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Status:

INFORMATIONAL

Authors:

Q. Hu
B. Carpenter

Stream:

INDEPENDENT

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DOI:  https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC6294

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Abstract

The IPv6 protocol includes a flow label in every packet header, butthis field is not used in practice. This paper describes the flowlabel standard and discusses the implementation issues that itraises. It then describes various published proposals for using theflow label and shows that most of them are inconsistent with thestandard. Methods to address this problem are briefly reviewed. Wealso question whether the standard should be revised. This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it ispublished for informational purposes.

For the definition ofStatus,seeRFC 2026.

For the definition ofStream, seeRFC 8729.