Re: Catalog of IPv4 literals

[Cameron Byrne <cb.list6@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 1:08 PM,  <bmanning@vacation.karoshi.com> wrote:
>
> if an application "breaks" becuase someone uses an address literal instead
> of a domain name, then that application is itself broken.  the DNS translates
> the name into an address and the address is used...  so whether a name or
> a literal is handed to the app should be immaterial.
>

Please think of the scope as limited to
draft-ietf-behave-v6v4-framework scenario #1, IPv6 network to an IPv4
internet.  If an IPv4 literal is passed at the application layer
(HTML, XML, ...) to a host with only IPv6 connectivity, the service is
broken to an IPv6-only user as where it works for an IPv4-only user.
Pedantry aside, this is the customer experience for some common
internet services.  DNS names solve this problem since they allow
DNS64 to function.

This  draft draft-wing-behave-http-ip-address-literals attempts to
work around the problem of IPv4 literals passed to hosts in IPv6-only
networks, but the work around is only relevant for HTTP and will not
work for smartphones or dumbphones that don't have this proxy logic.

> so your "catalog" of address literals is really the full set of all IP addresses.
>

No.

Cameron

> --bill
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 09:01:12AM -0700, Cameron Byrne wrote:
>> Folks,
>>
>> It has been suggest several times to me that IPv4 literals be
>> cataloged in a central location so that those working to develop
>> IPv6-only networks and services can know the impact of IPv4 addresses
>> that are hard-coded into content and protocols.  So, i created this
>> Google Groups http://groups.google.com/group/ipv4literals and provided
>> an example template for reporting found IPv4 literals.  Right now, the
>> threat of IPv4 literals on IPv6-only networks is small from the
>> network operator perspective, it is not a blocking issue.  But, for
>> the content owners who knowingly or unknowingly have IPv4 literals as
>> part of their service, this is major breakage.  That said, they have a
>> right to know how their service will break so that they can accept the
>> risk of having their content unavailable on major networks or work to
>> use DNS names that will function correctly.  Extra bonus points if
>> they resolve this issue of inter-operating with IPv6-only networks by
>> producing native IPv6 content!
>>
>> In my own efforts, i have found content owners very happy to receive
>> this proactive notification.  Explicitly, myspace and Yahoo! have been
>> very good partners in finding and resolving issues of this nature and
>> removing IPv4 literals from their production services.  Also, over the
>> course of my work I have seen Hulu.com independently move to using DNS
>> names.  The issue is most commonly found with streaming services on
>> the Internet, especially ones involving CDNs.
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Cameron
>