Documentation > SIIT in Detail > The EAMT

EAMT

The Explicit Address Mappings Table (EAMT) is a collection of records in an SIIT device which describe how different addresses should be translated. It is defined in RFC 7757.

Here’s an example of an EAMT:

An EAMT entry is composed of an IPv4 prefix and an IPv6 prefix. When an address is being translated, its prefix is literally replaced according to the table. In Jool’s implementation, all records are bidirectional.

The first record shown is the simplest case. Because there is no suffix, the record literally says “Address 192.0.2.1 should always be translated as 2001:db8:aaaa::5, and vice versa”. Whether the address is source, destination, or lies within the inner packet of an ICMP error, doesn’t matter. The IPv6 representation of 192.0.2.1 is 2001:db8:aaaa::5, and the IPv4 representation of 2001:db8:aaaa::5 is 192.0.2.1. Period.

The second entry is more interesting. Because there is a full byte of suffix, the record is saying “198.51.100.x should be translated as 2001:db8:bbbb::x, and vice versa.” x is any number whose decimal representation lies between 0 and 255.

As in:

• 198.51.100.0 <-> 2001:db8:bbbb::0
• 198.51.100.1 <-> 2001:db8:bbbb::1
• 198.51.100.2 <-> 2001:db8:bbbb::2
• …
• 198.51.100.254 <-> 2001:db8:bbbb::fe
• 198.51.100.255 <-> 2001:db8:bbbb::ff

This form can help you simplify configuration when you have lots of addresses to map; the suffix is always preserved, so the point is a single EAMT entry can describe the translation of an entire network.

(Also, a single EAMT entry describing a /16 is way more efficient than the equivalent 65536 atomic records.)

The prefix replacement is done at bit level. The third entry exemplifies this: Address 203.0.113.8 becomes 2001:db8:cccc::, not 2001:db8:cccc::8. This is because .8’s binary form is 00001000, and the one is at the prefix side. These are some other mappings generated by the entry:

• 203.0.113.9 <-> 2001:db8:cccc::1
• 203.0.113.10 <-> 2001:db8:cccc::2
• 203.0.113.12 <-> 2001:db8:cccc::4
• 203.0.113.15 <-> 2001:db8:cccc::7

If Jool doesn’t find a match in the table for an address, it tries to translate based on the pool6 prefix. If that also fails, the packet is returned to the kernel (ie. it is assumed it wasn’t meant to be translated).

See the walkthrough or the reference material for information on how to create and destroy entries manually. You can test the translation of an IP address given a certain EAMT by way of address query.