Internet Edge Router replacement - IPv6 route tablesizeconsiderations

Jeff Wheeler jsw at inconcepts.biz
Sat Mar 12 04:14:16 UTC 2011


On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 6:33 PM, Owen DeLong <owen at delong.com> wrote:
> Yes, you can bring as much of the pain from IPv4 forward into IPv6
> as you like. You can also commit many other acts of masochism.

This is the problem with "Fundamentalists," such as yourself, Owen.
You think that "fixing" things which work fine (like reasonable-sized
VLSM LANs for content farms) is worth introducing a DDoS vulnerability
for which there is no current defense, and for which the only feasible
defense is either reversing your choice and renumbering the subnet
from /64 to /smaller, or waiting until your vendors supply you with
patched images for your routers and/or switches.

You need to move beyond this myopic view that /64 provides a benefit
that is worth this kind of operational sacrifice.  When vendors cough
up some more knobs, I'll be right there with you, configuring /64
subnets.  I've already allocated them!  It's pretty easy for me to
renumber my /120 subnets to /64, after all -- I don't have to update
any zone files for public-facing services, or modify significant
configuration for software -- I just have to reconfigure my router and
host interfaces from /120 to /64.  You, on the other hand, may have
addresses in use all over that /64, and condensing them into a smaller
subnet is guaranteed to be at least as hard as my work for growing my
subnet, and may be much more difficult -- every bit as difficult as
renumbering from one IPv4 block to another.

Given the current state of IPv6, your "Fundamentalist" way introduces
new problems *and* brings the old ones forward.  This makes no sense,
but Fundamentalists rarely do.

> Personally, I prefer to approach IPv6 as a way to reduce some of
> the more painful aspects of IPv4, such as undersized subnets,
> having to renumber or add prefixes for growth, limited aggregation,
> NAT, and more.

I look forward to that when it works.  As I've noticed, I have
prepared to take advantage of those things as soon as the NDP issue is
resolved.

>> None of that "standard IPv6 automatic stuff" works today, anyway.  The
>> state of IPv6 support on end-user CPE generally ranges from
> As someone using SLAAC in a number of environments, I'm confused
> by this statement. It seems to be working quite well in many places
> and end-user residential networks are certainly not the only places
> where it is useful.

Your definition of "working quite well in many places" is different
than mine.  I'll come around to your point of view when it is possible
to get working IPv6 connectivity from most major end-user ISPs, and
all (or close enough) the CPE being sold at Fry's and Best Buy works
right.  We are pretty far from that right now.

This is another thing the "IPv6 Fundamentalists" seem to ignore.  CPE
support is almost non-existent, ISP support is not there (some tier-1
transit networks still have no IPv6 product!), and the major IXPs
still have three orders of magnitude more IPv4 traffic than IPv6.
Cogent, Level3, and Hurricane Electric still can't decide that it's in
their mutual interest to exchange IPv6 traffic with each-other, and
their customers don't care enough to go to another service provider,
because IPv6 is largely unimportant to them.

None of this stuff "works" today.  You aren't seeing DDoS scenarios on
the v6 network today because the largest IPv4 DDoS attacks are larger
than the total volume of inter-domain IPv6 traffic.

> Most of the top-of-rack switches I'm aware of have no problem doing
> at least 64k NDP/ARP entries. Many won't do more than that, but,
> most will go at least that far.

Owen, this statement is either:
1) a gross misunderstanding on your part, because you can't or don't
read spec sheets, let alone test gear
2) you've never seen or used a top-of-rack switch or considered buying
one long enough to examine the specs
3) your racks are about 3 feet taller than everyone else's and you
blow 100k on switching for every few dozen servers
4) an outright lie, although not an atypical one for the "IPv6
Fundamentalist" crowd

I'd like you to clarify which of these is the case.  Please list some
switches which fit your definition of "top-of-rack switch" that
support 64k NDP entries.  Then list how many "top-of-rack" switches
you are currently aware of.  Don't bother listing the ones you know
don't support 64k, because I'll gladly provide a list of plenty more
of those, than the number of switches which you find to support 64k in
a ToR form-factor.

For those following along at home, how many ToR switches do indeed
support at least 64k NDP entries?  Unlike Owen, I know the answer to
this question: Zero.  There are no ToR switches that support >= 64k
NDP table entries.

Of course, I don't really mean to call Owen a liar, or foolish, or
anything else.  I do mean to point out that his "facts" are wrong and
his argument not based in the world of reality.  He is a
"Fundamentalist," and is part of the problem, not the solution.

> I find it interesting that you _KNOW_ that /64 LANs will cause you DoS
> problems and yet we've been running them for years without incident.

That's because I understand how packet forwarding to access LANs
actually works.  You don't.

Again, the biggest DDoS attacks today dwarf the whole volume of
inter-domain IPv6 traffic.  *Routine* IPv4 attacks are greater than
the peak IPv6 traffic at any IXP.  IPv6 hasn't seen any real DDoS yet.
 It will probably happen soon.

> There are several things that could eventually be implemented in the
> access switch software. Techniques like rapidly timing out unanswered
> NDP requests, not storing ND entries for SLAAC MAC-based suffixes
> (after all, the information you need is already in the IP address, just
> use that). Not storing ND entries for things that don't have an entry
> in the MAC forwarding table (pass the first ND packet and if you
> get a response, create the ND entry at that time), etc.

I am glad you have given this some thought.  The things you mention
above are not bad, but they don't fix the problem.  There are several
practical solutions available which require pretty straight-forward
router/switch knobs.  Vendors will *eventually* deliver these knobs.
Probably not before IPv6 is deployed enough that we see real DDoS,
though; and if the most popular fix becomes dependent on NDP
inspection ... you can forget about benefiting from that fix if you
still have 10-year-old access switches.

I do have 10-year-old access switches, and older.  I'm not upgrading
them specifically because vendors aren't offering the needed knobs to
solve this problem.  I want budgetary resources to be available to me
when that time comes.  To Cisco/Foundry/Juniper/et al: I've been
waiting a real long time to upgrade these old beasts, and whichever of
you gets me a fix I consider practical first, is very likely to be the
vendor that gets to sell me > 1000 new ToR switches.  Unless Cisco
feels like back-porting a fix to my older platforms, which I see as
unlikely, I am quite prepared to replace 10 - 15 year old switches
when NDP flooding fix is among the benefits I receive.  I really hope
my 0 to 5 year old switches all get back-ported fixes, or I'll be
pretty displeased.

> Yes, these all involve a certain amount of changing some expected
> behaviors, but, those changes could probably be easily accommodated
> in most environments.

This can be fixed without changing *any* behavior at all from the
host's perspective.  We just need the knobs.  To get that, we need
people like you to stop telling people this isn't a problem, and to
start telling your vendors that "the sky is falling," and asking for
some specific fix that you think is practical, or a fix in general, if
you don't think you have a truly practical idea.

> Finally, the bottom line is that a rogue host behind your firewall
> is probably going to cause other forms of damage well before
> it runs you out of ND entries and any time you have such a thing,
> it's going to be pretty vital to identify and remove it as fast as
> possible anyway.

I've seen this argument before, too.  We all have.  It doesn't hold
water.  Once again, you "Fundamentalists" think that if there is any
case where a fix might not be helpful, or you can distract attention
from this issue to one of host security, you try to do so.  Let me
give you the case I care about:

Script kiddie hacks one server in a multi-use hosting datacenter,
which is served by a layer-3 switch aggregating hundreds of customers.
 Script kiddie decides to DoS someone from his newly-hacked server,
and uses random source addresses within the configured /64.  Maybe he
intends to DoS the upstream aggregation switch, or maybe it doesn't
even occur to him.  Either way, my NDP table immediately becomes full
(even with only a few hundred PPS.)  Are any other customers affected?
 Yes, potentially all the customers on this layer-3 switch are
affected.  Definitely all the customers on this VLAN/subnet are
affected, even with the Cisco knob (which is better than all
VLANs/subnets breaking.)

Now replace the "some script kiddie" scenario with something that's
simply misconfigured or buggy.  You don't even have to be compromised.

>> I'm glad SLAAC is an option, but that's all it is, an option.  /64
>> LANs must also be considered optional, and should be considered useful
> They are entirely optional, but, IMHO, avoiding them at all costs
> such as you seem to be suggesting is unnecessarily painful in
> most environments.

"At all costs?"  Again, more "IPv6 Fundamentalist" talk.  What is the
cost of configuring a /120 instead of a /64 on my LAN, if I already
know I don't want SLAAC on this LAN?  None.  Might the subnet need to
grow?  I'll grant that, but it's a minimal cost compared to a DoS
vulnerability which can be exploited trivially.

> I'd settle for Cisco coming to the point of having RA guard
> universally available on all switch products. That, to me,
> is a much more pressing issue than this imagined ND
> exhaustion attack which, in reality, requires near DDOS
> levels of traffic for most networks to actually run the ND
> table meaningfully into overflow.

First, I agree, we need more knobs on all switching ports, period.
Vendors are not delivering, and I'm not buying any more access
switches than I absolutely have to.  I have been putting off upgrades
for *years* because of these things.  Anytime clients ask me, "should
we replace these old switches?  They work but.. they're pretty old!" I
say "no, wait until X."  This is X.

Second, ND exhaustion attack is hardly imagined.  Go do it on a box.
Any box, pick one.  They all break, period.  The failure mode differs
somewhat from one vendor to the next (when entries are evicted, etc.)
but *every router* breaks today, period.

Third, I don't know what you mean by "near DDOS levels of traffic,"
but I already know that you are unfamiliar with common NDP table
sizes.  4k - 8k is actually a pretty common range of supported NDP
entries for modern layer-3 ToR switches, and I'm talking about
1-year-old, 40x10GbE switches from reputable vendors.  As you might
imagine, it only takes a few thousand packets to fill this up, and
aging timers these days get up to several *hours* before entries are
evicted.  One packet per second is plenty.  One PPS!  Some DDoS, huh?

If this sounds like a "magic packet" issue to some, remember, it's
not.  This is not "ping of death" or "winnuke," and it's not smurf.
It's the same thing that happens if you toss a /8 on an IPv4 LAN and
start banging away at the ARP table, while expecting all of your
legitimate hosts within that /8 to continue working correctly.  We all
know that's crazy, right?  How is it suddenly less crazy to put an
even larger subnet on an IPv6 LAN without gaining any direct benefits
from doing so?  Remember, many LANs don't need SLAAC.  The VPS farm
sure doesn't.  The router point-to-point doesn't.  Any person who
would tell you to configure a /64 for those LANs is an "IPv6
Fundamentalist."

-- 
Jeff S Wheeler <jsw at inconcepts.biz>
Sr Network Operator  /  Innovative Network Concepts




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