Folks, During IETF LC, a couple of folks noted that Interface Indexes might not be stable.
I added some text on the subject to my working copy (mostly based on the discussion with Brian Haberman and Mark Smith), but the issue came up again (Tom Petch commented on the subject). Since the raison d'etre for including the Interface Index in F() is to differentiate between multiple interfaces connecting to the same network, either the Interface Index or the Interface Name could be used. So far, these are the pros/cons of each: * Interface Index: Including this one would be ideal, since it's simply a small number that identifies the interface, and does not really depend on the NIC vendor, etc. However, as noted above, in some implementations it might be unstable (i.e., vary when the system is bootstrapped). * Interface name: This one has the pro that is stable, even on systems in which the Interface Index is not. However, on some systems (e.g. BSDs) the Interface name depends on the NIC vendor, which means that if a NIC is replaced with another from a different vendor, the Interface name is likely to change, and therefore the resulting address will change. My take would be to replace "Interface Index" in the expression with an abstract "Interface_ID", and then explain that "Interfae_ID" can be either the Interface Index or the Interface name, and include some of the text above (explaining why an implementation might want to include one or the other -- i.e., if your Interface Indexes are stable, use them. Else use the Interface name). Thoughts? Thanks! -- Fernando Gont SI6 Networks e-mail: [email protected] PGP Fingerprint: 6666 31C6 D484 63B2 8FB1 E3C4 AE25 0D55 1D4E 7492 -------------------------------------------------------------------- IETF IPv6 working group mailing list [email protected] Administrative Requests: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipv6 --------------------------------------------------------------------
