Remi,

>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: Rémi Després [mailto:[email protected]]
>>>>> Sent: Friday, March 05, 2010 6:34 AM
> 
>>>>> Fred, Ole, Brian,
>>>>> 
>>>>> Until PMTUD is made reliable in IPv6 (btw an important objective), all 
>>>>> IPv6-enabled hosts should have
>>>>> their MTU set to 1280 to avoid IPv6 blackholes.
>>>>> This could in principle apply only to IPv6 packets that leave customer 
>>>>> sites, but as long as hosts
>>>>> have only one MTU parameter, it has to apply to all packets.
>>>>> Since typical hosts have longer default MTUs than 1280, advertising 
>>>>> MTU=1280 on links that offer
>>>>> paths to the global Internet appears to be the only available tool at 
>>>>> hand.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The proposal is then to replace:
>>>>> "A 6rd CE SHOULD advertise the 6rd Tunnel MTU, whether determined 
>>>>> automatically or configured
>>>>> directly, on the LAN side by setting the MTU option in Router 
>>>>> Advertisements [RFC4861] messages to
>>>>> the 6rd Tunnel MTU."
>>>>> by:
>>>>> "As long as the path MTU discovery has not been made reliable, a 6rd CE 
>>>>> SHOULD advertise on the LAN
>>>>> side, in the MTU option of Router Advertisements [RFC4861], an  MTU of 
>>>>> 1280 octets . This is to
>>>>> prevent that longer packets that could have traversed the local 6rd 
>>>>> domain may be discarded, because
>>>>> of their size, further in the Internet because of their size. Note that 
>>>>> this may cause all hosts
>>>>> attached to the link to use a reduced MTU even for link-local 
>>>>> communications, IPv6 and IPv4."
>>>>> 
>>>> The 1280 would be disappointing; I'm sure we can do better.
>>>> 
>>> As has been said before, in theory there is no difference between theory
>>> and practice, but in practice, there is.
>>> 
>>> Right now today a number of ISPs are planning to deploy 6RD, and we have
>>> already seen clear evidence from 6to4 deployment that setting the MTU to
>>> 1280 is a necessary evil at the moment. So I think this advice should be
>>> in the specification, as a SHOULD. Otherwise we'd be misleading those
>>> ISPs.
>>> 
>> I don't think that the evidence from 6to4 is directly applicable to 6rd as 
>> the administrative domain of deployment is quite different between the two. 
>> Absent working automatic mechanisms, MTU is very much a administratively 
>> controlled item today. Since a given 6rd deployment is limited to one (or 
>> perhaps a few) administrative domain(s), the MTU problem is generally more 
>> tractable than with 6to4 which typically has no readily assignable 
>> responsible party to address a problem when it occurs.
>> 
>> We do have evidence that 6rd works fine with a 1480 MTU over an IPv4-enabled 
>> link with MTU of 1500.
> 
> Hi Mark,
> 
> I certainly don't contest this where 6rd is deployed today (being as you well 
> know a happy user of Free's implementation ;-) ).
> 
> But the point is that if one of my outgoing packets leaves Free's network and 
> reaches another network where the MTU is 1280, which is permitted, it will be 
> discarded.
> If PMTUD cannot be relied on, this can create a blackhole.  
> 
> (Clearly paths to Google and to the IETF have MTUs at least 1480, which is 
> fine, but the recommended solution must work for all IPv6 servers. Note that, 
> as long as PMTU is considered unreliable, both Google and the IETF should 
> also  better send IPv6 packets with an assumed 1280 path MTU.  
> 
>> Some bugs, not necessarily 6rd-specific, have been uncovered in the process, 
>> and fixed. That's a good thing.
> 
> 
>> Let's not throw in the towel until the game is truly over.
> 
> Be sure I will not throw the towel and continue to fight for IPv6 to be 
> reliably usable (first), and with more and more efficiency (next). 

but you are making an argument that _every_ IPv6 link should be a maximum of 
1280 bytes. I don't think that is something 6rd should prescribe.

cheers,
Ole

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