Should routers send redirects by default?

Fri Aug 20 19:56:06 UTC 2010

On Fri, 2010-08-20 at 13:20 -0400, Christopher Morrow wrote: 
> Polling a little bit here, there's an active discussion going on
> 6man at ietf about whether or not v6 routers should:
>   o be required to implement ip redirect functions (icmpv6 redirect)
>   o be sending these by default

I do not currently have an IPv6 deployment, so my input may be lacking
in real usefulness here.  With IPv4, however, I have been a little
irritated at a few situations where I NEEDED this to work and it did not
(certain PIX routers come to mind here).  There are risks involved with
ANY "automated" type traffic to be sure, but for my money, it SHOULD be
possible to configure every router to support the network needs.  So for
my money, I'd suggest:

* routers MUST support ip redirect
* "default" configurations irrelevant to me

I do agree with one or two of the other posters that it should not be
within the purview of the IETF to "mandate" these defaults.  Each of us
will learn the defaults of the particular gear we use and can adjust
config templates to match, given the needs of the network we are
deploying.  Just my $0.02 (may be worth less than that)  :-)

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