Why used DHCPv6 when RA has RDNSS and DNSSL?

[James R Cutler]

Golly whiz, I have always considered DHCPv6 and RA/SLAAC as configuration tools for end systems. In addition, I have always considered the configuration of end systems to be the (implicit)) responsibility of the end system owner, not the network provider. I would love to find someone who could eloquently articulate why the end system owner (especially in managed environments) can not choose how to configure end systems. 

Why must the availability of these two particular configuration tools become such a partisan/religious debate. Does it make a significant difference in the cost of providing network services? Does it make a significant difference in the cost of end systems? I can find no evidence of this in the debate.

It seems obvious that (non-superuser) home systems have configuration requirements different from those in managed offices. Getting these satisfied to meet business requirements requires thought at a higher protocol level (such as Business Operations) and division of labor/control is often useful. Forcing end system configuration management into router configurations conflicts with end system change control. In many situations SLAAC, an obviously router-centric function, meets basic addressing requirements without burdening router operations with end system details. It many, often overlapping, situations DHCPv6 offers an orthogonal management point for items such as NTP, DNS, Printers, and more without interfering with managing the routing network. 

Wouldn’t it be more cost effect in the long term to simply make SLAAC and DHCPv6 cooperative and complementary attributes of end-to-end networking? 

Could we then work on larger problems, such as implementing secure route distribution?

Show me my error and I will repent.

James R. Cutler
James.cutler at consultant.com
GPG keys: hkps://hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net



> On Mar 31, 2020, at 12:01 PM, Gert Doering <gert at space.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Tue, Mar 31, 2020 at 12:17:44PM +0200, Mark Tinka wrote:
>> At my house, I don't even bother with DHCPv6 for DNS. I just use the
>> IPv4 ones and let SLAAC assign IPv6 addresses to my devices. Just about
>> done with the purist madness around this.
> 
> "In da house", mDNS usually does the trick nicely for "I want to ssh
> to my wife's laptop to fix her time machine backup".
> 
> As soon as you have a larger routed network, mDNS falls short, and 
> (unless you have a windows domain) there are no existing mechanisms
> to put a SLAAC v6 address into DNS...
> 
> Yes, thanks, IETF.  Well done.
> 
> Gert Doering
>        -- NetMaster
> -- 
> have you enabled IPv6 on something today...?
> 
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