Re: [HAM-AG] [IPv6] Request for feedback: draft-evan-amateur-radio-ipv6

[Federico Santandrea <[e-mail]>]

> On 17/2/23 17:04, Alexandre Petrescu wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Le 16/02/2023 à 01:10, Nick Harper a écrit :
>> There appears to be a need of having the callsign in IID.
> 
> How is this need satisfied for IPv4?

Traditionally the IPv4 packets are sent over an AX.25 data link
layer. The callsign is in the AX.25 layer address field, i.e.
it is the hardware address. The AX.25 address format allows for
6 characters plus a numeric "SSID" 0-15 number, which is widely
perceived to be limiting. So, in this scenario there is no need
to identify radio station at the network level.

If using an Ethernet data link layer instead (which probably will
become much more common when using IPv6 as the AX.25 tools are
old and probably won't be updated to be IPv6 aware), the strict
analogous would therefore be having the callsign encoded into the
source MAC address. That it also appears in the IPv6 address,
after an (optional) application of EUI-64 SLAAC, would just
follow. The algorithm described in draft-evan-amateur-radio-ipv6
sounds like a nice way to accomplish this encoding, and usefully
expands on the current 6 character limitation.

It is true that there is no way for an Internet user to determine
that the IP is somehow related to an ham radio callsign without
knowing, but the identification requirement is only relevant to
the on-air part of the link. There, it would even be satisfied
by the Ethernet hardware address alone, even if SLAAC is not used.

--
Federico