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Re: filtering packets with unknown options



On 12-jul-2006, at 15:05, Joe Abley wrote:

An alternative would be to set the contents of the option to all zero bits, this should be easier to implement than removing the header from the packet.

For clarity, I presume you mean set the option type in each TLV the firewall is unhappy about (in all options extension headers that might be present) to zero ("skip this option").

Right, although "TLV" isn't exactly a given.

It all still smells a bit nasty, though.

It is not a very pretty solution, but the alternative is that it will be extremely hard to the point of almost being impossible to deploy new "stuff" on the internet. Point in case is the "partial ECN" or something very similar that I can't find any reference to right now. The idea is to steal the last unused bit in the IPv4 header to extend the ECN semantics (the "evil" bit...) but IPv6 doesn't have this bit so that means an extra header, either a new one or a new option in the destination options header, I forget which. With firewalls filtering this out, this means a many-year uphill battle before this can be deployed.