host-identifier with IPv6

[Ted Lemon]

On Mar 4, 2009, at 11:56 AM, Eustace, Glen wrote:
> But that doesn't address the fundamental issue, from my  
> perspective.  The DUID isn't known in advance.  So one cannot pre- 
> register it as we do with MAC addresses. And, as has already been  
> stated a number of times, MAC addresses are stable and do not change  
> (very often, if at all) and in the cases when they do, there is  
> always other activity associated with the change i.e. the computer  
> is in the workshop with its guts hanging out or the Desktop  
> consultant has the USB NIC in his pocket and knows further config  
> activity will be required to get the system he/she was working on  
> back into the fold.

Here are the tools available to you:

1. you can scan Mac addresses off of machines as they arrive on the  
shipping dock and keep them in a database
2. you can look in your ND tables to map Mac addresses to IP  
addresses, and then map the IP address back to the DUID
3. you can pick apart the DUID and that may give you a Mac address
4. you can have users register their machines
5. you can begin the lengthy process of changing the protocol, which  
may pay dividends inside a decade if you are lucky.

Now, given this set of tools that's available to you, can you cobble  
together a solution using choices 1 through 4 together?   Or is  
waiting a decade for your protocol mod to happen really your best  
choice?

As far as I know, there are no additional choices.   E.g., the choice  
of having the Mac address in the DHCPv6 packet starting today is not  
available, not because I or anyone else at IETF doesn't want you to  
have it, but because we don't have the power to give it to you.