Session Date/Time: 19 Mar 2025 06:00

v6ops

Summary

The v6ops meeting covered several working group drafts and individual drafts. Key topics included CLAT source address selection, a framework for multi-homed IPv6-only networks, replacing DNS64 with RA-based prefix discovery, mitigating IPv6 NAT64 trace route issues, and improving IPv6 support for multi-interface/multi-router scenarios. There were also discussions around the use of LLMs to answer IPv6 questions, IPv6 deployment monitoring and analysis.

Key Discussion Points

IETF Process: A reminder of the IETF process, policies, patent disclosure requirements, and expected respectful conduct.
Working Group Status: Concerns about declining attendance and milestones being slightly behind schedule. The need for more input and real-world experience on v6 mostly deployments was highlighted.
LLM for IPv6: Presentation on using LLMs to answer factual IPv6 questions with high accuracy. Concerns were raised regarding LLM's "creativity" potentially straining resources.
CLAT (draft-ietf-v6ops-464xlat-clat):
- Clarification on CLAT source address treatment and duplicate address detection.
- Discussion on multi-homing scenarios and guidelines for avoiding multiple CLAT instances.
- Debate regarding the practicality of implementing complex features like source address selection.
- Consideration of environments with only a single /128 address and whether to support them or reference BCP 7934 which recommends against giving general purpose hosts a single /128.
Framework for Multi-homed IPv6-only Networks (draft-zhang-v6ops-ipv6-only-framework):
- Presentation of a framework for building scalable IPv6-only backbone networks with IPv4 service support.
- Concern raised about overhead to routers specifically around 64 bit vs 128 bit lookup key.
- Discussion about how the P router can figure out how to send the packet to the next hop.
Deprecating DNS64 (draft-ietf-v6ops-dns64-prefix):
- Problems with RFC 7050 (DNS64) and potential improvements/alternatives.
- Recommendation to prioritize RA-based NAT64 prefix discovery (PREF64) over DNS64.
- Concern raised regarding mobile network operator adoption of PREF64.
- Discussion about where this draft should go, including the recommendation to talk about it in the 6man working group.
Mitigating IPv6 NAT64 Trace Route Issues (draft-ietf-v6ops-nat64-traceroute):
- Definition of how to translate untranslatable IPV6 addresses by using a IANA allocated IPv4 dummy address.
- Discussion of how to preserve the original V6 addresses and suggesting that we obsolete a previous work on this topic and proceed with this one.
Improving IPv6 Support for Multi-Interface/Multi-Router Scenarios (draft-gont-v6ops-ipv6-multihoming):
- Problem statement for improving IPv6 support in scenarios with multiple routers, interfaces, and prefixes.
- Proposed scenarios and recommendations for host-side improvements to address common failures.
- Discussion about prior work (RFC 7556, RFC 8801, Shim6).
- Clarifications on what's new.
IPv6 Network Deployment Monitoring and Analysis Advancements:
- System to drive the growth of IPV6 traffic including highlighting technical gaps in IPv6 before to IPV6 transition.
- Newly defined a complete set of key performance indicators including readiness indicators and operational metrics and quality metrics.

Decisions and Action Items

CLAT:
- The authors to add a section referencing BCP 7934, recommending against single /128 address assignments.
- The authors to solicit complexity concerns on the mailing list and include explanation in the draft.
- Clarify that the recommendation and modification of the 6877 about the dedicated source prefix is on the host only.
- The document is going to proposed standard.
Framework for Multi-homed IPv6-only Networks:
- Authors to check mail and specify how the P router can figure out where to send the package to the next hop.
Deprecating DNS64:
- Discuss further within 6man about host requirements to implement pre-6-4 since this draft suggests a change in behavior of 87 implementation.
- Authors to add use case where you can use 70 50 without the ns 64 (e.g. synthesizing the code A only for IPV4 only that rpa).
Mitigating IPv6 NAT64 Trace Route Issues
- Chairs to follow up about adoption
Improving IPv6 Support for Multi-Interface/Multi-Router Scenarios:
- The authors to reference RFC 7556, RFC 8801, Shim6 to acknowledge prior work.
- Author to emphasize what's new.

Next Steps

Continue discussion on the mailing lists for all drafts.
Authors to revise their drafts based on the feedback received during the meeting.
Working group chairs to consider adoption calls for appropriate drafts.