The BOFH way - kill the user and let the network be.... ;)
Kidding of course
*From: *Carlos M. Martinez
*Sent: *15 April 2016 08:18
*To: *Ted Lemon;Dimitri Staessens
*Cc: *ietf
*Subject: *Re: Time to kill layer 2
All the way up to the user ? Many times.
On 4/14/16 6:56 PM, Ted Lemon wrote:
> Of course!
>
> On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 5:54 PM, Dimitri Staessens
> <dimitri(_dot_)staessens(_at_)intec(_dot_)ugent(_dot_)be
> <mailto:dimitri(_dot_)staessens(_at_)intec(_dot_)ugent(_dot_)be>> wrote:
>
> anyone thought of killing everything on top of layer 2?
>
>
> On 04/14/16 14:59, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>
> This morning I spent an hour debugging the network to print
out two
> class projects that were due. Some points:
>
> 1) My ability to debug the network is better than 99% of the
> population
> 2) The interaction of Bonjour, DHCP and auto power saving is
> unfortunate
> 3) Things should still work after I have been away for a week
> 4) If vendors want to be selling all that IoT gear, they have to
> solve
> these issues.
>
> 5) I want someone to blame. Right now when the network doesn't
> work, I
> don't know who is the cause. I want one point of contact.
Whoever is
> that point of contact will get most of my networking money.
>
>
> One of the biggest headaches in debugging is that 'smart
hubs' are
> not. They are actually very stupid. They make assumptions of
network
> topology that are not true. Another is the unfortunate
> implementation
> of DHCP.
>
> I don't use SNMP for a simple reason - it is not available
to most
> ordinary people. I want to understand networking for the 99%,
> not the
> IETF 1%-ers.
>
> All this networking gear is presented to me as black boxes over
> which
> I have absolutely no control (which is fine-ish) and no
visibility.
>
> What we have today is the product of a historical process. I
> remember
> the days when Ethernet ran on 10BaseT. But I installed my first
> switch
> 30 years ago and it has been a switched protocol for 20
years now.
>
>
> It seems to me that there is a business opportunity for any
> vendor who
> takes the rather obvious step of simplifying the system.
>
> People talk about 'IP everywhere' and 'IP end-to-end' which is
> rather
> odd when you think about the fact that virtually every local
network
> uses MAC addresses for routing.
>
> One of the reasons that IP won against OSI was that it was
simpler.
> Applications ran on top of the IP layer with only TCP
inbetween. Of
> course these days we do have a Presentation layer, Web Services
> run on
> HTTP. But unlike the OSI presentation layer, ours does not
introduce
> extra moving parts.
>
> It seems to me that if we really believed in IP everywhere
and IP
> end-to-end we would insist that network switches be IP
routers that
> can be managed using BGP/OSPF or at least routing tables
rather than
> heuristic devices that try to guess where packets should go
based on
> goat entrails, phases of the moon or whatever they use.
>
>
> What should have happened many moons ago was that DHCP
should have
> become a bidirectional protocol or a bootstrap to a
bidirectional
> protocol. So when a printer joins the network, it
authenticates and
> tells the network what it is. And this is all defined in one
set of
> specifications from one organization, none of which assumes that
> security is an 'advanced', 'optional' or 'enterprise' feature.
>
> Instead we have an ad-hoc layer trying to achieve the same
result in
> peer-to-peer fashion. A similar approach works for frogs as a
> reproductive mechanism but only at the species level. It
certainly
> does not work for the individual ova which may or may not
connect to
> the printer it is trying to use to print the kids damned
homework.
>
>
> Seriously, the fact that things have scaled thus far and the
1% can
> get them to work does not mean that we can get to the next level
> without a serious rethink of the local network architecture.
>
> The type of device I think we need would be first and
foremost an IP
> router. It would have ethernet plugs on the box and use ethernet
> layer
> 1 specs. But when a another 'True-IP' device was plugged in, it
> would
> quickly negotiate a direct IP connection, oh and with proper
64KB
> packets. It would also, authenticate, announce and turn on link
> layer
> encryption.
>
> Such a device would also be a legacy router. It would fake
all the
> signals necessary for a legacy ethernet device to function.
It would
> also be responsible for maintaining the local information
for the
> network service database and intercommunicating with other
hubs to
> achieve a global network view.
>
>
> The net result of all this would be that I would never ever
need to
> install another printer (no, it is not actually necessary
for every
> stupid printer to have its own stupid printer driver).
Opening the
> 'printers' folder would automatically show every printer
that is on
> the network or can be woken from slumber by the hub it
connects to.
>
>
>