----- Original Message ----- > From: "Doug Barton" <[email protected]>
> > Depends on how big your "deployment" is. For a small office -- say, > > 100 PCs or less; something that will fit in what I will catch schidt > > for referring to as a "Class C" :-) -- with a single current > > generation consumer market edge NAT router, then yes, in fact, you > > Just Plug It All In. > > Well sure, but the same would be true for the equivalent IPv6 > deployment. Is that in fact true? My takeaway from watching NANOG the last 8 years is that it doesn't always work like that. > > Well, no, not really. As you note, of course, most of those things > > are reflexes for most network engineering types, but certainly they > > took a while to get there. > > Yes, that's precisely my point. :) No one learned IPv4 networking > overnight. But people who already know IPv4 are complaining that they > can't magically come to the same degree of competence with IPv6 without > spending any time to learn it. The irony is that people who already > know "networking" will have a much easier time learning IPv6, with a > minimal amount of extra work, but minimal != zero. Well, this it my point. My integration of the questions I see, and the problems I had trying to even get a first tier grasp of it myself is that I *expect* leverage from understanding v4 which I did not in fact *get*; enough stuff has changed at a fundamental level that my v4 knowledge isn't all that helpful. > > I think "marginal added complexity" is probably a polite > > understatement; > > No, it really isn't. I realize that the IPv6 zealots hate it when I say > this, but in many ways you can treat IPv6 just like IPv4 with bigger > addresses. > > 1. Don't filter ICMPv6. > 2. Treat a /64 roughly the way you'd treat a /24 in IPv4. > 3. Put SLAAC on the networks you have DHCPv4 on. > 4. Statically assign addresses and networks for v6 on the systems you > statically assign them on v4 (servers, etc.) > 5. Neighbor Discovery (ND) replaces arp, but mostly you don't every need > to worry about it (just like you hardly ever need to worry about arp). > > Voila! You've just learned 80% of what you need to know to be > successful with IPv6. Great, and now you've answered the OPs question. So where, in fact, *is* the IPv6 primer that says that stuff, with enough backfill that you can do the further research about how and why? > > In consequence of that, IPv6 feels to me like it has a bad case of > > what Fred Brooks would call Second System Syndrome. > > Your assessment is correct, but the good news is that you can ignore > almost all of it. The "SLAAC vs. full-featured DHCPv6" thing is still > kind of a PITA, but it's working itself out. Beyond that, if there is > a feature of IPv6 that you're not interested in, don't use it. :) Hmmm... > > You seem to be suggesting, though, to drag the conversation back > > where I started it, that there is *so much new stuff* with IPv6 that > > it's difficult *even for old hats with IPv4* to learn it by analogy. > > No, quite the opposite. What I'm saying is that if you already > understand how to run a network with v4 that learning the v6 terminology > and equivalent concepts, plus the few extra things that you actually > do need to manage for v6, is not that difficult. It just *seems* hard > because before you tackle it, it's all new and strange. Hmmm ^ 2. > > (Yes, yes, I am coming late to this argument; the networks I'm > > responsible are historically relatively small. IPv6 connectivity has > > been troublesome to acquire except at the last couple.) > > Roger that. Not that I'm trying to toot my own horn, but most of my > experience has been with large enterprise networks, often spanning > multiple continents, so I tend to think in those terms. The good news > for smaller shops is that if you can get it, IPv6 is pretty much "just > plug it in," very similar to how you described IPv4 for a smaller shop > above. You haven't tried to *buy* IPv6 edge transit, have you? Has that gotten any easier than "months later, nobody has the first clue what I'm talking about"? :-) Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink [email protected] Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA #natog +1 727 647 1274
