-----Original Message----- From: Howard C. Berkowitz [mailto:hcb@netcases.net] Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 3:42 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: SLAAC(autoconfig) vs DHCPv6
To try to stay operational about this, I have a reality testing question I've used in IPv4 and, for that matter, bridged networks:
If you want to test a resource, be it the end user or an infrastructure interface, how do you know how to foo it (foo being some value of ping, traceroute, look it up in SNMP/NetFlow, etc)?
I submit that if you use dynamic assignment of any sort, you really have to have DNS dynamic update, so you can use a known name to query the function that's indexed by address. Otherwise, static addresses become rather necessary if you want to check a resource.
While I mostly agree, replace Dynamic DNS with "dynamic name resolution services" (or, perhaps, a stable endpoint address) and I agree even more :). Aside from static addresses, Dynamic DNS is one approach (currently the most common). PNRP, LLMNR are other possible solutions (depending on the scope we are talking about). WRT the "stable endpoint" piece, tunneling can work here. Mobile IPv6, for example, starts off with my machine always being reachable at the same address. Some tunnel providers also allocate stable addressing - i.e. wherever I am in IPv4-land I still have the same IPv6 address.
This was especially a question when L2 was "in" and routing was out: how do you ping a MAC address?
I prefer Layer 11 - the money :) (8 = people, 9-politics, 10=religion, 11=money)
Howard
/TJ