PCP

This document describes a new Port Control Protocol (PCP) option called the THIRD_PARTY_ID option. It is designed to be used together with the THIRD_PARTY option specified in RFC 6887.

The THIRD_PARTY_ID option serves to identify a third party in situations where a third party's IP address contained in the THIRD_PARTY option does not provide sufficient information to create requested mappings in a PCP-controlled device.

This document specifies a mechanism for a host to indicate via the Port Control Protocol (PCP) which connections should be protected against network failures. These connections will then be subject to high-availability mechanisms enabled on the network side.

This approach assumes that applications and/or users have more visibility about sensitive connections than any heuristic that can be enabled on the network side to guess which connections should be check-pointed.

In some use cases, e.g., Lightweight 4over6, the client may require not just one port, but a port set. This document defines an extension to the Port Control Protocol (PCP) that allows clients to manipulate a set of ports as a whole. This is accomplished using a new MAP option: PORT_SET.

The Port Control Protocol (PCP) anycast addresses enable PCP clients to transmit signaling messages to their closest PCP-aware on-path NAT, firewall, or other middlebox without having to learn the IP address of that middlebox via some external channel. This document establishes one well-known IPv4 address and one well-known IPv6 address to be used as PCP anycast addresses.

This document specifies a new Port Control Protocol (PCP) functional element: the PCP proxy. The PCP proxy relays PCP requests received from PCP clients to upstream PCP server(s). A typical deployment usage of this function is to help establish successful PCP communications for PCP clients that cannot be configured with the address of a PCP server located more than one hop away.

An IPv4 or IPv6 host can use the Port Control Protocol (PCP) to flexibly manage the IP address-mapping and port-mapping information on Network Address Translators (NATs) or firewalls to facilitate communication with remote hosts. However, the uncontrolled generation or deletion of IP address mappings on such network devices may cause security risks and should be avoided. In some cases, the client may need to prove that it is authorized to modify, create, or delete PCP mappings. This document describes an in-band authentication mechanism for PCP that can be used in those cases. The Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) is used to perform authentication between PCP devices.

This document updates RFC 6887.

This document specifies the behavior to be followed by a Port Control Protocol (PCP) client to contact its PCP server(s) when one or several PCP server IP addresses are configured.

This document updates RFC 6887.

This document focuses on the problems encountered when using dynamic DNS in address-sharing contexts (e.g., Dual-Stack Lite (DS-Lite) and Network Address and Protocol Translation from IPv6 Clients to IPv4 Servers (NAT64)) during IPv6 transition. Both issues and possible solutions are documented in this memo.

This document specifies DHCP (IPv4 and IPv6) options to configure hosts with Port Control Protocol (PCP) server IP addresses. The use of DHCPv4 or DHCPv6 depends on the PCP deployment scenarios. The set of deployment scenarios to which DHCPv4 or DHCPv6 can be applied is outside the scope of this document.

This document defines a new Port Control Protocol (PCP) option to learn the IPv6 prefix(es) used by a PCP-controlled NAT64 device to build IPv4-converted IPv6 addresses. This option is needed for successful communications when IPv4 addresses are used in referrals.

This document extends the Port Control Protocol (PCP) with the ability to associate a description with a PCP-instantiated mapping. It does this by defining a new DESCRIPTION option.

This document specifies the behavior of the Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) Internet Gateway Device - Port Control Protocol Interworking Function (IGD-PCP IWF). A UPnP IGD-PCP IWF is required to be embedded in Customer Premises (CP) routers to allow for transparent NAT control in environments where a UPnP IGD is used on the LAN side and PCP is used on the external side of the CP router.

The Port Control Protocol allows an IPv6 or IPv4 host to control how incoming IPv6 or IPv4 packets are translated and forwarded by a Network Address Translator (NAT) or simple firewall, and also allows a host to optimize its outgoing NAT keepalive messages.