RFC 1672 (rfc1672) - Page 1 of 3
Accounting Requirements for IPng
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group N. Brownlee
Request for Comments: 1672 The University of Auckland
Category: Informational August 1994
Accounting Requirements for IPng
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo
does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
This document was submitted to the IETF IPng area in response to RFC
1550. Publication of this document does not imply acceptance by the
IPng area of any ideas expressed within. Comments should be
submitted to the mailing list.
Summary
This white paper discusses accounting requirements for IPng. It
recommends that all IPng packets carry accounting tags, which would
vary in size. In the simplest case a tag would simply be a voucher
identifying the party responsible for the packet. At other times tags
should also carry other higher-level accounting information.
Background
The Internet Accounting Model - described in RFC 1272 - specifies how
accounting information is structured, and how it is collected for use
by accounting aplications. The model is very general, with
accounting variables being defined for various layers of a protocol
stack. The group's work has so far concentrated on the lower layers,
but the model can be extended simply by defining the variables
required, e.g., for session and application layers.
Brian Carpenter [1] suggests that IPng packets should carry
authenticated (source, destination, transaction) triplets, which
could be used for policy-based routing and accounting. The following
sections explain how the transaction field - hereafter called an
'accounting tag' - could be used.
Lower-layer (Transport) Accounting
At the lower (network) layers the tag would simply be a voucher. This
means it is an arbitrary string which identifies the party
Brownlee