1: **Contents**
2:
3: [[!toc levels=3]]
4:
5: # Introduction to TCP/IP Networking
6:
7: ## Audience
8:
9: This section explains various aspects of networking. It is intended to help
10: people with little knowledge about networks to get started. It is divided into
11: three big parts. We start by giving a general overview of how networking works
12: and introduce the basic concepts. Then we go into details for setting up various
13: types of networking in the second parts, and the third part of the networking
14: section covers a number of *advanced* topics that go beyond the basic operation
15: as introduced in the first two sections.
16:
17: The reader is assumed to know about basic system administration tasks: how to
18: become root, edit files, change permissions, stop processes, etc. See the other
19: chapters of this NetBSD guide and e.g. *Essential System Administration* by
20: Aeleen Frisch (1991, O'Reilly & Associates) for further information on this
21: topic. Besides that, you should know how to handle the utilities we're going to
22: set up here, i.e. you should know how to use telnet, FTP, ... I will not explain
23: the basic features of those utilities, please refer to the appropriate
24: man-pages, the references listed or of course the other parts of this document
25: instead.
26:
27: This introduction to TCP/IP Networking was written with the intention in mind to
28: give starters a basic knowledge. If you really want to know what it's all about,
29: read *TCP/IP Network Administration* by Craig Hunt (1993, O'Reilly &
30: Associates). This book does not only cover the basics, but goes on and explains
31: all the concepts, services and how to set them up in detail. It's great, I love
32: it! :-)
33:
34: ## Supported Networking Protocols
35:
36: There are several protocol suites supported by NetBSD, most of which were
37: inherited from NetBSD's predecessor, 4.4BSD, and subsequently enhanced and
38: improved. The first and most important one today is DARPA's Transmission Control
39: Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Other protocol suites available in NetBSD
40: include the Xerox Network System (XNS) which was only implemented at UCB to
41: connect isolated machines to the net, Apple's AppleTalk protocol suite and the
42: ISO protocol suite, CCITT X.25 and ARGO TP. They are only used in some special
43: applications these days.
44:
45: Today, TCP/IP is the most widespread protocol of the ones mentioned above. It is
46: implemented on almost every hardware and operating system, and it is also the
47: most-used protocol in heterogenous environments. So, if you just want to connect
48: your computer running NetBSD to some other machine at home or you want to
49: integrate it into your company's or university's network, TCP/IP is the right
50: choice. Besides the "old" IP version 4, NetBSD also supports the "new" IP
51: version 6 (IPv6) since NetBSD 1.5, thanks to code contributed by the KAME
52: project.
53:
54: There are other protocol suites such as DECNET, Novell's IPX/SPX or Microsoft's
55: NetBIOS, but these are not currently supported by NetBSD. These protocols differ
56: from TCP/IP in that they are proprietary, in contrast to the others, which are
57: well-defined in several RFCs and other open standards.
58:
59: ## Supported Media
60:
61: The TCP/IP protocol stack behaves the same regardless of the underlying media
62: used, and NetBSD supports a wide range of these, among them are Ethernet
63: (10/100/1000MBd), Arcnet, serial line, ATM, FDDI, Fiber Channel, USB, HIPPI,
64: FireWire (IEEE 1394), Token Ring, and serial lines.
65:
66: ### Serial Line
67:
68: There are a couple of reasons for using TCP/IP over a serial line.
69:
70: * If your remote host is only reachable via telephone, you can use a modem to access it.
71: * Many computers have a serial port, and the cable needed is rather cheap.
72:
73: The disadvantage of a serial connection is that it's slower than other methods.
74: NetBSD can use at most 115200 bit/s, making it a lot slower than e.g. Ethernet's
75: minimum 10 Mbit/s and Arcnet's 4 Mbit/s.
76:
77: There are two possible protocols to connect a host running NetBSD to another
78: host using a serial line (possibly over a phone-line):
79:
80: * Serial Line IP (SLIP)
81: * Point to Point Protocol (PPP)
82:
83: The choice here depends on whether you use a dial-up connection through a modem
84: or if you use a static connection (null-modem or leased line). If you dial up
85: for your IP connection, it's wise to use PPP as it offers some possibilities to
86: auto-negotiate IP-addresses and routes, which can be quite painful to do by
87: hand. If you want to connect to another machine which is directly connected,
88: use SLIP, as this is supported by about every operating system and more easy
89: to set up with fixed addresses and routes.
90:
91: PPP on a direct connection is a bit difficult to setup, as it's easy to timeout
92: the initial handshake; with SLIP, there's no such initial handshake, i.e. you
93: start up one side, and when the other site has its first packet, it will send it
94: over the line.
95:
96: [RFC1331](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1331) ("The Point-to-Point Protocol
97: (PPP) for the Transmission of Multi-protocol Datagrams over Point-to-Point
98: Links") and [RFC1332](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1332) ("The PPP Internet
99: Protocol Control Protocol (IPCP)") describe PPP and TCP/IP over PPP. SLIP is
100: defined in [RFC1055](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1055) ("Nonstandard for
101: transmission of IP datagrams over serial lines: SLIP").
102:
103: ### Ethernet
104:
105: Ethernet is the medium commonly used to build local area networks (LANs) of
106: interconnected machines within a limited area such as an office, company or
107: university campus. Ethernet is based on a bus structure to which many machines
108: can connect to, and communication always happens between two nodes at a time.
109: When two or more nodes want to talk at the same time, both will restart
110: communication after some timeout. The technical term for this is CSMA/CD
111: (Carrier Sense w/ Multiple Access and Collision Detection).
112:
113: Initially, Ethernet hardware consisted of a thick (yellow) cable that machines
114: tapped into using special connectors that poked through the cable's outer
115: shielding. The successor of this was called 10base5, which used BNC-type
116: connectors for tapping in special T-connectors and terminators on both ends of
117: the bus. Today, ethernet is mostly used with twisted pair lines which are used
118: in a collapsed bus system that are contained in switches or hubs. The twisted
119: pair lines give this type of media its name - 10baseT for 10 Mbit/s networks,
120: and 100baseT for 100 MBit/s ones. In switched environments there's also the
121: distinction if communication between the node and the switch can happen in half-
122: or in full duplex mode.
123:
124: ## TCP/IP Address Format
125:
126: TCP/IP uses 4-byte (32-bit) addresses in the current implementations (IPv4),
127: also called IP-numbers (Internet-Protocol numbers), to address hosts.
128:
129: TCP/IP allows any two machines to communicate directly. To permit this all hosts
130: on a given network must have a unique IP address. To assure this, IP addresses
131: are administrated by one central organisation, the InterNIC. They give certain
132: ranges of addresses (network-addresses) directly to sites which want to
133: participate in the internet or to internet-providers, which give the addresses
134: to their customers.
135:
136: If your university or company is connected to the Internet, it has (at least)
137: one such network-address for its own use, usually not assigned by the InterNIC
138: directly, but rather through an Internet Service Provider (ISP).
139:
140: If you just want to run your private network at home, see below on how to
141: "build" your own IP addresses. However, if you want to connect your machine to
142: the (real :-) Internet, you should get an IP addresses from your local
143: network-administrator or -provider.
144:
145: IP addresses are usually written in *dotted quad* notation - the four bytes are
146: written down in decimal (most significant byte first), separated by dots. For
147: example, 132.199.15.99 would be a valid address. Another way to write down
148: IP-addresses would be as one 32-bit hex-word, e.g. 0x84c70f63. This is not as
149: convenient as the dotted-quad, but quite useful at times, too. (See below!)
150:
151: Being assigned a network means nothing else but setting some of the
152: above-mentioned 32 address-bits to certain values. These bits that are used for
153: identifying the network are called network-bits. The remaining bits can be used
154: to address hosts on that network, therefore they are called host-bits. The
155: following figure illustrates the separation.
156:
157: 
158: **IPv4-addresses are divided into more significant network- and less significant hostbits**
159:
160: In the above example, the network-address is 132.199.0.0 (host-bits are set to 0
161: in network-addresses) and the host's address is 15.99 on that network.
162:
163: How do you know that the host's address is 16 bit wide? Well, this is assigned
164: by the provider from which you get your network-addresses. In the classless
165: inter-domain routing (CIDR) used today, host fields are usually between as
166: little as 2 to 16 bits wide, and the number of network-bits is written after the
167: network address, separated by a `/`, e.g. 132.199.0.0/16 tells that the network
168: in question has 16 network-bits. When talking about the *size* of a network,
169: it's usual to only talk about it as `/16`, `/24`, etc.
170:
171: Before CIDR was used, there used to be four classes of networks. Each one starts
172: with a certain bit-pattern identifying it. Here are the four classes:
173:
174: * Class A starts with `0` as most significant bit. The next seven bits of a
175: class A address identify the network, the remaining 24 bit can be used to
176: address hosts. So, within one class A network there can be 2^24 hosts. It's
177: not very likely that you (or your university, or company, or whatever) will
178: get a whole class A address.
179:
180: The CIDR notation for a class A network with its eight network bits is an `/8`.
181:
182: * Class B starts with `10` as most significant bits. The next 14 bits are used
183: for the networks address and the remaining 16 bits can be used to address
184: more than 65000 hosts. Class B addresses are very rarely given out today,
185: they used to be common for companies and universities before IPv4 address
186: space went scarce.
187:
188: The CIDR notation for a class B network with its 16 network bits is an `/16`.
189:
190: Returning to our above example, you can see that 132.199.15.99 (or
191: 0x84c70f63, which is more appropriate here!) is on a class B network, as
192: 0x84... = **10**00... (base 2).
193:
194: Therefore, the address 132.199.15.99 can be split into an network-address of
195: 132.199.0.0 and a host-address of 15.99.
196:
197: * Class C is identified by the MSBs being `110`, allowing only 256 (actually:
198: only 254, see below) hosts on each of the 2^21 possible class C networks.
199: Class C addresses are usually found at (small) companies.
200:
201: The CIDR notation for a class C network with its 24 network bits is an `/24`.
202:
203: * There are also other addresses, starting with `111`. Those are used for
204: special purposes (e. g. multicast-addresses) and are not of interest here.
205:
206: Please note that the bits which are used for identifying the network-class are
207: part of the network-address.
208:
209: When separating host-addresses from network-addresses, the *netmask* comes in
210: handy. In this mask, all the network-bits are set to `1`, the host-bits are `0`.
211: Thus, putting together IP-address and netmask with a logical AND-function, the
212: network-address remains.
213:
214: To continue our example, 255.255.0.0 is a possible netmask for 132.199.15.99.
215: When applying this mask, the network-address 132.199.0.0 remains.
216:
217: For addresses in CIDR notation, the number of network-bits given also says how
218: many of the most significant bits of the address must be set to `1` to get the
219: netmask for the corresponding network. For classful addressing, every
220: network-class has a fixed default netmask assigned:
221:
222: * Class A (/8): default-netmask: 255.0.0.0, first byte of address: 1-127
223: * Class B (/16): default-netmask: 255.255.0.0, first byte of address: 128-191
224: * Class C (/24): default-netmask: 255.255.255.0, first byte of address: 192-223
225:
226: Another thing to mention here is the *broadcast-address*. When sending to this
227: address, *all* hosts on the corresponding network will receive the message sent.
228: The broadcast address is characterized by having all host-bits set to `1`.
229:
230: Taking 132.199.15.99 with its netmask 255.255.0.0 again, the broadcast-address
231: would result in 132.199.255.255.
232:
233: You'll ask now: But what if I want a host's address to be all bits `0` or `1`?
234: Well, this doesn't work, as network- and broadcast-address must be present!
235: Because of this, a class B (/16) network can contain at most 2^16-2 hosts, a
236: class C (/24) network can hold no more than 2^8-2 = 254 hosts.
237:
238: Besides all those categories of addresses, there's the special IP-address
239: 127.0.0.1 which always refers to the *local* host, i.e. if you talk to 127.0.0.1
240: you'll talk to yourself without starting any network-activity. This is sometimes
241: useful to use services installed on your own machine or to play around if you
242: don't have other hosts to put on your network.
243:
244: Let's put together the things we've introduced in this section:
245:
246: * *IP-address* -- 32 bit-address, with network- and host-bits.
247: * *Network-address* -- IP-address with all host bits set to `0`.
248: * *Netmask* -- 32-bit mask with `1` for network- and `0` for host-bits.
249: * *Broadcast* -- IP-address with all host bits set `1`.
250: * *localhost's address* -- The local host's IP address is always 127.0.0.1.
251:
252: ## Subnetting and Routing
253:
254: After talking so much about netmasks, network-, host- and other addresses, I
255: have to admit that this is not the whole truth.
256:
257: Imagine the situation at your university, which usually has a class B (/16)
258: address, allowing it to have up to 2^16 ~= 65534 hosts on that net. Maybe it
259: would be a nice thing to have all those hosts on one single network, but it's
260: simply not possible due to limitations in the transport media commonly used
261: today.
262:
263: For example, when using thinwire ethernet, the maximum length of the cable is
264: 185 meters. Even with repeaters in between, which refresh the signals, this is
265: not enough to cover all the locations where machines are located. Besides that,
266: there is a maximum number of 1024 hosts on one ethernet wire, and you'll lose
267: quite a bit of performance if you go to this limit.
268:
269: So, are you hosed now? Having an address which allows more than 60000 hosts, but
270: being bound to media which allows far less than that limit?
271:
272: Well, of course not! :-)
273:
274: The idea is to divide the *big* class B net into several smaller networks,
275: commonly called sub-networks or simply subnets. Those subnets are only allowed
276: to have, say, 254 hosts on them (i.e. you divide one big class B network into
277: several class C networks!).
278:
279: To do this, you adjust your netmask to have more network- and less host-bits on
280: it. This is usually done on a byte-boundary, but you're not forced to do it
281: there. So, commonly your netmask will not be 255.255.0.0 as supposed by a class
282: B network, but it will be set to 255.255.255.0.
283:
284: In CIDR notation, you now write a `/24` instead of the `/16` to show that 24
285: bits of the address are used for identifying the network and subnet, instead of
286: the 16 that were used before.
287:
288: This gives you one additional network-byte to assign to each (physical!)
289: network. All the 254 hosts on that subnet can now talk directly to each other,
290: and you can build 256 such class C nets. This should fit your needs.
291:
292: To explain this better, let's continue our above example. Say our host
293: 132.199.15.99 (I'll call him `dusk` from now; we'll talk about assigning
294: hostnames later) has a netmask of 255.255.255.0 and thus is on the subnet
295: 132.199.15.0/24. Let's furthermore introduce some more hosts so we have
296: something to play around with, see the next figure.
297:
298: 
299: **Our demo-network**
300:
301: In the above network, `dusk` can talk directly to `dawn`, as they are both on
302: the same subnet. (There are other hosts attached to the 132.199.15.0/24-subnet
303: but they are not of importance for us now)
304:
305: But what if `dusk` wants to talk to a host on another subnet?
306:
307: Well, the traffic will then go through one or more gateways (routers), which are
308: attached to two subnets. Because of this, a router always has two different
309: addresses, one for each of the subnets it is on. The router is functionally
310: transparent, i.e. you don't have to address it to reach hosts on the *other*
311: side. Instead, you address that host directly and the packets will be routed to
312: it correctly.
313:
314: Example. Let's say `dusk` wants to get some files from the local ftp-server. As
315: `dusk` can't reach `ftp` directly (because it's on a different subnet), all its
316: packets will be forwarded to its "defaultrouter" `rzi` (132.199.15.1), which
317: knows where to forward the packets.
318:
319: `Dusk` knows the address of its defaultrouter in its network (`rzi`,
320: 132.199.15.1), and it will forward any packets to it which are not on the same
321: subnet, i.e. it will forward all IP-packets in which the third address-byte
322: isn't 15.
323:
324: The (default)router then gives the packets to the appropriate host, as it's also
325: on the FTP-server's network.
326:
327: In this example, *all* packets are forwarded to the 132.199.1.0/24-network,
328: simply because it's the network's backbone, the most important part of the
329: network, which carries all the traffic that passes between several subnets.
330: Almost all other networks besides 132.199.15.0/24 are attached to the backbone
331: in a similar manner.
332:
333: But what if we had hooked up another subnet to 132.199.15.0/24 instead of
334: 132.199.1.0/24? Maybe something the situation displayed in the next figure.
335:
336: 
337: **Attaching one subnet to another one**
338:
339: When we now want to reach a host which is located in the 132.199.16.0/24-subnet
340: from `dusk`, it won't work routing it to `rzi`, but you'll have to send it
341: directly to `route2` (132.199.15.2). `Dusk` will have to know to forward those
342: packets to `route2` and send all the others to `rzi`.
343:
344: When configuring `dusk`, you tell it to forward all packets for the
345: 132.199.16.0/24-subnet to `route2`, and all others to `rzi`. Instead of
346: specifying this default as 132.199.1.0/24, 132.199.2.0/24, etc., 0.0.0.0 can be
347: used to set the default-route.
348:
349: Returning to our demo network, there's a similar problem when `dawn` wants to
350: send to `noon`, which is connected to `dusk` via a serial line running. When
351: looking at the IP-addresses, `noon` seems to be attached to the
352: 132.199.15.0-network, but it isn't really. Instead, `dusk` is used as gateway,
353: and `dawn` will have to send its packets to `dusk`, which will forward them to
354: `noon` then. The way `dusk` is forced into accepting packets that aren't
355: destined at it but for a different host (`noon`) instead is called *proxy arp*.
356:
357: The same goes when hosts from other subnets want to send to `noon`. They have to
358: send their packets to `dusk` (possibly routed via `rzi`),
359:
360: ## Name Service Concepts
361:
362: In the previous sections, when we talked about hosts, we referred to them by
363: their IP-addresses. This was necessary to introduce the different kinds of
364: addresses. When talking about hosts in general, it's more convenient to give
365: them *names*, as we did when talking about routing.
366:
367: Most applications don't care whether you give them an IP address or a hostname.
368: However, they'll use IP addresses internally, and there are several methods for
369: them to map hostnames to IP addresses, each one with its own way of
370: configuration. In this section we'll introduce the idea behind each method, in
371: the next chapter, we'll talk about the configuration-part.
372:
373: The mapping from hostnames (and domainnames) to IP-addresses is done by a piece
374: of software called the *resolver*. This is not an extra service, but some
375: library routines which are linked to every application using networking-calls.
376: The resolver will then try to resolve (hence the name ;-) the hostnames you give
377: into IP addresses. See [RFC1034](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1034) ("Domain
378: names - concepts and facilities") and
379: [RFC1035](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1035) ("Domain names - implementation
380: and specification") for details on the resolver.
381:
382: Hostnames are usually up to 256 characters long, and contain letters, numbers
383: and dashes (`-`); case is ignored.
384:
385: Just as with networks and subnets, it's possible (and desirable) to group hosts
386: into domains and subdomains. When getting your network-address, you usually also
387: obtain a domainname by your provider. As with subnets, it's up to you to
388: introduce subdomains. Other as with IP-addresses, (sub)domains are not directly
389: related to (sub)nets; for example, one domain can contain hosts from several
390: subnets.
391:
392: Our demo-network shows this: Both subnets 132.199.1.0/24 and 132.199.15.0/24
393: (and others) are part of the subdomain `rz.uni-regensburg.de`. The domain the
394: University of Regensburg got from its IP-provider is `uni-regensburg.de` (`.de`
395: is for Deutschland, Germany), the subdomain `rz` is for Rechenzentrum, computing
396: center.
397:
398: Hostnames, subdomain- and domainnames are separated by dots (`.`). It's also
399: possible to use more than one stage of subdomains, although this is not very
400: common. An example would be `fox_in.socs.uts.edu.au`.
401:
402: A hostname which includes the (sub)domain is also called a fully qualified
403: domain name (FQDN). For example, the IP-address 132.199.15.99 belongs to the
404: host with the FQDN `dusk.rz.uni-regensburg.de`.
405:
406: Further above I told you that the IP-address 127.0.0.1 always belongs to the
407: local host, regardless what's the `real` IP-address of the host. Therefore,
408: 127.0.0.1 is always mapped to the name `localhost`.
409:
410: The three different ways to translate hostnames into IP addresses are:
411: `/etc/hosts`, the Domain Name Service (DNS) and the Network Information Service
412: (NIS).
413:
414: ### /etc/hosts
415:
416: The first and simplest way to translate hostnames into IP-addresses is by using
417: a table telling which IP address belongs to which hostname(s). This table is
418: stored in the file `/etc/hosts` and has the following format:
419:
420: IP-address hostname [nickname [...]]
421:
422: Lines starting with a hash mark (`#`) are treated as comments. The other lines
423: contain one IP-address and the corresponding hostname(s).
424:
425: It's not possible for a hostname to belong to several IP addresses, even if I
426: made you think so when talking about routing. `rzi` for example has really two
427: distinct names for each of its two addresses: `rzi` and `rzia` (but please don't
428: ask me which name belongs to which address!).
429:
430: Giving a host several nicknames can be convenient if you want to specify your
431: favorite host providing a special service with that name, as is commonly done
432: with FTP-servers. The first (leftmost) name is usually the real (canonical) name
433: of the host.
434:
435: Besides giving nicknames, it's also convenient to give a host's full name
436: (including domain) as its canonical name, and using only its hostname (without
437: domain) as a nickname.
438:
439: *Important:* There *must* be an entry mapping localhost to 127.0.0.1 in
440: `/etc/hosts`!
441:
442: ### Domain Name Service (DNS)
443:
444: `/etc/hosts` bears an inherent problem, especially in big networks: when one
445: host is added or one host's address changes, all the `/etc/hosts` files on all
446: machines have to be changed! This is not only time-consuming, it's also very
447: likely that there will be some errors and inconsistencies, leading to problems.
448:
449: Another approach is to hold only one hostnames-table (-database) for a network,
450: and make all the clients query that *nameserver*. Updates will be made only on
451: the nameserver.
452:
453: This is the basic idea behind the Domain Name Service (DNS).
454:
455: Usually, there's one nameserver for each domain (hence DNS), and every host
456: (client) in that domain knows which domain it is in and which nameserver to
457: query for its domain.
458:
459: When the DNS gets a query about a host which is not in its domain, it will
460: forward the query to a DNS which is either the DNS of the domain in question or
461: knows which DNS to ask for the specified domain. If the DNS forwarded the query
462: doesn't know how to handle it, it will forward that query again to a DNS one
463: step higher. This is not ad infinitum, there are several *root*-servers, which
464: know about any domain.
465:
466: See [[the separate article|guide/dns]] for details on DNS.
467:
468: ### Network Information Service (NIS/YP)
469:
470: Yellow Pages (YP) was invented by Sun Microsystems. The name has been changed
471: into Network Information Service (NIS) because YP was already a trademark of the
472: British telecom. So, when I'm talking about NIS you'll know what I mean. ;-)
473:
474: There are quite some configuration files on a Unix-system, and often it's
475: desired to maintain only one set of those files for a couple of hosts. Those
476: hosts are grouped together in a NIS-domain (which has *nothing* to do with the
477: domains built by using DNS!) and are usually contained in one workstation
478: cluster.
479:
480: Examples for the config-files shared among those hosts are `/etc/passwd`,
481: `/etc/group` and - last but not least - `/etc/hosts`.
482:
483: So, you can "abuse" NIS for getting a unique name-to-address-translation on all
484: hosts throughout one (NIS-)domain.
485:
486: There's only one drawback, which prevents NIS from actually being used for that
487: translation: In contrast to the DNS, NIS provides no way to resolve hostnames
488: which are not in the hosts-table. There's no hosts "one level up" which the
489: NIS-server can query, and so the translation will fail! Suns NIS+ takes measures
490: against that problem, but as NIS+ is only available on Solaris-systems, this is
491: of little use for us now.
492:
493: Don't get me wrong: NIS is a fine thing for managing e.g. user-information
494: (`/etc/passwd`, ...) in workstation-clusters, it's simply not too useful for
495: resolving hostnames.
496:
497: ### Other
498:
499: The name resolving methods described above are what's used commonly today to
500: resolve hostnames into IP addresses, but they aren't the only ones. Basically,
501: every database mechanism would do, but none is implemented in NetBSD. Let's have
502: a quick look what you may encounter.
503:
504: With NIS lacking hierarchy in data structures, NIS+ is intended to help out in
505: that field. Tables can be setup in a way so that if a query cannot be answered
506: by a domain's server, there can be another domain "above" that might be able to
507: do so. E.g. you could choose to have a domain that lists all the hosts (users,
508: groups, ...) that are valid in the whole company, one that defines the same
509: for each division, etc. NIS+ is not used a lot today, even Sun went back to
510: ship back NIS by default.
511:
512: Last century, the X.500 standard was designed to accommodate both simple
513: databases like `/etc/hosts` as well as complex, hierarchical systems as can be
514: found e.g. in DNS today. X.500 wasn't really a success, mostly due to the fact
515: that it tried to do too much at the same time. A cut-down version is available
516: today as the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), which is becoming
517: popular in the last years to manage data like users but also hosts and others in
518: small to medium sized organisations.
519:
520: ## Next generation Internet protocol - IPv6
521:
522: ### The Future of the Internet
523:
524: According to experts, the Internet as we know it will face a serious problem in
525: a few years. Due to its rapid growth and the limitations in its design, there
526: will be a point at which no more free addresses are available for connecting new
527: hosts. At that point, no more new web servers can be set up, no more users can
528: sign up for accounts at ISPs, no more new machines can be setup to access the
529: web or participate in online games - some people may call this a serious
530: problem.
531:
532: Several approaches have been made to solve the problem. A very popular one is to
533: not assign a worldwide unique address to every user's machine, but rather to
534: assign them *private* addresses, and hide several machines behind one official,
535: globally unique address. This approach is called *Network Address Translation*
536: (NAT, also known as IP Masquerading). It has problems, as the machines hidden
537: behind the global address can't be addressed, and as a result of this, opening
538: connections to them - which is used in online gaming, peer to peer networking,
539: etc. - is not possible. For a more in-depth discussion of the drawbacks of NAT,
540: see \[[[RFC3027|guide/index#bilbiography]]\] ("Protocol Complications with the
541: IP Network Address Translator").
542:
543: A different approach to the problem of internet addresses getting scarce is to
544: abandon the old Internet protocol with its limited addressing capabilities, and
545: use a new protocol that does not have these limitations. The protocol - or
546: actually, a set of protocols - used by machines connected to form today's
547: Internet is know as the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol, Internet
548: Protocol) suite, and version 4 currently in use has all the problems described
549: above. Switching to a different protocol version that does not have these
550: problems of course requires for a 'better' version to be available, which
551: actually is. Version 6 of the Internet Protocol (IPv6) does fulfill any possible
552: future demands on address space, and also addresses further features such as
553: privacy, encryption, and better support of mobile computing.
554:
555: Assuming a basic understanding of how today's IPv4 works, this text is intended
556: as an introduction to the IPv6 protocol. The changes in address formats and name
557: resolution are covered. With the background given here, the next sections will
558: show how to use IPv6 even if your ISP doesn't offer it by using a simple yet
559: efficient transition mechanism called 6to4. The goal is to get online with IPv6,
560: giving an example configuration for NetBSD.
561:
562: ### What good is IPv6?
563:
564: When telling people to migrate from IPv4 to IPv6, the question you usually hear
565: is *why?*. There are actually a few good reasons to move to the new version:
566:
567: * Bigger address space
568: * Support for mobile devices
569: * Built-in security
570:
571: #### Bigger Address Space
572:
573: The bigger address space that IPv6 offers is the most obvious enhancement it has
574: over IPv4. While today's internet architecture is based on 32-bit wide
575: addresses, the new version has 128 bit available for addressing. Thanks to the
576: enlarged address space, work-arounds like NAT don't have to be used any more.
577: This allows full, unconstrained IP connectivity for today's IP based machines as
578: well as upcoming mobile devices like PDAs and cell phones will benefit from full
579: IP access through GPRS and UMTS.
580:
581: #### Mobility
582:
583: When mentioning mobile devices and IP, another important point to note is that
584: some special protocol is needed to support mobility, and implementing this
585: protocol - called *Mobile IP* - is one of the requirements for every IPv6 stack.
586: Thus, if you have IPv6 going, you have support for roaming between different
587: networks, with everyone being updated when you leave one network and enter the
588: other one. Support for roaming is possible with IPv4 too, but there are a number
589: of hoops that need to be jumped in order to get things working. With IPv6,
590: there's no need for this, as support for mobility was one of the design
591: requirements for IPv6. See [RFC3024](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3024)
592: ("Reverse Tunneling for Mobile IP") for some more information on the issues that
593: need to be addressed with Mobile IP on IPv4.
594:
595: #### Security
596:
597: Besides support for mobility, security was another requirement for the successor
598: to today's Internet Protocol version. As a result, IPv6 protocol stacks are
599: required to include IPsec. IPsec allows authentication, encryption and
600: compression of any IP traffic. Unlike application level protocols like SSL or
601: SSH, all IP traffic between two nodes can be handled, without adjusting any
602: applications. The benefit of this is that all applications on a machine can
603: benefit from encryption and authentication, and that policies can be set on a
604: per-host (or even per-network) base, not per application/service. An
605: introduction to IPsec with a roadmap to the documentation can be found in
606: [RFC2411](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2411) ("IP Security Document Roadmap"),
607: the core protocol is described in [RFC2401](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2401)
608: ("Security Architecture for the Internet Protocol").
609:
610: ### Changes to IPv4
611:
612: After giving a brief overview of all the important features of IPv6, we'll go
613: into the details of the basics of IPv6 here. A brief understanding of how IPv4
614: works is assumed, and the changes in IPv6 will be highlighted. Starting with
615: IPv6 addresses and how they're split up we'll go into the various types of
616: addresses there are, what became of broadcasts, then after discussing the IP
617: layer go into changes for name resolving and what's new in DNS for IPv6.
618:
619: #### Addressing
620:
621: An IPv4 address is a 32 bit value, that's usually written in *dotted quad*
622: representation, where each *quad* represents a byte value between 0 and 255, for
623: example:
624:
625: 127.0.0.1
626:
627: This allows a theoretical number of 2^32 or ~4 billion hosts to be connected on
628: the internet today. Due to grouping, not all addresses are available today.
629:
630: IPv6 addresses use 128 bit, which results in 2^128 theoretically addressable
631: hosts. This allows for a Really Big number of machines to addressed, and it sure
632: fits all of today's requirements plus all those nifty PDAs and cell phones with
633: IP phones in the near future without any sweat. When writing IPv6 addresses,
634: they are usually divided into groups of 16 bits written as four hex digits, and
635: the groups are separated by colons. An example is:
636:
637: fe80::2a0:d2ff:fea5:e9f5
638:
639: This shows a special thing - a number of consecutive zeros can be abbreviated by
640: a single `::` once in the IPv6 address. The above address is thus equivalent to
641: `fe80:0:00:000:2a0:d2ff:fea5:e9f5` - leading zeros within groups can be omitted,
642: and only one `::` can be used in an IPv6 address.
643:
644: To make addresses manageable, they are split in two parts, which are the bits
645: identifying the network a machine is on, and the bits that identify a machine on
646: a (sub)network. The bits are known as netbits and hostbits, and in both IPv4 and
647: IPv6, the netbits are the *left*, most significant bits of an IP address, and
648: the host bits are the *right*, least significant bits, as shown in the following
649: figure:
650:
651: 
652: **IPv6-addresses are divided into more significant network- and less significant hostbits, too**
653:
654: In IPv4, the border is drawn with the aid of the netmask, which can be used to
655: mask all net/host bits. Typical examples are 255.255.0.0 that uses 16 bit for
656: addressing the network, and 16 bit for the machine, or 255.255.255.0 which takes
657: another 8 bit to allow addressing 256 subnets on e.g. a class B net.
658:
659: When addressing switched from classful addressing to CIDR routing, the borders
660: between net and host bits stopped being on 8 bit boundaries, and as a result the
661: netmasks started looking ugly and not really manageable. As a replacement, the
662: number of network bits is used for a given address, to denote the border, e.g.
663:
664: 10.0.0.0/24
665:
666: is the same as a netmask of 255.255.255.0 (24 1-bits). The same scheme is used
667: in IPv6:
668:
669: 2001:638:a01:2::/64
670:
671: tells us that the address used here has the first (leftmost) 64 bits used as the
672: network address, and the last (rightmost) 64 bits are used to identify the
673: machine on the network. The network bits are commonly referred to as (network)
674: *prefix*, and the *prefixlen* here would be 64 bits.
675:
676: Common addressing schemes found in IPv4 are the (old) class B and class C nets.
677: With a class C network (/24), you get 24 bits assigned by your provider, and it
678: leaves 8 bits to be assigned by you. If you want to add any subnetting to that,
679: you end up with *uneven* netmasks that are a bit nifty to deal with. Easier for
680: such cases are class B networks (/16), which only have 16 bits assigned by the
681: provider, and that allow subnetting, i.e. splitting of the rightmost bits into
682: two parts. One to address the on-site subnet, and one to address the hosts on
683: that subnet. Usually, this is done on byte (8 bit) boundaries. Using a netmask
684: of 255.255.255.0 (or a /24 prefix) allows flexible management even of bigger
685: networks here. Of course there is the upper limit of 254 machines per subnet,
686: and 256 subnets.
687:
688: With 128 bits available for addressing in IPv6, the scheme commonly used is the
689: same, only the fields are wider. Providers usually assign /48 networks, which
690: leaves 16 bits for a subnetting and 64 hostbits.
691:
692: 
693: **IPv6-addresses have a similar structure to class B addresses**
694:
695: Now while the space for network and subnets here is pretty much ok, using 64
696: bits for addressing hosts seems like a waste. It's unlikely that you will want
697: to have several billion hosts on a single subnet, so what is the idea behind
698: this?
699:
700: The idea behind fixed width 64 bit wide host identifiers is that they aren't
701: assigned manually as it's usually done for IPv4 nowadays. Instead, IPv6 host
702: addresses are recommended (not mandatory!) to be built from so-called EUI64
703: addresses. EUI64 addresses are - as the name says - 64 bit wide, and derived
704: from MAC addresses of the underlying network interface. E.g. for ethernet, the 6
705: byte (48 bit) MAC address is usually filled with the hex bits `fffe` in the
706: middle and a bit is set to mark the address as unique (which is true for
707: Ethernet), e.g. the MAC address
708:
709: 01:23:45:67:89:ab
710:
711: results in the EUI64 address
712:
713: 03:23:45:ff:fe:67:89:ab
714:
715: which again gives the host bits for the IPv6 address as
716:
717: ::0323:45ff:fe67:89ab
718:
719: These host bits can now be used to automatically assign IPv6 addresses to hosts,
720: which supports autoconfiguration of IPv6 hosts - all that's needed to get a
721: complete IPv6 address is the first (net/subnet) bits, and IPv6 also offers a
722: solution to assign them automatically.
723:
724: When on a network of machines speaking IP, there's usually one router which acts
725: as the gateway to outside networks. In IPv6 land, this router will send *router
726: advertisement* information, which clients are expected to either receive during
727: operation or to solicit upon system startup. The router advertisement
728: information includes data on the router's address, and which address prefix it
729: routes. With this information and the host-generated EUI64 address, an IPv6-host
730: can calculate its IP address, and there is no need for manual address
731: assignment. Of course routers still need some configuration.
732:
733: The router advertisement information they create are part of the Neighbor
734: Discovery Protocol (NDP, see [RFC2461](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2461)
735: ("Neighbor Discovery for IP Version 6 (IPv6)")), which is the successor to
736: IPv4's ARP protocol. In contrast to ARP, NDP does not only do lookup of IPv6
737: addresses for MAC addresses (the neighbor solicitation/advertisement part), but
738: also does a similar service for routers and the prefixes they serve, which is
739: used for autoconfiguration of IPv6 hosts as described in the previous paragraph.
740:
741: #### Multiple Addresses
742:
743: In IPv4, a host usually has one IP address per network interface or even per
744: machine if the IP stack supports it. Only very rare applications like web
745: servers result in machines having more than one IP address. In IPv6, this is
746: different. For each interface, there is not only a globally unique IP address,
747: but there are two other addresses that are of interest: The link local address,
748: and the site local address. The link local address has a prefix of fe80::/64,
749: and the host bits are built from the interface's EUI64 address. The link local
750: address is used for contacting hosts and routers on the same network only, the
751: addresses are not visible or reachable from different subnets. If wanted,
752: there's the choice of either using global addresses (as assigned by a provider),
753: or using site local addresses. Site local addresses are assigned the network
754: address fec0::/10, and subnets and hosts can be addressed just as for
755: provider-assigned networks. The only difference is, that the addresses will not
756: be visible to outside machines, as these are on a different network, and their
757: *site local* addresses are in a different physical net (if assigned at all). As
758: with the 10/8 network in IPv4, site local addresses can be used, but don't have
759: to. For IPv6 it's most common to have hosts assigned a link-local and a global
760: IP address. Site local addresses are rather uncommon today, and are no
761: substitute for globally unique addresses if global connectivity is required.
762:
763: #### Multicasting
764:
765: In IP land, there are three ways to talk to a host: unicast, broadcast and
766: multicast. The most common one is by talking to it directly, using its unicast
767: address. In IPv4, the unicast address is the *normal* IP address assigned to a
768: single host, with all address bits assigned. The broadcast address used to
769: address all hosts in the same IP subnet has the network bits set to the network
770: address, and all host bits set to `1` (which can be easily done using the
771: netmask and some bit operations). Multicast addresses are used to reach a number
772: of hosts in the same multicast group, which can be machines spread over the
773: whole internet. Machines must join multicast groups explicitly to participate,
774: and there are special IPv4 addresses used for multicast addresses, allocated
775: from the 224/8 subnet. Multicast isn't used very much in IPv4, and only few
776: applications like the MBone audio and video broadcast utilities use it.
777:
778: In IPv6, unicast addresses are used the same as in IPv4, no surprise there - all
779: the network and host bits are assigned to identify the target network and
780: machine. Broadcasts are no longer available in IPv6 in the way they were in
781: IPv4, this is where multicasting comes into play. Addresses in the ff::/8
782: network are reserved for multicast applications, and there are two special
783: multicast addresses that supersede the broadcast addresses from IPv4. One is the
784: *all routers* multicast address, the others is for *all hosts*. The addresses
785: are specific to the subnet, i.e. a router connected to two different subnets can
786: address all hosts/routers on any of the subnets it's connected to. Addresses
787: here are:
788:
789: * ff0*`X`*::1 for all hosts and
790: * ff0*`X`*::2 for all routers,
791:
792: where `X` is the scope ID of the link here, identifying the network. Usually
793: this starts from `1` for the *node local* scope, `2` for the first link, etc.
794: Note that it's perfectly ok for two network interfaces to be attached to one
795: link, thus resulting in double bandwidth:
796:
797: 
798: **Several interfaces attached to a link result in only one scope ID for the link**
799:
800: One use of the *all hosts* multicast is in the neighbor solicitation code of
801: NDP, where any machine that wants to communicate with another machine sends out
802: a request to the *all hosts* group, and the machine in question is expected to
803: respond.
804:
805: #### Name Resolving in IPv6
806:
807: After talking a lot about addressing in IPv6, anyone still here will hope that
808: there's a proper way to abstract all these long & ugly IPv6 addresses with some
809: nice hostnames as one can do in IPv4, and of course there is.
810:
811: Hostname to IP address resolving in IPv4 is usually done in one of three ways:
812: using a simple table in `/etc/hosts`, by using the Network Information Service
813: (NIS, formerly YP) or via the Domain Name System (DNS).
814:
815: As of this writing, NIS/NIS+ over IPv6 is currently only available on Solaris 8,
816: for both database contents and transport, using a RPC extension.
817:
818: Having a simple address<-\>name map like `/etc/hosts` is supported in all IPv6
819: stacks. With the KAME implementation used in NetBSD, `/etc/hosts` contains IPv6
820: addresses as well as IPv4 addresses. A simple example is the `localhost` entry
821: in the default NetBSD installation:
822:
823: 127.0.0.1 localhost
824: ::1 localhost
825:
826: For DNS, there are no fundamentally new concepts. IPv6 name resolving is done
827: with AAAA records that - as the name implies - point to an entity that's four
828: times the size of an A record. The AAAA record takes a hostname on the left
829: side, just as A does, and on the right side there's an IPv6 address, e.g.
830:
831: noon IN AAAA 3ffe:400:430:2:240:95ff:fe40:4385
832:
833: For reverse resolving, IPv4 uses the in-addr.arpa zone, and below that it writes
834: the bytes (in decimal) in reversed order, i.e. more significant bytes are more
835: right. For IPv6 this is similar, only that hex digits representing 4 bits are
836: used instead of decimal numbers, and the resource records are also under a
837: different domain, ip6.int.
838:
839: So to have the reverse resolving for the above host, you would put into your
840: `/etc/named.conf` something like:
841:
842: zone "0.3.4.0.0.0.4.0.e.f.f.3.IP6.INT" {
843: type master;
844: file "db.reverse";
845: };
846:
847: and in the zone file db.reverse you put (besides the usual records like SOA and
848: NS):
849:
850: 5.8.3.4.0.4.e.f.f.f.5.9.0.4.2.0.2.0.0.0 IN PTR noon.ipv6.example.com.
851:
852: The address is reversed here, and written down one hex digit after the other,
853: starting with the least significant (rightmost) one, separating the hex digits
854: with dots, as usual in zone files.
855:
856: One thing to note when setting up DNS for IPv6 is to take care of the DNS
857: software version in use. BIND 8.x does understand AAAA records, but it does not
858: offer name resolving via IPv6. You need BIND 9.x for that. Beyond that, BIND 9.x
859: supports a number of resource records that are currently being discussed but not
860: officially introduced yet. The most noticeable one here is the A6 record which
861: allows easier provider/prefix changing.
862:
863: To sum up, this section talked about the technical differences between IPv4 and
864: IPv6 for addressing and name resolving. Some details like IP header options, QoS
865: and flows were deliberately left out to not make this document more complex than
866: necessary.
867:
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