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... unfortunately chosen to embed, or "hard-code", globally-routable
Internet Protocol addresses within their products' firmware. These
embedded IP addresses are typically individual server IP addresses ...
... Internet Protocol addresses within their products' firmware. These
embedded IP addresses are typically individual server IP addresses or
IP subnet ...
... addresses within their products' firmware. These
embedded IP addresses are typically individual server IP addresses or
IP subnet prefixes ...
... subnet
identifiers, specifying sets of Internet addresses that the given
product somehow treats specially.
...
... product somehow treats specially.
One recent example was the embedding of the globally-routable IP
address of a Network Time Protocol server in the firmware of hundreds
of thousands of Internet ...
... routers and middleboxes for personal or residential use. In another
case, IP address prefixes that had once been reserved by the Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) were embedded in a router ...
... router product
so that it can automatically discard packets that appear to have
invalid source IP addresses.
Such "hard-coding" of globally-routable IP addresses ...
... source IP addresses.
Such "hard-coding" of globally-routable IP addresses as identifiers
within the host ...
... operation of the Internet and to the management of its address space.
Ostensibly, this practice arose as an attempt to simplify IP ...
... IP host
configuration by pre-loading hosts with IP addresses. Products that
rely on such embedded IP addresses initially may appear to be
...
... hosts with IP addresses. Products that
rely on such embedded IP addresses initially may appear to be
convenient to the product's designer and to its operator or user, but
this dubious benefit comes at the expense of others in the Internet
community ...
...
This document denounces the practice of embedding references to
unique, globally-routable IP addresses in Internet hosts, describes
...
... It also reminds the Internet community of the ephemeral nature of
unique, globally-routable IP addresses; the assignment and use of IP
addresses as identifiers is temporary and therefore should not be
...
... Internet community of the ephemeral nature of
unique, globally-routable IP addresses; the assignment and use of IP
addresses as identifiers is temporary and therefore should not be
used in fixed configurations.
...
... service outage when the aggregate
workload overwhelms that service. When fixed addresses are embedded
in an ever-increasing number of client ...
... Internet
services require that the pool of users not access a service using
its IP address directly. Instead, they typically rely on a level of
indirection provided by the Domain Name System, RFC 2219 ...
... the answers in order, until one succeeds, thus enabling the operator
to distribute the user request load across a set of servers with
discrete IP addresses that generally remain unknown to the user.
Embedding globally-unique IP addresses ...
... IP addresses that generally remain unknown to the user.
Embedding globally-unique IP addresses taints the IP address blocks
in which they reside, lessening the usefulness and mobility of those
...
...
Embedding globally-unique IP addresses taints the IP address blocks
in which they reside, lessening the usefulness and mobility of those
IP address ...
... IP address blocks
in which they reside, lessening the usefulness and mobility of those
IP address blocks and increasing the cost of operation. Unsolicited
traffic may continue to be delivered to the embedded address ...
... IP address blocks and increasing the cost of operation. Unsolicited
traffic may continue to be delivered to the embedded address well
after the IP address or block has been reassigned and no longer hosts ...
... traffic may continue to be delivered to the embedded address well
after the IP address or block has been reassigned and no longer hosts
the service ...
... 7] made this observation:
Due to dynamic address allocation and increasingly frequent
network renumbering, temporal uniqueness of IPv4 addresses ...
... address allocation and increasingly frequent
network renumbering, temporal uniqueness of IPv4 addresses is no
longer globally guaranteed, which puts their use as identifiers
...
... into severe question.
When IP addresses are embedded in the configuration of many Internet
hosts ...
... Internet
hosts, the IP address blocks become encumbered by their historical
use. This may interfere with the ability of the Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority (IANA ...
... Internet Registry (IR) hierarchy to
usefully reallocate IP address blocks. Likewise, to facilitate IP
address reuse, RFC 2050 [1 ...
... IR) hierarchy to
usefully reallocate IP address blocks. Likewise, to facilitate IP
address reuse, RFC 2050 [1], encourages Internet Service Providers ...
... Internet Service Providers
(ISPs) to treat address assignments as "loans".
Because consumers are not necessarily experienced in the operation of
...
... vendor of an Internet host to avoid embedding IP
addresses in ways that cause the aforementioned problems.
...
... conservative regarding the unsolicited Internet traffic they produce.
For instance, one of the most common uses of embedded IP addresses
has been the hard-coding of addresses of well known public Simple
Network Time Protocol ...
... For instance, one of the most common uses of embedded IP addresses
has been the hard-coding of addresses of well known public Simple
Network Time Protocol (SNTP RFC 2030(-> 4330) ...
... Internet hosts should use the Domain Name System to determine the IP
addresses associated with the Internet services they require.
...
... service identifiers
rather than IP addresses is not a panacea. Entries in the domain
name space are also ephemeral and can change owners for various
reasons, including acquisitions and litigation. As such, developers
...
... Use Special-Purpose, Reserved IP Addresses When Available ...
... Internet hosts should use Internet addresses that reside within
special blocks that have been reserved for these purposes, rather
than unique, globally-routable IP addresses ...
... Internet addresses that reside within
special blocks that have been reserved for these purposes, rather
than unique, globally-routable IP addresses. For IPv4, RFC 3330 [3 ...
... documentation and example code. The IPv6 global unicast address
prefix 2001:DB8::/32 has been similarly reserved for documentation
purposes RFC 3849 [4 ...
... Avoid Mentioning the IP Addresses of Services ...
... those in the NTP community, should deprecate the explicit
advertisement of the IP addresses of public services. These
addresses ...
... IP addresses of public services. These
addresses are ephemeral. As such, their widespread citation in
public service indexes interferes with the ability to reconfigure the
...
... service indexes interferes with the ability to reconfigure the
service when necessary to address unexpected, increased traffic and
the aforementioned problems.
...
...
Embedding or "hard-coding" IP addresses within a host's configuration
often means that a host-based ...
... the Internet host with the given address is trusted in some way. Due
to the ephemeral roles of globally-routable IP addresses ...
... address is trusted in some way. Due
to the ephemeral roles of globally-routable IP addresses, the
practice of embedding them within products' firmware or default
configurations presents a security risk ...
... host services should avoid any kind of use of unique
globally-routable IP addresses within a fixed configuration part of
the service implementation. If there is a requirement ...
... identifier and to use standard mechanisms for dynamically
resolving the identifier into an IP address. Also, any such
identifiers should be alterable in the field through a conventional
...
... Huston, G., Lord, A., and P. Smith, "IPv6 Address Prefix Reserved for Documentation", RFC 3849, July 2004. ...
... Rekhter, Y., Moskowitz, B., Karrenberg, D., de Groot, G., and E. Lear, "Address Allocation for Private Internets", BCP 5, RFC 1918, February 1996. ...
... Carpenter, B., Crowcroft, J., and Y. Rekhter, "IPv4 Address Behaviour Today", RFC 2101, February 1997. ...
... 700,000 routers with firmware containing a hard-coded reference to
the IP address of one of the University's NTP servers:
128.105.39.11, which was also known as "ntp1.cs.wisc.edu", a public
...
... query per second
destined for the IP address 128.105.39.11, and hence produces a large
scale flood of Internet traffic ...
... scale flood of Internet traffic from hundreds of thousands of source
addresses, destined for the University's network, resulting in
significant operational problems ...
... Author's Address ...
... copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-
ipr@ietf.org.
...