Re: [Int-area] Review of draft-narten-ipv6-3177bis-48boundary-05

[Fred Baker <fred@cisco.com>]

On Aug 20, 2010, at 2:55 PM, Eric Gray wrote:

> 	Following the CIDR model for IPv6 seems to allow for as
> many as (on the order of) 7-10 times as many possibly usable
> address allocation sizes.

Well, yes, saying that "you can pick any length you like" gives the address allocation authorities, at least in theory, 64 orders of magnitude.

There is a line of reasoning, which I subscribe to, that all of those options really aren't needed, and that there are human factors reasons to prefer prefix lengths on nibble (hex digit) boundaries. Not that allocations like 192.0.2.20/30 are impossible to grok - they're not - but if we have the opportunity to simplify things, why not?

One comment that comes to mind is a recent conversation with my son. He works for a company that makes radio-controlled model airplanes, the kind that have a 66 foot wingspan and shoot missiles. The planes are full of computers, and no they don't ask the DNS root to translate names. If you're in one of those computers and need to talk with another one, you need to know its IP address. So he is used to being in computer A and logging into computer B as 192.0.2.17 or whatever.

He and I spoke a few weeks about, and he asked "Dad, when you guys were designing IPv6, did you think at all about how LONG those addresses were?"

ta-dum!

Now ask yourself about being in my daughter's network (women enter her home as the girl-next-door and leave beautiful), telling her that she can use anything she likes in 2001:0db8:2775:1234/62, and having her notice that the address of something or another is 2001:0db8:2775:1235... In IPv4, I said "deal with it, you have to be somewhat technical". In IPv6, I would like to not have to go there. It's not her expertise, and she doesn't ask me to cut/color her hair either.

So, yes, I tend to think that the common rabble should deal with addresses that break on nibble boundaries.

That has nothing to do with RIRs or service providers, mind you; they are often "somewhat technical". Within their networks I expect them to do what makes sense to them, and I regard myself more as their student than their teacher...