RFC6918

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) F. Gont Request for Comments: 6918 UTN-FRH / SI6 Networks Obsoletes: 1788 C. Pignataro Updates: 792, 950 Cisco Systems Category: Standards Track April 2013 ISSN: 2070-1721

         Formally Deprecating Some ICMPv4 Message Types

Abstract

A number of ICMPv4 message types have become obsolete in practice, but have never been formally deprecated. This document deprecates such ICMPv4 message types, thus cleaning up the corresponding IANA registry. Additionally, it updates RFC 792 and RFC 950, obsoletes RFC 1788, and requests the RFC Editor to change the status of RFC 1788 to Historic.

Status of This Memo

This is an Internet Standards Track document.

This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.

Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6918.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.

Introduction

A number of ICMPv4 RFC0792 message types have been specified over the years. A number of these message types have become obsolete in practice, but have never been formally deprecated. This document deprecates such ICMPv4 message types, "cleaning up" the corresponding IANA registry. Additionally, it updates RFC 792 and RFC 950, obsoletes RFC 1788, and requests the RFC Editor to change the status of RFC 1788 to Historic.

Section 2 discusses each of the obsoleted ICMPv4 messages. Section 4 requests the RFC Editor to change the status of RFC 1788 to Historic.

Discussion of Deprecated ICMPv4 Message Types

The following subsections discuss the details of those ICMPv4 message types being deprecated, based on publicly available information and/or information provided by the requester of the corresponding assignment.

Alternate Host Address (Type 6)

There is no publicly available information about this message type.

Information Request (Type 15)

This message type is specified in RFC0792. However, other mechanisms (such as DHCP RFC2131) have superseded this message type for the purpose of host configuration.

Information Reply (Type 16)

This message type is specified in RFC0792. However, other mechanisms (such as DHCP RFC2131) have superseded this message type for the purpose of host configuration.

Address Mask Request (Type 17)

This message type is specified in RFC0950 and was meant to provide a means to obtain the subnet mask. However, other mechanisms (such as DHCP RFC2131) have superseded this message type for the purpose of host configuration.

Address Mask Reply (Type 18)

This message type is specified in RFC0950 and was meant to provide a means to obtain the subnet mask. However, other mechanisms (such as DHCP RFC2131) have superseded this message type for the purpose of host configuration.

Traceroute (Type 30)

This message type is specified in RFC1393 and was meant to provide an alternative means to discover the path to a destination system. This message type has never been widely deployed. The status of RFC1393 has been changed to Historic by RFC6814, and the corresponding option this message type relies on (Traceroute, Type 82) has been formally obsoleted by RFC6814.

Datagram Conversion Error (Type 31)

This message type was originally meant to report conversion errors in the TP/IX RFC1475 protocol. However, TP/IX was never widely implemented or deployed, and the status of RFC1475 is Historic.

Mobile Host Redirect (Type 32)

This message type was originally specified as part of an experimental protocol for IP Mobile Hosts [CMU-MOBILE]. However, it was never widely implemented or deployed.

IPv6 Where-Are-You (Type 33)

This message type was originally specified in [SIMPSON-DISCOV] for the purpose of identification of adjacent IPv6 nodes. It was never widely deployed or implemented.

2.10. IPv6 I-Am-Here (Type 34)

This message type was originally specified in [SIMPSON-DISCOV] for the purpose of identification of adjacent IPv6 nodes. It was never widely deployed or implemented.

2.11. Mobile Registration Request (Type 35)

This message type was originally meant for transparent routing of IPv6 datagrams to Mobile Nodes [SIMPSON-MOBILITY]. It was never widely deployed or implemented.

2.12. Mobile Registration Reply (Type 36)

This message type was originally meant for transparent routing of IPv6 datagrams to Mobile Nodes [SIMPSON-MOBILITY]. It was never widely deployed or implemented.

2.13. Domain Name Request (Type 37)

This message type was originally specified in RFC1788 for the purpose of learning the Fully Qualified Domain Name associated with an IP address. This message type was never widely deployed or implemented.

2.14. Domain Name Reply (Type 38)

This message type was originally specified in RFC1788 for the purpose of learning the Fully Qualified Domain Name associated with an IP address. This message type was never widely deployed or implemented.

2.15. SKIP (Type 39)

This message type was originally specified in [SKIP-ADP] for informing supported capabilities in the SKIP [SKIP] protocol. This message type was never widely deployed or implemented.

IANA Considerations

The "Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) Parameters" registry [IANA-ICMP] contains the list of the currently assigned ICMP message Types.

This document formally deprecates the following ICMP message Types and requests IANA to mark them as such in the corresponding registry [IANA-ICMP]:

o Alternate Host Address (Type 6)

o Information Request (Type 15)

o Information Reply (Type 16)

o Address Mask Request (Type 17)

o Address Mask Reply (Type 18)

o Traceroute (Type 30)

o Datagram Conversion Error (Type 31)

o Mobile Host Redirect (Type 32)

o IPv6 Where-Are-You (Type 33)

o IPv6 I-Am-Here (Type 34)

o Mobile Registration Request (Type 35)

o Mobile Registration Reply (Type 36)

o Domain Name Request (Type 37)

o Domain Name Reply (Type 38)

o SKIP (Type 39)

  The ICMPv4 Source Quench Message (Type 4) has already been
  deprecated by RFC6633.

Changing the Status of RFC 1788 to Historic

This document requests the RFC Editor to change the status of RFC1788 to Historic.

  Both RFC1385 and RFC1393 already have a status of Historic.
  The status of other RFCs (such as RFC0792 and RFC0950) is not
  changed since other parts of these documents are still current.

Security Considerations

This document does not modify the security properties of the ICMPv4 message types being deprecated. However, formally deprecating these message types serves as a basis for, e.g., filtering these packets.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Ron Bonica and Joel Halpern for their guidance.

References

Normative References

RFC0792 Postel, J., "Internet Control Message Protocol", STD 5,

            RFC 792, September 1981.

RFC6814 Pignataro, C. and F. Gont, "Formally Deprecating Some

            IPv4 Options", RFC 6814, November 2012.

Informative References

[CMU-MOBILE] Johnson, D., "Transparent Internet Routing for IP Mobile

            Hosts", Work in Progress, July 1993.

[IANA-ICMP] Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, "Internet Control

            Message Protocol (ICMP) Parameters", September 2012,
            <http://www.iana.org/assignments/icmp-parameters>.

RFC0950 Mogul, J. and J. Postel, "Internet Standard Subnetting

            Procedure", STD 5, RFC 950, August 1985.

RFC1385 Wang, Z., "EIP: The Extended Internet Protocol",

            RFC 1385, November 1992.

RFC1393 Malkin, G., "Traceroute Using an IP Option", RFC 1393,

            January 1993.

RFC1475 Ullmann, R., "TP/IX: The Next Internet", RFC 1475,

            June 1993.

RFC1788 Simpson, W., "ICMP Domain Name Messages", RFC 1788,

            April 1995.

RFC2131 Droms, R., "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol",

            RFC 2131, March 1997.

RFC6633 Gont, F., "Deprecation of ICMP Source Quench Messages",

            RFC 6633, May 2012.

[SIMPSON-DISCOV]

            Simpson, W., "IPv6 Neighbor Discovery -- ICMP Message
            Formats", Work in Progress, January 1995.

[SIMPSON-MOBILITY]

            Simpson, W., "IPv6 Mobility Support", Work in Progress,
            November 1994.

[SKIP] Aziz, A., Markson, T., and H. Prafullchandra, "Simple

            Key-Management For Internet Protocols (SKIP)", Work
            in Progress, December 1995.

[SKIP-ADP] Aziz, A., Markson, T., and H. Prafullchandra, "SKIP

            Algorithm Discovery Protocol", Work in Progress,
            December 1995.

Authors' Addresses

Fernando Gont UTN-FRH / SI6 Networks Evaristo Carriego 2644 Haedo, Provincia de Buenos Aires 1706 Argentina

Phone: +54 11 4650 8472 EMail: [email protected] URI: http://www.si6networks.com

Carlos Pignataro Cisco Systems 7200-12 Kit Creek Road Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 US

EMail: [email protected]