The discussions always ended up on the same kind of conclusion: in
theory it is a fine idea, but we would have to change existing
implementation, and besides it is not easy to allocate unique numbers.
There are basically four ways to allocate random numbers, and none of
them is particularly attractive:
1) Picking numbers at random is easy, but you need a good random
generator, and besides you hit the birthday paradox with 2^^19 entries,
i.e. less than a million. There are way more than 1 million potential
sites.
2) Deriving numbers from other pre-established registries is tempting,
but there are not very many suitable pre-existing registries. IEEE-802
numbers are too large too fit; IPv4 addresses have the right size but
not the right stability.
3) Starting a new registry looks simple on paper, but the practical
problem are not so small -- for example, decide who will be king; find
the right balance between automation and reliability; etc.
4) Combining random allocation with duplicate detection would go past
the birthday paradox, but is almost impossible to conduct at the scale
of the Internet...
Now, if you can change that...
-- Christian Huitema
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Francis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Monday, February 19, 2001 2:36 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Wade through the archives (was Re: another
> renumbering question)
>
>
>
> I took Steve up on his suggestion of looking through the
> archives on this topic.
>
> With some effort I found three threads, all initiated by
> Christian, in May '97, Dec '97, and Nov '99. I saved the
> relevent messages...you can find them at
> http://www.aciri.org/francis/IPv6> _site_id_threads.txt if you
> are so inclined. This is
> probably not exhaustive, so if anyone can point me to other
> threads that would be helpful.
>
> I didn't see any major ideas in the previous threads that
> weren't in the latest thread.
>
> A problem I found when looking over the threads is that a
> complete picture of what a site ID would be and how it would
> work was never generated, with the end result that different
> people were talking about different things and to some extent
> talking past each other.
>
> Having read the arguments, I still believe that there is
> something to be said for the site-ID notion. The site-ID
> would be for sites that want to have their own number space
> for internal communications, with reasonable assurance that
> nobody else is using the same space.
>
> The site-ID would not supplant the use of site-locals by
> other sites who wanted to use them. Site-locals would remain
> as defined.
>
> A site-ID would also not by itself identify what is and is
> not in a given "site". In other words, one couldn't take two
> addresses with site-IDs and, in the absense of any other
> information (DNS entries or routing tables) say definitively
> whether they could or could not reach each other using the
> site-ID addresses.
>
> I'm inclined to write a draft specifying this so that we can
> have a focused and consistent (and dare I say difinitive?)
> discussion about it. Is there anyone out there who in
> principle likes the idea of site-IDs and would care to work
> with me on this?
>
> Thanks,
>
> PF
>
>
>
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