[RRG] Upgrading user device software for multihoming or solving ROAP

[Robin Whittle <rw@firstpr.com.au>]

I think it is much better and easier to upgrade a few routers than a
lot of end-user devices, to provide multihoming or to solve any
other Routing and Addressing Problems (ROAP).

However, for those IPv6 hosts which can do SHIM6 and multihome in
that way, I think that is an elegant solution - as far as it goes.

In "SHIM6: portability, ULAs, mobility etc."  Marcelo Bagnulo Braun
wrote:

>>> [...] IMHO it is way much harder to update the
>>> routers than updating the hosts. I mean, windows update does it for you
>>> (either you like it or not)

Christian Vogt wrote:

>> I agree.  In most cases, either host upgrades are highly automated and
>> require limited to no user interaction (as in the case with all major
>> operating systems today), or the host time-to-replacement is very short
>> (as in the case of mobile phones).

and Brian Carpenter wrote:

> Exactly. Also, shim6 is self-deploying - it will work if both ends of
> a session are shim6-enabled, otherwise it reverts to plain unicast
> IPv6. It even works if both ends are shim6-anabled, and one end
> refers the other end's ULID to a third party that is not shim6-enabled.
> 
> This means that shim6 will sink or swim on its own merits, and doesn't
> need a Grand Plan.

Maybe the upgradablity of IPv6 user devices can be assumed, but it
seems unlikely to me.  Once "devices" include consumer devices like
web-cams, laser printers, ADSL modems, WiFi enabled iPods etc.
there's no way to upgrade them.

Google finds 10k pages for "IPv6 lightswitch".  I don't think we
want to be downloading operating system upgrades into lightswitches.
 I know many of these devices are likely to be used on local
addresses, and so wouldn't need global unicast IP addresses,
world-facing operating systems or multihoming.  But if I had an IPv6
lightswitch, I would want to be able to SSH to it from any host in
the world.

For IPv4, I think the routing and addressing problems are not going
to be solved by any approach which assumes upgradeable software in
user devices.  There are far too many desktop machines, DSL modems,
RAQ web servers etc. out there which no-one is ever going to add
software too.  No new architecture can afford to be unreachable from
those many devices.

  - Robin           http://www.firstpr.com.au/ip/ivip/







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