IPv6 Pain Experiment

Tue Oct 8 03:16:03 UTC 2019

Well if you all really want your heads to explode I was invited to
give a talk a few years ago in Singapore at the local HackerSpace.

It called for something creative and different, not really an IETF
sort of crowd.

So I proposed we dump numeric addresses entirely and use basically
URLs in IP packets and elsewhere.

I really meant something like 'IP://www.TheWorld.com' in the
source/dest addr, possibly more specific for multiple interfaces but
whatevs.

Leave out the implied 'IP://' and my example is 16 chars just like
IPv6.

Routers could of course do what they like with those internally such
as maintain a hash table to speed look-ups. Not anyone outside of
router software developers' problem.

If one agreed on a standard hash algorithm further performance
improvements could be realized (e.g., inter-router comm could add the
hashes, who cares, implementation nit.)

So the question is how long would these be on average and even if it
was a little longer would anyone care? Is a nanosecond saved really a
nanosecond earned?

We're already kind of committed to IP addresses not really meaning
anything (that is, no routing info implied), they are mostly only a
way to pick the next interface to push the packet out of and only need
to be unique, sort of, with exceptions (umm, multicast.)

BITS IS BITS. They're just bits either way. And in my proposal pretty
easy to remember bits.

And Look Ma! No more DNS! Or a much reduced role.

I'd agree the idea is several RFCs short of an internet but hey it's
something to think about.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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