Bob Hinden wrote:
[IPv6 working group chair hat on]
I think the working group has been making good progress on replacing site-local addresses and wanted to get feed back from the working group on how we should move forward. This is not intended to directly relate to the ongoing appeal of the working groups decision to deprecate the usage site-local addresses, but to get feedback on how to proceed. I think it is very important that we move forward on this issue and not rehash what has happened in the past.
We now have a combined local addressing requirements document <draft-hain-templin-ipv6-limitedrange-00.txt>, a specific alternative to site-local addresses draft <draft-hinden-ipv6-global-local-addr-02.txt> (accepted as a working group item at the Vienna IETF), and will soon have a draft describing why site-local addresses are being deprecated and doing the formal deprecation (authors identified and outline discussed at the Vienna IETF). Note that all of these documents will proceed through the normal working group and IETF processes of last calls and review.
I think legitimate questions have been raised about how the working group should go about deprecating site-local addresses given their maturity in the current specifications and use in deployed products. Specifically should they be deprecated independently from having an alternative solution available, at the same time an alternative is available, or sometime after an alternative is available. A forth alternative is to not replace site-local addresses in any form, but I think the working group has made it clear that this is not a reasonable alternative.
I have a real problem here. As I commented in Vienna and is mentioned in the minutes,
the entire process this wg is going through is wrong as it is based on a flawed logic.
We had site local addresses. After lengthy debates, the wg realized that there were
a number of significant issues that outweighed the reported benefits, so there
is an attempt to deprecate them. Until now, fine.
Now, some people convinced the wg that SL addresses were having a role that is not fulfilled by provider aggregated addresses. Fine again.
Then, we have a 'requirement' document that pretend to explain why we need
'local' addresses. If you read it carefully, and as acknowledged by one of its main
author in Vienna, almost all of those requirements (if not all) would be fulfilled
by provider independent addresses. Actually, there is nothing in it that
explain why we need 'local range' addresses. The essence of those
requirements is in the need for stable addresses that are
independent from ISPs.
So using this document (I checked the new combined one, it is the same issue)
to justify introducing "local" addresses and doing so without clearly
understanding the impact of those "ranged" addresses on the architecture
and the current implementation is a flawed process.
In particular, we need to understand the impact on address selection,
and the layer violation that would be created by coupling DNS views & routing.
IMHO, what need to happen is the following:
-1. Make an in-depth study of the consequences of introducing
addresses with different ranges.-2. Realize that if the issue at stake here has more to do with getting addresses
than with their actual scope/range, something probably can be
done working with the registries. It might be a cheaper path
than changing the protocols. After all, IPv6 addresses are plentiful,
we should have easy access to them!
What to do with Site Local addresses in the meantime is a non issue for me.
- Alain.
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