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2.1. Policy Table

The policy table is a longest-matching-prefix lookup table, much like a routing table. Given an address A, a lookup in the policy table produces two values: a precedence value denoted Precedence(A) and a classification or label denoted Label(A).

The precedence value Precedence(A) is used for sorting destination addresses. If Precedence(A) > Precedence(B), we say that address A has higher precedence than address B, meaning that our algorithm will prefer to sort destination address A before destination address B.

The label value Label(A) allows for policies that prefer a particular source address prefix for use with a destination address prefix. The algorithms prefer to use a source address S with a destination address D if Label(S) = Label(D).

IPv6 implementations SHOULD support configurable address selection via a mechanism at least as powerful as the policy tables defined here. It is important that implementations provide a way to change the default policies as more experience is gained. Sections 10.3 through 10.7 provide examples of the kind of changes that might be needed.

If an implementation is not configurable or has not been configured, then it SHOULD operate according to the algorithms specified here in conjunction with the following default policy table:

   Prefix        Precedence Label
   ::1/128               50     0
   ::/0                  40     1
   ::ffff:0:0/96         35     4
   2002::/16             30     2
   2001::/32              5     5
   fc00::/7               3    13
   ::/96                  1     3
   fec0::/10              1    11
   3ffe::/16              1    12

An implementation MAY automatically add additional site-specific rows to the default table based on its configured addresses, such as for Unique Local Addresses (ULAs) [RFC4193] and 6to4 [RFC3056] addresses, for instance (see Sections 10.6 and 10.7 for examples). Any such rows automatically added by the implementation as a result of address acquisition MUST NOT override a row for the same prefix configured via other means. That is, rows can be added but never updated automatically. An implementation SHOULD provide a means (the Automatic Row Additions flag) for an administrator to disable automatic row additions.

As will become apparent later, one effect of the default policy table is to prefer using native source addresses with native destination addresses, 6to4 source addresses with 6to4 destination addresses, etc. Another effect of the default policy table is to prefer communication using IPv6 addresses to communication using IPv4 addresses, if matching source addresses are available.

Policy table entries for address prefixes that are not of global scope MAY be qualified with an optional zone index. If so, a prefix table entry only matches against an address during a lookup if the zone index also matches the address's zone index.

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