I'm unaware of any member of the mass market community (which accounts for a whole lot of "nodes" and "routers") who are asking for or wanting or expecting DNCP Relay. That's SOHO, Consumer, or the ISPs that serve them. Are there specialized niches inside these communities that might like DHCP Relay? That could well be. But to suggest that the mass incur the expense of including DHCP Relay for the benefit of an unknown few is unrealistic.
Note that the CableLabs eRouter spec (Feb 2011) says "The eRouter is not expected to implement: ... * Any relay agent functions." The Broadband Forum TR-124 Issue 2 makes no mention of DHCPv6 Relay, whatsoever. Assuming that these documents are a good indication of the functionality that major connectivity ISPs are expecting in IPv6-capable consumer (and mass market SOHO to a large extent) routers, I would say that it is almost a given that if you do make DHCP Relay a "MUST", this would be one "MUST" that will be blithely ignored by many. Including "MUST" recommendations that are going to be ignored severely weakens a document. I would recommend against it. I would also recommend against a "SHOULD", given the language (or lack of language) in the above mentioned documents. IMO, "MAY" is fine. Also, note that we have only just agreed to elevate support for DHCPv6 client in hosts from "MAY" to "SHOULD". If we can't expect hosts to support DHCPv6 as a "MUST" (and I quite agree with the "SHOULD" level there), then suggesting DHCPv6 Relay in routers be a "MUST" makes no sense to me. Barbara -------------------------------------------------------------------- IETF IPv6 working group mailing list [email protected] Administrative Requests: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipv6 --------------------------------------------------------------------
