RE: Thinking differently about the site local problem (was: RE: site local addresses (was Re: Fw: Welcome to the InterNAT...))

[Daniel Senie <[e-mail]>]

At 10:18 AM 4/2/2003, Jeroen Massar wrote:
>Spencer Dawkins wrote:
>
> > Hi, Jeroen,
> >
> > Are you talking about
> > ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2732.txt (PS)?
> >
> > My quick read of this RFC is that it says "don't use IPv6
> > literals without enclosing them in brackets", as in
> >
> >       host          = hostname | IPv4address | IPv6reference
> >       ipv6reference = "[" IPv6address "]"
> >
> > But that's not quite the same thing you said: "never use IPv6
> > IP's in URL's".
> >
> > If you're talking about another reference, could you provide it?
> > A quick RFC search for "IPv6 URL" turned up only this RFC...
>
>Yes, though I can't seem to google up any references. Except for:
>http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/techinfo/administration/ipv6/defa
>ult.asp
>
>"Q: How can I force IPv6 connections using my Web browser?"
><SNIP>
>"For applications other than Internet Explorer: Connect using a literal
>IPv6 address. URLs that use the format for literal IPv6 addresses
>described in RFC 2732, "Format for Literal IPv6 Addresses in URLs," are
>not supported by the version of Internet Explorer provided with Windows
>XP."
>
>There was some discussion about this deprecation as the
>Techpreviews (Win2k/NT4) did support literal url's.
>The XP version and up though won't support it to overcome
>one major 'problem': website 'designers' embedding IP's
>inside websites to 'speed things up' (go figure).
>And there where a number of other reasons for deciding so.
>Unfortunatly I can't find the messages which where sent
>to a mailinglist about this discussion which also contained
>why they decided this. Note that wininet.dll doesn't support
>it that's why IE doesn't either...
>
>MS CC'd, they can best explain the rationale behind it.

This line of reasoning troubles me. One of the ways in which numeric IP 
addresses are useful in URLs is for talking to systems which are not yet 
fully configured (e.g. configuring routers and such). I'm sure Microsoft's 
answer to this is "Use UPNP" but that may not be a universally sufficient 
answer. Others will say "Use Zeroconf" which may also not be sufficient. I 
guess I'm just really uncomfortable requiring name spaces in temporary and 
disconnected networks as an absolute requirement.

Ad-hoc networks are another similar case, where two machines are connected 
via ad-hoc wireless, bluetooth, firewire, or similar. I'd think it might be 
useful to be able to serve web pages between two laptops on a train without 
requiring a naming service to be present. Perhaps that won't be an issue in 
the brave new world.

It just seems to me there is some utility in having this capability (and 
others must have thought so since we have an RFC describing the 
formatting). Let's think hard before deciding we are sure there are no 
useful cases left.