ISP customer assignments

Dan White dwhite at olp.net
Tue Oct 6 13:36:13 UTC 2009


On 05/10/09 22:28 -0400, Ricky Beam wrote:
> On Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:13:37 -0400, Dan White <dwhite at olp.net> wrote:
>> I don't understand. You're saying you have overlapping class boundaries 
>> in your network?
>
> No.  What I'm saying is IPv6 is supposed to be the new, ground-breaking,  
> unimaginably huge *classless* network.  Yet, 2 hours into day one, a  
> classful boundary has already been woven into it's DNA.  Saying it's  

I would disagree. IPv6 is designed around class boundaries which, in my
understanding, are:

A layer two network gets assigned a /64
A customer gets assigned a /48
An ISP gets assigned a /32 (unless they need more)

> classless because routing logic doesn't care is pure bull.  In order for  
> the most basic, fundamental, part (the magic -- holy grail -- address  
> autoconfig) to function, the network has to be a minimum of /64.  Even  
> when the reason for that limit -- using one's MAC to form a (supposedly)  
> unique address without having to consult with anything or fire off a  
> single packet -- has long bit the dust; privacy extensions generate  
> addresses at random and have to take steps to avoid address collisions, 
> so continuing to cling to "it has to be 64bits" is infuriating.

IPv6 provides you the opportunity to design your network around your layer
two needs, not limited by restrictive layer 3 subnetting needs.

If your complaint is that all devices in a /64 are going to see IPv6
broadcast/multicast packets from the rest of the devices in that subnet,
then don't assign 2^64 devices to that subnet.

I still don't understand why its infuriating to you, but I can certainly
tell that it is.

-- 
Dan White
BTC Broadband




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