DHCPv6 host-identifier, the Never Ending Thread: A Summary

[Marcus Goller]

John,

I agree in general, from a design point of view. I would not be 
surprised if some deployments start (ab)using already existing vendor 
specific options for their purpose, because it might be easier and gets 
the job done, especially if the server already support it. But as 
explained in my other email, I might have misunderstood where and when 
vendor specific options are preferred.

Thanks for clarifying that again.

Marcus

John Jason Brzozowski wrote:
> Marcus,
>
> I think vendor options need to be specified per vendor or deployment 
> type.  Not sure if you are suggesting if someone in en enterprise 
> environment should leverage the Cablelabs DOCSIS TFTP options or not, 
> I would actually recommend otherwise.  If specific options are 
> required and are not currently defined in the appropriate space then 
> either a core option or vendor specific option should be specified.
>
> The DOCSIS options are good examples for people to consider and 
> leverage as examples of how they want to handle DHCPv6 requirements 
> for their own deployments, whether this means specifying vendor 
> specific options or core DHCPv6 options with IETF dhc WG.
>
> John
> ===============================================
> John Jason Brzozowski
> jjmb at jjmb.com
> (p) 484-994-6787
> (f) 610-616-4535
> ===============================================
>
> On Mar 7, 2009, at 6:58 PM, Marcus Goller wrote:
>
>> John Jason Brzozowski wrote:
>>> Frank, et al,
>>>
>>> I planned on participating in the 160+ email thread but got tied up.
>>>
>>> For what it is worth as someone leading a large IPv6 effort where, 
>>> as you stated below, MAC addresses are leveraged extensively I can 
>>> tell you how I handled this issue.
>>>
>>> When we specified the use of DHCPv6 in DOCSIS 3.0 we of course 
>>> leveraged vendor information options.  In these options as you will 
>>> see if you read the DOCSIS specifications we made provisions to 
>>> carry the MAC address of the device that adheres to this 
>>> specification.  This is one part of the equation.  I also had to 
>>> make sure that the necessary back office systems, DHCP for example, 
>>> account for the presence of these options to support the deployment.
>>>
>>> If you wish I would be willing to discuss further offline.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> John
>> John,
>>
>> Interesting point actually, now that you bring it up. When I first 
>> looked at the DHCPv6 RFC, I thought "Hey! Where did all my options 
>> go?". If I understand it right, DHCPv6 tries to cover to core 
>> functionalities only, the rest is left to the vendor information 
>> options. The CableLabs specifications are a good example, because 
>> they might also be interesting for people who use a TFTP server as 
>> part of the boot process.
>> Getting client vendors to support an arbitrary vendor information 
>> option, might be as hard or easy as getting them to support an 
>> optional extension to the protocol. On the server side it is probably 
>> easier to agree on a few standard vendor options which get implemented.
>> The only hard part is to know which vendor information options are 
>> already out there and are useful, and which need to be created. But 
>> it is probably the cleanest and intended way of extending the protocol.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Marcus
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>
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