I suggest dropping "stateful" from the description because of the potential for confusion inherent in providing a "stateful protocol for *other* configurations" with "stateless DHCPv6" [RFC 3736].
This confusion arises from the unfortunate decision to differentiate RFC 2462 address assignment from DHCP-based address assignment by designating the former "stateless" and the latter "stateful". That difference is more accurately captured in RFC 2461bis by describing RFC 2462 address assignment as autonomous. But, "stateless address autoconfiguration" is the accepted phrase with wide dissemination at this point...
In any event, perhaps the best way to simplify the protocol would be to drop the "O" bit altogether. That is, make no attempt to control how a host goes about finding the additional configuration information. There was a brief discussion about this issue at an IPv6 WG interim meeting (Aug 2002?). If I remember correctly, and at the risk of over-simplification, the point of the discussion was that, if I'm a network administrator, under what circumstances would I ever want to set the 'O' bit so that a device does not use all available mechanisms to obtain other configuration information?
- Ralph
At 01:20 PM 4/14/2004 +0200, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
On 14-apr-04, at 12:48, Ralph Droms wrote:
I think DHCPv6 ought to be cited as the protocol for other configuration information, as well.
However, it seems to me the phrase "stateful protocol for *other* configurations" is a little misleading. I think the word "stateful" could be dropped.
And terminally confuse everyone who has ever read RFC2462?
It seems to me that having one bit to indicate the protocol to be used for configuration isn't all that much. Why not expand both fields to 4 bits, and then have the IANA maintain a registry? This could look something like:
0000 = RA
0001 - 0111 = TBD, fall back on RA (extra bits could be ignored as per RFC2641)
1000 = DHCPv6, handling of RA undefined
1001 = DHCPv6, RA is ignored
1010 = DHCPv6 + RA
1011 - 1111 = TBD
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