Access to the IPv4 net for IPv6-only systems, was: Re: WG Action: Conclusion of IP Version 6 (ipv6)

Wed Oct 3 15:29:09 UTC 2007

On 3-okt-2007, at 15:52, Mark Newton wrote:

>> The tricky part is that we're not going to agree on that as a
>> community, so the status quo will persist until someone cares enough
>> to do something drastic that moves the entire industry in one
>> direction or another.

> That isn't actually true.  I could move to IPv6 and deploy a NAT-PT
> box to give my customers access to the v4 Internet regardless of
> whatever the rest of the community thinks.

And then you'll see your active FTP sessions, SIP calls, RTSP  
sessions, etc fail.

> This whole "debate" is a complete waste of time, because everyone,
> yourself included, knows that regardless of what consensus we end
> up with, at the end of the day if NAT makes sense NAT will be
> deployed.  End of story, game over.

Few things in today's internet are universal. I don't think the  
answer to the question whether NAT makes sense is one of them.

> This whole meme that says we need the entire industry to move in
> the same direction at the same time is yet another delaying
> fallacy, and yet another example of you proposing that we all
> behave like old-skool telcos inside the exact same 24 hour period
> when you decry any suggestion that we act like old-skool telcos.

It takes two to tango. If you deploy something that doesn't work with  
what everyone else has deployed, in most cases, it's you who has the  
problem. In that sense, the industry must move fairly coherently.  
Unfortunately, this is true regardless of any underlying merit.  
Current path MTU discovery practices are insane but use a smaller- 
than-1500-byte MTU at your peril.