



opsawg                                                       X. Gao, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                  S. Zhang
Intended status: Standards Track                            China Unicom
Expires: 2 February 2026                                   1 August 2025


Export of terminal and application identification Information in IP Flow
                       Information Export (IPFIX)
                 draft-gao-opsawg-ipfix-term-and-app-00

Abstract

   This document specifies the extended information elements used in
   IPFIX (IP Flow Information Export) to export application layer
   information for identifying terminal and cloud application related
   information.

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
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 2 February 2026.

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   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.




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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  New Information Elements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.1.  User-agent  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.2.  Host  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.3.  URL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.4.  SNI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.5.  session ID  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   7.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5

1.  Introduction

   At present, the information related to terminal and cloud
   applications is crucial in the intelligent management of Internet
   traffic, especially in the end-to-end IPv6 network capability
   monitoring technology, [I-D.pang-v6ops-ipv6-monitoring-deployment-01]
   proposed that in order to accurately find the blocking points and
   sticking points of IPv6 traffic improvement, improve the end-to-end
   penetration level and service quality of IPv6 network, the network
   management system needs to master the end-to-end IPv6 capability
   support.  In addition to the network forwarding equipment (such as
   routers) information, it also includes home terminals, and access
   applications.  Currently, the information export of terminal and
   cloud applications has not been well standardized.  This document
   specifies the information elements used for exporting terminal and
   cloud application information.

2.  Conventions and Definitions

   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 BCP
   14 [RFC2119][RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.











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3.  Problem Statement

   In IPv6 end-to-end traffic monitoring, the identification of terminal
   types (including mobile phones，PADs，etc) can be analyzed from the
   User agent field of the HTTP packet, which describes the device used
   to access the internet; For the identification of cloud applications,
   it is also necessary to parse the seven layer information of the
   message, including the Host, URL and other fields in HTTP messages,
   SNI feature fields, session ID and other fields in HTTPS messages to
   identify the application.  By exporting these fields and analyzing
   the data characteristics of network management, further evaluation of
   IPv6 capability support can be achieved.

4.  New Information Elements

4.1.  User-agent

   Description：

   The User-Agent request-header field contains information about the
   user agent originating the request.  This is for statistical
   purposes, the tracing of protocol violations, and automated
   recognition of user agents for the sake of tailoring responses to
   avoid particular user agent limitations.  Although it is not
   required, user agents should include this field with requests.  The
   field can contain multiple product tokens and comments identifying
   the agent and any subproducts which form a significant part of the
   user agent.  By convention, the product tokens are listed in order of
   their significance for identifying the application.

   Reference：[RFC1945]

4.2.  Host

   Description：

   The Host request-header field specifies the Internet host and port
   number of the resource being requested, as obtained from the original
   URI given by the user or referring resource (generally an HTTP URL).
   The Host field value must represent the naming authority of the
   origin server or gateway given by the original URL.  This allows the
   origin server or gateway to differentiate between internally-
   ambiguous URLs, such as the root "/" URL of a server for multiple
   host names on a single IP address.

   Reference：[RFC2616]





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4.3.  URL

   Description：

   A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a compact string representation
   used to identify and locate resources available via the Internet.  It
   provides a standardized method for describing the location and access
   method of resources.

   Reference：[RFC1738]

4.4.  SNI

   Description：

   SNI is an extension to the TLS protocol that allows a client to
   indicate the hostname of the server it is contacting.  This is
   particularly useful for servers hosting multiple virtual servers at a
   single underlying network address.

   Reference：[RFC3546]

4.5.  session ID

   Description：

   An arbitrary byte sequence chosen by the server to identify an active
   or resumable session state.

   Reference：[RFC4346]

5.  Security Considerations

   TBD

6.  IANA Considerations

   The document makes a request to IANA to register the Information
   Elements defined in section 4.

7.  Informative References










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   [I-D.pang-v6ops-ipv6-monitoring-deployment]
              Pang, R., Zhao, J., Jin, M., and S. Zhang, "IPv6 Network
              Deployment Monitoring and Analysis", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-pang-v6ops-ipv6-monitoring-
              deployment-01, 4 July 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-pang-v6ops-
              ipv6-monitoring-deployment-01>.

Authors' Addresses

   Xing Gao (editor)
   China Unicom
   Beijing
   China
   Email: gaox60@chinaunicom.cn


   Shuai Zhang
   China Unicom
   Beijing
   China
   Email: zhangs366@chinaunicom.cn





























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