nanog mailing list archives

Re: DHCPv6 PD & Routing Questions


From: Jim Burwell <jimb () jsbc cc>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2015 16:20:20 -0800

On 2015-11-20 15:36, Owen DeLong wrote:
On Nov 20, 2015, at 13:35 , Jim Burwell <jimb () jsbc cc> wrote:

Hi,

Have a simple couple of questions here. 

In my admittedly cursory glances over the DHCPv6 RFCs, I don't see any
reference to the protocol having any role in managing the routing of
prefixes it delegates.  Perhaps I missed it, but I somewhat expected the
omission of this responsibility would be the case.

My questions are:

1) Does the DHCPv6 protocol include any standards/mechanisms/methods for
managing routes to prefixes it delegates, or does it consider this
outside of its function?  (I suspect the latter)
Yes and no…

DHCPv6 doesn’t include anything specifically per se, but it does require that
the local router sees the DHCPv6 PD answer in the process of passing it
along to the target, and there’s a pretty obvious expectation that said router
will have to arrange to do the needful in that respect.

2) What are the most common ways of managing the routing of delegated
prefixes in the ISPs routing domain?  Has a standard method/best
practice emerged yet?  Routing protocols?  IPv6 RAs?
RAs really only apply to subnet local advertisement of routers and
the on-net prefixes in most implementations.

I don’t think any of the various methods of using routing protocols,
static pre-routed blocks from which PDs are delegated, etc.  could
necessarily be called “standardized”, but there are probably a few
that are more popular than most of the others.

Unfortunately, PD is really still in its infancy in terms of development
and real running code for complete implementations throughout any
sort of site hierarchy.

Owen



On 2015-11-20 15:36, Owen DeLong wrote:
On Nov 20, 2015, at 13:35 , Jim Burwell <jimb () jsbc cc> wrote:

Hi,

Have a simple couple of questions here. 

In my admittedly cursory glances over the DHCPv6 RFCs, I don't see any
reference to the protocol having any role in managing the routing of
prefixes it delegates.  Perhaps I missed it, but I somewhat expected the
omission of this responsibility would be the case.

My questions are:

1) Does the DHCPv6 protocol include any standards/mechanisms/methods for
managing routes to prefixes it delegates, or does it consider this
outside of its function?  (I suspect the latter)
Yes and no…

DHCPv6 doesn’t include anything specifically per se, but it does require that
the local router sees the DHCPv6 PD answer in the process of passing it
along to the target, and there’s a pretty obvious expectation that said router
will have to arrange to do the needful in that respect.

2) What are the most common ways of managing the routing of delegated
prefixes in the ISPs routing domain?  Has a standard method/best
practice emerged yet?  Routing protocols?  IPv6 RAs?
RAs really only apply to subnet local advertisement of routers and
the on-net prefixes in most implementations.

I don’t think any of the various methods of using routing protocols,
static pre-routed blocks from which PDs are delegated, etc.  could
necessarily be called “standardized”, but there are probably a few
that are more popular than most of the others.

Unfortunately, PD is really still in its infancy in terms of development
and real running code for complete implementations throughout any
sort of site hierarchy.

Owen


Thanks for the answer Owen!

So it sounds like things are still in flux.  But it least it answers my
main question of "have I missed something here"?

Could you elaborate on the "local router seeing the PD answer" a bit?  I
presume by "local router" you mean router acting as DHCPv6 relay?  Or do
you mean the router which made the original request?

Would it be fair to say that the RFCs only really talk about delegating
the prefixes, and leave what to do with the prefixes themselves up to
the implementer?

I'm asking these questions because I'm doing a little class for some
folks on IPv6 and this is one area where I couldn't find answers. 

- Jim


Current thread: