Re: Last Call: draft-ietf-v6ops-natpt-to-historic (Reasons to Move NAT-PT to Historic Status) to Informational RFC

[Elwyn Davies <elwynd@dial.pipex.com>]

Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
> The core assumption here seems to be that NAT is a bad thing so lets get rid of NAT rather than trying to make NAT work.
>   
NAT-PT is not NAT.  It does a whole lot more, but it *cannot* do what it 
claims to do completely, because the semantics on the two sides are 
different, unlike NAT.  Dual stack is a better way forwards for the 
general case.
If you read carefully the draft suggests that there may be scenarios in 
which a modified form of NAT-PT might be useful, so it is hardly extreme 
NAT bashing.
> 3) Exactly why should an application be invited to care about this issue?
>
>   
Because whether the packets pass through a NAT-PT or otherwise affects 
what the application might expect from the network.

NAT does, for better or for worse, solve some real problems.
NAT-PT makes new problems: Not good news for a transition mechanism and 
it militates against future improvements to IPv6.

/Elwyn