Re: [v6ops] draft-gont-v6ops-ipv6-ehs-in-real-world: clarification text

["Fred Baker (fred)" <[e-mail]>]

> On Apr 17, 2015, at 3:17 PM, Eric Vyncke (evyncke) <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Your proposal is fine for me, but, I would suggest a slightly stronger
> text:
> "The results presented in this document indicate that in the scenarios
> where the corresponding measurements were performed, the use of IPv6
> extension headers can lead to packet drops. We note that
> packet drops occurring at transit networks is undesirable
> and it is hoped and expected that this situation will improve over time."
> 
> Should we say something around the lines of "... Undesirable except when
> Those packets cannot be forwarded without impacting the performance and
> the health of the network devices" ?

Well, question for you. If we follow RFC 2460, the router in the middle doesn’t know whether the header is there or not. The only systems that should have a performance impact are systems that parse to them or interpret them. I personally would like to believe that we aren’t making *other* systems more complex to save them. If this is being done in a firewall or load balancer, the limitations of the device aren’t primary, the correct operation of the protocol is. Would we be saying that it’s OK for a firewall to drop a packet because it doesn’t feel like dealing with it that day?

What specific devices did you have in mind? What would the argument be?