On Wed, 2012-10-31 at 22:31 -0700, Crist J. Clark wrote:
We're working out our dual stacked IPv4-IPv6 network. One issue that recently has arisen is how to number the management interfaces on the network devices themselves. [...] Is there anything like a standard, best practice for this (yet)?
Yes and no. It's only best practice when enough people have done it, and enough people have done *different, bad* things, for the practice to emerge as, in general, best. I don't think enough people have done either of those things. There are documents floating about that purporting to describe best practice; I've never read one I really agreed with - in particular they have a tendency to recommend overloading address bits with non-address information. So I think you should listen to lots of people then go about making your own educated decisions, and thus become part of the adventure of creating best practice. Either by being a beacon of wonderfulness to us all, or by crashing and burning so that we can say, in hushed voices as we pass by where you and your network used to be, "don't do that :-)
What are other people doing and their reasons? Anyone have operational experience with what works and what does not (and the "what does not" is probably really of more interest)?
I espouse four principles (there are others, but these are the biggies): - don't overload address bits with non-addressing information - keep the network as flat as reasonably possible - avoid tying topology to geography - avoid exceptions The first can be completely avoided and should be an ironcast rule IMHO. Aggregation requirements will mean the third is always broken eventually, and Murphy's Law will break the fourth. However, by following each rule as far as possible and delaying the point where it must be broken, you will end up with a more flexible, future-proof, error-proof, extensible address plan. I too would be really interested in whatever wisdom others have developed, even if (especially if!) it doesn't agree with mine. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (kauer@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer http://www.biplane.com.au/blog GPG fingerprint: AE1D 4868 6420 AD9A A698 5251 1699 7B78 4EEE 6017 Old fingerprint: DA41 51B1 1481 16E1 F7E2 B2E9 3007 14ED 5736 F687