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3. Architecture

This section describes the architecture model for IPv6 customer edge routers and compares it with the current IPv4 architecture.

3.1. Current IPv4 End-User Network Architecture​

An end-user network will likely support both IPv4 and IPv6. It is not expected that an end user will change their existing network topology with the introduction of IPv6. There are some differences in how IPv6 works and is provisioned; these differences have implications for the network architecture. A typical IPv4 end-user network consists of a "plug and play" router with NAT functionality and a single link behind it, connected to the service provider network.

A typical IPv4 NAT deployment by default blocks all incoming connections. Opening of ports is typically allowed using a Universal Plug and Play Internet Gateway Device (UPnP IGD) [UPnP-IGD] or some other firewall control protocol.

Another consequence of using private address space in the end-user network is that it provides stable addressing; that is, it never changes even when you change service providers, and the addresses are always there even when the WAN interface is down or the customer edge router has not yet been provisioned.

Many existing routers support dynamic routing (which learns routes from other routers), and advanced end-users can build arbitrary, complex networks using manual configuration of address prefixes combined with a dynamic routing protocol.

3.2. IPv6 End-User Network Architecture​

The end-user network architecture for IPv6 should provide equivalent or better capabilities and functionality than the current IPv4 architecture.

The end-user network is a stub network. Figure 1 illustrates the model topology for the end-user network.

                   +-------+-------+                      \
                   |   Service     |                       \
                   |   Provider    |                        | Service
                   |    Router     |                        | Provider
                   +-------+-------+                        | Network
                           |                               /
                           | Customer                     /
                           | Internet Connection         /
                           |
                    +------+--------+                    \
                    |     IPv6      |                     \
                    | Customer Edge |                      \
                    |    Router     |                      /
                    +---+-------+-+-+                     /
        Network A       |       |   Network B            | End-User
  ---+-------------+----+-    --+--+-------------+---    | Network(s)
     |             |               |             |        \
 +----+-----+ +-----+----+     +----+-----+ +-----+----+   \
 |IPv6 Host | |IPv6 Host |     | IPv6 Host| |IPv6 Host |   /
 |          | |          |     |          | |          |  /
 +----------+ +-----+----+     +----------+ +----------+ /

            Figure 1: An Example of a Typical End-User Network

This architecture describes the:

  • Basic capabilities of an IPv6 CE router
  • Provisioning of the WAN interface connecting to the service provider
  • Provisioning of the LAN interfaces

For IPv6 multicast traffic, the IPv6 CE router may act as a Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) proxy [RFC4605] and may support a dynamic multicast routing protocol.

The IPv6 CE router may be manually configured in an arbitrary topology with a dynamic routing protocol. Automatic provisioning and configuration are described for a single IPv6 CE router only.

3.2.1. Local Communication​

Link-local IPv6 addresses are used by hosts communicating on a single link. Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses (ULAs) [RFC4193] are used by hosts communicating within the end-user network across multiple links, but without requiring the application to use a globally routable address. The IPv6 CE router defaults to acting as the demarcation point between two networks by providing a ULA boundary, a multicast zone boundary, and ingress and egress traffic filters.

At the time of this writing, several host implementations do not handle the case where they have an IPv6 address configured and no IPv6 connectivity, either because the address itself has a limited topological reachability (e.g., ULA) or because the IPv6 CE router is not connected to the IPv6 network on its WAN interface. To support host implementations that do not handle multihoming in a multi-prefix environment [MULTIHOMING-WITHOUT-NAT], the IPv6 CE router should not, as detailed in the requirements below, advertise itself as a default router on the LAN interface(s) when it does not have IPv6 connectivity on the WAN interface or when it is not provisioned with IPv6 addresses. For local IPv6 communication, the mechanisms specified in [RFC4191] are used.

ULA addressing is useful where the IPv6 CE router has multiple LAN interfaces with hosts that need to communicate with each other. If the IPv6 CE router has only a single LAN interface (IPv6 link), then link-local addressing can be used instead.

Coexistence with IPv4 requires any IPv6 CE router(s) on the LAN to conform to these recommendations, especially requirements ULA-5 and L-4 below.