Re: [RRG] Long term clean-slate only for the RRG?

["William Herrin" <bill@herrin.us>]

On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 10:55 AM, Peter Sherbin <pesherb@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> -MY- point was that Line 1 need not be there at all. It is an
>> identifier which serves no role in the routing.
>
> It sure does as long as there are more than one person living at the
> same address. The selection does not stop until it reached
> the "end". This is why defining the end point is critical. It will help
> with setting all of the identifier properties.

Not so! Once the letter has reached the address, folks at the address
are allowed to open the letter and make further decisions based on
what's inside, handing it to a human being, the trash can or even back
to the post office with a new address.


On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 11:04 AM, Marshall Eubanks <tme@multicasttech.com> wrote:
> It is not clear to me how any of this discussion helps routing research for
> the Internet.

Follow the logic chain:

A. -IF- topological address aggregation was practical, the route
scalability problem could be readily solved by aggregating routes
based on the address aggregation.

B. Topological address aggregation would be practical -IF- any
endpoint's layer 3 address could be routinely and recursively
reassigned by the "upstream" routers through an address assignment
protocol without disrupting layer 4 AND the node could sensibly handle
multiple defaults with multiple source addresses via a routing policy
protocol.

C. An ephemeral address which changes without disturbing layer 4 would
be possible -IF- the node identity value used by layers 4 and above
WAS NOT derived from the layer 3 address. In other words, make layer 4
treat the layer 3 address the way layer 3 treats the layer 2 address.

Therefore, we can solve the scalability problem through topological
address aggregation -IF- we remove -identity- from protocol layer 3.


So, the relevance of the discussion about the name (line 1) in a
postal address is this: The name (identity) obviously isn't needed for
the post office to successfully route the letter. Routing still works
if your name isn't present on the envelope. If the same is true of
network packets in a hypothetical architecture (and it should be) then
we can solve the layer 3 routing problem by changing how the layer 4
protocols determine a node's identity.

After all, I'm not "3005 Crane Drive," I'm "William Herrin." And the
post office can deliver mail to "3005 Crane Drive" without knowing
whether it's intended for "William Herrin." Fix how layer 4 handles
host identity and the layer-3 routing system no longer needs to manage
a large database.

Of course, layer 4 now needs to manage a large map from identities to
their current locations, but we've already seen that well handled by
(insert drum roll) DNS.

Regards,
Bill Herrin



-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

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