On Mon, 31 Jan 2005, Bob Hinden wrote: > I am working on an update to the IPv6 address architecture. In doing this > I am working through the comments on the previous draft. One comment made > was to remove Section 2.5.5 "IPv6 Addresses with Embedded IPv4 Addresses" > from the document. This would include removing the special case in the > textual representation (section 2.2, 3.). > > I would like to solicit the working group's thoughts on this. I don't have > a strong opinion one way or another. It's not clear it has ever been that > useful and add a certain degree of complexity. On the other hand, it > appears in several places in the document and requires some careful > editing :-)
IPv4-mapped addresses facilitate an important interoperability mechanism in the socket API (RFC 3493, section 3.7). While it's probably not a good idea to transmit these addresses on the wire, I think the API still needs a way to represent IPv4 addresses in a way that preserves compatibility between IPv6 and IPv4 hosts. Removal just makes transition all the more time-consuming and difficult for software developers. I'd rather see clarification of the use of embedded addresses in the document rather than complete removal. Ie. add a statement to the effect of 'Embedded addresses are intended for internal representation only'. Antonio Querubin Pacific LightNet Communications / Hawaii OnLine System Administrator [EMAIL PROTECTED] (808) 791-2898 -------------------------------------------------------------------- IETF IPv6 working group mailing list ipv6@ietf.org Administrative Requests: https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipv6 --------------------------------------------------------------------
