RFC 3682 · EXPERIMENTAL · 2004

The Generalized TTL Security Mechanism

Overview

RFC 3682, “The Generalized TTL Security Mechanism”, is an Experimental document published in February 2004 by V. Gill, J. Heasley, D. Meyer. It has been obsoleted by RFC 5082 — refer to the newer document for the authoritative version. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.

Abstract

The use of a packet's Time to Live (TTL) (IPv4) or Hop Limit (IPv6) to protect a protocol stack from CPU-utilization based attacks has been proposed in many settings (see for example, RFC 2461). This document generalizes these techniques for use by other protocols such as BGP (RFC 1771), Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP), Bidirectional Forwarding Detection, and Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) (RFC 3036). While the Generalized TTL Security Mechanism (GTSM) is most effective in protecting directly connected protocol peers, it can also provide a lower level of protection to multi-hop sessions. GTSM is not directly applicable to protocols employing flooding mechanisms (e.g., multicast), and use of multi-hop GTSM should be considered on a case-by-case basis. This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Experimental” means

Describes a specification that is part of a research or development effort, published so the community can gain experience with it.

Read this RFC

The canonical text of RFC 3682 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in TXT,HTML.

Relationships to other RFCs
Obsoleted by
RFC 5082
Other RFCs from 2004

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