Re: Review of draft-ietf-6man-rfc4291bis-06

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 13/01/2017 12:26, Randy Bush wrote:
>>> but i am having a hard time reconciling 2.4.4's insistence on a
>>> mandatory 64-bit uuid in all unicast global addresses with 2.4.0, rfc
>>> 6141, widespread operational practice, ...  clue bat please.
>>
>> This was discussed extensively in 6MAN and resulted in RFC7421
>> "Analysis of the 64-bit Boundary in IPv6 Addressing”.  The text in
>> rfc4291bis is:
>>
>>    For all unicast addresses, except those that start with the binary
>>    value 000, Interface IDs are required to be 64 bits long.
>>    Background on the 64 bit boundary in IPv6 addresses can be found in
>>    [RFC7421].
> 
> thanks for the review that the wg came to this decision in conflict with
> operational practice and its own statement in 2.4.0.  i did read the
> documents.
> 
> since it is incorrect, ietf last call seems to be the time to fix it.
> 
> to be clear, i have no problem with iids being 64-bit.  my issue is with
> unicast globals being classful in 2.4.4.

RFC7421 (which is Informational) calls out RFC 6164 (not 6141!) as an exception.
To be precise it says:

   The de facto length of almost all IPv6 interface identifiers is
   therefore 64 bits.  The only documented exception is in [RFC6164],
   which standardizes 127-bit prefixes for point-to-point links between
   routers, among other things, to avoid a loop condition known as the
   ping-pong problem.

I would suggest adding a similar exception statement in 4291bis.

     Brian