Dynamic Allocation of Shared IPv4 Addresses
Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University
Deutsche Telekom AG
Comcast
China Telecom
France Telecom
This memo describes the dynamic allocation of shared IPv4 addresses to clients using the DHCPv4 protocol. Address sharing allows a single IPv4 address to be allocated to multiple, active clients simultaneously, each client being differentiated by a unique set of L4 source ports. The changes necessary to existing DHCPv4 client and server behaviour are described and a new DHCPv4 option for provisioning clients with shared IPv4 addresses is included. Due to the nature of sharing IP addresses, there are necessarily some limitations to the applicability. This memo describes those limitations and recommends suitable architectures and technologies where address sharing may be utilized.