[homenet] OT: unnumbered interfaces [was: 2nd Working Group Last Call...]

[Juliusz Chroboczek <[e-mail]>]

>     If you don't care about compatibility with normal devices, you run the
>     routing protocol on each mobile node, but have it filter any routes
>     except for announcing its own /128
> 
> Its own? You don't mean to say that every device may only have one
> IP address? That would be so... 1997.

I realise you're joking, but it's actually an interesting point you're
raising.  Should the interfaces of a mobile node be numbered?

One way, which is quite natural from a mesh networking point of view,
is to have an IP on the loopback interface and leave all interfaces
unnumbered.  This simplifies configuration and reduces routing
traffic, and actually improves compatibility with applications that
assume a single IP.

Another way is to use the same IP on all interfaces.  That's more or
less equivalent to the above, and is the Linux way of representing
unnumbered interfaces.

Then there's of course the possibility to put a distinct IP on each
interface.  It makes the networking specialists happy, but causes
a number of problems with applications that assume a single IP.

I guess it might be somewhat premature to discuss that particular
issue within the group, hence the OT marker.

-- Juliusz