Fred, Let's up level. I fundamentally do not understand the motivation for any of this work. That is what I mean by "what's the problem". Let's focus on that question alone, because if I (or the community) is not convinced there is an actual problem that needs work, there is no point in continuing.
Going back to your document: > The IPv6 Neighbor Discovery protocol [RFC4861][RFC2460] specifies the > operation of routers, including the process of sending and receiving > Router Advertisement (RA) messages. However, the specification makes > no distinction between different classes of routers that may occur on > a link. In particular, the specification is written from the > perspective of routers that are "authoritative" for the link, i.e., > routers that connect the link to provider networks. This document > discusses considerations for a different class of routers known as > "stub routers". I question your first assertion that there are different "classes" of routers, or rather, that we (the IETF) need to start defining what these classes are. (I will agree that enterprise deployments may well have differennt "classes" of routers, but that is for internal purposes and so far does not appear to lead to problems that the IETF needs to get involved in). Second, I simply do not understand what you mean by defining routers as "authoritative" or "not" for a link. If a router is attached to the link, everyone assumes it is a router and is "authoritative". That is, everyone trusts/believes it (in the absence of things like SEND). There is no notion of some routers being more authoritative than others. If you are worried about security, the routers may do their own security and thereby exclude "non authoritiative" routers. But this does not need to be made visible in the protocols. So, what are the real differences between what you call an "authoritative" router from one that is not? And why is it useful/necessary to make such a distinction? Finally, I'm not sure I even understand exactly what "routers that connect the link to provider networks" covers. Is it only the router that connects to the ISP? or is it all the routers that form part of a spanning tree that points to the ISP? (And what happens when you have multi-homed sites?) Some pictures might help here. Something with at least a handful of internal links, and maybe 2 connections to the public internet (through different ISPs). And then label the various routers and what kind they are (and why). Thomas -------------------------------------------------------------------- IETF IPv6 working group mailing list [email protected] Administrative Requests: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipv6 --------------------------------------------------------------------
