Internet Info 1994 March/Internet Info CD-ROM (Walnut Creek) (March 1994).iso/inet/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-pip-architecture-00.txt

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Network Working Group                                        P. Tsuchiya
INTERNET-DRAFT                                                  Bellcore
                                                           February 1993


                       Pip Near-term Architecture


Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet Draft.  Internet Drafts are working
   documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its Areas,
   and its Working Groups. Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet Drafts).

   Internet Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six
   months. Internet Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by
   other documents at any time.  It is not appropriate to use Internet
   Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as a "working
   draft" or "work in progress."

   Please check the I-D abstract listing contained in each Internet
   Draft directory to learn the current status of this or any other
   Internet Draft.


Abstract

   Pip is an internet protocol intended as the replacement for IP
   version 4.  Pip is a general purpose internet protocol, designed to
   evolve to all forseeable internet protocol requirements.  This
   specification describes the routing and addressing architecture for
   near-term Pip deployment.  We say near-term only because Pip is
   designed with evolution in mind, so other architectures are expected
   in the future.  This document, however, makes no reference to such
   future architectures.












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                              Table of Contents




   1 Pip Architecture Overview .......................................    4
   1.1 Pip Architecture Characteristics ..............................    5
   1.2 Components of the Pip Architecture ............................    6

   2 A Simple Example ................................................    6

   3 Pip Overview ....................................................    8

   4 Pip Addressing ..................................................   10
   4.1 Hierarchical Pip Addressing ...................................   10
   4.1.1 Assignment of (Hierarchical) Pip Addresses ..................   12
   4.1.2 Host Addressing .............................................   14
   4.1.3 Justification for Provider-rooted Hierarchical Pip
   Addresses .........................................................   15
   4.2 CBT Style Multicast Addresses .................................   17
   4.3 Class D Style Multicast Addresses .............................   18

   5 Pip IDs .........................................................   18

   6 Use of DNS ......................................................   20
   6.1 Information Held by DNS .......................................   20
   6.1.1 DNS File Structure for Pip Addresses ........................   22
   6.2 Authoritative Queries in DNS ..................................   22

   7 Type-of-Service (TOS) (or lack thereof) .........................   23

   8 Routing on (Hierarchical) Pip Addresses .........................   23
   8.1 Exiting a Private Domain ......................................   25
   8.2 Intra-domain Networking .......................................   27

   9 Pip Header Server ...............................................   28
   9.1 Forming Pip Headers ...........................................   29
   9.2 Pip Header Protocol (PHP) .....................................   31
   9.3 Application Interface .........................................   32

   10 Routing Algorithms in Pip ......................................   32
   10.1 Routing Information Filtering ................................   34

   11 Transition .....................................................   35
   11.1 Justification for Pip Transition Scheme ......................   36



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   11.2 Architecture for Pip Transition Scheme .......................   37
   11.3 Translation between Pip and IP packets .......................   38
   11.4 Translating between PCMP and ICMP ............................   39
   11.5 Translating between IP and Pip Routing Information ...........   39
   11.6 Old TCP and Application Binaries in Pip Hosts ................   39

   12 Pip Address and ID Auto-configuration ..........................   41
   12.1 Pip Address Prefix Administration ............................   41
   12.2 Host Pip Address Assignment ..................................   42
   12.3 Host Pip ID Assignment .......................................   43

   13 Pip Control Message Protocol (PCMP) ............................   43

   14 Host Mobility ..................................................   46
   14.1 PCMP Mobile Host message .....................................   47
   14.2 Spoofing Pip IDs .............................................   48

   15 Public Data Network (PDN) Address Discovery ....................   49
   15.1 Notes on Carrying PDN Addresses in NSAPs .....................   50

   16 Evolution with Pip .............................................   51
   16.1 Handling Directive (HD) and Routing Context (RC) Evolution
   16.1.1 Options Evolution ..........................................   55

























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Introduction

   Pip is an internet protocol intended as the replacement for IP
   version 4.  Pip is a general purpose internet protocol, designed to
   handle all forseeable internet protocol requirements.  This
   specification describes the routing and addressing architecture for
   near-term Pip deployment.  We say near-term only because Pip is
   designed with evolution in mind, so other architectures are expected
   in the future.  This document, however, makes no reference to such
   future architectures (except in that it discusses Pip evolution in
   general).

   This document gives an overall picture of how Pip operates.  It is
   provided primarily as a framework within which to understand the
   total set of documents that comprise Pip.

   The Pip Overview document [1] generally describes the Pip header and
   its capabilities outside the context of any given ROAD architecture
   (or rather, in the context of several ROAD architectures).  It
   describes what is possible with Pip.  This document describes what is
   done with Pip near-term.  This document assumes an understanding of
   the basic Pip protocol (that is, it assumes that [1] and possibly [3]
   have been read).



1.  Pip Architecture Overview


   The Pip near-term architecture is an incremental step from IP.  Like
   IP, near-term Pip is datagram.  Pip runs under TCP and UDP.  DNS is
   used in the same fashion it is now used to distribute name to Pip
   Address (and ID) mappings.  (Note that in addition to functioning as
   a global identifier, the Pip ID can function as the lowest level of
   the Pip Address, and as a multicast ID.) Routing in the near-term Pip
   architecture is hop-by-hop, though it is possible for a host to
   create a source route (for policy reasons).

   Pip Addresses has more hierarchy than IP, thus improving scaling on
   one hand, but introducing additional addressing problems, such as
   multiple addresses, on the other.  Pip, however, uses hierarchical
   addresses to advantage by making the provider-based, and using them
   to make policy routing (in this case, provider selection) choices.
   Pip also provides mechanisms for automatically assigning provider
   prefixes to hosts and routers in domains.  This is the main



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   difference between the Pip near-term architecture and the IP archi-
   tecture.  (Note that in the remainder of this paper, unless otherwise
   stated, the phrase "Pip architecture" refers to the near-term Pip
   architecture.)



1.1.  Pip Architecture Characteristics


   The proposed architecture for near-term Pip has the following charac-
   teristics:

   1.   Provider-rooted hierarchical addresses.

   2.   Automatic address prefix assignment.

   3.   Exit provider selection.

   4.   Multiple defaults routing (default routing, but to multiple exit
        points).

   5.   Equivalent of IP Class D style addressing for multicast.

   6.   CBT style multicast.

   7.   Providers support forwarding on policy routes (but initially
        will not provide the support for sources to calculate policy
        routes).

   8.   Mobile hosts.

   9.   Support for routing across large Public Data Networks (PDN).

   10.  Inter-operation with IP hosts (but, only within an IP-address
        domain where IP addresses are unique).  In particular, an IP
        address can be explicitly carried in a Pip header.

   11.  Operation with existing transport and application binaries
        (though if the application contains IP context, like FTP, it may
        only work within a domain where IP addresses are unique).

   12   Mechanisms for evolving Pip beyond the near-term architecture.





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1.2.  Components of the Pip Architecture


   The Pip Architecture consists of the following five systems:

   1.   Host (source and sink of Pip packets)

   2.   Router (forwards Pip packets)

   3.   DNS

   4.   Pip/IP Translator

   5.   Pip Header Server (formats Pip headers)


   The first three systems exist in the IP architecture, and require no
   explanation here.  The fourth system, the Pip/IP Translator, is
   required solely for the purpose of inter-operating with current IP
   systems.

   The fifth system, the Pip Header Server, is new.  Its function is to
   format Pip headers on behalf of the source host (though initially
   hosts will be able to do this themselves).  This use of the Pip
   Header Server will increase as policy routing becomes more sophisti-
   cated (moves beyond near-term Pip Architecture capabilities).

   To handle future evolution, a Pip Header Server can be used to
   "spoon-feed" Pip headers to old hosts that have not been updated to
   understand new uses of Pip.  This way, the probably that the internet
   can evolve without changing all hosts is increased.

   Finally, it is expected that the Pip/IP translation function resides
   in the same systems as the Pip routers, and that all Pip routers are
   capable of Pip/IP translation.



2.  A Simple Example


   A typical Pip "exchange" is as follows: An application initiates an
   exchange with another host as identified by a domain name.  A request
   for one or more Pip Headers, containing the domain name of the desti-
   nation host, goes to the Pip Header Server.  The Pip Header Server



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   generates a DNS request, and receive back a Pip ID, multiple Pip
   Addresses, and possibly other information such as a mobile host
   server or a PDN address.  Given this information, plus information
   about the source host (its Pip Addresses, for instance), plus option-
   ally policy information, plus optionally topology information, the
   Pip Header Server formats an ordered list of valid Pip headers and
   give these to the host.  (Note that if the Pip Header Server is co-
   resident with the host, as will be common initially, the host
   behavior is similar to that of an IP host in that a DNS request comes
   from the box, and the host forms a Pip header based on the answer
   from DNS.)

   The source host then begins to transmit Pip packets to the destina-
   tion host.  If the destination host is an IP host, then the Pip
   packet is translated into an IP packet along the way.  Assuming that
   the destination host is a Pip host, however, the destination host
   uses the destination Pip ID alone to determine if the packet is des-
   tined for it.  The destination host generates a return Pip header
   based either on information in the received Pip header, or the desti-
   nation host uses the Pip ID of the source host to query the Pip
   Header Server/DNS itself.  The latter case involves more overhead,
   but allows a more informed decision about how to return packets to
   the originating host.

   If either host is mobile, and moves to a new location, thus getting a
   new Pip Address, it informs the other host of its new address
   directly.  Since host identification is based on the Pip ID and not
   the Pip Address, this doesn't cause transport level to fail.  If both
   hosts are mobile and receive new Pip Addresses at the same time (and
   thus cannot exchange packets at all), then they can query each
   other's respective mobile host servers (learned from DNS).  Note that
   host mobility is completely confined to hosts (and DNS).  Routers
   never get involved in tracking mobile hosts (though naturally they
   are involved in host discovery and automatic host address assign-
   ment).

   Though DNS quickly flushes cached information, the Pip Header Server
   can keep cached information arbitrarily long.  If after a long time
   the cached information is no longer valid, this is learned when
   attempted communication to a destination fails, and the information
   is flushed at that time.







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3.  Pip Overview


Here, a brief overview of the Pip protocol is given.  The reader is
encouraged to read [3] for a complete description.

The Pip header is divided into four parts:

   Initial Part
   Transit Part
   Options Part
      Host Part

The Initial Part contains the following fields:

   Version Number
   Host Offset
   Options Offset
   Hop Count
   Dest ID

The Version Number places Pip as a subsequent version of IP.  The Host
Offset tells how to find the Host Part (for fast processing by receiving
hosts).  The Options Offset tells how to find the Options Part.  The Hop
Count is similar to IP's Time-to-Live.  The Dest ID identifies the des-
tination host, and is not used for routing, except for where the final
router on a LAN uses ARP to find the physical address of the host iden-
tified by the dest ID.

The Transit Part contains the following fields:

   Options Present
   FTIF Chain Length
   Handling Directive
   Routing Context
   FTIF Offset
   FTIF Chain (FTIF = Forwarding Table Index Field)

The Options Present field indicates which options are in the Options
Part.  This allows a host or router to selectively ignore options.

The FTIF Chain Length simply indicates how long the FTIF Chain is so
that the next Transit Part can be found (FTIF means Forwarding Table
Index Field).




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The Handling Directive is a set of subfields, each of which indicates a
specific handling action that must be executed on the packet.  Handling
directives have no influence on routing.  The Handling Directive itself
is preceded by a field that indicates what subfields are in the Handling
Directive.  This allows the definition of the set of handling directives
to evolve over time.  Example handling directives are queueing priority,
congestion experienced bit, drop priority, and so on.

The Routing Context and FTIF Chain comprise the Routing Directive.  This
is where the routing decision gets made.  The basic algorithm is that
the router uses the Routing Context to choose one of multiple forwarding
tables.  The FTIF Offset is used to retrieve and FTIF, which is then
used as an index into the forwarding table, which either instructs the
router to look at the next FTIF, or returns the forwarding information.

Examples of Routing Context uses are; to distinguish address families
(multicast vs. unicast), to indicate which level of the hierarchy a
packet is being routed at, and to indicate a Type of Service.  In the
near term architecture, the FTIF Chain is used to carry source and des-
tination hierarchical unicast addresses, policy route fragments, and
multicast addresses.  The Routing Context is preceded by a field that
indicates what subfields are in the Routing Context.  This allows the
definition of the Routing Context to evolve over time.

The Options Part contains the options.  The options are preceded by an
array of 8 fields that gives the offset of each of up to 8 options.
Thus, a particular option can be found without a serial search of the
list of options.

The Host Part contains the following fields:

   Payload Length
   Protocol
   Source ID
   Packet SubID
   Host Version

The Payload Length and Protocol take the place of IP's Total Length and
Protocol fields respectively.  The Source ID identifies the source of
the packet.  The Packet SubID is used to relate a received PCMP message
to a previously sent Pip packet.  This is necessary because, since
routers in Pip can tag packets, the packet returned to a host in a PCMP
message may not be the same as the packet sent.  The Host Version tells
what control algorithms the host has implemented, so that routers can
respond to hosts appropriately.  This is an evolution mechanism.



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4.  Pip Addressing


   Addressing is the core of any internet architecture.  Pip Addresses
   are carried in the Routing Directive (RD) of the Pip header (except
   for the Pip ID, which in limited circumstances functions as part of
   the Pip Address).  Pip Addresses are used only for routing packets.
   They do not serve the function of identifying the source and destina-
   tion of a Pip packet.  The Pip ID does this.  Here we describe and
   justify the Pip Addressing schemes

   There are 3 Pip Addressing schemes.  The hierarchical Pip Address
   (referred to simply as the Pip Address) is used for scalable unicast
   and for the unicast part of a CBT-style multicast.  The multicast
   part of a CBT-style multicast is the second Pip Address type.  The
   third Pip Address type is class-D style multicast.



4.1.  Hierarchical Pip Addressing


   The primary purpose of a hierarchical address is to allow better
   scaling of routing information, though Pip also uses the "path"
   information latent in hierarchical addresses for making policy rout-
   ing decisions.

   The Pip Header encodes addresses as a series of separate numbers, one
   number for each level of hierarchy.  This can be contrasted to tradi-
   tional packet encodings of addresses, which lump everything into one
   field.  Because of Pip's encoding, it is not necessary to specify a
   format for a Pip Address as it is with traditional addresses (for
   instance, the SIP address is formatted such that the first so-many
   bits are the country/metro code, the next so-many bits are the
   site/subscriber, and so on).  Pip's encoding also eliminates the
   "cornering in" effect of running out of space in one part of the
   hierarchy even though there is plenty of room in another.  No "field
   sizing" decisions need be made at all with Pip Addresses.

   Pip Addresses are carried in DNS as a series of numbers, usually with
   each number representing a layer of the hierarchy [2], but optionally
   with the initial number(s) representing a "route fragment" (the tail
   end of a source route whose elements are providers).  The route frag-
   ments would be used, for instance, when the destination network's
   directly attached provider is only giving access to other providers,



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   but the important provider-selection policy decision has to do the
   the other providers.  Thus, DNS carries the "down" and "none" markers
   needed for Pip forwarding to distinguish how to route packets [3].

   Each number can be up to 32 bits in length, including the markers
   (though it should be understood that a number higher than 65535 (or,
   2^16 - 1) increases the size of the Pip Header because 32 bits is
   required to carry each address field rather than 16).

   Note that Pip Addresses do not need to be seen by protocol layers
   above Pip (though layers above Pip can provide a Pip Address if
   desired).  Transport and above can use the Pip ID to identify the
   source and destination of a Pip packet.  The Pip layer knows how to
   map the Pip IDs (and other information received from the layer above,
   such as QOS) into Pip Addresses.

   The Pip ID can serve as the lowest level of a Pip Address.  While
   this "bends the principal" of separating Pip Addressing from Pip
   Identification, it greatly simplifies address administration.  The
   Pip ID also serves as a multicast ID.  Unless otherwise stated, the
   term "Pip Address" refers to just the part in the Routing Directive
   (that is, excludes the Pip ID).

   Pip Addresses are provider-rooted (as opposed to geographical).  That
   is, the top-level of a Pip Address indicates a network service pro-
   vider (even when the service provided is not Pip).  (A justification
   of using provider-rooted rather than geographical addresses is given
   in section 11.1.)

   Thus, the basic form of a Pip address is:

         providerPart,subscriberPart

   where both the providerPart and subscriberPart can have multiple
   layers of hierarchy internally.

   A subscriber may be attached to multiple providers.  In this case, a
   host can end up with multiple Pip Addresses by virtue of having mul-
   tiple providerParts:

         providerPart1,subscriberPart
         providerPart2,subscriberPart
         providerPart3,subscriberPart

   Note that, while there are three providerParts shown here, there is



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   only one subscriberPart.  Internal subscriber numbering should be
   independent of the providerPart.  Indeed, with the Pip architecture,
   it is possible to address internal packets without including any of
   the providerPart of the address.

   This applies to the case where the subscriber network spans many dif-
   ferent provider areas, for instance, a global corporate network.  In
   this case, some hosts in the global corporate network will have cer-
   tain providerParts, and other hosts will have others.  The subscri-
   berPart should be assigned such that routing can successfully take
   place without a providerPart in the destination Pip Address of the
   Pip Routing Directive (see section 8.2).



4.1.1.  Assignment of (Hierarchical) Pip Addresses


   Administratively, Pip Addresses are assigned as follows [4].  There
   is a root Pip Address assignment authority.  Likely choices for this
   are IANA or ISOC.  The root authority assigns top-level Pip Address
   numbers.  (A "Pip Address number" is the number at a single level of
   the Pip Address hierarchy.  A Pip Address prefix is a series of con-
   tiguous Pip Address numbers, starting at the top level but not
   including the entire Pip Address.  Thus, the top-level prefix is the
   same thing as the top-level number.)

   Though by-and-large top-level assignments are made to providers, each
   country is given an assignment, and each existing address space (such
   as E.164, X.121, IP, etc.) is given an assignment.  Thus, existing
   addresses can be grandfathered in.  Even if the top-level Pip address
   number is an administrative rather than topological assignment, the
   routing algorithm still advertises providers at the provider level of
   routing..  That is, routing will advertise enough levels of hierarchy
   that providers know how to route to each other.

   There must be some means of validating top-level number requests.
   That is, top-level assignments must be made only to true providers.
   While designing the best way to do this is outside the scope of this
   document, it seems off hand that a reasonable approach is to charge
   for the top-level prefixes.  The charge should be enough to
   discourage non-serious requests for prefixes, but not so much that it
   becomes an inhibitor to entry in the market.  The charge should
   include a yearly "rent", and top-level prefixes should be reclaimed
   when they are no longer used by the provider.  Any profit made from



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   this activity could be used to support the overall role of number
   assignment.  Since roughly 16,000 top-level assignments can be made
   before having to increase the FTIF size in the Pip header from 16
   bits to 32 bits, it is envisioned that top-level prefixes will not be
   viewed as a scarce resource.

   After a provider obtains a top-level prefix, it becomes an assignment
   authority with respect to that particular prefix.  The provider has
   complete control over assignments at the next level down (the level
   below the top-level).  The provider may either assign top-level minus
   one prefixes to subscribers, or preferably use that level to provide
   hierarchy within the provider's network (for instance, in the case
   where the provider has so many subscribers that keeping routing
   information on all of them creates a scaling problem).  As mentioned
   in section 11.1, this provider-internal layer of hierarchy also
   improves paths found between providers.

   It is envisioned that the subscriber will have complete control over
   number assignments made at levels below that of the prefix assigned
   it by the provider.

   Assigning top level prefixes directly to providers leaves the number
   of top-level assignments open-ended, resulting in the possibility of
   scaling problems at the top level.  While it is expected that the
   number of providers will remain relatively small (less than 10000
   globally), this can't be guaranteed.  If there are more providers
   than top-level routing can handle, it is likely that many of these
   providers will be "local access" providers--providers whose role is
   to give a subscriber access to multiple "long-distance" providers.
   In this case, the local access providers need not appear at the top
   level of routing, thus mitigating the scaling problem at that level.

   In the worst case, if there are too many top-level "long-distance"
   providers for top-level routing to handle, a layer of hierarchy above
   the top-level can be created.  This layer should probably conform to
   some policy criteria (as opposed to a geographical criteria).  For
   instance, backbones with similar access restrictions or type-of-
   service can be hierarchically clustered.  Clustering according to
   policy criteria rather than geographical allows the choice of address
   to remain an effective policy routing mechanism.  Of course, adding a
   layer of hierarchy to the top requires that all systems, over time,
   obtain a new providerPart prefix.  Since Pip has automatic prefix
   assignment, and since DNS hides addresses from users, this is not a
   debilitating problem.




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4.1.2.  Host Addressing


   Hosts can have multiple Pip Addresses.  Since Pip Addresses are topo-
   logically significant, a host has multiple Pip Addresses because it
   exists in multiple places topologically.  For instance, a host can
   have multiple Pip addresses because it can be reached via multiple
   providers, or because it has multiple physical interfaces.  The
   address used to reach the host influences the path to the host.

   Locally, Pip Addressing is similar to IP Addressing.  That is, Pip
   prefixes are assigned to subnetworks (where the term subnetwork here
   is meant in the OSI sense.  That is, it denotes a network operating
   at a lower layer than the Pip layer, for instance, a LAN).  Thus, it
   is not necessary to advertise individual hosts in routing updates--
   routers only need to advertise and store routes to subnetworks.

   Unlike IP, however, a single subnetwork can have multiple prefixes.
   (Strictly speaking, in IP a single subnetwork can have multiple pre-
   fixes, but a host may not be able to recognize that it can reach
   another host on the same subnetwork but with a different prefix
   without going through a router.)

   There are two styles of local Pip Addressing--one where the Pip
   Address denotes the host, and another where the Pip Address denotes
   only the destination subnetwork.  The latter style is called ID-
   tailed Pip Addressing.  With ID-tailed Pip Addresses, the Pip ID is
   used by the last router to forward the packet to the host.  It is
   expected that ID-tailed Pip Addressing is the most common, because it
   greatly eases address administration.

   (Note that the Pip Routing Directive can be used to route a Pip
   packet internal to a host.  For instance, the RD can be used to
   direct a packet to a device in a host, or even a certain memory loca-
   tion.  The use of the RD for this purpose is not part of this near-
   term Pip architecture.  We note, however, that this use of the RD
   could be locally done without effecting any other Pip systems.)

   When a router receives a Pip packet and determines that the packet is
   destined for a host on one of its' attached subnetworks (by examining
   the Routing Directive (RD)), it then examines the destination Pip ID
   (which is in a fixed position) and forwards based on that.  If it
   does not know the subnetwork address of the host, then it ARPs, using
   the Pip ID as the "address" in the ARP query.




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4.1.3.  Justification for Provider-rooted Hierarchical Pip Addresses



   Hierarchical addresses work best--that is, scale the best while
   minimizing the increased path length that results from hiding
   information--when the address structure matches the topology.  Though
   there are many non-hierarchical connections in the Internet, the
   internet is basically hierarchical.  In particular, the Internet has
   a predominant provider/subscriber topology.

   Therefore, Pip uses hierarchical addresses that are topological, and
   reflect the provider/subscriber topology.  The top level of the Pip
   Address is, to the extent possible, rooted at providers.  (I say to
   the extent possible because Pip allows levels of hierarchy that are
   purely administrative in nature, such as a country code above the
   provider.  This type of assignment may occasionally be politically
   necessary, though it is to be avoided.)

   Note that the provider network does not have to be a Pip network per
   se (that is, it does not have to be able to switch Pip packets) in
   order to justify having a Pip top-level number.  Examples of such
   networks are SMDS, Frame Relay, ATM, and so on.  Since many of the
   subscribers attached to such a provider will run Pip, it is necessary
   for scaling to hierarchically cluster these subscribers around a Pip
   top-level number given to the provider.  Pip routers attached to the
   provider network can advertise the Pip Address of the provider.

   The alternative to topological (provider-rooted) addresses are geo-
   graphical addresses.  Geographical addresses are inferior to
   provider-rooted addresses because 1) they place artificial require-
   ments on physical connectivity (different providers are required to
   interconnect at geographical locales), and 2) they don't scale as
   well as provider-based addresses.  In addition, the assignment of
   geographical addresses requires an authoritative address assignment
   authority, which currently does not exist.  (To be fair, provider-
   based addresses also require an address assignment authority, but it
   doesn't have to be nearly as authoritative.)

   Geographical addresses have an advantage over provider-rooted
   addresses in that they decouple the subscriber from provider orienta-
   tion.  Thus, address administration is easier with geographical
   addresses.  This is particularly true for subscribers that are
   attached to only one provider.  When such a subscriber changes pro-
   viders in the same geographical area, it suffers no address prefix



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   change.

   Subscribers that are connected to multiple providers, and want to be
   able to choose which provider to use on, say, a per-connection basis,
   do not gain as much from geographical addresses.  This is because
   multiply-connected subscribers must have some method of indicating
   which providers they are attached to, so that packets can be directed
   to the desired provider.  This method invariably involves distribu-
   tion through some mechanism, for example DNS, and carriage in the
   internet packet header.  Administering this information is roughly
   the same as administering the upper portions of a provider-rooted
   hierarchical address.

   One of the arguments for geographical addresses is that it allows one
   provider to know the best entry point to another provider.  For
   instance, two providers that connect to each other in two places--one
   on the east coast of the USA and one on the west coast.  With geo-
   graphical addresses, the first provider knows which coast to enter
   the other provider at.

   There is a fallacy to this argument, though.  That is, the geographi-
   cal addresses only happen to be useful in this case because the
   internal topologies of the two providers just happen (or were forced)
   to correspond to geography.  Thus, what is working in this example is
   the fact that the addresses are *topologically* oriented, not geo-
   graphically oriented.

   The same effect could have been achieved by having the two providers
   structure themselves hierarchically internally (according to whatever
   made sense in the context of their respective topologies), and adver-
   tise via a routing protocol which of their internal areas were best
   reached via each connection point.  In fact, this method has the
   advantage that a provider has the choice of entering its neighbor
   provider near the source or near the destination.  Because each pro-
   vider has a relatively small number of internal areas (say a few hun-
   dred or less), the amount of information that has to be exchanged is
   small.

   Note that the internal hierarchy of a provider is probably necessary
   anyway for internal scaling.  Thus, the hierarchical structure of a
   Pip address should be:

   provider.providerArea.subscriber

   where the subscriber part may of course have multiple levels of



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   hierarchy.  We say "should be" rather than "is" because each provider
   is free to structure their addresses as they wish internally.  The
   provider can choose not to add the level of hierarchy between pro-
   vider and subscriber.

   (Note that Pip IDs, which are also hierarchical, although they are
   treated as flat in a Pip header, are not provider-rooted.  Top-level
   Pip ID numbers are assigned, to the extent possible, directly to
   private organizations.)

   (Note that the issue of geographical versus provider-rooted addresses
   is currently under debate in the internet.  I feel strongly that geo-
   graphical addresses make little sense, and will push for provider
   rooted addresses, limiting Pip's near-term architecture to provider-
   rooted addresses only.  This having been said, there is nothing about
   Pip that prevents geographical address assignment, and if the inter-
   net community ends up showing clear consensus towards geographical
   addresses or a coexistence of geographical and provider-rooted, then
   Pip can be made to do this.)



4.2.  CBT Style Multicast Addresses


   With CBT (Core-based Tree) multicast, there is a single multicast
   tree connecting the members (recipients) of the multicast group (as
   opposed to Class-D style multicast, where there is a tree per
   source).  The tree emanates from a single "core" router.  To transmit
   to the group, a packet is routed to the core using unicast routing.
   Once the packet reaches a router on the tree, it is multicast using a
   group ID.

   Thus, the FTIF Chain for CBT multicast contains the (Unicast)
   Hierarchical Pip Address of the core router. The Dest ID field con-
   tains the group ID.  The "address family" in the Routing Context
   field is set to CBT Multicast.  Another bit in the Routing Context is
   defined as the "on-tree" bit.  When the packet is transmitted by a
   host, the on-tree bit is set to 0.  Routers receiving this packet
   route based on the core address.  When a packet reaches a router on
   the tree, the on-tree bit is set to 1, and subsequent routers don't
   examine the FTIF Chain at all, but instead route only on the group
   ID.





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4.3.  Class D Style Multicast Addresses


   By "class D" style multicast, we mean multicast using the algorithms
   developed for use with Class D addresses in IP (class D addresses are
   not used per se).  This style of routing uses both source and desti-
   nation information to route the packet (source host address and des-
   tination multicast group).  For Pip, the FTIF Chain holds the source
   ID, encoded as two 32-bit fields, with the low-order field first.
   The Dest ID field holds the multicast group.  The Routing Context
   indicates Class-D style multicast.  All routers must first look at
   the FTIF Chain (though usually only the first FTIF) and Dest ID field
   to route the packet on the tree.



5.  Pip IDs


   The Pip ID is 64-bits in length.

   The basic role of the Pip ID is to identify the source and destina-
   tion host of a Pip Packet.  (The other role of the Pip ID is for
   allowing a router to find the destination host on the destination
   subnetwork.)

   This having been said, it is possible for the Pip ID to ultimately
   identify something in addition to the host.  For instance, the Pip ID
   could identify a user or a process.  For this to work, however, the
   Pip ID has to be bound to the host, so that as far as the Pip layer
   is concerned, the ID is that of the host.  Any additional use of the
   Pip ID is outside the scope of this Pip architecture.

   The Pip ID is treated as flat.  When a host receives a Pip packet, it
   compares the destination Pip ID in the Pip header with its' own.  If
   there is a complete match, then the packet has reached the correct
   destination, and is sent to the higher layer protocol.  If there is
   not a complete match, then the packet is discarded, and a PCMP
   Invalid Address packet is returned to the originator of the packet
   [8].

   Even though the Pip ID is treated as flat by the Pip layer, it is
   generally hierarchically assigned (some flat assignments are avail-
   able).  The Pip ID hierarchy follows organizational boundaries.  The
   Pip ID hierarchy bears no relationship to topology.



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   Flat assignment of Pip IDs has the advantages of 1) using the ID
   space efficiently, and 2) simple number administration.  Hierarchical
   Pip ID assignment has any number of advantages over flat assignment.
   These include allowing the Pip ID to be used for inverse DNS lookups
   and allowing a Pip packet to be associated with an organization.
   (Note that the use of the Pip ID alone for this purpose can be easily
   spoofed.  By cross checking the Pip ID with the Pip Address prefix,
   spoofing is harder--as hard as it is with IP--but still easy.  Sec-
   tion 14.2 discusses methods for making spoofing harder still, without
   requiring encryption.)

   Administratively, the assignment of Pip IDs operates similar to that
   of Pip Addresses.  The top-level Pip ID assignment authority can be
   the same as that for Pip Addresses.  Instead of assigning top-level
   Pip ID numbers to providers, however, they are to the extent possible
   assigned directly to organizations.

   To the extent that organizational content is useful in a Pip ID,
   direct assignment of top-level Pip ID numbers to organizations maxim-
   izes the information content in a Pip ID.  This is important, because
   the Pip ID is relatively small, and layers of assignment that do not
   contain organizational information greatly reduce the amount of space
   left for organizational information.

   This having been said, some top-level Pip ID numbers are reserved for
   countries, which can subsequently assign 2nd-level Pip ID numbers to
   organizations.  Top-level Pip ID numbers are also reserved for exist-
   ing numbering spaces, such as IP, IEEE 802, and E.164.  Finally,
   top-level numbers are reserved for such special purposes such as "any
   host", "any router", "all hosts on a subnetwork", "all routers on a
   subnetwork", and so on.

   The maximum value of a Pip ID number (the number at a single level of
   the assignment hierarchy) is limited only by the amount of space left
   in the Pip ID.  Thus, a top-level assignment can consume the entire
   64-bit Pip ID (as is the case with the special purpose assignments
   "any host" etc.).  The Pip ID is encoded in the Pip header such that
   the hierarchical content of the Pip ID is self-describing.  In order
   to make the Pip ID self-describing while allowing any level of the
   Pip ID to be almost arbitrarily large, a modified ASN.1 notation is
   used to encode the Pip ID [5].  One reason for the modification is
   due to the fact that the Pip ID is fixed length, whereas ASN.1
   numbers are variable length.  The modified ASN.1 notation also
   results in the bits of the Pip ID being strictly left-to-right signi-
   ficant.



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   Another reason for the modification is that it is desirable to encode
   the IP address in the Pip ID as a straight 32-bit number.  IP
   addresses in Pip IDs are always in the lower 32 bits, and are distin-
   guishable by a particular 8-bit escape value preceding it.



6.  Use of DNS


   The Pip near-term architecture uses DNS in roughly the same style
   that it is currently used.  In particular, the Pip architecture main-
   tains the two fundamental DNS characteristics of 1) information
   stored in DNS does not change often, and 2) the information returned
   by DNS is independent of who requested it.

   While the fundamental use of DNS remains roughly the same, Pip's use
   of DNS differs from IP's use by degrees.  First, Pip relies on DNS to
   hold more types of information than IP [2].  Second, Pip Addresses in
   DNS are expected to change more often than IP addresses, due to reas-
   signment of External Prefixes.  To still allow aggressive caching of
   DNS records in the face of more quickly changing addressing, Pip
   modifies DNS so that queries can be authoritative, resulting both in
   1) a query going to the authoritative source of a DNS record, and 2)
   the caches being overwritten with a new record.  Pip uses a new PCMP
   message type, the Invalid Address, to determine when a cached DNS
   record might be invalid, thus triggering an authoritative query.

   In what follows, we first discuss the information contained in DNS,
   and then discuss authoritative queries.



6.1.  Information Held by DNS


   The information contained in DNS for the Pip architecture is:

   1.   The Pip ID.

   2.   Multiple Pip Addresses

   3.   The destination's mobile host address servers.

   4.   The Public Data Network (PDN) addresses through which the



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        destination can be reached.

   5.   The Pip/IP Translators through which the destination (if the
        destination is IP-only) can be reached.

   6.   Information about the providers represented by the destination's
        Pip addresses.  This information includes provider name, the
        type of provider network (such as SMDS, ATM, or SIP), access
        restrictions on the provider's network, and TOSs available by
        the provider.  (As of this writing, no TOSs are defined.)


   The Pip ID and Addresses are the basic units of information required
   for carriage of a Pip packet.

   The mobile host address server tells where to send queries for the
   current address of a mobile Pip host. Note that usually the current
   address of the mobile host is conveyed by the mobile host itself,
   without involving the mobile host server.

   The PDN address is used by the entry router of the PDN to learn the
   PDN address of the next hop router.  The entry router obtains the PDN
   address via an option in the Pip packet.  Note that the option is not
   sent on every packet.

   The Pip/IP translator information is used to know how to translate an
   IP address into a Pip Address so that the packet can be carried
   across the Pip infrastructure.  If the originating host is IP, then
   the first IP/Pip translator reached by the IP packet must query DNS
   for this information.

   The information about the destination's providers is used to help the
   "source" (either the source host or a Pip Header Server near the
   source host) format an appropriate Pip header, especially with
   regards to choosing a Pip Address, but also with regards to setting
   TOS information.  The choice of one of multiple Pip Addresses is
   essentially a policy routing choice.

   More detailed descriptions of the use of the information carried in
   DNS is contained in the relevant sections.








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6.1.1.  DNS File Structure for Pip Addresses


   Even though the Pip Address is returned in a DNS record as a simple
   series of numbers, the files in DNS are structured such that the
   natural number groupings that make up the address (provider part,
   private part) are distinguished.  This allows the DNS administrator
   to easily change the prefix of a large number of hosts' Pip
   Addresses, for instance because of subscribing to a new provider's
   service.



6.2.  Authoritative Queries in DNS


   The Pip architecture provides a method for a host to determine if a
   DNS entry has become stale.  That method is to configure into routers
   information about which Pip Addresses are valid and which are not
   valid, and of the valid ones, to further configure which Pip ID pre-
   fixes should be reachable through which corresponding Pip Address
   prefixes.  When an address is determined to be invalid, a PCMP
   Invalid Address message is returned to the host, indicating that the
   cached DNS information is no longer valid, and that an authoritative
   query made (resulting in the cache being updated).

   An example of this use is as follows.  A provider X has assigned an
   External Prefix to a given subscriber.  The subscriber decides to
   switch to another provider Y.  Provider X then invalidates the
   subscriber's External Prefix for a period of time adequate for all
   DNS entries to age naturally (that is, according to the Time-to-Live
   parameter in DNS).  The routers in provider X are updated to indicate
   that the External Prefix is no longer valid.  If a host with an old
   DNS cache sends a packet to the subscriber's old External Prefix, a
   router in provider X's network will determine that it is undeliver-
   able, and further determine that it is for an invalid address.  The
   router will send the host a PCMP Invalid Address message, causing the
   host to make an authoritative query.

   As another example, assume the same scenario, but that the External
   Prefix has been reassigned to another subscriber before all DNS
   caches have naturally timed out.  In this case, when a host sends a
   packet with a Pip Address containing the External Prefix, but a Pip
   ID for one of the original subscriber's hosts, the packet will be
   routed to the new subscriber's network, where it will eventually



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   reach a router that cannot deliver it.  Upon not being able to for-
   ward the packet, the router will check the Pip ID and determine that
   it is not meant for any host in its organization, and send the PCMP
   Invalid Address message.  (Note that, as a security check, a previous
   router, such as a border router, may have filtered against the desti-
   nation Pip ID and made the same determination.)

   The modification to DNS to make queries authoritative is straightfor-
   ward.  The authoritative bit is set in the query, resulting in the
   DNS server receiving the query to not look into its cache.  All other
   DNS behavior remains the same.

   Note that, if for some reason unknown to the author it is not accept-
   able to form authoritative queries, a DNS resolver can mimic an
   authoritative query by first determining the address of the authori-
   tative name server, and then querying that name server directly.
   This method, while acceptable, is less desirable in that it doesn't
   result in flushing caches.



7.  Type-of-Service (TOS) (or lack thereof)


   One year ago it probably would have been adequate to define a handful
   (4 or 5) of priority levels to drive a simple priority FIFO queue.
   With the advent of real-time services over the Internet, however,
   this is no longer sufficient.  Real-time traffic cannot be handled on
   the same footing as non-real-time.  In particular, real-time traffic
   must be subject to access control so that excess real-time traffic
   does not swamp a link (to the detriment of other real-time and non-
   real-time traffic alike).

   Given that a consensus solution to real- and non-real-time traffic
   management in the internet does not exist, this version of the Pip
   near-term architecture does not specify any classes of service (and
   related queueing mechanisms).  It is expected that Pip will define
   classes of service (primarily for use in the Handling Directive) as
   solutions become available.



8.  Routing on (Hierarchical) Pip Addresses

   Pip forwarding in a single router is done based on one or a small



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   number of FTIFs.  What this means with respect to hierarchical Pip
   Addresses is that a Pip router is able to forward a packet based on
   examining only part of the Pip Address--often a single level.

   One advantage to encoding each level of the Pip Address separately is
   that it makes handling of addresses, for instance address assignment
   or managing multiple addresses, easier.  Another advantage is address
   lookup speed--the entire address does not have to be examined to for-
   ward a packet (as is necessary, for instance, with traditional
   hierarchical address encoding).  The cost of this, however, is addi-
   tional complexity in keeping track of the active hierarchical level
   in the Pip header.

   Since Pip Addresses allow reuse of numbers at each level of the
   hierarchy, it is necessary for a Pip router to know which level of
   the hierarchy it is acting at when it retrieves an FTIF.  This is
   done in part with a hierarchy level indicator in the Routing Context
   (RC) field.  RC Level is numbered from the top of the hierarchy down.
   Therefore, the top of the hierarchy is RC Level = 0, the next level
   down is RC Level = 1, and so on.

   The RC Level alone, however, is not adequate to keep track of the
   appropriate level in all cases.  This is because different parts of
   the hierarchy may have different numbers of levels, and elements of
   the hierarchy (such as a domain or an area) may exist in multiple
   parts of the hierarchy.  Thus, a hierarchy element can be, say, level
   3 under one of its parents and level 2 under another.

   To resolve this ambiguity, the topological hierarchy is superimposed
   with another set of levels--metalevels.  A metalevel boundary exists
   wherever a hierarchy element has multiple parents with different
   numbers of levels, or may with reasonable probability have multiple
   parents with different numbers of levels in the future.

   Thus, a metalevel boundary exists between a private domain and its
   provider.  (Note that in general the metalevel represents a signifi-
   cant administrative boundary between two levels of the topological
   hierarchy.  It is because of this administrative boundary that the
   child is likely to have multiple parents.) Lower metalevels may
   exist, but usually will not.

   The RC, then, contains a level and a metalevel indicator.  The level
   indicates the number of levels from the top of the next higher
   metalevel.  The top of the global hierarchy is metalevel 0, level 0.
   The next level down (for instance, the level that provides a level of



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   hierarchy within a provider) is metalevel 0, level 1.  The first
   level of hierarchy under a provider is metalevel 1, level 0, and so
   on.

   To determine the RC Level and RC Metalevel in a transmitted Pip
   packet, a host (or Pip Header Server) must know where the metalevels
   are in its own Pip Addresses.

   The host compares its source Pip Address with the destination Pip
   Address.  The highest Pip Address component that is different between
   the two addresses determines the level and metalevel.  (No levels
   higher than this level need be encoded in the Routing Directive.)

   Neighbor routers are configured to know if there is a level or
   metalevel boundary between them, so that they can modify the RC Level
   and RC Metalevel in a transmitted packet appropriately.



8.1.  Exiting a Private Domain


   The near-term Pip Architecture provides two methods of exit routing,
   that is, routing inter-domain Pip packets from a source host to a
   network service provider of a private domain.  In the first method,
   called transit-driven exit routing, the source host leaves the choice
   of provider to the routers.  In the second method, called host-driven
   exit routing, the source host explicitly chooses the provider.  In
   either method, it is possible to prevent internal routers from having
   to carry external routing information.

   With host-driven exit routing, it is possible for the host to choose
   a provider through which the destination cannot be reached.  In this
   case, the host receives the appropriate PCMP Destination Unreachable
   message, and may either fallback on transit-driven exit routing or
   choose a different provider.

   When using host-driven exit routing, the host sets the FTIF Offset
   field to point to the top-level FTIF of the source Pip Address (that
   is, the part of the source address that represents the provider). The
   host sets the Level and Metalevel parts of the Routing Context field
   to 0 (for top level).  Finally, the host sets the Exit-Type bit of
   the Routing Context field to 0 (for host-driven).  (The need for the
   Exit-Type bit is explained shortly.) The intra-domain router's for-
   warding tables are configured such that this causes the packet to be



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   routed to the indicated provider.

   When using transit-driven exit routing, there are two modes of opera-
   tion.  The first, called destination-oriented, is used when the
   routers internal to a domain have external routing information.  The
   second, called provider-rooted, is used when the routers internal to
   a domain do not have any external routing information.  (With IP,
   this case is called default routing.  In the case of IP, however,
   default routing does not allow an intelligent choice of multiple exit
   points.)

   With destination-oriented (transit-driven) exit routing, the FTIF
   Offset is set to point to the top-level FTIF of the destination Pip
   Address.  The host sets the Level and Metalevel parts of the Routing
   Context field to 0 (for top level).  The setting of the Exit-Type bit
   of the Routing Context field is irrelevant in this case.

   With provider-rooted exit routing, the host arbitrarily chooses a
   source Pip Address (and therefore, a provider).  (Note that if the
   Pip Header Server is tracking inter-domain routing, then it chooses
   the appropriate provider.)

   The host points the FTIF Offset to the lowest-level FTIF above the
   intra-domain part of the Pip Address (intra-domain routers are con-
   figured to know how to route this towards the border router of the
   indicated provider).  The host sets the Exit-Type bit of the Routing
   Context field to 1 (for provider-driven).  As a result of this Exit-
   Type bit setting, the border router, when it receives the packet,
   does not automatically forward the packet to the indicated provider.
   Instead, the border router examines subsequent FTIFs until it reaches
   the first FTIF after the top-level source FTIF (which is the top-
   level of the destination Pip Address, unless a policy route has been
   installed in the Routing Directive).  It then determines if indeed
   the indicated provider is the best route to the destination (or next
   hop of policy route).

   If the indicated provider is the best route, then the packet is for-
   warded to that provider.  If it is not, then the border router keeps
   the FTIF Offset in its original position, and tunnels the packet to
   the correct border router.  It also sends a PCMP Provider Redirect to
   the source host, indicating the appropriate provider to use.  When
   the correct border router receives the packet, it untunnels it, modi-
   fies the source Pip Address to match that of the best-route provider,
   and forwards the packet to the provider.




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   Because of the PCMP Provider Redirect, subsequent packets go to the
   best-route border router.  If, however, the best route changes to
   become another provider, then the previous best-route border router
   tunnels the packet to the best-route border router and sends the PCMP
   Provider Redirect.



8.2.  Intra-domain Networking


   With intra-domain networking (where both source and destination are
   in the private network), there are two scenarios of concern.  In the
   first, the destination address shares a providerPart with the source
   address, and so the destination is known to be intra-domain even
   before a packet is sent.  In the second, the destination address does
   not share a providerPart with the source address, and so the source
   host doesn't know that the destination is reachable intra-domain.

   In the first case, the Pip Addresses in the Routing Directive need
   not contain the providerPart.  In the absence of information to the
   contrary (discussed below), the host only includes those levels of
   the Pip Address below the matching prefixes.  For instance, if the
   source Pip Address is 1.2.3,4.5.6 and the destination Pip Address is
   1.2.3,4.7.8, then only 7.8 need be included for the destination
   address in the Routing Directive.  (The comma "," in the address
   indicates the metalevel boundary between providerPart and subscriber-
   Part.) The metalevel and level are set accordingly.

   In the second case, it is desirable to use the Pip Header Server to
   determine if the destination is intra-domain or inter-domain.  The
   Pip Header Server can do this by monitoring intra-domain routing.
   (This is done by having the Pip Header Server run the intra-domain
   routing algorithm, but not advertise any destinations.) Thus, the Pip
   Header Server can determine if the providerPart can be eliminated
   from the address, as described in the last paragraph, or cannot and
   must conform to the rules of exit routing as described in the previ-
   ous section.

   If the Pip Header Server does not monitor intra-domain routing, how-
   ever, then the following actions occur.  In the case of host-driven
   exit routing, the packet will be routed to the stated provider, and
   an external path will be used to reach an internal destination.  (The
   moral here is to not use host-driven exit routing unless the Pip
   Header Server is privy to routing information, both internal and



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   external.)

   In the case of transit-driven exit routing, the packet sent by the
   host will eventually reach a router that knows that the destination
   is intra-domain.  This router will forward the packet towards the
   destination, and at the same time send a PCMP Reformat Transit Part
   message to the host.  This message tells the host how much of the Pip
   Address is needed to route the packet.

   In addition to using the PCMP Reformat Transit Part message to remove
   layers of hierarchy in the Pip Addresses in the Routing Directive,
   the PCMP Reformat Transit Part message can direct the host to add
   layers of hierarchy to the Pip Addresses.  This is necessary in cer-
   tain situations where a router serves multiple parts of the hierar-
   chy.

   For instance, assume that a router R is connected to other routers
   serving address prefixes 1.2.3, 1.2.4, and 1.3.4.  Assume that a host
   under 1.2.3 has a packet to send to a host under 1.2.4.  The host
   sets the level to 2 and puts only the third layer in the packet (des-
   tination = 4).  When router R receives the packet, it doesn't know if
   the packet is destined for 1.2.4 or 1.3.4, because of the ambiguity
   at level 2.  Thus, the router sends the host a PCMP Reformat Transit
   Part indicating how many additional layers are needed to correct the
   ambiguity.

   The host can cache this information for an arbitrarily long time,
   because a subsequent PCMP Reformat Transit Part message can be used
   to reduce the number of layers required if in the future the topology
   changes so that there is no longer an ambiguity.  (Note that the need
   for this message is based on the desire to minimize the amount of
   information in the packet, and to optimize forwarding speed.  The
   need for this message would disappear if we chose to always put full
   Pip Addresses in the Pip header.)



9.  Pip Header Server


   Two new components of the Pip Architecture are the Pip/IP Translator
   and the Pip Header Server.  The Pip/IP Translator is only used for
   transition from IP to Pip, and otherwise would not be necessary.  The
   Pip Header Server, however, is a new architectural component.




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   The purpose of the Pip Header Server is to form a Pip Header.  It is
   useful to form the Pip header in a separate box because a) in the
   future (as policy routing matures, for instance), significant amounts
   of information may be needed to form the Pip header--too much infor-
   mation to distribute to all hosts, and b) it won't be possible to
   evolve all hosts at the same time, so the existence of a separate box
   that can spoon-feed Pip headers to old hosts is necessary.  (It is
   impossible to guarantee that no modification of Pip hosts is neces-
   sary for any potential evolution, but being able to form the header
   in a server, and hand it to an outdated host, is a large step in the
   right direction.)

   (Note that policy routing architectures commonly if not universally
   require the use of some kind of "route server" for calculating policy
   routes.  The Pip Header Server is, among other things, just this
   server.  Thus, the Pip Header Server does not so much result from the
   fact that Pip itself is more complex than IP or other "IPv7" propo-
   sals.  Rather, the Pip Header Server reflects the fact that the Pip
   Architecture has more functionality than ROAD architectures supported
   by the simpler proposals.)

   We note that for the near-term architecture hosts themselves will
   by-and-large have the capability of forming Pip headers.  The excep-
   tion to this will be the case where the Pip Header Server wishes to
   monitor inter-domain routing to enhance provider selection.  Thus,
   the Pip Header Server role will be largely limited to evolution (see
   section 16).



9.1.  Forming Pip Headers



   Forming a Pip header is more complex than forming an IP header
   because there are many more choices to make.  At a minimum, one of
   multiple Pip Addresses (both source and destination) must be chosen.
   In the near future, it will also be necessary to choose a TOS.

   After DNS information about the destination has been received, the
   the following information is available to the Pip header formation
   function.

   1.   From DNS: The destination's providers (either directly connected
        or nearby enough to justify making a policy decision about), and



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        the names, types, and access restrictions of those providers.

   2.   From the source host: The application type (and thus, the
        desired service), and the user access restriction classes.

   3.   From local configuration: The source's providers, and the names,
        types, and access restrictions of those providers.

   4.   From inter-domain routing: The routes chosen by inter-domain to
        all top level providers.  (Note that inter-domain routing in the
        Pip near-term architecture is path-vector.  Because of this, the
        Pip Header Server does not obtain enough information from
        inter-domain routing to form a policy route.  When the technol-
        ogy to do this matures, it can be installed into Pip Header
        Servers.)

        The inter-domain routing information is optional.  If it is
        used, then probably a Pip Header Server is necessary, to limit
        this information to a small number of systems.


   There may also be arbitrary policy information available to the Pip
   header formation function.  This architecture does not specify any
   such information.

   The Pip header formation function then goes through the following
   process:

   1.   Determine if the packet is intra-domain (see section 8.2).  If
        the packet is intra-domain, strip off any common prefix between
        source and destination Pip Addresses, and route the packet.
        Otherwise, execute the following steps.

   2.   Eliminate any source and destination providers that do not allow
        this traffic based on user access restriction.

   3.   Eliminate any source and destination providers that cannot
        satisfy the service requirements of the application.  (As the
        internet gains experience with traffic management, this step can
        take into consideration TOS parameters.)

   4.   Eliminate any source and destination providers for local policy
        reasons.

   5.   For each remaining source provider, choose the most appropriate



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        destination provider.  This choice is based on provider name,
        type, and on the route to the provider.  (For instance, if the
        destination's provider is the same as the source's provider,
        then they should be paired.  Note that even in the absence of
        routing information, an informed choice is still usually possi-
        ble based on provider name and type alone.)

   6.   Rank order the source/destination provider pairs from most pre-
        ferred to least (based on local policy information, cost, and
        expected quality of service).


   The Pip Header formation function then returns the ordered pairs of
   source and destination addresses to the source host in the PHP
   response message.  The form of the source address takes into con-
   sideration the type of exit routing in use in the source's domain
   (that is, the Routing Context and FTIF Offset is indicated, see sec-
   tion 8.1).  Any additional information, such as PDN Address, is also
   returned.  With this information, the source host can now establish
   communications and properly respond to PCMP messages.

   Note that if Pip evolves to the point where the Transit Part of the
   Pip header is no longer compatible with the current Transit Part, and
   the querying host has not been updated to understand the new Transit
   Part, then the PHP response message contains a bit map of the Transit
   Part.  The host puts this bit map into the Transit Part of the
   transmitted Pip header even though it does not understand the seman-
   tics of the Transit Part.



9.2.  Pip Header Protocol (PHP)


   The Pip Header Protocol (PHP) is a simple query/response protocol
   used to exchange information between the Pip host and the Pip Header
   Server [7].  In the query, the Pip host includes (among other things)
   the domain name of the destination it wishes to send Pip packets to.
   (Thus, the PHP query serves as a substitute for the DNS query.)

   The PHP query also contains 1) User Access Restriction Classes, 2)
   Application Types, and 3) host version.  The host version tells the
   Pip Header Server what features are installed in the host.  Thus, the
   Pip Header Server is able to determine if the host can format its own
   Pip header based on DNS information, or whether the Pip Header Server



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   needs to do it on behalf of the host.  In the future, the PHP query
   will also contain desired TOS (possibly in lieu of Application Type).
   (Note that this information could come from the application.  Thus,
   the application interface to PHP (the equivalent of gethostbyname())
   must pass this information.)



9.3.  Application Interface


   In order for a Pip host to generate the information required in the
   PHP query, there must be a way for the application to convey the
   information to the PHP software.  The host architecture for doing
   this is as follows.

   A local "Pip Header Client" (the source host analog to the Pip Header
   Server) is called by the application (instead of the current gethost-
   byname()).  The application provides the Pip Header Client with
   either the destination host domain name or the destination host Pip
   ID, and other pertinent information such as user access restriction
   class and TOS.  The Pip Header Client, if it doesn't have the infor-
   mation cached locally, queries the Pip Header Server and receives an
   answer.  (Remember that the Pip Header Server can be co-resident with
   the host.)

   Once the Pip Header Client has determined what the Pip header(s) are,
   it assigns a local handle to the headers, returns the handle to the
   application, and configures the Pip packet processing engine with the
   handle and related Pip Headers.  The application then issues packets
   to the Pip layer (via intervening layers such as transport) using the
   local handle.



10.  Routing Algorithms in Pip


   The architecture for operating routing algorithms in Pip reflects the
   clean partitioning of routing contexts in the Pip header.  Thus,
   routing in the Pip architecture is nicely modularized.

   Whereas routing in IP is basically partitioned into "egp" and "igp",
   routing in Pip is partitioned into whatever routing contexts exist.
   In the case of the near-term Pip architecture, each address family



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   (Hierarchical Pip Address, CBT Pip Multicast Address, Class D Pip
   Multicast Address) has its own routing algorithms.

   Within the Hierarchical Pip Address, there are multiple hierarchical
   levels.  Wherever two routers connect, or two levels interface
   (either in a single router or between routers), two decisions must be
   made:  1) what information should be exchanged (that is, what of one
   side's routing table should be propagated to the other side), and 2)
   what routing algorithm should be used to exchange the information?
   The first decision is discussed in section 10.1 below (Routing Infor-
   mation Filtering).  The latter decision is discussed here.

   Conceptually, and to a large extent in practice, the routing algo-
   rithms at each level are cleanly partitioned.  This partition is much
   like the partition between "egp" and "igp" level routing in IP, but
   with Pip it exists at each level of the hierarchy.

   At the top-level of the Pip Address hierarchy, a path-vector routing
   algorithm is used.  Path-vector is more appropriate at the top level
   than link-state because path-vector does not require agreement
   between top-level entities (providers) on metrics in order to be
   loop-free.  (Agreement between the providers is likely to result in
   better paths, but the Pip Architecture does not assume such agree-
   ment.)

   The top-level path-vector routing algorithm is based on BGP4/IDRP
   technology, but modified to reflect Pip idiosyncrasies such as the
   Routing Context.  At any level below the top level, it is a local
   decision as to what routing algorithm technology to run.  However,
   the path-vector routing algorithm is generalized so that it can run
   at multiple levels of the Pip Address hierarchy.  Thus, a lower level
   domain can choose to take advantage of the path-vector algorithm, or
   run another, such as a link-state algorithm.  The Pip path-vector
   routing algorithm is called MLPV [11], for Multi-Level Path-Vector
   (pronounced "milpiv").

   Normally, information is exchanged between two separate routing algo-
   rithms by virtue of the two algorithms co-existing in the same
   router.  For instance, a border router is likely to participate in an
   exchange of routing information with provider routers, and still run
   the routing algorithm of the internal routers.  If the two algorithms
   are different routing technologies (for instance, link-state versus
   distance-vector) then internal conversion translates information from
   one routing algorithm to the form of the other.




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   In some cases, however, two routing algorithms that exchange informa-
   tion will exist in different routers, and will have to exchange
   information over a link.  If these two algorithms are different tech-
   nologies, then they need a common means of exchanging routing infor-
   mation.  While strictly speaking this is a local matter, MLPV can
   also serve as the interface between two disparate routing algorithms.
   Thus, all routers should be able to run MLPV, if for no other reason
   than to exchange information with other, perhaps proprietary, routing
   protocols.

   MLPV is designed to be extendible with regards to the type of routes
   that it calculates.  It uses the Pip Object parameter identification
   number space to identify what type of route is being advertised and
   calculated [10].  Thus, to add new types of routes (for instance, new
   types of service), it is only necessary to configure the routers to
   accept the new route type, define metrics for that type, and criteria
   for preferring one route of that type over another.



10.1.  Routing Information Filtering


   Of course, the main point behind having hierarchical routing is so
   that information from one part of the hierarchy can be reduced when
   passed to another.  In general, reduction (in the form of aggrega-
   tion) takes place when passing information from the bottom of the
   hierarchy up.  However, Pip uses tunneling and exit routing to allow
   information from the top to be reduced when it goes down.

   When two routers become neighbors, they can determine what hierarchi-
   cal levels they have in common by comparing Pip Addresses.  For
   instance, if two neighbor routers have Pip Addresses 1.2.3.4 and
   1.2.8.9.14 respectively, then they share levels 0 and 1, and are dif-
   ferent at levels below that.  (0 is the highest level, 1 is the next
   highest, and so on.) As a general rule, these two routers exchange
   level 0, level 1, and level 2 routing information, but not level 3 or
   lower routing information.  In other words, both routers know how to
   route to all things at the top level (level 0), how to route to all
   level 1 things with "1" as the level 0 prefix, and how to route to
   all level 2 things with "1.2" as the level 1 prefix.

   In the absence of other instructions, two routers will by default
   exchange information about all levels from the top down to the first
   level at which they have differing Pip Addresses.  In practice,



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   however, this default exchange is as likely to be followed as not.
   For instance, assume that 1.2.3.4 is a provider router, and
   1.2.8.9.14 is a subscriber router.  (Note that 1.2.8 is the prefix
   given the subscriber by the provider.) Assume also that the sub-
   scriber network is using destination-oriented transit-driven exit
   routing (see section 8.1).  Finally, assume that router 1.2.8.9.14 is
   the subscriber's only entry point into provider 1 (other routers pro-
   vide entry points to other providers).

   In this case, 1.2.8.9.14 does not need to know about level 2 or level
   1 areas in the provider (that is, it does not need to know about
   1.2.4..., 1.2.5..., or 1.3..., 1.4..., and so on).  Thus, 1.2.8.9.14
   should be configured to inform 1.2.3.4 that it does not need level 1
   or 2 information.

   As another example, assume still that 1.2.3.4 is a provider and
   1.2.8.9.14 is a subscriber.  However, assume now that the subscriber
   network is using host-driven exit routing.  In this case, the sub-
   scriber does not even need to know about level 0 information, because
   all exit routing is directed to the provider of choice, and having
   level 0 information therefore does not influence that choice.

   As a third example, in the case where border routers of a transit
   domain tunnel through the interior routers, the border router does
   not need to exchange external routing information with the internal
   routers.  MLPV supports this mode of operation by allowing border
   routers to exchange information across domains in the same fashion as
   BGP or IDRP, thus supporting the tunneling feature of Pip.



11.  Transition


   The transition scheme for Pip has two major components, 1) transla-
   tion, and 2) encapsulation.  Translation is required to map the Pip
   Address into the IP address and vice versa.  Encapsulation is used
   for one Pip router (or host) to exchange packets with another Pip
   router (or host) by tunneling through intermediate IP routers.

   The Pip transition scheme is basically a set of techniques that
   allows existing IP "stuff" and Pip to coexist, but within the limita-
   tions of IP address depletion (though not within the limitations of
   IP scaling problems).  By this I mean that an IP-only host can only
   exchange packets with other hosts in a domain where IP numbers are



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   unique.  Initially this domain includes all IP hosts, but eventually
   will include only hosts within a private domain.  The IP "stuff" that
   can exist includes 1) whole IP domains, 2) individual IP hosts, 3)
   IP-oriented TCPs, and 4) IP-oriented applications.



11.1.  Justification for Pip Transition Scheme


   Note that all transition to a bigger address require translation.  It
   cannot be avoided.  The major choices one must make when deciding on
   a translation scheme are:

   1.   Will we require a contiguous infrastructure consisting of the
        new protocol, or will we allow tunneling through whatever
        remains of the existing IP infrastructure at any point in time?

   2.   Will we allow global connectivity between IP machines after IP
        addresses are no longer globally unique, or not?  (In other
        words, will we use a NAT scheme or not?)


   Concerning question number 1; while it is desirable to move as
   quickly as possible to a contiguous Pip (or SIP or whatever) infras-
   tructure, especially for purposes of improved scaling, it is fantasy
   to think that the whole infrastructure will cut over to Pip quickly.
   Furthermore, during the testing stages of Pip, it is highly desirable
   to be able to install Pip in any box anywhere, and by tunneling
   through IP, create a virtual Pip internet.  Thus, it seems that the
   only reasonable answer to question number 1 is to allow tunneling.

   Concerning question number 2; it is highly desirable to avoid using a
   NAT scheme.  A NAT (Network Address Translation) scheme is one
   whereby any two IP hosts can communicate, even though IP addresses
   are not globally unique.  This is done by dynamically mapping non-
   unique IP addresses into unique ones in order to cross the infras-
   tructure.  NAT schemes have the problems of increased complexity to
   maintain the mappings, and of translating IP addresses that reside
   within application data structures (such as the PORT command in FTP).

   This having been said, it is conceivable that the new protocol will
   not be far enough along when IP addresses are no longer unique, and
   therefore a NAT scheme becomes necessary.  It is possible to employ a
   NAT scheme at any time in the future without making it part of the



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   intended transition scheme now.  Thus, we can plan for a NATless
   transition now without preventing the potential use of NAT if it
   becomes necessary.



11.2.  Architecture for Pip Transition Scheme


   The architecture for Pip Transition is that of a Pip infrastructure
   surrounded by IP-only "systems".  The IP-only "systems" surrounding
   Pip can be whole IP domains, individual IP hosts, an old TCP in an
   otherwise Pip host, or an old application running on top of a Pip-
   smart TCP.

   The Pip infrastructure will initially get its internal connectivity
   by tunneling through IP.  Thus, any Pip box can be installed any-
   where, and become part of the Pip infrastructure by configuration
   over a "virtual" IP.  Of course, it is desirable that Pip boxes be
   directly connected to other Pip boxes, but very early on this is the
   exception rather than the rule.

   Two neighbor Pip systems tunneling through IP simply view IP as a
   "link layer" protocol, and encapsulate Pip over IP just as they would
   encapsulate Pip over any other link layer protocol.  There is no
   automatic configuration of neighbor Pip systems over IP.  Manual con-
   figuration (and careful "virtual topology" engineering) is required.

   In the remainder of this section, we do not distinguish between a
   virtual Pip infrastructure on IP, and a pure Pip infrastructure.

   Given the model of a Pip infrastructure surrounded by IP, there are 5
   possible packet paths:

   1.   IP - IP

   2.   IP - Pip - IP

   3.   IP - Pip

   4.   Pip - IP

   5.   Pip - Pip





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   The first three paths involve packets that originate at IP-only
   hosts.  In order for an IP host to talk to any other host (IP or
   not), the other host must be addressable within the context of the IP
   host's 32-bit IP address.  Initially, this "IP-unique" domain will
   include all IP hosts.  When IP addresses become no longer unique, the
   IP-unique domain will include a subset of all hosts.  At a minimum,
   this subset will include those hosts in the IP-host's private domain.
   However, it makes sense also to arrange for the set of all "public"
   hosts, basically anonymous ftp servers and mail gateways, to be in
   this subset.  In other words, a portion of IP address space should be
   set aside to remain globally unique, even though other parts of the
   address space are being reused.



11.3.  Translation between Pip and IP packets


   Paths 2 and 4 involve translation from Pip to IP.  This translation
   is straightforward, as all the information needed to create the IP
   addresses is in the Pip header.  In particular, Pip IDs have an
   encoding that allows them to contain an IP address (again, one that
   is unique within an IP-unique domain).  Whenever a packet path
   involves an IP host on either end, both hosts must have IP addresses.
   Thus, translating from Pip to IP is just a matter of extracting the
   IP addresses from the Pip IDs and forming an IP header.

   Translating from an IP header to a Pip header is more difficult,
   because the 32-bit IP address must be "translated" into a 64-bit Pip
   ID and a Pip Address.  There is no algorithm for making this transla-
   tion.  A table mapping IP addresses (or, rather, network numbers) to
   Pip IDs and Pip Addresses is required.  Since such a table, called
   the 4to7 Table, must potentially map every IP address, we choose to
   use dynamic discovery and caching to maintain the 4to7 table.  We
   choose also to use DNS as the means of discovering the mappings.

   Thus, DNS contains records that map IP address to Pip ID and Pip
   Address.  In the case where the host represented by the DNS record is
   a Pip host (packet path 3), the Pip ID and Pip Address are those of
   the host.  In the case where the host represented by the DNS record
   is an IP-only host (packet paths 2 and 4), the Pip Address is that of
   the Pip/IP translating gateway that is used to reach the IP host.
   Thus, an IP-only domain must at least be able to return Pip informa-
   tion in its DNS records (or, the parent DNS domain must be able to do
   it on behalf of the child).



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   With paths 2 and 3 (IP-Pip-IP and IP-Pip), the initial translating
   gateway (IP to Pip) makes the DNS query.  It stores the IP packet
   while waiting for the answer.  The query is an inverse address (in-
   addr) using the destination IP address.  The translating gateway can
   cache the record for an arbitrarily long period, because if the map-
   ping ever becomes invalid, a PCMP Invalid Address message flushes the
   cache entry.

   In the case of path 4 (Pip-IP), however, the Pip Address of the
   translating gateway is returned directly to the source host--
   piggybacked on the DNS record that is normally returned.  Thus this
   scheme incurs only a small incremental cost over the normal DNS
   query.



11.4.  Translating between PCMP and ICMP


   The only ICMP/PCMP messages that are translated are the Destination
   Unreachable, Echo, and PTMU Exceeded messages.  The portion of the
   offending IP/Pip header that is attached to the ICMP/PCMP message is
   not translated.



11.5.  Translating between IP and Pip Routing Information


   It is not necessary to pass IP routing information into the Pip
   infrastructure.  The mapping of IP address to Pip Address in DNS
   allows Pip to find the appropriate gateway to IP in the context of
   Pip addresses only.

   It is impossible to pass Pip routing information into IP routers,
   since IP routers cannot understand Pip addresses.  IP domains must
   therefore use default routing to reach IP/Pip translators.



11.6.  Old TCP and Application Binaries in Pip Hosts


   A Pip host can be expected to have an old TCP above it for a long
   time to come, and a new (Pip-smart) TCP can be expected to have old



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   application binaries running over it for a long time to come.  Thus,
   we must have some way of insuring that the TCP checksum is correctly
   calculated in the event that one or both ends is running Pip, and one
   or both ends has an old TCP binary.  In addition, we must arrange to
   allow applications to interface with TCP using a 32-bit "address"
   only, even though those 32 bits get locally translated into Pip
   Addresses and IDs.

   As stated above, in all cases where a Pip host is talking to an IP-
   only host, the Pip host has a 32-bit IP address. This address is
   embedded in the Pip ID such that it can be identified as an IP
   address from inspection of the Pip ID alone.

   The TCP pseudo-header is calculated using the Payload Length and Pro-
   tocol fields, and some or all of the Source and Dest Pip IDs.  In the
   case where both Source and Dest Pip IDs are IP-based, only the 32-bit
   IP address is included in the pseudo-header checksum calculation.
   Otherwise, the full 64 bits are used.  (Note that using the full Pay-
   load Length and Protocol fields does not fail when old TCP binaries
   are being used, because the values for those fields must be within
   the 16-bit and 8-bit limits for TCP to correctly operate.)

   The reason for only using 32 bits of the Pip ID in the case of both
   ends using an IP address is that an old TCP will use only 32 bits of
   some number to form the pseudo-header.  If the entire 64 bits of the
   Pip ID were used, then there would be cases where no 32-bit number
   could be used to insure that the correct checksum is calculated in
   all cases.

   Note that in the case of an old TCP on top of Pip, "Pip" (actually, a
   Pip daemon) must create a 32-bit number that can both be used to 1)
   allow the Pip layer to correctly associate a packet from the TCP
   layer with the right Pip header, and 2) cause the TCP layer to calcu-
   late the right checksum.  (This number is created when the applica-
   tion initiates a DNS query.  A Pip daemon intervenes in this request,
   calculates a 32 bit number that the application/TCP can use, and
   informs the Pip layer of the mapping between this 32 bit number and
   the full Pip header.)

   When the destination host is an IP only host, then this 32-bit number
   is nothing more than the IP address.  When the destination host is a
   Pip host, then this 32-bit number is some number generated by Pip to
   "fool" the old TCP into generating the right checksum.  This 32-bit
   number can normally be the same as the lower 32 bits of the Pip ID.
   However, it is possible that two or more active TCP connections is



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   established to different hosts whose Pip IDs have the same lower 32
   bits.  In this case, the Pip layer must generate a different 32-bit
   number for each connection, but in such a way that the sum of the two
   16-bit components of the 32-bit numbers are the same as the sum of
   the two 16-bit components of the lower 32 bits of the Pip IDs.

   In the case where an old Application wants to open a socket using an
   IP address handed to it (by the user or hard-coded), and not using a
   domain name, then it must be assumed that this IP address is valid
   within the IP-unique domain.  To form a Pip ID out of this 32-bit
   number, the host appends the high-order 24 bits of its own Pip ID,
   plus the IP-address-identifier-byte value, to the 32-bit IP address.



12.  Pip Address and ID Auto-configuration


   One goal of Pip is to make networks as easy to administer as possi-
   ble, especially with regards to hosts.  Certain aspects of the Pip
   architecture make administration easier.  For instance, the ID field
   provides a network layer "anchor" around which address changes can be
   administered.

   This section discusses three aspects of autoconfiguration; 1)
   domain-wide Pip Address prefix assignment, 2) host Pip Address
   assignment, and 3) host Pip ID assignment.



12.1.  Pip Address Prefix Administration


   A central premise behind the use of provider-rooted hierarchical
   addresses is that domain-wide address prefix assignment and re-
   assignment is straight-forward.  This section describes that process.

   Pip Address prefix administration limits required manual prefix con-
   figuration to DNS and border routers.  This is the minimum required
   manual configuration possible, because both border routers and DNS
   must be configured with prefix information for other reasons.  DNS
   must be configured with prefix information so that it can reply to
   address queries.  DNS files are structured so that the prefix is
   administered in only one place (that is, every host record does not
   have to be changed to create a new prefix).  Border routers must be



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   configured with prefix information in order to advertise exit routes
   internally.

   Note in particular that no internal (non-border) routers or hosts
   need ever be manually configured with any externally derived address-
   ing information.  All internal routers that are expected to fall
   under a common provider-prefix must, however, be configured with a
   "group ID" taken from the Pip ID space.

   Each border router is configured with the following information.

   1.   The type of exit routing for the domain.  This tells the border
        router whether or not it needs to advertise external routes
        internally.

   2.   The address prefix of the providers that the border is directly
        connected to.  This prefix information includes any metalevel
        boundaries above the subscriber/provider metalevel boundary
        (called simply the subscriber metalevel).

   3.   Other information about the provider (provider name, type, user
        access restriction classes).

   4.   A list of common-provider-prefix group IDs that should receive
        the auto-configuration information. (The default is that only
        systems that share a group ID with the border router will
        receive the information.)


   This information is injected into the intra-domain routing algorithm.
   It is automatically spread to all routers indicated by the group ID
   list.  This way, the default behavior is for the information to be
   automatically constrained to the border router's "area".

   When a non-border router receives this information, it 1) records the
   route to the providers in its forwarding table, and 2) advertises the
   information to hosts in the router discovery protocol [9].  Thus
   hosts learn not only their complete address, but information on how
   to do exit routing.



12.2.  Host Pip Address Assignment





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   Unless a host does not wish to use ID-tailed Pip Addresses (see sec-
   tion 4.1.2), host Pip Address assignment is trivial.  (The near-term
   Pip Architecture doesn't specify a means for a host to obtain a non-
   ID-tailed Pip Address.) When a host attaches to a subnet, it learns
   the Pip Address of the attached routers.  The host simply adopts
   these Pip Addresses as its own.  The Pip Address gets a packet to the
   host's subnet, and the host's Pip ID is used to route across the sub-
   net.  When the routers advertise new addresses (for instance, because
   of a new provider), the host adopts the new addresses.



12.3.  Host Pip ID Assignment


   When a host boots, it forms either a globally unique Pip ID using the
   IEEE 802 Pip ID type (if the host has an IEEE 802 address), or it
   forms a locally unique Pip ID using the Local Pip ID type [5].  (The
   Local Pip ID type ensures that the Pip ID is at least unique on the
   subnet.)

   This Pip ID is adequate to communicate locally, and may be adequate
   to communicate globally, but is probably not the final Pip ID that
   the host should have, because it doesn't contain any organizational
   hierarchy information, and therefore can't be used for auditing or
   inverse DNS lookups.

   To obtain its final Pip ID, the host uses its derived Pip ID and
   discovered Pip Address to send a DNS query for its own Pip ID (in
   order to make this query, the host must know its own domain name).
   If DNS hasn't been configured with the new host's Pip ID, then the
   host must continue to use its derived Pip ID.  (Hopefully in the
   future it is possible for the host to automatically update DNS with
   its Pip Address, and for some kind of "Pip ID server" to automati-
   cally assign Pip IDs to hosts.  This is not a feature of the near-
   term Pip Architecture, however.)



13.  Pip Control Message Protocol (PCMP)


   The Pip analog to ICMP is PCMP [8].  The near-term Pip architecture
   defines the following PCMP messages:




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   1.   Local Redirect

   2.   Destination Unreachable

   3.   Echo

   4.   Parameter Problem

   5.   Router Discovery

   6.   PMTU Exceeded

   7.   Provider Redirect

   8.   Invalid Address

   9    Reformat Transit Part

   10.  Unknown Parameter

   11.  Host Mobility

   12.  Exit PDN Address


   The first four PCMP messages (Local Redirect, Destination Unreach-
   able, Echo, and Parameter Problem) operate almost identically to
   their ICMP counterparts.

   The Router Discovery PCMP message operates as ICMP's, with the excep-
   tion that a host derives its Pip Address from it.

   The PMTU Exceeded message operates as ICMP's, with the exception that
   the Pip header size of the offending Packet is also given.  This
   allows the source host transport to determine how much smaller the
   packet PMTU should be from the advertised subnet PMTU.  Note that if
   an occasional option, such as the PDN Address option, needs to be
   attached to one of many packets, and that this option makes the
   packet larger than the PMTU, then it is not necessary to modify the
   MTU coming from transport.  Instead, that packet can be fragmented by
   the host's Pip forwarding engine.  (Pip specifies
   fragmentation/reassembly for hosts but not for routers.  The fragmen-
   tation information is in a Pip Option.)

   The Provider Redirect, Invalid Address, Reformat Transit Part,



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   Unknown Parameter, Host Mobility, and Exit PDN Address PCMP messages
   are new.

   The Provider Redirect PCMP message is used to inform the source host
   of a preferable exit provider to use when provider-rooted, transit-
   driven exit routing is used (see section 8.1).

   The Invalid Address PCMP message is used to inform the source host
   that none of the IDs of the destination host match that of the Pip
   packet.  The purpose of this message is to flush incorrect ID/Pip
   Address bindings in hosts and Pip Header Servers (see section 6.2).

   The Reformat Transit Part PCMP message has both near-term Pip archi-
   tecture functions and evolution functions.  Near-term, the Reformat
   Transit Part PCMP message is used to indicate to the source whether
   it has too few or too many layers of address in the Routing Directive
   (see section 8.2).  Long-term, the Reformat Transit Part PCMP message
   is able to arbitrarily modify the transit part transmitted by the
   host, as encoded by a bit string.

   The Unknown Parameter PCMP message is used to inform the source host
   that the router does not understand a parameter in either the Han-
   dling Directive, the Routing Context, or the Transit Options.  The
   purpose of this message is to assist evolution (see section 16.1).

   The Host Mobility PCMP message is sent by a host to inform another
   host (for instance, the host's Mobile Address Server) that it has a
   new address (see section 14).  The main use of this packet is for
   host mobility, though it can be used to manage any address changes,
   such as because of a new prefix assignment.

   The Exit PDN Address PCMP message is used to manage the function
   whereby the source host informs the PDN entry router of the PDN
   Address of the exit PDN system (see section 15).

   When a router needs to send a PCMP message, it sends it to the source
   Pip Address.  If the Pip header is in a tunnel, then the PCMP message
   is sent to the router that is the source of the tunnel.  Depending on
   the situation, this may result in another PCMP message from the
   source of the tunnel to the true source (for instance, if the source
   of the tunnel finds that the dest of the tunnel can't be reached, it
   may send a destination unreachable to the source host).






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14.  Host Mobility


   Depending on how security conscience a host is, and what security
   mechanisms a host has available, mobility can come from Pip "for
   free".  If a host is willing to accept a packet by just looking at
   source and destination Pip ID, and if the host simply records the
   source Pip Address on any packet it receives as the appropriate
   return address to the source Pip ID, then mobility comes automati-
   cally.

   That is, when a mobile host gets a new Pip Address, it simply puts
   that address into the next packet it sends.  When the other host
   receives it, it records the new Pip Address, and start sending return
   packets to that location.  The security aspect of this is that this
   type of operation leads to an easy way to spoof the (internet level)
   identity of a host.  That is, absent any other security mechanisms,
   any host can write any Pip ID into a packet.  (Cross-checking a
   source Pip ID against the source Pip Address at least makes spoofing
   of this sort as hard as with IP. This is discussed below.)

   The above simple host mobility mechanism does not work in the case
   where source and destination hosts obtain new Pip Addresses at the
   same time and the old Pip addresses no longer work, because neither
   is able to send its new address information directly to the other.
   Furthermore, if a host wishes to be more secure about authenticating
   the source Pip ID of a packet, then the above mechanism also is not
   satisfactory.  In what follows, the complete host mobility mechanism
   is described.

   Pip uses the Mobile Address Server and the PCMP Host Mobility message
   to manage host mobility;

   The Mobile Address Server is a non-mobile host (or router acting as a
   host) that keeps track of the active address of a mobile host.  The
   Pip ID and Address of the Mobile Address Server is configured into
   the mobile host, and in DNS.  When a host X obtains information from
   DNS about a host Y, the Pip ID and Address of host Y's Mobile Address
   Server is among the information.  (Also among the information is host
   Y's "permanent" address, if host Y has one.  If host Y is so mobile
   that it doesn't have a permanent address, then no permanent address
   is returned by DNS.  In particular, note that DNS is not intended to
   keep track of a mobile host's active address.)

   Given the destination host's (Y) permanent ID and Address, and the



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   Mobile Address Server's permanent IDs and Addresses, the source host
   (X) precedes as follows.  X tries to establish communications with Y
   using one of the permanent Addresses.  If this fails (or if at any
   time X cannot contact Y), X sends a PCMP Mobile Host message to the
   Mobile Address Server requesting the active address for Y.  (Note
   that X can determine that it cannot contact Y from receipt of a PCMP
   Destination Unreachable or a PCMP Invalid Address message.)

   The Mobile Address Server responds to X with the active Pip Addresses
   of Y.  (Of course, Y must inform its Mobile Address Server(s) of its
   active Pip Addresses when it knows them.  This also is done using the
   PCMP Mobile Host message.  Y also informs any hosts that it is
   actively communicating with, using either a regular Pip packet or
   with a PCMP Mobile Host message.  Thus, usually X does not need to
   contact the Mobile Address Server to track Y's active address.)

   If the address that X already tried is among those returned by Y,
   then the source host has the option of either 1) continuing to try
   the same Pip Address, 2) trying another of Y's Pip Addresses, 3)
   waiting and querying the Mobile Address Server again, or 4) giving
   up.

   If the Mobile Address Server indicates that Y has new active Pip
   Addresses, then X chooses among these in the same manner that it
   chooses among multiple permanent Pip Addresses, and tries to contact
   Y.



14.1.  PCMP Mobile Host message


   There are two types of PCMP Mobile Host messages, the query and the
   response.  The query consists of the Pip ID of the host for which
   active Pip Address information is being requested.

   The response consists of a Pip ID, a sequence number, a set of Pip
   Addresses, and a signature field.  The set of Pip Addresses includes
   all currently usable addresses of the host indicated by the Pip ID.
   Thus, the PCMP Mobile Host message can be used both to indicate a
   newly obtained address, and to indicate that a previous address is no
   longer active (by that addresses' absence in the set).

   The sequence number indicates which is the most recent information.
   It is needed to deal with the case where an older PCMP Mobile Host



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   response is received after a newer one.

   The signature field is a value that derives from encrypting the
   sequence number and the set of Pip Addresses.  For now, the encryp-
   tion algorithms used, how to obtain keys, and so on are for further
   study.



14.2.  Spoofing Pip IDs


   This section discusses host mechanisms for decreasing the probability
   of Pip ID spoofing.  The mechanisms provided in this version of the
   near-term Pip architecture are no more secure than DNS itself.  It is
   hoped that mechanisms and the corresponding infrastructure needed for
   better internetwork layer security can be installed with whatever new
   IP protocol is chosen.

   After a host makes a DNS query, it knows:

   1.   The destination host's Pip ID,

   2.   The destination host's permanent Pip Addresses, and

   3.   The destination host's Mobile Address Server's Pip ID and
        Addresses.


   Note that the DNS query can be a normal one (based on domain name) or
   an inverse query (based on Pip ID or Pip Address, though the latter
   is more likely to succeed, since the Pip ID may be flat and therefore
   not suitable for an inverse lookup).  The inverse query is done when
   the host did not initiate the packet exchange, and therefore doesn't
   know the domain name of the remote (initiating) host.

   If the destination host is not mobile, then the source host can check
   the source Pip Address, compare it with those received from DNS, and
   reject the packet if it does not match.  This gives spoof protection
   equal to that of IP (which, admittedly, is not that much).

   If the destination host is mobile and obtains new Pip Addresses, then
   the source host can check the validity of the new Pip Address by
   sending a PCMP Mobile Host query to the Mobile Address Server learned
   from DNS.  The set of Pip Addresses learned from the Mobile Address



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   Server is then used for subsequent validation.



15.  Public Data Network (PDN) Address Discovery


   One of the problems with running Pip (or any internet protocol) over
   a PDN is that of the PDN entry Pip System discovering the PDN Address
   of the appropriate PDN exit Pip System.  This problem is solved using
   ARP in small, broadcast LANs because the broadcast mechanism is rela-
   tively cheap.  This solution is not available in the PDN case, where
   the number of attached systems is very large, and where broadcast is
   not available (or is not cheap if it is).

   For the case where the domain of the destination host is attached to
   a PDN, the problem is nicely solved by distributing the domain's exit
   PDN Address information in DNS, and then having the source host con-
   vey the exit PDN Address to the PDN entry router.

   The DNS of the destination host's domain contains the PDN Addresses
   for the domain.  When DNS returns a record for the destination host,
   the record associates zero or more PDN Addresses with each Pip
   Address.  The top-level prefix of the Pip Address is that of the PDN
   that the PDN Addresses apply to.

   (Note that, while the returned DNS record associates the PDN
   Addresses with a single Pip Address, in general the PDN Address will
   apply to a set of Pip Addresses--those for all hosts in the domain.
   The DNS files are structured to reflect this grouping in the same way
   that a single Pip Address prefix in DNS applies to many hosts. There-
   fore, every individual host entry in the DNS files does not need to
   have separate PDN Addresses typed in with it.  This simplifies confi-
   guration of DNS.)

   When the source host sends the first packet to a given destination
   host, it attaches the PDN Address to the packet in a transit option.
   (Note that, because of the way that options are processed in Pip
   packets, no router other than the entry PDN router need look at the
   option.) When the entry router receives this packet, it determines
   that it is the entry router based on the result of the Routing Direc-
   tive lookup.

   It retrieves the PDN Address from the transit option, and caches it
   locally.  The cache entry can later by retrieved using either the



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   destination Pip ID or the destination Pip Address as the cache index.

   The entry router sends the source host a PCMP Exit PDN Address mes-
   sage indicating that it has cached the information.  If there are
   multiple exit PDN Addresses, then the source host can at this time
   inform the entry PDN router of all the PDN addresses.  The entry PDN
   router can either choose from these to setup a connection, or cache
   them to recover from the case where the existing connection breaks.

   Finally, the entry PDN router delivers the Pip packet (perhaps by
   setting up a connection) to the PDN Address indicated.

   When an PDN entry router receives a Pip packet for which it doesn't
   know the exit PDN address (and has no other means of determining it,
   such as shortcut routing), it sends a PCMP Exit PDN Address query
   message to the originating host.  This can happen if, for instance,
   routing changes and directs the packets to a new PDN entry router.
   When the source host receives the PCMP Exit PDN Address query mes-
   sage, it transmits the PDN Addresses to the entry PDN router.



15.1.  Notes on Carrying PDN Addresses in NSAPs


   The Pip use of PDN Address carriage in the transit option or PCMP
   Exit PDN Address message solves two significant problems associated
   with the analogous use of PDN Address-based NSAPs.

   First, there is no existing agreement (standards or otherwise) that
   the existence of of a PDN Address in an NSAP address implies that the
   identified host is reachable behind the PDN Address.  Thus, upon
   receiving such an NSAP, the entry PDN router does not know for sure,
   without explicit configuration information, whether or not the PDN
   Address can be used at the lower layer.  Solution of this problem
   requires standards body agreement, perhaps be setting aside addi-
   tional AFIs to mean "PDN Address with topological significance".

   The second, and more serious, problem is that a PDN Address in an
   NSAP does not necessarily scale well.  This is best illustrated with
   the E.164 address.  E.164 addresses can be used in many different
   network technologies--telephone network, BISDN, SMDS, Frame Relay,
   and other ATM.  When a router receives a packet with an E.164-based
   NSAP, the E.164 address is in the most significant part of the NSAP
   address (that is, contains the highest level routing information).



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   Thus, without a potentially significant amount of routing table
   information, the router does not know which network to send the
   packet to.  Thus, unless E.164 addresses are assigned out in blocks
   according to provider network, it won't scale.

   A related problem is that of how an entry PDN router knows that the
   PDN address is meant for the PDN it is attached to or some other PDN.
   With Pip, there is a one-to-one relationship between Pip Address pre-
   fix and PDN, so it is always known.  With NSAPs, it is not clear
   without the potentially large routing tables discussed in the previ-
   ous paragraph.



16.  Evolution with Pip


   The fact that we call this architecture "near-term" implies that we
   expect it to evolve to other architectures.  Thus it is important
   that we have a plan to evolve to these architectures.  The Pip near-
   term architecture includes explicit mechanisms to support evolution.

   The key to evolution is being able to evolve any system at any time
   without destroying old functionality.  Depending on what the new
   functionality is, it may be immediately useful to any system that
   installs, or it may not become useful until a significant number or
   even a majority of systems installs it.  None-the-less, it is neces-
   sary to be able to install it piece-wise.

   The Pip protocol itself supports evolution through the following
   mechanisms [3]:

   1.   Tunneling. This allows more up-to-date routers to tunnel through
        less up-to-date routers, thus allowing for incremental router
        evolution.  (Of course, by virtue of encapsulation, tunneling is
        always an evolution option, and indeed tunneling through IP is
        used in the Pip transition.  However, Pip's tunneling encoding
        is efficient, and doesn't duplicate header information.)

        The only use for Pip tunneling in the Pip near-term architecture
        is to route packets through the internal routers of a transit
        domain when the internal routers have no external routing infor-
        mation.  It is assumed that enhancements to the Pip Architecture
        that require tunneling will have their own means of indicating
        when forming a tunnel is necessary.



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   2.   Host independence from routing information.  Since a host can
        receive packets without understand the routing content of the
        packet, routers can evolve without necessarily requiring hosts
        to evolve at the same pace.

        In order to allow hosts to send Pip packets without understand-
        ing the contents of the routing information (in the Transit
        Part), the Pip Header Server is able to "spoon-feed" the host
        the Pip header.

        If the Pip Header Server determines that the host is able to
        form its own Pip header (as will usually be the case with the
        near-term Pip architecture), the Pip Header is essentially a
        null function.  It accepts a query from the host, passes it on
        to DNS, and returns the DNS information to the host.

        If the Pip Header Server determines that the host is not able to
        form its own Pip header, then the Pip Header Server forms one on
        behalf of the host.  In one mode of operation, the Pip Header
        Server gives the host the values of some or all Transit Part
        fields, and the host constructs the Transit Part.  This allows
        for evolution within the framework of the current Transit Part.
        In another mode, the Pip Header Server gives the host the Tran-
        sit Part as a simple bit field.  This allows for evolution out-
        side the framework of the current Transit Part.

        In addition to the Pip Header Server being able to spoon-feed
        the host a Transit Part, routers are also able to spoon-feed
        hosts a Transit Part, in case the original Transit Part needs to
        be modified, using the PCMP Reformat Transit Part message.

   3.   Separation of handling from routing.  This allows one aspect to
        evolve independently of the other.

   4.   Flexible Handling Directive, Routing Context, and Options defin-
        ition.  This allows new handling, routing, and option types to
        be added and defunct ones to be removed over time (see section
        16.1 below).

   5.   Fast and general options processing.  Options processing in Pip
        is fast, both because not every router need look at every
        option, and because once a router decides it needs to look at an
        option, it can find it quickly (does not require a serial
        search).  Thus the oft-heard argument that a new option can't be
        used because it will slow down processing in all routers goes



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        away.

        Pip Options are essentially an extension of the Handling Direc-
        tive (HD).  The HD is used when the handling type is common, and
        can be encoded in a small space.  The option is used otherwise.
        It is possible that a future option will influence routing, and
        thus the Option will be an extension of the RD as well.  The RD,
        however, is rich enough that this is unlikely.

   6.   Generalized Routing Directive.  Because the Routing Directive is
        so general, it is more likely that we can evolve routing and
        addressing semantics without having to redefine the Pip header
        or the forwarding machinery.

   7.   Host version number.  This number tells what Pip functions a
        host has, such as which PCMP message it can handle, so that an
        updated router can respond appropriately to a Pip packet
        received from a remote host.  This supports the capability for
        routers to evolve ahead of hosts.  (All Pip hosts will at least
        be able to handle all Pip near-term architecture functions.)

        The Host version number is also used by the Pip Header Server to
        determine the extent to which the Pip Header Server needs to
        format a header on behalf of the host.

   8.   Generalized Route Types.  The MLPV routing algorithm is generic
        with regards to the types of routes it can calculate.  Thus,
        adding new route types is a matter of configuring routers to
        accept the new route type, defining metrics for the new route
        type, and defining criteria for selecting one route of the new
        type over another.


   Note that none of these evolution features of Pip significantly slow
   down Pip header processing (as compared to other internet protocols).



16.1.  Handling Directive (HD) and Routing Context (RC) Evolution


   Because the HD and RC are central to handling and routing of a Pip
   packet, the evolution of these aspects deserves more discussion.

   Both the HD and the RC fields contain multiple parameters.  (In the



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   case of the RC, the router treats the RC field as a single number,
   that is, ignores the fact that the RC is composed of multiple parame-
   ters.) These HD and RC multiple parameters may be arranged in any
   fashion (can be any length, subject to the length of the HD and RC
   fields themselves, and can fall on arbitrary bit boundaries).

   Associated with the HD and RC are "Contents" fields that indicate
   what parameters are in the HD and RC fields, and where they are.
   (The Contents fields are basically version numbers, except that a
   higher "version" number is not considered to supersede a lower one.)
   (Typical types of parameters are Address Family, TOS value, Queueing
   Priority, and so on.)

   The Contents field is a single number, the value of which indicates
   the parameter set.  The mapping of Contents field value to parameter
   set is configured manually.

   The first bit of the Contents field indicates whether the Contents
   value is globally unique or locally unique.  This allows for special-
   ized local parameter types.  If the Contents field value is global,
   then all Pip systems must agree on the mapping of Contents field
   value to parameter set.  If the Contents field value is local, then
   all Pip systems within a domain (as identified by either Pip Address
   prefix or Pip ID prefix) must agree on the mapping.  The near-term
   Pip Architecture does not define any local Contents field values.

   The procedure for establishing new HD or RC parameter sets (or, eras-
   ing old ones) is as follows.  Some organization defines the new
   parameter set.  This may involve defining a new parameter.  If it
   does, then the new parameter is described as a Pip Object.  A Pip
   Object is nothing more than a number space used to unambiguously
   identify a new parameter type, and a character string that describes
   it [10].

   Thus, the new parameter set is described as a list of Pip Objects,
   and the bit locations in the HD/RC that each Pip Object occupies.
   The organization that defines the parameter set submits it for an
   official Contents field value.  (It would be submitted to the stan-
   dards body that has authority over Pip, currently the IAB.) If the
   new parameter set is approved, it is given a value, and that value is
   published in a well known place (an RFC).

   Of course, network administrators are free to install or not install
   the new parameter set in their hosts and routers.  In the case of a
   new RC parameter set, installation of the new parameter set does not



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   necessarily require any new software, because any Pip routing proto-
   col, such as MLPV, is able to find routes according to the new param-
   eter set by appropriate configuration of routers.

   In the case of a new HD parameter set, however, new software is
   necessary--to execute the new handling.

   For new HD and RC parameters sets, systems that do not understand the
   new parameter set can still be configured to execute one of several
   default actions on the new parameter.  These default action allow for
   some control over how new functions are introduced into Pip systems.
   The default actions are:

   1.   Ignore the unknown parameter,

   2.   Set unknown parameter to all 0's,

   3.   Set unknown parameter to all 1's,

   4.   Silently discard packet,

   5.   Discard packet with PCMP Parameter Unknown.


   Action 1 is used when it doesn't much matter if previous systems on a
   path have acted on the parameter or not.  Actions 2 and 3 are used
   when systems should know whether a previous system has not understood
   the parameter.  Actions 4 and 5 are used when something bad happens
   if not all systems understand the new parameter.



16.1.1.  Options Evolution


   The evolution of Options is very similar to that of the HD and RC.
   Associated with the Options is an Options Present field that indi-
   cates in a single word which of up to 8 options are present in the
   Options Part.  There is a Contents field associated with the Options
   Present field that indicates which subset of all possible options the
   Options Present field refers to.  Contents field values are assigned
   in the same way as for the HD and RC Contents fields.

   The same 5 default actions used for the HD and RC also apply to the
   Options.



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   References
   [1]  Pip Overview  (Internet Draft)
   [2]  Pip DNS Spec  (Internet Draft)
   [3]  Pip Forwarding Spec  (Internet Draft)
   [4]  Pip Address Assignment Spec  (to be completed)
   [5]  Pip ID Assignment Spec  (Internet Draft)
   [6]  Pip Assigned Numbers  (to be completed)
   [7]  Pip Header Protocol  (to be completed)
   [8]  Pip Control Message Protocol (PCMP)  (to be completed)
   [9]  Pip Router Discovery Protocol  (to be completed)
   [10] Pip Objects Spec  (Internet Draft)
   [11] Multi-level Path Vector Routing Protocol  (to be completed)




































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