static IPs [was Re: ipv6-ops Digest, Vol 159, Issue 1]

[Nick Hilliard]

Brian E Carpenter wrote on 26/10/2019 00:02:
> Progress will only come as more and more people stop putting IPv6 in
> the "too hard" basket.
maybe it is though?  Maybe we underestimate the level of overall 
complexity because when we look at any individual component, we can 
always explain it away because it's only more complicated by a smidgen.

So for example, we mandate /64 for CPE/residential access and tell 
people that assigning lots of /64s is good because it gives people 
flexibility, although we don't suggest how to push them further down 
into the network or provide an easy way to abstract away all the 
complexities of running multiple networks.

We say ULA is fine for local stuff, but no NAT please (this is ipv6 
after all), and then we write a 16 page document to tell people how to 
select a suitable prefix, and then say it's really not that complicated 
because the actual algorithm is only a 6-point sample idea and people 
can do their own thing anyway.

We tell vendors that they must implement SLAAC and they don't need DHCP 
but by the same token tell them that if they want anything more than 
getting a host up and running, SLAAC won't do it, so they look at DHCP 
(e.g. DOCSIS, residential DSL, etc) and force the vendors to use both 
because we block the 2-3 constructs which would allow DHCP to operate as 
a standalone protocol and do the whole lot in a significantly simpler way.

For years we never stepped in when people claimed that ipv6 was better 
than ipv4 because it was designed to be easy to renumber, and now we're 
here wondering why it's 2019 and there's no way to initiate a 
renumbering process for SLAAC, and we frown because tech support desks 
recommend disabling ipv6 because it's easier than fixing the underlying 
problem because there is no underlying fix because SLAAC can't handle 
the situation where the CPE renumbers but the end host doesn't.

This is just some bits of residential / cpe access.  The same story is 
reflected across other ipv6 deployment scenarios.

All of these things are individually reasonable and justifiable, and we 
all buy into the explanations because we're good at convincing ourselves 
about the things we already want to believe.

But we've crippled ourselves with complexity and we don't want to 
acknowledge it.

Nick