[arch-d] IPv6 (address) usability and tools [Re: Development of Internet Protocol "Five Fields"] (IP-FF): Presentation

[Simon Leinen <[e-mail]>]

Alexey Eromenko writes:
> On Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 8:48 PM, Bob Briscoe <[e-mail]> wrote:
>     * v6 addresses hard to transliterate, read etc    - so what? -
>       just a tools problem

> There are no tools for that. IPv6 is unusable in every way.

No, obviously not in *every* way, since it is being used in the real world.

However, I agree there *are* usability problems, and I found Bob Briscoe's
"so what? - just a tools problem" a bit cavalier.  (I should say that this
was the only part of Bob's message I have a problem with - overall I find
it extremely well thought through and on the topic.)

Of course people can and should use hostnames and not bother with these
addresses at all.  Most end users already do.  But still, developers and
operators often use (and, worse, sometimes force other users to use)
literal IP addresses.  In some cases this is hard to avoid (e.g. an
operator debugging a routing issue and looking at prefixes in the routing
or BGP table), in other cases I don't quite understand myself why people
use literal addresses when they should be using hostnames.

Personally I don't think this is reason enough to throw out IPv6.

But we would do well to take this usability problem more seriously.  I'm
optimistic that much of this could be addressed, and yes, tools (including
better UIs) will play a major role.

So it may well be a tooling problem... but "JUST a tools problem"?
If tools were an easy problem, shouldn't we have solved it by now?

I'm not saying that no tools exist (for example, hostnames exist), but
there's definitely still a gap in that people find IPv6 hard to use -
maybe the tools are there but for some reason they aren't used.

Wouldn't (y)our time be better spent working on this: Trying to make the
fact that IPv6 addresses are "hard to transliterate, read etc" (with which
I agree) less relevant for those who currently feel the pain?

And who is it who's feeling that pain? I'm guessing that many people who
have to configure firewalls and access lists are in that group today.
Who else?
-- 
Simon.