nanog mailing list archives
Re: IPv6 Confusion
From: Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:48:49 -0800
On Feb 17, 2009, at 11:28 AM, Tony Hain wrote:
While people frequently claim that auto-config is optional, there areimplementations (including OS-X) that don't support anything else at thispoint. The basic message is that you should not assume that the hostimplementations will conform to what the network operator would prefer, andyou need to test.
I can configure OS-X statically, so, that simply isn't true. What is true is that there are many implementations which do not (yet) support DHCPv6. That is not the same as "don't support anything else".
One last comment (because I hear "just more bits" a lot in the *nogcommunity)... Approach IPv6 as a new and different protocol. If you approachit as "IPv4 with more bits", you will trip over the differences and bepissed off. If you approach it as a "different protocol with a name that starts with IP" and runs alongside IPv4 (like we used to do with decnet, sna, appletalk...), you will be comforted in all the similarities. You will also hear lots of noise about 'lack of compatibility', which is just another instance of refusing to recognize that this is really a different protocol. At the end of the day, it is a packet based protocol that moves payloadsaround.
The problem here, IMHO, stems from the fact that unlike DECnet, Appletalk, SNA, et. al., IPv6 is intended as a replacement for IPv4. (None of the other protocols was ever intended to replace any of the others). As a replacement, the IETF realized that at the current scale of the internet when they began designing IPv6, a flag day conversion (like what happened when we went to IPv4) was not possible. Unfortunately, the migration plan set forth by the IETF made many assumptions (especially on vendor preparedness and rate of adoption prior to IPv4 runout) that have not proven out, so, the "Everyone who has IPv4 starts running dual-stack before we need any IPv6 only connectivity" plan is not going to prove out. More unfortunately, there is no real contingency plan for how migration happens absent that scenario and we are, therefore, in for some interesting times ahead. Owen
Current thread:
- IPv6 Confusion Carl Rosevear (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion Mohacsi Janos (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion Jack Bates (Feb 17)
- RE: IPv6 Confusion TJ (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion Fred Baker (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion Scott Howard (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion Owen DeLong (Feb 17)
- RE: IPv6 Confusion Carl Rosevear (Feb 17)
- RE: IPv6 Confusion Tony Hain (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion Owen DeLong (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion Mark Smith (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion Nathan Ward (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion Kevin Oberman (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion Randy Bush (Feb 17)
- RE: IPv6 Confusion Frank Bulk (Feb 19)
- RE: IPv6 Confusion Mikael Abrahamsson (Feb 19)
- RE: IPv6 Confusion Carl Rosevear (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion Mohacsi Janos (Feb 17)
- RE: IPv6 Confusion Tony Hain (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion David Conrad (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion Paul Ferguson (Feb 17)
- Re: IPv6 Confusion Mark Smith (Feb 17)