I don't hate this draft. But making tweaks to IPv4 at this stage seems
like making improvements to the altimeter in a Dusenberg.
IMO IPv4 should be declared at EOL in 2025, and further work on IPv4
should require significant justification. The questions for any
proposed enhancements to IPv4 at this stage should be like:
(a) will this change to IPv4 improve or facilitate adoption of IPv6 or
ease the transition away from IPv4 in favor of IPv6?
(b) is this change to IPv4 helpful to permit continued interoperability
with legacy IPv4-only systems that are still needed?
I'm not saying these are absolutely the only reasons to do additional
work on IPv4 at this stage, but the list of valid reasons is probably small.
Perhaps more importantly, while protocol changes that require software
changes can sometimes be widely deployed rather quickly (thanks to
automatic or semi-automatic over-the-wire software updates), protocol
changes that require changes to manual configuration of hosts, routers,
or middleboxes are unlikely to be deployed nearly as quickly.
In this case it seems like use of .0 at this late date creates
additional potential for operational networks to become more brittle and
to result in strange inconsistencies that are difficult for ordinary
users (and some other operators of small LAN segments) to track down.
***
But I am somewhat sympathetic to the idea that tiny subnets need all of
the addresses that they can get. It shouldn't be necessary to get a
/29 prefix just to be able to put three hosts on a LAN segment. My
house has a /28 and sometimes that's not been enough (though thankfully
my carrier is finally supporting IPv6, so I care much less now).
It strikes me that it is the tiny subnets that not only need this relief
most, but also are the ones that are least likely to be disrupted by
meddleboxes, intrusion detectors, security monitors, etc. trying to be
too clever. But plenty of tiny networks have such meddleboxes.
Or maybe .0 should be the preferred address for the on prem router's
configuration interface, freeing up other addresses on the subnet for
ordinary hosts. That way, most problems will show up immediately, and
the ISP will be the ones who have to deal with it when it breaks. (How
many consumer-facing ISPs would want to make that change to their
default router configurations? I'm guessing not many, which might be a
good indication of something.)
Overall, I think there's some potential for publication of this document
to do more harm than good, even if it only recommends use of .0 for
hosts on network segments that have, say, /26 or longer prefixes. Is it
really worth it? (Or as one person suggested, is this a way to make
IPv4 even more broken so that people will have to switch to IPv6?)
Keith
On 11/16/21 2:09 AM, Loganaden Velvindron wrote:
I would support seeing this work move forward. There are still many
countries in the developing world who will not be able to update to
IPv6 any time soon due to legacy equipment and will be using IPv4 for
a long time.
(Disclaimer: I submitted a few patches to the IPv4 extension project).
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