North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Maybe I'm misreading this but...

  • From: Darrell Fuhriman
  • Date: Mon Oct 19 11:25:17 1998

I Am Not An Isp <[email protected]> writes:

> However, there is nothing to distinguish a packet with RFC1918 space as the
> source address from any other "legal" packet on the 'Net other than your
> own administrative policies - which can break *anything* on the 'Net, not
> just PMTU with RFC1918 space.  Sorry, but I have no control over your
> policy.  So, if someone asks "does this break...", the answer is no.

except that it is still a violation of RFC1918 to be using them
in that manner, as they clearly excluded from category 1 (by
virtue of being used in transit), and are clearly in Category 3.

      Category 1: hosts that do not require access to hosts in
      other enterprises or the Internet at large; hosts within
      this category may use IP addresses that are unambiguous
      within an enterprise, but may be ambiguous between
      enterprises.

      Category 2: hosts that need access to a limited set of
      outside services (e.g., E-mail, FTP, netnews, remote login)
      which can be handled by mediating gateways (e.g.,
      application layer gateways). For many hosts in this
      category an unrestricted external access (provided via IP
      connectivity) may be unnecessary and even undesirable for
      privacy/security reasons. Just like hosts within the first
      category, such hosts may use IP addresses that are
      unambiguous within an enterprise, but may be ambiguous
      between enterprises.
								
      Category 3: hosts that need network layer access outside
      the enterprise (provided via IP connectivity); hosts in the
      last category require IP addresses that are globally
      unambiguous.

							      
       We will refer to the hosts in the first and second
       categories as "private".  We will refer to the hosts in
       the third category as "public".
								     

It's also a violation of RFC1918 to be using them in any way
which will generate packets with those source addresses, which
would mean traceroutes and using PMTU discovery.


  Because private addresses have no global meaning, routing
  information about private networks shall not be propagated on
  inter-enterprise links, and packets with private source or
  destination addresses should not be forwarded across such
  links. Routers in networks not using private address space,
  especially those of Internet service providers, are expected to
  be configured to reject (filter out) routing information about
  private networks. If such a router receives such information
  the rejection shall not be treated as a routing protocol error.


So, if the question is "does using RFC1918 address break PMTU
discovery?"  the answer should be "maybe it won't, break it, but
it's supposed to"

Darrell