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RFC 6437 - IPv6 Flow Label Specification

Request for Comments: 6437
Obsoletes: RFC 3697
Updates: RFC 2205, RFC 2460
Category: Standards Track
ISSN: 2070-1721

Authors:

  • S. Amante (Level 3)
  • B. Carpenter (Univ. of Auckland)
  • S. Jiang (Huawei)
  • J. Rajahalme (Nokia Siemens Networks)

Date: November 2011

Abstract​

This document specifies the IPv6 Flow Label field and the minimum requirements for IPv6 nodes labeling flows, IPv6 nodes forwarding labeled packets, and flow state establishment methods. Even when mentioned as examples of possible uses of the flow labeling, more detailed requirements for specific use cases are out of the scope for this document.

The usage of the Flow Label field enables efficient IPv6 flow classification based only on IPv6 main header fields in fixed positions.

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/rfc6437.

Copyright (c) 2011 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.

Contents​