phil@charon.milepost.com (Phil Howard) writes:
The transition to IPv6 is clearly going to have some difficulties. We are waiting on:
1. Network equipment, with translation
2. End user software
3. Address space assignment
nice list.
IPv6-only space is of less value than IPv4-private space until IPv6 becomes at least fully routeable over the Internet. So the backbone networks are going to have to take the lead to make it happen. Even when it is routeable, it has to work on all the ends, which will thus have to have translations to make their IPv4 space appear as IPv6sub4 space.
The best workable scenario I can see so far is one where IOS and other routing software includes translation between IPv4 and IPv6
IOS IPv6 prototype does include that facility. It translates to and from an arbitrary v4 network and an arbitrary v6 network.
Something is thus needed to encourage customers to move into IPv6 even when it is fully routeable.
That is really the key issue... because even with IPv6 NAT (protocol translation) working, IPv6 is as actractive as using IPv4 NAT, unless it brings some value added to the end customers... The potential advantage i see is autoconfiguration support. But DHCP can actually do the same job reasonably well.
But just having IOS translating IPv4 <-> IPv6s4 is not enough.
Agreed.
We will need to manage the new IPv6 network. All the various tools we use will need to understanding IPv6 and how it it configured on the network. Routing will have to work right even during the transition to this, which means BGP4v6 has to be there capable of understanding IPv6 space at some point in time.
BGP4 + Multiprotocol Extensions is able to do the job. And it is working resonably well...
Routing issues will become different in IPv6.
How ?
If IPv6 allocations will have varying sizes like CIDR, then we might continue to have issues of size based route filtering. OTOH, with the right methods of allocating IPv6 space, no one should ever have to come back to get more space. Eventually that should mean fewer routes as IPv4/IPv6s4 closes down. Route filtering should be encouraged on IPv4 space and prohibited on IPv6 space, at that point, IMHO.
I don't think i really understand your point here.... The only "difference" when it comes to routing information i can think off is that in IPv6 there isn't suppose to be address ownership (which creates holes into CIDR blocks)... but it seems to me that the same policy is being adopted for IPv4. Pedro.