[ Docs] [txt|pdf] [draft-ietf-ipng...

] [Tracker] [Diff1] [Diff2]

[Errata]

Updated by: 4884 INTERNET STANDARD

Errata Exist

Network Working Group A. Conta

Request for Comments: 4443 Transwitch
Obsoletes: 2463 S. Deering
Updates: 2780 Cisco Systems
Category: Standards Track M. Gupta, Ed.
Tropos Networks
March 2006

Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMPv6)

for the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Specification

Status of This Memo

This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the

Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).

Abstract

This document describes the format of a set of control messages used

in ICMPv6 (Internet Control Message Protocol). ICMPv6 is the
Internet Control Message Protocol for Internet Protocol version 6
(IPv6).
Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 1]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) ..........................................3
2.1. Message General Format .....................................3
2.2. Message Source Address Determination .......................5
2.3. Message Checksum Calculation ...............................5
2.4. Message Processing Rules ...................................5
3. ICMPv6 Error Messages ...........................................8
3.1. Destination Unreachable Message ............................8
3.2. Packet Too Big Message ....................................10
3.3. Time Exceeded Message .....................................11
3.4. Parameter Problem Message .................................12
4. ICMPv6 Informational Messages ..................................13
4.1. Echo Request Message ......................................13
4.2. Echo Reply Message ........................................14
5. Security Considerations ........................................15
5.1. Authentication and Confidentiality of ICMP Messages .......15
5.2. ICMP Attacks ..............................................16
6. IANA Considerations ............................................17
6.1. Procedure for New ICMPV6 Type and Code Value Assignments ..17
6.2. Assignments for This Document .............................18
7. References .....................................................19
7.1. Normative References ......................................19
7.2. Informative References ....................................19
8. Acknowledgements ...............................................20
Appendix A - Changes since RFC 2463................................21

1. Introduction

The Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) uses the Internet Control

Message Protocol (ICMP) as defined for IPv4 [RFC-792], with a number
of changes. The resulting protocol is called ICMPv6 and has an IPv6
Next Header value of 58.

This document describes the format of a set of control messages used

in ICMPv6. It does not describe the procedures for using these
messages to achieve functions like Path MTU discovery; these
procedures are described in other documents (e.g., [PMTU]). Other
documents may also introduce additional ICMPv6 message types, such as
Neighbor Discovery messages [IPv6-DISC], subject to the general rules
 for ICMPv6 messages given in Section 2 of this document.

Terminology defined in the IPv6 specification [IPv6] and the IPv6

Routing and Addressing specification [IPv6-ADDR] applies to this
document as well.

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 2]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

This document obsoletes RFC 2463 [RFC-2463] and updates RFC 2780
[RFC-2780].

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 [RFC-2119].

2. ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6)

ICMPv6 is used by IPv6 nodes to report errors encountered in

processing packets, and to perform other internet-layer functions,
such as diagnostics (ICMPv6 "ping"). ICMPv6 is an integral part of
IPv6, and the base protocol (all the messages and behavior required
by this specification) MUST be fully implemented by every IPv6 node.

2.1. Message General Format

Every ICMPv6 message is preceded by an IPv6 header and zero or more

IPv6 extension headers. The ICMPv6 header is identified by a Next
Header value of 58 in the immediately preceding header. (This is
different from the value used to identify ICMP for IPv4.)

The ICMPv6 messages have the following general format:

0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
+ Message Body +
| |

The type field indicates the type of the message. Its value
determines the format of the remaining data.

The code field depends on the message type. It is used to create an

additional level of message granularity.
 The checksum field is used to detect data corruption in the ICMPv6
message and parts of the IPv6 header.

ICMPv6 messages are grouped into two classes: error messages and
informational messages. Error messages are identified as such by a
zero in the high-order bit of their message Type field values. Thus,
error messages have message types from 0 to 127; informational
messages have message types from 128 to 255.

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 3]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

This document defines the message formats for the following ICMPv6
messages:

ICMPv6 error messages:

1 Destination Unreachable (see Section 3.1)

2 Packet Too Big (see Section 3.2)
3 Time Exceeded (see Section 3.3)
4 Parameter Problem (see Section 3.4)

100 Private experimentation

101 Private experimentation

127 Reserved for expansion of ICMPv6 error messages

ICMPv6 informational messages:

128 Echo Request (see Section 4.1)

129 Echo Reply (see Section 4.2)

200 Private experimentation

201 Private experimentation

255 Reserved for expansion of ICMPv6 informational messages

Type values 100, 101, 200, and 201 are reserved for private
experimentation. They are not intended for general use. It is
expected that multiple concurrent experiments will be done with the
same type values. Any wide-scale and/or uncontrolled usage should
obtain real allocations as defined in Section 6.

Type values 127 and 255 are reserved for future expansion of the type
value range if there is a shortage in the future. The details of
this are left for future work. One possible way of doing this that
would not cause any problems with current implementations is that if
the type equals 127 or 255, the code field should be used for the new
assignment. Existing implementations would ignore the new
assignments as specified in Section 2.4, (b). The new messages using
these expanded type values could assign fields in the message body
for its code values.

Sections 3 and 4 describe the message formats for the ICMPv6 error
message types 1 through 4 and informational message types 128 and
 129.

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 4]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

Inclusion of, at least, the start of the invoking packet is intended

to allow the originator of a packet that has resulted in an ICMPv6
error message to identify the upper-layer protocol and process that
sent the packet.

2.2. Message Source Address Determination

A node that originates an ICMPv6 message has to determine both the

Source and Destination IPv6 Addresses in the IPv6 header before
calculating the checksum. If the node has more than one unicast
address, it MUST choose the Source Address of the message as follows:

(a) If the message is a response to a message sent to one of the

node's unicast addresses, the Source Address of the reply MUST be
that same address.

(b) If the message is a response to a message sent to any other

address, such as

- a multicast group address,

- an anycast address implemented by the node, or
- a unicast address that does not belong to the node

the Source Address of the ICMPv6 packet MUST be a unicast address

belonging to the node. The address SHOULD be chosen according to
the rules that would be used to select the source address for any
other packet originated by the node, given the destination address
of the packet. However, it MAY be selected in an alternative way
if this would lead to a more informative choice of address
reachable from the destination of the ICMPv6 packet.

2.3. Message Checksum Calculation

The checksum is the 16-bit one's complement of the one's complement

sum of the entire ICMPv6 message, starting with the ICMPv6 message
type field, and prepended with a "pseudo-header" of IPv6 header
fields, as specified in [IPv6, Section 8.1]. The Next Header value
used in the pseudo-header is 58. (The inclusion of a pseudo-header
in the ICMPv6 checksum is a change from IPv4; see [IPv6] for the
rationale for this change.)
 For computing the checksum, the checksum field is first set to zero.

2.4. Message Processing Rules

Implementations MUST observe the following rules when processing

ICMPv6 messages (from [RFC-1122]):

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 5]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

(a) If an ICMPv6 error message of unknown type is received at its

destination, it MUST be passed to the upper-layer process that
originated the packet that caused the error, where this can be
identified (see Section 2.4, (d)).

(b) If an ICMPv6 informational message of unknown type is received,

it MUST be silently discarded.

(c) Every ICMPv6 error message (type < 128) MUST include as much of
the IPv6 offending (invoking) packet (the packet that caused the
error) as possible without making the error message packet exceed
the minimum IPv6 MTU [IPv6].

(d) In cases where the internet-layer protocol is required to pass an

ICMPv6 error message to the upper-layer process, the upper-layer
protocol type is extracted from the original packet (contained in
the body of the ICMPv6 error message) and used to select the
appropriate upper-layer process to handle the error.

In cases where it is not possible to retrieve the upper-layer

protocol type from the ICMPv6 message, the ICMPv6 message is
silently dropped after any IPv6-layer processing. One example of
such a case is an ICMPv6 message with an unusually large amount
of extension headers that does not have the upper-layer protocol
type due to truncation of the original packet to meet the minimum
IPv6 MTU [IPv6] limit. Another example is an ICMPv6 message with
an ESP extension header for which it is not possible to decrypt
the original packet due to either truncation or the
unavailability of the state necessary to decrypt the packet.

(e) An ICMPv6 error message MUST NOT be originated as a result of

receiving the following:

(e.1) An ICMPv6 error message.

(e.2) An ICMPv6 redirect message [IPv6-DISC].

(e.3) A packet destined to an IPv6 multicast address. (There are

two exceptions to this rule: (1) the Packet Too Big Message
(Section 3.2) to allow Path MTU discovery to work for IPv6
 multicast, and (2) the Parameter Problem Message, Code 2
(Section 3.4) reporting an unrecognized IPv6 option (see
Section 4.2 of [IPv6]) that has the Option Type highest-
order two bits set to 10).

(e.4) A packet sent as a link-layer multicast (the exceptions

from e.3 apply to this case, too).

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 6]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

(e.5) A packet sent as a link-layer broadcast (the exceptions

from e.3 apply to this case, too).

(e.6) A packet whose source address does not uniquely identify a

single node -- e.g., the IPv6 Unspecified Address, an IPv6
multicast address, or an address known by the ICMP message
originator to be an IPv6 anycast address.

(f) Finally, in order to limit the bandwidth and forwarding costs

incurred by originating ICMPv6 error messages, an IPv6 node MUST
limit the rate of ICMPv6 error messages it originates. This
situation may occur when a source sending a stream of erroneous
packets fails to heed the resulting ICMPv6 error messages.

Rate-limiting of forwarded ICMP messages is out of scope of this

specification.

A recommended method for implementing the rate-limiting function

is a token bucket, limiting the average rate of transmission to
N, where N can be either packets/second or a fraction of the
attached link's bandwidth, but allowing up to B error messages to
be transmitted in a burst, as long as the long-term average is
not exceeded.

Rate-limiting mechanisms that cannot cope with bursty traffic

(e.g., traceroute) are not recommended; for example, a simple
timer-based implementation, allowing an error message every T
milliseconds (even with low values for T), is not reasonable.

The rate-limiting parameters SHOULD be configurable. In the case

of a token-bucket implementation, the best defaults depend on
where the implementation is expected to be deployed (e.g., a
high-end router vs. an embedded host). For example, in a
small/mid-size device, the possible defaults could be B=10,
N=10/s.

NOTE: THE RESTRICTIONS UNDER (e) AND (f) ABOVE TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER
ANY REQUIREMENT ELSEWHERE IN THIS DOCUMENT FOR ORIGINATING ICMP ERROR
MESSAGES.

The following sections describe the message formats for the above
ICMPv6 messages.
Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 7]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

3. ICMPv6 Error Messages

3.1. Destination Unreachable Message

0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Unused |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| As much of invoking packet |
+ as possible without the ICMPv6 packet +
| exceeding the minimum IPv6 MTU [IPv6] |

IPv6 Fields:

Destination Address

Copied from the Source Address field of the invoking

packet.

ICMPv6 Fields:

Type 1

Code 0 - No route to destination

1 - Communication with destination
administratively prohibited
2 - Beyond scope of source address
3 - Address unreachable
4 - Port unreachable
5 - Source address failed ingress/egress policy
6 - Reject route to destination

Unused This field is unused for all code values.

It must be initialized to zero by the originator
and ignored by the receiver.
Description

A Destination Unreachable message SHOULD be generated by a router, or

 by the IPv6 layer in the originating node, in response to a packet
that cannot be delivered to its destination address for reasons other
than congestion. (An ICMPv6 message MUST NOT be generated if a
packet is dropped due to congestion.)

If the reason for the failure to deliver is lack of a matching entry

in the forwarding node's routing table, the Code field is set to 0.

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 8]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

(This error can occur only in nodes that do not hold a "default
route" in their routing tables.)

If the reason for the failure to deliver is administrative

prohibition (e.g., a "firewall filter"), the Code field is set to 1.

If the reason for the failure to deliver is that the destination is

beyond the scope of the source address, the Code field is set to 2.
This condition can occur only when the scope of the source address is
smaller than the scope of the destination address (e.g., when a
packet has a link-local source address and a global-scope destination
address) and the packet cannot be delivered to the destination
without leaving the scope of the source address.

If the reason for the failure to deliver cannot be mapped to any of

other codes, the Code field is set to 3. Example of such cases are
an inability to resolve the IPv6 destination address into a
corresponding link address, or a link-specific problem of some sort.

One specific case in which a Destination Unreachable message is sent

with a code 3 is in response to a packet received by a router from a
point-to-point link, destined to an address within a subnet assigned
to that same link (other than one of the receiving router's own
addresses). In such a case, the packet MUST NOT be forwarded back
onto the arrival link.

A destination node SHOULD originate a Destination Unreachable message

with Code 4 in response to a packet for which the transport protocol
(e.g., UDP) has no listener, if that transport protocol has no
alternative means to inform the sender.

If the reason for the failure to deliver is that the packet with this
source address is not allowed due to ingress or egress filtering
policies, the Code field is set to 5.

If the reason for the failure to deliver is that the route to the
destination is a reject route, the Code field is set to 6. This may
occur if the router has been configured to reject all the traffic for
a specific prefix.

Codes 5 and 6 are more informative subsets of code 1.

For security reasons, it is recommended that implementations SHOULD

allow sending of ICMP destination unreachable messages to be
disabled, preferably on a per-interface basis.
Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 9]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

Upper Layer Notification

A node receiving the ICMPv6 Destination Unreachable message MUST

notify the upper-layer process if the relevant process can be
identified (see Section 2.4, (d)).

3.2. Packet Too Big Message

0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| MTU |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| As much of invoking packet |
+ as possible without the ICMPv6 packet +
| exceeding the minimum IPv6 MTU [IPv6] |

IPv6 Fields:

Destination Address

Copied from the Source Address field of the invoking

packet.

ICMPv6 Fields:

Type 2

Code Set to 0 (zero) by the originator and ignored by the

receiver.

MTU The Maximum Transmission Unit of the next-hop link.

Description

A Packet Too Big MUST be sent by a router in response to a packet

that it cannot forward because the packet is larger than the MTU of
the outgoing link. The information in this message is used as part
of the Path MTU Discovery process [PMTU].

Originating a Packet Too Big Message makes an exception to one of the

rules as to when to originate an ICMPv6 error message. Unlike other
messages, it is sent in response to a packet received with an IPv6
 multicast destination address, or with a link-layer multicast or
link-layer broadcast address.

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 10]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

Upper Layer Notification

An incoming Packet Too Big message MUST be passed to the upper-layer

process if the relevant process can be identified (see Section 2.4,
(d)).

3.3. Time Exceeded Message

0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Unused |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| As much of invoking packet |
+ as possible without the ICMPv6 packet +
| exceeding the minimum IPv6 MTU [IPv6] |

IPv6 Fields:

Destination Address
Copied from the Source Address field of the invoking
packet.

ICMPv6 Fields:

Type 3

Code 0 - Hop limit exceeded in transit

1 - Fragment reassembly time exceeded

Unused This field is unused for all code values.

It must be initialized to zero by the originator
and ignored by the receiver.

Description

If a router receives a packet with a Hop Limit of zero, or if a

router decrements a packet's Hop Limit to zero, it MUST discard the
packet and originate an ICMPv6 Time Exceeded message with Code 0 to
the source of the packet. This indicates either a routing loop or
too small an initial Hop Limit value.

An ICMPv6 Time Exceeded message with Code 1 is used to report

 fragment reassembly timeout, as specified in [IPv6, Section 4.5].

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 11]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

Upper Layer Notification

An incoming Time Exceeded message MUST be passed to the upper-layer

process if the relevant process can be identified (see Section 2.4,
(d)).

3.4. Parameter Problem Message

0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Pointer |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| As much of invoking packet |
+ as possible without the ICMPv6 packet +
| exceeding the minimum IPv6 MTU [IPv6] |

IPv6 Fields:

Destination Address

Copied from the Source Address field of the invoking

packet.

ICMPv6 Fields:

Type 4

Code 0 - Erroneous header field encountered

1 - Unrecognized Next Header type encountered
2 - Unrecognized IPv6 option encountered

Pointer Identifies the octet offset within the

invoking packet where the error was detected.

The pointer will point beyond the end of the ICMPv6

packet if the field in error is beyond what can fit
in the maximum size of an ICMPv6 error message.

Description

If an IPv6 node processing a packet finds a problem with a field in

the IPv6 header or extension headers such that it cannot complete
 processing the packet, it MUST discard the packet and SHOULD
originate an ICMPv6 Parameter Problem message to the packet's source,
indicating the type and location of the problem.

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 12]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

Codes 1 and 2 are more informative subsets of Code 0.

The pointer identifies the octet of the original packet's header

where the error was detected. For example, an ICMPv6 message with a
Type field of 4, Code field of 1, and Pointer field of 40 would
indicate that the IPv6 extension header following the IPv6 header of
the original packet holds an unrecognized Next Header field value.

Upper Layer Notification

A node receiving this ICMPv6 message MUST notify the upper-layer

process if the relevant process can be identified (see Section 2.4,
(d)).

4. ICMPv6 Informational Messages

4.1. Echo Request Message

0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Identifier | Sequence Number |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Data ...
+-+-+-+-+-

IPv6 Fields:

Destination Address

Any legal IPv6 address.

ICMPv6 Fields:

Type 128

Code 0

Identifier An identifier to aid in matching Echo Replies

to this Echo Request. May be zero.
Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 13]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

Sequence Number

A sequence number to aid in matching Echo Replies

to this Echo Request. May be zero.

Data Zero or more octets of arbitrary data.

Description

Every node MUST implement an ICMPv6 Echo responder function that

receives Echo Requests and originates corresponding Echo Replies. A
node SHOULD also implement an application-layer interface for
originating Echo Requests and receiving Echo Replies, for diagnostic
purposes.

Upper Layer Notification

Echo Request messages MAY be passed to processes receiving ICMP

messages.

4.2. Echo Reply Message

0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Code | Checksum |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Identifier | Sequence Number |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Data ...
+-+-+-+-+-

IPv6 Fields:

Destination Address

Copied from the Source Address field of the invoking

Echo Request packet.

ICMPv6 Fields:

Type 129
 Code 0

Identifier The identifier from the invoking Echo Request message.

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 14]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

Sequence Number

The sequence number from the invoking Echo Request

message.

Data The data from the invoking Echo Request message.

Description

Every node MUST implement an ICMPv6 Echo responder function that

receives Echo Requests and originates corresponding Echo Replies. A
node SHOULD also implement an application-layer interface for
originating Echo Requests and receiving Echo Replies, for diagnostic
purposes.

The source address of an Echo Reply sent in response to a unicast

Echo Request message MUST be the same as the destination address of
that Echo Request message.

An Echo Reply SHOULD be sent in response to an Echo Request message

sent to an IPv6 multicast or anycast address. In this case, the
source address of the reply MUST be a unicast address belonging to
the interface on which the Echo Request message was received.

The data received in the ICMPv6 Echo Request message MUST be returned
entirely and unmodified in the ICMPv6 Echo Reply message.

Upper Layer Notification

Echo Reply messages MUST be passed to the process that originated an

Echo Request message. An Echo Reply message MAY be passed to
processes that did not originate the Echo Request message.

Note that there is no limitation on the amount of data that can be

put in Echo Request and Echo Reply Messages.

5. Security Considerations

5.1. Authentication and Confidentiality of ICMP Messages

 ICMP protocol packet exchanges can be authenticated using the IP
Authentication Header [IPv6-AUTH] or IP Encapsulating Security
Payload Header [IPv6-ESP]. Confidentiality for the ICMP protocol
packet exchanges can be achieved using the IP Encapsulating Security
Payload Header [IPv6-ESP].

[SEC-ARCH] describes the IPsec handling of ICMP traffic in detail.

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 15]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

5.2. ICMP Attacks

ICMP messages may be subject to various attacks. A complete

discussion can be found in the IP Security Architecture [IPv6-SA]. A
brief discussion of these attacks and their prevention follows:

1. ICMP messages may be subject to actions intended to cause the

receiver to believe the message came from a different source from
that of the message originator. The protection against this
attack can be achieved by applying the IPv6 Authentication
mechanism [IPv6-AUTH] to the ICMP message.

2. ICMP messages may be subject to actions intended to cause the

message or the reply to it to go to a destination different from
that of the message originator's intention. The protection
against this attack can be achieved by using the Authentication
Header [IPv6-AUTH] or the Encapsulating Security Payload Header
[IPv6-ESP]. The Authentication Header provides the protection
against change for the source and the destination address of the
IP packet. The Encapsulating Security Payload Header does not
provide this protection, but the ICMP checksum calculation
includes the source and the destination addresses, and the
Encapsulating Security Payload Header protects the checksum.
Therefore, the combination of ICMP checksum and the Encapsulating
Security Payload Header provides protection against this attack.
The protection provided by the Encapsulating Security Payload
Header will not be as strong as the protection provided by the
Authentication Header.

3. ICMP messages may be subject to changes in the message fields, or

payload. The authentication [IPv6-AUTH] or encryption [IPv6-ESP]
of the ICMP message protects against such actions.

4. ICMP messages may be used to attempt denial-of-service attacks by

sending back to back erroneous IP packets. An implementation that
correctly followed Section 2.4, paragraph (f), of this
specification, would be protected by the ICMP error rate limiting
mechanism.
 5. The exception number 2 of rule e.3 in Section 2.4 gives a
malicious node the opportunity to cause a denial-of-service attack
to a multicast source. A malicious node can send a multicast
packet with an unknown destination option marked as mandatory,
with the IPv6 source address of a valid multicast source. A large
number of destination nodes will send an ICMP Parameter Problem
Message to the multicast source, causing a denial-of-service
attack. The way multicast traffic is forwarded by the multicast
routers requires that the malicious node be part of the correct

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 16]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

multicast path, i.e., near to the multicast source. This attack

can only be avoided by securing the multicast traffic. The
multicast source should be careful while sending multicast traffic
with the destination options marked as mandatory, because they can
cause a denial-of-service attack to themselves if the destination
option is unknown to a large number of destinations.

6. As the ICMP messages are passed to the upper-layer processes, it

is possible to perform attacks on the upper layer protocols (e.g.,
TCP) with ICMP [TCP-attack]. It is recommended that the upper
layers perform some form of validation of ICMP messages (using the
information contained in the payload of the ICMP message) before
acting upon them. The actual validation checks are specific to
the upper layers and are out of the scope of this specification.
Protecting the upper layer with IPsec mitigates these attacks.

ICMP error messages signal network error conditions that were

encountered while processing an internet datagram. Depending on
the particular scenario, the error conditions being reported might
or might not get solved in the near term. Therefore, reaction to
ICMP error messages may depend not only on the error type and code
but also on other factors, such as the time at which the error
messages are received, previous knowledge of the network error
conditions being reported, and knowledge of the network scenario
in which the receiving host is operating.

6. IANA Considerations

6.1. Procedure for New ICMPV6 Type and Code Value Assignments

The IPv6 ICMP header defined in this document contains the following
fields that carry values assigned from IANA-managed name spaces: Type
and Code. Code field values are defined relative to a specific Type
value.

Values for the IPv6 ICMP Type fields are allocated using the
 following procedure:

1. The IANA should allocate and permanently register new ICMPv6 type
codes from IETF RFC publication. This is for all RFC types,
including standards track, informational, and experimental status,
that originate from the IETF and have been approved by the IESG
for publication.

2. IETF working groups with working group consensus and area director
approval can request reclaimable ICMPV6 type code assignments from
the IANA. The IANA will tag the values as "reclaimable in
future".

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 17]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

The "reclaimable in the future" tag will be removed when an RFC is

published that documents the protocol as defined in 1. This will
make the assignment permanent and update the reference on the IANA
web pages.

At the point where the ICMPv6 type values are 85% assigned, the
IETF will review the assignments tagged "reclaimable in the
future" and inform the IANA which ones should be reclaimed and
reassigned.

3. Requests for new ICMPv6 type value assignments from outside the
IETF are only made through the publication of an IETF document,
per 1 above. Note also that documents published as "RFC Editor
contributions" [RFC-3978] are not considered IETF documents.

The assignment of new Code values for the Type values defined in this
document require standards action or IESG approval. The policy for
assigning Code values for new IPv6 ICMP Types not defined in this
document should be defined in the document defining the new Type
values.

6.2. Assignments for This Document

The following has updated assignments located at:

http://www.iana.org/assignments/icmpv6-parameters

The IANA has reassigned ICMPv6 type 1 "Destination Unreachable" code

2, which was unassigned in [RFC-2463], to:

2 - Beyond scope of source address

The IANA has assigned the following two new codes values for ICMPv6
type 1 "Destination Unreachable":

5 - Source address failed ingress/egress policy

 6 - Reject route to destination

The IANA has assigned the following new type values:

100 Private experimentation

101 Private experimentation

127 Reserved for expansion of ICMPv6 error messages

200 Private experimentation

201 Private experimentation

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 18]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

255 Reserved for expansion of ICMPv6 informational messages

7. References

7.1. Normative References

[IPv6] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6

(IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998.

[IPv6-DISC] Narten, T., Nordmark, E., and W. Simpson, "Neighbor

Discovery for IP Version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 2461, December
1998.

[RFC-792] Postel, J., "Internet Control Message Protocol", STD 5,

RFC 792, September 1981.

[RFC-2463] Conta, A. and S. Deering, "Internet Control Message

Protocol (ICMPv6) for the Internet Protocol Version 6
(IPv6) Specification", RFC 2463, December 1998.

[RFC-1122] Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts -

Communication Layers", STD 3, RFC 1122, October 1989.

[RFC-2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate

Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

[RFC-3978] Bradner, S., "IETF Rights in Contributions", BCP 78, RFC

3978, March 2005.

7.2. Informative References

 [RFC-2780] Bradner, S. and V. Paxson, "IANA Allocation Guidelines
For Values In the Internet Protocol and Related
Headers", BCP 37, RFC 2780, March 2000.

[IPv6-ADDR] Hinden, R. and S. Deering, "Intpernet Protocol Version 6

(IPv6) Addressing Architecture", RFC 3513, April 2003.

[PMTU] McCann, J., Deering, S., and J. Mogul, "Path MTU

Discovery for IP version 6", RFC 1981, August 1996.

[IPv6-SA] Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "Security Architecture for the

Internet Protocol", RFC 2401, November 1998.

[IPv6-AUTH] Kent, S., "IP Authentication Header", RFC 4302, December

2005.

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 19]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

[IPv6-ESP] Kent, S., "IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)", RFC

4203, December 2005.

[SEC-ARCH] Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the

Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, December 2005.

[TCP-attack] Gont, F., "ICMP attacks against TCP", Work in Progress.

8. Acknowledgements

The document is derived from previous ICMP documents of the SIPP and
IPng working group.

The IPng working group, and particularly Robert Elz, Jim Bound, Bill
Simpson, Thomas Narten, Charlie Lynn, Bill Fink, Scott Bradner,
Dimitri Haskin, Bob Hinden, Jun-ichiro Itojun Hagino, Tatuya Jinmei,
Brian Zill, Pekka Savola, Fred Templin, and Elwyn Davies (in
chronological order) provided extensive review information and
feedback.

Bob Hinden was the document editor for this document.

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 20]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

Appendix A - Changes since RFC 2463

The following changes were made from RFC 2463:

- Edited the Abstract to make it a little more elaborate.

- Corrected typos in Section 2.4, where references to sub-bullet e.2

were supposed to be references to e.3.

- Removed the Timer-based and the Bandwidth-based methods from the

example rate-limiting mechanism for ICMP error messages. Added
Token-bucket based method.

- Added specification that all ICMP error messages shall have exactly
32 bits of type-specific data, so that receivers can reliably find
the embedded invoking packet even when they don't recognize the
ICMP message Type.

- In the description of Destination Unreachable messages, Code 3,

added rule prohibiting forwarding of packets back onto point-to-
point links from which they were received, if their destination
addresses belong to the link itself ("anti-ping-ponging" rule).

- Added description of Time Exceeded Code 1 (fragment reassembly

timeout).

- Added "beyond scope of source address", "source address failed

ingress/egress policy", and "reject route to destination" messages
to the family of "unreachable destination" type ICMP error messages
(Section 3.1).

- Reserved some ICMP type values for experimentation.

 - Added a NOTE in Section 2.4 that specifies ICMP message processing
rules precedence.

- Added ICMP REDIRECT to the list in Section 2.4, (e) of cases in

which ICMP error messages are not to be generated.

- Made minor editorial changes in Section 2.3 on checksum

calculation, and in Section 5.2.

- Clarified in Section 4.2, regarding the Echo Reply Message; the

source address of an Echo Reply to an anycast Echo Request should
be a unicast address, as in the case of multicast.

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 21]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

- Revised the Security Considerations section. Added the use of the

Encapsulating Security Payload Header for authentication. Changed
the requirement of an option of "not allowing unauthenticated ICMP
messages" to MAY from SHOULD.

- Added a new attack in the list of possible ICMP attacks in Section

5.2.

- Separated References into Normative and Informative.

- Added reference to RFC 2780 "IANA Allocation Guidelines For Values

In the Internet Protocol and Related Headers". Also added a note
that this document updates RFC 2780.

- Added a procedure for new ICMPv6 Type and Code value assignments in
the IANA Considerations section.

- Replaced word "send" with "originate" to make it clear that ICMP

packets being forwarded are out of scope of this specification.

- Changed the ESP and AH references to the updated ESP and AH

documents.

- Added reference to the updated IPsec Security Architecture

document.

- Added a SHOULD requirement for allowing the sending of ICMP

destination unreachable messages to be disabled.

- Simplified the source address selection of the ICMPv6 packet.

- Reorganized the General Message Format (Section 2.1).

- Removed the general packet format from Section 2.1. It refers to

Sections 3 and 4 for packet formats now.

- Added text about attacks to the transport protocols that could

 potentially be caused by ICMP.

Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 22]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

Authors' Addresses

Alex Conta
Transwitch Corporation
3 Enterprise Drive
Shelton, CT 06484
USA

EMail: [email protected]

Stephen Deering
Cisco Systems, Inc.
170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA 95134-1706
USA

Mukesh Gupta, Ed.

Tropos Networks
555 Del Rey Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94085

Phone: +1 408-331-6889
EMail: [email protected]
Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 23]

RFC 4443 ICMPv6 (ICMP for IPv6) March 2006

Full Copyright Statement

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).

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

"AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE
INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Intellectual Property

The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any

Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information
on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any

assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
http://www.ietf.org/ipr.

The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at
[email protected].

Acknowledgement

Funding for the RFC Editor function is provided by the IETF

Administrative Support Activity (IASA).
Conta, et al. Standards Track [Page 24]

Html markup produced by rfcmarkup 1.129d, available from https://tools.ietf.org/tools/rfcmarkup/