Operational Experience with IPv 6 Bob Fink LBNL ESnet

Operational Experience with IPv 6 Bob Fink LBNL/ESnet NANOG 19 Albuquerque, NM 11 -13 June 2000 1 IPv 6 NANOG 19

This session • Brief talks on our IPv 6 experiences – Bob Fink 6 bone, Esnet, 6 tap – Greg Miller MCI World. Com, v. BNS – Bill Maton CRC, Canarie – Rob Rockell Sprint – Sean Mentzer Qwest • Panel Q&A session – Bob Fink moderator 2 IPv 6 NANOG 19

The 6 bone • First IPv 6 packets in mid-1996 between a few sites in Europe, Japan and US • started with tunnels (v 6 encapsulated in v 4), now moving to more native links • primary goal to test implementations, their interoperability, that the standards work and provide feedback to the IETF • … and to get early operational experience 3 IPv 6 NANOG 19

6 bone today (as of 5 Jun 00) • Now in 46 countries AR, DK, IT, PL, CH, AU, EE, JP, PT, TW, AT, FI, KZ, RO, UA, BE, FR, KR, RU, GB, BR, DE, LT, SG, US, BG, GR, MY, SK, UY CM, HK, MX, SI, CA, HU, NL, ZA, CN, IN, NZ, ES, CZ, IE, NO, SE, • 571 networks/sites 135 US, 66 DE, 38 JP, 28 FR, 28 GB(UK), 20 SE, 10 CN, 9 RU, 4 MX etc. • 68 p. TLA’s most recent addition: UUNET 27 Apr 00 4 IPv 6 NANOG 19

Primary lessons • Besides implementations and standards issues that come up and are corrected. . . • overall IPv 6 does act and work like IPv 4 • Though we started with static routes, IDRPv 6 and RIPng, everyone wanted BGP 4 and we moved to it fast • It has not been hard to setup, manage, maintain and operate IPv 6 nets (again, it is like IPv 4… funny thing : -) I’ll leave it to other panel members for more 5 IPv 6 NANOG 19

6 bone (IPv 6) Registry • From the start of the 6 bone project a registry was used to keep track of at least the top tier networks, their peerings and prefix allocations • RIPE-style db developed by David Kessens then of ISI, now of Nokia • He added ipv 6 -site and inet 6 num objects • Has proven invaluable for net reports, measurement, management and peering 6 IPv 6 NANOG 19

Network Tools for tracking problems • Merit IPv 6 Routing report (daily) – Size of 6 Bone Routing Table – BGP 4+ Traffic Summary – Unknown AS Numbers – Unknown Prefixes – Poorly Aggregated Announcements – Prefixes from Different Origin AS – Most Active Prefixes 7 IPv 6 NANOG 19

Contd. • CSELT (Italy) BGP 4+ Operational report using Aspath-tree tool – Graphic display of BGP 4+ routing entries – Odd routes reports » invalid & unaggregated prefixes – Routing Stability Report – Routing History graphs 8 IPv 6 NANOG 19

Example CSELT routing history graph 9 IPv 6 NANOG 19

Contd. • SLAC Ping. ER services uses a modified IPv 6 ping service to probe and report on path reliability – data is databased and historically accessibel: hour, day, month – TCP Throughput – Zero packet loss frequency – PING unpredictability & unreachability – Packet loss – PING response history 10 IPv 6 NANOG 19

Automated mapping services • Among other things the 6 bone registry is used for, it can help generates pictures of the 6 bone p. TLA backbone network peering relationships • Lancaster Univ. have done much of this work 11 IPv 6 NANOG 19

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6 bone future • Will stay in place until no longer needed • excellent place for an ISP to get early experience before going into production • probably not the best way to support transition to IPv 6, but if needed for this it will stay in place • expect that the 6 to 4 Transition Mechanism and native IPv 6 support by your IPv 4 ISP is best to support transition 13 IPv 6 NANOG 19

Aggregatable Unicast Addressing 3 13 001 TLA 8 R s r v 24 NLA 48 -bit Public Topology Routing Prefix 16 SLA 64 Interface ID 80 -bit end-site specific usage ISP cannot change this TLA = Top-Level Aggregation ID - are assigned to ISPs and Exchanges that act in a default-free way with a routing table entry for every active TLA ID (helps constrain the routing complexity) Rsrv = Reserved for either TLA or NLA expansion NLA = Next Level Aggregation ID - are assigned by TLAs to create a multi-level hierarchy underneath it as the ISP chooses (i. e. , multiple NLA levels allow more ISPs and then the end site) SLA = Site Level Aggregation IDs are used to create local addressing hierarchy (e. g. , a flat subnet space allowing 65 K subnets) 14 Interface ID = unique ID on subnet (typically formed automatically) IPv 6 NANOG 19

Current TLA assignments • TESTING (3 FFE: : /16) assigned for IETF ngtrans use by RFC 2471 for use by 6 bone project - currently used for p. TLA’s • Sub-TLA’s (2001: : /16) assigned to RIR’s for allocation of Sub-TLA’s • 6 to 4 prefix (2002: : /16) assigned for use by the “Connection of IPv 6 Domains via IPv 4 Clouds without Explicit Tunnels” spec (soon to be at PS) to hold the IPv 4 tunnel endpoint address in the 32 -bit Rsrv & NLA fields 15 IPv 6 NANOG 19

6 bone (IPv 6 testbed) p. TLA’s 3 001 13 8 or 12 24 or 20 TLA pseudo 0 x 1 FFE TLA NLA 16 SLA 64 Interface ID • The 6 bone uses a variation of this concept called pseudo -TLAs (p. TLAs) 3 FFE: 0000: : /24 to 3 FFE: 7 F 00: : /24 old 8 -bit p. TLA space 3 FFE: 8000: : /28 to 3 FFE: FFF 0: : /28 new 12 -bit p. TLA space 16 IPv 6 NANOG 19

Sub-TLA’s 3 001 13 TLA 0 x. OOO 1 13 Sub TLA 6 R s r v 13 16 NLA SLA 64 Interface ID • To assist in the slow start of TLA assignment, a Sub-TLA was defined which allows the international address registries to slow start TLA usage by just assigning a single TLA for Sub-TLA’s • an ISP must demonstrate high usage of its Sub-TLA space before qualifying for a TLA or another Sub-TLA • in practice, the RIR’s are slow starting the /29 space by only assigning /35’s to start… again, a high usage required before getting more of the /29 17 IPv 6 NANOG 19

Sub-TLA usage today • RIR’s started to assign in July 1999, 34 assigned to date – APNIC (13 Sub-TLA’s assigned) – ARIN (4 Sub-TLA’s assigned) – RIPE-NCC (17 Sub-TLA’s assigned) 18 IPv 6 NANOG 19

6 to 4 • Specifies the 16 -bit TLA prefix 2002: : /16 as a “ 6 to 4” flag indicating that the 32 -bit sized NLA below it carries an IPv 4 Tunnel Endpoint Address of the site’s egress router 3 001 19 13 TLA 0 x 002 32 IPv 4 TEA 16 SLA 64 Interface ID IPv 6 NANOG 19

ESnet • ESnet serves the network needs of the US Energy Research national labs, which is now IPv 4 (just turned off Dec. NET : -) • early participant in 6 bone using tunnels, then moved to native IPv 6 in 1999 • operates a Cisco IPv 6 EFT router mesh over the ESnet ATM cloud • as of July 1999 ESnet operational staff handles IPv 6 peering and routing in parallel with, and the same as IPv 4 20 IPv 6 NANOG 19

Application usage • For now usage limited to early application conversion (to the IPv 6 API) and demonstration that high-profile scientific apps run over IPv 6 the same as IPv 4 • also a significant network measurement activity in place • software (versus hardware) IPv 6 packet forwarding ok for most early purposes, but it does get in way of the high-speed scientific apps… were waiting too! 21 IPv 6 NANOG 19

The 6 TAP • To facilitate peering of native IPv 6 providers, ESnet and Canarie/Viagenie formed the 6 tap IPv 6 routing service in August 1999 at the Star. TAP/Chicago. NAP • Working with Sun and Merit to get early an early IPv 6 Route Server up • Working with early IPv 6 ISP’s to establish BGP 4+ routing policies and practices • A 6 to 4 Relay service and a Site-Tunnel. Server service will also be provided soon 22 IPv 6 NANOG 19

What next • Waiting for production hardware-based routers so we can operate v 4 & v 6 in same routers • … and of course for production IPv 6 host code to become widely available • meanwhile, it is quite cheap and easy to put up some IPv 6 routing to gain knowledge and early operational experience 23 IPv 6 NANOG 19

Thanks for listening Pointer to everything IPv 6: www. 6 bone. net Questions on anything IPv 6 (don’t worry, I’ll forward you to the right place): fink@es. net 24 IPv 6 NANOG 19