Hello Carles,
Thank you very much for your detailed review.
We accept most of your suggestions. Meanwhile, items that need further
discussion are posted below.
1. This specification provides a brief overview of PLC technologies.
Some of them have LLN characteristics, i.e. limited power
Just a weak suggestion: LLN is a recognized term in many domains.
Nevertheless, feel free to consider using "Constrained-Node Network (CNN) (see
RFC 7228).
[Remy] Maybe LLN is a better choice since it is used in many RFCs in IOT domain
as well. Thank you for your suggestion though.
2. RPL (Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks) [RFC6550]
is a layer 3 routing protocol. AODV-RPL [I-D.ietf-roll-aodv-rpl]
updates RPL to include reactive, point-to-point, and asymmetric
routing. IEEE 1901.2 specifies Information Elements (IEs) with
MAC layer metrics, which can be provided to L3 routing protocol
for parent selection. For IPv6-addressable PLC networks, a
layer-3 routing protocol such as RPL and/or AODV-RPL SHOULD be
supported in the standard.
Why "SHOULD"? And if "SHOULD" is the right term here, perhaps add some
clarification on reasons or circumstances motivating using a protocol different
from RPL and/or AODV-RPL?
[Remy] Yes, this sentence makes people confused. The reason why "SHOULD" is
used is that we have other options like L2-routing and LOADng. But this
sentence looks redundant now, because the whole section is talking about the
three options. Do you think it is OK to remove this sentence?
3. IEEE 1901.1 supports 12-bit and 48-bit addresses. Header compression over
IEEE 1901.1 will need some form of adaptation, since RFC 6282 refers to 16-bit
and 64-bit addresses.
[Remy] Yes, we need adaptation. How to generate IID from 12-bit (1901.1),
16-bit (G.9903 and 1901.2) and 48-bit address is defined in section 4.1
(Stateless Address Autoconfiguration). And using the same method, the original
IPv6 address can be recovered from the L2 address. Thus that's where the
adaptation is defined. It may be not explicit enough. Actually, the encoding
format defined in RFC6282 applies to all the PLC technologies mentioned in this
draft. The only difference is: for 1901.1, when the SAM or DAM in RFC6282 is
set to 2, it means the source or destination IPv6 address is compressed to 12
bits instead of 16bits.
4. PAN Coordinator (PANC) and PAN Device. The PANC is the primary
coordinator of the PLC subnet and can be seen as a master node; PAN
Devices are typically PLC meters and sensors. The PANC also serves
as the Routing Registrar for proxy registration and DAD procedures,
making use of the updated registration procedures in [RFC8505]. IPv6
over PLC networks are built as tree, mesh or star according to the
use cases. Every network requires at least one PANC to communicate
with each PAN Device.
The last sentence was unclear. Who/What communicates with each PAN Device?
[Remy] We meant "the PANC communicates with the PAN devices". We try to
rephrase: Generally, each PLC network has one PANC. In some cases, the PLC
network can have alternate coordinators to replace the PANC when the PANC
leaves the network for some reason.
5. What is the subnet model for the scenarios illustrated in this section?
For example, is the "PLC subnet" a multilink subnet? Is each link in the "PLC
subnet" a subnet?
[Remy] It is a multilink subnet, instead of "each link is a subnet".
Best regards,
Remy
-----邮件原件-----
发件人: Carles Gomez Montenegro [mailto:[email protected]]
发送时间: 2020年8月3日 23:01
收件人: [email protected]
抄送: [email protected]
主题: Shepherd review of draft-ietf-6lo-plc
Dear draft-ietf-6lo-plc authors,
Thanks for your work on this document. I think that it is very readable.
Please find my shepherd review of the document at the end of this message.
My comments are shown as non-indented text.
Please update the draft taking into account this review. (Of course, feel free
to let me know if you disagree with, or further discussion is needed for, any
point.)
Cheers,
Carles
------------------------------------------------------------------------
6Lo Working Group J. Hou
Internet-Draft B. Liu
Intended status: Standards Track Huawei Technologies
Expires: December 5, 2020 Y-G. Hong
ETRI
X. Tang
SGEPRI
C. Perkins
June 3, 2020
Transmission of IPv6 Packets over PLC Networks
draft-ietf-6lo-plc-04
Abstract
Power Line Communication (PLC), namely using the electric-power lines
for indoor and outdoor communications, has been widely applied to
support Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), especially smart
meters for electricity. The inherent advantage of existing
electricity infrastructure facilitates the expansion of PLC
deployments, and moreover, a wide variety of accessible devices
raises the potential demand of IPv6 for future applications. This
document describes how IPv6 packets are transported over constrained
PLC networks, such as ITU-T G.9903, IEEE 1901.1 and IEEE 1901.2 .
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on December 5, 2020.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Requirements Notation and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Overview of PLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1. Protocol Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2. Addressing Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.3. Maximum Transmission Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.4. Routing Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. IPv6 over PLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.1. Stateless Address Autoconfiguration . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2. IPv6 Link Local Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.3. Unicast Address Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.3.1. Unicast Address Mapping for IEEE 1901.1 . . . . . . . 9
4.3.2. Unicast Address Mapping for IEEE 1901.2 and ITU-T
G.9903 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.4. Neighbor Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.5. Header Compression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.6. Fragmentation and Reassembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5. Internet Connectivity Scenarios and Topologies . . . . . . . 12
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7. Security Consideration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1. Introduction
The idea of using power lines for both electricity supply and
communication can be traced back to the beginning of the last
century. With the advantage of existing power grid, Power Line
Communication (PLC) is a good candidate for supporting various
service scenarios such as in houses and offices, in trains and
vehicles, in smart grid and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI).
The data acquisition devices in these scenarios share common features
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such as fixed position, large quantity, low data rate and low power
consumption.
Although PLC technology has evolved over several decades, it has not
been fully adapted for IPv6 based constrained networks. The 6lo
related scenarios lie in the low voltage PLC networks with most
applications in the area of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI),
Vehicle-to-Grid communications, in-home energy management and smart
street lighting. IPv6 is important for PLC networks, due to its
large address space and efficent address auto-configuration. A
comparison among various existing PLC standards is provided to
facilitate the selection of the most applicable standard in
particular scenarios.
This specification provides a brief overview of PLC technologies.
Some of them have LLN characteristics, i.e. limited power
Just a weak suggestion: LLN is a recognized term in many domains.
Nevertheless, feel free to consider using "Constrained-Node Network (CNN) (see
RFC 7228).
consumption, memory and processing resources. This specification is
focused on the transmission of IPv6 packets over those "constrained"
PLC networks. The general approach is to adapt elements of the
6LoWPAN specifications [RFC4944], [RFC6282], and [RFC6775] to
6LoWPAN and 6lo specifications [RFC4944], [RFC6282], [RFC6775], [RFC8505]
constrained PLC networks. There was work previously proposed as
[I-D.popa-6lo-6loplc-ipv6-over-ieee19012-networks], which did not
reach consensus. This document provides a more structured
specification than the previous work, expanding to a larger variety
of PLC networks.
2. Requirements Notation and Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
BCP14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
This document often uses the following acronyms and terminologies:
Remove "often"?
6LoWPAN: IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Network
AMI: Advanced Metering Infrastructure
BBPLC: Broadband Power Line Communication
CID: Context ID
Coordinator: A device capable of relaying messages.
DAD: Duplicate Address Detection
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EV: Electric Vehicle
IID: IPv6 Interface Identifier
IPHC: IP Header Compression
LAN: Local Area Network
MSDU: MAC Service Data Unit
MTU: Maximum Transmission Unit
NBPLC: Narrowband Power Line Communication
OFDM: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
PANC: PAN Coordinator, a coordinator which also acts as the primary
controller of a PAN.
PLC: Power Line Communication
PLC device: An entity follows the PLC standards and implements the
protocol stack described in this draft.
s/An entity follows/An entity that follows
PSDU: PHY Service Data Unit
RPL: IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks
RA: Router Advertisement
WAN: Wide Area Network
The terminology used in this draft is aligned with IEEE 1901.2
+---------------+----------------+------------------+---------------+
| IEEE 1901.2 | IEEE 1901.1 | ITU-T G.9903 | This document |
+---------------+----------------+------------------+---------------+
| PAN | Central | PAN Coordinator | PAN |
| Coordinator | Coordinator | | Coordinator |
| | | | |
| Coordinator | Proxy | Full-function | Coordinator |
| | Coordinator | device | |
| | | | |
| Device | Station | PAN Device | PLC Device |
+---------------+----------------+------------------+---------------+
Table 1: Terminology Mapping between PLC standards
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3. Overview of PLC
PLC technology enables convenient two-way communications for home
users and utility companies to monitor and control electric plugged
devices such as electricity meters and street lights. Due to the
large range of communication frequencies, PLC is generally classified
into two categories: Narrowband PLC (NBPLC) for automation of sensors
(which have low frequency band and low power cost), and Broadband PLC
(BBPLC) for home and industry networking applications.
Various standards have been addressed on the MAC and PHY layers for
this communication technology, e.g., BBPLC (1.8-250 MHz) including
IEEE 1901 and ITU-T G.hn, and NBPLC (3-500 kHz) including ITU-T
G.9902 (G.hnem), ITU-T G.9903 (G3-PLC) [ITU-T_G.9903], ITU-T G.9904
(PRIME), IEEE 1901.2 [IEEE_1901.2] (combination of G3-PLC and PRIME
PLC) and IEEE 1901.2a [IEEE_1901.2a] (an amendment to IEEE 1901.2) .
Moreover, recently a new PLC standard IEEE 1901.1 [IEEE_1901.1],
which aims at the medium frequency band less than 12 MHz, has been
frequency band of less than 12 MHz
published by the IEEE standard for Smart Grid Powerline Communication
Working Group (SGPLC WG). IEEE 1901.1 balances the needs for
bandwidth versus communication range, and is thus a promising option
for 6lo applications.
This specification is focused on IEEE 1901.1, IEEE 1901.2 and ITU-T
G.9903.
3.1. Protocol Stack
The protocol stack for IPv6 over PLC is illustrated in Figure 1. The
PLC MAC/PHY layer corresponds to IEEE 1901.1, IEEE 1901.2 or ITU-T
G.9903. The 6lo adaptation layer for PLC is illustrated in
Section 4. For multihop tree and mesh topologies, a routing protocol
is likely to be necessary. The routes can be built in mesh-under
mode at layer 2 or in route-over mode at layer 3, as explained in
Section 3.4.
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+----------------------------------------+
| Application Layer |
+----------------------------------------+
| TCP/UDP |
+----------------------------------------+
| |
| IPv6 |
| |
+----------------------------------------+
| Adaptation layer for IPv6 over PLC |
+----------------------------------------+
| PLC MAC Layer |
+----------------------------------------+
| PLC PHY Layer |
+----------------------------------------+
Figure 1: PLC Protocol Stack
3.2. Addressing Modes
Each PLC device has a globally unique long address of 48-bit
([IEEE_1901.1]) or 64-bit ([IEEE_1901.2], [ITU-T_G.9903]) and a short
address of 12-bit ([IEEE_1901.1]) or 16-bit ([IEEE_1901.2],
[ITU-T_G.9903]). The long address is set by the manufacturer
according to the IEEE EUI-48 MAC address or the IEEE EUI-64 address.
Each PLC device joins the network by using the long address and
communicates with other devices by using the short address after
joining the network. Short addresses can be assigned during the
onboarding process, by the PANC or the JRC in CoJP
[I-D.ietf-6tisch-minimal-security].
Please expand the acronyms JRC and CoJP.
3.3. Maximum Transmission Unit
The Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) of the MAC layer determines
whether fragmentation and reassembly are needed at the adaptation
layer of IPv6 over PLC. IPv6 requires an MTU of 1280 octets or
greater; thus for a MAC layer with MTU lower than this limit,
fragmentation and reassembly at the adaptation layer are required.
The IEEE 1901.1 MAC supports upper layer packets up to 2031 octets.
The IEEE 1901.2 MAC layer supports the MTU of 1576 octets (the
original value of 1280 bytes was updated in 2015 [IEEE_1901.2a]).
Though these two technologies can support IPv6 natively without
fragmentation and reassembly, it is possible to configure a smaller
MTU in high-noise communication environment. Thus the 6lo functions,
including header compression, fragmentation and reassembly, are still
applicable and useful.
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The MTU for ITU-T G.9903 is 400 octets, insufficient for supporting
IPv6's MTU. For this reason, fragmentation and reassembly as per
[RFC4944] MUST be enabled for G.9903-based networks.
3.4. Routing Protocol
Routing protocols suitable for use in PLC networks include:
o RPL (Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks) [RFC6550]
is a layer 3 routing protocol. AODV-RPL [I-D.ietf-roll-aodv-rpl]
updates RPL to include reactive, point-to-point, and asymmetric
routing. IEEE 1901.2 specifies Information Elements (IEs) with
MAC layer metrics, which can be provided to L3 routing protocol
for parent selection. For IPv6-addressable PLC networks, a
layer-3 routing protocol such as RPL and/or AODV-RPL SHOULD be
supported in the standard.
Why "SHOULD"? And if "SHOULD" is the right term here, perhaps add some
clarification on reasons or circumstances motivating using a protocol different
from RPL and/or AODV-RPL?
"in the standard". What does "the standard" refer to here?
o IEEE 1901.1 supports L2 routing. Each PLC node maintains a L2
routing table, in which each route entry comprises the short
addresses of the destination and the related next hop. The route
entries are built during the network establishment via a pair of
association request/confirmation messages. The route entries can
be changed via a pair of proxy change request/confirmation
messages. These association and proxy change messages MUST be
approved by the central coordinator (PANC in this document).
Regarding the "MUST": is this behavior required by IEEE 1901.1 (i.e. there is a
"MUST" requirement level in IEEE 1901.1 for this?) If yes, then it is not
necessary to capitalize the "MUST" here.
o LOADng is a reactive protocol operating at layer 2 or layer 3.
Currently, LOADng is supported in ITU-T G.9903 [ITU-T_G.9903], and
the IEEE 1901.2 standard refers to ITU-T G.9903 for LOAD-based
networks.
4. IPv6 over PLC
6LoWPAN standards [RFC4944], [RFC6775], and [RFC6282] provides useful
6LoWPAN and 6lo standards [RFC4944], [RFC6282], [RFC6775], and [RFC8505]
provide useful...
functionality including link-local IPv6 addresses, stateless address
auto-configuration, neighbor discovery and header compression.
Add "fragmentation and reassembly".
However, due to the different characteristics of the PLC media, the
6LoWPAN adaptation layer cannot perfectly fulfill the requirements.
the 6LoWPAN adaptation layer, as it is, cannot perfectly fulfill the
requirements of PLC environments.
These considerations suggest the need for a dedicated adaptation
layer for PLC, which is detailed in the following subsections.
4.1. Stateless Address Autoconfiguration
To obtain an IPv6 Interface Identifier (IID), a PLC device performs
stateless address autoconfiguration [RFC4944]. The autoconfiguration
can be based on either a long or short link-layer address.
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The IID can be based on the device's 48-bit MAC address or its EUI-64
identifier [EUI-64]. A 48-bit MAC address MUST first be extended to
Reference [EUI-64] is missing in the "References" section.
a 64-bit Interface ID by inserting 0xFFFE at the fourth and fifth
octets as specified in [RFC2464]. The IPv6 IID is derived from the
64-bit Interface ID by inverting the U/L bit [RFC4291].
For IEEE 1901.2 and ITU-T G.9903, a 48-bit "pseudo-address" is formed
by the 16-bit PAN ID, 16 zero bits and the 16-bit short address.
Then, the 64-bit Interface ID MUST be derived by inserting 16-bit
0xFFFE into as follows:
16_bit_PAN:00FF:FE00:16_bit_short_address
For the 12-bit short addresses used by IEEE 1901.1, the 48-bit
pseudo-address is formed by 24-bit NID (Network IDentifier, YYYYYY),
12 zero bits and a 12-bit TEI (Terminal Equipment Identifier, XXX).
The 64-bit Interface ID MUST be derived by inserting 16-bit 0xFFFE
into this 48-bit pseudo-address as follows:
YYYY:YYFF:FE00:0XXX
Since the derived Interface ID is not global, the "Universal/Local"
(U/L) bit (7th bit) and the Individual/Group bit (8th bit) MUST both
be set to zero. In order to avoid any ambiguity in the derived
Interface ID, these two bits MUST NOT be used to generate the PANID
(for IEEE 1901.2 and ITU-T G.9903) or NID (for IEEE 1901.1). In
other words, the PANID or NID MUST always be chosen so that these
bits are zeros.
For privacy reasons, the IID derived by the MAC address SHOULD only
be used for link-local address configuration. A PLC host SHOULD use
the IID derived by the link-layer short address to configure the IPv6
address used for communication with the public network; otherwise,
the host's MAC address is exposed. Implementations should look at
[RFC8064] as well, in order to generate a stable IPv6 address using
an opaque IID.
derived "by" or "derived from" ?
s/Implementations/Implementers
4.2. IPv6 Link Local Address
The IPv6 link-local address [RFC4291] for a PLC interface is formed
by appending the IID, as defined above, to the prefix FE80::/64 (see
Figure 2).
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10 bits 54 bits 64 bits
+----------+-----------------------+----------------------------+
|1111111010| (zeros) | Interface Identifier |
+----------+-----------------------+----------------------------+
Figure 2: IPv6 Link Local Address for a PLC interface
4.3. Unicast Address Mapping
The address resolution procedure for mapping IPv6 unicast addresses
into PLC link-layer addresses follows the general description in
section 7.2 of [RFC4861]. [RFC6775] improves this procedure by
eliminating usage of multicast NS. The resolution is realized by the
NCEs (neighbor cache entry) created during the address registration
at the routers. [RFC8505] further improves the registration
procedure by enabling multiple LLNs to form an IPv6 subnet, and by
inserting a link-local address registration to better serve proxy
registration of new devices.
4.3.1. Unicast Address Mapping for IEEE 1901.1
The Source/Target Link-layer Address options for IEEE_1901.1 used in
the Neighbor Solicitation and Neighbor Advertisement have the
following form.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Length=1 | NID :
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
:NID (continued)| Padding (all zeros) | TEI |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 3: Unicast Address Mapping for IEEE 1901.1
Option fields:
Type: 1 for Source Link-layer Address and 2 for Target Link-layer
Address.
Length: The length of this option (including type and length fields)
in units of 8 octets. The value of this field is 1 for the
12-bit IEEE 1901.1 PLC short addresses.
NID: 24-bit Network IDentifier
Padding: 12 zero bits
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TEI: 12-bit Terminal Equipment Identifier
In order to avoid the possibility of duplicated IPv6 addresses, the
value of the NID MUST be chosen so that the 7th and 8th bits of the
first byte of the NID are both zero.
4.3.2. Unicast Address Mapping for IEEE 1901.2 and ITU-T G.9903
The Source/Target Link-layer Address options for IEEE_1901.2 and
ITU-T G.9903 used in the Neighbor Solicitation and Neighbor
Advertisement have the following form.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Length=1 | PAN ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Padding (all zeros) | Short Address |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 4: Unicast Address Mapping for IEEE 1901.2
Option fields:
Type: 1 for Source Link-layer Address and 2 for Target Link-layer
Address.
Length: The length of this option (including type and length fields)
in units of 8 octets. The value of this field is 1 for the
16-bit IEEE 1901.2 PLC short addresses.
PAN ID: 16-bit PAN IDentifier
Padding: 16 zero bits
Short Address: 16-bit short address
In order to avoid the possibility of duplicated IPv6 addresses, the
value of the PAN ID MUST be chosen so that the 7th and 8th bits of
the first byte of the PAN ID are both zero.
4.4. Neighbor Discovery
Neighbor discovery procedures for 6LoWPAN networks are described in
Neighbor Discovery Optimization for 6LoWPANs [RFC6775] and [RFC8505].
These optimizations support the registration of sleeping hosts.
Although PLC devices are electrically powered, sleeping mode SHOULD
still be used for power saving.
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For IPv6 address prefix dissemination, Router Solicitations (RS) and
Router Advertisements (RA) MAY be used as per [RFC6775]. If the PLC
network uses route-over mesh, the IPv6 prefix MAY be disseminated by
remove "mesh"
the layer 3 routing protocol, such as RPL which includes the prefix
such as RPL, which may include
in the DIO message. As per [I-D.ietf-roll-unaware-leaves], it is
possible to have PLC devices configured as RPL-unaware-leaves, which
don't not participate to RPL at all, along with RPL-aware PLC
s/don't not/do not
devices. In this case, the prefix dissemination SHOULD use the RS/RA
messages.
I understand that the route-over routing protocol is not specified, right?
I.e. this document supports any route-over routing protocol. If yes, then you
may want to use more generic terms, such as "If the route-over routing protocol
does not support prefix dissemination", which replaces "In this case".
For context information dissemination, Router Advertisements (RA)
MUST be used as per [RFC6775]. The 6LoWPAN context option (6CO) MUST
be included in the RA to disseminate the Context IDs used for prefix
compression.
s/prefix compression/prefix and/or address compression
For address registration in route-over mode, a PLC device MUST
register its addresses by sending unicast link-local Neighbor
Solicitation to the 6LR. If the registered address is link-local,
the 6LR SHOULD NOT further register it to the registrar (6LBR, 6BBR).
Otherwise, the address MUST be registered via an ARO or EARO included
in the DAR ([RFC6775]) or EDAR ([RFC8505]) messages. For RFC8505
compliant PLC devices, the 'R' flag in the EARO MUST be set when
sending Neighbor Solicitaitons in order to extract the status
information in the replied Neighbor Advertisements from the 6LR. If
DHCPv6 is used to assign addresses or the IPv6 address is derived by
derived "from"?
unique long or short link layer address, Duplicate Address Detection
(DAD) MUST NOT be utilized. Otherwise, the DAD MUST be performed at
the 6LBR (as per [RFC6775]) or proxied by the routing registrar (as
per [RFC8505]). The registration status is feedbacked via the DAC or
EDAC message from the 6LBR and the Neighbor Advertisement (NA) from
the 6LR.
For address registration in mesh-under mode, since all the PLC
devices are the link-local neighbors to the 6LBR, DAR/DAC or EDAR/
s/are the link-local/are link-local
EDAC messages are not required. A PLC device MUST register its
addresses by sending the unicast NS message with an ARO or EARO. The
s/the unicast/a unicast
registration status is feedbacked via the NA message from the 6LBR.
4.5. Header Compression
The compression of IPv6 datagrams within PLC MAC frames refers to
[RFC6282], which updates [RFC4944]. Header compression as defined in
[RFC6282] which specifies the compression format for IPv6 datagrams
on top of IEEE 802.15.4, is included in this document as the basis
s/is included in this document as the basis/is the basis
for IPv6 header compression in PLC. For situations when PLC MAC MTU
cannot support the 1280-octet IPv6 packet, headers MUST be compressed
according to [RFC6282] encoding formats.
IEEE 1901.1 supports 12-bit and 48-bit addresses. Header compression over IEEE
1901.1 will need some form of adaptation, since RFC 6282 refers to 16-bit and
64-bit addresses.
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4.6. Fragmentation and Reassembly
PLC differs from other wired technologies in that the communication
medium is not shielded; thus, to successfully transmit data through
power lines, PLC Data Link layer provides the function of
segmentation and reassembly. A Segment Control Field is defined in
the MAC frame header regardless of whether segmentation is required.
The number of data octets of the PHY payload can change dynamically
based on channel conditions, thus the MAC payload segmentation in the
MAC sublayer is enabled and guarantees a reliable one-hop data
transmission. Fragmentation and reassembly is still required at the
adaptation layer, if the MAC layer cannot support the minimum MTU
demanded by IPv6, which is 1280 octets.
In IEEE 1901.1 and IEEE 1901.2, the MAC layer supports payloads as
big as 2031 octets and 1576 octets respectively. However when the
channel condition is noisy, it is possible to configure smaller MTU
at the MAC layer. If the configured MTU is smaller than 1280
octects, the fragmentation and reassembly defined in [RFC4944] MUST
be used.
In ITU-T G.9903, the maximum MAC payload size is fixed to 400 octets,
so to cope with the required MTU of 1280 octets by IPv6,
fragmentation and reassembly at 6lo adaptation layer MUST be provided
referring to [RFC4944].
5. Internet Connectivity Scenarios and Topologies
The network model can be simplified to two kinds of network devices:
s/The network model/The PLC network model
PAN Coordinator (PANC) and PAN Device. The PANC is the primary
coordinator of the PLC subnet and can be seen as a master node; PAN
Devices are typically PLC meters and sensors. The PANC also serves
as the Routing Registrar for proxy registration and DAD procedures,
making use of the updated registration procedures in [RFC8505]. IPv6
over PLC networks are built as tree, mesh or star according to the
use cases. Every network requires at least one PANC to communicate
with each PAN Device.
The last sentence was unclear. Who/What communicates with each PAN Device?
Note that the PLC topologies in this section
are based on logical connectivity, not physical links.
The star topology is common in current PLC scenarios. In single-hop
star topologies, communication at the link layer only takes place
between a PAN Device and a PANC. The PANC typically collects data
(e.g., a meter reading) from the PAN devices, and then concentrates
and uploads the data through Ethernet or LPWAN (see Figure 5). The
collected data is transmitted by the smart meters through PLC,
aggregated by a concentrator, sent to the utility and then to a Meter
Data Management System for data storage, analysis and billing. This
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topology has been widely applied in the deployment of smart meters,
especially in apartment buildings.
PLC Device PLC Device
\ / +---------
\ / /
\ / +
\ / |
PLC Device ------ PANC ===========+ Internet
/ \ |
/ \ +
/ \ \
/ \ +---------
PLC Device PLC Device
<---------------------->
PLC subnet (IPv6 over PLC)
Figure 5: PLC Star Network connected to the Internet
A tree topology is useful when the distance between a device A and
PANC is beyond the PLC allowed limit and there is another device B in
between able to communicate with both sides. Device B in this case
acts both as a PAN Device and a Coordinator. For this scenario, the
link layer communications take place between device A and device B,
and between device B and PANC. An example of PLC tree network is
depicted in Figure 6. This topology can be applied in the smart
street lighting, where the lights adjust the brightness to reduce
energy consumption while sensors are deployed on the street lights to
provide information such as light intensity, temperature, humidity.
Data transmission distance in the street lighting scenario is
normally above several kilometers thus the PLC tree network is
required. A more sophisticated AMI network may also be constructed
into the tree topology which is depicted in [RFC8036]. A tree
topology is suitable for AMI scenarios that require large coverage
but low density, e.g., the deployment of smart meters in rural areas.
RPL is suitable for maintenance of a tree topology in which there is
no need for communication directly between PAN devices.
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PLC Device
\ +---------
PLC Device \ /
\ \ +
\ \ |
PLC Device -- PANC ===========+ Internet
/ / |
/ / +
PLC Device---PLC Device / \
/ +---------
PLC Device---PLC Device
<------------------------->
PLC subnet (IPv6 over PLC)
Figure 6: PLC Tree Network connected to the Internet
Mesh networking in PLC is of great potential applications and has
been studied for several years. By connecting all nodes with their
neighbors in communication range (see Figure 7), mesh topology
dramatically enhances the communication efficiency and thus expands
the size of PLC networks. A simple use case is the smart home
scenario where the ON/OFF state of air conditioning is controlled by
the state of home lights (ON/OFF) and doors (OPEN/CLOSE). AODV-RPL
enables direct PAN device to PAN device communication, without being
obliged to transmit frames through the PANC, which is a requirement
often cited for AMI infrastructure.
PLC Device---PLC Device
/ \ / \ +---------
/ \ / \ /
/ \ / \ +
/ \ / \ |
PLC Device--PLC Device---PANC ===========+ Internet
\ / \ / |
\ / \ / +
\ / \ / \
\ / \ / +---------
PLC Device---PLC Device
<------------------------------->
PLC subnet (IPv6 over PLC)
Figure 7: PLC Mesh Network connected to the Internet
What is the subnet model for the scenarios illustrated in this section?
For example, is the "PLC subnet" a multilink subnet? Is each link in the "PLC
subnet" a subnet?
Perhaps this text from RFC 7668 may be useful for reference:
"In the Bluetooth LE case, the benefits of treating
the collection of point-to-point links between a central and its
connected peripherals as a single multilink subnet rather than a
multiplicity of separate subnets are considered to outweigh the
multilink model's drawbacks as described in [RFC4903]."
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6. IANA Considerations
There are no IANA considerations related to this document.
7. Security Consideration
Due to the high accessibility of power grid, PLC might be susceptible
to eavesdropping within its communication coverage, e.g., one
apartment tenant may have the chance to monitor the other smart
meters in the same apartment building. For security consideration,
link layer security is guaranteed in every PLC technology.
Malicious PLC devices could paralyze the whole network via DOS
attacks, e.g., keep joining and leaving the network frequently, or
multicast routing messages containing fake metrics. A device may
also join a wrong or even malicious network, exposing its data to
illegal users. Mutual authentication of network and new device can
be conducted during the onboarding process of the new device.
Methods include protocols such as [RFC7925] (exchanging pre-installed
certificates over DTLS) , [I-D.ietf-6tisch-minimal-security] (which
uses pre-shared keys), and
[I-D.ietf-6tisch-dtsecurity-zerotouch-join] (which uses IDevID and
MASA service). It is also possible to use EAP methods such as
[I-D.ietf-emu-eap-noob] via transports like PANA [RFC5191]. No
specific mechanism is specified by this document as an appropriate
mechanism will depend upon deployment circumstances. The network
encryption key appropriate for the layer-2 can also be acquired
during the onboarding process.
IP addresses may be used to track devices on the Internet; such
devices can in turn be linked to individuals and their activities.
Depending on the application and the actual use pattern, this may be
undesirable. To impede tracking, globally unique and non-changing
characteristics of IP addresses should be avoided, e.g., by
frequently changing the global prefix and avoiding unique link-layer
derived IIDs in addresses. [RFC3315], [RFC3972], [RFC4941],
[RFC5535], [RFC7217], and [RFC8065] provide valuable information for
IID formation with improved privacy, and are RECOMMENDED for IPv6
networks.
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