Textual Conventions for IPv6 Flow Label
Extracted elements (7)
Multiple standards-track MIB modules had independently defined objects to represent IPv6 Flow Labels, resulting in different representations of the same management information. This TC document was created to unify those representations and reduce confusion and complexity.
The value -1 was chosen as the wildcard sentinel in IPv6FlowLabelOrAny based on initial input from 3GPP, which expressed the requirement to be able to specify a wildcard for FlowID or FlowLabel in filter specifications.
MIB modules and PIB modules that need to represent an IPv6 Flow Label should import and use these textual conventions rather than defining their own representations.
IPv6FlowLabel is a textual convention defined as Integer32 with range 0..1048575, representing the flow identifier or Flow Label in an IPv6 packet header used to discriminate traffic flows.
IPv6FlowLabelOrAny is a textual convention defined as Integer32 with range (-1 | 0..1048575), where -1 indicates a wildcard meaning any flow label value, used in filter contexts.
The ipv6FlowLabelMIB module is assigned OID { mib-2 103 } under the IANA-managed mib-2 subtree.
This MIB module defines only textual conventions and no concrete management objects, so it has no direct security impact on the Internet. Security considerations are deferred to MIB modules that import these TCs and define actual management objects.