Subject: RE: How the IPnG effort was started

From: "Peter Ford" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 09:07:54 -0800

Noel,
 
You are sorely under-representing the IETF's and your own efforts wrt NATs.    I think of your taxonomic study of NATs much in the same vein as Carl Linnaeus's "Systema Naturae".   
 
In fact, given the intellectual contributions by the think tank inside the IETF to NATs, the working groups on NATs, and the protocol engineering for NATs devised in the IETF, one would think that we can credit the IETF with NATs and the emergent Internet NAT architecture, guided by the IESG and overseen by the IAB.
 
One of the more interesting things we may encounter in the post-IPv4 era is a great simplication, but not elimination of NATs.   In other words: NATs become strictly address re-writers for IPv6 addresses.   And yes, some of the ongoing research in NAT architecture will probably make it into the IPv6 world.  I can easily imagine a world where hosts use NATs and IPv6 simultaneously and I suspect this might be a next-gen firewall technology.  People seem to forget that people buy NATs for IP address sharing and firewalling.    They don't seem to "get it" that there are very few people who would ever buy a NAT because of IPv4 address limitations.
 
regards, peterf

________________________________

From: [email-masked] on behalf of Noel Chiappa
Sent: Sat 11/20/2004 1:06 PM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: How the IPnG effort was started

    > From: [email-masked] (Kai Henningsen)

    >> To put it another way (and mangle a well-known phrase in the process),
    >> if life gives you lemons, you can either sit around with a sour look
    >> on your face, or make lemonade. NAT's make me look sour too, but I'd
    >> rather make lemonade.

    > Except I cannot see a way to make lemonade from NATs.

There are all sorts of people doing so, in at least three projects I can think
of.

I'd name them, except that they probably don't need the attention - it could
well result in pressure to shut any IETF component down, because it's not the
One True Religion Which Is Going To Take Over The World.

Then again, they'd probably just happen outside the IETF purview anyway, the
way NAT did.

        Noel

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---

From: "Christian de Larrinaga" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 19:48:42 -0000

Peter Ford wrote 21 November 2004 17:08
To: Noel Chiappa; [email-masked]

People seem to forget that people buy NATs for IP address sharing and
firewalling.    They don't seem to "get it" that there are very few people
who would ever buy a NAT because of IPv4 address limitations.

cdel> This is difficult to confirm (or deny) as current research into why
users buy NAT's is not clear and so this topic is very opinionated. I've
organised a survey right now for UK IPv6 TF to try to elicit some evidence
and to decipher whether IP layer (v4 or v6) considerations are significantly
taken into account in purchasing decisions (amongst other metrics).

Sticking my neck out from observation (and not from survey results) the
impression I have today is that IP layer issues (irrespective of version)
are not generally considered when making purchasing decisions. That is IP is
seen as a given and decisions are based on either L2/L1 (i.e., DSL / OC3 etc
access issues) or Applications. The health or otherwise of L3 appears to be
assumed.

This is interesting if true as clearly L3 is the bit that allows anything to
run over everything (IP over everything and everything over IP). Anything
that gets in the way or breaks that architecture clearly can change this
transparency.

So it could be argued that people who buy IP services and products such as
NAT should be encouraged to consider IP address implications and that they
risk placing themselves into an online cul de sac if they are not.

Christian

Christian de Larrinaga
t:+44-(0)844-484-9197
m:+44(0)7989-386778
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Network Brokers Ltd

---

From: "Eric A. Hall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 15:31:23 -0500

On 11/21/2004 2:48 PM, Christian de Larrinaga wrote:

> cdel> This is difficult to confirm (or deny) as current research into
> why users buy NAT's is not clear

When you say "buy" you are adding another layer here. Most small devices
come with NAT technology built-in, so there are lots of reasons why people
"use" NATs that are separate from any kind of purchasing decision. On the
other hand, if folks did have to shell out money for NAT versus real
addresses, then adoption rates would probably be somewhat different than
they are now.

For one thing, It is free for SOHO users (NAT is bundled with all their
devices already) and they would have to pay extra for multiple addresses
from their low-end service provider. This won't change until IPv6 is
equally supported by the devices and the providers, and when the providers
are willing to hand out small blocks of v6 addresses at no extra cost.
That probably won't happen without a coordinated push between industry,
governments, and investors.

Small businesses can't get portable IPv6 or IPv4 addresses, so there is no
difference between NAT or not. If they want numbering independence at the
local level, the low cost of SOHO NAT is the clear winner over the higher
 cost of specialty gear and management for IPv6. This won't change until
the routing table can handle a magitude more routes (at a minimum).

Large orgs have multiple tiers of management and expense sources. While
they may be using the high gear and have the propellor heads on staff
already for doing IPv6, the departmental manager doesn't want to here that
he can't use that $30 print server on his network because of some kind of
technical double-talk. This is basically the SOHO argument multiplied.

There are doubtless a million variations on this (markets are elections,
and people vote according to their priorities and values, which are
somewhat unique to each), but in general it boils down to a lack of
availability. IPv6 has to reach the same kind of unavoidable prevalance as
free NAT technology has today in order for people to start using it in the
same volume, and this is becomes increasingly true as you move towards the
network edge.

My feeling is that there has to be a group effort to change this, and it
needs across-the-board cooperation. VCs need to be shown that
bidirectional reachability is in their ultimate interest, in that it opens
the door for new technologies and products. Small carriers need to be
convinced that providing lots of addresses to each user won't bankrupt
them or make them non-competitive (probably the place where government has
the most to contribute in this whole thing is underwriting loans against
IPv6 equipment in SOHO ISPs). Edge gear that provides NAT technology also
needs to support v6 technolgy, and so does edge gear that doesn't. It
needs to be a lot easier to get private routable space so that small orgs
aren't implicitly forced to use NATs. Etcetera.

-- 
Eric A. Hall                                        http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols          http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 00:36:50 +0100

>aren't implicitly forced to use NATs. Etcetera.

Full agreement with this. You can equate it for the average internet user 
to "there is a new internet, this is what it provides the old internet did 
not provide, make sure that your next purchases are compatible with the new 
internet".

The new features list must be appealing and true.

"IPv6 = IPv4 with larger addresses" does not make a new Internet. So either 
the IETF drops the issue, either the IETF defines a new internet, or the 
IETF does as Harald said: it bundles a precise desription of what IPv6 does 
and does not do and transfers the IPv6 product to people who will use it to 
build a new internet for the users. But the more the IETF keeps talking of 
IPv6, the more it delays its possible acceptance by the public. The last 10 
years since the IETF started discussing IPv6 14 years ago show it may 
continue for ever otherwise.

jfc

---

From: Daniel Senie <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 18:43:31 -0500

At 12:07 PM 11/21/2004, Peter Ford wrote:
>Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
>Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
>         boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C4CFEC.A4503CD1"
>
>
>Noel,
>
>You are sorely under-representing the IETF's and your own efforts wrt 
>NATs.    I think of your taxonomic study of NATs much in the same vein as 
>Carl Linnaeus's "Systema Naturae".
>
>In fact, given the intellectual contributions by the think tank inside the 
>IETF to NATs, the working groups on NATs, and the protocol engineering for 
>NATs devised in the IETF, one would think that we can credit the IETF with 
>NATs and the emergent Internet NAT architecture, guided by the IESG and 
>overseen by the IAB.

The IETF NAT Working Group was formed to document the many technologies 
which were being labelled as NAT and provide some common reference. We also 
produced documentation on how to design protocols that can transit NATs 
without help, and document what things were broken by NAT. The WG did NOT 
develop NAT.

The IETF did, however, have a lot to do with limiting the availability of 
IPv4 address space, which pushed people to consider building NAT devices. 
Proteon did a lot of work in 1993 - 1994.

>
>One of the more interesting things we may encounter in the post-IPv4 era 
>is a great simplication, but not elimination of NATs.   In other words: 
>NATs become strictly address re-writers for IPv6 addresses.   And yes, 
>some of the ongoing research in NAT architecture will probably make it 
>into the IPv6 world.  I can easily imagine a world where hosts use NATs 
>and IPv6 simultaneously and I suspect this might be a next-gen firewall 
>technology.  People seem to forget that people buy NATs for IP address 
>sharing and firewalling.    They don't seem to "get it" that there are 
>very few people who would ever buy a NAT because of IPv4 address limitations.

Actually, I expect NATs will survive for a very long time as the low-cost 
way to multihome. Many devices are on the market today which provide 
multiported NAT with 2 or more upstream ISPs routing a single address or 
subnet to a port on the device, and with the device performing NAT, load 
balancing and other functions all in one box. Certainly this will be a 
simpler solution for users within many organizations than trying to deploy 
the multi6 schemes with multiple addresses on every machine.
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