Re: Rate of growth on IPv6 not fast enough?

[Mark Smith <nanog () 85d5b20a518b8f6864949bd940457dc124746ddc nosense org>]

On Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:19:23 +0200 (CEST)
sthaug () nethelp no wrote:

> > There is also an aspect of this transition I don't think we've seen
> > before (in networking).  A large percentage of end users are on
> > technologies (cable modem, dsl, even dial up) who's configuration
> > is entirely driven out of a provisioning database.
> >
> > Once the backbone is rolled out, the nameservers, dhcp, and
> > configuration servers dual-stacked many ISP's could enable IPv6 for
> > all of their customers overnight with only a few keystrokes.
>
> *If* the whole IPv6 config can be driven from the same database. For
> the time being, DHCPv6 cannot deliver a default gateway to customers
> (and there is a religious faction within the IPv6 community which
> seem to want to prevent this at all costs).

I'm not religious about it, however I don't understand why it's such a
problem.

My fundamental objection is that if you've got two ways of achieving 
something, you've got twice as many things that can go wrong. Duplicate
functionality drives up capex and opex.

I'd have been happy with IPv6 only using DHCPv6. I'd have been happy
with IPv6 only using RA type mechanisms (i.e. like IPX and Appletalk).
Now that we've got both (because there are valid arguments for each
method), at least lets try to keep them as simple as possible, by
avoiding duplicating functionality across each of them.
Currently the only pure duplication the RDNSS option in RAs. Although
I think DNS information can be considered bootstrap information, I do
have a fear that the RDNSS option in RAs will become the thin edge of
the wedge.


> As long as we have the dependency on RA for default gateways, what
> you suggest is considerably more difficult.
>
> Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug () nethelp no