Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-v6ops-transition-comparison
draft-ietf-v6ops-transition-comparison
v6ops G. Lencse
Internet-Draft BUTE
Intended status: Informational J. Palet Martinez
Expires: 24 November 2022 The IPv6 Company
L. Howard
Retevia
R. Patterson
Sky UK
I. Farrer
Deutsche Telekom AG
23 May 2022
Pros and Cons of IPv6 Transition Technologies for IPv4aaS
draft-ietf-v6ops-transition-comparison-04
Abstract
Several IPv6 transition technologies have been developed to provide
customers with IPv4-as-a-Service (IPv4aaS) for ISPs with an IPv6-only
access and/or core network. All these technologies have their
advantages and disadvantages, and depending on existing topology,
skills, strategy and other preferences, one of these technologies may
be the most appropriate solution for a network operator.
This document examines the five most prominent IPv4aaS technologies
considering a number of different aspects to provide network
operators with an easy-to-use reference to assist in selecting the
technology that best suits their needs.
Status of This Memo
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provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 24 November 2022.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2022 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
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This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Overview of the Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. 464XLAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Dual-Stack Lite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3. Lightweight 4over6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.4. MAP-E . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.5. MAP-T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3. High-level Architectures and their Consequences . . . . . . . 9
3.1. Service Provider Network Traversal . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2. Network Address Translation among the Different IPv4aaS
Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.3. IPv4 Address Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.4. IPv4 Pool Size Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.5. CE Provisioning Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.6. Support for Multicast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4. Detailed Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.1. Architectural Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.1.1. Basic Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2. Tradeoff between Port Number Efficiency and Stateless
Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.3. Support for Public Server Operation . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.4. Support and Implementations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.4.1. Vendor Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.4.2. Support in Cellular and Broadband Networks . . . . . 19
4.4.3. Implementation Code Sizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.5. Typical Deployment and Traffic Volume Considerations . . 20
4.5.1. Deployment Possibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.5.2. Cellular Networks with 464XLAT . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.5.3. Wireline Networks with 464XLAT . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.6. Load Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.7. Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.8. Optimization for IPv4-only devices/applications . . . . . 23
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5. Performance Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Appendix A. Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
A.1. 01 - 02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
A.2. 02 - 03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
A.3. 03 - 04 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
A.4. 04 - 05 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
A.5. 05 - 06 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
A.6. 06 - 00-WG Item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
A.7. 00 - 01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
A.8. 01 - 02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
A.9. 02 - 03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
A.10. 03 - 04 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
1. Introduction
As the deployment of IPv6 continues to be prevalent, it becomes
clearer that network operators will move to building single-stack
IPv6 core and access networks to simplify network planning and
operations. However, providing customers with IPv4 services
continues to be a requirement for the foreseeable future. To meet
this need, the IETF has standardised a number of different IPv4aaS
technologies for this [LEN2019] based on differing requirements and
deployment scenarios.
The number of technologies that have been developed makes it time-
consuming for a network operator to identify the most appropriate
mechanism for their specific deployment. This document provides a
comparative analysis of the most commonly used mechanisms to assist
operators with this problem.
Five different IPv4aaS solutions are considered. The following
IPv4aaS technologies are covered:
1. 464XLAT [RFC6877]
2. Dual Stack Lite [RFC6333]
3. lw4o6 (Lightweight 4over6) [RFC7596]
4. MAP-E [RFC7597]
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5. MAP-T [RFC7599]
We note that [RFC6180] gives guidelines for using IPv6 transition
mechanisms during IPv6 deployment addressing a much broader topic,
whereas this document focuses on a small part of it.
2. Overview of the Technologies
The following sections introduce the different technologies analyzed
in this document, describing some of their most important
characteristics.
2.1. 464XLAT
464XLAT may use double translation (stateless NAT46 + stateful NAT64)
or single translation (stateful NAT64), depending on different
factors, such as the use of DNS by the applications and the
availability of a DNS64 function (in the host or in the service
provider network).
The customer-side translator (CLAT) is located in the customer's
device, and it performs stateless NAT46 translation [RFC7915] (more
precisely, a stateless IP/ICMP translation from IPv4 to IPv6).
IPv4-embedded IPv6 addresses [RFC6052] are used for both source and
destination addresses. Commonly, a /96 prefix (either the
64:ff9b::/96 Well-Known Prefix, or a Network-Specific Prefix) is used
as the IPv6 destination for the IPv4-embedded client traffic.
In deployments where NAT64 load-balancing [RFC7269] section 4.2 is
enabled, multiple WKPs [RFC8215] may be used.
In the operator's network, the provider-side translator (PLAT)
performs stateful NAT64 [RFC6146] to translate the traffic. The
destination IPv4 address is extracted from the IPv4-embedded IPv6
packet destination address and the source address is from a pool of
public IPv4 addresses.
Alternatively, when a dedicated /64 is not available for translation,
the CLAT device uses a stateful NAT44 translation before the
stateless NAT46 translation.
In general, keeping state in devices close to the end-user network
(i.e. at the CE - Customer Edge router) is not perceived as
problematic as keeping state in the operator's network.
In typical deployments, 464XLAT is used together with DNS64
[RFC6147], see Section 3.1.2 of [RFC8683]. When an IPv6-only client
or application communicates with an IPv4-only server, the DNS64
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server returns the IPv4-embedded IPv6 address of the IPv4-only
server. In this case, the IPv6-only client sends out IPv6 packets,
and the CLAT functions as an IPv6 router and the PLAT performs a
stateful NAT64 for these packets. In this case, there is a single
translation.
Similarly, when an IPv4-only client or application communicates with
an IPv4-only server, the CLAT will statelessly translate to IPv6 so
it can traverse the ISP network up to the PLAT (NAT64), which in turn
will translate to IPv4.
Alternatively, one can say that DNS64 + stateful NAT64 is used to
carry the traffic of the IPv6-only client and the IPv4-only server,
and the CLAT is used only for the IPv4 traffic from applications or
devices that use literal IPv4 addresses or non-IPv6 compliant APIs.
Private +----------+ Translated +----------+ _______
+------+ IPv4 | CLAT | 4-6-4 | PLAT | ( IPv4 )
| IPv4 |------->| Stateless|------------>| Stateful +--( Internet )
|Device|<-------| NAT46 |<------------| NAT64 | (________)
+------+ +----------+ ^ +----------+
|
Operator IPv6
network
Figure 1: Overview of the 464XLAT architecture
Note: in mobile networks, CLAT is commonly implemented in the user's
equipment (UE or smartphone), please refer to Figure 2 of [RFC6877].
Often NAT64 vendors support direct communication (that is, without
translation) between two CLATs by means of hair-pinning through the
NAT64.
2.2. Dual-Stack Lite
Dual-Stack Lite (DS-Lite) [RFC6333] was the first of the considered
transition mechanisms to be developed. DS-Lite uses a 'Basic
Bridging BroadBand' (B4) function in the customer's CE router that
encapsulates IPv4 in IPv6 traffic and sends it over the IPv6 native
service-provider network to an 'Address Family Transition Router'
(AFTR). The AFTR performs encapsulation/decapsulation of the 4in6
[RFC2473] traffic and translates the IPv4 source address in the inner
IPv4 packet to public IPv4 source address using a stateful NAPT44
[RFC2663] function.
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+-------------+
Private +----------+ IPv4-in-IPv6|Stateful AFTR|
+------+ IPv4 | B4 | tunnel |------+------+ _______
| IPv4 |------->| Encap./ |------------>|Encap.| | ( IPv4 )
|Device|<-------| decap. |<------------| / | NAPT +--( Internet )
+------+ +----------+ ^ |Decap.| 44 | (________)
| +------+------+
Operator IPv6
network
Figure 2: Overview of the DS-Lite architecture
Some AFTR vendors support direct communication between two B4s by
means of hair-pinning through the AFTR.
2.3. Lightweight 4over6
Lightweight 4over6 (lw4o6) is a variant of DS-Lite. The main
difference is that the stateful NAPT44 function is relocated from the
centralized AFTR to the customer's B4 element (called a lwB4). The
AFTR (called a lwAFTR) function therefore only performs A+P routing
[RFC6346] and 4in6 encapsulation/decapsulation.
Routing to the correct client and IPv4 address sharing is achieved
using the Address + Port (A+P) model [RFC6346] of provisioning each
lwB4 with a unique tuple of IPv4 address and a unique range of
transport layer ports. The client uses these for NAPT44.
The lwAFTR implements a binding table, which has a per-client entry
linking the customer's source IPv4 address and allocated range of
transport layer ports to their IPv6 tunnel endpoint address. The
binding table allows egress traffic from customers to be validated
(to prevent spoofing) and ingress traffic to be correctly
encapsulated and forwarded. As there needs to be a per-client entry,
an lwAFTR implementation needs to be optimized for performing a per-
packet lookup on the binding table.
Direct communication (that is, without translation) between two lwB4s
is performed by hair-pinning traffic through the lwAFTR.
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+-------------+ +----------+
Private | lwB4 | IPv4-in-IPv6| Stateless|
+------+ IPv4 |------+------| tunnel | lwAFTR | _______
| IPv4 |------->| |Encap.|------------>|(encap/A+P| ( IPv4 )
|Device|<-------| NAPT | / |<------------|bind. tab +--( Internet )
+------+ | 44 |Decap.| ^ | routing) | (________)
+------+------+ | +----------+
Operator IPv6
network
Figure 3: Overview of the lw4o6 architecture
2.4. MAP-E
Like 464XLAT (Section 2.1), MAP-E and MAP-T use [RFC6052]
IPv4-embedded IPv6 addresses to represent IPv4 hosts outside the MAP
domain.
MAP-E and MAP-T use a stateless algorithm to embed portions of the
customer's allocated IPv4 address (or part of an address with A+P
routing) into the IPv6 prefix delegated to the client. This allows
for large numbers of clients to be provisioned using a single MAP
rule (called a MAP domain). The algorithm also allows for direct
IPv4 peer-to-peer communication between hosts provisioned with common
MAP rules.
The CE (Customer-Edge) router typically performs stateful NAPT44
[RFC2663] to translate the private IPv4 source addresses and source
ports into an address and port range defined by applying the MAP rule
to the delegated IPv6 prefix. The client address/port allocation
size is a configuration parameter. The CE router then encapsulates
the IPv4 packet in an IPv6 packet [RFC2473] and sends it directly to
another host in the MAP domain (for peer-to-peer) or to a Border
Router (BR) if the IPv4 destination is not covered in one of the CE's
MAP rules.
The MAP BR is provisioned with the set of MAP rules for the MAP
domains it serves. These rules determine how the MAP BR is to
decapsulate traffic that it receives from client, validating the
source IPv4 address and transport layer ports assigned, as well as
how to calculate the destination IPv6 address for ingress IPv4
traffic.
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+-------------+ +----------+
Private | MAP CE | IPv4-in-IPv6| Stateless|
+------+ IPv4 |------+------| tunnel | MAP BR | _______
| IPv4 |------->| |Encap.|------------>|(encap/A+P| ( IPv4 )
|Device|<-------| NAPT | / |<------------|algorithm +--( Internet )
+------+ | 44 |Decap.| ^ | routing) | (________)
+------+------+ | +----------+
Operator IPv6
network
Figure 4: Overview of the MAP-E architecture
Some BR vendors support direct communication between two MAP CEs by
means of hair-pinning through the BR.
2.5. MAP-T
MAP-T uses the same mapping algorithm as MAP-E. The major difference
is that double stateless translation (NAT46 in the CE and NAT64 in
the BR) is used to traverse the ISP's IPv6 single-stack network.
MAP-T can also be compared to 464XLAT when there is a double
translation.
A MAP CE router typically performs stateful NAPT44 to translate
traffic to a public IPv4 address and port-range calculated by
applying the provisioned Basic MAP Rule (BMR - a set of inputs to the
algorithm) to the delegated IPv6 prefix. The CE then performs
stateless translation from IPv4 to IPv6 [RFC7915]. The MAP BR is
provisioned with the same BMR as the client, enabling the received
IPv6 traffic to be statelessly NAT64 translated back to the public
IPv4 source address used by the client.
Using translation instead of encapsulation also allows IPv4-only
nodes to correspond directly with IPv6 nodes in the MAP-T domain that
have IPv4-embedded IPv6 addresses.
+-------------+ +----------+
Private | MAP CE | Translated | Stateless|
+------+ IPv4 |------+------| 4-6-4 | MAP BR | _______
| IPv4 |------->| |State-|------------>|(NAT64/A+P| ( IPv4 )
|Device|<-------| NAPT | less |<------------|algorithm +--( Internet )
+------+ | 44 |NAT46 | ^ | routing) | (________)
+------+------+ | +----------+
Operator IPv6
network
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Figure 5: Overview of the MAP-T architecture
Some BR vendors support direct communication between two MAP CEs by
means of hair-pinning through the BR.
3. High-level Architectures and their Consequences
3.1. Service Provider Network Traversal
For the data-plane, there are two approaches for traversing the IPv6
provider network:
* 4-6-4 translation
* 4-in-6 encapsulation
+==============+=========+=========+=======+=======+=======+
| | 464XLAT | DS-Lite | lw4o6 | MAP-E | MAP-T |
+==============+=========+=========+=======+=======+=======+
| 4-6-4 trans. | X | | | | X |
+--------------+---------+---------+-------+-------+-------+
| 4-6-4 encap. | | X | X | X | |
+--------------+---------+---------+-------+-------+-------+
Table 1: Available Traversal Mechanisms
In the scope of this document, all of the encapsulation based
mechanisms use IP-in-IP tunnelling [RFC2473]. This is a stateless
tunneling mechanism which does not require any additional overhead.
It should be noted that both of these approaches result in an
increase in the size of the packet that needs to be transported
across the operator's network when compared to native IPv4. 4-6-4
translation adds a 20-bytes overhead (the 20-byte IPv4 header is
replaced with a 40-byte IPv6 header). Encapsulation has a 40-byte
overhead (an IPv6 header is prepended to the IPv4 header).
The increase in packet size can become a significant problem if there
is a link with a smaller MTU in the traffic path. This may result in
traffic needing to be fragmented at the ingress point to the IPv6
only domain (i.e., the NAT46 or 4in6 encapsulation endpoint). It may
also result in the need to implement buffering and fragment re-
assembly in the PLAT/AFTR/lwAFTR/BR node.
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The advice given in [RFC7597] Section 8.3.1 is applicable to all of
these mechanisms: It is strongly recommended that the MTU in the
IPv6-only domain be well managed (it should have sufficiently large
MTU to support tunneling and/or translation) and that the IPv6 MTU on
the CE WAN-side interface be set so that no fragmentation occurs
within the boundary of the IPv6-only domain.
3.2. Network Address Translation among the Different IPv4aaS
Technologies
For the high-level solution of IPv6 service provider network
traversal, MAP-T uses double stateless translation. First at the CE
from IPv4 to IPv6 (NAT46), and then from IPv6 to IPv4 (NAT64), at the
service provider network.
464XLAT may use double translation (stateless NAT46 + stateful NAT64)
or single translation (stateful NAT64), depending on different
factors, such as the use of DNS by the applications and the
availability of a DNS64 function (in the host or in the service
provider network). For deployment guidelines, please refer to
[RFC8683].
The first step for the double translation mechanisms is a stateless
NAT from IPv4 to IPv6 implemented as SIIT (Stateless IP/ICMP
Translation Algorithm) [RFC7915], which does not translate IPv4
header options and/or multicast IP/ICMP packets. With encapsulation-
based technologies the header is transported intact and multicast can
also be carried.
Single and double translation results in native IPv6 traffic with a
transport layer next-header. The fields in these headers can be used
for functions such as hashing across equal-cost multipaths or access
control list (ACL) filtering. Encapsulation technologies, in
contrast, may hinder hashing algorithms or other functions relying on
header inspection.
Solutions using double translation can only carry port-aware IP
protocols (e.g. TCP, UDP) and ICMP when they are used with IPv4
address sharing (please refer to Section 4.3 for more details).
Encapsulation based solutions can carry any other protocols over IP,
too.
An in-depth analysis of stateful NAT64 can be found in [RFC6889].
As stateful NAT interferes with the port numbers,
[I-D.ietf-tsvwg-natsupp] explains how NATs can handle SCTP (Stream
Control Transmission Protocol).
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3.3. IPv4 Address Sharing
As public IPv4 address exhaustion is a common motivation for
deploying IPv6, transition technologies need to provide a solution
for allowing public IPv4 address sharing.
In order to fulfill this requirement, a stateful NAPT function is a
necessary function in all of the mechanisms. The major
differentiator is where in the architecture this function is located.
The solutions compared by this document fall into two categories:
* CGN-based approaches (DS-Lite, 464XLAT)
* A+P-based approaches (lw4o6, MAP-E, MAP-T)
In the CGN-based model, a device such as a CGN/AFTR or NAT64 performs
the NAPT44 function and maintains per-session state for all of the
active client's traffic. The customer's device does not require per-
session state for NAPT.
In the A+P-based model, a device (usually a CE) performs stateful
NAPT44 and maintains per-session state only co-located devices, e.g.
in the customer's home network. Here, the centralized network
function (lwAFTR or BR) only needs to perform stateless
encapsulation/decapsulation or NAT64.
Issues related to IPv4 address sharing mechanisms are described in
[RFC6269] and should also be considered.
The address sharing efficiency of the five technologies is
significantly different, it is discussed in Section 4.2.
lw4o6, MAP-E and MAP-T can also be configured without IPv4 address
sharing, see the details in Section 4.3. However, in that case,
there is no advantage in terms of public IPv4 address saving. In the
case of 464XLAT, this can be achieved as well through EAMT (Explicit
Address Mapping Table) [RFC7757].
Conversely, both MAP-E and MAP-T may be configured to provide more
than one public IPv4 address (i.e., an IPv4 prefix shorter than a
/32) to customers.
Dynamic DNS issues in address-sharing contexts and their possible
solutions using PCP (Port Control Protocol) are discussed in detail
in [RFC7393].
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3.4. IPv4 Pool Size Considerations
In this section we do some simple calculations regarding port
numbers, however, technical limitations are not the only point to
consider for port sharing, there are also local regulations or BCP.
Note: under "port numbers", we mean TCP/UDP port numbers or ICMP
identifiers.
In most networks, it is possible to, using existing data about flows
to CDNs/caches or other well-known IPv6-enabled destinations,
calculate the percentage of traffic that would turn into IPv6 if it
is enabled on that network or part of it.
Knowing that, it is possible to calculate the IPv4 pool size required
for a given number of subscribers, depending on the IPv4aaS
technology being used.
According to [MIY2010], each user-device (computer, tablet,
smartphone) behind a NAT, could simultaneously use up to 300 ports.
(Table 1 of [MIY2010] lists the port number usage of various
applications. According to [REP2014] the downloading of some web
pages may consume up to 200 port numbers.) If the extended NAPT
algorithm is used, which includes the full five tuple into the
connection tracking table, then the port numbers are reused, when the
destinations are different. Therefore, we need to consider the
number of "port hungry" applications that are accessing the same
destination simultaneously. We estimate that in the case of a
residential subscriber, there will be typically no more than 4 of
port hungry applications communicating with the same destination
simultaneously, which means a total of 1,200 ports.
If for example, 80% of the traffic is expected towards IPv6
destinations, only 20% will actually be using IPv4 ports, so in our
example, that will mean 240 ports required per subscriber.
From the 65,535 ports available per IPv4 address, we could even
consider reserving 1,024 ports, in order to allow customers that need
EAMT entries for incoming connections to System Ports (0-1023, also
called well-known ports) [RFC7605], which means 64,511 ports actually
available per each IPv4 address.
According to this, a /22 (1.024 public IPv4 addresses) will be
sufficient for over 275,000 subscribers
(1,024x64,511/240=275,246.93).
Similarly, a /18 (16,384 public IPv4 addresses) will be sufficient
for over 4,403,940 subscribers, and so on.
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This is a conservative approach, which is valid in the case of
464XLAT, because ports are assigned dynamically by the NAT64, so it
is not necessary to consider if one user is actually using more or
less ports: Average values work well.
As the deployment of IPv6 progresses, the use of NAT64, and therefore
of public IPv4 addresses, decreases (more IPv6/ports, less IPv4/
ports), so either more subscribers can be accommodated with the same
number of IPv4 addresses, or some of those addressed can be retired
from the NAT64.
For comparison, if dual-stack is being used, any given number of
users will require the same number of public IPv4 addresses. For
instance, a /14 will provide 262,144 IPv4 public addresses for
262,144 subscribers, versus 275,000 subscribers being served with
only a /22.
In the other IPv4aaS technologies, this calculation will only match
if the assignment of ports per subscriber can be done dynamically,
which is not always the case (depending on the vendor
implementation).
An alternative approximation for the other IPv4aaS technologies, when
dynamically assignment of addresses is not possible, must ensure
sufficient number of ports per subscriber. That means 1,200 ports,
and typically, it comes to 2,000 ports in many deployments. In that
case, assuming 80% of IPv6 traffic, as above, which will allow only
30 subscribers per each IPv4 address, so the closer approximation to
275,000 subscribers per our example with 464XLAT (with a /22), will
be using a /19, which serves 245,760 subscribers (a /19 has 8,192
addresses, 30 subscribers with 2,000 ports each, per address).
If the CGN (in case of DS-Lite) or the CE (in case of lw4o6, MAP-E
and MAP-T) make use of a 5-tuple for tracking the NAT connections,
the number of ports required per subscriber can be limited as low as
4 ports per subscriber. However, the practical limit depends on the
desired limit for parallel connections that any single host behind
the NAT can have to the same address and port in Internet. Note that
it is becoming more common that applications use AJAX (Asynchronous
JavaScript and XML) and similar mechanisms, so taking that extreme
limit is probably not a safe choice.
This extremely reduced number of ports "feature" could also be used
in case the CLAT-enabled CE with 464XLAT makes use of the 5-tuple NAT
connections tracking, and could also be further extended if the NAT64
also use the 5-tuple.
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Please also refer to [RFC6888] for in-depth information about the
requirements for sizing Carrier-Grade NAT gateways.
3.5. CE Provisioning Considerations
All of the technologies require some provisioning of customer
devices. The table below shows which methods currently have
extensions for provisioning the different mechanisms.
+==============+=========+=========+=========+==========+===========+
|Provisioning | 464XLAT | DS-Lite | lw4o6 | MAP-E | MAP-T |
|Method | | | | | |
+==============+=========+=========+=========+==========+===========+
|DHCPv6 | | X | X | X | X |
|[RFC8415] | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+---------+---------+----------+-----------+
|RADIUS | |[RFC6519]| X | X | X |
|[RFC8658] | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+---------+---------+----------+-----------+
|TR-069 | * | X | * | X | X |
|[TR-069] | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+---------+---------+----------+-----------+
|DNS64 | X | | | | |
|[RFC7050] | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+---------+---------+----------+-----------+
|YANG [RFC7950]|[RFC8512]|[RFC8513]|[RFC8676]|[RFC8676] | [RFC8676] |
+--------------+---------+---------+---------+----------+-----------+
|DHCP4o6 | | | X | X | |
|[RFC7341] | | | | | |
+--------------+---------+---------+---------+----------+-----------+
Table 2: Available Provisioning Mechanisms
*: Work started at BroadBand Forum (2021).
X: Supported by the provisioning method.
3.6. Support for Multicast
The solutions covered in this document are all intended for unicast
traffic. [RFC8114] describes a method for carrying encapsulated IPv4
multicast traffic over an IPv6 multicast network. This could be
deployed in parallel to any of the operator's chosen IPv4aaS
mechanism.
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4. Detailed Analysis
4.1. Architectural Differences
4.1.1. Basic Comparison
The five IPv4aaS technologies can be classified into 2x2=4 categories
on the basis of two aspects:
* Technology used for service provider network traversal. It can be
single/double translation or encapsulation.
* Presence or absence of NAPT44 per-flow state in the operator
network.
+====================+=========+=========+=======+=======+=======+
| | 464XLAT | DS-Lite | lw4o6 | MAP-E | MAP-T |
+====================+=========+=========+=======+=======+=======+
| Translation (T) or | T | E | E | E | T |
| Encapsulation (E) | | | | | |
+--------------------+---------+---------+-------+-------+-------+
| Per-flow state in | X | X | | | |
| op. network | | | | | |
+--------------------+---------+---------+-------+-------+-------+
Table 3: Basic comparison among the analyzed technologies
4.2. Tradeoff between Port Number Efficiency and Stateless Operation
464XLAT and DS-Lite use stateful NAPT at the PLAT/AFTR devices,
respectively. This may cause scalability issues for the number of
clients or volume of traffic, but does not impose a limitation on the
number of ports per user, as they can be allocated dynamically on-
demand and the allocation policy can be centrally managed/adjusted.
A+P based mechanisms (lw4o6, MAP-E, and MAP-T) avoid using NAPT in
the service provider network. However, this means that the number of
ports provided to each user (and hence the effective IPv4 address
sharing ratio) must be pre-provisioned to the client.
Changing the allocated port ranges with A+P based technologies,
requires more planning and is likely to involve re-provisioning both
hosts and operator side equipment. It should be noted that due to
the per-customer binding table entry used by lw4o6, a single customer
can be re-provisioned (e.g., if they request a full IPv4 address)
without needing to change parameters for a number of customers as in
a MAP domain.
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It is also worth noting that there is a direct relationship between
the efficiency of customer public port-allocations and the
corresponding logging overhead that may be necessary to meet data-
retention requirements. This is considered in Section 4.7 below.
Determining the optimal number of ports for a fixed port set is not
an easy task, and may also be impacted by local regulatory law (and
in the Belgian case it is not a law but more a MoU / BCP), which may
define a maximum number of users per IP address, and consequently a
minimum number of ports per user.
On the one hand, the "lack of ports" situation may cause serious
problems in the operation of certain applications. For example,
Miyakawa has demonstrated the consequences of the session number
limitation due to port number shortage on the example of Google Maps
[MIY2010]. When the limit was 15, several blocks of the map were
missing, and the map was unusable. This study also provided several
examples for the session numbers of different applications (the
highest one was Apple's iTunes: 230-270 ports).
The port number consumption of different applications is highly
varying and e.g. in the case of web browsing it depends on several
factors, including the choice of the web page, the web browser, and
sometimes even the operating system [REP2014]. For example, under
certain conditions, 120-160 ports were used (URL: sohu.com, browser:
Firefox under Ubuntu Linux), and in some other cases it was only 3-12
ports (URL: twitter.com, browser: Iceweasel under Debian Linux).
There may be several users behind a CE router, especially in the
broadband case (e.g. Internet is used by different members of a
family simultaneously), so sufficient ports must be allocated to
avoid impacting user experience.
In general, assigning too few source port numbers to an end user may
results in unexpected and hard to debug consequences, therefore, if
the number of ports per end user is fixed, then we recommend to
assign a conservatively large number of ports. E.g. the developers
of Jool used 2048 ports per user in their example for MAP-T
[MEX2022].
However, assigning too many ports per CE router will result in waste
of public IPv4 addresses, which is a scarce and expensive resource.
Clearly this is a big advantage in the case of 464XLAT where they are
dynamically managed, so that the number of IPv4 addresses for the
sharing-pool is smaller while the availability of ports per user
don't need to be pre-defined and is not a limitation for them.
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There is a direct tradeoff between the optimization of client port
allocations and the associated logging overhead. Section 4.7
discusses this in more depth.
We note that common CE router NAT44 implementations utilizing
Netfilter, multiplexes active sessions using a 3-tuple (source
address, destination address, and destination port). This means that
external source ports can be reused for unique internal source and
destination address and port sessions. It is also noted, that
Netfilter cannot currently make use of multiple source port ranges
(i.e. several blocks of ports distributed across the total port space
as is common in MAP deployments), this may influence the design when
using stateless technologies.
Stateful technologies, 464XLAT and DS-Lite (and also NAT444) can
therefore be much more efficient in terms of port allocation and thus
public IP address saving. The price is the stateful operation in the
service provider network, which allegedly does not scale up well. It
should be noticed that in many cases, all those factors may depend on
how it is actually implemented.
Measurements have been started to examine the scalability of a few
stateful solutions in two areas:
* How their performance scales up with the number of CPU cores?
* To what extent their performance degrades with the number of
concurrent connections?
The details of the measurements and their results are available from
[I-D.lencse-v6ops-transition-scalability].
We note that some CGN-type solutions can allocate ports dynamically
"on the fly". Depending on configuration, this can result in the
same customer being allocated ports from different source addresses.
This can cause operational issues for protocols and applications that
expect multiple flows to be sourced from the same address. E.g.,
ECMP hashing, STUN, gaming, content delivery networks. However, it
should be noticed that this is the same problem when a network has a
NAT44 with multiple public IPv4 addresses, or even when applications
in a dual-stack case, behave wrongly if happy eyeballs is flapping
the flow address between IPv4 and IPv6.
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The consequences of IPv4 address sharing [RFC6269] may impact all
five technologies. However, when ports are allocated statically,
more customers may get ports from the same public IPv4 address, which
may results in negative consequences with higher probability, e.g.
many applications and service providers (Sony PlayStation Network,
OpenDNS, etc.) permanently blocking IPv4 ranges if they detect that
they are used for address sharing.
Both cases are, again, implementation dependent.
We note that although it is not of typical use, one can do
deterministic, stateful NAT and reserve a fixed set of ports for each
customer, as well.
4.3. Support for Public Server Operation
Mechanisms that rely on operator side per-flow state do not, by
themselves, offer a way for customers to present services on publicly
accessible transport layer ports.
Port Control Protocol (PCP) [RFC6887] provides a mechanism for a
client to request an external public port from a CGN device. For
server operation, it is required with NAT64/464XLAT, and it is
supported in some DS-Lite AFTR implementations.
A+P based mechanisms distribute a public IPv4 address and restricted
range of transport layer ports to the client. In this case, it is
possible for the user to configure their device to offer a publicly
accessible server on one of their allocated ports. It should be
noted that commonly operators do not assign the Well-Known-Ports to
users (unless they are allocating a full IPv4 address), so the user
will need to run the service on an allocated port, or configure port
translation.
Lw4o6, MAP-E and MAP-T may be configured to allocated clients with a
full IPv4 address, allowing exclusive use of all ports, and non-port-
based transport layer protocols. Thus, they may also be used to
support server/services operation on their default ports. However,
when public IPv4 addresses are assigned to the CE router without
address sharing, obviously there is no advantage in terms of IPv4
public addresses saving.
It is also possible to configure specific ports mapping in 464XLAT/
NAT64 using EAMT [RFC7757], which means that only those ports are
"lost" from the pool of addresses, so there is a higher maximization
of the total usage of IPv4/port resources.
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4.4. Support and Implementations
4.4.1. Vendor Support
In general, router vendors support AFTR, MAP-E/T BR and NAT64. Load
balancer and firewall vendors usually support NAT64 as well, while
not all of them have support for the other protocols.
A 464XLAT client (CLAT) is implemented in Windows 10, Linux
(including Android), Windows Mobile, Chrome OS and iOS, but it is not
available in macOS 12.3.1.
The remaining four solutions are commonly deployed as functions in
the CE device only, however in general, except DS-Lite, the vendors
support is poor.
The OpenWRT Linux based open-source OS designed for CE devices offers
a number of different 'opkg' packages as part of the distribution:
* '464xlat' enables support for 464XLAT CLAT functionality
* 'ds-lite' enables support for DSLite B4 functionality
* 'map' enables support for MAP-E and lw4o6 CE functionality
* 'map-t' enables support for MAP-T CE functionality
At the time of publication some free open-source implementations
exist for the operator side functionality:
* Jool [jool] (CLAT, NAT64, EAMT, MAP-T CE, MAP-T BR).
* VPP/fd.io [vpp] (MAP-BR, lwAFTR, CGN, CLAT, NAT64).
* Snabb [snabb] (lwAFTR).
* AFTR [aftr] (DSLite AFTR).
4.4.2. Support in Cellular and Broadband Networks
Several cellular networks use 464XLAT, whereas there are no
deployments of the four other technologies in cellular networks, as
they are neither standardised nor implemented in UE devices.
In broadband networks, there are some deployments of 464XLAT, MAP-E
and MAP-T. Lw4o6 and DS-Lite have more deployments, with DS-Lite
being the most common, but lw4o6 taking over in the last years.
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Please refer to Table 2 and Table 3 of [LEN2019] for a limited set of
deployment information.
4.4.3. Implementation Code Sizes
As hint to the relative complexity of the mechanisms, the following
code sizes are reported from the OpenWRT implementations of each
technology are 17kB, 35kB, 15kB, 35kB, and 48kB for 464XLAT, lw4o6,
DS-Lite, MAP-E, MAP-T, and lw4o6, respectively
(https://openwrt.org/packages/start).
We note that the support for all five technologies requires much less
code size than the total sum of the above quantities, because they
contain a lot of common functions (data plane is shared among several
of them).
4.5. Typical Deployment and Traffic Volume Considerations
4.5.1. Deployment Possibilities
Theoretically, all five IPv4aaS technologies could be used together
with DNS64 + stateful NAT64, as it is done in 464XLAT. In this case
the CE router would treat the traffic between an IPv6-only client and
IPv4-only server as normal IPv6 traffic, and the stateful NAT64
gateway would do a single translation, thus offloading this kind of
traffic from the IPv4aaS technology. The cost of this solution would
be the need for deploying also DNS64 + stateful NAT64.
However, this has not been implemented in clients or actual
deployments, so only 464XLAT always uses this optimization and the
other four solutions do not use it at all.
4.5.2. Cellular Networks with 464XLAT
Figures from existing deployments (end of 2018), show that the
typical traffic volumes in an IPv6-only cellular network, when
464XLAT technology is used together with DNS64, are:
* 75% of traffic is IPv6 end-to-end (no translation)
* 24% of traffic uses DNS64 + NAT64 (1 translation)
* Less than 1% of traffic uses the CLAT in addition to NAT64 (2
translations), due to an IPv4 socket and/or IPv4 literal.
Without using DNS64, 25% of the traffic would undergo double
translation.
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4.5.3. Wireline Networks with 464XLAT
Figures from several existing deployments (end of 2020), mainly with
residential customers, show that the typical traffic volumes in an
IPv6-only network, when 464XLAT is used with DNS64, are in the
following ranges:
* 65%-85% of traffic is IPv6 end-to-end (no translation)
* 14%-34% of traffic uses DNS64 + NAT64 (1 translation)
* Less than 1-2% of traffic uses the CLAT in addition to NAT64 (2
translations), due to an IPv4 socket and/or IPv4 literal.
Without using DNS64, 16%-35% of the traffic would undergo double
translation.
This data is consistent with non-public information of actual
deployments, which can be easily explained. When a wireline ISP has
mainly residential customers, content providers and CDNs which are
already IPv6 enabled (Google/Youtube, Netflix, Facebook, Akamai, etc)
typically account for the 65-85% of the traffic in the network, so
when the subscribers are IPv6 enabled, about the same figures of
traffic will become IPv6.
4.6. Load Sharing
If multiple network-side devices are needed as PLAT/AFTR/BR for
capacity, then there is a need for a load sharing mechanism. ECMP
(Equal-Cost Multi-Path) load sharing can be used for all
technologies, however stateful technologies will be impacted by
changes in network topology or device failure.
Technologies utilizing DNS64 can also distribute load across PLAT/
AFTR devices, evenly or unevenly, by using different prefixes.
Different network specific prefixes can be distributed for
subscribers in appropriately sized segments (like split-horizon DNS,
also called DNS views).
Stateless technologies, due to the lack of per-flow state, can make
use of anycast routing for load sharing and resiliency across
network-devices, both ingress and egress; flows can take asymmetric
paths through the network, i.e., in through one lwAFTR/BR and out via
another.
Mechanisms with centralized NAPT44 state have a number of challenges
specifically related to scaling and resilience. As the total amount
of client traffic exceeds the capacity of a single CGN instance,
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additional nodes are required to handle the load. As each CGN
maintains a stateful table of active client sessions, this table may
need to be syncronized between CGN instances. This is necessary for
two reasons:
* To prevent all active customer sessions being dropped in event of
a CGN node failure.
* To ensure a matching state table entry for an active session in
the event of asymmetric routing through different egress and
ingress CGN nodes.
4.7. Logging
In the case of 464XLAT and DS-Lite, the user of any given public IPv4
address and port combination will vary over time, therefore, logging
is necessary to meet data retention laws. Each entry in the PLAT/
AFTR's generates a logging entry. As discussed in Section 4.2, a
client may open hundreds of sessions during common tasks such as web-
browsing, each of which needs to be logged so the overall logging
burden on the network operator is significant. In some countries,
this level of logging is required to comply with data retention
legislation.
One common optimization available to reduce the logging overhead is
the allocation of a block of ports to a client for the duration of
their session. This means that a logging entry only needs to be made
when the client's port block is released, which dramatically reduces
the logging overhead. This comes as the cost of less efficient
public address sharing as clients need to be allocated a port block
of a fixed size regardless of the actual number of ports that they
are using.
Stateless technologies that pre-allocate the IPv4 addresses and ports
only require that copies of the active MAP rules (for MAP-E and MAP-
T), or binding-table (for lw4o6) are retained along with timestamp
information of when they have been active. Support tools (e.g.,
those used to serve data retention requests) may need to be updated
to be aware of the mechanism in use (e.g., implementing the MAP
algorithm so that IPv4 information can be linked to the IPv6 prefix
delegated to a client). As stateless technologies do not have a
centralized stateful element which customer traffic needs to pass
through, so if data retention laws mandate per-session logging, there
is no simple way of meeting this requirement with a stateless
technology alone. Thus, a centralized NAPT44 model may be the only
way to meet this requirement.
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Deterministic CGN [RFC7422] was proposed as a solution to reduce the
resource consumption of logging.
Please also refer to Section 4 of [RFC6888] for more information
about requirements for logging Carrier-Grade NAT gateways.
4.8. Optimization for IPv4-only devices/applications
When IPv4-only devices or applications are behind a CE connected with
IPv6-only and IPv4aaS, the IPv4-only traffic flows will necessarily,
be encapsulated/decapsulated (in the case of DS-Lite, lw4o6 and MAP-
E) and will reach the IPv4 address of the destination, even if that
service supports dual-stack. This means that the traffic flow will
cross through the AFTR, lwAFTR or BR, depending on the specific
transition mechanism being used.
Even if those services are directly connected to the operator network
(for example, CDNs, caches), or located internally (such as VoIP,
etc.), it is not possible to avoid that overhead.
However, in the case of those mechanisms that use a NAT46 function,
in the CE (464XLAT and MAP-T), it is possible to take advantage of
optimization functionalities, such as the ones described in
[I-D.ietf-v6ops-464xlat-optimization].
Using those optimizations, because the NAT46 has already translated
the IPv4-only flow to IPv6, and the services are dual-stack, they can
be reached without the need to translate them back to IPv4.
5. Performance Comparison
We plan to compare the performances of the most prominent free
software implementations of the five IPv6 transition technologies
using the methodology described in "Benchmarking Methodology for IPv6
Transition Technologies" [RFC8219].
The Dual DUT Setup of [RFC8219] makes it possible to use the existing
"Benchmarking Methodology for Network Interconnect Devices" [RFC2544]
compliant measurement devices, however, this solution has two kinds
of limitations:
* Dual DUT setup has the drawback that the performances of the CE
and of the ISP side device (e.g. the CLAT and the PLAT of 464XLAT)
are measured together. In order to measure the performance of
only one of them, we need to ensure that the desired one is the
bottleneck.
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* Measurements procedures for PDV and IPDV measurements are missing
from the legacy devices, and the old measurement procedure for
Latency has been redefined in [RFC8219].
The Single DUT Setup of [RFC8219] makes it possible to benchmark the
selected device separately, but it either requires a special Tester
or some trick is need, if we want to use legacy Testers. An example
for the latter is our stateless NAT64 measurements testing Througput
and Frame Loss Rate using a legacy [RFC5180] compliant commercial
tester [LEN2020a]
Siitperf, an [RFC8219] compliant DPDK-based software Tester for
benchmarking stateless NAT64 gateways has been developed recently and
it is available from GitHub [SIITperf] as free software and
documented in [LEN2021]. Originally, it literally followed the test
frame format of [RFC2544] including "hard-wired" source and
destination port numbers, and then it has been complemented with the
random port feature required by [RFC4814]. The new version is
documented in [LEN2020b]
Further DPDK-based, [RFC8219] compliant software testers are being
developed at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics as
student projects. They are planned to be released as free software,
too.
Information about the benchmarking tools, measurements and results
will be made available in [I-D.lencse-v6ops-transition-benchmarking].
6. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Ole Troan, Warren Kumari, Dan
Romascanu, Brian Trammell, Joseph Salowey, Roman Danyliw, Erik Kline,
Lars Eggert, Zaheduzzaman Sarker, Robert Wilton, Eric Vyncke and
Martin Duke for their review of this draft and acknowledge the inputs
of Mark Andrews, Edwin Cordeiro, Fred Baker, Alexandre Petrescu,
Cameron Byrne, Tore Anderson, Mikael Abrahamsson, Gert Doering,
Satoru Matsushima, Yutianpeng (Tim), Mohamed Boucadair, Nick
Hilliard, Joel Jaeggli, Kristian McColm, Nick Hilliard, Tom Petch,
Yannis Nikolopoulos, Havard Eidnes, Yann-Ju Chu, Barbara Stark,
Vasilenko Eduard, Chongfeng Xie, Henri Alves de Godoy, Magnus
Westerlund, Michael Tuexen, Philipp S. Tiesel, Brian E Carpenter and
Joe Touch.
7. IANA Considerations
This document does not make any request to IANA.
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8. Security Considerations
As discussed in section 4.7, the different technologies have varying
logging capabilities and limitations. Care should be taken when
storing, transmitting, and providing access to log entries that may
be considered personally identifiable information. However, it
should be noticed that those issues are not specific to the IPv4aaS
IPv6 transition technologies, but in general to logging
functionalities.
For all five technologies, the CE device typically contains a DNS
proxy. However, the user may change DNS settings. If it happens and
lw4o6, MAP-E and MAP-T are used with significantly restricted port
set, which is required for an efficient public IPv4 address sharing,
the entropy of the source ports is significantly lowered (e.g. from
16 bits to 10 bits, when 1024 port numbers are assigned to each
subscriber) and thus these technologies are theoretically less
resilient against cache poisoning, see [RFC5452]. However, an
efficient cache poisoning attack requires that the subscriber
operates an own caching DNS server and the attack is performed in the
service provider network. Thus, we consider the chance of the
successful exploitation of this vulnerability as low.
IPv4aaS technologies based on encapsulation have not DNSSEC
implications. However, those based on translation may have
implications as discussed in Section 4.1 of [RFC8683].
An in-depth security analysis of all five IPv6 transition
technologies and their most prominent free software implementations
according to the methodology defined in [LEN2018] is planned.
As the first step, an initial security analysis of 464XLAT was done
in [Azz2021].
The implementers of any of the five IPv4aaS solutions should consult
the Security Considerations of the respective RFCs documenting them.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[RFC2473] Conta, A. and S. Deering, "Generic Packet Tunneling in
IPv6 Specification", RFC 2473, DOI 10.17487/RFC2473,
December 1998, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2473>.
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[RFC2544] Bradner, S. and J. McQuaid, "Benchmarking Methodology for
Network Interconnect Devices", RFC 2544,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2544, March 1999,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2544>.
[RFC2663] Srisuresh, P. and M. Holdrege, "IP Network Address
Translator (NAT) Terminology and Considerations",
RFC 2663, DOI 10.17487/RFC2663, August 1999,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2663>.
[RFC4814] Newman, D. and T. Player, "Hash and Stuffing: Overlooked
Factors in Network Device Benchmarking", RFC 4814,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4814, March 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4814>.
[RFC5180] Popoviciu, C., Hamza, A., Van de Velde, G., and D.
Dugatkin, "IPv6 Benchmarking Methodology for Network
Interconnect Devices", RFC 5180, DOI 10.17487/RFC5180, May
2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5180>.
[RFC5452] Hubert, A. and R. van Mook, "Measures for Making DNS More
Resilient against Forged Answers", RFC 5452,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5452, January 2009,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5452>.
[RFC6052] Bao, C., Huitema, C., Bagnulo, M., Boucadair, M., and X.
Li, "IPv6 Addressing of IPv4/IPv6 Translators", RFC 6052,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6052, October 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6052>.
[RFC6146] Bagnulo, M., Matthews, P., and I. van Beijnum, "Stateful
NAT64: Network Address and Protocol Translation from IPv6
Clients to IPv4 Servers", RFC 6146, DOI 10.17487/RFC6146,
April 2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6146>.
[RFC6147] Bagnulo, M., Sullivan, A., Matthews, P., and I. van
Beijnum, "DNS64: DNS Extensions for Network Address
Translation from IPv6 Clients to IPv4 Servers", RFC 6147,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6147, April 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6147>.
[RFC6180] Arkko, J. and F. Baker, "Guidelines for Using IPv6
Transition Mechanisms during IPv6 Deployment", RFC 6180,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6180, May 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6180>.
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[RFC6269] Ford, M., Ed., Boucadair, M., Durand, A., Levis, P., and
P. Roberts, "Issues with IP Address Sharing", RFC 6269,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6269, June 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6269>.
[RFC6333] Durand, A., Droms, R., Woodyatt, J., and Y. Lee, "Dual-
Stack Lite Broadband Deployments Following IPv4
Exhaustion", RFC 6333, DOI 10.17487/RFC6333, August 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6333>.
[RFC6346] Bush, R., Ed., "The Address plus Port (A+P) Approach to
the IPv4 Address Shortage", RFC 6346,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6346, August 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6346>.
[RFC6519] Maglione, R. and A. Durand, "RADIUS Extensions for Dual-
Stack Lite", RFC 6519, DOI 10.17487/RFC6519, February
2012, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6519>.
[RFC6877] Mawatari, M., Kawashima, M., and C. Byrne, "464XLAT:
Combination of Stateful and Stateless Translation",
RFC 6877, DOI 10.17487/RFC6877, April 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6877>.
[RFC6887] Wing, D., Ed., Cheshire, S., Boucadair, M., Penno, R., and
P. Selkirk, "Port Control Protocol (PCP)", RFC 6887,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6887, April 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6887>.
[RFC6888] Perreault, S., Ed., Yamagata, I., Miyakawa, S., Nakagawa,
A., and H. Ashida, "Common Requirements for Carrier-Grade
NATs (CGNs)", BCP 127, RFC 6888, DOI 10.17487/RFC6888,
April 2013, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6888>.
[RFC6889] Penno, R., Saxena, T., Boucadair, M., and S. Sivakumar,
"Analysis of Stateful 64 Translation", RFC 6889,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6889, April 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6889>.
[RFC7050] Savolainen, T., Korhonen, J., and D. Wing, "Discovery of
the IPv6 Prefix Used for IPv6 Address Synthesis",
RFC 7050, DOI 10.17487/RFC7050, November 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7050>.
[RFC7269] Chen, G., Cao, Z., Xie, C., and D. Binet, "NAT64
Deployment Options and Experience", RFC 7269,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7269, June 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7269>.
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[RFC7341] Sun, Q., Cui, Y., Siodelski, M., Krishnan, S., and I.
Farrer, "DHCPv4-over-DHCPv6 (DHCP 4o6) Transport",
RFC 7341, DOI 10.17487/RFC7341, August 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7341>.
[RFC7393] Deng, X., Boucadair, M., Zhao, Q., Huang, J., and C. Zhou,
"Using the Port Control Protocol (PCP) to Update Dynamic
DNS", RFC 7393, DOI 10.17487/RFC7393, November 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7393>.
[RFC7422] Donley, C., Grundemann, C., Sarawat, V., Sundaresan, K.,
and O. Vautrin, "Deterministic Address Mapping to Reduce
Logging in Carrier-Grade NAT Deployments", RFC 7422,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7422, December 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7422>.
[RFC7596] Cui, Y., Sun, Q., Boucadair, M., Tsou, T., Lee, Y., and I.
Farrer, "Lightweight 4over6: An Extension to the Dual-
Stack Lite Architecture", RFC 7596, DOI 10.17487/RFC7596,
July 2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7596>.
[RFC7597] Troan, O., Ed., Dec, W., Li, X., Bao, C., Matsushima, S.,
Murakami, T., and T. Taylor, Ed., "Mapping of Address and
Port with Encapsulation (MAP-E)", RFC 7597,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7597, July 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7597>.
[RFC7599] Li, X., Bao, C., Dec, W., Ed., Troan, O., Matsushima, S.,
and T. Murakami, "Mapping of Address and Port using
Translation (MAP-T)", RFC 7599, DOI 10.17487/RFC7599, July
2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7599>.
[RFC7605] Touch, J., "Recommendations on Using Assigned Transport
Port Numbers", BCP 165, RFC 7605, DOI 10.17487/RFC7605,
August 2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7605>.
[RFC7757] Anderson, T. and A. Leiva Popper, "Explicit Address
Mappings for Stateless IP/ICMP Translation", RFC 7757,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7757, February 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7757>.
[RFC7915] Bao, C., Li, X., Baker, F., Anderson, T., and F. Gont,
"IP/ICMP Translation Algorithm", RFC 7915,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7915, June 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7915>.
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[RFC7950] Bjorklund, M., Ed., "The YANG 1.1 Data Modeling Language",
RFC 7950, DOI 10.17487/RFC7950, August 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7950>.
[RFC8114] Boucadair, M., Qin, C., Jacquenet, C., Lee, Y., and Q.
Wang, "Delivery of IPv4 Multicast Services to IPv4 Clients
over an IPv6 Multicast Network", RFC 8114,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8114, March 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8114>.
[RFC8215] Anderson, T., "Local-Use IPv4/IPv6 Translation Prefix",
RFC 8215, DOI 10.17487/RFC8215, August 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8215>.
[RFC8219] Georgescu, M., Pislaru, L., and G. Lencse, "Benchmarking
Methodology for IPv6 Transition Technologies", RFC 8219,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8219, August 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8219>.
[RFC8415] Mrugalski, T., Siodelski, M., Volz, B., Yourtchenko, A.,
Richardson, M., Jiang, S., Lemon, T., and T. Winters,
"Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6)",
RFC 8415, DOI 10.17487/RFC8415, November 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8415>.
[RFC8512] Boucadair, M., Ed., Sivakumar, S., Jacquenet, C.,
Vinapamula, S., and Q. Wu, "A YANG Module for Network
Address Translation (NAT) and Network Prefix Translation
(NPT)", RFC 8512, DOI 10.17487/RFC8512, January 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8512>.
[RFC8513] Boucadair, M., Jacquenet, C., and S. Sivakumar, "A YANG
Data Model for Dual-Stack Lite (DS-Lite)", RFC 8513,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8513, January 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8513>.
[RFC8658] Jiang, S., Ed., Fu, Y., Ed., Xie, C., Li, T., and M.
Boucadair, Ed., "RADIUS Attributes for Softwire Mechanisms
Based on Address plus Port (A+P)", RFC 8658,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8658, November 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8658>.
[RFC8676] Farrer, I., Ed. and M. Boucadair, Ed., "YANG Modules for
IPv4-in-IPv6 Address plus Port (A+P) Softwires", RFC 8676,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8676, November 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8676>.
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[RFC8683] Palet Martinez, J., "Additional Deployment Guidelines for
NAT64/464XLAT in Operator and Enterprise Networks",
RFC 8683, DOI 10.17487/RFC8683, November 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8683>.
9.2. Informative References
[aftr] ISC, "ISC implementation of AFTR", 2022,
<https://www.isc.org/downloads/>.
[Azz2021] Al-Azzawi, A. and G. Lencse, "Identification of the
Possible Security Issues of the 464XLAT IPv6 Transition
Technology", Infocommunications Journal, vol. 13, no. 4,
pp. 10-18, DOI: 10.36244/ICJ.2021.4.2, December 2021,
<https://www.infocommunications.hu/2021_4_2>.
[I-D.ietf-tsvwg-natsupp]
Stewart, R. R., Tüxen, M., and I. Rüngeler, "Stream
Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) Network Address
Translation Support", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-ietf-tsvwg-natsupp-23, 25 October 2021,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-tsvwg-natsupp-
23.txt>.
[I-D.ietf-v6ops-464xlat-optimization]
Martinez, J. P. and A. D'Egidio, "464XLAT/MAT-T
Optimization", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
ietf-v6ops-464xlat-optimization-03, 28 July 2020,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-v6ops-464xlat-
optimization-03.txt>.
[I-D.lencse-v6ops-transition-benchmarking]
Lencse, G., "Performance Analysis of IPv6 Transition
Technologies for IPv4aaS", Work in Progress, Internet-
Draft, draft-lencse-v6ops-transition-benchmarking-01, 2
May 2022, <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-lencse-
v6ops-transition-benchmarking-01.txt>.
[I-D.lencse-v6ops-transition-scalability]
Lencse, G., "Scalability of IPv6 Transition Technologies
for IPv4aaS", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
lencse-v6ops-transition-scalability-02, 7 March 2022,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-lencse-v6ops-
transition-scalability-02.txt>.
[jool] NIC.MX, "Open Source SIIT and NAT64 for Linux", 2022,
<http://www.jool.mx>.
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[LEN2018] Lencse, G. and Y. Kadobayashi, "Methodology for the
identification of potential security issues of different
IPv6 transition technologies: Threat analysis of DNS64 and
stateful NAT64", Computers & Security (Elsevier), vol.
77, no. 1, pp. 397-411, DOI: 10.1016/j.cose.2018.04.012,
1 August 2018,
<http://www.hit.bme.hu/~lencse/publications/ECS-2018-
Methodology-revised.pdf>.
[LEN2019] Lencse, G. and Y. Kadobayashi, "Comprehensive Survey of
IPv6 Transition Technologies: A Subjective Classification
for Security Analysis", IEICE Transactions on
Communications, vol. E102-B, no.10, pp. 2021-2035., DOI:
10.1587/transcom.2018EBR0002, 1 October 2019,
<http://www.hit.bme.hu/~lencse/publications/
e102-b_10_2021.pdf>.
[LEN2020a] Lencse, G., "Benchmarking Stateless NAT64 Implementations
with a Standard Tester", Telecommunication Systems, vol.
75, pp. 245-257, DOI: 10.1007/s11235-020-00681-x, 15 June
2020, <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/
s11235-020-00681-x>.
[LEN2020b] Lencse, G., "Adding RFC 4814 Random Port Feature to
Siitperf: Design, Implementation and Performance
Estimation", International Journal of Advances in
Telecommunications, Electrotechnics, Signals and Systems,
vol 9, no 3, pp. 18-26, DOI: 10.11601/ijates.v9i3.291,
2020,
<http://ijates.org/index.php/ijates/article/view/291>.
[LEN2021] Lencse, G., "Design and Implementation of a Software
Tester for Benchmarking Stateless NAT64 Gateways", IEICE
Transactions on Communications, DOI:
10.1587/transcom.2019EBN0010, 2021,
<https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/transcom/E104.B/2/
E104.B_2019EBN0010/_article>.
[MEX2022] Jool Developers, "Jool: Siit and NAT64", Documentation of
Jool MAP-T implementation, 2022,
<https://www.jool.mx/en/run-mapt.html>.
[MIY2010] Miyakawa, S., "IPv4 to IPv6 transformation
schemes", IEICE Trans. Commun., vol.E93-B, no.5, pp.
1078-1084, DOI:10.1587/transcom.E93.B.10, May 2010,
<https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/transcom/E93.B/5/
E93.B_5_1078/_article>.
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[REP2014] Repas, S., Hajas, T., and G. Lencse, "Port number
consumption of the NAT64 IPv6 transition
technology", Proc. 37th Internat. Conf. on
Telecommunications and Signal Processing (TSP 2014),
Berlin, Germany, DOI: 10.1109/TSP.2015.7296411, July
2014, <http://www.hit.bme.hu/~lencse/publications/TSP-
2014-PC.pdf>.
[SIITperf] Lencse, G., "Siitperf: an RFC 8219 compliant SIIT
(stateless NAT64) tester", November 2019,
<https://github.com/lencsegabor/siitperf>.
[snabb] Igalia, "Snabb implementation of lwAFTR", 2022,
<https://github.com/Igalia/snabb>.
[TR-069] BroadBand Forum, "TR-069: CPE WAN Management Protocol",
June 2020, <https://www.broadband-
forum.org/technical/download/TR-069.pdf>.
[vpp] "VPP Implementations of IPv6-only with IPv4aaS", 2022,
<https://gerrit.fd.io/r/#/admin/projects/>.
Appendix A. Change Log
A.1. 01 - 02
* Ian Farrer has joined us as an author.
* Restructuring: the description of the five IPv4aaS technologies
was moved to a separate section.
* More details and figures were added to the description of the five
IPv4aaS technologies.
* Section titled "High-level Architectures and their Consequences"
has been completely rewritten.
* Several additions/clarification throughout Section titled
"Detailed Analysis".
* Section titled "Performance Analysis" was dropped due to lack of
results yet.
* Word based text ported to XML.
* Further text cleanups, added text on state sync and load
balancing. Additional comments inline that should be considered
for future updates.
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A.2. 02 - 03
* The suggestions of Mohamed Boucadair are incorporated.
* New considerations regarding possible optimizations.
A.3. 03 - 04
* Section titled "Performance Analysis" was added. It mentions our
new benchmarking tool, siitperf, and highlights our plans.
* Some references were updated or added.
A.4. 04 - 05
* Some references were updated or added.
A.5. 05 - 06
* Some references were updated or added.
A.6. 06 - 00-WG Item
* Stats dated and added for Broadband deployments.
* Other clarifications and references.
* New section: IPv4 Pool Size.
* Typos.
A.7. 00 - 01
To facilitate WGLC, the unfinished parts were moved to two new
drafts:
* New I-D for scale up measurements. (Including the results of
iptables.)
* New I-D for benchmarking measurements. (Only a stub.)
A.8. 01 - 02
Update on the basis of the AD review.
Update of the references.
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A.9. 02 - 03
Nits and changes from IESG review.
Updated wrong reference to PCP.
A.10. 03 - 04
Update to address the comments of further reviews.
Updated Acknowledgements.
Authors' Addresses
Gabor Lencse
Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Budapest
Magyar tudosok korutja 2.
H-1117
Hungary
Email: lencse@hit.bme.hu
URI: http://www.hit.bme.hu/~lencse/index_en.htm
Jordi Palet Martinez
The IPv6 Company
Molino de la Navata, 75
28420 La Navata - Galapagar Madrid
Spain
Email: jordi.palet@theipv6company.com
URI: http://www.theipv6company.com/
Lee Howard
Retevia
9940 Main St., Suite 200
Fairfax, Virginia 22031
United States of America
Email: lee@asgard.org
Richard Patterson
Sky UK
1 Brick Lane
London
EQ 6PU
United Kingdom
Email: richard.patterson@sky.uk
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Ian Farrer
Deutsche Telekom AG
Landgrabenweg 151
53227 Bonn
Germany
Email: ian.farrer@telekom.de
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