Overloading RA [Re: RFC 5006 status]

[Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com>]

On 2010-03-19 11:25, Ralph Droms wrote:
> You still miss my point.  I don't think sending config info in RAs is
> necessarily a bad idea.  The IETF has worked from an architectural
> guideline of providing one way to carry config.  Some network operators
> would rather use one protocol to carry config, be that ND or DHCP.  It's
> just a different philosophy.
> 
> I do think the idea of carrying config info in RAs is being sold with
> FUD.  I also think the ways in which adding more config info to RAs
> ought to be thought through fairly carefully, based on some of the
> IETF's relevant experience with DHCP.

What I notice is that DHCP has become very heavily loaded with options.
Although one can deploy DHCP without using all those options, it has
become a complex thing. SLAAC at least has the advantage that it's
stayed simple; in fact the only overloading so far is RFC 5006. I think
we'd need a very convincing argument to depart from that simplicity,
as opposed to simply saying: if you need to convey arbitrary parameters
to hosts, use DHCPv6, which is intended for that purpose.

A DNS server address is not an arbitrary parameter; along with a default
router, it's the second address you *must* know in every host. So adding
it to SLAAC seems consistent. Adding arbitrary parameters to SLAAC would
be a whole other approach, and I'm not sure I understand the motivation.

    Brian
> 
> - Ralph
> 
> On Mar 18, 2010, at 1:10 PM 3/18/10, Gert Doering wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 12:40:15PM -0700, Ralph Droms wrote:
>>> I don't  happen to share your opinion that "[t]he IETF has solidly
>>> messed up this part of IPv6 by delaying things for 10 years or so,"
>>
>> No need to share any opinion here.  Just try to run an IPv6-only network
>> with Windows, Linux and MacOS clients, and consider whether the IETF
>> might have given vendors better guidance.  Or finished one or the other
>> RFC 5 years earlier.
>>
>> As an operational person, this endless bickering between the RA camp and
>> the "what do you need RA for that, when DHCP can do this all along" has
>> FAIL stamped all over it.
>>
>> Gert Doering
>>        -- NetMaster
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> 
> 
>