IPv6 RA vs DHCPv6 - The chosen one?

Tue Jan 3 21:41:21 UTC 2012

> 
>> 
>>> - SLAAC is usually processed in a kernel, DHCPv6 is usually run as a
>>> process in the user space. Diagnostic and troubleshooting is more
>>> complicated.
>> 
>> Some operating system do the SLAAC processing in user space. What is
>> the problem.
> 
> As I wrote. Troubleshooting is more difficult.
> 

Having done a fair amount of troubleshooting for both SLAAC and DHCPv6 in real world deployments, I think your argument may be more theoretical than anecdotal in this case.

In my general experience, it's been relatively easy to troubleshoot either protocol and neither is particularly more difficult than the other. Start by making sure that you are sending and/or receiving correctly formed packets with the right data. If not, then you know that the packet originator is the most likely culprit. Absent misconfiguration of the router, I've never seen an incorrect RA. I've never seen an incorrect RS packet. Malformed DHCPv6 packets have been extremely rare in my experience. Packets with incorrect data are almost always the result of a configuration error.

The difference of whether this is processed in kernel or user space has very little impact on the troubleshooting process in most real world scenarios.

Owen