Re: About IPv6 private address

[Mohacsi Janos <mohacsi@niif.hu>]

On Tue, 5 Feb 2008, Nathan Ward wrote:

> On 4/02/2008, at 3:59 PM, blue wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I want to ask if there's any reserved private IPv6 address? I know RFC4193 
> > has defined Unique Local IPv6 Unicast Addresses, which is used to replace 
> > deprecated site-local address. However, in user's perspective, a device 
> > will need a well-known address, such as 192.168.1.1 in IPv4, for a customer 
> > to connect to without any configuration. In RFC 4193, the address' "global 
> > ID" is generated randomly, and the address could not be known in advance.
> >
> > After examing all the special purposed IPv6 address, I could not find one 
> > for this kind of purpose.
>
> My opinions;
>
> Longer term, it seems as though applications should support link local 
> addresses. Has there been any documentation that disagrees with that? Safari 
> reports link local addresses with the interface specified as being invalid 
> (ie. %en1 at the end = 'invalid').

This would rather confusing to users:

"server is reachable via fe80::123:45ff:fe67:89ab%eth0, if you use Linux 
with one ethernet interface"
"server is reachable via fe80::123:45ff:fe67:89ab%en0, if you use MacOS X"
"server is reachable via fe80::123:45ff:fe67:89ab%en1, if you use MacOS X
with wireless"
"server is reachable via fe80::123:45ff:fe67:89ab%fxp0, if you use *BSD 
with Intel card"
etc.

I think link-local on the user side can be used for communication:
- for diagnostic purpose
- for administrative purpose
- for users if link-local address discoverd automaticaly and they don't 
have to type in.

Administrators can cope with Ethernet interface name or number, but you 
cannot expect this from ordinary users.

Best Regards,
		Janos Mohacsi