Re: Wrap-up: TCP checksum calculation

[marcelo bagnulo braun <marcelo@it.uc3m.es>]

El 13/03/2007, a las 22:30, Erik Nordmark escribió:

> marcelo bagnulo braun wrote:
>
> > The problem is that shim6 payload packets that carry locators 
> > different than ULIDs, will have the checksum calculated based on the 
> > ULIDs and not on the actual addresses carried in the ipv6 header. 
> > This would imply that any device in the middle (from NIC to middle 
> > boxes (firewalls and TCP relays)) will fail the checksum verification 
> > (and drop the packet). It is possible that TCP checksum verification 
> > is more common, since there is no IP checksum in IPv6.
>
> I don't understand what the issue is.
>
> The shim6 packets have a protocol/nexthdr field which is shim6 and not 
> TCP, UDP, etc.

> Thus an unmodified middlebox doesn't see a TCP packet - it seems a to 
> it unknown IP protocol.
>
> Only if the middlebox is modified to know about shim6 would it be able 
> to skip the shim6 header to find the TCP, UDP, etc header.
> And a middlebox which is modified to know about shim6 could be aware 
> that the TCP/UDP etc checksums are different when there is a shim6 
> payload message before the TCP/UDP header.
>
>
> > Proposed approach:
> > First: Add a new section titled "Middle-boxes considerations" with 
> > the following text.
> > It is recommended that firewalls and other middleboxes do not drop 
> > TCP, UDP and ICMP packets with apparently incorrect checksums based 
> > on that fact alone unless they implement (monitoring of) the full 
> > shim6 protocol and are able to determine the checksum that must be 
> > present in a packet with addresses rewritten by shim6."
>
> If the above sentence was expanded to say that these TCP etc headers 
> are the ones that follow a shim6 header, then it would be a useful 
> addition.

Add a new section titled "Middle-boxes considerations" with the 
following text.

Data packets belonging to a Shim6 context carrying the Shim6 Payload 
Header contain alternative locators other than the ULIDs in the source 
and destination address fields of the IPv6 header. However, if those 
data packets are TCP or UDP packets, the presudoheader used for the 
checksum calculation will contain the ULID pair, rather than the 
locator pair contained in the data packet.
It is possible that some firewalls or other middle boxes verify the 
TCP/UDP checksum. Those middleboxes need to be updated in order to be 
able to parse the Shim6 payload header and find the TCP/UDP header 
after that. It is recommended that firewalls and other middleboxes do 
not drop TCP, UDP and ICMP packets that carry the Shim6 Payload header 
with apparently incorrect checksums when using the addresses in the 
IPv6 header for the pseudoheader computation, unless they implement 
(monitoring of) the full shim6 protocol and are able to determine the 
checksum that must be present in a packet with addresses rewritten by 
shim6.

would this be ok/enough?

Regards, marcelo





>    Erik