediate effect of fixing the IID length at 64
   bits is, of course, that it fixes the subnet prefix length also at 64
   bits, regardless of the aggregate prefix assigned to the site
   concerned, which in accordance with [<a href="./rfc6177" title="&quot;IPv6 Address Assignment to End Sites&quot;">RFC6177</a>] should be /56 or
   shorter.  This situation has various specific advantages:

   o  Everything is the same.  Compared to IPv4, there is no more
      calculating leaf subnet sizes, no more juggling between subnets,
      and fewer consequent errors.  Network design is therefore simpler
      and much more straightforward.  This is of importance for all
      types of networks -- enterprise, campus, small office, or home
      networks -- and for all types of operator, from professional to
      consumer.

   o  Adding a subnet is easy -- just take another /64 from the pool.
      No estimates, calculations, consideration, or judgement is needed.

   o  Router configurations are homogeneous and easier to understand.

   o  Documentation is easier to write and easier to read; training is
      easier.

   The remainder of this document describes arguments that have been
   made against the current fixed IID length and analyzes the effects of
   a possible change.  However, the consensus of the IETF is that the
   benefits of keeping the length fixed at 64 bits and the practical
   difficulties of changing it outweigh the arguments for change.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-3" href="#section-3">3</a>.  Arguments for Shorter Identifier Lengths</span>

   In this section, we describe arguments for scenarios where shorter
   IIDs, implying prefixes longer than /64, have been used or proposed.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-3.1" href="#section-3.1">3.1</a>.  Insufficient Address Space Delegated</span>

   A site may not be delegated a sufficiently generous prefix from which
   to allocate a /64 prefix to all of its internal subnets.  In this
   case, the site may either determine that it does not have enough
   address space to number all its network elements and thus, at the
   very best, be only partially operational, or it may choose to use




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   internal prefixes longer than /64 to allow multiple subnets and the
   hosts within them to be configured with addresses.

   In this case, the site might choose, for example, to use a /80 per
   subnet in combination with hosts using either manually configured
   addressing or DHCPv6 [<a href="./rfc3315" title="&quot;Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6)&quot;">RFC3315</a>].

   Scenarios that have been suggested where an insufficient prefix might
   be delegated include home or small office networks, vehicles,
   building services, and transportation services (e.g., road signs).
   It should be noted that the homenet architecture text [<a href="./rfc7368" title="&quot;IPv6 Home Networking Architecture Principles&quot;">RFC7368</a>]
   states that Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) should consider the
   lack of sufficient address space to be an error condition, rather
   than using prefixes longer than /64 internally.

   Another scenario occasionally suggested is one where the Internet
   address registries actually begin to run out of IPv6 prefix space,
   such that operators can no longer assign reasonable prefixes to users
   in accordance with [<a href="./rfc6177" title="&quot;IPv6 Address Assignment to End Sites&quot;">RFC6177</a>].  It is sometimes suggested that
   assigning a prefix such as /48 or /56 to every user site (including
   the smallest) as recommended by [<a href="./rfc6177" title="&quot;IPv6 Address Assignment to End Sites&quot;">RFC6177</a>] is wasteful.  In fact, the
   currently released unicast address space, 2000::/3, contains 35
   trillion /48 prefixes ((2**45 = 35,184,372,088,832), of which only a
   small fraction have been allocated.  Allowing for a conservative
   estimate of allocation efficiency, i.e., an HD-ratio of 0.94
   [<a href="./rfc4692" title="&quot;Considerations on the IPv6 Host Density Metric&quot;">RFC4692</a>], approximately 5 trillion /48 prefixes can be allocated.
   Even with a relaxed HD-ratio of 0.89, approximately one trillion /48
   prefixes can be allocated.  Furthermore, with only 2000::/3 currently
   committed for unicast addressing, we still have approximately 85% of
   the address space in reserve.  Thus, there is no objective risk of
   prefix depletion by assigning /48 or /56 prefixes even to the
   smallest sites.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-3.2" href="#section-3.2">3.2</a>.  Hierarchical Addressing</span>

   Some operators have argued that more prefix bits are needed to allow
   an aggregated hierarchical addressing scheme within a campus or
   corporate network.  However, if a campus or enterprise gets a /48
   prefix (or shorter), then that already provides 16 bits for
   hierarchical allocation.  In any case, flat IGP routing is widely and
   successfully used within rather large networks, with hundreds of
   routers and thousands of end systems.  Therefore, there is no
   objective need for additional prefix bits to support hierarchy and
   aggregation within enterprises.







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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-3.3" href="#section-3.3">3.3</a>.  Audit Requirement</span>

   Some network operators wish to know and audit nodes that are active
   on a network, especially those that are allowed to communicate off-
   link or off-site.  They may also wish to limit the total number of
   active addresses and sessions that can be sourced from a particular
   host, LAN, or site, in order to prevent potential resource-depletion
   attacks or other problems spreading beyond a certain scope of
   control.  It has been argued that this type of control would be
   easier if only long network prefixes with relatively small numbers of
   possible hosts per network were used, reducing the discovery problem.
   However, such sites most typically operate using DHCPv6, which means
   that all legitimate hosts are automatically known to the DHCPv6
   servers, which is sufficient for audit purposes.  Such hosts could,
   if desired, be limited to a small range of IID values without
   changing the /64 subnet length.  Any hosts inadvertently obtaining
   addresses via SLAAC can be audited through Neighbor Discovery (ND)
   logs.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-3.4" href="#section-3.4">3.4</a>.  Concerns over ND Cache Exhaustion</span>

   A site may be concerned that it is open to ND cache exhaustion
   attacks [<a href="./rfc3756" title="&quot;IPv6 Neighbor Discovery (ND) Trust Models and Threats&quot;">RFC3756</a>], whereby an attacker sends a large number of
   messages in rapid succession to a series of (most likely inactive)
   host addresses within a specific subnet.  Such an attack attempts to
   fill a router's ND cache with ND requests pending completion, which
   results in denying correct operation to active devices on the
   network.

   One potential way to mitigate this attack would be to consider using
   a /120 prefix, thus limiting the number of addresses in the subnet to
   be similar to an IPv4 /24 prefix, which should not cause any concerns
   for ND cache exhaustion.  Note that the prefix does need to be quite
   long for this scenario to be valid.  The number of theoretically
   possible ND cache slots on the segment needs to be of the same order
   of magnitude as the actual number of hosts.  Thus, small increases
   from the /64 prefix length do not have a noticeable impact; even 2^32
   potential entries, a factor of two billion decrease compared to 2^64,
   is still more than enough to exhaust the memory on current routers.
   Given that most link-layer mappings cause SLAAC to assume a 64-bit
   network boundary, in such an approach hosts would likely need to use
   DHCPv6 or be manually configured with addresses.

   It should be noted that several other mitigations of the ND cache
   attack are described in [<a href="./rfc6583" title="&quot;Operational Neighbor Discovery Problems&quot;">RFC6583</a>], and that limiting the size of the
   cache and the number of incomplete entries allowed would also defeat
   the attack.  For the specific case of a point-to-point link between
   routers, this attack is indeed mitigated by a /127 prefix [<a href="./rfc6164" title="&quot;Using 127-Bit IPv6 Prefixes on Inter- Router Links&quot;">RFC6164</a>].



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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-4" href="#section-4">4</a>.  Effects of Varying the Interface Identifier Length</span>

   This section of the document analyzes the impact and effects of
   varying the length of an IPv6 unicast IID by reducing it to less than
   64 bits.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.1" href="#section-4.1">4.1</a>.  Interaction with IPv6 Specifications</span>

   The precise 64-bit length of the IID is widely mentioned in numerous
   RFCs describing various aspects of IPv6.  It is not straightforward
   to distinguish cases where this has normative impact or affects
   interoperability.  This section aims to identify specifications that
   contain an explicit reference to the 64-bit length.  Regardless of
   implementation issues, the RFCs themselves would all need to be
   updated if the 64-bit rule was changed, even if the updates were
   small, which would involve considerable time and effort.

   First and foremost, the RFCs describing the architectural aspects of
   IPv6 addressing explicitly state, refer, and repeat this apparently
   immutable value: Addressing Architecture [<a href="./rfc4291" title="&quot;IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture&quot;">RFC4291</a>], IPv6 Address
   Assignment to End Sites [<a href="./rfc6177" title="&quot;IPv6 Address Assignment to End Sites&quot;">RFC6177</a>], Reserved IIDs [<a href="./rfc5453" title="&quot;Reserved IPv6 Interface Identifiers&quot;">RFC5453</a>], and ILNP
   Node Identifiers [<a href="./rfc6741" title="&quot;Identifier-Locator Network Protocol (ILNP) Engineering Considerations&quot;">RFC6741</a>].  Customer edge routers impose /64 for
   their interfaces [<a href="./rfc7084" title="&quot;Basic Requirements for IPv6 Customer Edge Routers&quot;">RFC7084</a>].  The IPv6 Subnet Model [<a href="./rfc5942" title="&quot;IPv6 Subnet Model: The Relationship between Links and Subnet Prefixes&quot;">RFC5942</a>] points
   out that the assumption of a /64 prefix length is a potential
   implementation error.

   Numerous IPv6-over-foo documents make mandatory statements with
   respect to the 64-bit length of the IID to be used during the
   Stateless Autoconfiguration.  These documents include [<a href="./rfc2464" title="&quot;Transmission of IPv6 Packets over Ethernet Networks&quot;">RFC2464</a>]
   (Ethernet), [<a href="./rfc2467" title="&quot;Transmission of IPv6 Packets over FDDI Networks&quot;">RFC2467</a>] (Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI)),
   [<a href="./rfc2470" title="&quot;Transmission of IPv6 Packets over Token Ring Networks&quot;">RFC2470</a>] (Token Ring), [<a href="./rfc2492" title="&quot;IPv6 over ATM Networks&quot;">RFC2492</a>] (ATM), [<a href="./rfc2497" title="&quot;Transmission of IPv6 Packets over ARCnet Networks&quot;">RFC2497</a>] (ARCnet),
   [<a href="./rfc2590" title="&quot;Transmission of IPv6 Packets over Frame Relay Networks Specification&quot;">RFC2590</a>] (Frame Relay), [<a href="./rfc3146" title="&quot;Transmission of IPv6 Packets over IEEE 1394 Networks&quot;">RFC3146</a>] (IEEE 1394), [<a href="./rfc4338" title="&quot;Transmission of IPv6, IPv4, and Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Packets over Fibre Channel&quot;">RFC4338</a>] (Fibre
   Channel), [<a href="./rfc4944" title="&quot;Transmission of IPv6 Packets over IEEE 802.15.4 Networks&quot;">RFC4944</a>] (IEEE 802.15.4), [<a href="./rfc5072" title="&quot;IP Version 6 over PPP&quot;">RFC5072</a>] (PPP), [<a href="./rfc5121" title="&quot;Transmission of IPv6 via the IPv6 Convergence Sublayer over IEEE 802.16 Networks&quot;">RFC5121</a>]
   [<a href="./rfc5692" title="&quot;Transmission of IP over Ethernet over IEEE 802.16 Networks&quot;">RFC5692</a>] (IEEE 802.16), [<a href="./rfc2529" title="&quot;Transmission of IPv6 over IPv4 Domains without Explicit Tunnels&quot;">RFC2529</a>] (6over4), [<a href="./rfc5214" title="&quot;Intra-Site Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP)&quot;">RFC5214</a>] (Intra-Site
   Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP)), [<a href="#ref-AERO-TRANS">AERO-TRANS</a>]
   (Asymmetric Extended Route Optimization (AERO)), [<a href="#ref-BLUETOOTH-LE">BLUETOOTH-LE</a>]
   (BLUETOOTH Low Energy), [<a href="#ref-IPv6-TRANS">IPv6-TRANS</a>] (IPv6 over MS/TP), and
   [<a href="#ref-IPv6-G9959">IPv6-G9959</a>] (IPv6 packets over ITU-T G.9959).

   To a lesser extent, the address configuration RFCs themselves may in
   some ways assume the 64-bit length of an IID (e.g, <a href="./rfc4862">RFC 4862</a> for the
   link-local addresses, DHCPv6 for the potentially assigned EUI-
   64-based IP addresses, and Optimistic Duplicate Address Detection
   [<a href="./rfc4429" title="&quot;Optimistic Duplicate Address Detection (DAD) for IPv6&quot;">RFC4429</a>] that computes 64-bit-based collision probabilities).

   The Multicast Listener Discovery Version 1 (MLDv1) [<a href="./rfc2710" title="&quot;Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) for IPv6&quot;">RFC2710</a>] and
   MLDv2 [<a href="./rfc3810" title="&quot;Multicast Listener Discovery Version 2 (MLDv2) for IPv6&quot;">RFC3810</a>] protocols mandate that all queries be sent with a
   link-local source address, with the exception of MLD messages sent



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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


   using the unspecified address when the link-local address is
   tentative [<a href="./rfc3590" title="&quot;Source Address Selection for the Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) Protocol&quot;">RFC3590</a>].  At the time of publication of <a href="./rfc2710">RFC 2710</a>, the
   IPv6 addressing architecture specified link-local addresses with
   64-bit interface identifiers.  MLDv2 explicitly specifies the use of
   the fe80::/64 link-local prefix and bases the querier election
   algorithm on the link-local subnet prefix of length /64.

   The "IPv6 Flow Label Specification" [<a href="./rfc6437" title="&quot;IPv6 Flow Label Specification&quot;">RFC6437</a>] gives an example of a
   20-bit hash function generation, which relies on splitting an IPv6
   address in two equally sized, 64-bit-length parts.

   The basic transition mechanisms [<a href="./rfc4213" title="&quot;Basic Transition Mechanisms for IPv6 Hosts and Routers&quot;">RFC4213</a>] refer to IIDs of length 64
   for link-local addresses; other transition mechanisms such as Teredo
   [<a href="./rfc4380" title="&quot;Teredo: Tunneling IPv6 over UDP through Network Address Translations (NATs)&quot;">RFC4380</a>] assume the use of IIDs of length 64.  Similar assumptions
   are found in 6to4 [<a href="./rfc3056" title="&quot;Connection of IPv6 Domains via IPv4 Clouds&quot;">RFC3056</a>] and 6rd [<a href="./rfc5969" title="&quot;IPv6 Rapid Deployment on IPv4 Infrastructures (6rd) -- Protocol Specification&quot;">RFC5969</a>].  Translation-based
   transition mechanisms such as NAT64 and NPTv6 have some dependency on
   prefix length, discussed below.

   The proposed method [<a href="./rfc7278" title="&quot;Extending an IPv6 /64 Prefix from a Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Mobile Interface to a LAN Link&quot;">RFC7278</a>] of extending an assigned /64 prefix
   from a smartphone's cellular interface to its WiFi link relies on
   prefix length, and implicitly on the length of the IID, to be valued
   at 64.

   The Cryptographically Generated Addresses (CGA) and Hash-Based
   Addresses (HBA) specifications rely on the 64-bit identifier length
   (see below), as do the Privacy extensions [<a href="./rfc4941" title="&quot;Privacy Extensions for Stateless Address Autoconfiguration in IPv6&quot;">RFC4941</a>] and some examples
   in "Internet Key Exchange Version 2 (IKEv2)" [<a href="./rfc7296" title="&quot;Internet Key Exchange Protocol Version 2 (IKEv2)&quot;">RFC7296</a>].

   464XLAT [<a href="./rfc6877" title="&quot;464XLAT: Combination of Stateful and Stateless Translation&quot;">RFC6877</a>] explicitly mentions acquiring /64 prefixes.
   However, it also discusses the possibility of using the interface
   address on the device as the end point for the traffic, thus
   potentially removing this dependency.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2526">RFC2526</a>] reserves a number of subnet anycast addresses by reserving
   some anycast IIDs.  An anycast IID so reserved cannot be less than 7
   bits long.  This means that a subnet prefix length longer than /121
   is not possible, and a subnet of exactly /121 would be useless since
   all its identifiers are reserved.  It also means that half of a /120
   is reserved for anycast.  This could of course be fixed in the way
   described for /127 in [<a href="./rfc6164" title="&quot;Using 127-Bit IPv6 Prefixes on Inter- Router Links&quot;">RFC6164</a>], i.e., avoiding the use of anycast
   within a /120 subnet.  Note that support for "on-link anycast" is a
   standard IPv6 neighbor discovery capability [<a href="./rfc4861" title="&quot;Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)&quot;">RFC4861</a>] [<a href="./rfc7094" title="&quot;Architectural Considerations of IP Anycast&quot;">RFC7094</a>];
   therefore, applications and their developers would expect it to be
   available.

   The Mobile IP home network models [<a href="./rfc4887" title="&quot;Network Mobility Home Network Models&quot;">RFC4887</a>] rely heavily on the /64
   subnet length and assume a 64-bit IID.




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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


   While preparing this document, it was noted that many other IPv6
   specifications refer to mandatory alignment on 64-bit boundaries,
   64-bit data structures, 64-bit counters in MIBs, 64-bit sequence
   numbers and cookies in security, etc.  Finally, the number "64" may
   be considered "magic" in some RFCs, e.g., 64k limits in DNS and
   Base64 encodings in MIME.  None of this has any influence on the
   length of the IID but might confuse a careless reader.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.2" href="#section-4.2">4.2</a>.  Possible Failure Modes</span>

   This section discusses several specific aspects of IPv6 where we can
   expect operational failures with subnet prefixes other than /64.

   o  Router implementations: Router implementors might interpret IETF
      specifications such as [<a href="./rfc6164" title="&quot;Using 127-Bit IPv6 Prefixes on Inter- Router Links&quot;">RFC6164</a>] and [<a href="./rfc7136" title="&quot;Significance of IPv6 Interface Identifiers&quot;">RFC7136</a>] as indicating that
      prefixes between /65 and /126 (inclusive) for unicast packets on-
      the-wire are invalid and that operational practices that utilize
      prefix lengths in this range may fail on some devices, as
      discussed in <a href="#section-4.3.2">Section 4.3.2</a>.

   o  Multicast: [<a href="./rfc3306" title="&quot;Unicast-Prefix-based IPv6 Multicast Addresses&quot;">RFC3306</a>] defines a method for generating IPv6
      multicast group addresses based on unicast prefixes.  This method
      assumes a longest prefix of 64 bits.  If a longer prefix is used,
      there is no way to generate a specific multicast group address
      using this method.  In such cases, the administrator would need to
      use an "artificial" prefix from within their allocation (a /64 or
      shorter) from which to generate the group address.  This prefix
      would not correspond to a real subnet.

      Similarly, [<a href="./rfc3956" title="&quot;Embedding the Rendezvous Point (RP) Address in an IPv6 Multicast Address&quot;">RFC3956</a>], which specifies the Embedded Rendezvous
      Point (RP)) allowing IPv6 multicast rendezvous point addresses to
      be embedded in the multicast group address, would also fail, as
      the scheme assumes a maximum prefix length of 64 bits.

   o  CGA: The Cryptographically Generated Address format [<a href="./rfc3972" title="&quot;Cryptographically Generated Addresses (CGA)&quot;">RFC3972</a>] is
      heavily based on a /64 interface identifier.  [<a href="./rfc3972" title="&quot;Cryptographically Generated Addresses (CGA)&quot;">RFC3972</a>] has
      defined a detailed algorithm showing how to generate a 64-bit
      interface identifier from a public key and a 64-bit subnet prefix.
      Changing the /64 boundary would certainly invalidate the current
      CGA definition.  However, the CGA might benefit in a redefined
      version if more bits are used for interface identifiers (which
      means shorter prefix length).  For now, 59 bits are used for
      cryptographic purposes.  The more bits are available, the stronger
      CGA could be.  Conversely, longer prefixes would weaken CGA.

   o  NAT64: Both stateless NAT64 [<a href="./rfc6052" title="&quot;IPv6 Addressing of IPv4/IPv6 Translators&quot;">RFC6052</a>] and stateful NAT64 [<a href="./rfc6146" title="&quot;Stateful NAT64: Network Address and Protocol Translation from IPv6 Clients to IPv4 Servers&quot;">RFC6146</a>]
      are flexible for the prefix length.  [<a href="./rfc6052" title="&quot;IPv6 Addressing of IPv4/IPv6 Translators&quot;">RFC6052</a>] has defined
      multiple address formats for NAT64.  In <a href="#section-2">Section 2</a> of



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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


      "IPv4-Embedded IPv6 Address Prefix and Format" [<a href="./rfc6052" title="&quot;IPv6 Addressing of IPv4/IPv6 Translators&quot;">RFC6052</a>], the
      network-specific prefix could be one of /32, /40, /48, /56, /64,
      and /96.  The remaining part of the IPv6 address is constructed by
      a 32-bit IPv4 address, an 8-bit u byte and a variable length
      suffix (there is no u byte and suffix in the case of the 96-bit
      Well-Known Prefix).  NAT64 is therefore OK with a subnet boundary
      out to /96 but not longer.

   o  NPTv6: IPv6-to-IPv6 Network Prefix Translation [<a href="./rfc6296" title="&quot;IPv6-to-IPv6 Network Prefix Translation&quot;">RFC6296</a>] is also
      bound to /64 boundary.  NPTv6 maps a /64 prefix to another /64
      prefix.  When the NPTv6 Translator is configured with a /48 or
      shorter prefix, the 64-bit interface identifier is kept unmodified
      during translation.  However, the /64 boundary might be changed as
      long as the "inside" and "outside" prefixes have the same length.

   o  ILNP: Identifier-Locator Network Protocol (ILNP) [<a href="./rfc6741" title="&quot;Identifier-Locator Network Protocol (ILNP) Engineering Considerations&quot;">RFC6741</a>] is
      designed around the /64 boundary, since it relies on locally
      unique 64-bit node identifiers (in the interface identifier
      field).  While a redesign to use longer prefixes is not
      inconceivable, this would need major changes to the existing
      specification for the IPv6 version of ILNP.

   o  Shim6: The Multihoming Shim Protocol for IPv6 (Shim6) [<a href="./rfc5533" title="&quot;Shim6: Level 3 Multihoming Shim Protocol for IPv6&quot;">RFC5533</a>] in
      its insecure form treats IPv6 addresses as opaque 128-bit objects.
      However, to secure the protocol against spoofing, it is essential
      to either use CGAs (see above) or HBAs [<a href="./rfc5535" title="&quot;Hash-Based Addresses (HBA)&quot;">RFC5535</a>].  Like CGAs, HBAs
      are generated using a procedure that assumes a 64-bit identifier.
      Therefore, in effect, secure shim6 is affected by the /64 boundary
      exactly like CGAs.

   o  Duplicate address risk: If SLAAC was modified to work with shorter
      IIDs, the statistical risk of hosts choosing the same pseudo-
      random identifier [<a href="./rfc7217" title="&quot;A Method for Generating Semantically Opaque Interface Identifiers with IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (SLAAC)&quot;">RFC7217</a>] would increase correspondingly.  The
      practical impact of this would range from slight to dramatic,
      depending on how much the IID length was reduced.  In particular,
      a /120 prefix would imply an 8-bit IID and address collisions
      would be highly probable.

   o  The link-local prefix: While <a href="./rfc4862">RFC 4862</a> is careful not to define any
      specific length of link-local prefix within fe80::/10, the
      addressing architecture [<a href="./rfc4291" title="&quot;IP Version 6 Addressing Architecture&quot;">RFC4291</a>] does define the link-local IID
      length to be 64 bits.  If different hosts on a link used IIDs of
      different lengths to form a link-local address, there is potential
      for confusion and unpredictable results.  Typically today the
      choice of 64 bits for the link-local IID length is hard-coded per
      interface, in accordance with the relevant IPv6-over-foo
      specification, and systems behave as if the link-local prefix was
      actually fe80::/64.  There might be no way to change this except



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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


      conceivably by manual configuration, which will be impossible if
      the host concerned has no local user interface.

   It goes without saying that if prefixes longer than /64 are to be
   used, all hosts must be capable of generating IIDs shorter than 64
   bits, in order to follow the auto-configuration procedure correctly
   [<a href="./rfc4862" title="&quot;IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration&quot;">RFC4862</a>].

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.3" href="#section-4.3">4.3</a>.  Experimental Observations</span>

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.3.1" href="#section-4.3.1">4.3.1</a>.  Survey of the processing of Neighbor Discovery Options with</span>
<span class="h4">        Prefixes Other than /64</span>

   This section provides a survey of the processing of Neighbor
   Discovery options that include prefixes that are different than /64.

   The behavior of nodes was assessed with respect to the following
   options:

   o  PIO-A: Prefix Information Option (PIO) [<a href="./rfc4861" title="&quot;Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)&quot;">RFC4861</a>] with the A bit
      set.

   o  PIO-L: Prefix Information Option (PIO) [<a href="./rfc4861" title="&quot;Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)&quot;">RFC4861</a>] with the L bit
      set.

   o  PIO-AL: Prefix Information Option (PIO) [<a href="./rfc4861" title="&quot;Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)&quot;">RFC4861</a>] with both the A
      and L bits set.

   o  RIO: Route Information Option (RIO) [<a href="./rfc4191" title="&quot;Default Router Preferences and More-Specific Routes&quot;">RFC4191</a>].

   In the tables below, the following notation is used:

   NOT-SUP:
      This option is not supported (i.e., it is ignored no matter the
      prefix length used).

   LOCAL:
      The corresponding prefix is considered "on-link".

   ROUTE:
      The corresponding route is added to the IPv6 routing table.

   NOT-DEF:
      The default configuration is NOT-SUP, but there is an option to
      enable ROUTE.

   IGNORE:
      The option is ignored as an error.



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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |  Operating System  | PIO-A  | PIO-L | PIO-AL |   RIO   |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |    FreeBSD 9.0     | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  | NOT-SUP |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |   Linux 3.0.0-15   | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  | NOT-DEF |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |   Linux-current    | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  | NOT-DEF |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |     NetBSD 5.1     | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  | NOT-SUP |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |  OpenBSD-current   | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  | NOT-SUP |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |     Win XP SP2     | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  |  ROUTE  |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        | Win 7 Home Premium | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  |  ROUTE  |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+

      Table 1: Processing of ND options with prefixes longer than /64

        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |  Operating System  | PIO-A  | PIO-L | PIO-AL |   RIO   |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |    FreeBSD 9.0     | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  | NOT-SUP |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |   Linux 3.0.0-15   | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  | NOT-DEF |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |   Linux-current    | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  | NOT-DEF |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |     NetBSD 5.1     | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  | NOT-SUP |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |  OpenBSD-current   | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  | NOT-SUP |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        |     Win XP SP2     | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  |  ROUTE  |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+
        | Win 7 Home Premium | IGNORE | LOCAL | LOCAL  |  ROUTE  |
        +--------------------+--------+-------+--------+---------+

     Table 2: Processing of ND options with prefixes shorter than /64

   The results obtained can be summarized as follows:

   o  The "A" bit in the Prefix Information Options is honored only if
      the prefix length is 64.  This is consistent with [<a href="./rfc4862" title="&quot;IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration&quot;">RFC4862</a>], at
      least for the case where the IID length is defined to be 64 bits
      in the corresponding link-type-specific document, which is the





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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


      case for all currently published such documents.  [<a href="./rfc4862" title="&quot;IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration&quot;">RFC4862</a>]
      defines the case where the sum of the advertised prefix length and
      the IID length does not equal 128 as an error condition.

   o  The "L" bit in the Prefix Information Options is honored for any
      arbitrary prefix length (whether shorter or longer than /64).

   o  Nodes that support the Route Information Option allow such routes
      to be specified with prefixes of any arbitrary length (whether
      shorter or longer than /64)

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.3.2" href="#section-4.3.2">4.3.2</a>.  Other Observations</span>

   Participants in the V6OPS working group have indicated that some
   forwarding devices have been shown to work correctly with long
   prefixes such as /80 or /96.  Indeed, it is to be expected that
   forwarding based on the longest prefix match will work for any prefix
   length, and no reports of this completely failing have been noted.
   Also, DHCPv6 is in widespread use without any dependency on the /64
   boundary.  Reportedly, there are deployments of /120 subnets
   configured using DHCPv6.

   There have been definite reports that some routers have a performance
   drop-off or even resource exhaustion for prefixes longer than /64 due
   to design issues.  In particular, some routing chip designs allocate
   much less space for longer prefixes than for prefixes up to /64 for
   the sake of savings in memory, power, and lookup latency.  Some
   devices need special-case code to handle point-to-point links
   according to [<a href="./rfc6164" title="&quot;Using 127-Bit IPv6 Prefixes on Inter- Router Links&quot;">RFC6164</a>].

   It has been reported that at least one type of switch has a content-
   addressable memory limited to 144 bits, which is indeed a typical
   value for commodity components [<a href="#ref-TCAM" title="&quot;Algorithmic Approaches to Redesigning TCAM-Based Systems&quot;">TCAM</a>].  This means that packet
   filters or access control lists cannot be defined based on 128-bit
   addresses and two 16-bit port numbers; the longest prefix that could
   be used in such a filter is a /112.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.4" href="#section-4.4">4.4</a>.  Implementation and Deployment Issues</span>

   From an early stage, implementations and deployments of IPv6 assumed
   the /64 subnet length, even though routing was based on prefixes of
   any length.  As shown above, this became anchored in many
   specifications (<a href="#section-4.1">Section 4.1</a>) and in important aspects of
   implementations commonly used in local area networks (<a href="#section-4.3">Section 4.3</a>).
   In fact, a programmer might be lulled into assuming a comfortable
   rule of thumb that subnet prefixes are always /64 and an IID is
   always of length 64.  Apart from the limited evidence in
   <a href="#section-4.3.1">Section 4.3.1</a>, we cannot tell without code inspections or tests



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   whether existing stacks are able to handle a flexible IID length or
   whether they would require modification to do so.  A conforming
   implementation of an IPv6-over-foo that specifies a 64 bit IID for
   foo links will of course only support 64.  But in a well designed
   stack, the IP layer itself will treat that 64 as a parameter, so
   changing the IID length in the IPv6-over-foo code should be all that
   is necessary.

   The main practical consequence of the existing specifications is that
   deployments in which longer subnet prefixes are used cannot make use
   of SLAAC-configured addresses and require either manually configured
   addresses or DHCPv6.  To reverse this argument, if it was considered
   desirable to allow auto-configured addresses with subnet prefixes
   longer than /64, all of the specifications identified above as
   depending on /64 would have to be modified with due regard to
   interoperability with unmodified stacks.  In fact, [<a href="./rfc7217" title="&quot;A Method for Generating Semantically Opaque Interface Identifiers with IPv6 Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (SLAAC)&quot;">RFC7217</a>] allows
   for this possibility.  Then, modified stacks would have to be
   developed and deployed.  It might be the case that some stacks
   contain dependencies on the /64 boundary that are not directly
   implied by the specifications, and any such hidden dependencies would
   also need to be found and removed.

   At least one DHCPv6 client unconditionally installs a /64 prefix as
   on-link when it configures an interface with an address, although
   some specific operating system vendors seem to change this default
   behavior by tweaking a client-side script.  This is in clear
   violation of the IPv6 subnet model [<a href="./rfc5942" title="&quot;IPv6 Subnet Model: The Relationship between Links and Subnet Prefixes&quot;">RFC5942</a>].  The motivation for
   this choice is that if there is no router on the link, the hosts
   would fail to communicate with each other using the configured
   addresses because the "on-link assumption" was removed in [<a href="./rfc4861" title="&quot;Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)&quot;">RFC4861</a>].
   This is not really about the magic number of 64, but an
   implementation may sometimes pick an arbitrary value of prefix length
   due to the removal of the on-link assumption, and the value chosen
   will most likely be 64.

   Typical IP Address Management (IPAM) tools treat /64 as the default
   subnet length but allow users to specify longer subnet prefixes if
   desired.  Clearly, all IPAM tools and network management systems
   would need to be checked in detail.

   Finally, IPv6 is already deployed at many sites, with a large number
   of staff trained on the basis of the existing standards, supported by
   documentation and tools based on those standards.  Numerous existing
   middlebox devices are also based on those standards.  These people,
   documents, tools, and devices represent a very large investment that
   would be seriously impacted by a change in the /64 boundary.





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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-4.5" href="#section-4.5">4.5</a>.  Privacy Issues</span>

   The length of the interface identifier has implications for privacy
   [<a href="#ref-ADDRESS-PRIVACY">ADDRESS-PRIVACY</a>].  In any case in which the value of the identifier
   is intended to be hard to guess, whether or not it is
   cryptographically generated, it is apparent that more bits are
   better.  For example, if there are only 20 bits to be guessed, then
   at most just over a million guesses are needed, which is well within
   the capacity of a low-cost attack mechanism.  It is hard to state in
   general how many bits are enough to protect privacy, since this
   depends on the resources available to the attacker, but it seems
   clear that a privacy solution needs to resist an attack requiring
   billions rather than millions of guesses.  Trillions would be better,
   suggesting that at least 40 bits should be available.  Thus, we can
   argue that subnet prefixes longer than say /80 might raise privacy
   concerns by making the IID guessable.

   A prefix long enough to limit the number of addresses comparably to
   an IPv4 subnet, such as /120, would create exactly the same situation
   for privacy as IPv4 except for the absence of NAT.  In particular, a
   host would be forced to pick a new IID when roaming to a new network
   to avoid collisions.  As mentioned earlier, it is likely that SLAAC
   will not be used on such a subnet.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-5" href="#section-5">5</a>.  Security Considerations</span>

   In addition to the privacy issues mentioned in <a href="#section-4.5">Section 4.5</a> and the
   issues mentioned with CGAs and HBAs in <a href="#section-4.2">Section 4.2</a>, the length of the
   subnet prefix affects the matter of defense against scanning attacks
   [<a href="#ref-HOST-SCANNING">HOST-SCANNING</a>].  Assuming the attacker has discovered or guessed the
   prefix length, a longer prefix reduces the space that the attacker
   needs to scan, e.g., to only 256 addresses if the prefix is /120.  On
   the other hand, if the attacker has not discovered the prefix length
   and assumes it to be /64, routers can trivially discard attack
   packets that do not fall within an actual subnet.

   However, assume that an attacker finds one valid address "A" and
   assumes that it is within a long prefix such as a /120.  The attacker
   then starts a scanning attack by scanning "outwards" from A, by
   trying A+1, A-1, A+2, A-2, etc.  This attacker will easily find all
   hosts in any subnet with a long prefix, because they will have
   addresses close to A.  We therefore conclude that any prefix
   containing densely packed valid addresses is vulnerable to a scanning
   attack, without the attacker needing to guess the prefix length.
   Therefore, to preserve IPv6's advantage over IPv4 in resisting
   scanning attacks, it is important that subnet prefixes are short
   enough to allow sparse allocation of identifiers within each subnet.
   The considerations are similar to those for privacy, and we can again



<span class="grey">Carpenter, et al.             Informational                    [Page 16]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-17" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


   argue that prefixes longer than say /80 might significantly increase
   vulnerability.  Ironically, this argument is exactly converse to the
   argument for longer prefixes to resist an ND cache attack, as
   described in <a href="#section-3.4">Section 3.4</a>.

   Denial-of-service attacks related to Neighbor Discovery are discussed
   in <a href="#section-3.4">Section 3.4</a> and in [<a href="./rfc6583" title="&quot;Operational Neighbor Discovery Problems&quot;">RFC6583</a>].  One of the mitigations suggested by
   that document is "sizing subnets to reflect the number of addresses
   actually in use", but the fact that this greatly simplifies scanning
   attacks is not noted.  For further discussion of scanning attacks,
   see [<a href="#ref-HOST-SCANNING">HOST-SCANNING</a>].

   Note that, although not known at the time of writing, there might be
   other resource exhaustion attacks available, similar in nature to the
   ND cache attack.  We cannot exclude that such attacks might be
   exacerbated by sparsely populated subnets such as a /64.  It should
   also be noted that this analysis assumes a conventional deployment
   model with a significant number of end-systems located in a single
   LAN broadcast domain.  Other deployment models might lead to
   different conclusions.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-6" href="#section-6">6</a>.  References</span>

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.1" href="#section-6.1">6.1</a>.  Normative References</span>

   [<a id="ref-RFC2464">RFC2464</a>]  Crawford, M., "Transmission of IPv6 Packets over Ethernet
              Networks", <a href="./rfc2464">RFC 2464</a>, December 1998,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2464">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2464</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2467">RFC2467</a>]  Crawford, M., "Transmission of IPv6 Packets over FDDI
              Networks", <a href="./rfc2467">RFC 2467</a>, December 1998,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2467">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2467</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2470">RFC2470</a>]  Crawford, M., Narten, T., and S. Thomas, "Transmission of
              IPv6 Packets over Token Ring Networks", <a href="./rfc2470">RFC 2470</a>, December
              1998, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2470">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2470</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2492">RFC2492</a>]  Armitage, G., Schulter, P., and M. Jork, "IPv6 over ATM
              Networks", <a href="./rfc2492">RFC 2492</a>, January 1999,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2492">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2492</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2497">RFC2497</a>]  Souvatzis, I., "Transmission of IPv6 Packets over ARCnet
              Networks", <a href="./rfc2497">RFC 2497</a>, January 1999,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2497">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2497</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2526">RFC2526</a>]  Johnson, D. and S. Deering, "Reserved IPv6 Subnet Anycast
              Addresses", <a href="./rfc2526">RFC 2526</a>, March 1999,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2526">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2526</a>&gt;.



<span class="grey">Carpenter, et al.             Informational                    [Page 17]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-18" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


   [<a id="ref-RFC2529">RFC2529</a>]  Carpenter, B. and C. Jung, "Transmission of IPv6 over IPv4
              Domains without Explicit Tunnels", <a href="./rfc2529">RFC 2529</a>, March 1999,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2529">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2529</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2590">RFC2590</a>]  Conta, A., Malis, A., and M. Mueller, "Transmission of
              IPv6 Packets over Frame Relay Networks Specification", <a href="./rfc2590">RFC</a>
              <a href="./rfc2590">2590</a>, May 1999, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2590">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2590</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2710">RFC2710</a>]  Deering, S., Fenner, W., and B. Haberman, "Multicast
              Listener Discovery (MLD) for IPv6", <a href="./rfc2710">RFC 2710</a>, October
              1999, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2710">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2710</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3056">RFC3056</a>]  Carpenter, B. and K. Moore, "Connection of IPv6 Domains
              via IPv4 Clouds", <a href="./rfc3056">RFC 3056</a>, February 2001,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3056">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3056</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3146">RFC3146</a>]  Fujisawa, K. and A. Onoe, "Transmission of IPv6 Packets
              over IEEE 1394 Networks", <a href="./rfc3146">RFC 3146</a>, October 2001,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3146">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3146</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3306">RFC3306</a>]  Haberman, B. and D. Thaler, "Unicast-Prefix-based IPv6
              Multicast Addresses", <a href="./rfc3306">RFC 3306</a>, August 2002,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3306">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3306</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3315">RFC3315</a>]  Droms, R., Bound, J., Volz, B., Lemon, T., Perkins, C.,
              and M. Carney, "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for
              IPv6 (DHCPv6)", <a href="./rfc3315">RFC 3315</a>, July 2003,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3315">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3315</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3590">RFC3590</a>]  Haberman, B., "Source Address Selection for the Multicast
              Listener Discovery (MLD) Protocol", <a href="./rfc3590">RFC 3590</a>, September
              2003, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3590">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3590</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3810">RFC3810</a>]  Vida, R. and L. Costa, "Multicast Listener Discovery
              Version 2 (MLDv2) for IPv6", <a href="./rfc3810">RFC 3810</a>, June 2004,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3810">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3810</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3956">RFC3956</a>]  Savola, P. and B. Haberman, "Embedding the Rendezvous
              Point (RP) Address in an IPv6 Multicast Address", <a href="./rfc3956">RFC</a>
              <a href="./rfc3956">3956</a>, November 2004,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3956">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3956</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3972">RFC3972</a>]  Aura, T., "Cryptographically Generated Addresses (CGA)",
              <a href="./rfc3972">RFC 3972</a>, March 2005,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3972">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3972</a>&gt;.






<span class="grey">Carpenter, et al.             Informational                    [Page 18]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-19" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


   [<a id="ref-RFC4191">RFC4191</a>]  Draves, R. and D. Thaler, "Default Router Preferences and
              More-Specific Routes", <a href="./rfc4191">RFC 4191</a>, November 2005,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4191">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4191</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4213">RFC4213</a>]  Nordmark, E. and R. Gilligan, "Basic Transition Mechanisms
              for IPv6 Hosts and Routers", <a href="./rfc4213">RFC 4213</a>, October 2005,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4213">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4213</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4291">RFC4291</a>]  Hinden, R. and S. Deering, "IP Version 6 Addressing
              Architecture", <a href="./rfc4291">RFC 4291</a>, February 2006,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4291">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4291</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4338">RFC4338</a>]  DeSanti, C., Carlson, C., and R. Nixon, "Transmission of
              IPv6, IPv4, and Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Packets
              over Fibre Channel", <a href="./rfc4338">RFC 4338</a>, January 2006,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4338">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4338</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4380">RFC4380</a>]  Huitema, C., "Teredo: Tunneling IPv6 over UDP through
              Network Address Translations (NATs)", <a href="./rfc4380">RFC 4380</a>, February
              2006, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4380">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4380</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4429">RFC4429</a>]  Moore, N., "Optimistic Duplicate Address Detection (DAD)
              for IPv6", <a href="./rfc4429">RFC 4429</a>, April 2006,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4429">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4429</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4861">RFC4861</a>]  Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and H. Soliman,
              "Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)", <a href="./rfc4861">RFC 4861</a>,
              September 2007, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4861">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4861</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4862">RFC4862</a>]  Thomson, S., Narten, T., and T. Jinmei, "IPv6 Stateless
              Address Autoconfiguration", <a href="./rfc4862">RFC 4862</a>, September 2007,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4862">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4862</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4941">RFC4941</a>]  Narten, T., Draves, R., and S. Krishnan, "Privacy
              Extensions for Stateless Address Autoconfiguration in
              IPv6", <a href="./rfc4941">RFC 4941</a>, September 2007,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4941">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4941</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4944">RFC4944</a>]  Montenegro, G., Kushalnagar, N., Hui, J., and D. Culler,
              "Transmission of IPv6 Packets over IEEE 802.15.4
              Networks", <a href="./rfc4944">RFC 4944</a>, September 2007,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4944">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4944</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC5072">RFC5072</a>]  Varada, S., Haskins, D., and E. Allen, "IP Version 6 over
              PPP", <a href="./rfc5072">RFC 5072</a>, September 2007,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5072">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5072</a>&gt;.





<span class="grey">Carpenter, et al.             Informational                    [Page 19]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-20" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


   [<a id="ref-RFC5121">RFC5121</a>]  Patil, B., Xia, F., Sarikaya, B., Choi, JH., and S.
              Madanapalli, "Transmission of IPv6 via the IPv6
              Convergence Sublayer over IEEE 802.16 Networks", <a href="./rfc5121">RFC 5121</a>,
              February 2008, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5121">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5121</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC5214">RFC5214</a>]  Templin, F., Gleeson, T., and D. Thaler, "Intra-Site
              Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP)", <a href="./rfc5214">RFC 5214</a>,
              March 2008, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5214">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5214</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC5453">RFC5453</a>]  Krishnan, S., "Reserved IPv6 Interface Identifiers", <a href="./rfc5453">RFC</a>
              <a href="./rfc5453">5453</a>, February 2009,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5453">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5453</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC5533">RFC5533</a>]  Nordmark, E. and M. Bagnulo, "Shim6: Level 3 Multihoming
              Shim Protocol for IPv6", <a href="./rfc5533">RFC 5533</a>, June 2009,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5533">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5533</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC5535">RFC5535</a>]  Bagnulo, M., "Hash-Based Addresses (HBA)", <a href="./rfc5535">RFC 5535</a>, June
              2009, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5535">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5535</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC5692">RFC5692</a>]  Jeon, H., Jeong, S., and M. Riegel, "Transmission of IP
              over Ethernet over IEEE 802.16 Networks", <a href="./rfc5692">RFC 5692</a>,
              October 2009, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5692">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5692</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC5942">RFC5942</a>]  Singh, H., Beebee, W., and E. Nordmark, "IPv6 Subnet
              Model: The Relationship between Links and Subnet
              Prefixes", <a href="./rfc5942">RFC 5942</a>, July 2010,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5942">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5942</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC5969">RFC5969</a>]  Townsley, W. and O. Troan, "IPv6 Rapid Deployment on IPv4
              Infrastructures (6rd) -- Protocol Specification", <a href="./rfc5969">RFC</a>
              <a href="./rfc5969">5969</a>, August 2010,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5969">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5969</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC6052">RFC6052</a>]  Bao, C., Huitema, C., Bagnulo, M., Boucadair, M., and X.
              Li, "IPv6 Addressing of IPv4/IPv6 Translators", <a href="./rfc6052">RFC 6052</a>,
              October 2010, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6052">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6052</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC6146">RFC6146</a>]  Bagnulo, M., Matthews, P., and I. van Beijnum, "Stateful
              NAT64: Network Address and Protocol Translation from IPv6
              Clients to IPv4 Servers", <a href="./rfc6146">RFC 6146</a>, April 2011,
              &lt;<a href="http://rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6146">http://rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6146</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC6164">RFC6164</a>]  Kohno, M., Nitzan, B., Bush, R., Matsuzaki, Y., Colitti,
              L., and T. Narten, "Using 127-Bit IPv6 Prefixes on Inter-
              Router Links", <a href="./rfc6164">RFC 6164</a>, April 2011,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6164">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6164</a>&gt;.




<span class="grey">Carpenter, et al.             Informational                    [Page 20]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-21" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


   [<a id="ref-RFC6177">RFC6177</a>]  Narten, T., Huston, G., and L. Roberts, "IPv6 Address
              Assignment to End Sites", <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/bcp/bcp157">BCP 157</a>, <a href="./rfc6177">RFC 6177</a>, March 2011,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6177">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6177</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC6296">RFC6296</a>]  Wasserman, M. and F. Baker, "IPv6-to-IPv6 Network Prefix
              Translation", <a href="./rfc6296">RFC 6296</a>, June 2011,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6296">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6296</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC6437">RFC6437</a>]  Amante, S., Carpenter, B., Jiang, S., and J. Rajahalme,
              "IPv6 Flow Label Specification", <a href="./rfc6437">RFC 6437</a>, November 2011,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6437">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6437</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC7084">RFC7084</a>]  Singh, H., Beebee, W., Donley, C., and B. Stark, "Basic
              Requirements for IPv6 Customer Edge Routers", <a href="./rfc7084">RFC 7084</a>,
              November 2013, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7084">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7084</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC7136">RFC7136</a>]  Carpenter, B. and S. Jiang, "Significance of IPv6
              Interface Identifiers", <a href="./rfc7136">RFC 7136</a>, February 2014,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7136">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7136</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC7296">RFC7296</a>]  Kaufman, C., Hoffman, P., Nir, Y., Eronen, P., and T.
              Kivinen, "Internet Key Exchange Protocol Version 2
              (IKEv2)", STD 79, <a href="./rfc7296">RFC 7296</a>, October 2014,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7296">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7296</a>&gt;.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.2" href="#section-6.2">6.2</a>.  Informative References</span>

   [<a id="ref-ADDRESS-PRIVACY">ADDRESS-PRIVACY</a>]
              Cooper, A., Gont, F., and D. Thaler, "Privacy
              Considerations for IPv6 Address Generation Mechanisms",
              Work in Progress, <a href="./draft-ietf-6man-ipv6-address-generation-privacy-02">draft-ietf-6man-ipv6-address-generation-</a>
              <a href="./draft-ietf-6man-ipv6-address-generation-privacy-02">privacy-02</a>, October 2014.

   [<a id="ref-AERO-TRANS">AERO-TRANS</a>]
              Templin, F., <a style="text-decoration: none" href='https://www.google.com/search?sitesearch=datatracker.ietf.org%2Fdoc%2Fhtml%2F&amp;q=inurl:draft-+%22Transmission+of+IP+Packets+over+AERO+Links%22'>"Transmission of IP Packets over AERO Links"</a>,
              Work in Progress, <a href="./draft-templin-aerolink-46">draft-templin-aerolink-46</a>, October 2014.

   [<a id="ref-BLUETOOTH-LE">BLUETOOTH-LE</a>]
              Nieminen, J., Savolainen, T., Isomaki, M., Patil, B.,
              Shelby, Z., and C. Gomez, "Transmission of IPv6 Packets
              over BLUETOOTH Low Energy", Work in Progress, <a href="./draft-ietf-6lowpan-btle-12">draft-ietf-</a>
              <a href="./draft-ietf-6lowpan-btle-12">6lowpan-btle-12</a>, February 2013.

   [<a id="ref-HOST-SCANNING">HOST-SCANNING</a>]
              Gont, F. and T. Chown, "Network Reconnaissance in IPv6
              Networks", Work in Progress, <a href="./draft-ietf-opsec-ipv6-host-scanning-04">draft-ietf-opsec-ipv6-host-</a>
              <a href="./draft-ietf-opsec-ipv6-host-scanning-04">scanning-04</a>, June 2014.




<span class="grey">Carpenter, et al.             Informational                    [Page 21]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-22" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


   [<a id="ref-IEEE802">IEEE802</a>]  IEEE, "IEEE Standard for Local and Metropolitan Area
              Networks: Overview and Architecture", IEEE Std 802-2001
              (R2007), 2007.

   [<a id="ref-IPv6-G9959">IPv6-G9959</a>]
              Brandt, A. and J. Buron, "Transmission of IPv6 packets
              over ITU-T G.9959 Networks", Work in Progress, <a href="./draft-ietf-6lo-lowpanz-08">draft-ietf-</a>
              <a href="./draft-ietf-6lo-lowpanz-08">6lo-lowpanz-08</a>, October 2014.

   [<a id="ref-IPv6-TRANS">IPv6-TRANS</a>]
              Lynn, K., Ed., Martocci, J., Neilson, C., and S.
              Donaldson, "Transmission of IPv6 over MS/TP Networks",
              Work in Progress, <a href="./draft-ietf-6lo-6lobac-00">draft-ietf-6lo-6lobac-00</a>, July 2014.

   [<a id="ref-ODELL">ODELL</a>]    O'Dell, M., "8+8 - An Alternate Addressing Architecture
              for IPv6", Work in Progress, <a href="./draft-odell-8">draft-odell-8</a>+8-00, October
              1996.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2629">RFC2629</a>]  Rose, M., "Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML", <a href="./rfc2629">RFC 2629</a>,
              June 1999, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2629">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2629</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3756">RFC3756</a>]  Nikander, P., Kempf, J., and E. Nordmark, "IPv6 Neighbor
              Discovery (ND) Trust Models and Threats", <a href="./rfc3756">RFC 3756</a>, May
              2004, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3756">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3756</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4692">RFC4692</a>]  Huston, G., "Considerations on the IPv6 Host Density
              Metric", <a href="./rfc4692">RFC 4692</a>, October 2006,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4692">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4692</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4887">RFC4887</a>]  Thubert, P., Wakikawa, R., and V. Devarapalli, "Network
              Mobility Home Network Models", <a href="./rfc4887">RFC 4887</a>, July 2007,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4887">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4887</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC5505">RFC5505</a>]  Aboba, B., Thaler, D., Andersson, L., and S. Cheshire,
              "Principles of Internet Host Configuration", <a href="./rfc5505">RFC 5505</a>, May
              2009, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5505">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5505</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC6583">RFC6583</a>]  Gashinsky, I., Jaeggli, J., and W. Kumari, "Operational
              Neighbor Discovery Problems", <a href="./rfc6583">RFC 6583</a>, March 2012,
              &lt;<a href="http://rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6583">http://rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6583</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC6741">RFC6741</a>]  Atkinson,, RJ., "Identifier-Locator Network Protocol
              (ILNP) Engineering Considerations", <a href="./rfc6741">RFC 6741</a>, November
              2012, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6741">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6741</a>&gt;.







<span class="grey">Carpenter, et al.             Informational                    [Page 22]</span></pre>
<hr class='noprint'/><!--NewPage--><pre class='newpage'><span id="page-23" ></span>
<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


   [<a id="ref-RFC6877">RFC6877</a>]  Mawatari, M., Kawashima, M., and C. Byrne, "464XLAT:
              Combination of Stateful and Stateless Translation", <a href="./rfc6877">RFC</a>
              <a href="./rfc6877">6877</a>, April 2013,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6877">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6877</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC7094">RFC7094</a>]  McPherson, D., Oran, D., Thaler, D., and E. Osterweil,
              "Architectural Considerations of IP Anycast", <a href="./rfc7094">RFC 7094</a>,
              January 2014, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7094">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7094</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC7217">RFC7217</a>]  Gont, F., "A Method for Generating Semantically Opaque
              Interface Identifiers with IPv6 Stateless Address
              Autoconfiguration (SLAAC)", <a href="./rfc7217">RFC 7217</a>, April 2014,
              &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7217">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7217</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC7278">RFC7278</a>]  Byrne, C., Drown, D., and A. Vizdal, "Extending an IPv6
              /64 Prefix from a Third Generation Partnership Project
              (3GPP) Mobile Interface to a LAN Link", <a href="./rfc7278">RFC 7278</a>, June
              2014, &lt;<a href="http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7278">http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7278</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC7368">RFC7368</a>]  Chown, T., Ed., Arkko, J., Brandt, A., Troan, O., and J.
              Weil, "IPv6 Home Networking Architecture Principles", RFC,
              7368, October 2014.

   [<a id="ref-TCAM">TCAM</a>]     Meiners, C., Liu, A., and E. Torng, "Algorithmic
              Approaches to Redesigning TCAM-Based Systems", ACM
              SIGMETRICS'08 467-468, 2008.

Acknowledgements

   This document was inspired by a vigorous discussion on the V6OPS
   working group mailing list with at least 20 participants.  Later,
   valuable comments were received from Ran Atkinson, Fred Baker, Steven
   Blake, Lorenzo Colitti, David Farmer, Bill Fenner, Ray Hunter,
   Paraskevi Iliadou, Jen Linkova, Philip Matthews, Matthew Petach,
   Scott Schmit, Tatuya Jinmei, Fred Templin, Ole Troan, Stig Venaas,
   and numerous other participants in the 6MAN working group.  An
   extremely detailed review by Mark Smith was especially helpful.

   This document was originally produced using the xml2rfc tool
   [<a href="./rfc2629" title="&quot;Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML&quot;">RFC2629</a>].











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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc7421">RFC 7421</a>                         Why 64                     January 2015</span>


Authors' Addresses

   Brian Carpenter (editor)
   Department of Computer Science
   University of Auckland
   PB 92019
   Auckland  1142
   New Zealand
   EMail: brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com

   Tim Chown
   University of Southampton
   Southampton, Hampshire  SO17 1BJ
   United Kingdom
   EMail: tjc@ecs.soton.ac.uk

   Fernando Gont
   SI6 Networks / UTN-FRH
   Evaristo Carriego 2644
   Haedo, Provincia de Buenos Aires  1706
   Argentina
   EMail: fgont@si6networks.com

   Sheng Jiang
   Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
   Q14, Huawei Campus
   No.156 Beiqing Road
   Hai-Dian District, Beijing  100095
   P.R. China
   EMail: jiangsheng@huawei.com

   Alexandru Petrescu
   CEA, LIST
   CEA Saclay
   Gif-sur-Yvette, Ile-de-France  91190
   France
   EMail: Alexandru.Petrescu@cea.fr

   Andrew Yourtchenko
   Cisco
   7a de Kleetlaan
   Diegem  1830
   Belgium
   EMail: ayourtch@cisco.com







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