--On Thursday, 29 January, 2004 14:34 +0900 Dave Crocker
<dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:
...
JCK> Yes. And it may speak to the IETF's sense of priorities
that JCK> the efforts to which you refer are predominantly
going into the JCK> much more complex and long-term problem,
rather than the one JCK> that is presumably easier to solve
and higher leverage.
I think a simple version of what you want is already available
and has been for many years, namely multiple A records in the
DNS.
(OK. Let's see you respond to _that_ and claim that the
response only has picks at nits... Hah!)
Of course, multiple A records works, is out there, and have
worked for years. But they worked better before we introduced
routers (i.e., when the hosts with multiple A records really had
interfaces on different networks). Today, it effectively
implies having multiple addresses on an interface and multiple
"local" address prefixes running around on the same physical LAN
segment. IPv4 was not designed to work well in that environment
and, with at least some implementations that are arguably still
conforming, it has some unfortunate side effects, such as not
really knowing which addresses are local to you and which
aren't, at least without setting up local routing tables that
are well beyond the capabilities of the typical user. The claim
has been made that IPv6 _is_ designed to work in that
environment, for whatever that claim may be worth.
Perhaps more important, as Noel points out, it doesn't scale
very well, at least in terms of the routing fabric. And, as I
tried to point out, address preservation policies have had
trickle-down effects that make it impractical for small
enterprises.
Nits? Probably not.
best,
john