Subject: [dhcwg] Cost of DHCPv6

From: JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 01:33:00 +0200

Hi all,

One of the debates that we had during the interim meeting is about using
DHCPv6 for the prefix delegation across the tunnel, or embedding the prefix
request/delegation in the tunnel handshake/setup.

The main reason why I want to raise this question is because despite a
couple of folks said DHCPv6 is a lightweight protocol, very easy to
implement and not consuming resources in the client, neither needing too
many packet exchanges, I'm not really sure if that's the view from others,
specially the cellular phone manufacturers (that's why I've specially copied
some people involved previously at the v6tc/zero-config work).

This may be the case also for other thin devices.

Today, even in XP/2003 we don't have DHCPv6 ... So is really a concern if
this will become widely available. While I agree that is better to have only
one protocol, I think it must be balanced with a few issues.

So the question is, are cellular phone vendors and other small devices
manufacturers, going to implement DHCPv6 client capable of Prefix Delegation
? Please, consider in your answer that the Prefix Delegation option may be
the main reason to use DHCPv6, it makes sense ?

Can somebody tell me how much it means in terms of code, how many packets,
other issues, etc. ?

Same questions somehow for the server side. Do you expect to become widely
available in server and router platforms ?

Regards,
Jordi

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From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 16:52:06 -0700

DHCPv6 can configure a client with a single packet exchange.   You can control 
the size of the packets to a large extent by restricting the list of options 
that you request.   Packets transmitted from the client to the server can be 
made quite small.   DHCPv6 in particular doesn't have any large fixed data 
structures, so it's not the case as with DHCPv4 that you are transmitting 192 
bytes of zeros on top of whatever actual data you need to send.

---

From: Mohacsi Janos <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 09:14:07 +0200 (CEST)

Hi Jordi,

> one protocol, I think it must be balanced with a few issues.

Official support of DHCPv6 for Windows XP/2003 not exists, but as we 
tested in 6NET project, there are some working alternatives: from NEC, 
Lucent and dibbler. They are tend to be mature.

> the main reason to use DHCPv6, it makes sense ?

For prefix delegation DHCPv6 the compiled code size can be as low as 100K 
- tested with KAME dhcpv6 client - without any optimisation the client 
size is 98156 on i386 platform. The KAME code uses BSD license, so 
implementing in embedded device is matter of importing the code, giving 
credit to the KAME project - and of course integrating into the platform.

> available in server and router platforms ?

We are using prefix delegating server on Cisco platform and FreeBSD more 
than two years now. I know, but not using, Juniper ERX platform has 
extensive DHCPv6 support also.

Regards,
 	Janos Mohacsi

---

From: JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 09:23:30 +0200

Hi Janos,

Ok. That's the point ... 100K seems to me a lot for a thin device or a
cellular phone, but I guess need to wait for some vendors to confirm as I
may be wrong.

Regards,
Jordi

> De: Mohacsi Janos <[email-masked]>
> Responder a: <[email-masked]>
> Fecha: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 09:14:07 +0200 (CEST)
> Para: JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[email-masked]>
> CC: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]"
> <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, "Soininen Jonne
> (Nokia-NET/Helsinki)" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]"
> <[email-masked]>
> Asunto: Re: [dhcwg] Cost of DHCPv6
> 
> Hi Jordi,
> 
> 
>

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From: Bruno STEVANT <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 09:49:39 +0200

Hi Jordi,

> cellular phone, but I guess need to wait for some vendors to  

Sorry but I don't see the point.
Executable size is an issue of implementation and compilation, not of  
the protocol !
BTW, I have heard that the KAME branch of DHCPv6 is moving to  
sourceforge.
If they take this occasion to redefine their requirements, we can  
give them some inputs about size/memory footprint.

-- 
Bruno STEVANT - Point6

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---

From: Francis Dupont <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 11:13:42 +0200

In your previous mail you wrote:

=> I believe Ralph Droms has a fine list of available DHCPv6 implementations.
BTW, DNS & co parameter discovery is another good reason to use DHCPv6.

=> the client is small, if you'd like I can get details about the client
we use on Linksys WRT54G boxes (aka Point6 boxes with the firmware).
The protocol itself is 2 exchanges/4 packets with an option (rapid commit)
for 1 exchange/2 packets.

=> the KAME DHCPv6 runs on Unixes (BSDs, Linux, ...), Cisco has an
integrated server, some I-Ds are available for NAS/AAA/RADIUS interactions.
IMHO DHCPv6 is ready for this job so there is no reason to look for something
else!

Thanks

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