Status of IPv4-IPv6 Coexistence Work

[Magnus Westerlund <magnus.westerlund@ericsson.com>]

IETF Community,

There has been a lot of activity on the topic of improving IPv4 and IPv6
coexistence, deployment of IPv6, and coping with the increasing shortage
of unassigned IPv4 addresses. This work crosses a number of layer and
area boundaries, which has led to new lists, cross-posting, etc. In
order to limit confusion, we'd like to give some guidance on where
to discuss what on which lists. The intent is not to declare any work
as in or out of charter with this message, only to try and direct list
discussion. These are only general guidelines, so please don't be
alarmed if we missed something in particular. Our hope is that this will
help everyone to continue the rich dialog on this important topic.

1. softwires@ietf.org

Softwires is chartered to work on combinations of IPv4/IPv6 and
IPv6/IPv4, including "dual-stack lite" functionality. This includes
discussion related to:

- All types of IPv4/IPv6 tunnels, including encapsulation, control
  plane, etc.
- Affects of tunnel endpoints terminating into a concentrator performing
  IPv4 to IPv4 NAT
- Discovery of tunnel endpoints
- Tunnels initiated by hosts or gateways
- Tunnels automatically setup by routing and special prefixes

Thus, if it involves a tunnel or encapsulation of IPvX over IPvY,
softwires is the place to go.

2. behave@ietf.org

The Behave WG is currently being rechartered. If the new charter is
approved, behave will work on various types of IPv4<->IPv6 translation.
Please direct all discussion related to:

- IPv4 to IPv6 and IPv6 to IPv4 translation
- IPv6 to IPv6 NAT
- Division of port space to share one IPv4 addresses among multiple
  endpoints at the same time
- Affects on applications and transport protocols
- ALGs
- IPv4 to IPv4 NAT functionality, including for ISP deployments

Thus, if discussion involves an IP translator or the internal function
of a NAT, behave is the place to go.

3. v6ops@ietf.org

- Operational discussions on the topic of coexistence in general
- IPv6-only deployment

Thus, if it involves operational issues of IPv6 or IPv4 exhaustion, go
to v6ops.

4. The v4v6interim@ietf.org list will be removed after the Minneapolis
IETF meeting.


Jari Arkko
Ron Bonica
Lars Eggert
Mark Townsley
Magnus Westerlund


Resources:

WGs
Behave: http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/behave-charter.html
Softwire: http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/softwire-charter.html
v6ops: http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/v6ops-charter.html