Re: [Autoconf] WC consensus call for RFC5889 modifications (Fwd:Forgotone [Was: RFC 5889)

[Thomas Heide Clausen <[e-mail]>]

On Aug 6, 2010, at 00:16 , Charles E. Perkins wrote:

>>  "hosts are considered to be connected to a MANET only through
>> a router, and thus, the MANET can be considered as comprising of only
>> routers".
> 
> Do you _really_ want to exclude hosts from your network?
> Where will the applications reside?  Hmmm... a network without
> hosts...  Seems like a niche market.  But, ad hoc networks
> are still a niche market, so this would be a niche niche
> market.  <hmmm, sounds like Monty Python's knights...>

User applications (regular user applications) reside on hosts. Hosts are accessing the network by way of being connected to (i.e. one IP hop away from) a router. 

The connectivity between a host and a router is a "classic IP link", and there are already excellent protocols in existence for managing also autoconfiguration of addresses for hosts on classic IP links. 

The connectivity between routers is.....who knows? Maybe a MANET, maybe an OSPF network, maybe an ISIS network, and maybe links between routers have "undetermined connectivity properties" -- or not, they may be of NBMA or P2P or telepathic nature. However, that's a matter for routers to figure out and manage; hosts are exposed to a classic IP link and are isolated by an IP hop from any specific connectivity properties of the connectivity/links between routers.

Of course, there *may* be applications (for example, the routing demon) running on routers and exposed to the specific connectivity properties of the connectivity/links between routers. These, and only these (non-user) applications should be sufficiently aware of these properties to operate correctly. User-applications reside on hosts, separated by an IP hop from any "strangeness" between routers, and exposed to well-defined properties of a classic IP link.

That is analogous to how the Internet otherwise work.

>> This architectural consideration thus separated the issue of
>> "configuring routers" from the issue of "configuring hosts" in this
>> context, and the rough consensus was that we would first focus on
>> configuring routers. Which lead us to where we are now.
> 
> When was this rough consensus?  Do you mean in Maastricht?
> Or, before?  If the latter, I surely missed it.

Now, you made me go look it up exactly...

This particular point was discussed - at length - at IETF'67 in 2006 in San Diego, where it received (in my recollection) wide consensus; in part because of its analogy with the "regular Internet".

Sincerely yours,

Thomas