Re: Creating an IPv6 addressing plan for end users

[Nathalie Trenaman <nathalie () ripe net>]

Hi Liudvikas,

Thank you very much for your feedback. 

On Mar 23, 2011, at 4:56 PM, Liudvikas Bukys wrote:

> Hi, I saw your document "Preparing an IPv6 Addressing Plan" after its URL was posted to NANOG.
>
> I have one small comment that perhaps you would consider in future revisions:
>
> The use of decimal numbers coded in hexadecimal is introduced in section 3.2, "Direct Link Between IPv4 and IPv6 
> Addresses", without discussion.  It's also implicit in section 4.9 when encoding decimal VLAN numbers in hexadecimal 
> address ranges.
>
> My opinion is that this may be a source of confusion, and should be explicitly described somewhere before section 
> 3.2, as a deliberate implementation choice that makes it easier for human operators to configure and recognize 
> deliberately-chosen mappings between decimals in IPv4 addresses and integers and corresponding fields in hexadecimal 
> address ranges.

You are right, we could explain this section in more detail and we have received this feedback from some other readers 
as well. We will take this into account for future revision. 

> Without an explicit discussion, this point may be missed by some readers -- especially since this is a training 
> document.
>
> Just my opinion!
>
> I'm also curious as to whether this describes the way the world has already settled on, or whether this is a novel, 
> controversial, or only-occasonally-observed technique.  I see that RFC 5963 - IPv6 Deployment in Internet Exchange 
> Points (IXPs) of August 2010 does mention BCD encoding of both ASNs and IPV4 digits, so I guess it's not that novel.

As I'm not the author of the document - only the initiator of the translation - I'm not sure if I'm the right person to 
answer this question :) However, I do think it is an interesting discussion on how far "the world has already settled 
on" different IPv6 implementation techniques. There are relatively only a few mature operational IPv6 implementations 
at the moment and the intention of this document is to have people think of a structure for their address plan and give 
them some pointers. 

In case you would like to know more of the background of this document, please talk to Sander Steffann (the author). 
I'm sure he will be happy to answer your questions.

Kind regards,

Nathalie Trenaman
RIPE NCC Trainer

>  
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Nathalie Trenaman [mailto:nathalie () ripe net]
> > Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2011 5:05 AM
> > To: nanog () nanog org
> > Subject: Creating an IPv6 addressing plan for end users
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > In our IPv6 courses, we often get the question: I give my customers a
> > /48 (or a /56 or a /52) but they have no idea how to distribute that
> > space in their network.
> > In December Sander Steffann and Surfnet wrote a manual explaining
> > exactly that, in clear language with nice graphics. A very useful
> > document but it was in Dutch, so RIPE NCC decided to translate that
> > document to English.
> >
> > Yesterday, we have published that document on our website and we hope
> > this document is able to take away some of the fear that end users seem
> > to have for these huge blocks.
> > You can find this document here:
> >
> > http://bit.ly/IPv6addrplan (PDF)
> >
> > I look forward to your feedback, tips and comments.
> >
> > With kind regards,
> >
> > Nathalie Trenaman
> > RIPE NCC Trainer