On Mon, Mar 27, 2006 at 02:16:57PM -0500, Keith Moore wrote: > > > maybe this is because "protocol purity zealots" take a long > > > term view and want to preserve the flexibility of the net > > > "market" to continue to grow and support new applications, > > > whereas the NAT vendors are just eating their seed corn. > > > > Your long term view is irrelevant if you are unable to meet short term > > challenges. > > very true. but at the same time, it's not enough to meet short term > challenges without providing a path to something that is sustainable in > the long term. > This is reasonable, but there is no realistic path to ipv6 that the known world can reasonably be expected to follow. NAT is a done deal. It's well supported at network edges. It solves the addressing issue, which was what the market wanted. It voted for NAT with dollars and time. It is the long term solution - not because it is better, but because it is. Saying that it is a deficient mechanism may be true, but it won't slow or change deployment. We can say that using workaround solutions such as static natting ports, etc. are akin to putting lipstick on a chicken, but the ipv6 vs. NAT battle is over in the marketplace. Even router vendors aren't supporting ipv6 well (there was a talk which hit on this at NANOG 34: http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0505/steinegger.html). There may be specific applications where ipv6 is deployed and working well (or so I hear). But NAT is ubiquitous. It's sort of like discussing Lisp vs. c/c++. Lisp may be better, but for most practical discussions it's not worth pursuing - the market has chosen c/c++ for the _vast_ majority of applications. Any discussions are either relegated to very specific niches or are historical, like non-qwerty keyboards (for english speakers). So the real question is: Given NAT, what are the best solutions to the long term challenges? Austin _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf