I strongly support both of these drafts.
Allocation of the /10 will have only minimal negative impacts on the community,
if any.
Almost all of the impacts raised in the objections to draft weil will occur
whether or not
draft weil is moved to BCP status. The difference is that with draft weil in
place, most of
them can actually be mitigated whereas no such mitigation will be possible
without
draft weil.
Delaying draft weil is, in this case, roughly equivalent to refusing it because
operators
are going to have to start implementing CGN and other IPv4 exhaustion coping
mechanisms whether the IETF is ready or not.
The objections listed in Ron's sending this to IESG ballot are:
- Allocation of a special-use /10 does not hasten the deployment of IPv6. It
only extends the life of the IPv4 network.
- If a special-use /10 is allocated, it will be used as additional RFC 1918
address space, despite a specific prohibition against such use stated by the
draft.
- If a special-use /10 is allocated, it will encourage others to request still
more special-use address space.
- Some applications will break. These applications share the characteristic of
assuming that an interface is globally reachable if it is numbered by an
non-RFC 1918 address. To date, the only application that has been identified as
breaking is 6to4, but others may be identified in the future.
Taking each objection in order:
- Allocation of a special-use /10 does not hasten the deployment of IPv6. It
only extends the life of the IPv4 network.
The first part of this statement is true. The second half is not an entirely
accurate
characterization. What this /10 will do is enable carriers and ISPs to provide
services
to end users in a consistent manner that vendors can adapt to. Absent this
shared
transition space, the uses for this space will not magically disappear and all
of the
problems described will still exist. The primary resulting difference will be
that it
will consume more global unicast addresses and create more potential for
collision
and other negative consequences while simultaneously removing all hope of
allowing vendors to provide mitigation in software.
I am one of the biggest IPv6 cheerleaders in the industry, but, I also have to
work
within the framework of operational reality. We're going to run out of IPv4
before
everyone is ready, whether we like it or not. ISPs are going to have to cope
with
some various forms of IPv4 services for their customers after exhaustion. No
matter
what, this will be a bad situation. Failing to allocate this /10 will make it
worse.
- If a special-use /10 is allocated, it will be used as additional RFC 1918
address space, despite a specific prohibition against such use stated by the
draft.
I'm not convinced this argument is true, but, it can be made about virtually
any RFC
reserving space. Any special use or conventional allocation can be used in a
manner
contrary to it's prescribed intent. Rejecting this request with strong support
and definite
need from the operational community will not prevent misuse of address space,
it will
create the inevitable increase in such misuse as providers are forced to
scramble
to the use of "dark space", re-use of global unicast space, and other less than
ideal
solutions for this purpose.
- If a special-use /10 is allocated, it will encourage others to request still
more special-use address space.
I just don't see this. Nobody made this objection to the Documentation
prefixes. Nobody made this
objection to localhost getting a /8. Why is this special use request any more
likely to encourage
more such requests than any other?
- Some applications will break. These applications share the characteristic of
assuming that an interface is globally reachable if it is numbered by an
non-RFC 1918 address. To date, the only application that has been identified as
breaking is 6to4, but others may be identified in the future.
All of the applications that will break if providers use this space will also
break if providers
use any of the following:
RFC-1918 that collides with the customers internal network.
Dark space
Recycled Global Unicast Space
Class E space
The difference is that with this allocation, providers will all break in the
same consistent
way and vendors can mitigate the breakage through software upgrades in some
(many)
cases. Without this allocation, providers will use some random mixture of all
of the above
in an uncoordinated and undefined way, making it impossible for vendors to
provide any
mitigation to such breakage.
Respectfully Submitted,
Owen DeLong
Co-author draft-bdgks
IPv6 Evangelist
Director Professional Services
Hurricane Electric
Member, ARIN Advisory Council
The opinions contained here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views
of my employer, ARIN, or the ARIN Advisory Council.
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