Funny, I interpreted Tim's statement to be another example of "Something
that will break if we change this" ... :)
This discussion goes back aways ...
January 1995 --> http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1752#section-9
August 2002 --> http://osdir.com/ml/ietf.ipv6/2002-08/msg00190.html
(great comments therein!)
July 2008 -->
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-6man-reserved-iids-01 (things you may
step on beyond 64b)
We could also have a discussion on the inherit value in fixed length things
... like the IPv6 header itself (vs IPv4's variable length header) ...
My question would be -
Are we seeking to understand why a fixed 64b boundary was created in
the first place?
... or ...
Are we trying to modify the standard to change this?
(And if so - are we ready to actually face the world with
that statement, and to "operationalize" this?)
(Obviously, my opinion on this matter (some might say bias) is clear ... but
for what I believe are good, technical reasons :) )
/TJ
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
>Dunn, Jeffrey H.
>Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 11:34 AM
>To: Tim Chown; ipv6@ietf.org
>Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: RE: the IPv6 Ethernet lost bits - fffe
>
>Tim,
>
>That sounds more like a call to update the spec than to ignore the
>additional functionality available with variable length prefixes.
>
>Best Regards,
>
>Jeffrey Dunn
>Info Systems Eng., Lead
>MITRE Corporation.
>(301) 448-6965 (mobile)
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tim
>Chown
>Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 10:48 AM
>To: ipv6@ietf.org
>Subject: Re: the IPv6 Ethernet lost bits - fffe
>
>On Wed, Oct 01, 2008 at 04:36:57PM +0200, Jeroen Massar wrote:
>> Alexandru Petrescu wrote:
>> > For what it's worth,
>> >
>> > Whenever statelessly auto-configuring an IPv6 address on Ethernet
>the
>> > 10th and 11th bytes are always 'fffe', hardcoded. These are lost
>bits.
>>
>> The world has more devices than Ethernet. The Ethernet MAC -> EUI-64
>> trick (thus your lost fffe bits) is just a trick. Take firewire for
>> example which uses full EUI-64.
>
>Well, Vista uses 'random' host addresses, 64-bit ones. If the spec
>had been different way back when, these could equally have been 32 or
>48 bits instead. But it wasn't.
>
>--
>Tim
>
>
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