On 11/02/2009, at 10:41 AM, Ricky Beam wrote:
It's useless. It does NOT provide enough information alone for a host to function. In your own words, you need a DNS server. That is NOT provided by RA thus requires yet another system to get that bit of configuration to the host -- either entered manually, DHCPv6, or from IPv4 network configuration (ie. DHCP!) Forcing this BS on the world is a colossal waste. We've had a system to provide *ALL* the information a host needs or wants in the IPv4 world for years. Why it's not good enough for IPv6 is beyond me.
You are correct, alone RA does not provide enough for a host to function. We have two mechanisms of providing addressing information to hosts - SLAAC and DHCPv6. How do you, as a network manager, tell hosts which one to use? RA performs this function. Without RA you need to go around all the machines and manually configure how they will discover what addresses to use. That seems a bit silly, and going around every machine is something you have already indicated you don't want to do. RA has two functions - telling your hosts which of SLAAC and DHCPv6 to use for addressing information, and providing addressing information in the case of SLAAC. Also, in the case of SLAAC, it might hint to the client to get additional information from DHCPv6 - DNS servers and so on - in this case it will not get addressing information. Perhaps you have a problem with SLAAC? That is fine, you might not want to use it. Other people *do* want to use it, and RA is the best place to signal which of SLAAC and DHCPv6 a host should use for addressing. Please do not use blanket comments that RA is bad if you actually mean SLAAC. Yes, if we do not have SLAAC then we don't need RA, because hosts will always know to use DHCPv6. However, many people do want SLAAC, so we need RA. If you have an idea for alternative to RA for indicating whether to use SLAAC or DHCPv6 then I encourage you to get involved in the IETF and get your idea written up. If you would like to deprecate/fix SLAAC because you have a problem with it then again, I encourage you to get involved in the IETF. -- Nathan Ward