This document discusses Internet of Things (IoT) networking standards that enable IoT devices to connect using IPv6. It covers protocols like 6LoWPAN that allow IPv6 to be used over low-power wireless networks, as well as standards for routing (RPL), security (DTLS, CoAP), and device management (LWM2M, SUIT). It also mentions low-power wide area network technologies (LPWANs) and the Thread mesh networking standard that are important for connecting many IoT devices using IPv6.

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IPv6 & IoT
APRICOT 2019 / APNIC 47
February 2019
Daejeon, South Korea
@JordiPalet
(jordi.palet@theipv6company.com)

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Full (incomplete) Picture
* https://www.postscapes.com/internet-of-things-alliances-roundup/

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Why IoT with IPv6?
• Huge number of addresses (devices)
• Autoconfiguration
• Header compression
• IPv6-only: Dual-stack is not an option (tiny
devices)
• Avoid using non-IP such as ZigBee

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6LoWPAN
• Initial IETF work on IoT
–IPv6 over Low Power Wireless Personal Area Networks
• 6LoWPAN
–IPv6 adaptation layer
• IEEE 802.15.4
–PHY & MAC layers
–Encryption
–127 bytes payload
IEEE 802.15.4 & 6
PHY
868MHz / 915MHz / 2.4GHz
Simpler MAC
32- / 64- / 128-bit encryption
LoWPAN shim
Fragmentation, Compression,
IPv6
Application
Stack Profile
IEEE
802.15.4
IETF
6LoWPAN
– IPv6 adaptation
IEEE 802.15.4
– encryption
– Physical & Media Ac
Control layers
– 127 bytes payload
IEEE 802.15.4 & 6LoWPAN
PHY
868MHz / 915MHz / 2.4GHz
Simpler MAC
32- / 64- / 128-bit encryption
LoWPAN shim
Fragmentation, Compression,
IPv6
Application
Stack Profile
IEEE
802.15.4
IETF

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6LoWPAN Challenges
• Small packets
– Fragmentation
– Header Compression
• ND not efficient in low power wireless
• Topology
– Star and mesh
• Security and Privacy
– Nodes have low computing resources
– May be physically reachable
• Nodes may “sleep”

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6Lo
• IPv6 over Networks of Resource-constrained Nodes
–Extend 6LoWPAN
–ND extensions
–Privacy
–Other PHY (Bluetooth LE, DECT ULE, G3-PLC, MS/TP,
NFC, Z-Wave, …)

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6TiSCH
• IPv6 over the TSCH mode of IEEE 802.15.4e
• “Deterministic 802.15.4”
• The Timeslotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) mode was introduced in 2012 as
an amendment to the Medium Access Control (MAC) portion of the
IEEE802.15.4 standard.
• Nodes in a IEEE802.15.4 TSCH network communicate by following a Time
Division Multiple Access (TDMA) schedule.
• Use cases for LLNs (Low-power and Lossy Networks), including:
– Control loops in a wireless process control network, in which high reliability and a fully
deterministic behavior are required.
– Service Provider networks transporting data from different independent clients, and for
which an operator needs flow isolation and traffic shaping.
– Networks comprising energy harvesting nodes, which require an extremely low and
predictable average power consumption.

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ROLL
• Routing Over Low power and Lossy networks
• RPL (IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks)
• L3 addresses
• Multiple IP links and IEEE802 broadcast/multicast domains
• Multiple border routers
• Reassembly in each hop
• Apps can see multiple link-locals

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CoRE
• Constrained RESTful Environments
• Defined a Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) for the
manipulation of Resources on a Device
• Request/Responses
• HTTP transaction typically 10 times higher than CoAP
• Power consumption matters! Lifetime!

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DICE
• DTLS In Constrained Environments
• Supporting the use of Datagram Transport Layer Security in
these environments

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ACE
• Authentication and Authorization for Constrained
Environments
• Solution for authentication and authorization to enable
authorized access (Get, Put, Post, Delete) to resources
identified by a URI and hosted on a resource server in
constrained environments

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LPWAN
• IPv6 over Low-Power Wide-Area Networks
– SIGFOX, LoRa, WI-SUN and NB-IOT
• Optimized radio modulation
• Star topology
• Frame sizes in the order of tens of bytes transmitted a few
times per day at ultra-low speeds and sometimes variable
MTUs
• Downstream may be supported, but mostly upstream
transmission (devices in low-energy deep-sleep mode)
• Enables ranges of several Kms with long battery lifetime (10
years with a single coin-cell)

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LWIG
• Light-Weight Implementation Guidance
• The goal is to be able to build minimal yet interoperable IP-
capable devices for the most constrained environments
• There are implementations that go even further in
minimization and can exist in as few as a couple of kilobytes
of code

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SUIT
• Software Updates for Internet of Things
• Vulnerabilities in Internet of Things (IoT) devices have raised
the need for a secure firmware update mechanism that is
also suitable for constrained devices (Class 1 and up).
• RFC7228 defines “Classes of Constrained Devices”:
Name Data Size Code Size
(e.g., RAM) (e.g., Flash)
Class 0, C0 <10 KiB <100 KiB
Class 1, C1 ~10 KiB ~100 KiB
Class 2, C2 ~50 KiB ~250 KiB

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Web of Things (I)
• Defines architecture to facilitate interoperability and
applications development by means of an
application layer
–CoAP for management
–CBOR and JSON for data formats
–DTLS and TLS for secure communications
–COSE and JOSE for object security (CBOR/JSON
Object Signing and Encryption)
–ACE for authenticated authorizations

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Web of Things (II)
Web$of$Things
Hypermedia$Web$Applications
IPSO$Objects$+$Hypermedia
OMA$LWM2M
CoAP HTTP
6LowPAN IPv4/IPv6
MCU$–$16KiB$RAM MPU
802.15.4 WiFi,$Ethernet
Hardware
HW$Network
Routing
Application$Protocol
API$and$Services
Data$Models
Application
Web$Server

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Thread Group
• Vendors consortium based on IPv6, 802.15.4 and 6LoWPAN
– Low-power wireless mesh based on IPv6.
– Enables device-to-device and device-to-cloud communications and
reliably connects hundreds (or thousands) of products and includes
mandatory security features.
– Thread networks have no single point of failure, can self-heal and
reconfigure when a device is added or removed, and are simple to
setup and use.
– Thread is based on the broadly supported IEEE 802.15.4 radio
standard, which is designed from the ground up for extremely low
power consumption and low latency.

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Thanks!
Contact:
@JordiPalet
jordi.palet@theipv6company.com