ICMPv6 PTBs and IPv6 frag filtering (particularly at BGP peers)

Fri Jan 13 19:35:36 UTC 2017

On 01/12/2017 11:14 PM, Mark Andrews wrote:
> In message <CAG6TeAt5pZJzoU0qDeTHgWEETnnib3hOLg-=bCv_1MBZJbew1g at mail.gmail.com>
> , Fernando Gont writes:
>> El 12/1/2017 16:32, "Saku Ytti" <saku at ytti.fi> escribi=C3=B3:
>>
>> On 12 January 2017 at 17:02, Fernando Gont <fgont at si6networks.com> wrote:
>>> That's the point: If you don't allow fragments, but your peer honors
>>> ICMPv6 PTB<1280, then dropping fragments creates the attack vector.
>>
>> Thanks. I think I got it now. Best I can offer is that B could try to
>> verify the embedded original packet? Hopefully attacker won't have
>> access to that information. An if attacker has access to that
>> information, they may as well do TCP RST, right?
>>
>> Didn't we have same issues in IPv4 with ICMP unreachable and frag
>> neeeded, DF set? And vendors implemented more verification if the ICMP
>> message should be accepted.
>>
>>
>> Yes and no.
>>
>> 1) there was no way in v4 to trigger use of fragmentation for an arbitrary
>> flow.
>>
>> 2) in v4 you were guaranteed to get the IP+TCP header in the ICMP payload.
>> In ipv6, you aren't (think ipv6 EHs)
> 
> So drop the packet if you don't get to the end of the extension
> headers in the ICMPv6 payload.  Has anyone, except in testing, seen
> a extension header chain that was not fully containable in the
> ICMPv6 payload?

Because of the extra IPv6+ICMPv6 headers that you need for sending the
ICMP error, even if the original packet did have the entire IPv6 header
chain, you might be unable to include it in the ICMPv6 payload.

Yes, in practice you'd be fine dropping ICMP errors that don't embed a
full payload. Whether vendors do it or not, is a different question.

FWIW, it took me 6 years to publish RFC5927. And, because folks
*opposed* to it in tcpm wg, it was published as Informational, rather
than Std Track. RFC4443 points to it, still as informational thing that
you might want to do.

If we don't convey the right message in specs, not sure we can expect
good implementations, and even less flame the folk that tries to run his
network in the best possible way with "what he gets".

Thanks,
-- 
Fernando Gont
SI6 Networks
e-mail: fgont at si6networks.com
PGP Fingerprint: 6666 31C6 D484 63B2 8FB1 E3C4 AE25 0D55 1D4E 7492