Subject: [magma] IPv6 anycast usage API?

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 21:25:43 +0200 (EET)

Hello,

Has anyone given any thought to whether there should be any (IPv6) anycast
addressing API for _applications_?

As background, anycast support has usually been implemented either using:

 1) an "anycast" flag when configuring an address with system
administration -level tools like "ifconfig", or

 2) some vendor-specific API which applications can use to signal that
they would like to join an anycast "group".  As you may note, this is very
similar to how multicast works -- which is natural because the model is
similar.

I know a couple of implementations: most do 1), unofficial anycast support
for Linux does 2).  I'd be interested if there are other ways to make
anycast addressing usable.

The advantage of 2) is that it gets closer to applications: when an
application using an anycast address (e.g. DNS server software) e.g.  
crashes, the anycast address automatically gets removed.  Of course, there
are still failure modes, but I believe this closer to the usage model if
we want anycast to be usable for applications, and want to use it
robustly.

Of course, for some cases, 1) is also useful -- but they are not 
exclusive, I think.

Comments are very much welcome.  Should we try to document some simple API
for anycast for applications, for example?  

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

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