Re: Progress?

[Bob Smart <[e-mail]>]

>A couple of issues have come up.  One has to do with transition.
>I'm finding that the "IPAE" style of putting a valid IP address
>in the packet header (in this case, the Pip ID) constrains Pip.
>For instance, mobility is constrained because, if the host moves,
>then it gets a new IP address, which means a new Pip ID, which
>blows Pip's mobility mechanism.  So, I'm seriously thinking of
>a new transition scheme that completely divorces Pip from IP.
>This requires a more sophisticated Pip/IP translation scheme,
>but so far appears workable.
>
>The other issue has to do with the format of IDs.  I'm beginning
>to think that putting any kind of hierarchy in the ID is not
>good.  I think it might be best to just keep the ID flat.  This
>makes a lot of things simpler, auto-configuration being just one.

Obviously we need to see more to understand what Paul means by all
this, but:

To me the ID is in one-to-one correspondence with the name. A name has
no semantics. We make it hierarchical to make it unique but the
geography that *seems* to be implied by the hierarchical structure is
an illusion. For example there is nothing to stop me creating an entry
in the mel.dit.csiro.au namespace for a machine in America.

In the same way I can't see how using the IP address space to build
unique IDs can constrain anything. If it is a mobile host you might
not want to use the IP address the host is currently using. And if you
do that then you have to be careful of what use you make of an IP
address in an ID for transitional semantics.

And the thought of a completely unstructured ID leaves me bemused.

Bob Smart