Dear Colleagues:
I had no idea that my previous announcement would generate such a long
stream of responses. The lively discussion has been surprising,
interesting, and also informative. I need to share some history, some
plans, and some reactions to this lengthy discussion.
The IETF meeting network supported IPv6 for at least the last five years.
Both IPv4 and IPv6 routing have been available on all of the subnets in
the primary meeting venue, and that there have been IPv6 transit to the
greater Internet. The goal has been for this to be native IPv6 transit,
but tunnels have been required in some venues due to upstream provider
limitations or gross routing inefficiency in the native path. IPv6
addressing has recently employed a /32 that has been kindly made
available for the IETF meetings by APNIC. Previously, IPv6 addressing
employed a per-meeting /48 allocation. Local meeting services, such as
DNS, NTP, LPR, and IPP, have been accessible using IPv6 via dual stack
on-site servers, and recently DHCPv6 has been added to provide IPv6
nameserver information.
Following the mail list discussion, we have considered several different
configurations for achieving the desired network experiment environment.
It is important that everyone have adequate opportunity for advance
configuration, and it is important that severe impact on other network
resources at the meeting venue be avoided. With these goals in mind, we
intend to add an additional IPv6-only subnet, with a different SSID on
the wireless network. The SSID will include some clever name that
includes the string "v6ONLY". This SSID will be available on all the
wireless access points throughout the venue for the entire week.
Everyone is encouraged to try using this network well before the plenary
session. Neighbors and friends are encouraged to help each other debug
problems, and the kind folks at the help desk in the Terminal Room will
also be happy to assist with any configuration challenges, IPv6-related
or otherwise.
During the plenary session, at a well advertised time, which will be
after the host greeting and several other information packed
presentations, all of the IPv4/IPv6 capable SSIDs (the usual ietf* ones
that have been available at meetings for the last few years) will be
disabled on the APs in and around the plenary room. Only the v6ONLY
network will be accessible to the plenary session attendees for 30 to 60
minutes. The APs outside the plenary room area, including the lobby, the
bar, and other public spaces, as well as the entire wired network, will
remain unchanged. To ensure proper coverage of the public spaces with
both IPv4 and IPv6, there is likely to be some leakage of the IPv4-
enabled networks into the plenary room. The plenary attendees will be
asked to refrain from using them. These resources will be overwhelmed if
all of the plenary attendees attempt to use them, so please leave them
for the people in the public spaces. If you are in the plenary, please
participate in the experiment. We are trying to figure out how to
display in real time the traffic statistics on the v6ONLY network during
the plenary. I'm hoping it can be projected while the experiment is
running.
I should note that the IETF meeting network infrastructure will be
running on IPv4. That is one reason that v6ONLY will be offered on the
wireless network. Management traffic on the wired network needs IPv4.
Consider this the first item on the "not quite ready" list that will be
compiled during the experiment.
During the experiment, a mechanism to capture notes on the experience
will be made available. We have not figured out whether a wiki, mail
list, jabber room, or something else will be employed. The idea is to
gather the experience of the engineers that choose to participate in the
experiment. Please note that the IETF meeting network will provide IPv6
connectivity, name resolution, and transit, but any additional services
such as IPv6/IPv4 ALGs, are outside the scope of this experiment. If
someone would like to use such a resource during this experiment, please
hold that thought. A mail list will be set up and announced for this
kind of coordination.
This experiment is an opportunity for the IETF community to see what we
can make happen by IETF 71. IANA has accepted the challenge to get AAAA
records into the root zone. I sincerely hope that they are successful.
Others are trying to get IPv6 service to servers that are often visited
by IETF meeting attendees. I sincerely hope they are successful too.
Activities like these need milestones, otherwise they get pushed to the
back burner. This plenary experiment is serving as one such milestone.
This experiment is also an opportunity for the engineers that make up the
IETF community to learn. My ISP does not offer IPv6, so I have no hands-
on IPv6 experience. This plenary experiment, and the v6ONLY network that
will be available the entire week, offer an opportunity for real hands-on
experimentation. Even people that have this capability in their homes or
work environments will learn from helping others get their configurations
sorted out. We all learn best from hands-on experience, not just talking
about what would happen if you could do it yourself.
Wishing you and your family a safe and warm holiday season,
Russ Housley
IETF Chair
At 04:39 PM 12/14/2007, IETF Chair wrote:
Dear Colleagues:
How dark is the IPv6 Internet? Let's find out.
During the IESG/IAOC Plenary at IETF 71, we are going to turn off IPv4
support on the IETF network for 30 to 60 minutes. We will encourage
the audience to use the Internet and determine which services that they
have come to take for granted remain available.
If you are from a service provider, we encourage you to make your
service a bright spot on the IPv6 Internet.
To facilitate this experiment, a URL with instructions on how to get
IPv6 running on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and so on. Some information
will also be available for a 4-to-6 tunnel.
We will ask everyone to list things that work and things that do not.
The results will be part of the proceedings for the plenary session.
We will make more information about the structuring of this activity
over the next few weeks. Please do whatever you can to make ready ...
Russ Housley
IETF Chair
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