Network Working Group R. Hinden
Request for Comments: 3513 Nokia
Obsoletes: 2373 S. Deering
Category: Standards Track Cisco Systems
April 2003
Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Addressing Architecture
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This specification defines the addressing architecture of the IP
Version 6 (IPv6) protocol. The document includes the IPv6 addressing
model, text representations of IPv6 addresses, definition of IPv6
unicast addresses, anycast addresses, and multicast addresses, and an
IPv6 node's required addresses.
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
Table of Contents
1. Introduction.................................................3
2. IPv6 Addressing..............................................3
2.1 Addressing Model.........................................4
2.2 Text Representation of Addresses.........................4
2.3 Text Representation of Address Prefixes..................5
2.4 Address Type Identification..............................6
2.5 Unicast Addresses........................................7
2.5.1 Interface Identifiers..............................8
2.5.2 The Unspecified Address............................9
2.5.3 The Loopback Address...............................9
2.5.4 Global Unicast Addresses..........................10
2.5.5 IPv6 Addresses with Embedded IPv4 Addresses.......10
2.5.6 Local-use IPv6 Unicast Addresses..................11
2.6 Anycast Addresses.......................................12
2.6.1 Required Anycast Address..........................13
2.7 Multicast Addresses.....................................13
2.7.1 Pre-Defined Multicast Addresses...................15
2.8 A Node's Required Addresses.............................17
3. Security Considerations.....................................17
4. IANA Considerations.........................................18
5. References..................................................19
5.1 Normative References....................................19
5.2 Informative References..................................19
APPENDIX A: Creating Modified EUI-64 format Interface IDs......21
APPENDIX B: Changes from RFC-2373..............................24
Authors' Addresses.............................................25
Full Copyright Statement.......................................26
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
1. Introduction
This specification defines the addressing architecture of the IP
Version 6 (IPv6) protocol. It includes the basic formats for the
various types of IPv6 addresses (unicast, anycast, and multicast).
The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of Paul
Francis, Scott Bradner, Jim Bound, Brian Carpenter, Matt Crawford,
Deborah Estrin, Roger Fajman, Bob Fink, Peter Ford, Bob Gilligan,
Dimitry Haskin, Tom Harsch, Christian Huitema, Tony Li, Greg
Minshall, Thomas Narten, Erik Nordmark, Yakov Rekhter, Bill Simpson,
Sue Thomson, Markku Savela, and Larry Masinter.
2. IPv6 Addressing
IPv6 addresses are 128-bit identifiers for interfaces and sets of
interfaces (where "interface" is as defined in section 2 of [IPV6]).
There are three types of addresses:
Unicast: An identifier for a single interface. A packet sent to a
unicast address is delivered to the interface identified
by that address.
Anycast: An identifier for a set of interfaces (typically belonging
to different nodes). A packet sent to an anycast address
is delivered to one of the interfaces identified by that
address (the "nearest" one, according to the routing
protocols' measure of distance).
Multicast: An identifier for a set of interfaces (typically belonging
to different nodes). A packet sent to a multicast address
is delivered to all interfaces identified by that address.
There are no broadcast addresses in IPv6, their function being
superseded by multicast addresses.
In this document, fields in addresses are given a specific name, for
example "subnet". When this name is used with the term "ID" for
identifier after the name (e.g., "subnet ID"), it refers to the
contents of the named field. When it is used with the term "prefix"
(e.g., "subnet prefix") it refers to all of the address from the left
up to and including this field.
In IPv6, all zeros and all ones are legal values for any field,
unless specifically excluded. Specifically, prefixes may contain, or
end with, zero-valued fields.
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
2.1 Addressing Model
IPv6 addresses of all types are assigned to interfaces, not nodes.
An IPv6 unicast address refers to a single interface. Since each
interface belongs to a single node, any of that node's interfaces'
unicast addresses may be used as an identifier for the node.
All interfaces are required to have at least one link-local unicast
address (see section 2.8 for additional required addresses). A
single interface may also have multiple IPv6 addresses of any type
(unicast, anycast, and multicast) or scope. Unicast addresses with
scope greater than link-scope are not needed for interfaces that are
not used as the origin or destination of any IPv6 packets to or from
non-neighbors. This is sometimes convenient for point-to-point
interfaces. There is one exception to this addressing model:
A unicast address or a set of unicast addresses may be assigned to
multiple physical interfaces if the implementation treats the
multiple physical interfaces as one interface when presenting it
to the internet layer. This is useful for load-sharing over
multiple physical interfaces.
Currently IPv6 continues the IPv4 model that a subnet prefix is
associated with one link. Multiple subnet prefixes may be assigned
to the same link.
2.2 Text Representation of Addresses
There are three conventional forms for representing IPv6 addresses as
text strings:
1. The preferred form is x:x:x:x:x:x:x:x, where the 'x's are the
hexadecimal values of the eight 16-bit pieces of the address.
Examples:
FEDC:BA98:7654:3210:FEDC:BA98:7654:3210
1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:417A
Note that it is not necessary to write the leading zeros in an
individual field, but there must be at least one numeral in every
field (except for the case described in 2.).
2. Due to some methods of allocating certain styles of IPv6
addresses, it will be common for addresses to contain long strings
of zero bits. In order to make writing addresses containing zero
bits easier a special syntax is available to compress the zeros.
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
The use of "::" indicates one or more groups of 16 bits of zeros.
The "::" can only appear once in an address. The "::" can also be
used to compress leading or trailing zeros in an address.
For example, the following addresses:
1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:417A a unicast address
FF01:0:0:0:0:0:0:101 a multicast address
0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 the loopback address
0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 the unspecified addresses
may be represented as:
1080::8:800:200C:417A a unicast address
FF01::101 a multicast address
::1 the loopback address
:: the unspecified addresses
3. An alternative form that is sometimes more convenient when dealing
with a mixed environment of IPv4 and IPv6 nodes is
x:x:x:x:x:x:d.d.d.d, where the 'x's are the hexadecimal values of
the six high-order 16-bit pieces of the address, and the 'd's are
the decimal values of the four low-order 8-bit pieces of the
address (standard IPv4 representation). Examples:
0:0:0:0:0:0:13.1.68.3
0:0:0:0:0:FFFF:129.144.52.38
or in compressed form:
::13.1.68.3
::FFFF:129.144.52.38
2.3 Text Representation of Address Prefixes
The text representation of IPv6 address prefixes is similar to the
way IPv4 addresses prefixes are written in CIDR notation [CIDR]. An
IPv6 address prefix is represented by the notation:
where
ipv6-address is an IPv6 address in any of the notations listed
in section 2.2.
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prefix-length is a decimal value specifying how many of the
leftmost contiguous bits of the address comprise
the prefix.
For example, the following are legal representations of the 60-bit
prefix 12AB00000000CD3 (hexadecimal):
12AB:0000:0000:CD30:0000:0000:0000:0000/60
12AB::CD30:0:0:0:0/60
12AB:0:0:CD30::/60
The following are NOT legal representations of the above prefix:
12AB:0:0:CD3/60 may drop leading zeros, but not trailing zeros,
within any 16-bit chunk of the address
12AB::CD30/60 address to left of "/" expands to
12AB:0000:0000:0000:0000:000:0000:CD30
12AB::CD3/60 address to left of "/" expands to
12AB:0000:0000:0000:0000:000:0000:0CD3
When writing both a node address and a prefix of that node address
(e.g., the node's subnet prefix), the two can combined as follows:
the node address 12AB:0:0:CD30:123:4567:89AB:CDEF
and its subnet number 12AB:0:0:CD30::/60
can be abbreviated as 12AB:0:0:CD30:123:4567:89AB:CDEF/60
2.4 Address Type Identification
The type of an IPv6 address is identified by the high-order bits of
the address, as follows:
Address type Binary prefix IPv6 notation Section
------------ ------------- ------------- -------
Unspecified 00...0 (128 bits) ::/128 2.5.2
Loopback 00...1 (128 bits) ::1/128 2.5.3
Multicast 11111111 FF00::/8 2.7
Link-local unicast 1111111010 FE80::/10 2.5.6
Site-local unicast 1111111011 FEC0::/10 2.5.6
Global unicast (everything else)
Anycast addresses are taken from the unicast address spaces (of any
scope) and are not syntactically distinguishable from unicast
addresses.
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
The general format of global unicast addresses is described in
section 2.5.4. Some special-purpose subtypes of global unicast
addresses which contain embedded IPv4 addresses (for the purposes of
IPv4-IPv6 interoperation) are described in section 2.5.5.
Future specifications may redefine one or more sub-ranges of the
global unicast space for other purposes, but unless and until that
happens, implementations must treat all addresses that do not start
with any of the above-listed prefixes as global unicast addresses.
2.5 Unicast Addresses
IPv6 unicast addresses are aggregable with prefixes of arbitrary
bit-length similar to IPv4 addresses under Classless Interdomain
Routing.
There are several types of unicast addresses in IPv6, in particular
global unicast, site-local unicast, and link-local unicast. There
are also some special-purpose subtypes of global unicast, such as
IPv6 addresses with embedded IPv4 addresses or encoded NSAP
addresses. Additional address types or subtypes can be defined in
the future.
IPv6 nodes may have considerable or little knowledge of the internal
structure of the IPv6 address, depending on the role the node plays
(for instance, host versus router). At a minimum, a node may
consider that unicast addresses (including its own) have no internal
structure:
| 128 bits |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| node address |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
A slightly sophisticated host (but still rather simple) may
additionally be aware of subnet prefix(es) for the link(s) it is
attached to, where different addresses may have different values for
n:
| n bits | 128-n bits |
+------------------------------------------------+----------------+
| subnet prefix | interface ID |
+------------------------------------------------+----------------+
Though a very simple router may have no knowledge of the internal
structure of IPv6 unicast addresses, routers will more generally have
knowledge of one or more of the hierarchical boundaries for the
operation of routing protocols. The known boundaries will differ
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
from router to router, depending on what positions the router holds
in the routing hierarchy.
2.5.1 Interface Identifiers
Interface identifiers in IPv6 unicast addresses are used to identify
interfaces on a link. They are required to be unique within a subnet
prefix. It is recommended that the same interface identifier not be
assigned to different nodes on a link. They may also be unique over
a broader scope. In some cases an interface's identifier will be
derived directly from that interface's link-layer address. The same
interface identifier may be used on multiple interfaces on a single
node, as long as they are attached to different subnets.
Note that the uniqueness of interface identifiers is independent of
the uniqueness of IPv6 addresses. For example, a global unicast
address may be created with a non-global scope interface identifier
and a site-local address may be created with a global scope interface
identifier.
For all unicast addresses, except those that start with binary value
000, Interface IDs are required to be 64 bits long and to be
constructed in Modified EUI-64 format.
Modified EUI-64 format based Interface identifiers may have global
scope when derived from a global token (e.g., IEEE 802 48-bit MAC or
IEEE EUI-64 identifiers [EUI64]) or may have local scope where a
global token is not available (e.g., serial links, tunnel end-points,
etc.) or where global tokens are undesirable (e.g., temporary tokens
for privacy [PRIV]).
Modified EUI-64 format interface identifiers are formed by inverting
the "u" bit (universal/local bit in IEEE EUI-64 terminology) when
forming the interface identifier from IEEE EUI-64 identifiers. In
the resulting Modified EUI-64 format the "u" bit is set to one (1) to
indicate global scope, and it is set to zero (0) to indicate local
scope. The first three octets in binary of an IEEE EUI-64 identifier
are as follows:
0 0 0 1 1 2
|0 7 8 5 6 3|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+
|cccc|ccug|cccc|cccc|cccc|cccc|
+----+----+----+----+----+----+
written in Internet standard bit-order , where "u" is the
universal/local bit, "g" is the individual/group bit, and "c" are the
bits of the company_id. Appendix A: "Creating Modified EUI-64 format
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
Interface Identifiers" provides examples on the creation of Modified
EUI-64 format based interface identifiers.
The motivation for inverting the "u" bit when forming an interface
identifier is to make it easy for system administrators to hand
configure non-global identifiers when hardware tokens are not
available. This is expected to be case for serial links, tunnel end-
points, etc. The alternative would have been for these to be of the
form 0200:0:0:1, 0200:0:0:2, etc., instead of the much simpler 1, 2,
etc.
The use of the universal/local bit in the Modified EUI-64 format
identifier is to allow development of future technology that can take
advantage of interface identifiers with global scope.
The details of forming interface identifiers are defined in the
appropriate "IPv6 over <link>" specification such as "IPv6 over
Ethernet" [ETHER], "IPv6 over FDDI" [FDDI], etc.
2.5.2 The Unspecified Address
The address 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0 is called the unspecified address. It
must never be assigned to any node. It indicates the absence of an
address. One example of its use is in the Source Address field of
any IPv6 packets sent by an initializing host before it has learned
its own address.
The unspecified address must not be used as the destination address
of IPv6 packets or in IPv6 Routing Headers. An IPv6 packet with a
source address of unspecified must never be forwarded by an IPv6
router.
2.5.3 The Loopback Address
The unicast address 0:0:0:0:0:0:0:1 is called the loopback address.
It may be used by a node to send an IPv6 packet to itself. It may
never be assigned to any physical interface. It is treated as
having link-local scope, and may be thought of as the link-local
unicast address of a virtual interface (typically called "the
loopback interface") to an imaginary link that goes nowhere.
The loopback address must not be used as the source address in IPv6
packets that are sent outside of a single node. An IPv6 packet with
a destination address of loopback must never be sent outside of a
single node and must never be forwarded by an IPv6 router. A packet
received on an interface with destination address of loopback must be
dropped.
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
2.5.4 Global Unicast Addresses
The general format for IPv6 global unicast addresses is as follows:
| n bits | m bits | 128-n-m bits |
+------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
| global routing prefix | subnet ID | interface ID |
+------------------------+-----------+----------------------------+
where the global routing prefix is a (typically hierarchically-
structured) value assigned to a site (a cluster of subnets/links),
the subnet ID is an identifier of a link within the site, and the
interface ID is as defined in section 2.5.1.
All global unicast addresses other than those that start with binary
000 have a 64-bit interface ID field (i.e., n + m = 64), formatted as
described in section 2.5.1. Global unicast addresses that start with
binary 000 have no such constraint on the size or structure of the
interface ID field.
Examples of global unicast addresses that start with binary 000 are
the IPv6 address with embedded IPv4 addresses described in section
2.5.5 and the IPv6 address containing encoded NSAP addresses
specified in [NSAP]. An example of global addresses starting with a
binary value other than 000 (and therefore having a 64-bit interface
ID field) can be found in [AGGR].
2.5.5 IPv6 Addresses with Embedded IPv4 Addresses
The IPv6 transition mechanisms [TRAN] include a technique for hosts
and routers to dynamically tunnel IPv6 packets over IPv4 routing
infrastructure. IPv6 nodes that use this technique are assigned
special IPv6 unicast addresses that carry a global IPv4 address in
the low-order 32 bits. This type of address is termed an "IPv4-
compatible IPv6 address" and has the format:
| 80 bits | 16 | 32 bits |
+--------------------------------------+--------------------------+
|0000..............................0000|0000| IPv4 address |
+--------------------------------------+----+---------------------+
Note: The IPv4 address used in the "IPv4-compatible IPv6 address"
must be a globally-unique IPv4 unicast address.
A second type of IPv6 address which holds an embedded IPv4 address is
also defined. This address type is used to represent the addresses
of IPv4 nodes as IPv6 addresses. This type of address is termed an
"IPv4-mapped IPv6 address" and has the format:
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
| 80 bits | 16 | 32 bits |
+--------------------------------------+--------------------------+
|0000..............................0000|FFFF| IPv4 address |
+--------------------------------------+----+---------------------+
2.5.6 Local-Use IPv6 Unicast Addresses
There are two types of local-use unicast addresses defined. These
are Link-Local and Site-Local. The Link-Local is for use on a single
link and the Site-Local is for use in a single site. Link-Local
addresses have the following format:
| 10 |
| bits | 54 bits | 64 bits |
+----------+-------------------------+----------------------------+
|1111111010| 0 | interface ID |
+----------+-------------------------+----------------------------+
Link-Local addresses are designed to be used for addressing on a
single link for purposes such as automatic address configuration,
neighbor discovery, or when no routers are present.
Routers must not forward any packets with link-local source or
destination addresses to other links.
Site-Local addresses have the following format:
| 10 |
| bits | 54 bits | 64 bits |
+----------+-------------------------+----------------------------+
|1111111011| subnet ID | interface ID |
+----------+-------------------------+----------------------------+
Site-local addresses are designed to be used for addressing inside of
a site without the need for a global prefix. Although a subnet ID
may be up to 54-bits long, it is expected that globally-connected
sites will use the same subnet IDs for site-local and global
prefixes.
Routers must not forward any packets with site-local source or
destination addresses outside of the site.
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
2.6 Anycast Addresses
An IPv6 anycast address is an address that is assigned to more than
one interface (typically belonging to different nodes), with the
property that a packet sent to an anycast address is routed to the
"nearest" interface having that address, according to the routing
protocols' measure of distance.
Anycast addresses are allocated from the unicast address space, using
any of the defined unicast address formats. Thus, anycast addresses
are syntactically indistinguishable from unicast addresses. When a
unicast address is assigned to more than one interface, thus turning
it into an anycast address, the nodes to which the address is
assigned must be explicitly configured to know that it is an anycast
address.
For any assigned anycast address, there is a longest prefix P of that
address that identifies the topological region in which all
interfaces belonging to that anycast address reside. Within the
region identified by P, the anycast address must be maintained as a
separate entry in the routing system (commonly referred to as a "host
route"); outside the region identified by P, the anycast address may
be aggregated into the routing entry for prefix P.
Note that in the worst case, the prefix P of an anycast set may be
the null prefix, i.e., the members of the set may have no topological
locality. In that case, the anycast address must be maintained as a
separate routing entry throughout the entire internet, which presents
a severe scaling limit on how many such "global" anycast sets may be
supported. Therefore, it is expected that support for global anycast
sets may be unavailable or very restricted.
One expected use of anycast addresses is to identify the set of
routers belonging to an organization providing internet service.
Such addresses could be used as intermediate addresses in an IPv6
Routing header, to cause a packet to be delivered via a particular
service provider or sequence of service providers.
Some other possible uses are to identify the set of routers attached
to a particular subnet, or the set of routers providing entry into a
particular routing domain.
There is little experience with widespread, arbitrary use of internet
anycast addresses, and some known complications and hazards when
using them in their full generality [ANYCST]. Until more experience
has been gained and solutions are specified, the following
restrictions are imposed on IPv6 anycast addresses:
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
o An anycast address must not be used as the source address of an
IPv6 packet.
o An anycast address must not be assigned to an IPv6 host, that is,
it may be assigned to an IPv6 router only.
2.6.1 Required Anycast Address
The Subnet-Router anycast address is predefined. Its format is as
follows:
| n bits | 128-n bits |
+------------------------------------------------+----------------+
| subnet prefix | 00000000000000 |
+------------------------------------------------+----------------+
The "subnet prefix" in an anycast address is the prefix which
identifies a specific link. This anycast address is syntactically
the same as a unicast address for an interface on the link with the
interface identifier set to zero.
Packets sent to the Subnet-Router anycast address will be delivered
to one router on the subnet. All routers are required to support the
Subnet-Router anycast addresses for the subnets to which they have
interfaces.
The subnet-router anycast address is intended to be used for
applications where a node needs to communicate with any one of the
set of routers.
2.7 Multicast Addresses
An IPv6 multicast address is an identifier for a group of interfaces
(typically on different nodes). An interface may belong to any
number of multicast groups. Multicast addresses have the following
format:
| 8 | 4 | 4 | 112 bits |
+------ -+----+----+---------------------------------------------+
|11111111|flgs|scop| group ID |
+--------+----+----+---------------------------------------------+
binary 11111111 at the start of the address identifies the
address as being a multicast address.
+-+-+-+-+
flgs is a set of 4 flags: |0|0|0|T|
+-+-+-+-+
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The high-order 3 flags are reserved, and must be initialized
to 0.
T = 0 indicates a permanently-assigned ("well-known")
multicast address, assigned by the Internet Assigned Number
Authority (IANA).
T = 1 indicates a non-permanently-assigned ("transient")
multicast address.
scop is a 4-bit multicast scope value used to limit the scope
of the multicast group. The values are:
0 reserved
1 interface-local scope
2 link-local scope
3 reserved
4 admin-local scope
5 site-local scope
6 (unassigned)
7 (unassigned)
8 organization-local scope
9 (unassigned)
A (unassigned)
B (unassigned)
C (unassigned)
D (unassigned)
E global scope
F reserved
interface-local scope spans only a single interface on a
node, and is useful only for loopback transmission of
multicast.
link-local and site-local multicast scopes span the same
topological regions as the corresponding unicast scopes.
admin-local scope is the smallest scope that must be
administratively configured, i.e., not automatically derived
from physical connectivity or other, non- multicast-related
configuration.
organization-local scope is intended to span multiple sites
belonging to a single organization.
scopes labeled "(unassigned)" are available for
administrators to define additional multicast regions.
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
group ID identifies the multicast group, either permanent or
transient, within the given scope.
The "meaning" of a permanently-assigned multicast address is
independent of the scope value. For example, if the "NTP servers
group" is assigned a permanent multicast address with a group ID of
101 (hex), then:
FF01:0:0:0:0:0:0:101 means all NTP servers on the same interface
(i.e., the same node) as the sender.
FF02:0:0:0:0:0:0:101 means all NTP servers on the same link as the
sender.
FF05:0:0:0:0:0:0:101 means all NTP servers in the same site as the
sender.
FF0E:0:0:0:0:0:0:101 means all NTP servers in the internet.
Non-permanently-assigned multicast addresses are meaningful only
within a given scope. For example, a group identified by the non-
permanent, site-local multicast address FF15:0:0:0:0:0:0:101 at one
site bears no relationship to a group using the same address at a
different site, nor to a non-permanent group using the same group ID
with different scope, nor to a permanent group with the same group
ID.
Multicast addresses must not be used as source addresses in IPv6
packets or appear in any Routing header.
Routers must not forward any multicast packets beyond of the scope
indicated by the scop field in the destination multicast address.
Nodes must not originate a packet to a multicast address whose scop
field contains the reserved value 0; if such a packet is received, it
must be silently dropped. Nodes should not originate a packet to a
multicast address whose scop field contains the reserved value F; if
such a packet is sent or received, it must be treated the same as
packets destined to a global (scop E) multicast address.
2.7.1 Pre-Defined Multicast Addresses
The following well-known multicast addresses are pre-defined. The
group ID's defined in this section are defined for explicit scope
values.
Use of these group IDs for any other scope values, with the T flag
equal to 0, is not allowed.
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Reserved Multicast Addresses: FF00:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF01:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF02:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF03:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF04:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF05:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF06:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF07:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF08:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF09:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF0A:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF0B:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF0C:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF0D:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF0E:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
FF0F:0:0:0:0:0:0:0
The above multicast addresses are reserved and shall never be
assigned to any multicast group.
All Nodes Addresses: FF01:0:0:0:0:0:0:1
FF02:0:0:0:0:0:0:1
The above multicast addresses identify the group of all IPv6 nodes,
within scope 1 (interface-local) or 2 (link-local).
All Routers Addresses: FF01:0:0:0:0:0:0:2
FF02:0:0:0:0:0:0:2
FF05:0:0:0:0:0:0:2
The above multicast addresses identify the group of all IPv6 routers,
within scope 1 (interface-local), 2 (link-local), or 5 (site-local).
Solicited-Node Address: FF02:0:0:0:0:1:FFXX:XXXX
Solicited-node multicast address are computed as a function of a
node's unicast and anycast addresses. A solicited-node multicast
address is formed by taking the low-order 24 bits of an address
(unicast or anycast) and appending those bits to the prefix
FF02:0:0:0:0:1:FF00::/104 resulting in a multicast address in the
range
FF02:0:0:0:0:1:FF00:0000
to
FF02:0:0:0:0:1:FFFF:FFFF
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For example, the solicited node multicast address corresponding to
the IPv6 address 4037::01:800:200E:8C6C is FF02::1:FF0E:8C6C. IPv6
addresses that differ only in the high-order bits, e.g., due to
multiple high-order prefixes associated with different aggregations,
will map to the same solicited-node address thereby, reducing the
number of multicast addresses a node must join.
A node is required to compute and join (on the appropriate interface)
the associated Solicited-Node multicast addresses for every unicast
and anycast address it is assigned.
2.8 A Node's Required Addresses
A host is required to recognize the following addresses as
identifying itself:
o Its required Link-Local Address for each interface.
o Any additional Unicast and Anycast Addresses that have been
configured for the node's interfaces (manually or
automatically).
o The loopback address.
o The All-Nodes Multicast Addresses defined in section 2.7.1.
o The Solicited-Node Multicast Address for each of its unicast
and anycast addresses.
o Multicast Addresses of all other groups to which the node
belongs.
A router is required to recognize all addresses that a host is
required to recognize, plus the following addresses as identifying
itself:
o The Subnet-Router Anycast Addresses for all interfaces for
which it is configured to act as a router.
o All other Anycast Addresses with which the router has been
configured.
o The All-Routers Multicast Addresses defined in section 2.7.1.
3. Security Considerations
IPv6 addressing documents do not have any direct impact on Internet
infrastructure security. Authentication of IPv6 packets is defined
in [AUTH].
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
4. IANA Considerations
The table and notes at http://www.isi.edu/in-
notes/iana/assignments/ipv6-address-space.txt should be replaced with
the following:
INTERNET PROTOCOL VERSION 6 ADDRESS SPACE
The initial assignment of IPv6 address space is as follows:
Allocation Prefix Fraction of
(binary) Address Space
----------------------------------- -------- -------------
Unassigned (see Note 1 below) 0000 0000 1/256
Unassigned 0000 0001 1/256
Reserved for NSAP Allocation 0000 001 1/128 [RFC1888]
Unassigned 0000 01 1/64
Unassigned 0000 1 1/32
Unassigned 0001 1/16
Global Unicast 001 1/8 [RFC2374]
Unassigned 010 1/8
Unassigned 011 1/8
Unassigned 100 1/8
Unassigned 101 1/8
Unassigned 110 1/8
Unassigned 1110 1/16
Unassigned 1111 0 1/32
Unassigned 1111 10 1/64
Unassigned 1111 110 1/128
Unassigned 1111 1110 0 1/512
Link-Local Unicast Addresses 1111 1110 10 1/1024
Site-Local Unicast Addresses 1111 1110 11 1/1024
Multicast Addresses 1111 1111 1/256
Notes:
1. The "unspecified address", the "loopback address", and the IPv6
Addresses with Embedded IPv4 Addresses are assigned out of the
0000 0000 binary prefix space.
2. For now, IANA should limit its allocation of IPv6 unicast address
space to the range of addresses that start with binary value 001.
The rest of the global unicast address space (approximately 85% of
the IPv6 address space) is reserved for future definition and use,
and is not to be assigned by IANA at this time.
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
5. References
5.1 Normative References
[IPV6] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
(IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998.
[RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
3", BCP 9 , RFC 2026, October 1996.
5.2 Informative References
[ANYCST] Partridge, C., Mendez, T. and W. Milliken, "Host Anycasting
Service", RFC 1546, November 1993.
[AUTH] Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "IP Authentication Header", RFC
2402, November 1998.
[AGGR] Hinden, R., O'Dell, M. and S. Deering, "An Aggregatable
Global Unicast Address Format", RFC 2374, July 1998.
[CIDR] Fuller, V., Li, T., Yu, J. and K. Varadhan, "Classless
Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR): An Address Assignment and
Aggregation Strategy", RFC 1519, September 1993.
[ETHER] Crawford, M., "Transmission of IPv6 Packets over Ethernet
Networks", RFC 2464, December 1998.
[EUI64] IEEE, "Guidelines for 64-bit Global Identifier (EUI-64)
Registration Authority",
March 1997.
[FDDI] Crawford, M., "Transmission of IPv6 Packets over FDDI
Networks", RFC 2467, December 1998.
[MASGN] Hinden, R. and S. Deering, "IPv6 Multicast Address
Assignments", RFC 2375, July 1998.
[NSAP] Bound, J., Carpenter, B., Harrington, D., Houldsworth, J.
and A. Lloyd, "OSI NSAPs and IPv6", RFC 1888, August 1996.
[PRIV] Narten, T. and R. Draves, "Privacy Extensions for Stateless
Address Autoconfiguration in IPv6", RFC 3041, January 2001.
[TOKEN] Crawford, M., Narten, T. and S. Thomas, "Transmission of
IPv6 Packets over Token Ring Networks", RFC 2470, December
1998.
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
[TRAN] Gilligan, R. and E. Nordmark, "Transition Mechanisms for
IPv6 Hosts and Routers", RFC 2893, August 2000.
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
APPENDIX A: Creating Modified EUI-64 format Interface Identifiers
Depending on the characteristics of a specific link or node there are
a number of approaches for creating Modified EUI-64 format interface
identifiers. This appendix describes some of these approaches.
Links or Nodes with IEEE EUI-64 Identifiers
The only change needed to transform an IEEE EUI-64 identifier to an
interface identifier is to invert the "u" (universal/local) bit. For
example, a globally unique IEEE EUI-64 identifier of the form:
|0 1|1 3|3 4|4 6|
|0 5|6 1|2 7|8 3|
+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
|cccccc0gcccccccc|ccccccccmmmmmmmm|mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm|mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm|
+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
where "c" are the bits of the assigned company_id, "0" is the value
of the universal/local bit to indicate global scope, "g" is
individual/group bit, and "m" are the bits of the manufacturer-
selected extension identifier. The IPv6 interface identifier would
be of the form:
|0 1|1 3|3 4|4 6|
|0 5|6 1|2 7|8 3|
+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
|cccccc1gcccccccc|ccccccccmmmmmmmm|mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm|mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm|
+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
The only change is inverting the value of the universal/local bit.
Links or Nodes with IEEE 802 48 bit MAC's
[EUI64] defines a method to create a IEEE EUI-64 identifier from an
IEEE 48bit MAC identifier. This is to insert two octets, with
hexadecimal values of 0xFF and 0xFE, in the middle of the 48 bit MAC
(between the company_id and vendor supplied id). For example, the 48
bit IEEE MAC with global scope:
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
|0 1|1 3|3 4|
|0 5|6 1|2 7|
+----------------+----------------+----------------+
|cccccc0gcccccccc|ccccccccmmmmmmmm|mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm|
+----------------+----------------+----------------+
where "c" are the bits of the assigned company_id, "0" is the value
of the universal/local bit to indicate global scope, "g" is
individual/group bit, and "m" are the bits of the manufacturer-
selected extension identifier. The interface identifier would be of
the form:
|0 1|1 3|3 4|4 6|
|0 5|6 1|2 7|8 3|
+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
|cccccc1gcccccccc|cccccccc11111111|11111110mmmmmmmm|mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm|
+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
When IEEE 802 48bit MAC addresses are available (on an interface or a
node), an implementation may use them to create interface identifiers
due to their availability and uniqueness properties.
Links with Other Kinds of Identifiers
There are a number of types of links that have link-layer interface
identifiers other than IEEE EIU-64 or IEEE 802 48-bit MACs. Examples
include LocalTalk and Arcnet. The method to create an Modified EUI-
64 format identifier is to take the link identifier (e.g., the
LocalTalk 8 bit node identifier) and zero fill it to the left. For
example, a LocalTalk 8 bit node identifier of hexadecimal value 0x4F
results in the following interface identifier:
|0 1|1 3|3 4|4 6|
|0 5|6 1|2 7|8 3|
+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
|0000000000000000|0000000000000000|0000000000000000|0000000001001111|
+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
Note that this results in the universal/local bit set to "0" to
indicate local scope.
Links without Identifiers
There are a number of links that do not have any type of built-in
identifier. The most common of these are serial links and configured
tunnels. Interface identifiers must be chosen that are unique within
a subnet-prefix.
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When no built-in identifier is available on a link the preferred
approach is to use a global interface identifier from another
interface or one which is assigned to the node itself. When using
this approach no other interface connecting the same node to the same
subnet-prefix may use the same identifier.
If there is no global interface identifier available for use on the
link the implementation needs to create a local-scope interface
identifier. The only requirement is that it be unique within a
subnet prefix. There are many possible approaches to select a
subnet-prefix-unique interface identifier. These include:
Manual Configuration
Node Serial Number
Other node-specific token
The subnet-prefix-unique interface identifier should be generated in
a manner that it does not change after a reboot of a node or if
interfaces are added or deleted from the node.
The selection of the appropriate algorithm is link and implementation
dependent. The details on forming interface identifiers are defined
in the appropriate "IPv6 over <link>" specification. It is strongly
recommended that a collision detection algorithm be implemented as
part of any automatic algorithm.
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
APPENDIX B: Changes from RFC-2373
The following changes were made from RFC-2373 "IP Version 6
Addressing Architecture":
- Clarified text in section 2.2 to allow "::" to represent one or
more groups of 16 bits of zeros.
- Changed uniqueness requirement of Interface Identifiers from
unique on a link to unique within a subnet prefix. Also added a
recommendation that the same interface identifier not be assigned
to different machines on a link.
- Change site-local format to make the subnet ID field 54-bit long
and remove the 38-bit zero's field.
- Added description of multicast scop values and rules to handle the
reserved scop value 0.
- Revised sections 2.4 and 2.5.6 to simplify and clarify how
different address types are identified. This was done to insure
that implementations do not build in any knowledge about global
unicast format prefixes. Changes include:
o Removed Format Prefix (FP) terminology
o Revised list of address types to only include exceptions to
global unicast and a singe entry that identifies everything
else as Global Unicast.
o Removed list of defined prefix exceptions from section 2.5.6
as it is now the main part of section 2.4.
- Clarified text relating to EUI-64 identifiers to distinguish
between IPv6's "Modified EUI-64 format" identifiers and IEEE EUI-
64 identifiers.
- Combined the sections on the Global Unicast Addresses and NSAP
Addresses into a single section on Global Unicast Addresses,
generalized the Global Unicast format, and cited [AGGR] and [NSAP]
as examples.
- Reordered sections 2.5.4 and 2.5.5.
- Removed section 2.7.2 Assignment of New IPv6 Multicast Addresses
because this is being redefined elsewhere.
- Added an IANA considerations section that updates the IANA IPv6
address allocations and documents the NSAP and AGGR allocations.
- Added clarification that the "IPv4-compatible IPv6 address" must
use global IPv4 unicast addresses.
- Divided references in to normative and non-normative sections.
- Added reference to [PRIV] in section 2.5.1
- Added clarification that routers must not forward multicast
packets outside of the scope indicated in the multicast address.
- Added clarification that routers must not forward packets with
source address of the unspecified address.
- Added clarification that routers must drop packets received on an
interface with destination address of loopback.
- Clarified the definition of IPv4-mapped addresses.
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
- Removed the ABNF Description of Text Representations Appendix.
- Removed the address block reserved for IPX addresses.
- Multicast scope changes:
o Changed name of scope value 1 from "node-local" to
"interface-local"
o Defined scope value 4 as "admin-local"
- Corrected reference to RFC1933 and updated references.
- Many small changes to clarify and make the text more consistent.
Authors' Addresses
Robert M. Hinden
Nokia
313 Fairchild Drive
Mountain View, CA 94043
USA
Phone: +1 650 625-2004
EMail: hinden@iprg.nokia.com
Stephen E. Deering
Cisco Systems, Inc.
170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA 95134-1706
USA
Phone: +1 408 527-8213
EMail: deering@cisco.com
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RFC 3513 IPv6 Addressing Architecture April 2003
Full Copyright Statement
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The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
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Acknowledgement
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
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