why is a raven like a writing desk?

Tue Nov 9 13:48:00 UTC 2004

* bmanning at vacation.karoshi.com (bmanning at vacation.karoshi.com) [Tue 09 Nov 2004, 13:54 CET]:
> what would such an address be used for? 
> a fixed IP address assigned at the factory has all the attributes 
> of an ethernet MAC address. :)  e.g. it "names" the interface at layer2.

It numbers it.  But it's less useful than a traditional MAC address as
it's not as generally usable after connecting the device to a compatible
network.

> i believe that an ip -ADDRESS- is an indication of -WHERE- in
> the topology a node currently sits, btu the address is not the name.
> 
> so are IPv6 numbers "addresses" or "names"?  or some bastard combination
> foisted on the poor operations community who is left with trying to
> figure it out? :)

They're identifiers on the network layer.  Names are what hu-mans give
services, devices etc.

They consist of two parts, a network part and a host part.  The network
part identifies the topology, the host part identifies the exact place
in that topology.

It seems we went back to pre-CIDR days with IPv6 and made everything a
/64 (at least in 2001::/16).  That makes it at least easier to tell the
parts apart.

	-- Niels.