Vendor Specific LISP Canonical Address Format (LCAF)

The LISP Canonical Address Format (LCAF) defines the format and encoding for different address types that can be used on LISP deployments. However, certain deployments require specific format encodings that may not be applicable outside of the use-case for which they are defined. The Vendor Specific LCAF allows organizations to create LCAF addresses to be used only internally on particular LISP deployments.

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

The Vendor Specific LCAF relies on using the IEEE Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) to prevent collisions across vendors or organizations using the LCAF. The format of the Vendor Specific LCAF is provided below.

The fields in the first 8 octets of the above Vendor Specific LCAF are actually the fields defined in the general LCAF format specified in . The “Type” field MUST be set to the value 255 to indicate that this is a Vendor Specific LCAF. The fields defined by the Vendor Specific LCAF are: Rsvd3: This 8-bit field is reserved for future use. It MUST be set to 0 on transmit and MUST be ignored on receipt. Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI): This is a 24-bit field that carries the IEEE OUI of the organization. Internal format: This is a variable length field that is left undefined on purpose. Each vendor or organization can define its own internal format(s) to use with the Vendor Specific LCAF. The Vendor Specific LCAF type SHOULD NOT be used in deployments where different organizations interoperate. However, there may be cases where two (or more) organizations share a common deployment on which they explicitly and mutually agree to use a particular Vendor Specific LCAF. In that case, the organizations involved need to carefully assess the interoperability concerns for that particular deployment. If a LISP device receives a LISP message containing a Vendor Specific LCAF with an OUI that it does not understand, it MUST drop the message.

This document enables organizations to define new LCAFs for their internal use. It is the responsibility of these organizations to properly assess the security implications of the formats they define.

The authors would like to thank Joel Halpern and Luigi Iannone for their suggestions and guidance regarding this document.

Following the guidelines of , this document requests IANA to update the "LISP Canonical Address Format (LCAF) Types" Registry defined in to allocate the following assignment: Value # LISP LCAF Type Name Reference 255 Vendor Specific