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Internet roll This specification introduces a new 6LoWPAN dispatch type for use in 6LoWPAN Route-Over topologies, that initially covers the needs of RPL (RFC6550) data packets compression. Using this dispatch type, this specification defines a method to compress RPL Option (RFC6553) information and Routing Header type 3 (RFC6554), an efficient IP-in-IP technique and is extensible for more applications.

The design of Low Power and Lossy Networks (LLNs) is generally focused on saving energy, a very constrained resource in most cases. The other constraints, such as the memory capacity and the duty cycling of the LLN devices, derive from that primary concern. Energy is often available from primary batteries that are expected to last for years, or is scavenged from the environment in very limited quantities. Any protocol that is intended for use in LLNs must be designed with the primary concern of saving energy as a strict requirement. Controlling the amount of data transmission is one possible venue to save energy. In a number of LLN standards, the frame size is limited to much smaller values than the IPv6 maximum transmission unit (MTU) of 1280 bytes. In particular, an LLN that relies on the classical Physical Layer (PHY) of IEEE 802.15.4 is limited to 127 bytes per frame. The need to compress IPv6 packets over IEEE 802.15.4 led to the 6LoWPAN Header Compression work (6LoWPAN-HC). Innovative Route-over techniques have been and are still being developed for routing inside a LLN. In a general fashion, such techniques require additional information in the packet to provide loop prevention and to indicate information such as flow identification, source routing information, etc. For reasons such as security and the capability to send ICMP errors back to the source, an original packet must not be tampered with, and any information that must be inserted in or removed from an IPv6 packet must be placed in an extra IP-in-IP encapsulation. This is the case when the additional routing information is inserted by a router on the path of a packet, for instance a mesh root, as opposed to the source node. This is also the case when some routing information must be removed from a packet that flows outside the LLN. When to use RFC 6553, RFC 6554 and IPv6-in-IPv6 details different cases where RFC 6553, RFC 6554 and IPv6-in-IPv6 encapsulation is required to set the bases to help defining the compression of RPL routing information in LLN environments. When using the outer IP header of an IP-in-IP encapsulation may be compressed down to 2 octets in stateless compression and down to 3 octets in stateful compression when context information must be added.

The Stateless Compression of an IPv6 addresses can only happen if the IPv6 address can de deduced from the MAC addresses, meaning that the IP end point is also the MAC-layer endpoint. This is generally not the case in a RPL network which is generally a multi-hop route-over (i.e., operated at Layer-3) network. A better compression, which does not involve variable compressions depending on the hop in the mesh, can be achieved based on the fact that the outer encapsulation is usually between the source (or destination) of the inner packet and the root. Also, the inner IP header can only be compressed by if all the fields preceding it are also compressed. This specification makes the inner IP header the first header to be compressed by , and keeps the inner packet encoded the same way whether it is encapsulated or not, thus preserving existing implementations. As an example, the Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) is designed to optimize the routing operations in constrained LLNs. As part of this optimization, RPL requires the addition of RPL Packet Information (RPI) in every packet, as defined in Section 11.2 of . The RPL Option for Carrying RPL Information in Data-Plane Datagrams specification indicates how the RPI can be placed in a RPL Option (RPL-OPT) that is placed in an IPv6 Hop-by-Hop header. This representation demands a total of 8 bytes, while in most cases the actual RPI payload requires only 19 bits. Since the Hop-by-Hop header must not flow outside of the RPL domain, it must be inserted in packets entering the domain and be removed from packets that leave the domain. In both cases, this operation implies an IP-in-IP encapsulation. Additionally, in the case of the Non-Storing Mode of Operation (MOP), RPL requires a Source Routing Header (SRH) in all packets that are routed down a RPL graph. for that purpose, the [IPv6 Routing Header for Source Routes with RPL] (#RFC6554) specification defines the type 3 Routing Header for IPv6 (RH3).

With Non-Storing RPL, even if the source is a node in the same LLN, the packet must first reach up the graph to the root so that the root can insert the SRH to go down the graph. In any fashion, whether the packet was originated in a node in the LLN or outside the LLN, and regardless of whether the packet stays within the LLN or not, as long as the source of the packet is not the root itself, the source-routing operation also implies an IP-in-IP encapsulation at the root in order to insert the SRH. 6TiSCH specifies the operation of IPv6 over the TimeSlotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) mode of operation of IEEE 802.15.4. The architecture requires the use of both RPL and the 6lo adaptation layer over IEEE 802.15.4. Because it inherits the constraints on frame size from the MAC layer, 6TiSCH cannot afford to allocate 8 bytes per packet on the RPI. Hence the requirement for 6LoWPAN header compression of the RPI. An extensible compression technique is required that simplifies IP-in-IP encapsulation when it is needed, and optimally compresses existing routing artifacts found in RPL LLNs. This specification extends the 6lo adaptation layer framework (,) so as to carry routing information for route-over networks based on RPL. The specification includes the formats necessary for RPL and is extensible for additional formats.

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 . The Terminology used in this document is consistent with and incorporates that described in `Terminology in Low power And Lossy Networks’ and . The terms Route-over and Mesh-under are defined in . Other terms in use in LLNs are found in . The term “byte” is used in its now customary sense as a synonym for “octet”.

The 6LoWPAN Paging Dispatch specification extends the 6lo adaptation layer framework (, ) by introducing a concept of “context” in the 6LoWPAN parser, a context being identified by a Page number. The specification defines 16 Pages. This draft operates within Page 1, which is indicated by a Dispatch Value of binary 11110001.

This specification introduces a new 6LoWPAN Routing Header (6LoRH) to carry IPv6 routing information. The 6LoRH may contain source routing information such as a compressed form of SRH, as well as other sorts of routing information such as the RPI and IP-in-IP encapsulation. The 6LoRH is expressed in a 6loWPAN packet as a Type-Length-Value (TLV) field, which is extensible for future use. It is expected that a router that does not recognize the 6LoRH general format detailed in will drop the packet when a 6LoRH is present. This specification uses the bit pattern 10xxxxxx in Page 1 for the new 6LoRH Dispatch. describes how RPL artifacts in data packets can be compressed as 6LoRH headers.

In a zone of a packet where Page 1 is active (i.e., once a Page 1 Paging Dispatch is parsed and no subsequent Paging Dispatch has been parsed, the parsing of the packet MUST follow this specification if the 6LoRH Bit Pattern is found. With this specification, the 6LoRH Dispatch is only defined in Page 1, so it MUST be placed in the packet in a zone where the Page 1 context is active. Because a 6LoRH header requires a Page 1 context, it MUST always be placed after any Fragmentation Header and/or Mesh Header . A 6LoRH header MUST always be placed before the LOWPAN_IPHC as defined in 6LoWPAN Header Compression . It is designed in such a fashion that placing or removing a header that is encoded with 6LoRH does not modify the part of the packet that is encoded with LoWPAN_IPHC, whether there is an IP-in-IP encapsulation or not. For instance, the final destination of the packet is always the one in the LOWPAN_IPHC whether there is a Routing Header or not.

IPv6 defines chains of headers that are introduced by an IPv6 header and terminated by either another IPv6 header (IP-in-IP) or an Upper Layer Protocol ULP) header. When an outer header is stripped from the packet, the whole chain goes with it. When one or more header(s) are inserted by an intermediate router, that router normally chains the headers and encapsulates the result in IP-in-IP. With this specification, the chains of headers MUST be compressed in the same order as they appear in the uncompressed form of the packet. This means that if there is more than one nested IP-in-IP encapsulations, the first IP-in-IP encapsulation, with all its chain of headers, is encoded first in the compressed form. In the compressed form of a packet that has SRH or HbH headers after the inner IPv6 header (e.g. if there is no IP-in-IP encapsulation), these headers are placed in the 6LoRH form before the 6LOWPAN-IPHC that represents the IPv6 header . If this packet gets encapsulated and some other SRH or HbH headers are added as part of the encapsulation, placing the 6LoRH headers next to one another may present an ambiguity on which header belong to which chain in the uncompressed form. In order to disambiguate the headers that follow the inner IPv6 header in the uncompressed form from the headers that follow the outer IP-in-IP header, it is REQUIRED that the compressed IP-in-IP header is placed last in the encoded chain. This means that the 6LoRH headers that are found after the last compressed IP-in-IP header are to be inserted after the IPv6 header that is encoded with the 6LOWPAN-IPHC when decompressing the packet. With regards to the relative placement of the SRH and the RPI in the compressed form, it is a design point for this specification that the SRH entries are consumed as the packet progresses down the LLN . In order to make this operation simpler in the compressed form, it is REQUIRED that the in the compressed form, the addresses along the source route path are encoded in the order of the path, and that the compressed SRH are placed before the compressed RPI.

The 6LoRH uses the Dispatch Value Bit Pattern of 10xxxxxx in Page 1. The Dispatch Value Bit Pattern is split in two forms of 6LoRH: Elective (6LoRHE) that may skipped if not understood Critical (6LoRHC) that may not be ignored for each form, a Type field is used to encode the type of 6LoRH. Note that there is a different registry for the Type field of each form of 6LoRH, This means that that a value for the Type that is defined for one form of 6LoRH may be redefined in the future for the other form.

The 6LoRHE uses the Dispatch Value Bit Pattern of 101xxxxx. A 6LoRHE may be ignored and skipped in parsing. If it is ignored, the 6LoRHE is forwarded with no change inside the LLN.

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Length of the 6LoRHE expressed in bytes, excluding the first 2 bytes. This enables a node to skip a 6LoRHE header that it does not support and/or cannot parse, for instance if the Type is not recognized. Type of the 6LoRHE

The 6LoRHC uses the Dispatch Value Bit Pattern of 100xxxxx. A node which does not support the 6LoRHC Type MUST silently discard the packet. Note: the situation where a node receives a message with a Critical 6LoWPAN Routing Header that it does not understand should not occur and is an administrative error, see .

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Type Specific Extension. The meaning depends on the Type, which must be known in all of the nodes. The interpretation of the TSE depends on the Type field that follows. For instance, it may be used to transport control bits, the number of elements in an array, or the length of the remainder of the 6LoRHC expressed in a unit other than bytes. Type of the 6LoRHC

The general technique used in this draft to compress an address is first to determine a reference that as a long prefix match with this address, and then elide that matching piece. In order to reconstruct the compress address, the receiving node will perform the process of coalescence described in section . One possible reference is the root of the RPL DODAG that is being traversed. It is used by 6LoRH as the reference to compress an outer IP header, in case of an IP-in-IP encapsulation. If the root is the source of the packet, this technique allows to fully elide the source address in the compressed form of the IP header. If the root is not the encapsulator, then the encapsulator address may still be compressed using the root as reference. How the address of the root is determined is discussed in . Once the address of the source of the packet is determined, it becomes the reference for the compression of the addresses that are located in compressed SRH headers that are present inside the IP-in-IP encapsulation in the uncompressed form.

An IPv6 compressed address is coalesced with a reference address by overriding the N rightmost bytes of the reference address with the compressed address, where N is the length of the compressed address, as indicated by the Type of the SRH-6LoRH header in . The reference address MAY be a compressed address as well, in which case it MUST be compressed in a form that is of an equal or greater length than the address that is being coalesced. A compressed address is expanded by coalescing it with a reference address. In the particular case of a Type 4 SRH-6LoRH, the address is expressed in full and the coalescence is a complete override as illustrated in .

Stateful Address compression requires that some state is installed in the devices to store the compression information that is elided from the packet. That state is stored in an abstract context table and some form of index is found in the packet to obtain the compression information from the context table. With , the state is provided to the stack by the 6LoWPAN Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) . NDP exchanges the context through 6LoWPAN Context Option in Router Advertisement (RA) messages. In the compressed form of the packet, the context can be signaled in a Context Identifier Extension. With this specification, the compression information is provided to the stack by RPL, and RPL exchanges it through the DODAGID field in the DAG Information Object (DIO) messages, as described in more details below. In the compressed form of the packet, the context can be signaled in by the RPLInstanceID in the RPI. With RPL , the address of the DODAG root is known from the DODAGID field of the DIO messages. For a Global Instance, the RPLInstanceID that is present in the RPI is enough information to identify the DODAG that this node participates to and its associated root. But for a Local Instance, the address of the root MUST be explicit, either in some device configuration or signaled in the packet, as the source or the destination address, respectively. When implicit, the address of the DODAG root MUST be determined as follows: If the whole network is a single DODAG then the root can be well-known and does not need to be signaled in the packets. But since RPL does not expose that property, it can only be known by a configuration applied to all nodes. Else, the router that encapsulates the packet and compresses it with this specification MUST also place an RPI in the packet as prescribed by to enable the identification of the DODAG. The RPI must be present even in the case when the router also places an SRH header in the packet. It is expected that the RPL implementation maintains an abstract context table, indexed by Global RPLInstanceID, that provides the address of the root of the DODAG that this nodes participates to for that particular RPL Instance.

A Source Routing Header 6LoRH (SRH-6LoRH) header provides a compressed form for the SRH, as defined in for use by RPL routers. One or more SRH-6LoRH header(s) MAY be placed in a 6LoWPAN packet. If a non-RPL router receives a packet with a SRH-6LoRH header, there was a routing or a configuration error (see ). The desired reaction for the non-RPL router is to drop the packet as opposed to skip the header and forward the packet. The Dispatch Value Bit Pattern for the SRH-6LoRH header indicates Critical. Routers that understand the 6LoRH general format detailed in cannot ignore a 6LoRH header of this type, and will drop the packet if it is unknown to them.

The 6LoRH Type of a SRH-6LoRH header indicates the compression level used for that header. It results that all addresses in a given SRH-6LoRH header MUST be compressed in an identical fashion, down to using the identical number of bytes per address. In order to get different degrees of compression, multiple consecutive SRH-6LoRH headers MUST be used. Type 0 means that the address is compressed down to one byte, whereas Type 4 means that the address is provided in full in the SRH-6LoRH with no compression. The complete list of Types of SRH-6LoRH and the corresponding compression level are provided in :

In the case of a SRH-6LoRH header, the TSE field is used as a Size, which encodes the number of hops minus 1; so a Size of 0 means one hop, and the maximum that can be encoded is 32 hops. (If more than 32 hops need to be expressed, a sequence of SRH-6LoRH elements can be employed.) It results that the Length in bytes of a SRH-6LoRH header is: 2 + Length_of_compressed_IPv6_address * (Size + 1)

In the non-compressed form, when the root generates or forwards a packet in non-Storing Mode, it needs to include a Source Routing Header to signal a strict source-route path to a final destination down the DODAG. All the hops along the path, but the first one, are encoded in order in the SRH. The last entry in the SRH is the final destination and the destination in the IPv6 header is the first hop along the source-route path. The intermediate hops perform a swap and the Segment-Left field indicates the active entry in the Routing Header . The current destination of the packet, which is the termination of the current segment, is indicated at all times by the destination address of the IPv6 header.

The handling of the SRH-6LoRH is different: there is no swap, and a forwarding router that corresponds to the first entry in the first SRH-6LoRH upon reception of a packet effectively consumes that entry when forwarding. This means that the size of a compressed source-routed packet decreases as the packet progresses along its path and that the routing information is lost along the way. This also means that an SRH encoded with 6LoRH is not recoverable and cannot be protected. When compressed with this specification, all the remaining hops MUST be encoded in order in one or more consecutive SRH-6LoRH headers. Whether or not there is a SRH-6LoRH header present, the address of the final destination is indicated in the LoWPAN_IPHC at all times along the path. Examples of this are provided in . The current destination (termination of the current segment) for a compressed source-routed packet is indicated in the first entry of the first SRH-6LoRH. In strict source-routing, that entry MUST match an address of the router that receives the packet. The last entry in the last SRH-6LoRH is the last router on the way to the final destination in the LLN. This router can be the final destination if it is found desirable to carry a whole IP-in-IP encapsulation all the way. Else, it is the RPL parent of the final destination, or a router acting at 6LR for the destination host, and advertising the host as an external route to RPL. If the SRH-6LoRH header is contained in an IP-in-IP encapsulation, the last router removes the whole chain of headers. Otherwise, it removes the SRH-6LoRH header only.

6LoWPAN ND is designed to support more than one IPv6 address per node and per Interface Identifier (IID), an IID being typically derived from a MAC address to optimize the LOWPAN-IPHC compression. Link local addresses are compressed with stateless address compression (S/DAC=0). The other addresses are derived from different prefixes and they can be compressed with stateful address compression based on a context (S/DAC=1). But stateless compression is only defined for the specific link-local prefix as opposed to the prefix in an encapsulating header. And with stateful compression, the compression reference is found in a context, as opposed to an encapsulating header. It results that in the case of an IP-in-IP encapsulation, it is possible to compress an inner source (respectively destination) IP address in a LOWPAN_IPHC based on the encapsulating IP header only if stateful (context-based) compression is used. The compression will operate only if the IID in the source (respectively the destination) IP address in the outer and inner headers match, which usually means that they refer to the same node . This is encoded as S/DAC = 1 and S/AM=11. It must be noted that the outer destination address that is used to compress the inner destination address is the last entry in the last SRH-6LoRH header.

In order to save energy and to optimize the chances of transmission success on lossy media, it is a design point for this specification that the entries in the SRH that have been used are removed from the packet. This creates a discrepancy from the art of IPv6 where Routing Header are mutable but recoverable. With this specification, the packet can be expanded at any hop into a valid IPv6 packet, including a SRH, and compressed back. But the packet as decompressed along the way will not carry all the consumed addresses that packet would have if it had been forwarded in the uncompressed form. It is noted that: The value of keeping the whole RH in an IPv6 header is for the receiver to reverse it to use the symmetrical path on the way back. It is generally not a good idea to reverse a routing header. The RH may have been used to stay away from the shortest path for some reason that is only valid on the way in (segment routing). There is no use of reversing a RH in the present RPL specifications. P2P RPL reverses a path that was learned reactively, as a part of the protocol operation, which is probably a cleaner way than a reversed echo on the data path. Reversing a header is discouraged by for RH0 unless it is authenticated, which requires an Authentication Header (AH). There is no definition of an AH operation for SRH, and there is no indication that the need exists in LLNs. It is noted that AH does not protect the RH on the way. AH is a validation at the receiver with the sole value of enabling the receiver to reversing it. A RPL domain is usually protected by L2 security and that secures both RPL itself and the RH in the packets, at every hop. This is a better security than that provided by AH. In summary, the benefit of saving energy and lowering the chances of loss by sending smaller frames over the LLN are seen as overwhelming compared to the value of possibly reversing the header.

In order to optimize the compression of IP addresses present in the SRH headers, this specification requires that the 6LoWPAN layer identifies an address that is used as reference for the compression. With this specification, the Compression Reference for the first address found in an SRH header is the source of the IPv6 packet, and then the reference for each subsequent entry is the address of its predecessor once it is uncompressed. With RPL , an SRH header may only be present in Non-Storing mode, and it may only be placed in the packet by the root of the DODAG, which must be the source of the resulting IPv6 packet . In this case, the address used as Compression Reference is that the address of the root, and it can be implicit when the address of the root is. The Compression Reference MUST be determined as follows: The reference address may be obtained by configuration. The configuration may indicate either the address in full, or the identifier of a 6LoWPAN Context that carries the address , for instance one of the 16 Context Identifiers used in LOWPAN-IPHC . Else, and if there is no IP-in-IP encapsulation, the source address in the IPv6 header that is compressed with LOWPAN-IPHC is the reference for the compression. Else, and if the IP-in-IP compression specified in this document is used and the Encapsulator Address is provided, then the Encapsulator Address is the reference.

Upon reception, the router checks whether the address in the first entry of the first SRH-6LoRH one of its own addresses. In that case, router MUST consume that entry before forwarding, which is an action of popping from a stack, where the stack is effectively the sequence of entries in consecutive SRH-6LoRH headers. Popping an entry of an SRH-6LoRH header is a recursive action performed as follows: If the Size of the SRH-6LoRH header is 1 or more, indicating that there are at least 2 entries in the header, the router removes the first entry and decrements the Size (by 1). Else (meaning that this is the last entry in the SRH-6LoRH header), and if there is no next SRH-6LoRH header after this then the SRH-6LoRH is removed. Else, if there is a next SRH-6LoRH of a Type with a larger or equal value, meaning a same or lesser compression yielding same or larger compressed forms, then the SRH-6LoRH is removed. Else, the first entry of the next SRH-6LoRH is popped from the next SRH-6LoRH and coalesced with the first entry of this SRH-6LoRH. At the end of the process, if there is no more SRH-6LoRH in the packet, then the processing node is the last router along the source route path.

When receiving a packet with a SRH-6LoRH, a router determines the IPv6 address of the current segment endpoint. If strict source routing is enforced and this router is not the segment endpoint for the packet then this router MUST drop the packet. If this router is the current segment endpoint, then the router pops its address as described in and continues processing the packet. If there is still a SRH-6LoRH, then the router determines the new segment endpoint and routes the packet towards that endpoint. Otherwise the router uses the destination in the inner IP header to forward or accept the packet. The segment endpoint of a packet MUST be determined as follows: The router first determines the Compression Reference as discussed in . The router then coalesces the Compression Reference with the first entry of the first SRH-6LoRH header as discussed in . If the type of the SRH-6LoRH header is type 4 then the coalescence is a full override. Since the Compression Reference is an uncompressed address, the coalesced IPv6 address is also expressed in the full 128bits. An example of this operation is provided in .

, Section 11.2, specifies the RPL Packet Information (RPI) as a set of fields that are placed by RPL routers in IP packets to identify the RPL Instance, detect anomalies and trigger corrective actions. In particular, the SenderRank, which is the scalar metric computed by a specialized Objective Function such as , indicates the Rank of the sender and is modified at each hop. The SenderRank field is used to validate that the packet progresses in the expected direction, either upwards or downwards, along the DODAG. RPL defines the RPL Option for Carrying RPL Information in Data-Plane Datagrams to transport the RPI, which is carried in an IPv6 Hop-by-Hop Options Header, typically consuming eight bytes per packet. With , the RPL option is encoded as six octets, which must be placed in a Hop-by-Hop header that consumes two additional octets for a total of eight octets. To limit the header’s range to just the RPL domain, the Hop-by-Hop header must be added to (or removed from) packets that cross the border of the RPL domain. The 8-byte overhead is detrimental to LLN operation, in particular with regards to bandwidth and battery constraints. These bytes may cause a containing frame to grow above maximum frame size, leading to Layer 2 or 6LoWPAN fragmentation, which in turn leads to even more energy expenditure and issues discussed in LLN Fragment Forwarding and Recovery. An additional overhead comes from the need, in certain cases, to add an IP-in-IP encapsulation to carry the Hop-by-Hop header. This is needed when the router that inserts the Hop-by-Hop header is not the source of the packet, so that an error can be returned to the router. This is also the case when a packet originated by a RPL node must be stripped from the Hop-by-Hop header to be routed outside the RPL domain. For that reason, this specification defines an IP-in-IP-6LoRH header in , but it must be noted that removal of a 6LoRH header does not require manipulation of the packet in the LOWPAN_IPHC, and thus, if the source address in the LOWPAN_IPHC is the node that inserted the IP-in-IP-6LoRH header then this situation alone does not mandate an IP-in-IP-6LoRH header. Note: A typical packet in RPL non-storing mode going down the RPL graph requires an IP-in-IP encapsulation of the SRH, whereas the RPI is usually (and quite illegally) omitted. With this specification, the RPI is important to indicate the RPLInstanceID so the RPI should not be omitted. To impact of placing an IP-in-IP encapsulation and an RPI in the packet, an optimized IP-in-IP 6LoRH header is defined in . As a result, a RPL packet may bear only an RPI-6LoRH header and no IP-in-IP-6LoRH header. In that case, the source and destination of the packet are specified by the LOWPAN_IPHC. As with , the fields in the RPI include an ‘O’, an ‘R’, and an ‘F’ bit, an 8-bit RPLInstanceID (with some internal structure), and a 16-bit SenderRank. The remainder of this section defines the RPI-6LoRH header, which is a Critical 6LoWPAN Routing Header that is designed to transport the RPI in 6LoWPAN LLNs.

RPL Instances are discussed in , Section 5. A number of simple use cases do not require more than one RPL Instance, and in such cases, the RPL Instance is expected to be the Global Instance 0. A global RPLInstanceID is encoded in a RPLInstanceID field as follows:

For the particular case of the Global Instance 0, the RPLInstanceID field is all zeros. This specification allows to elide a RPLInstanceID field that is all zeros, and defines a I flag that, when set, signals that the field is elided.

The SenderRank is the result of the DAGRank operation on the rank of the sender; here the DAGRank operation is defined in , Section 3.5.1, as: DAGRank(rank) = floor(rank/MinHopRankIncrease) If MinHopRankIncrease is set to a multiple of 256, the least significant 8 bits of the SenderRank will be all zeroes; by eliding those, the SenderRank can be compressed into a single byte. This idea is used in by defining DEFAULT_MIN_HOP_RANK_INCREASE as 256 and in that defaults MinHopRankIncrease to DEFAULT_MIN_HOP_RANK_INCREASE. This specification allows to encode the SenderRank as either one or two bytes, and defines a K flag that, when set, signals that a single byte is used.

The RPI-6LoRH header provides a compressed form for the RPL RPI. Routers that need to forward a packet with a RPI-6LoRH header are expected to be RPL routers that support this specification. If a non-RPL router receives a packet with a RPI-6LoRH header, there was a routing or a configuration error (see ). The desired reaction for the non-RPL router is to drop the packet as opposed to skip the header and forward the packet, which could end up forming loops by reinjecting the packet in the wrong RPL Instance. The Dispatch Value Bit Pattern for the SRH-6LoRH header indicates Critical. Routers that understand the 6LoRH general format detailed in cannot ignore a 6LoRH header of this type, and will drop the packet if it is unknown to them. Since the RPI-6LoRH header is a critical header, the TSE field does not need to be a length expressed in bytes. In that case the field is fully reused for control bits that encode the O, R and F flags from the RPI, as well as the I and K flags that indicate the compression format. The Type for the RPI-6LoRH is 5. The RPI-6LoRH header is immediately followed by the RPLInstanceID field, unless that field is fully elided, and then the SenderRank, which is either compressed into one byte or fully in-lined as two bytes. The I and K flags in the RPI-6LoRH header indicate whether the RPLInstanceID is elided and/or the SenderRank is compressed. Depending on these bits, the Length of the RPI-6LoRH may vary as described hereafter.

The O, R, and F bits are defined in , section 11.2. If it is set, the RPLInstanceID is elided and the RPLInstanceID is the Global RPLInstanceID 0. If it is not set, the octet immediately following the type field contains the RPLInstanceID as specified in , section 5.1. If it is set, the SenderRank is compressed into one octet, with the least significant octet elided. If it is not set, the SenderRank, is fully inlined as two octets. In , the RPLInstanceID is the Global RPLInstanceID 0, and the MinHopRankIncrease is a multiple of 256 so the least significant byte is all zeros and can be elided:

In , the RPLInstanceID is the Global RPLInstanceID 0, but both bytes of the SenderRank are significant so it can not be compressed:

In , the RPLInstanceID is not the Global RPLInstanceID 0, and the MinHopRankIncrease is a multiple of 256:

In , the RPLInstanceID is not the Global RPLInstanceID 0, and both bytes of the SenderRank are significant:

The IP-in-IP 6LoRH (IP-in-IP-6LoRH) header is an Elective 6LoWPAN Routing Header that provides a compressed form for the encapsulating IPv6 Header in the case of an IP-in-IP encapsulation. An IP-in-IP encapsulation is used to insert a field such as a Routing Header or an RPI at a router that is not the source of the packet. In order to send an error back regarding the inserted field, the address of the router that performs the insertion must be provided. The encapsulation can also enable the last router prior to Destination to remove a field such as the RPI, but this can be done in the compressed form by removing the RPI-6LoRH, so an IP-in-IP-6LoRH encapsulation is not required for that sole purpose. The Dispatch Value Bit Pattern for the SRH-6LoRH header indicates Elective. This field is not critical for routing since it does not indicate the destination of the packet, which is either encoded in a SRH-6LoRH header or in the inner IP header. A 6LoRH header of this type can be skipped if not understood (per ), and the 6LoRH header indicates the Length in bytes.

The Length of an IP-in-IP-6LoRH header is expressed in bytes and MUST be at least 1, to indicate a Hop Limit (HL), that is decremented at each hop. When the HL reaches 0, the packet is dropped per . If the Length of an IP-in-IP-6LoRH header is exactly 1, then the Encapsulator Address is elided, which means that the Encapsulator is a well-known router, for instance the root in a RPL graph. The most efficient compression of an IP-in-IP encapsulation that can be achieved with this specification is obtained when an endpoint of the packet is the root of the RPL DODAG associated to the RPL Instance that is used to forward the packet, and the root address is known implicitly as opposed to signaled explicitly in the data packets. If the Length of an IP-in-IP-6LoRH header is greater than 1, then an Encapsulator Address is placed in a compressed form after the Hop Limit field. The value of the Length indicates which compression is performed on the Encapsulator Address. For instance, a Length of 3 indicates that the Encapsulator Address is compressed to 2 bytes. The reference for the compression is the address of the root of the DODAG. The way the address of the root is determined is discussed in . With RPL, the destination address in the IP-in-IP header is implicitly the root in the RPL graph for packets going upwards, and, in storing mode, it is the destination address in the IPHC for packets going downwards. In non-storing mode, there is no implicit value for packets going downwards. If the implicit value is correct, the destination IP address of the IP-in-IP encapsulation can be elided. Else, the destination IP address of the IP-in-IP header is transported in a SRH-6LoRH header as the first entry of the first of these headers. If the final destination of the packet is a leaf that does not support this specification, then the chain of 6LoRH headers must be stripped by the RPL/6LR router to which the leaf is attached. In that example, the destination IP address of the IP-in-IP header cannot be elided. In the special case where a 6LoRH header is used to route 6LoWPAN fragments, the destination address is not accessible in the IPHC on all fragments and can be elided only for the first fragment and for packets going upwards.

Though it is possible to decompress a packet at any hop, this specification is optimized to enable that a packet is forwarded in its compressed form all the way, and it makes sense to deploy homogeneous networks, where all nodes, or no node at all, use the compression technique detailed therein. This specification does not provide a method to discover the capability by a next-hop device to support the compression technique, or the incremental addition of 6LoWPAN Routing Header as new specifications are published, considering that such extraneous code would overburden many constrained devices. This specification does not require extraneous code to exchange and handle error messages for mismatch situations, either. It is thus critical to keep the network homogeneous, or at least provide in forwarding nodes the knowledge of the support by the next hops. This is either a deployment issue, by deploying only devices with a same capability, or a management issue, by configuring all devices to either use, or not use, a certain level of this compression technique and its future additions. In particular, the situation where a node receives a message with a Critical 6LoWPAN Routing Header that it does not understand is an administrative error whereby the wrong device is placed in a network, or the device is mis-configured. When a mismatch situation is detected, it is expected that the device raises some management alert, indicating the issue, e.g. that it has to drop a packet with a Critical 6LoRH.

The security considerations of , , and apply. Using a compressed format as opposed to the full in-line format is logically equivalent and is believed to not create an opening for a new threat when compared to , and , noting that, even though intermediate hops are removed from the SRH header as they are consumed, a node may still identify that the rest of the source routed path includes a loop or not (see Security section of . It must be noted that if the attacker is not part of the loop, then there is always a node at the beginning of the loop that can detect it and remove it.

This specification reserves Dispatch Value Bit Patterns within the 6LoWPAN Dispatch Page 1 as follows: 101xxxxx: for Elective 6LoWPAN Routing Headers 100xxxxx: for Critical 6LoWPAN Routing Headers. Additionally this document creates two IANA registries, one for the Critical 6LoWPAN Routing Header Type and one for the Elective 6LoWPAN Routing Header Type, each with 32 possible values from 0 to 31, as described below. Future assignments in these registries are to be coordinated via IANA under the policy of “RFC Required” to enable any type of RFC to obtain a value in the registry.

This document creates an IANA registry for the Critical 6LoWPAN Routing Header Type, and assigns the following values: 0..4: SRH-6LoRH [RFCthis] 5: RPI-6LoRH [RFCthis] <– under the policy of “IETF Review” to ensure adequate community review. –> ## New Elective 6LoWPAN Routing Header Type Registry This document creates an IANA registry for the Elective 6LoWPAN Routing Header Type, and assigns the following value: 6: IP-in-IP-6LoRH [RFCthis] <– under the policy of “IETF Review” to ensure adequate community review. –>

The authors wish to thank Tom Phinney, Thomas Watteyne, Tengfei Chang, Martin Turon, James Woodyatt, Samita Chakrabarti, Jonathan Hui, Gabriel Montenegro and Ralph Droms for constructive reviews to the design in the 6lo Working Group. The overall discussion involved participants to the 6MAN, 6TiSCH and ROLL WGs, thank you all. Special thanks to the chairs of the ROLL WG, Michael Richardson and Ines Robles, Brian Haberman, Internet Area A-D, and Alvaro Retana and Adrian Farrel, Routing Area A-Ds, for driving this complex effort across Working Groups and Areas.

In many standards track documents several words are used to signify the requirements in the specification. These words are often capitalized. This document defines these words as they should be interpreted in IETF documents. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. This document specifies version 6 of the Internet Protocol (IPv6), also sometimes referred to as IP Next Generation or IPng. [STANDARDS-TRACK] This document describes the frame format for transmission of IPv6 packets and the method of forming IPv6 link-local addresses and statelessly autoconfigured addresses on IEEE 802.15.4 networks. Additional specifications include a simple header compression scheme using shared context and provisions for packet delivery in IEEE 802.15.4 meshes. [STANDARDS-TRACK] This document updates RFC 4944, "Transmission of IPv6 Packets over IEEE 802.15.4 Networks". This document specifies an IPv6 header compression format for IPv6 packet delivery in Low Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPANs). The compression format relies on shared context to allow compression of arbitrary prefixes. How the information is maintained in that shared context is out of scope. This document specifies compression of multicast addresses and a framework for compressing next headers. UDP header compression is specified within this framework. [STANDARDS-TRACK] Low-Power and Lossy Networks (LLNs) are a class of network in which both the routers and their interconnect are constrained. LLN routers typically operate with constraints on processing power, memory, and energy (battery power). Their interconnects are characterized by high loss rates, low data rates, and instability. LLNs are comprised of anything from a few dozen to thousands of routers. Supported traffic flows include point-to-point (between devices inside the LLN), point-to-multipoint (from a central control point to a subset of devices inside the LLN), and multipoint-to-point (from devices inside the LLN towards a central control point). This document specifies the IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL), which provides a mechanism whereby multipoint-to-point traffic from devices inside the LLN towards a central control point as well as point-to-multipoint traffic from the central control point to the devices inside the LLN are supported. Support for point-to-point traffic is also available. [STANDARDS-TRACK] The Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) specification defines a generic Distance Vector protocol that is adapted to a variety of network types by the application of specific Objective Functions (OFs). An OF states the outcome of the process used by a RPL node to select and optimize routes within a RPL Instance based on the Information Objects available; an OF is not an algorithm.This document specifies a basic Objective Function that relies only on the objects that are defined in the RPL and does not use any protocol extensions. [STANDARDS-TRACK] The Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) includes routing information in data-plane datagrams to quickly identify inconsistencies in the routing topology. This document describes the RPL Option for use among RPL routers to include such routing information. [STANDARDS-TRACK] In Low-Power and Lossy Networks (LLNs), memory constraints on routers may limit them to maintaining, at most, a few routes. In some configurations, it is necessary to use these memory-constrained routers to deliver datagrams to nodes within the LLN. The Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) can be used in some deployments to store most, if not all, routes on one (e.g., the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) root) or a few routers and forward the IPv6 datagram using a source routing technique to avoid large routing tables on memory-constrained routers. This document specifies a new IPv6 Routing header type for delivering datagrams within a RPL routing domain. [STANDARDS-TRACK] Many protocols make use of identifiers consisting of constants and other well-known values. Even after a protocol has been defined and deployment has begun, new values may need to be assigned (e.g., for a new option type in DHCP, or a new encryption or authentication transform for IPsec). To ensure that such quantities have consistent values and interpretations across all implementations, their assignment must be administered by a central authority. For IETF protocols, that role is provided by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).In order for IANA to manage a given namespace prudently, it needs guidelines describing the conditions under which new values can be assigned or when modifications to existing values can be made. If IANA is expected to play a role in the management of a namespace, IANA must be given clear and concise instructions describing that role. This document discusses issues that should be considered in formulating a policy for assigning values to a namespace and provides guidelines for authors on the specific text that must be included in documents that place demands on IANA.This document obsoletes RFC 2434. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. This specification updates RFC 4944 to introduce a new context switch mechanism for 6LoWPAN compression, expressed in terms of Pages and signaled by a new Paging Dispatch. IEEE standard for Information Technology This document provides a glossary of terminology used in routing requirements and solutions for networks referred to as Low-Power and Lossy Networks (LLNs). An LLN is typically composed of many embedded devices with limited power, memory, and processing resources interconnected by a variety of links. There is a wide scope of application areas for LLNs, including industrial monitoring, building automation (e.g., heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, access control, fire), connected home, health care, environmental monitoring, urban sensor networks, energy management, assets tracking, and refrigeration. The Internet Protocol Suite is increasingly used on small devices with severe constraints on power, memory, and processing resources, creating constrained-node networks. This document provides a number of basic terms that have been useful in the standardization work for constrained-node networks. The IETF work in IPv6 over Low-power Wireless Personal Area Network (6LoWPAN) defines 6LoWPANs such as IEEE 802.15.4. This and other similar link technologies have limited or no usage of multicast signaling due to energy conservation. In addition, the wireless network may not strictly follow the traditional concept of IP subnets and IP links. IPv6 Neighbor Discovery was not designed for non- transitive wireless links, as its reliance on the traditional IPv6 link concept and its heavy use of multicast make it inefficient and sometimes impractical in a low-power and lossy network. This document describes simple optimizations to IPv6 Neighbor Discovery, its addressing mechanisms, and duplicate address detection for Low- power Wireless Personal Area Networks and similar networks. The document thus updates RFC 4944 to specify the use of the optimizations defined here. [STANDARDS-TRACK] This document describes the environment, problem statement, and goals for using the Time-Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol of IEEE 802.14.4e in the context of Low-Power and Lossy Networks (LLNs). The set of goals enumerated in this document form an initial set only. In order to be routed, a fragmented packet must be reassembled at every hop of a multihop link where lower layer fragmentation occurs. Considering that the IPv6 minimum MTU is 1280 bytes and that an an 802.15.4 frame can have a payload limited to 74 bytes in the worst case, a packet might end up fragmented into as many as 18 fragments at the 6LoWPAN shim layer. If a single one of those fragments is lost in transmission, all fragments must be resent, further contributing to the congestion that might have caused the initial packet loss. This draft introduces a simple protocol to forward and recover individual fragments that might be lost over multiple hops between 6LoWPAN endpoints. This document describes a network architecture that provides low- latency, low-jitter and high-reliability packet delivery. It combines a high speed powered backbone and subnetworks using IEEE 802.15.4 time-slotted channel hopping (TSCH) to meet the requirements of LowPower wireless deterministic applications. This document looks at different data flows through LLN (Low-Power and Lossy Networks) where RPL (IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks) is used to establish routing. The document enumerates the cases where RFC 6553, RFC 6554 and IPv6-in-IPv6 encapsulation is required. This analysis provides the basis on which to design efficient compression of these headers.

The example in illustrates the 6LoRH compression of a classical packet in Storing Mode in all directions, as well as in non-Storing mode for a packet going up the DODAG following the default route to the root. In this particular example, a fragmentation process takes place per , and the fragment headers must be placed in Page 0 before switching to Page 1:

No RPL artifact +- ... -+- ... -+-+ ... -+-+ ... -+- ... +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+... |Frag type|Frag hdr | |RFC 4944 |RFC 4944 | Payload (cont) +- ... -+- ... -+-+ ... -+-+ ... -+- ... +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+... +- ... -+- ... -+-+ ... -+-+ ... -+- ... +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+... |Frag type|Frag hdr | |RFC 4944 |RFC 4944 | Payload (cont) +- ... -+- ... -+-+ ... -+-+ ... -+- ... +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+... ]]>

In Storing Mode, if the packet stays within the RPL domain, then it is possible to save the IP-in-IP encapsulation, in which case only the RPI is compressed with a 6LoRH, as illustrated in in the case of a non-fragmented ICMP packet:

No RPL artifact ]]>

The format in is logically equivalent to the non-compressed format illustrated in :

For a UDP packet, the transport header can be compressed with 6LoWPAN HC as illustrated in :

No RPL artifact ]]>

If the packet is received from the Internet in Storing Mode, then the root is supposed to encapsulate the packet to insert the RPI. The resulting format would be as represented in :

No RPL artifact ]]>

The example illustrated in is a classical packet in non-Storing mode for a packet going down the DODAG following a source routed path from the root. Say that we have 4 forwarding hops to reach a destination. In the non-compressed form, when the root generates the packet, the last 3 hops are encoded in a Routing Header type 3 (SRH) and the first hop is the destination of the packet. The intermediate hops perform a swap and the hop count indicates the current active hop , . When compressed with this specification, the 4 hops are encoded in SRH-6LoRH when the root generates the packet, and the final destination is left in the LOWPAN-IPHC. There is no swap, and the forwarding node that corresponds to the first entry effectively consumes it when forwarding, which means that the size of the encoded packet decreases and that the hop information is lost. If the last hop in a SRH-6LoRH is not the final destination then it removes the SRH-6LoRH before forwarding. In the particular example illustrated in , all addresses in the DODAG are assigned from a same /112 prefix and the last 2 octets encoding an identifier such as a IEEE 802.15.4 short address. In that case, all addresses can be compressed to 2 octets, using the root address as reference. There will be one SRH_6LoRH header, with, in this example, 3 compressed addresses:

<- RFC 6282 -> No RPL artifact ]]>

One may note that the RPI is provided. This is because the address of the root that is the source of the IP-in-IP header is elided and inferred from the RPLInstanceID in the RPI. Once found from a local context, that address is used as Compression Reference to expand addresses in the SRH-6LoRH. With the RPL specifications available at the time of writing this draft, the root is the only node that may incorporate a SRH in an IP packet. When the root forwards a packet that it did not generate, it has to encapsulate the packet with IP-in-IP. But if the root generates the packet towards a node in its DODAG, then it should avoid the extra IP-in-IP as illustrated in :

]]>

Note: the RPI is not represented though RPL generally expects it. In this particular case, since the Compression Reference for the SRH-6LoRH is the source address in the LOWPAN-IPHC, and the routing is strict along the source route path, the RPI does not appear to be absolutely necessary. In , all the nodes along the source route path share a same /112 prefix. This is typical of IPv6 addresses derived from an IEEE802.15.4 short address, as long as all the nodes share a same PAN-ID. In that case, a type-1 SRH-6LoRH header can be used for encoding. The IPv6 address of the root is taken as reference, and only the last 2 octets of the address of the intermediate hops is encoded. The Size of 3 indicates 4 hops, resulting in a SRH-6LoRH of 10 bytes.

This section illustrates the operation specified in of forwarding a packet with a compressed SRH along an A->B->C->D source route path. The operation of popping addresses is exemplified at each hop.