IPv6 "bloat" history

Mon Mar 28 19:22:14 UTC 2022

Hello Ohta-San

I tried exactly what you suggested for IPv6 with RFC 8505 and 8929. But to few people in mainstream networks realize what you just said.

It started long long ago with the idea to use inverse ARP for the registration, I guess it is still doable but I am not optimistic about adoption considering that v6 is a lot worse with more addresses and DAD.

We are editing the piece on proxy ARP at this very moment at .11me. APs are indeed supposed to proxy both v4 and v6. What is less clear is how they form a deterministic state for that.

Regards,

Pascal

> Le 28 mars 2022 à 15:55, Masataka Ohta <mohta at necom830.hpcl.titech.ac.jp> a écrit :
> 
> William Allen Simpson wrote:
> 
> > After so many times reinventing the wheel, IP uber alles is a
> > better goal.  Speaking as somebody familiar with the effort.
> 
> I'm afraid you misunderstand my point.
> 
>> John Gilmore recently gave a good history of the ARP origin.
> 
> ARP is perfectly good for CSMA/CD but not so good
> for CSMA/CA where broadcast/multicast is unreliable.
> 
> So, with wifi, we should rely on repeated beacon from
> base stations for AR of the base stations and rely on
> unicast from clients to register them to base stations,
> which should act as proxy for communications between
> clients, which is a totally different protocol from ARP.
> 
> Without such recognition today, wifi users should be
> suffering from some inefficiencies when link is congested,
> which is often the case.
> 
> Other link technology should also require AR mechanism
> of its own.
> 
> As such, performing AR with IP is not so meaningful.
> Worse, even DHCP, which assumes reliable broadcast,
> does not work so efficiently over congested wifi.
> 
>                    Masataka Ohta