host-identifier with IPv6

sthaug at nethelp.no sthaug at nethelp.no
Tue Mar 3 22:16:15 UTC 2009


> > I think this is really the heart of this discussion.   Ultimately, you  
> > feel that the wrong decision was made.   So I'm trying to offer  
> > constructive suggestions for how to deal with things as they are, and  
> > you're telling me they shouldn't be that way.   This is the wrong time  
> > for that.   You were here when the IETF was designing this protocol.    
> > I think I was still supporting the ISC server when I wrote the section  
> > of the draft you're complaining about.   Maybe I should have tried  
> > specifically to include you, but you were not intentionally left out.
> 
> By the way, I just wanted to say that I do appreciate your answering as many
> emails as you have in this long thread.  Quite a few of them (mine included)
> have no doubt come across as somewhat confrontational, due to frustration at
> having our workflows broken, and it's good of you to at least try to offer
> what advice you have.

Agreed. From my point of view the frustration is understandable - the
more I look into this the more it seems like several artificial barriers
have been erected in the way of IPv6 deployment.

> As a long term solution, how would you feel about a proposal to add a new
> DHCPv6 field containing the link-layer address on which the packet was sent?
> This could, from the protocol point of view, be sent as a simple informational
> attribute, with no guarantee of uniqueness, while the DUID semantics remain
> unchanged.  If I've understood your other comments correctly, this means that
> the DUID could still be used as the primary identifier, but the DHCP server
> would optionally be able to use the link-layer address, if present, as an
> input to administratively configured policy decisions about which options and
> values should be handed back to the client.
> 
> This should let those of us with MAC centric workflows (including many, many
> EDU networks) migrate to IPv6 with far less pain and suffering, while still
> leaving the million client per server ISPs able to freely ignore the MAC address.
> 
> Does that sound like a reasonable idea to you?  If so, I'd be more than happy
> to work on it, in whatever the appropriate forum is.

I think this sounds like an excellent idea, and should be followed up.
However, I'm afraid it may not be deployable/deployed quickly enough for
the majority of the clients (before we hit the big IPv4 crunch). Thus we
also need an interim solution, something like the "hackish" version
based on the relay agent looking at the MAC address of the DHCPv6 request.

Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug at nethelp.no



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