One document matched: draft-jelger-manet-gateway-autoconf-v6-00.txt



LSIIT - ULP                                                    C. Jelger
Internet-Draft                                                   T. Noel
Expires: February 25, 2004                                         LSIIT
                                                         August 27, 2003


     Gateway and address autoconfiguration for IPv6 adhoc networks
             draft-jelger-manet-gateway-autoconf-v6-00.txt

Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on February 25, 2004.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   Adhoc networks are formed by the spontaneous collaboration of
   wireless nodes when no networking infrastructure is available. When
   communication to the Internet is desired, one or more nodes must act
   as gateways for the adhoc network. In this case, global addressing of
   adhoc nodes is required. This document specifies a protocol (node
   behaviour, information propagation, message format) which allows
   nodes in an adhoc network to discover a gateway/prefix pair which is
   used in order to build an IPv6 global address and, when necessary, to
   maintain a default route towards the Internet.






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Table of Contents

   1.    Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.    Summary of the protocol operation  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   3.    Format of the GW_INFO message  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   4.    Sending GW_INFO messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   4.1   Proactive protocols  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   4.2   Reactive protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   5.    Detailed mode of operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   5.1   Hop-by-hop propagation of GW_INFO messages . . . . . . . . . 10
   5.2   Avoiding confusion after nodes movements . . . . . . . . . . 10
   5.3   GW_INFO information freshness notification . . . . . . . . . 11
   5.4   Algorithms and node behaviour  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   5.4.1 Initial selection algorithm  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   5.4.2 Maintaining prefix and route information . . . . . . . . . . 13
   6.    DNS considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   7.    Protocol parameters values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   8.    Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
         References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
         Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
         Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . 20






























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1. Introduction

   In contrast with current wireless networks, adhoc networks require no
   pre-existing infrastructure to exist. Because of the inherent
   limited propagation range of radio transmissions, adhoc nodes
   collaborate to forward (and route) packets within this spontaneous
   multi-hop network. Two families of protocols have been proposed by
   the IETF MANET working group to achieve routing in adhoc networks.
   Reactive protocols like [1] and [2] build routes "on-demand", i.e.
   only when a route to a certain destination is needed. In contrast,
   proactive protocols like [3] and [4] maintain an up-to-date view of
   the network topology and routing tables entries are updated
   accordingly.

   One of the challenge of adhoc networking is the autoconfiguration of
   global addresses, allowing nodes to be reachable from outside the
   adhoc network. To achieve this functionality, one (or possibly more)
   node of the adhoc network must provide connectivity to the rest of
   the Internet, thus acting as a gateway for the other adhoc nodes.
   There has been a few proposals (mainly for IP version 4) for
   automatic address allocation in adhoc networks, and there has also
   been proposals [5] which present ways of discovering a gateway. This
   work differs from previous work as follows. First, we combine both
   problems (global address configuration and gateway discovery) as done
   in classic wired IPv6 networks : the gateway is therefore responsible
   for prefix announcement. Second and in contract with previous work,
   our method supports multiple gateways which may announce different
   global prefixes. Third, our method includes some mechanisms whose aim
   is to avoid the propagation of false information during nodes
   movements. And fourth, this work aims to propose a method that is
   independent (in terms of message semantics) of the underlying routing
   protocol. Our proposed method is particularly suited to proactive
   protocols which maintain an up-to-date knowledge of their 1-hop
   neighborhood by sending periodical HELLO-like messages. While our
   proposed method could also be used with reactive protocols with no
   modifications to their operation, both its effectiveness and
   correctness are greatly increased if periodical HELLO-like messages
   are exchanged between a node and its neighbors. This can be
   implemented with very little overhead because nodes using a reactive
   routing protocol do not need to maintain a knowledge of their
   neighborhood. A node indeed only needs to know what prefix has been
   selected by each of its neighbor in order to ensure that it is not
   isolated from other nodes sharing the prefix it selected. This
   feature can either be added to the reactive protocol as part of its
   operation or can be implemented in a parallel stand-alone process
   (i.e. a daemon in networking terms).





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2. Summary of the protocol operation

   Nodes periodically exchange gateway and prefix information with their
   1-hop neighbors via packets whose content will further be noted
   GW_INFO messages. For proactive protocols, this message can be
   carried by HELLO packets which are periodically sent by a node to
   maintain its 1-hop neighborhood. This technique is very attractive as
   it allows nodes to quickly react to topological changes, for example
   when a node loses connectivity to its next hop neighbor towards the
   gateway. On the other hand, reactive protocols do not strictly use
   such a mechanism to maintain a view of their 1-hop neighborhood. We
   therefore propose that, with reactive protocols, a light mechanism
   MUST be added to the reactive protocol itself, or that a stand-alone
   process (a daemon in networking terms) MUST be run in parallel with
   the proactive protocol. The objective is to exchange GW_INFO messages
   (as detailed in sections 4 and 5) in order for a node to check the
   prefix used by its neighbors when multiple gateways are available :
   the aim is to ensure that nodes which share a common prefix always
   form a continuous neighborhood.

   The GW_INFO message contains a number of fields which allow nodes to
   exchange gateway information and which also allow a node to select
   which gateway is most appropriate if more than one gateway is
   available. Without going into details (they are given in Section 3),
   the GW_INFO message contains the global address of the gateway, the
   length of the prefix part of the address, a sequence number used to
   refrain nodes to accept wrong information (e.g. after node
   movements), a 3-bit field used by a node to notify its neighbors
   about its perceived "freshness" of the information contained in its
   GW_INFO messages, and the distance to the gateway as perceived by the
   node sending the GW_INFO message.

   GW_INFO messages are sent locally with a hop limit of 1, the
   propagation of gateway and prefix information is therefore done in a
   hop-by-hop manner. Upon reception of GW_INFO messages, each node
   follows an algorithm to select and update both the prefix used to
   create a global address and the gateway used to send data to nodes
   outside the adhoc network. A node receives GW_INFO messages from all
   of its neighbors, and must therefore choose to use the information
   sent by one of them. The algorithm used to select the most
   appropriate information is detailed in another section. When a given
   node A decides to use the GW_INFO messages sent by its neighbor B, B
   becomes what we define as the upstream neighbor of A. The term is
   used throughout this document to refer to node B when node A is
   considered. The information received by a node from its upstream
   neighbor is used by this node to build its own GW_INFO messages.

   It is also here worth mentioning that, in contrast to the work



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   proposed in [5] for AODV and in the particular case of reactive
   protocols, the GW_INFO information is not used to add a default route
   towards the gateway. We indeed believe that the reactive nature of
   such protocols avoids the need of keeping a default route which, by
   nature, prevents such a protocol from being reactive. Details about
   this concern are given in section 4.

   The rest of this document is organized as such. The next section
   details the format of the GW_INFO message. Section 4 details the
   methods that should be used to send GW_INFO messages. It also
   describes the method that is used by nodes using a reactive routing
   protocol in order to check prefix continuity, i.e. to prevent a node
   from being isolated from other nodes using the same prefix. Section 5
   gives a detailed view of the use of GW_INFO messages and details the
   algorithms used by a node to select and update both its prefix and
   gateway.



































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3. Format of the GW_INFO message

   The format of the GW_INFO message used to dissemate the gateway and
   prefix information is shown in Figure 1. This message is sent via an
   IPv6 hop-by-hop header extension. The GW_INFO MUST be sent in an IPv6
   packet with a hop limit of 1. The hop-by-hop header extension is
   prefered because it can be used with any routing protocol. However,
   if the GW_INFO message is integrated within the control packets of a
   routing protocol (e.g. in the HELLO messages of a proactive
   protocol), the GW_INFO message can be added to the payload of the
   control packets. In that case, the two first fields (Next header and
   Hdr Ext Len) MUST be removed.


          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
         +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
         | Next header   |  Hdr Ext Len  |  Option type  | Opt Data Len  |
         +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
         | Prefix Length |    Distance   |G|L N K|   Sequence number     |
         +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
         |                                                               |
         |                    Gateway Global Address                     |
         |                                                               |
         |                                                               |
         +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                          Figure 1. GW_INFO message format


   Next Header : 8-bit selector. Identifies the header following the
   hop-by-hop extension. This field is part of the hop-by-hop extension
   header format.

   Hdr Ext Len : 8-bit unsigned integer. Gives the length of the
   extension. MUST be set to 2. This field is part of the hop-by-hop
   extension header format.

   Option type : 8-bit unsigned integer. To be attributed. Specifies
   that the message is a GW_INFO message.

   Opt Data Len : 8-bit unsigned integer. MUST be set to 20.

   Prefix Length : 8-bit unsigned integer. Gives the length, in bits, of
   the prefix part of the gateway address given in the Gateway Global
   Address field. The maximum allowed value is 64 (for a /64 prefix).

   Distance : 8-bit unsigned integer. Gives the distance to the gateway,



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   in hops, as perceived by the node sending the GW_INFO message. The
   gateway itself MUST set this field to zero.

   G bit : a gateway sending GW_INFO messages MUST set this bit to 1.
   This SHOULD be manually configured by the administrator of the
   gateway.

   L N K (link) 3-bit field : these 3 bits are used by a node to
   indicate the quality of its link towards its upstream neighbor. The
   detailed use of this field is given in the sections 4 and 5.

   Sequence number : 16-bit unsigned integer. An integer value used to
   avoid the wrong dissemination of GW_INFO information due to nodes
   movements. Details about the use of this field are given in section
   5.

   Gateway Global Address : 128-bit global address of the gateway.


































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4. Sending GW_INFO messages

   Our proposed protocol strongly relies on the way by which GW_INFO
   messages are exchanged. A node indeed needs to quickly react to
   topological changes for two main reasons. First, a node must ensure
   that it is not isolated from other nodes sharing the same prefix that
   it decided to use. This property is known in this document as prefix
   continuity. Second, a node must be able to detect that it has lost
   connectivity with its upstream neighbor.

4.1 Proactive protocols

   Proactive protocols already provide a way to detect close topological
   changes via the periodical sending of HELLO messages. We therefore
   propose to use HELLO messages to send the GW_INFO information (as
   part of the proactive protocol operation - if this is not possible,
   the same method described for reactive protocols SHOULD be used). In
   particular and with this method, it is possible for a node to detect
   a loss of connectivity with one of its neighbor and to know what
   prefix is used by each of its neighbors. The GW_INFO message MAY be
   sent in each HELLO packet sent by a given node. However, to reduce
   the induced overhead, a node MAY only add the GW_INFO message to its
   HELLO packets when a new neighbor appears or when there is a change
   in the GW_INFO information it maintains. When the overhead reduction
   mechanism is used, a node SHOULD still include a GW_INFO message once
   every GW_INFO_MIN_REFRESH HELLO packets transmitted. In all cases
   with overhead reduction, a node which decides to include GW_INFO
   information in its upcoming HELLO packet MUST also include the
   (possibly updated) GW_INFO information in its next HELLO packet to
   prevent information loss if a packet collision/loss occurs.

4.2 Reactive protocols

   Reactive protocols do not (strictly) use a HELLO-like mechanism to
   maintain a knowledge of their neighborhood. However, our proposed
   method needs a periodical exchange of GW_INFO messages. A node using
   a reactive routing protocol MUST therefore send every
   GW_INFO_REFRESH_PERIOD a packet containing a GW_INFO message. The
   IPv6 destination address of this packet MUST be ff02::1 and the hop
   limit field in the IPv6 header MUST be set to 1. The IPv6 source
   address of such a packet SHOULD be the IPv6 link local address of the
   sender. This packet can be sent by the reactive protocol itself (as
   part of its normal operation) or it can be sent by a parallel
   stand-alone process (i.e. a daemon in networking terms). The same
   assumption applies for the reception of such packets. In the rest of
   this document, such a packet containing a GW_INFO message will be
   called a GW_INFO packet.




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   Each node should maintain and update a list of pairs of the form 
   (SRC_ADDR ; PREFIX) for each GW_INFO packet received. SRC_ADDR is the
   source address of the IPv6 header of the GW_INFO packet and PREFIX is
   the IPv6 prefix contained in the GW_INFO message. This list allows a
   node to check if it does not become isolated from nodes which share
   the same prefix that it uses. Also, the periodicity introduced in the
   sending of GW_INFO packets allows a node to update the 3-bit "Link"
   field of the GW_INFO messages it sends. This is detailed in Section
   5.

   We also believe that there is no need for a node to keep a default
   entry in its routing table when a reactive routing protocol is used.
   This is in contrast to what is proposed in [5]. Keeping a default
   route is somehow contradictory with the reactive nature of such
   protocols, i.e. a route request is started when a node cannot find a
   route to a destination with which it wishes to communicate. The
   default route prevents the route discovery procedure to happen.
   Moreover, the presence of a gateway is not contradictory with the
   reactive nature of such protocols. A node wishing to communicate with
   a node outside the adhoc network generates a route request and,
   according to these protocols, the first node with a fresh enough
   route can reply. In the worst case, the gateway can therefore send
   the route reply indicating that it has a route to the destination.




























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5. Detailed mode of operation

   This section gives a detailed description of the mode of operation of
   our proposed protocol. We first detail the hop-by-hop propagation of
   the GW_INFO information and how this information is used by a node to
   create a global address and (with proactive protocols) to add a
   default route. We then explain the use of sequence numbers to avoid
   the propagation of false information after nodes movements. Third, we
   describe the use of the "Link" field of the GW_INFO message. It is
   used by a node to notify its neighbors about the "freshness" of the
   information contained in its GW_INFO message. Finally in a fourth
   sub-section, we detail the algorithms used by a node to select and
   update its prefix and gateway information.

5.1 Hop-by-hop propagation of GW_INFO messages

   GW_INFO messages propagate in a hop-by-hop manner, starting from a
   gateway and propagating away from it. A node can receive multiple
   GW_INFO messages depending on the network topology and on the number
   of gateways in the network. A node MUST follow the algorithms
   described in Section 5.4 to select and update the prefix and gateway
   information. It MUST also use the selected information to build and
   send its own GW_INFO messages. In short, a node selects, among all
   the GW_INFO messages received within an arbitrary started
   GW_INFO_REFRESH_PERIOD period, the most appropriate GW_INFO message
   according to the algorithms described in Section 5.4. The node B
   which sent the GW_INFO message that has been selected by a node A
   becomes the upstream neighbor of A. The node A uses the information
   contained in the GW_INFO messages sent by node B to create and send
   its own GW_INFO messages. In particular, the "distance" field (d)
   contained in its own GW_INFO messages MUST be equal to the "distance"
   field (s) of the selected GW_INFO message plus one (d=s+1). This
   field MUST be set to zero by a gateway. Also, a node MUST use in its
   GW_INFO messages the same "Gateway Global Address" field as the one
   present in the GW_INFO message it has selected. The same rule applies
   for the "Prefix Length" and the "Sequence Number" fields, i.e. they
   are left unchanged.

5.2 Avoiding confusion after nodes movements

   The changing nature of the topology of an adhoc network requires that
   a mechanism must be used to prevent a node from accepting wrong or
   outdated information after nodes movements. We borrow the concept
   from the DSDV routing protocol [6], a distance vector protocol which
   uses sequence numbers to avoid the dissemination of wrong routing
   information.

   In our proposal, a gateway adds a sequence number in each of its



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   GW_INFO messages. This sequence number MUST be increased by one each
   time a GW_INFO message is sent by the gateway. When started, a
   gateway SHOULD use a sequence number initial value equal to zero. A
   node which decides to use the GW_INFO information of a given node (in
   order to build its own GW_INFO messages) MUST use the same sequence
   number (in its GW_INFO messages) as the one contained in the GW_INFO
   message it has selected. Each node stores the GW_INFO information in
   current use and, for a given gateway, can therefore compare the
   sequence number it has against the sequence number in received
   GW_INFO messages. For a given gateway, a node MUST NOT use the
   information contained in a GW_INFO message if the sequence number it
   contains is smaller or equal to the one stored by the node. The only
   exception to this rule is if the sequence number is equal to zero :
   in this case, it MUST not be compared with the stored information (if
   available).

5.3 GW_INFO information freshness notification

   In order to ease the selection procedure used by a node to choose the
   neighbor from which it takes the GW_INFO information, we propose to
   add information about the freshness of such information. GW_INFO
   messages are indeed sent at periodical intervals, and a node can
   therefore expect to receive GW_INFO messages from its upstream
   neighbor at fixed and known intervals. It can thus detect if it has
   not received an expected GW_INFO message. We propose that each node
   indicates in its GW_INFO messages if it has not received one or more
   GW_INFO messages from its upstream neighbor. The "Link" field of the
   GW_INFO message is used for this purpose. The 3 bits of this field
   have the following meaning. The K bit, when set to one, indicates
   that a node has not received the last expected GW_INFO from its
   upstream neighbor. In the following GW_INFO message sent by the node,
   the value of the K bit of the previous GW_INFO message sent MUST be
   copied to the N bit, and the value of the N bit of the previous
   GW_INFO message sent MUST be copied to the L bit. The K bit must be
   updated according to the method described above. The K bit therefore
   gives an "instantaneous" image of the link quality towards the
   upstream node, and in other terms, an idea of the freshness of the
   information contained in the GW_INFO message. The other two bits (N
   and L) reflect the evolution of the link quality. The three bits are
   used in the selection algorithm (detailed in Section 5.4) used by a
   node to choose its upstream neighbor.

5.4 Algorithms and node behaviour

   This section describes the selection algorithms that are to be used
   by a node receiving multiple GW_INFO messages in order to select the
   upstream neighbor. The behaviour of a node is different whether it
   already has a global address or not. Because no assumption can be



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   made on the frequency of topological changes in an adhoc network,
   preference is given to address stability rather than route
   optimization. That is, a node must not change its global address
   unless it has lost connectivity with other nodes sharing the same
   prefix.

5.4.1 Initial selection algorithm

   When a node does not have a global address, it should wait until it
   receives a GW_INFO message. Upon reception of a GW_INFO message, it
   SHOULD wait GW_INFO_REFRESH_PERIOD to ensure that there are no other
   neighbors sending GW_INFO messages. If only one GW_INFO message is
   received, the sender of this message is chosen as the upstream node.
   The information contained in the GW_INFO message is used as defined
   in the next paragraph. If multiple GW_INFO messages are received, the
   selection is done as follows. All GW_INFO messages received are
   grouped (in sets) according to the prefix they contain. Let d be an
   integer value initially set to zero. The prefix of the set that
   contains the most GW_INFO messages with the "distance" field equal to
   d is selected. If more than one set have an equal number of entries
   with a "distance" field equal to d, d is increased by one and the
   test is re-applied, but only on the sets that were in the tie. This
   procedure is repeated until a set can be selected. If this test does
   not permit to select a set, a new test must be applied to the sets
   that remained in the last tie. The value d is again set to zero, but
   this time the "Link" value is checked. The value is computed as v =
   K^3+N^2+L (where x^y means x to the power of y) for each GW_INFO
   message. For a given set and a given value of d, a value g is
   computed as the sum of all v values of the entries that have a
   "distance" equal to d. The set with the smallest value of g is
   selected. If a set cannot be selected, d is increased by one and the
   same test is re-applied to the sets that remainded in the last tie.
   If, after the last check, no set is selected, one must be randomly
   chosen among the sets remaining in the last tie. Finally and within
   the selected set, the entry with the smallest "Link" value among
   those with the smallest "distance" value is chosen. If a tie remains
   it is broken via a random choice.

   The prefix contained in the selected GW_INFO message is used to
   create a global address by adding the node's EUI to the prefix, as
   done for the link local address with the fe80::/64 prefix. Note that
   it is preferable if gateways announce a /64 prefix. If this not the
   case, the prefix must be padded with zeros until a length of /64 is
   reached. The normal DAD (Duplicate Address Detection) of the IPv6
   protocol MUST NOT be performed, because the probability of an address
   collision is very low when EUI are used, and DAD is also complex to
   setup in an adhoc network. The information contained in the GW_INFO
   message (noted o) of its upstream node is also used by a node to



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   create its own GW_INFO message (noted n). The value of the "distance"
   field of n is equal to the value of the "distance" field of o plus
   one. The G bit of n MUST be set to zero. All other fields are left
   unchanged.

   With proactive protocols, a default route entry is also added to the
   node's routing table. The upstream node becomes the next hop for the
   default entry.

                default/0    upstream_node

   This is in contrast to the method proposed in [5] to add a default
   entry such as :

                default/0    gateway
                gateway/128  upstream_node

   The problem with the work from [5] is that it requires the
   possibility for the operating system to perform a double (or
   recursive) routing table lookup, something that is currently not
   implemented in modern operating systems. If this feature becomes
   available, this method SHOULD be prefered.

5.4.2 Maintaining prefix and route information

   When a node already has a global address set, it should continue to
   listen to updated GW_INFO messages from its neighbors. In particular,
   it should update its stored information (i.e. prefix, gateway address
   and distance), and is allowed to decide to choose a new upstream
   neighbor but ONLY, and only if the prefix remains identical. With
   proactive protocols, a change in the upstream neighbor also triggers
   an update in the routing table. A node decides to choose a new
   upstream neighbor if it receives GW_INFO messages with a smaller
   "distance" field than what is sent by the current upstream node, at
   the condition that the "Link" field is equal or better than the one
   in use. A node MUST choose a new upstream neighbor if it has not
   received LINK_LOST consecutive GW_INFO messages from its upstream
   neighbor.

   The only situation in which a node is allowed to change its prefix
   (and consequently its global address) is if this node loses
   connectivity with all its neighbors which shared the same prefix. By
   losing connectivity, we mean that either these nodes are not
   reachable (LINK_LOST consecutive GW_INFO messages are not received),
   or that the "Link" field of their GW_INFO messages is equal to 111
   (in binary representation), which means that the node sending the
   GW_INFO message has lost connectivity with its upstream node. If
   these conditions are satisfied, a node is allowed to choose a new



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   upstream neighbor with a new prefix. In that case, the global address
   of the node MUST be changed accordingly. With proactive protocols,
   this also triggers an update in the routing table. The old global
   address MUST be removed. It is also possible to use a protocol such
   as Mobile IPv6 to maintain connectivity at the transport layer but
   this is out of the scope of thios ducument.

   Because of the frequent update imposed by the use of GW_INFO
   messages, there is no prefix lifetime value within a GW_INFO message.
   When a node configures a global address it SHOULD set a lifetime
   value at least greater than GW_INFO_REFRESH_PERIOD*LINK_LOST.
   However, a node which has lost connectivity with all its neighbors
   SHOULD remove its current global address and all GW_INFO information
   associated to it.





































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6. DNS considerations

   As an extension to the proposed protocol, DNS information could also
   be sent in GW_INFO messages. This would allow a node to select a
   gateway that also permits to reach a DNS server. The GW_INFO
   extension could be easily extended to include a field which contains
   the IPv6 global address of a DNS server, as shown in Figure 2.


          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
         +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
         | Next header   |  Hdr Ext Len  | Option type   | Opt Data Len  |
         +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
         | Prefix Length |    Distance   |G|L N K|   Sequence number     |
         +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
         |                                                               |
         |                    Gateway Global Address                     |
         |                                                               |
         |                                                               |
         +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
         |                                                               |
         |                   DNS server Global Address                   |
         |                                                               |
         |                                                               |
         +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                   Figure 2. Extended GW_INFO message format


   With this new message format, the "Hdr Ext Len" field MUST be set to
   4, and the "Opt Data Len" must be set to 36.



















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7. Protocol parameters values

               GW_INFO_MIN_REFRESH     10
               GW_INFO_REFRESH_PERIOD  2 seconds
               LINK_LOST               3


8. Acknowledgements

   The authors wish to thank Prof. Jean-Jacques Pansiot for his helpful
   comments and suggestions concerning the use of the "Link" field.








































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References

   [1]  Perkins, C., Eli, E. and S. Das, "Ad hoc On-Demand Distance
        Vector (AODV) Routing", RFC 3561, July 2003.

   [2]  Johnson, D., Maltz, D. and Y. Hu, "The Dynamic Source Routing
        Protocol for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (DSR)", I-D
        draft-ietf-manet-dsr-09.txt, April 2003.

   [3]  Clausen, T. and P. Jacquet, "Optimized Link State Routing
        Protocol", I-D draft-ietf-manet-olsr-11.txt, June 2003.

   [4]  Ogier, R., Templin, F. and M. Lewis, "Topology Dissemination
        Based on Reverse-Path Forwarding (TBRPF)", I-D
        draft-ietf-manet-tbrpf-10.txt, July 2003.

   [5]  Wakikawa, R., Malinen, J., Perkins, C., Nilsson, A. and A.
        Tuominen, "MIPv6 for Multiple Interfaces", I-D
        draft-wakikawa-manet-globalv6-02.txt, November 2002.

   [6]  Perkins, C. and P. Bhagwat, "Highly Dynamic
        Destination-Sequenced Distance-Vector Routing ({DSDV}) for
        Mobile Computers", November 1994.


Authors' Addresses

   Christophe Jelger
   LSIIT - Universit‰ Louis Pasteur
   Pźle API, bureau C429
   Boulevard S‰bastien Brant
   Illkirch  67400
   FRANCE

   Phone: +33 390 24 45 90
   EMail: jelger@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr
   URI:   http://www-r2.u-strasbg.fr/~jelger/














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   Thomas Noel
   LSIIT - Universit‰ Louis Pasteur
   Pźle API, bureau C428
   Boulevard S‰bastien Brant
   Illkirch  67400
   FRANCE

   Phone: +33 390 24 45 92
   EMail: noel@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr
   URI:   http://www-r2.u-strasbg.fr/~noel/









































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