Android (lack of) support for DHCPv6

Wed Jun 10 15:15:54 UTC 2015

Respectfully disagree on all points.

The statement that "Android would still not implement DHCPv6 NA, but it
would implement DHCPv6 PD." is troubling because you're not even willing to
entertain the idea for reasons that are rooted in idealism rather
than pragmatism.

Very disappointing to see that this is the position of Google.

On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 10:58 AM, Lorenzo Colitti <lorenzo at colitti.com>
wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 10:06 PM, Ray Soucy <rps at maine.edu> wrote:
>
>> Actually we do support DHCPv6-PD, but Android doesn't even support DHCPv6
>> let alone PD, so that's the discussion here, isn't it?
>>
>
> It is possible to implement DHCPv6 without implementing stateful address
> assignment.
>
> If there were consensus that delegating a prefix of sufficient size via
> DHCPv6 PD of a sufficient size is an acceptable substitute for stateful
> IPv6 addressing in the environments that currently insist on stateful
> DHCPv6 addressing, then it would make sense to implement it. In that
> scenario, Android would still not implement DHCPv6 NA, but it would
> implement DHCPv6 PD.
>
> What needs to be gauged about that course of action is how much consensus
> would be achieved, whether network operators would actually use it (IPv6
> has a long and distinguished history of people claiming "I can't support
> IPv6 until I get feature X", feature X appearing, and people changing their
> claim to "I can't support IPv6 until I get feature Y"), and how much of
> this discussion would be put to bed.
>
> That course of action would seem most feasible if it were accompanied by
> an IETF document that explained the deployment model and clarified what
> "sufficient size" is.
>
>
>> Universities see a constant stream of DMCA violation notices that need to
>> be dealt with and not being able to associate a specific IPv6 address to a
>> specific user is a big enough liability that the only option is to not use
>> IPv6.
>>
>
> It's not the *only* option. There are large networks - O(100k) IPv6 nodes
> - that do ND monitoring for accountability, and it does work for them. Many
> devices support this via syslog, even. As you can imagine, my Android
> device gets IPv6 at work, even though it doesn't support DHCPv6. Other
> universities, too. It's obviously  not your chosen or preferred mechanism,
> but it does work.
>

-- 
Ray Patrick Soucy
Network Engineer
University of Maine System

T: 207-561-3526
F: 207-561-3531

MaineREN, Maine's Research and Education Network
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