[Note that this file is a concatenation of more than one RFC.]
Network Working Group F. Audet, Ed.
Request for Comments: 4787 Nortel Networks
BCP: 127 C. Jennings
Category: Best Current Practice Cisco Systems
January 2007
Network Address Translation (NAT) Behavioral Requirements
for Unicast UDP
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the
Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).
Abstract
This document defines basic terminology for describing different
types of Network Address Translation (NAT) behavior when handling
Unicast UDP and also defines a set of requirements that would allow
many applications, such as multimedia communications or online
gaming, to work consistently. Developing NATs that meet this set of
requirements will greatly increase the likelihood that these
applications will function properly.
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RFC 4787 NAT UDP Unicast Requirements January 2007
Table of Contents
1. Applicability Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Network Address and Port Translation Behavior . . . . . . . . 5
4.1. Address and Port Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.2. Port Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2.1. Port Assignment Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2.2. Port Parity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2.3. Port Contiguity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.3. Mapping Refresh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.4. Conflicting Internal and External IP Address Spaces . . . 13
5. Filtering Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6. Hairpinning Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7. Application Level Gateways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8. Deterministic Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
9. ICMP Destination Unreachable Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
10. Fragmentation of Outgoing Packets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
11. Receiving Fragmented Packets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
12. Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
13. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
14. IAB Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
15. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
16. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
16.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
16.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
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RFC 4787 NAT UDP Unicast Requirements January 2007
1. Applicability Statement
The purpose of this specification is to define a set of requirements
for NATs that would allow many applications, such as multimedia
communications or online gaming, to work consistently. Developing
NATs that meet this set of requirements will greatly increase the
likelihood that these applications will function properly.
The requirements of this specification apply to Traditional NATs as
described in [RFC2663].
This document is meant to cover NATs of any size, from small
residential NATs to large Enterprise NATs. However, it should be
understood that Enterprise NATs normally provide much more than just
NAT capabilities; for example, they typically provide firewall
functionalities. A comprehensive description of firewall behaviors
and associated requirements is specifically out-of-scope for this
specification. However, this specification does cover basic firewall
aspects present in NATs (see Section 5).
Approaches using directly signaled control of middle boxes are out of
scope.
UDP Relays (e.g., Traversal Using Relay NAT [TURN]) are out of scope.
Application aspects are out of scope, as the focus here is strictly
on the NAT itself.
This document only covers aspects of NAT traversal related to Unicast
UDP [RFC0768] over IP [RFC0791] and their dependencies on other
protocols.
2. Introduction
Network Address Translators (NATs) are well known to cause very
significant problems with applications that carry IP addresses in the
payload (see [RFC3027]). Applications that suffer from this problem
include Voice Over IP and Multimedia Over IP (e.g., SIP [RFC3261] and
H.323 [ITU.H323]), as well as online gaming.
Many techniques are used to attempt to make realtime multimedia
applications, online games, and other applications work across NATs.
Application Level Gateways [RFC2663] are one such mechanism. STUN
[RFC3489bis] describes a UNilateral Self-Address Fixing (UNSAF)
mechanism [RFC3424]. Teredo [RFC4380] describes an UNSAF mechanism
consisting of tunnelling IPv6 [RFC2460] over UDP/IPv4. UDP Relays
have also been used to enable applications across NATs, but these are
generally seen as a solution of last resort. Interactive
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Connectivity Establishment [ICE] describes a methodology for using
many of these techniques and avoiding a UDP relay, unless the type of
NAT is such that it forces the use of such a UDP relay. This
specification defines requirements for improving NATs. Meeting these
requirements ensures that applications will not be forced to use UDP
relay.
As pointed out in UNSAF [RFC3424], "From observations of deployed
networks, it is clear that different NAT box implementations vary
widely in terms of how they handle different traffic and addressing
cases". This wide degree of variability is one factor in the overall
brittleness introduced by NATs and makes it extremely difficult to
predict how any given protocol will behave on a network traversing
NAT. Discussions with many of the major NAT vendors have made it
clear that they would prefer to deploy NATs that were deterministic
and caused the least harm to applications while still meeting the
requirements that caused their customers to deploy NATs in the first
place. The problem NAT vendors face is that they are not sure how
best to do that or how to document their NATs' behavior.
The goals of this document are to define a set of common terminology
for describing the behavior of NATs and to produce a set of
requirements on a specific set of behaviors for NATs.
This document forms a common set of requirements that are simple and
useful for voice, video, and games, which can be implemented by NAT
vendors. This document will simplify the analysis of protocols for
deciding whether or not they work in this environment and will allow
providers of services that have NAT traversal issues to make
statements about where their applications will work and where they
will not, as well as to specify their own NAT requirements.
3. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
Readers are urged to refer to [RFC2663] for information on NAT
taxonomy and terminology. Traditional NAT is the most common type of
NAT device deployed. Readers may refer to [RFC3022] for detailed
information on traditional NAT. Traditional NAT has two main
varieties -- Basic NAT and Network Address/Port Translator (NAPT).
NAPT is by far the most commonly deployed NAT device. NAPT allows
multiple internal hosts to share a single public IP address
simultaneously. When an internal host opens an outgoing TCP or UDP
session through a NAPT, the NAPT assigns the session a public IP
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address and port number, so that subsequent response packets from the
external endpoint can be received by the NAPT, translated, and
forwarded to the internal host. The effect is that the NAPT
establishes a NAT session to translate the (private IP address,
private port number) tuple to a (public IP address, public port
number) tuple, and vice versa, for the duration of the session. An
issue of relevance to peer-to-peer applications is how the NAT
behaves when an internal host initiates multiple simultaneous
sessions from a single (private IP, private port) endpoint to
multiple distinct endpoints on the external network. In this
specification, the term "NAT" refers to both "Basic NAT" and "Network
Address/Port Translator (NAPT)".
This document uses the term "session" as defined in RFC 2663: "TCP/
UDP sessions are uniquely identified by the tuple of (source IP
address, source TCP/UDP ports, target IP address, target TCP/UDP
Port)".
This document uses the term "address and port mapping" as the
translation between an external address and port and an internal
address and port. Note that this is not the same as an "address
binding" as defined in RFC 2663.
This document uses IANA terminology for port ranges, i.e., "Well
Known Ports" is 0-1023, "Registered" is 1024-49151, and "Dynamic
and/or Private" is 49152-65535, as defined in
http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers.
STUN [RFC3489] used the terms "Full Cone", "Restricted Cone", "Port
Restricted Cone", and "Symmetric" to refer to different variations of
NATs applicable to UDP only. Unfortunately, this terminology has
been the source of much confusion, as it has proven inadequate at
describing real-life NAT behavior. This specification therefore
refers to specific individual NAT behaviors instead of using the
Cone/Symmetric terminology.
4. Network Address and Port Translation Behavior
This section describes the various NAT behaviors applicable to NATs.
4.1. Address and Port Mapping
When an internal endpoint opens an outgoing session through a NAT,
the NAT assigns the session an external IP address and port number so
that subsequent response packets from the external endpoint can be
received by the NAT, translated, and forwarded to the internal
endpoint. This is a mapping between an internal IP address and port
IP:port and external IP:port tuple. It establishes the translation
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that will be performed by the NAT for the duration of the session.
For many applications, it is important to distinguish the behavior of
the NAT when there are multiple simultaneous sessions established to
different external endpoints.
The key behavior to describe is the criteria for reuse of a mapping
for new sessions to external endpoints, after establishing a first
mapping between an internal X:x address and port and an external
Y1:y1 address tuple. Let's assume that the internal IP address and
port X:x are mapped to X1':x1' for this first session. The endpoint
then sends from X:x to an external address Y2:y2 and gets a mapping
of X2':x2' on the NAT. The relationship between X1':x1' and X2':x2'
for various combinations of the relationship between Y1:y1 and Y2:y2
is critical for describing the NAT behavior. This arrangement is
illustrated in the following diagram:
E
+------+ +------+ x
| Y1 | | Y2 | t
+--+---+ +---+--+ e
| Y1:y1 Y2:y2 | r
+----------+ +----------+ n
| | a
X1':x1' | | X2':x2' l
+--+---+-+
...........| NAT |...............
+--+---+-+ I
| | n
X:x | | X:x t
++---++ e
| X | r
+-----+ n
a
l
Address and Port Mapping
The following address and port mapping behavior are defined:
Endpoint-Independent Mapping:
The NAT reuses the port mapping for subsequent packets sent
from the same internal IP address and port (X:x) to any
external IP address and port. Specifically, X1':x1' equals
X2':x2' for all values of Y2:y2.
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Address-Dependent Mapping:
The NAT reuses the port mapping for subsequent packets sent
from the same internal IP address and port (X:x) to the same
external IP address, regardless of the external port.
Specifically, X1':x1' equals X2':x2' if and only if, Y2 equals
Y1.
Address and Port-Dependent Mapping:
The NAT reuses the port mapping for subsequent packets sent
from the same internal IP address and port (X:x) to the same
external IP address and port while the mapping is still active.
Specifically, X1':x1' equals X2':x2' if and only if, Y2:y2
equals Y1:y1.
It is important to note that these three possible choices make no
difference to the security properties of the NAT. The security
properties are fully determined by which packets the NAT allows in
and which it does not. This is determined by the filtering behavior
in the filtering portions of the NAT.
REQ-1: A NAT MUST have an "Endpoint-Independent Mapping" behavior.
Justification: In order for UNSAF methods to work, REQ-1 needs to be
met. Failure to meet REQ-1 will force the use of a UDP relay,
which is very often impractical.
Some NATs are capable of assigning IP addresses from a pool of IP
addresses on the external side of the NAT, as opposed to just a
single IP address. This is especially common with larger NATs. Some
NATs use the external IP address mapping in an arbitrary fashion
(i.e., randomly): one internal IP address could have multiple
external IP address mappings active at the same time for different
sessions. These NATs have an "IP address pooling" behavior of
"Arbitrary". Some large Enterprise NATs use an IP address pooling
behavior of "Arbitrary" as a means of hiding the IP address assigned
to specific endpoints by making their assignment less predictable.
Other NATs use the same external IP address mapping for all sessions
associated with the same internal IP address. These NATs have an "IP
address pooling" behavior of "Paired". NATs that use an "IP address
pooling" behavior of "Arbitrary" can cause issues for applications
that use multiple ports from the same endpoint, but that do not
negotiate IP addresses individually (e.g., some applications using
RTP and RTCP).
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RFC 4787 NAT UDP Unicast Requirements January 2007
REQ-2: It is RECOMMENDED that a NAT have an "IP address pooling"
behavior of "Paired". Note that this requirement is not
applicable to NATs that do not support IP address pooling.
Justification: This will allow applications that use multiple ports
originating from the same internal IP address to also have the
same external IP address. This is to avoid breaking peer-to-peer
applications that are not capable of negotiating the IP address
for RTP and the IP address for RTCP separately. As such it is
envisioned that this requirement will become less important as
applications become NAT-friendlier with time. The main reason why
this requirement is here is that in a peer-to-peer application,
you are subject to the other peer's mistake. In particular, in
the context of SIP, if my application supports the extensions
defined in [RFC3605] for indicating RTP and RTCP addresses and
ports separately, but the other peer does not, there may still be
breakage in the form of the stream losing RTCP packets. This
requirement will avoid the loss of RTP in this context, although
the loss of RTCP may be inevitable in this particular example. It
is also worth noting that RFC 3605 is unfortunately not a
mandatory part of SIP [RFC3261]. Therefore, this requirement will
address a particularly nasty problem that will prevail for a
significant period of time.
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4.2. Port Assignment
4.2.1. Port Assignment Behavior
This section uses the following diagram for reference.
E
+-------+ +-------+ x
| Y1 | | Y2 | t
+---+---+ +---+---+ e
| Y1:y1 Y2:y2 | r
+---------+ +---------+ n
| | a
X1':x1' | | X2':x2' l
+--+---+--+
...........| NAT |...............
+--+---+--+ I
| | n
+---------+ +---------+ t
| X1:x1 X2:x2 | e
+---+---+ +---+---+ r
| X1 | | X2 | n
+-------+ +-------+ a
l
Port Assignment
Some NATs attempt to preserve the port number used internally when
assigning a mapping to an external IP address and port (e.g., x1=x1',
x2=x2'). This port assignment behavior is referred to as "port
preservation". In case of port collision, these NATs attempt a
variety of techniques for coping. For example, some NATs will
overridden the previous mapping to preserve the same port. Other
NATs will assign a different IP address from a pool of external IP
addresses; this is only possible as long as the NAT has enough
external IP addresses; if the port is already in use on all available
external IP addresses, then these NATs will pick a different port
(i.e., they don't do port preservation anymore).
Some NATs use "Port overloading", i.e., they always use port
preservation even in the case of collision (i.e., X1'=X2' and
x1=x2=x1'=x2'). Most applications will fail if the NAT uses "Port
overloading".
A NAT that does not attempt to make the external port numbers match
the internal port numbers in any case is referred to as "no port
preservation".
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When NATs do allocate a new source port, there is the issue of which
IANA-defined range of port to choose. The ranges are "well-known"
from 0 to 1023, "registered" from 1024 to 49151, and "dynamic/
private" from 49152 through 65535. For most protocols, these are
destination ports and not source ports, so mapping a source port to a
source port that is already registered is unlikely to have any bad
effects. Some NATs may choose to use only the ports in the dynamic
range; the only downside of this practice is that it limits the
number of ports available. Other NAT devices may use everything but
the well-known range and may prefer to use the dynamic range first,
or possibly avoid the actual registered ports in the registered
range. Other NATs preserve the port range if it is in the well-known
range. [RFC0768] specifies that the source port is set to zero if no
reply packets are expected. In this case, it does not matter what
the NAT maps it to, as the source port will not be used. However,
many common OS APIs do not allow a user to send from port zero,
applications do not use port zero, and the behavior of various
existing NATs with regards to a packet with a source of port zero is
unknown. This document does not specify any normative behavior for a
NAT when handling a packet with a source port of zero which means
that applications cannot count on any sort of deterministic behavior
for these packets.
REQ-3: A NAT MUST NOT have a "Port assignment" behavior of "Port
overloading".
a) If the host's source port was in the range 0-1023, it is
RECOMMENDED the NAT's source port be in the same range. If the
host's source port was in the range 1024-65535, it is
RECOMMENDED that the NAT's source port be in that range.
Justification: This requirement must be met in order to enable two
applications on the internal side of the NAT both to use the same
port to try to communicate with the same destination. NATs that
implement port preservation have to deal with conflicts on ports,
and the multiple code paths this introduces often result in
nondeterministic behavior. However, it should be understood that
when a port is randomly assigned, it may just randomly happen to
be assigned the same port. Applications must, therefore, be able
to deal with both port preservation and no port preservation.
a) Certain applications expect the source UDP port to be in the
well-known range. See the discussion of Network File System
port expectations in [RFC2623] for an example.
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4.2.2. Port Parity
Some NATs preserve the parity of the UDP port, i.e., an even port
will be mapped to an even port, and an odd port will be mapped to an
odd port. This behavior respects the [RFC3550] rule that RTP use
even ports, and RTCP use odd ports. RFC 3550 allows any port numbers
to be used for RTP and RTCP if the two numbers are specified
separately; for example, using [RFC3605]. However, some
implementations do not include RFC 3605, and do not recognize when
the peer has specified the RTCP port separately using RFC 3605. If
such an implementation receives an odd RTP port number from the peer
(perhaps after having been translated by a NAT), and then follows the
RFC 3550 rule to change the RTP port to the next lower even number,
this would obviously result in the loss of RTP. NAT-friendly
application aspects are outside the scope of this document. It is
expected that this issue will fade away with time, as implementations
improve. Preserving the port parity allows for supporting
communication with peers that do not support explicit specification
of both RTP and RTCP port numbers.
REQ-4: It is RECOMMENDED that a NAT have a "Port parity
preservation" behavior of "Yes".
Justification: This is to avoid breaking peer-to-peer applications
that do not explicitly and separately specify RTP and RTCP port
numbers and that follow the RFC 3550 rule to decrement an odd RTP
port to make it even. The same considerations apply, as per the
IP address pooling requirement.
4.2.3. Port Contiguity
Some NATs attempt to preserve the port contiguity rule of RTCP=RTP+1.
These NATs do things like sequential assignment or port reservation.
Sequential port assignment assumes that the application will open a
mapping for RTP first and then open a mapping for RTCP. It is not
practical to enforce this requirement on all applications.
Furthermore, there is a problem with glare if many applications (or
endpoints) are trying to open mappings simultaneously. Port
preservation is also problematic since it is wasteful, especially
considering that a NAT cannot reliably distinguish between RTP over
UDP and other UDP packets where there is no contiguity rule. For
those reasons, it would be too complex to attempt to preserve the
contiguity rule by suggesting specific NAT behavior, and it would
certainly break the deterministic behavior rule.
In order to support both RTP and RTCP, it will therefore be necessary
that applications follow rules to negotiate RTP and RTCP separately,
and account for the very real possibility that the RTCP=RTP+1 rule
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will be broken. As this is an application requirement, it is outside
the scope of this document.
4.3. Mapping Refresh
NAT mapping timeout implementations vary, but include the timer's
value and the way the mapping timer is refreshed to keep the mapping
alive.
The mapping timer is defined as the time a mapping will stay active
without packets traversing the NAT. There is great variation in the
values used by different NATs.
REQ-5: A NAT UDP mapping timer MUST NOT expire in less than two
minutes, unless REQ-5a applies.
a) For specific destination ports in the well-known port range
(ports 0-1023), a NAT MAY have shorter UDP mapping timers that
are specific to the IANA-registered application running over
that specific destination port.
b) The value of the NAT UDP mapping timer MAY be configurable.
c) A default value of five minutes or more for the NAT UDP mapping
timer is RECOMMENDED.
Justification: This requirement is to ensure that the timeout is
long enough to avoid too-frequent timer refresh packets.
a) Some UDP protocols using UDP use very short-lived connections.
There can be very many such connections; keeping them all in a
connections table could cause considerable load on the NAT.
Having shorter timers for these specific applications is,
therefore, an optimization technique. It is important that the
shorter timers applied to specific protocols be used sparingly,
and only for protocols using well-known destination ports that
are known to have a shorter timer, and that are known not to be
used by any applications for other purposes.
b) Configuration is desirable for adapting to specific networks
and troubleshooting.
c) This default is to avoid too-frequent timer refresh packets.
Some NATs keep the mapping active (i.e., refresh the timer value)
when a packet goes from the internal side of the NAT to the external
side of the NAT. This is referred to as having a NAT Outbound
refresh behavior of "True".
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Some NATs keep the mapping active when a packet goes from the
external side of the NAT to the internal side of the NAT. This is
referred to as having a NAT Inbound Refresh Behavior of "True".
Some NATs keep the mapping active on both, in which case, both
properties are "True".
REQ-6: The NAT mapping Refresh Direction MUST have a "NAT Outbound
refresh behavior" of "True".
a) The NAT mapping Refresh Direction MAY have a "NAT Inbound
refresh behavior" of "True".
Justification: Outbound refresh is necessary for allowing the client
to keep the mapping alive.
a) Inbound refresh may be useful for applications with no outgoing
UDP traffic. However, allowing inbound refresh may allow an
external attacker or misbehaving application to keep a mapping
alive indefinitely. This may be a security risk. Also, if the
process is repeated with different ports, over time, it could
use up all the ports on the NAT.
4.4. Conflicting Internal and External IP Address Spaces
Many NATs, particularly consumer-level devices designed to be
deployed by nontechnical users, routinely obtain their external IP
address, default router, and other IP configuration information for
their external interface dynamically from an external network, such
as an upstream ISP. The NAT, in turn, automatically sets up its own
internal subnet in one of the private IP address spaces assigned to
this purpose in [RFC1918], typically providing dynamic IP
configuration services for hosts on this internal network.
Auto-configuration of NATs and private networks can be problematic,
however, if the NAT's external network is also in RFC 1918 private
address space. In a common scenario, an ISP places its customers
behind a NAT and hands out private RFC 1918 addresses to them. Some
of these customers, in turn, deploy consumer-level NATs, which, in
effect, act as "second-level" NATs, multiplexing their own private
RFC 1918 IP subnets onto the single RFC 1918 IP address provided by
the ISP. There is no inherent guarantee, in this case, that the
ISP's "intermediate" privately-addressed network and the customer's
internal privately-addressed network will not use numerically
identical or overlapping RFC 1918 IP subnets. Furthermore, customers
of consumer-level NATs cannot be expected to have the technical
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knowledge to prevent this scenario from occurring by manually
configuring their internal network with non-conflicting RFC 1918
subnets.
NAT vendors need to design their NATs to ensure that they function
correctly and robustly even in such problematic scenarios. One
possible solution is for the NAT to ensure that whenever its external
link is configured with an RFC 1918 private IP address, the NAT
automatically selects a different, non-conflicting RFC 1918 IP subnet
for its internal network. A disadvantage of this solution is that,
if the NAT's external interface is dynamically configured or re-
configured after its internal network is already in use, then the NAT
may have to renumber its entire internal network dynamically if it
detects a conflict.
An alternative solution is for the NAT to be designed so that it can
translate and forward traffic correctly, even when its external and
internal interfaces are configured with numerically overlapping IP
subnets. In this scenario, for example, if the NAT's external
interface has been assigned an IP address P in RFC 1918 space, then
there might also be an internal node I having the same RFC 1918
private IP address P. An IP packet with destination address P on the
external network is directed at the NAT, whereas an IP packet with
the same destination address P on the internal network is directed at
node I. The NAT therefore needs to maintain a clear operational
distinction between "external IP addresses" and "internal IP
addresses" to avoid confusing internal node I with its own external
interface. In general, the NAT needs to allow all internal nodes
(including I) to communicate with all external nodes having public
(non-RFC 1918) IP addresses, or having private IP addresses that do
not conflict with the addresses used by its internal network.
REQ-7: A NAT device whose external IP interface can be configured
dynamically MUST either (1) automatically ensure that its internal
network uses IP addresses that do not conflict with its external
network, or (2) be able to translate and forward traffic between
all internal nodes and all external nodes whose IP addresses
numerically conflict with the internal network.
Justification: If a NAT's external and internal interfaces are
configured with overlapping IP subnets, then there is, of course,
no way for an internal host with RFC 1918 IP address Q to initiate
a direct communication session to an external node having the same
RFC 1918 address Q, or to other external nodes with IP addresses
that numerically conflict with the internal subnet. Such nodes
can still open communication sessions indirectly via NAT traversal
techniques, however, with the help of a third-party server, such
as a STUN server having a public, non-RFC 1918 IP address. In
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this case, nodes with conflicting private RFC 1918 addresses on
opposite sides of the second-level NAT can communicate with each
other via their respective temporary public endpoints on the main
Internet, as long as their common, first-level NAT (e.g., the
upstream ISP's NAT) supports hairpinning behavior, as described in
Section 6.
5. Filtering Behavior
This section describes various filtering behaviors observed in NATs.
When an internal endpoint opens an outgoing session through a NAT,
the NAT assigns a filtering rule for the mapping between an internal
IP:port (X:x) and external IP:port (Y:y) tuple.
The key behavior to describe is what criteria are used by the NAT to
filter packets originating from specific external endpoints.
Endpoint-Independent Filtering:
The NAT filters out only packets not destined to the internal
address and port X:x, regardless of the external IP address and
port source (Z:z). The NAT forwards any packets destined to
X:x. In other words, sending packets from the internal side of
the NAT to any external IP address is sufficient to allow any
packets back to the internal endpoint.
Address-Dependent Filtering:
The NAT filters out packets not destined to the internal
address X:x. Additionally, the NAT will filter out packets
from Y:y destined for the internal endpoint X:x if X:x has not
sent packets to Y:any previously (independently of the port
used by Y). In other words, for receiving packets from a
specific external endpoint, it is necessary for the internal
endpoint to send packets first to that specific external
endpoint's IP address.
Address and Port-Dependent Filtering:
This is similar to the previous behavior, except that the
external port is also relevant. The NAT filters out packets
not destined for the internal address X:x. Additionally, the
NAT will filter out packets from Y:y destined for the internal
endpoint X:x if X:x has not sent packets to Y:y previously. In
other words, for receiving packets from a specific external
endpoint, it is necessary for the internal endpoint to send
packets first to that external endpoint's IP address and port.
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REQ-8: If application transparency is most important, it is
RECOMMENDED that a NAT have an "Endpoint-Independent Filtering"
behavior. If a more stringent filtering behavior is most
important, it is RECOMMENDED that a NAT have an "Address-Dependent
Filtering" behavior.
a) The filtering behavior MAY be an option configurable by the
administrator of the NAT.
Justification: The recommendation to use Endpoint-Independent
Filtering is aimed at maximizing application transparency; in
particular, for applications that receive media simultaneously
from multiple locations (e.g., gaming), or applications that use
rendezvous techniques. However, it is also possible that, in some
circumstances, it may be preferable to have a more stringent
filtering behavior. Filtering independently of the external
endpoint is not as secure: An unauthorized packet could get
through a specific port while the port was kept open if it was
lucky enough to find the port open. In theory, filtering based on
both IP address and port is more secure than filtering based only
on the IP address (because the external endpoint could, in
reality, be two endpoints behind another NAT, where one of the two
endpoints is an attacker). However, such a policy could interfere
with applications that expect to receive UDP packets on more than
one UDP port. Using Endpoint-Independent Filtering or Address-
Dependent Filtering instead of Address and Port-Dependent
Filtering on a NAT (say, NAT-A) also has benefits when the other
endpoint is behind a non-BEHAVE compliant NAT (say, NAT-B) that
does not support REQ-1. When the endpoints use ICE, if NAT-A uses
Address and Port-Dependent Filtering, connectivity will require a
UDP relay. However, if NAT-A uses Endpoint-Independent Filtering
or Address-Dependent Filtering, ICE will ultimately find
connectivity without requiring a UDP relay. Having the filtering
behavior being an option configurable by the administrator of the
NAT ensures that a NAT can be used in the widest variety of
deployment scenarios.
6. Hairpinning Behavior
If two hosts (called X1 and X2) are behind the same NAT and
exchanging traffic, the NAT may allocate an address on the outside of
the NAT for X2, called X2':x2'. If X1 sends traffic to X2':x2', it
goes to the NAT, which must relay the traffic from X1 to X2. This is
referred to as hairpinning and is illustrated below.
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RFC 4787 NAT UDP Unicast Requirements January 2007
NAT
+----+ from X1:x1 to X2':x2' +-----+ X1':x1'
| X1 |>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>--+---
+----+ | v |
| v |
| v |
| v |
+----+ from X1':x1' to X2:x2 | v | X2':x2'
| X2 |<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<--+---
+----+ +-----+
Hairpinning Behavior
Hairpinning allows two endpoints on the internal side of the NAT to
communicate even if they only use each other's external IP addresses
and ports.
More formally, a NAT that supports hairpinning forwards packets
originating from an internal address, X1:x1, destined for an external
address X2':x2' that has an active mapping to an internal address
X2:x2, back to that internal address, X2:x2. Note that typically X1'
is the same as X2'.
Furthermore, the NAT may present the hairpinned packet with either an
internal (X1:x1) or an external (X1':x1') source IP address and port.
Therefore, the hairpinning NAT behavior can be either "External
source IP address and port" or "Internal source IP address and port".
"Internal source IP address and port" may cause problems by confusing
implementations that expect an external IP address and port.
REQ-9: A NAT MUST support "Hairpinning".
a) A NAT Hairpinning behavior MUST be "External source IP address
and port".
Justification: This requirement is to allow communications between
two endpoints behind the same NAT when they are trying each
other's external IP addresses.
a) Using the external source IP address is necessary for
applications with a restrictive policy of not accepting packets
from IP addresses that differ from what is expected.
7. Application Level Gateways
Certain NATs have implemented Application Level Gateways (ALGs) for
various protocols, including protocols for negotiating peer-to-peer
sessions, such as SIP.
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Certain NATs have these ALGs turned on permanently, others have them
turned on by default but allow them to be turned off, and others have
them turned off by default but allow them be turned on.
NAT ALGs may interfere with UNSAF methods or protocols that try to be
NAT-aware and therefore must be used with extreme caution.
REQ-10: To eliminate interference with UNSAF NAT traversal
mechanisms and allow integrity protection of UDP communications,
NAT ALGs for UDP-based protocols SHOULD be turned off. Future
standards track specifications that define ALGs can update this to
recommend the defaults for the ALGs that they define.
a) If a NAT includes ALGs, it is RECOMMENDED that the NAT allow
the NAT administrator to enable or disable each ALG separately.
Justification: NAT ALGs may interfere with UNSAF methods.
a) This requirement allows the user to enable those ALGs that are
necessary to aid in the operation of some applications without
enabling ALGs, which interfere with the operation of other
applications.
8. Deterministic Properties
The classification of NATs is further complicated by the fact that,
under some conditions, the same NAT will exhibit different behaviors.
This has been seen on NATs that preserve ports or have specific
algorithms for selecting a port other than a free one. If the
external port that the NAT wishes to use is already in use by another
session, the NAT must select a different port. This results in
different code paths for this conflict case, which results in
different behavior.
For example, if three hosts X1, X2, and X3 all send from the same
port x, through a port preserving NAT with only one external IP
address, called X1', the first one to send (i.e., X1) will get an
external port of x, but the next two will get x2' and x3' (where
these are not equal to x). There are NATs where the External NAT
mapping characteristics and the External Filter characteristics
change between the X1:x and the X2:x mapping. To make matters worse,
there are NATs where the behavior may be the same on the X1:x and
X2:x mappings, but different on the third X3:x mapping.
Another example is that some NATs have an "Endpoint-Independent
Mapping", combined with "Port Overloading", as long as two endpoints
are not establishing sessions to the same external direction, but
then switch their behavior to "Address and Port-Dependent Mapping"
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without "Port Preservation" upon detection of these conflicting
sessions establishments.
Any NAT that changes the NAT Mapping or the Filtering behavior
without configuration changes, at any point in time, under any
particular conditions, is referred to as a "non-deterministic" NAT.
NATs that don't are called "deterministic".
Non-deterministic NATs generally change behavior when a conflict of
some sort happens, i.e., when the port that would normally be used is
already in use by another mapping. The NAT mapping and External
Filtering in the absence of conflict is referred to as the Primary
behavior. The behavior after the first conflict is referred to as
Secondary and after the second conflict is referred to as Tertiary.
No NATs have been observed that change on further conflicts, but it
is certainly possible that they exist.
REQ-11: A NAT MUST have deterministic behavior, i.e., it MUST NOT
change the NAT translation (Section 4) or the Filtering
(Section 5) Behavior at any point in time, or under any particular
conditions.
Justification: Non-deterministic NATs are very difficult to
troubleshoot because they require more intensive testing. This
non-deterministic behavior is the root cause of much of the
uncertainty that NATs introduce about whether or not applications
will work.
9. ICMP Destination Unreachable Behavior
When a NAT sends a packet toward a host on the other side of the NAT,
an ICMP message may be sent in response to that packet. That ICMP
message may be sent by the destination host or by any router along
the network path. The NAT's default configuration SHOULD NOT filter
ICMP messages based on their source IP address. Such ICMP messages
SHOULD be rewritten by the NAT (specifically, the IP headers and the
ICMP payload) and forwarded to the appropriate internal or external
host. The NAT needs to perform this function for as long as the UDP
mapping is active. Receipt of any sort of ICMP message MUST NOT
destroy the NAT mapping. A NAT that performs the functions described
in the paragraph above is referred to as "support ICMP Processing".
There is no significant security advantage to blocking ICMP
Destination Unreachable packets. Additionally, blocking ICMP
Destination Unreachable packets can interfere with application
failover, UDP Path MTU Discovery (see [RFC1191] and [RFC1435]), and
traceroute. Blocking any ICMP message is discouraged, and blocking
ICMP Destination Unreachable is strongly discouraged.
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REQ-12: Receipt of any sort of ICMP message MUST NOT terminate the
NAT mapping.
a) The NAT's default configuration SHOULD NOT filter ICMP messages
based on their source IP address.
b) It is RECOMMENDED that a NAT support ICMP Destination
Unreachable messages.
Justification: This is easy to do and is used for many things
including MTU discovery and rapid detection of error conditions,
and has no negative consequences.
10. Fragmentation of Outgoing Packets
When the MTU of the adjacent link is too small, fragmentation of
packets going from the internal side to the external side of the NAT
may occur. This can occur if the NAT is doing Point-to-Point over
Ethernet (PPPoE), or if the NAT has been configured with a small MTU
to reduce serialization delay when sending large packets and small
higher-priority packets, or for other reasons.
It is worth noting that many IP stacks do not use Path MTU Discovery
with UDP packets.
The packet could have its Don't Fragment bit set to 1 (DF=1) or 0
(DF=0).
REQ-13: If the packet received on an internal IP address has DF=1,
the NAT MUST send back an ICMP message "Fragmentation needed and
DF set" to the host, as described in [RFC0792].
a) If the packet has DF=0, the NAT MUST fragment the packet and
SHOULD send the fragments in order.
Justification: This is as per RFC 792.
a) This is the same function a router performs in a similar
situation [RFC1812].
11. Receiving Fragmented Packets
For a variety of reasons, a NAT may receive a fragmented packet. The
IP packet containing the header could arrive in any fragment,
depending on network conditions, packet ordering, and the
implementation of the IP stack that generated the fragments.
Audet & Jennings Best Current Practice [Page 20]
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A NAT that is capable only of receiving fragments in order (that is,
with the header in the first packet) and forwarding each of the
fragments to the internal host is described as "Received Fragments
Ordered".
A NAT that is capable of receiving fragments in or out of order and
forwarding the individual fragments (or a reassembled packet) to the
internal host is referred to as "Receive Fragments Out of Order".
See the Security Considerations section of this document for a
discussion of this behavior.
A NAT that is neither of these is referred to as "Receive Fragments
None".
REQ-14: A NAT MUST support receiving in-order and out-of-order
fragments, so it MUST have "Received Fragment Out of Order"
behavior.
a) A NAT's out-of-order fragment processing mechanism MUST be
designed so that fragmentation-based DoS attacks do not
compromise the NAT's ability to process in-order and
unfragmented IP packets.
Justification: See Security Considerations.
12. Requirements
The requirements in this section are aimed at minimizing the
complications caused by NATs to applications, such as realtime
communications and online gaming. The requirements listed earlier in
the document are consolidated here into a single section.
It should be understood, however, that applications normally do not
know in advance if the NAT conforms to the recommendations defined in
this section. Peer-to-peer media applications still need to use
normal procedures, such as ICE [ICE].
A NAT that supports all the mandatory requirements of this
specification (i.e., the "MUST"), is "compliant with this
specification". A NAT that supports all the requirements of this
specification (i.e., including the "RECOMMENDED") is "fully compliant
with all the mandatory and recommended requirements of this
specification".
Audet & Jennings Best Current Practice [Page 21]
RFC 4787 NAT UDP Unicast Requirements January 2007
REQ-1: A NAT MUST have an "Endpoint-Independent Mapping" behavior.
REQ-2: It is RECOMMENDED that a NAT have an "IP address pooling"
behavior of "Paired". Note that this requirement is not
applicable to NATs that do not support IP address pooling.
REQ-3: A NAT MUST NOT have a "Port assignment" behavior of "Port
overloading".
a) If the host's source port was in the range 0-1023, it is
RECOMMENDED the NAT's source port be in the same range. If the
host's source port was in the range 1024-65535, it is
RECOMMENDED that the NAT's source port be in that range.
REQ-4: It is RECOMMENDED that a NAT have a "Port parity
preservation" behavior of "Yes".
REQ-5: A NAT UDP mapping timer MUST NOT expire in less than two
minutes, unless REQ-5a applies.
a) For specific destination ports in the well-known port range
(ports 0-1023), a NAT MAY have shorter UDP mapping timers that
are specific to the IANA-registered application running over
that specific destination port.
b) The value of the NAT UDP mapping timer MAY be configurable.
c) A default value of five minutes or more for the NAT UDP mapping
timer is RECOMMENDED.
REQ-6: The NAT mapping Refresh Direction MUST have a "NAT Outbound
refresh behavior" of "True".
a) The NAT mapping Refresh Direction MAY have a "NAT Inbound
refresh behavior" of "True".
REQ-7 A NAT device whose external IP interface can be configured
dynamically MUST either (1) Automatically ensure that its internal
network uses IP addresses that do not conflict with its external
network, or (2) Be able to translate and forward traffic between
all internal nodes and all external nodes whose IP addresses
numerically conflict with the internal network.
REQ-8: If application transparency is most important, it is
RECOMMENDED that a NAT have "Endpoint-Independent Filtering"
behavior. If a more stringent filtering behavior is most
important, it is RECOMMENDED that a NAT have "Address-Dependent
Filtering" behavior.
Audet & Jennings Best Current Practice [Page 22]
RFC 4787 NAT UDP Unicast Requirements January 2007
a) The filtering behavior MAY be an option configurable by the
administrator of the NAT.
REQ-9: A NAT MUST support "Hairpinning".
a) A NAT Hairpinning behavior MUST be "External source IP address
and port".
REQ-10: To eliminate interference with UNSAF NAT traversal
mechanisms and allow integrity protection of UDP communications,
NAT ALGs for UDP-based protocols SHOULD be turned off. Future
standards track specifications that define an ALG can update this
to recommend the ALGs on which they define default.
a) If a NAT includes ALGs, it is RECOMMENDED that the NAT allow
the NAT administrator to enable or disable each ALG separately.
REQ-11: A NAT MUST have deterministic behavior, i.e., it MUST NOT
change the NAT translation (Section 4) or the Filtering
(Section 5) Behavior at any point in time, or under any particular
conditions.
REQ-12: Receipt of any sort of ICMP message MUST NOT terminate the
NAT mapping.
a) The NAT's default configuration SHOULD NOT filter ICMP messages
based on their source IP address.
b) It is RECOMMENDED that a NAT support ICMP Destination
Unreachable messages.
REQ-13 If the packet received on an internal IP address has DF=1,
the NAT MUST send back an ICMP message "Fragmentation needed and
DF set" to the host, as described in [RFC0792].
a) If the packet has DF=0, the NAT MUST fragment the packet and
SHOULD send the fragments in order.
REQ-14: A NAT MUST support receiving in-order and out-of-order
fragments, so it MUST have "Received Fragment Out of Order"
behavior.
a) A NAT's out-of-order fragment processing mechanism MUST be
designed so that fragmentation-based DoS attacks do not
compromise the NAT's ability to process in-order and
unfragmented IP packets.
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13. Security Considerations
NATs are often deployed to achieve security goals. Most of the
recommendations and requirements in this document do not affect the
security properties of these devices, but a few of them do have
security implications and are discussed in this section.
This document recommends that the timers for mapping be refreshed on
outgoing packets (see REQ-6) and does not make recommendations about
whether or not inbound packets should update the timers. If inbound
packets update the timers, an external attacker can keep the mapping
alive forever and attack future devices that may end up with the same
internal address. A device that was also the DHCP server for the
private address space could mitigate this by cleaning any mappings
when a DHCP lease expired. For unicast UDP traffic (the scope of
this document), it may not seem relevant to support inbound timer
refresh; however, for multicast UDP, the question is harder. It is
expected that future documents discussing NAT behavior with multicast
traffic will refine the requirements around handling of the inbound
refresh timer. Some devices today do update the timers on inbound
packets.
This document recommends that the NAT filters be specific to the
external IP address only (see REQ-8) and not to the external IP
address and UDP port. It can be argued that this is less secure than
using the IP and port. Devices that wish to filter on IP and port do
still comply with these requirements.
Non-deterministic NATs are risky from a security point of view. They
are very difficult to test because they are, well, non-deterministic.
Testing by a person configuring one may result in the person thinking
it is behaving as desired, yet under different conditions, which an
attacker can create, the NAT may behave differently. These
requirements recommend that devices be deterministic.
This document requires that NATs have an "external NAT mapping is
endpoint independent" behavior. This does not reduce the security of
devices. Which packets are allowed to flow across the device is
determined by the external filtering behavior, which is independent
of the mapping behavior.
When a fragmented packet is received from the external side, and the
packets are out of order so that the initial fragment does not arrive
first, many systems simply discard the out-of-order packets.
Moreover, since some networks deliver small packets ahead of large
ones, there can be many out-of-order fragments. NATs that are
capable of delivering these out-of-order packets are possible, but
they need to store the out-of-order fragments, which can open up a
Audet & Jennings Best Current Practice [Page 24]
RFC 4787 NAT UDP Unicast Requirements January 2007
Denial-of-Service (DoS) opportunity, if done incorrectly.
Fragmentation has been a tool used in many attacks, some involving
passing fragmented packets through NATs, and others involving DoS
attacks based on the state needed to reassemble the fragments. NAT
implementers should be aware of [RFC3128] and [RFC1858].
14. IAB Considerations
The IAB has studied the problem of "Unilateral Self Address Fixing",
which is the general process by which a client attempts to determine
its address in another realm on the other side of a NAT through a
collaborative protocol reflection mechanism [RFC3424].
This specification does not, in itself, constitute an UNSAF
application. It consists of a series of requirements for NATs aimed
at minimizing the negative impact that those devices have on peer-to-
peer media applications, especially when those applications are using
UNSAF methods.
Section 3 of UNSAF lists several practical issues with solutions to
NAT problems. This document makes recommendations to reduce the
uncertainty and problems introduced by these practical issues with
NATs. In addition, UNSAF lists five architectural considerations.
Although this is not an UNSAF proposal, it is interesting to consider
the impact of this work on these architectural considerations.
Arch-1: The scope of this is limited to UDP packets in NATs like the
ones widely deployed today. The "fix" helps constrain the
variability of NATs for true UNSAF solutions such as STUN.
Arch-2: This will exit at the same rate that NATs exit. It does not
imply any protocol machinery that would continue to live
after NATs were gone, or make it more difficult to remove
them.
Arch-3: This does not reduce the overall brittleness of NATs, but
will hopefully reduce some of the more outrageous NAT
behaviors and make it easer to discuss and predict NAT
behavior in given situations.
Arch-4: This work and the results [RESULTS] of various NATs
represent the most comprehensive work at IETF on what the
real issues are with NATs for applications like VoIP. This
work and STUN have pointed out, more than anything else, the
brittleness NATs introduce and the difficulty of addressing
these issues.
Audet & Jennings Best Current Practice [Page 25]
RFC 4787 NAT UDP Unicast Requirements January 2007
Arch-5: This work and the test results [RESULTS] provide a reference
model for what any UNSAF proposal might encounter in
deployed NATs.
15. Acknowledgments
The editor would like to acknowledge Bryan Ford, Pyda Srisuresh, and
Dan Kegel for their multiple contributions on peer-to-peer
communications across a NAT. Dan Wing contributed substantial text
on IP fragmentation and ICMP behavior. Thanks to Rohan Mahy,
Jonathan Rosenberg, Mary Barnes, Melinda Shore, Lyndsay Campbell,
Geoff Huston, Jiri Kuthan, Harald Welte, Steve Casner, Robert
Sanders, Spencer Dawkins, Saikat Guha, Christian Huitema, Yutaka
Takeda, Paul Hoffman, Lisa Dusseault, Pekka Savola, Peter Koch, Jari
Arkko, and Alfred Hoenes for their contributions.
16. References
16.1. Normative References
[RFC0768] Postel, J., "User Datagram Protocol", STD 6, RFC 768,
August 1980.
[RFC0791] Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791,
September 1981.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
16.2. Informative References
[RFC0792] Postel, J., "Internet Control Message Protocol", STD 5,
RFC 792, September 1981.
[RFC1191] Mogul, J. and S. Deering, "Path MTU discovery",
RFC 1191, November 1990.
[RFC1435] Knowles, S., "IESG Advice from Experience with Path MTU
Discovery", RFC 1435, March 1993.
[RFC1812] Baker, F., "Requirements for IP Version 4 Routers",
RFC 1812, June 1995.
[RFC1858] Ziemba, G., Reed, D., and P. Traina, "Security
Considerations for IP Fragment Filtering", RFC 1858,
October 1995.
Audet & Jennings Best Current Practice [Page 26]
RFC 4787 NAT UDP Unicast Requirements January 2007
[RFC1918] Rekhter, Y., Moskowitz, R., Karrenberg, D., Groot, G.,
and E. Lear, "Address Allocation for Private
Internets", BCP 5, RFC 1918, February 1996.
[RFC2460] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version
6 (IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998.
[RFC2623] Eisler, M., "NFS Version 2 and Version 3 Security
Issues and the NFS Protocol's Use of RPCSEC_GSS and
Kerberos V5", RFC 2623, June 1999.
[RFC2663] Srisuresh, P. and M. Holdrege, "IP Network Address
Translator (NAT) Terminology and Considerations",
RFC 2663, August 1999.
[RFC3022] Srisuresh, P. and K. Egevang, "Traditional IP Network
Address Translator (Traditional NAT)", RFC 3022,
January 2001.
[RFC3027] Holdrege, M. and P. Srisuresh, "Protocol Complications
with the IP Network Address Translator", RFC 3027,
January 2001.
[RFC3128] Miller, I., "Protection Against a Variant of the Tiny
Fragment Attack (RFC 1858)", RFC 3128, June 2001.
[RFC3261] Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G.,
Johnston, A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M.,
and E. Schooler, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol",
RFC 3261, June 2002.
[RFC3424] Daigle, L. and IAB, "IAB Considerations for UNilateral
Self-Address Fixing (UNSAF) Across Network Address
Translation", RFC 3424, November 2002.
[RFC3489] Rosenberg, J., Weinberger, J., Huitema, C., and R.
Mahy, "STUN - Simple Traversal of User Datagram
Protocol (UDP) Through Network Address Translators
(NATs)", RFC 3489, March 2003.
[RFC3550] Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Frederick, R., and V.
Jacobson, "RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time
Applications", STD 64, RFC 3550, July 2003.
[RFC3605] Huitema, C., "Real Time Control Protocol (RTCP)
attribute in Session Description Protocol (SDP)",
RFC 3605, October 2003.
Audet & Jennings Best Current Practice [Page 27]
RFC 4787 NAT UDP Unicast Requirements January 2007
[RFC4380] Huitema, C., "Teredo: Tunneling IPv6 over UDP through
Network Address Translations (NATs)", RFC 4380,
February 2006.
[RFC3489bis] Rosenberg, J., "Simple Traversal Underneath Network
Address Translators (NAT) (STUN)", Work in Progress,
October 2006.
[ICE] Rosenberg, J., "Interactive Connectivity Establishment
(ICE): A Methodology for Network Address Translator
(NAT) Traversal for Offer/Answer Protocols", Work
in Progress, October 2006.
[RESULTS] Jennings, C., "NAT Classification Test Results", Work
in Progress, October 2006.
[TURN] Rosenberg, J., "Obtaining Relay Addresses from Simple
Traversal Underneath NAT (STUN)", Work in Progress,
October 2006.
[ITU.H323] "Packet-based Multimedia Communications Systems", ITU-
T Recommendation H.323, July 2003.
Authors' Addresses
Francois Audet (editor)
Nortel Networks
4655 Great America Parkway
Santa Clara, CA 95054
US
Phone: +1 408 495 2456
EMail: audet@nortel.com
Cullen Jennings
Cisco Systems
170 West Tasman Drive
MS: SJC-21/2
San Jose, CA 95134
US
Phone: +1 408 902 3341
EMail: fluffy@cisco.com
Audet & Jennings Best Current Practice [Page 28]
RFC 4787 NAT UDP Unicast Requirements January 2007
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).
This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
retain all their rights.
This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
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Acknowledgement
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Audet & Jennings Best Current Practice [Page 29]
=========================================================================
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) S. Perreault, Ed.
Request for Comments: 6888 Viagenie
BCP: 127 I. Yamagata
Updates: 4787 S. Miyakawa
Category: Best Current Practice NTT Communications
ISSN: 2070-1721 A. Nakagawa
Japan Internet Exchange (JPIX)
H. Ashida
Cisco Systems
April 2013
Common Requirements for Carrier-Grade NATs (CGNs)
Abstract
This document defines common requirements for Carrier-Grade NATs
(CGNs). It updates RFC 4787.
Status of This Memo
This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
BCPs is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6888.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Perreault, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 1]
RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Requirements for CGNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5. Port Allocation Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. Deployment Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
9.2. Informative Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1. Introduction
With the shortage of IPv4 addresses, it is expected that more
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may want to provide a service where
a public IPv4 address would be shared by many subscribers. Each
subscriber is assigned a private address, and a Network Address
Translator (NAT) [RFC2663] situated in the ISP's network translates
the traffic between private and public addresses. When a second IPv4
NAT is located at the customer edge, this results in two layers of
NAT.
This service can conceivably be offered alongside others, such as
IPv6 services or regular IPv4 service assigning public addresses to
subscribers. Some ISPs started offering such a service long before
there was a shortage of IPv4 addresses, showing that there are
driving forces other than the shortage of IPv4 addresses. One
approach to CGN deployment is described in [RFC6264].
This document describes behavior that is required of those multi-
subscriber NATs for interoperability. It is not an IETF endorsement
of CGNs or a real specification for CGNs; rather, it is just a
minimal set of requirements that will increase the likelihood of
applications working across CGNs.
Because subscribers do not receive unique IPv4 addresses, Carrier-
Grade NATs introduce substantial limitations in communications
between subscribers and with the rest of the Internet. In
particular, it is considerably more involved to establish proxy
functionality at the border between internal and external realms.
Some applications may require substantial enhancements, while some
others may not function at all in such an environment. Please see
"Issues with IP Address Sharing" [RFC6269] for details.
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RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
This document builds upon previous works describing requirements for
generic NATs [RFC4787][RFC5382][RFC5508]. These documents, and their
updates if any, still apply in this context. What follows are
additional requirements, to be satisfied on top of previous ones.
2. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
Readers are expected to be familiar with "Network Address Translation
(NAT) Behavioral Requirements for Unicast UDP" [RFC4787] and the
terms defined there. The following additional term is used in this
document:
Carrier-Grade NAT (CGN): A NAT-based [RFC2663] logical function used
to share the same IPv4 address among several subscribers. A CGN
is not managed by the subscribers.
Note that the term "carrier-grade" has nothing to do with the
quality of the NAT; that is left to discretion of implementers.
Rather, it is to be understood as a topological qualifier: the
NAT is placed in an ISP's network and translates the traffic of
potentially many subscribers. Subscribers have limited or no
control over the CGN, whereas they typically have full control
over a NAT placed on their premises.
Note also that the CGN described in this document is IPv4-only.
IPv6 address translation is not considered.
However, the scenario in which the IPv4-only CGN logical
function is used may include IPv6 elements. For example, Dual-
Stack Lite (DS-Lite) [RFC6333] uses an IPv4-only CGN logical
function in a scenario making use of IPv6 encapsulation.
Therefore, this document would also apply to the CGN part of
DS-Lite.
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RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
Figure 1 summarizes a common network topology in which a CGN
operates.
.
:
| Internet
............... | ...................
| ISP network
External pool: |
192.0.2.1/26 |
++------++ External realm
........... | CGN |...............
++------++ Internal realm
10.0.0.1 | |
| |
| | ISP network
............. | .. | ................
| | Customer premises
10.0.0.100 | | 10.0.0.101
++------++ ++------++
| CPE1 | | CPE2 | etc.
++------++ ++------++
(IP addresses are only for example purposes)
Figure 1: CGN Network Topology
Another possible topology is one for hotspots, where there is no
customer premise or customer premises equipment (CPE), but where a
CGN serves a bunch of customers who don't trust each other; hence,
fairness is an issue. One important difference with the previous
topology is the absence of a second layer of NAT. This, however, has
no impact on CGN requirements since they are driven by fairness and
robustness in the service provided to customers, which applies in
both cases.
3. Requirements for CGNs
What follows is a list of requirements for CGNs. They are in
addition to those found in other documents such as [RFC4787],
[RFC5382], and [RFC5508].
REQ-1: If a CGN forwards packets containing a given transport
protocol, then it MUST fulfill that transport protocol's
behavioral requirements. Current applicable documents are as
follows:
a. "NAT Behavioral Requirements for Unicast UDP" [RFC4787]
Perreault, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 4]
RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
b. "Network Address Translation (NAT) Behavioral Requirements for
TCP" [RFC5382]
c. "NAT Behavioral Requirements for ICMP" [RFC5508]
d. "Network Address Translation (NAT) Behavioral Requirements for
the Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP)" [RFC5597]
Any future NAT behavioral requirements documents for IPv4
transport protocols will impose additional requirements for CGNs
on top of those stated here.
Justification: It is crucial for CGNs to maximize the set of
applications that can function properly across them. The IETF has
documented the best current practices for UDP, TCP, ICMP, and
DCCP.
REQ-2: A CGN MUST have a default "IP address pooling" behavior of
"Paired" (as defined in Section 4.1 of [RFC4787]). A CGN MAY
provide a mechanism for administrators to change this behavior on
an application protocol basis.
* When multiple overlapping internal IP address ranges share the
same external IP address pool (e.g., DS-Lite [RFC6333]), the
"IP address pooling" behavior applies to mappings between
external IP addresses and internal subscribers rather than
between external and internal IP addresses.
Justification: This stronger form of REQ-2 from [RFC4787] is
justified by the stronger need for not breaking applications that
depend on the external address remaining constant.
Note that this requirement applies regardless of the transport
protocol. In other words, a CGN must use the same external IP
address mapping for all sessions associated with the same internal
IP address, be they TCP, UDP, ICMP, something else, or a mix of
different protocols.
The justification for allowing other behaviors is to allow the
administrator to save external addresses and ports for application
protocols that are known to work fine with other behaviors in
practice. However, the default behavior MUST be "Paired".
REQ-3: The CGN function SHOULD NOT have any limitations on the size
or the contiguity of the external address pool. In particular,
the CGN function MUST be configurable with contiguous or non-
contiguous external IPv4 address ranges.
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RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
Justification: Given the increasing rarity of IPv4 addresses, it is
becoming harder for an operator to provide large contiguous
address pools to CGNs. Additionally, operational flexibility may
require non-contiguous address pools for reasons such as
differentiated services, routing management, etc.
The reason for having SHOULD instead of MUST is to account for
limitations imposed by available resources as well as constraints
imposed for security reasons.
REQ-4: A CGN MUST support limiting the number of external ports (or,
equivalently, "identifiers" for ICMP) that are assigned per
subscriber.
a. Per-subscriber limits MUST be configurable by the CGN
administrator.
b. Per-subscriber limits MAY be configurable independently per
transport protocol.
c. Additionally, it is RECOMMENDED that the CGN include
administrator-adjustable thresholds to prevent a single
subscriber from consuming excessive CPU resources from the CGN
(e.g., rate-limit the subscriber's creation of new mappings).
Justification: A CGN can be considered a network resource that is
shared by competing subscribers. Limiting the number of external
ports assigned to each subscriber mitigates the denial-of-service
(DoS) attack that a subscriber could launch against other
subscribers through the CGN in order to get a larger share of the
resource. It ensures fairness among subscribers. Limiting the
rate of allocation mitigates a similar attack where the CPU is the
resource being targeted instead of port numbers. However, this
requirement is not a MUST because it is very hard to explicitly
call out all CPU-consuming events.
REQ-5: A CGN SHOULD support limiting the amount of state memory
allocated per mapping and per subscriber. This may include
limiting the number of sessions, the number of filters, etc.,
depending on the NAT implementation.
a. Limits SHOULD be configurable by the CGN administrator.
b. Additionally, it SHOULD be possible to limit the rate at which
memory-consuming state elements are allocated.
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RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
Justification: A NAT needs to keep track of TCP sessions associated
with each mapping. This state consumes resources for which, in
the case of a CGN, subscribers may compete. It is necessary to
ensure that each subscriber has access to a fair share of the
CGN's resources. Limiting the rate of allocation is intended to
prevent CPU resource exhaustion. Item "B" is at the SHOULD level
to account for the fact that means other than rate limiting may be
used to attain the same goal.
REQ-6: It MUST be possible to administratively turn off translation
for specific destination addresses and/or ports.
Justification: It is common for a CGN administrator to provide
access for subscribers to servers installed in the ISP's network
in the external realm. When such a server is able to reach the
internal realm via normal routing (which is entirely controlled by
the ISP), translation is unneeded. In that case, the CGN may
forward packets without modification, thus acting like a plain
router. This may represent an important efficiency gain.
Figure 2 illustrates this use-case.
X1:x1 X1':x1' X2:x2
+---+from X1:x1 +---+from X1:x1 +---+
| C | to X2:x2 | | to X2:x2 | S |
| l |>>>>>>>>>>>>| C |>>>>>>>>>>>>>>| e |
| i | | G | | r |
| e |<<<<<<<<<<<<| N |<<<<<<<<<<<<<<| v |
| n |from X2:x2 | |from X2:x2 | e |
| t | to X1:x1 | | to X1:x1 | r |
+---+ +---+ +---+
Figure 2: CGN Pass-Through
REQ-7: It is RECOMMENDED that a CGN use an "endpoint-independent
filtering" behavior (as defined in Section 5 of [RFC4787]). If it
is known that "Address-Dependent Filtering" does not cause the
application-layer protocol to break (how to determine this is out
of scope for this document), then it MAY be used instead.
Justification: This is a stronger form of REQ-8 from [RFC4787].
This is based on the observation that some games and peer-to-peer
applications require EIF for the NAT traversal to work. In the
context of a CGN, it is important to minimize application
breakage.
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RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
REQ-8: Once an external port is deallocated, it SHOULD NOT be
reallocated to a new mapping until at least 120 seconds have
passed, with the exceptions being:
a. If the CGN tracks TCP sessions (e.g., with a state machine, as
in Section 3.5.2.2 of [RFC6146]), TCP ports MAY be reused
immediately.
b. If external ports are statically assigned to internal
addresses (e.g., address X with port range 1000-1999 is
assigned to subscriber A, 2000-2999 to subscriber B, etc.),
and the assignment remains constant across state loss, then
ports MAY be reused immediately.
c. If the allocated external ports used address-dependent or
address-and-port-dependent filtering before state loss, they
MAY be reused immediately.
The length of time and the maximum number of ports in this state
MUST be configurable by the CGN administrator.
Justification: This is necessary in order to prevent collisions
between old and new mappings and sessions. It ensures that all
established sessions are broken instead of redirected to a
different peer.
The exceptions are for cases where reusing a port immediately does
not create a possibility that packets would be redirected to the
wrong peer. One can imagine other exceptions where mapping
collisions are avoided, thus justifying the SHOULD level for this
requirement.
The 120 seconds value corresponds to the Maximum Segment Lifetime
(MSL) from [RFC0793].
Note that this requirement also applies to the case when a CGN
loses state (due to a crash, reboot, failover to a cold standby,
etc.). In that case, ports that were in use at the time of state
loss SHOULD NOT be reallocated until at least 120 seconds have
passed.
REQ-9: A CGN MUST implement a protocol giving subscribers explicit
control over NAT mappings. That protocol SHOULD be the Port
Control Protocol [RFC6887].
Justification: Allowing subscribers to manipulate the NAT state
table with PCP greatly increases the likelihood that applications
will function properly.
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RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
A study of PCP-less CGN impacts can be found in [NAT444]. Another
study considering the effects of PCP on a peer-to-peer file
sharing protocol can be found in [BITTORRENT].
REQ-10: CGN implementers SHOULD make their equipment manageable.
Standards-based management using standards such as "Definitions of
Managed Objects for NAT" [RFC4008] is RECOMMENDED.
Justification: It is anticipated that CGNs will be primarily
deployed in ISP networks where the need for management is
critical. This requirement is at the SHOULD level to account for
the fact that some CGN operators may not need management
functionality.
Note also that there are efforts within the IETF toward creating a
MIB tailored for CGNs (e.g., [NAT-MIB]).
REQ-11: When a CGN is unable to create a dynamic mapping due to
resource constraints or administrative restrictions (i.e.,
quotas):
a. it MUST drop the original packet;
b. it SHOULD send an ICMP Destination Unreachable message with
code 1 (Host Unreachable) to the sender;
c. it SHOULD send a notification (e.g., SNMP trap) towards a
management system (if configured to do so); and
d. it MUST NOT delete existing mappings in order to "make room"
for the new one. (This only applies to normal CGN behavior,
not to manual operator intervention.)
Justification: This is a slightly different form of REQ-8 from
[RFC5508]. Code 1 is preferred to code 13 because it is listed as
a "soft error" in [RFC1122], which is important because we don't
want TCP stacks to abort the connection attempt in this case. See
[RFC5461] for details on TCP's reaction to soft errors.
Sending ICMP errors and SNMP traps may be rate-limited for
security reasons, which is why requirements B and C are SHOULDs,
not MUSTs.
Applications generally handle connection establishment failure
better than established connection failure. This is why dropping
the packet initiating the new connection is preferred over
deleting existing mappings. See also the rationale in Section 6
of [RFC5508].
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RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
4. Logging
It may be necessary for CGN administrators to be able to identify a
subscriber based on external IPv4 address, port, and timestamp in
order to deal with abuse. When multiple subscribers share a single
external address, the source address and port that are visible at the
destination host have been translated from the ones originated by the
subscriber.
In order to be able to do this, the CGN would need to log the
following information for each mapping created (this list is for
informational purposes only and does not constitute a requirement):
o transport protocol
o subscriber identifier (e.g., internal source address or tunnel
endpoint identifier)
o external source address
o external source port
o timestamp
By "subscriber identifier" we mean information that uniquely
identifies a subscriber. For example, in a traditional NAT scenario,
the internal source address would be sufficient. In the case of DS-
Lite, many subscribers share the same internal address and the
subscriber identifier is the tunnel endpoint identifier (i.e., the
B4's IPv6 address).
A disadvantage of logging mappings is that CGNs under heavy usage may
produce large amounts of logs, which may require large storage
volume.
REQ-12: A CGN SHOULD NOT log destination addresses or ports unless
required to do so for administrative reasons.
Justification: Destination logging at the CGN creates privacy
issues. Furthermore, readers should be aware of logging
recommendations for Internet-facing servers [RFC6302]. With
compliant servers, the destination address and port do not need to
be logged by the CGN. This can help reduce the amount of logging.
This requirement is at the SHOULD level to account for the fact
that there may be other reasons for logging destination addresses
or ports. One such reason might be that the remote server is not
following [RFC6302].
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RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
5. Port Allocation Scheme
A CGN's port allocation scheme is subject to three competing
requirements:
REQ-13: A CGN's port allocation scheme SHOULD maximize port
utilization.
Justification: External ports are one of the resources being shared
by a CGN. Efficient management of that resource directly impacts
the quality of a subscriber's Internet connection.
Some schemes are very efficient in their port utilization. In
that sense, they have good scaling properties (nothing is wasted).
Others will systematically waste ports.
REQ-14: A CGN's port allocation scheme SHOULD minimize log volume.
Justification: Huge log volumes can be problematic to CGN operators.
Some schemes create one log entry per mapping. Others allow
multiple mappings to generate a single log entry, which sometimes
can be expressed very compactly. With some schemes, the logging
frequency can approach that of DHCP servers.
REQ-15: A CGN's port allocation scheme SHOULD make it hard for
attackers to guess port numbers.
Justification: Easily guessed port numbers put subscribers at risk
of the attacks described in [RFC6056].
Some schemes provide very good security in that ports numbers are
not easily guessed. Others provide poor security to subscribers.
A CGN implementation's choice of port allocation scheme optimizes to
satisfy one requirement at the expense of another. Therefore, these
are soft requirements (SHOULD as opposed to MUST).
6. Deployment Considerations
Several issues are encountered when CGNs are used [RFC6269]. There
is current work in the IETF toward alleviating some of these issues.
For example, see [NAT-REVEAL].
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RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
7. Security Considerations
If a malicious subscriber can spoof another subscriber's CPE, it may
cause a DoS to that subscriber by creating mappings up to the allowed
limit. An ISP can prevent this with ingress filtering, as described
in [RFC2827].
This document recommends endpoint-independent filtering (EIF) as the
default filtering behavior for CGNs. EIF has security considerations
that are discussed in [RFC4787].
NATs sometimes perform fragment reassembly. CGNs would do so at
presumably high data rates. Therefore, the reader should be familiar
with the potential security issues described in [RFC4963].
8. Acknowledgements
Thanks for the input and review by Alexey Melnikov, Arifumi
Matsumoto, Barry Leiba, Benson Schliesser, Dai Kuwabara, Dan Wing,
Dave Thaler, David Harrington, Francis Dupont, Jean-Francois
Tremblay, Joe Touch, Lars Eggert, Kousuke Shishikura, Mohamed
Boucadair, Martin Stiemerling, Meng Wei, Nejc Skoberne, Pete Resnick,
Reinaldo Penno, Ron Bonica, Sam Hartman, Sean Turner, Senthil
Sivakumar, Stephen Farrell, Stewart Bryant, Takanori Mizuguchi,
Takeshi Tomochika, Tina Tsou, Tomohiro Fujisaki, Tomohiro Nishitani,
Tomoya Yoshida, Wes George, Wesley Eddy, and Yasuhiro Shirasaki.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC4008] Rohit, R., Srisuresh, P., Raghunarayan, R., Pai, N., and
C. Wang, "Definitions of Managed Objects for Network
Address Translators (NAT)", RFC 4008, March 2005.
[RFC4787] Audet, F. and C. Jennings, "Network Address Translation
(NAT) Behavioral Requirements for Unicast UDP", BCP 127,
RFC 4787, January 2007.
[RFC5382] Guha, S., Biswas, K., Ford, B., Sivakumar, S., and P.
Srisuresh, "NAT Behavioral Requirements for TCP", BCP 142,
RFC 5382, October 2008.
Perreault, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 12]
RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
[RFC5508] Srisuresh, P., Ford, B., Sivakumar, S., and S. Guha, "NAT
Behavioral Requirements for ICMP", BCP 148, RFC 5508,
April 2009.
[RFC5597] Denis-Courmont, R., "Network Address Translation (NAT)
Behavioral Requirements for the Datagram Congestion
Control Protocol", BCP 150, RFC 5597, September 2009.
[RFC6887] Wing, D., Ed., Cheshire, S., Boucadair, M., Penno, R., and
P. Selkirk, "Port Control Protocol (PCP)", RFC 6887,
April 2013.
9.2. Informative Reference
[RFC0793] Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7, RFC
793, September 1981.
[RFC1122] Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts -
Communication Layers", STD 3, RFC 1122, October 1989.
[RFC2663] Srisuresh, P. and M. Holdrege, "IP Network Address
Translator (NAT) Terminology and Considerations", RFC
2663, August 1999.
[RFC2827] Ferguson, P. and D. Senie, "Network Ingress Filtering:
Defeating Denial of Service Attacks which employ IP Source
Address Spoofing", BCP 38, RFC 2827, May 2000.
[RFC4963] Heffner, J., Mathis, M., and B. Chandler, "IPv4 Reassembly
Errors at High Data Rates", RFC 4963, July 2007.
[RFC5461] Gont, F., "TCP's Reaction to Soft Errors", RFC 5461,
February 2009.
[RFC6056] Larsen, M. and F. Gont, "Recommendations for Transport-
Protocol Port Randomization", BCP 156, RFC 6056, January
2011.
[RFC6146] Bagnulo, M., Matthews, P., and I. van Beijnum, "Stateful
NAT64: Network Address and Protocol Translation from IPv6
Clients to IPv4 Servers", RFC 6146, April 2011.
[RFC6264] Jiang, S., Guo, D., and B. Carpenter, "An Incremental
Carrier-Grade NAT (CGN) for IPv6 Transition", RFC 6264,
June 2011.
Perreault, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 13]
RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
[RFC6269] Ford, M., Boucadair, M., Durand, A., Levis, P., and P.
Roberts, "Issues with IP Address Sharing", RFC 6269, June
2011.
[RFC6302] Durand, A., Gashinsky, I., Lee, D., and S. Sheppard,
"Logging Recommendations for Internet-Facing Servers", BCP
162, RFC 6302, June 2011.
[RFC6333] Durand, A., Droms, R., Woodyatt, J., and Y. Lee, "Dual-
Stack Lite Broadband Deployments Following IPv4
Exhaustion", RFC 6333, August 2011.
[NAT-MIB] Perreault, S., Tsou, T., and S. Sivakumar, "Additional
Managed Objects for Network Address Translators (NAT)",
Work in Progress, February 2013.
[NAT-REVEAL]
Boucadair, M., Touch, J., Levis, P., and R. Penno,
"Analysis of Solution Candidates to Reveal a Host
Identifier (HOST_ID) in Shared Address Deployments", Work
in Progress, April 2013.
[NAT444] Donley, C., Ed., Howard, L., Kuarsingh, V., Berg, J., and
J. Doshi, "Assessing the Impact of Carrier-Grade NAT on
Network Applications", Work in Progress, April 2013.
[BITTORRENT]
Boucadair, M., Zheng, T., Deng, X., and J. Queiroz,
"Behavior of BitTorrent service in PCP-enabled networks
with Address Sharing", Work in Progress, May 2012.
Authors' Addresses
Simon Perreault (editor)
Viagenie
246 Aberdeen
Quebec, QC G1R 2E1
Canada
Phone: +1 418 656 9254
EMail: simon.perreault@viagenie.ca
URI: http://www.viagenie.ca
Perreault, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 14]
RFC 6888 CGN Requirements April 2013
Ikuhei Yamagata
NTT Communications Corporation
Gran Park Tower 17F, 3-4-1 Shibaura, Minato-ku
Tokyo 108-8118
Japan
Phone: +81 50 3812 4704
EMail: ikuhei@nttv6.jp
Shin Miyakawa
NTT Communications Corporation
Gran Park Tower 17F, 3-4-1 Shibaura, Minato-ku
Tokyo 108-8118
Japan
Phone: +81 50 3812 4695
EMail: miyakawa@nttv6.jp
Akira Nakagawa
Japan Internet Exchange Co., Ltd. (JPIX)
Otemachi Building 21F, 1-8-1 Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 100-0004
Japan
Phone: +81 90 9242 2717
EMail: a-nakagawa@jpix.ad.jp
Hiroyuki Ashida
Cisco Systems
Midtown Tower, 9-7-1, Akasaka
Minato-Ku, Tokyo 107-6227
Japan
EMail: hiashida@cisco.com
Perreault, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 15]
=========================================================================
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) R. Penno
Request for Comments: 7857 Cisco
BCP: 127 S. Perreault
Updates: 4787, 5382, 5508 Jive Communications
Category: Best Current Practice M. Boucadair, Ed.
ISSN: 2070-1721 Orange
S. Sivakumar
Cisco
K. Naito
NTT
April 2016
Updates to Network Address Translation (NAT) Behavioral Requirements
Abstract
This document clarifies and updates several requirements of RFCs
4787, 5382, and 5508 based on operational and development experience.
The focus of this document is Network Address Translation from IPv4
to IPv4 (NAT44).
This document updates RFCs 4787, 5382, and 5508.
Status of This Memo
This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
BCPs is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7857.
Penno, et al. Best Current Practice [Page 1]
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Copyright Notice
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. TCP Session Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. TCP Transitory Connection Idle-Timeout . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2. TCP RST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Port Overlapping Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. Address Pooling Paired (APP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Endpoint-Independent Mapping (EIM) Protocol Independence . . 8
6. Endpoint-Independent Filtering (EIF) Protocol Independence . 8
7. Endpoint-Independent Filtering (EIF) Mapping Refresh . . . . 8
7.1. Outbound Mapping Refresh and Error Packets . . . . . . . 9
8. Port Parity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
9. Port Randomization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
10. IP Identification (IP ID) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
11. ICMP Query Mappings Timeout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
12. Hairpinning Support for ICMP Packets . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
13. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
14. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
14.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
14.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1. Introduction
[RFC4787], [RFC5382], and [RFC5508] contributed to enhance Network
Address Translation (NAT) interoperability and conformance.
Operational experience gained through widespread deployment and
evolution of NAT indicates that some areas of the original documents
need further clarification or updates. This document provides such
clarifications and updates.
1.1. Scope
The goal of this document is to clarify and update the set of
requirements listed in [RFC4787], [RFC5382], and [RFC5508]. The
document focuses exclusively on NAT44.
The scope of this document has been set so that it does not create
new requirements beyond those specified in the documents cited above.
Requirements related to Carrier-Grade NAT (CGN) are defined in
[RFC6888].
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1.2. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
The reader is assumed to be familiar with the terminology defined in
[RFC2663], [RFC4787], [RFC5382], and [RFC5508].
In this document, the term "NAT" refers to both "Basic NAT" and
"Network Address/Port Translator (NAPT)" (see Section 3 of
[RFC4787]). As a reminder, Basic NAT and NAPT are two variations of
traditional NAT in that translation in Basic NAT is limited to IP
addresses alone, whereas translation in NAPT is extended to include
IP addresses and transport identifiers (such as a TCP/UDP port or
ICMP query ID); refer to Section 2 of [RFC3022].
2. TCP Session Tracking
[RFC5382] specifies TCP timers associated with various connection
states but does not specify the TCP state machine a NAT44 should
follow as a basis to apply such timers.
Update: The TCP state machine depicted in Figure 1, adapted from
[RFC6146], SHOULD be implemented by a NAT for TCP session tracking
purposes.
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+----------------------------+
| |
V |
+------+ Client |
|CLOSED|-----SYN------+ |
+------+ | |
^ | |
|TCP_TRANS T.O. | |
| V |
+-------+ +-------+ |
| TRANS | | INIT | |
+-------+ +-------+ |
| ^ | |
data pkt | | |
| Server/Client RST | |
| TCP_EST T.O. | |
V | Server SYN |
+--------------+ | |
| ESTABLISHED |<---------+ |
+--------------+ |
| | |
Client FIN Server FIN |
| | |
V V |
+---------+ +----------+ |
| C FIN | | S FIN | |
| RCV | | RCV | |
+---------+ +----------+ |
| | |
Server FIN Client FIN TCP_TRANS
| | T.O.
V V |
+----------------------+ |
| C FIN + S FIN RCV |-----------------+
+----------------------+
Legend:
* Messages sent or received from the server are
prefixed with "Server".
* Messages sent or received from the client are
prefixed with "Client".
* "C" means "Client-side".
* "S" means "Server-side".
* TCP_EST T.O. refers to the established connection
idle-timeout as defined in [RFC5382].
* TCP_TRANS T.O. refers to the transitory connection
idle-timeout as defined in [RFC5382].
Figure 1: Simplified Version of the TCP State Machine
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2.1. TCP Transitory Connection Idle-Timeout
The transitory connection idle-timeout is defined as the minimum time
a TCP connection in the partially open or closing phases must remain
idle before the NAT considers the associated session a candidate for
removal (REQ-5 of [RFC5382]). However, [RFC5382] does not clearly
state whether these can be configured separately.
Clarification: This document clarifies that a NAT SHOULD provide
different configurable parameters for configuring the open and
closing idle timeouts.
To accommodate deployments that consider a partially open timeout
of 4 minutes as being excessive from a security standpoint, a NAT
MAY allow the configured timeout to be less than 4 minutes.
However, a minimum default transitory connection idle-timeout of 4
minutes is RECOMMENDED.
2.2. TCP RST
[RFC5382] leaves the handling of TCP RST packets unspecified.
Update: This document adopts a similar default behavior as in
[RFC6146]. Concretely, when the NAT receives a TCP RST matching
an existing mapping, it MUST translate the packet according to the
NAT mapping entry. Moreover, the NAT SHOULD wait for 4 minutes
before deleting the session and removing any state associated with
it if no packets are received during that 4-minute timeout.
Notes:
* Admittedly, the NAT has to verify whether received TCP RST
packets belong to a connection. This verification check is
required to avoid off-path attacks.
* If the NAT immediately removes the NAT mapping upon receipt of
a TCP RST message, stale connections may be maintained by
endpoints if the first RST message is lost between the NAT and
the recipient.
3. Port Overlapping Behavior
REQ-1 from [RFC4787] and REQ-1 from [RFC5382] specify a specific port
overlapping behavior; that is, the external IP address and port can
be reused for connections originating from the same internal source
IP address and port irrespective of the destination. This is known
as Endpoint-Independent Mapping (EIM).
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Update: This document clarifies that this port overlapping behavior
may be extended to connections originating from different internal
source IP addresses and ports as long as their destinations are
different.
The following mechanism MAY be implemented by a NAT:
If destination addresses and ports are different for outgoing
connections started by local clients, a NAT MAY assign the same
external port as the source ports for the connections. The
port overlapping mechanism manages mappings between external
packets and internal packets by looking at and storing their
5-tuple (protocol, source address, source port, destination
address, and destination port).
This enables concurrent use of a single NAT external port for
multiple transport sessions, which allows a NAT to successfully
process packets in a network that has a limited number of IP
addresses (e.g., deployment with a high address space
multiplicative factor (refer to Appendix B of [RFC6269])).
4. Address Pooling Paired (APP)
The "IP address pooling" behavior of "Paired" (APP) was recommended
in REQ-2 from [RFC4787], but the behavior when an external IPv4 runs
out of ports was left undefined.
Clarification: This document clarifies that if APP is enabled, new
sessions from a host that already has a mapping associated with an
external IP that ran out of ports SHOULD be dropped. A
configuration parameter MAY be provided to allow a NAT to start
using ports from another external IP address when the one that
anchored the APP mapping ran out of ports. Tweaking this
configuration parameter is a trade-off between service continuity
and APP strict enforcement. Note, this behavior is sometimes
referred to as "soft-APP".
As a reminder, the recommendation for the particular case of a CGN
is that an implementation must use the same external IP address
mapping for all sessions associated with the same internal IP
address, be they TCP, UDP, ICMP, something else, or a mix of
different protocols [RFC6888].
Update: This behavior SHOULD apply also for TCP.
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5. Endpoint-Independent Mapping (EIM) Protocol Independence
REQ-1 from [RFC4787] and REQ-1 from [RFC5382] do not specify whether
EIM are protocol dependent or protocol independent. For example, if
an outbound TCP SYN creates a mapping, it is left undefined whether
outbound UDP packets can reuse such mapping.
Update: EIM mappings SHOULD be protocol dependent. A configuration
parameter MAY be provided to allow protocols that multiplex TCP
and UDP over the same source IP address and port number to use a
single mapping. The default value of this configuration parameter
MUST be protocol-dependent EIM.
This update is consistent with the stateful Network Address and
Protocol Translation from IPv6 Clients to IPv4 Servers (NAT64)
[RFC6146] that clearly specifies three binding information bases
(TCP, UDP, and ICMP).
6. Endpoint-Independent Filtering (EIF) Protocol Independence
REQ-8 from [RFC4787] and REQ-3 from [RFC5382] do not specify whether
mappings with Endpoint-Independent Filtering (EIF) are protocol
independent or protocol dependent. For example, if an outbound TCP
SYN creates a mapping, it is left undefined whether inbound UDP
packets matching that mapping should be accepted or rejected.
Update: EIF filtering SHOULD be protocol dependent. A configuration
parameter MAY be provided to make it protocol independent. The
default value of this configuration parameter MUST be protocol-
dependent EIF.
This behavior is aligned with the update in Section 5.
Applications that can be transported over a variety of transport
protocols and/or support transport fallback schemes won't
experience connectivity failures if the NAT is configured with
protocol-independent EIM and protocol-independent EIF.
7. Endpoint-Independent Filtering (EIF) Mapping Refresh
The NAT mapping Refresh direction may have a "NAT Inbound refresh
behavior" of "True" according to REQ-6 from [RFC4787], but [RFC4787]
does not clarify how this behavior applies to EIF mappings. The
issue in question is whether inbound packets that match an EIF
mapping but do not create a new session due to a security policy
should refresh the mapping timer.
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Clarification: This document clarifies that even when a NAT has an
inbound refresh behavior set to "TRUE", such packets SHOULD NOT
refresh the mapping. Otherwise, a simple attack of a packet every
two minutes can keep the mapping indefinitely.
Update: This behavior SHOULD apply also for TCP.
7.1. Outbound Mapping Refresh and Error Packets
Update: In the case of NAT outbound refresh behavior, ICMP Errors or
TCP RST outbound packets sent as a response to inbound packets
SHOULD NOT refresh the mapping. Other packets that indicate the
host is not interested in receiving packets MAY be configurable to
also not refresh state, such as a Session Traversal Utilities for
NAT (STUN) error response [RFC5389] or IKE INVALID_SYNTAX
[RFC7296].
8. Port Parity
Update: A NAT MAY disable port parity preservation for all dynamic
mappings. Nevertheless, A NAT SHOULD support means to explicitly
request to preserve port parity (e.g., [RFC7753]).
Note: According to [RFC6887], dynamic mappings are said to be
dynamic in the sense that they are created on demand, either
implicitly or explicitly:
1. Implicit dynamic mappings refer to mappings that are created
as a side effect of traffic such as an outgoing TCP SYN or
outgoing UDP packet. Implicit dynamic mappings usually have a
finite lifetime, though this lifetime is generally not known
to the client using them.
2. Explicit dynamic mappings refer to mappings that are created
as a result, for example, of explicit Port Control Protocol
(PCP) MAP and PEER requests. Explicit dynamic mappings have a
finite lifetime, and this lifetime is communicated to the
client.
9. Port Randomization
Update: A NAT SHOULD follow the recommendations specified in
Section 4 of [RFC6056], especially:
A NAPT that does not implement port preservation [RFC4787]
[RFC5382] SHOULD obfuscate selection of the ephemeral port of a
packet when it is changed during translation of that packet.
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A NAPT that does implement port preservation SHOULD obfuscate
the ephemeral port of a packet only if the port must be changed
as a result of the port being already in use for some other
session.
A NAPT that performs parity preservation and that must change
the ephemeral port during translation of a packet SHOULD
obfuscate the ephemeral ports. The algorithms described in
this document could be easily adapted such that the parity is
preserved (i.e., force the lowest order bit of the resulting
port number to 0 or 1 according to whether even or odd parity
is desired).
10. IP Identification (IP ID)
Update: A NAT SHOULD handle the Identification field of translated
IPv4 packets as specified in Section 5.3.1 of [RFC6864].
11. ICMP Query Mappings Timeout
Section 3.1 of [RFC5508] specifies that ICMP Query mappings are to be
maintained by a NAT. However, the specification doesn't discuss
Query mapping timeout values. Section 3.2 of [RFC5508] only
discusses ICMP Query session timeouts.
Update: ICMP Query mappings MAY be deleted once the last session
using the mapping is deleted.
12. Hairpinning Support for ICMP Packets
REQ-7 from [RFC5508] specifies that a NAT enforcing Basic NAT must
support traversal of hairpinned ICMP Query sessions.
Clarification: This implicitly means that address mappings from
external address to internal address (similar to Endpoint-
Independent Filters) must be maintained to allow inbound ICMP
Query sessions. If an ICMP Query is received on an external
address, a NAT can then translate to an internal IP.
REQ-7 from [RFC5508] specifies that all NATs must support the
traversal of hairpinned ICMP Error messages.
Clarification: This behavior requires a NAT to maintain address
mappings from external IP address to internal IP address in
addition to the ICMP Query mappings described in Section 3.1 of
[RFC5508].
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13. Security Considerations
NAT behavioral considerations are discussed in [RFC4787], [RFC5382],
and [RFC5508].
Because some of the clarifications and updates (e.g., Section 2) are
inspired from NAT64, the security considerations discussed in
Section 5 of [RFC6146] apply also for this specification.
The update in Section 3 allows for an optimized NAT resource usage.
In order to avoid service disruption, the NAT must not invoke this
functionality unless the packets are to be sent to distinct
destination addresses.
Some of the updates (e.g., Sections 7, 9, and 11) allow for increased
security compared to [RFC4787], [RFC5382], and [RFC5508].
Particularly,
o the updates in Sections 7 and 11 prevent an illegitimate node to
maintain mappings activated in the NAT while these mappings should
be cleared, and
o port randomization (Section 9) complicates tracking hosts located
behind a NAT.
Sections 4 and 12 propose updates that increase the serviceability of
a host located behind a NAT. These updates do not introduce any
additional security concerns to [RFC4787], [RFC5382], and [RFC5508].
The updates in Sections 5 and 6 allow for a better NAT transparency
from an application standpoint. Hosts that require a restricted
filtering behavior should enable specific policies (e.g., Access
Control List (ACL)) either locally or by soliciting a dedicated
security device (e.g., firewall). How a host updates its filtering
policies is out of scope of this document.
The update in Section 8 induces security concerns that are specific
to the protocol used to interact with the NAT. For example, if PCP
is used to explicitly request parity preservation for a given
mapping, the security considerations discussed in [RFC6887] should be
taken into account.
The update in Section 10 may have undesired effects on the
performance of the NAT in environments in which fragmentation is
massively experienced. Such an issue may be used as an attack vector
against NATs.
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14. References
14.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC4787] Audet, F., Ed. and C. Jennings, "Network Address
Translation (NAT) Behavioral Requirements for Unicast
UDP", BCP 127, RFC 4787, DOI 10.17487/RFC4787, January
2007, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4787>.
[RFC5382] Guha, S., Ed., Biswas, K., Ford, B., Sivakumar, S., and P.
Srisuresh, "NAT Behavioral Requirements for TCP", BCP 142,
RFC 5382, DOI 10.17487/RFC5382, October 2008,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5382>.
[RFC5508] Srisuresh, P., Ford, B., Sivakumar, S., and S. Guha, "NAT
Behavioral Requirements for ICMP", BCP 148, RFC 5508,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5508, April 2009,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5508>.
[RFC6056] Larsen, M. and F. Gont, "Recommendations for Transport-
Protocol Port Randomization", BCP 156, RFC 6056,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6056, January 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6056>.
[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, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6146>.
[RFC6864] Touch, J., "Updated Specification of the IPv4 ID Field",
RFC 6864, DOI 10.17487/RFC6864, February 2013,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6864>.
14.2. Informative References
[RFC2663] Srisuresh, P. and M. Holdrege, "IP Network Address
Translator (NAT) Terminology and Considerations",
RFC 2663, DOI 10.17487/RFC2663, August 1999,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2663>.
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[RFC3022] Srisuresh, P. and K. Egevang, "Traditional IP Network
Address Translator (Traditional NAT)", RFC 3022,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3022, January 2001,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3022>.
[RFC5389] Rosenberg, J., Mahy, R., Matthews, P., and D. Wing,
"Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN)", RFC 5389,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5389, October 2008,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5389>.
[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,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6269>.
[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,
<http://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, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6888>.
[RFC7296] Kaufman, C., Hoffman, P., Nir, Y., Eronen, P., and T.
Kivinen, "Internet Key Exchange Protocol Version 2
(IKEv2)", STD 79, RFC 7296, DOI 10.17487/RFC7296, October
2014, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7296>.
[RFC7753] Sun, Q., Boucadair, M., Sivakumar, S., Zhou, C., Tsou, T.,
and S. Perreault, "Port Control Protocol (PCP) Extension
for Port-Set Allocation", RFC 7753, DOI 10.17487/RFC7753,
February 2016, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7753>.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Dan Wing, Suresh Kumar, Mayuresh Bakshi, Rajesh Mohan, Lars
Eggert, Gorry Fairhurst, Brandon Williams, and David Black for their
review and discussion.
Many thanks to Ben Laurie for the SecDir review and Dan Romascanu for
the Gen-ART review.
Dan Wing proposed some text for the configurable errors in
Section 7.1.
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Contributors
The following individual contributed text to the document:
Sarat Kamiset
Insieme Networks
United States
Authors' Addresses
Reinaldo Penno
Cisco Systems, Inc.
170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose, California 95134
United States
Email: repenno@cisco.com
Simon Perreault
Jive Communications
Canada
Email: sperreault@jive.com
Mohamed Boucadair (editor)
Orange
Rennes 35000
France
Email: mohamed.boucadair@orange.com
Senthil Sivakumar
Cisco Systems, Inc.
United States
Email: ssenthil@cisco.com
Kengo Naito
NTT
Tokyo
Japan
Email: k.naito@nttv6.jp
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