IPv4 security options

[Michal Mikus]

I'm reading IPv4 standard. There are 3 types of options that IPv4 header can carry: timestamp, special routing and security. I'm wondering if there's any use these days for security options since what I understand, it was meant for DoD purposes primarily.

[Julio E. Moisa]

Hi Michal

Nowadays there are many security options, for example Control plane policies for DoS attacks, DHCP snooping for rogue DHCP servers, port security, ARP Inspections etc. 

Could you please provide more details about your question?.

[Michal Mikus]

No, I don't mean general security features/techniques available.

IPv4 protocol header is usually 20 bytes long. But if required, one can specify additional options after the "destination address" field.

For example, "special routing" options like Loose source can be used to supply routing information to be used by the gateways in forwarding the datagram to the destination.

Another options type is Timestamp.

And the last one is Security.