RFC 1672 (rfc1672) - Page 1 of 3

Accounting Requirements for IPng

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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
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