Subject: RE: why market picked up NATs [Re: Write-ups on why RFC1918 is bad?]

From: "Michel Py" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 22:03:24 -0700

Erik,

> Erik Nordmark wrote:
> It isn't clear to me at what point the pain caused by NAT in
> different cases will be high enough to motivate a transition
> to some different technology, or whether there must be new
> capabilities (such as the ability to have multiple servers
> at the same port number in a home) that are perceived
> important enough to cause migration away from NAT solutions.

I don't think that the ability to have multiple servers on the same port
is significant enough to trigger a migration; there would need to be a
more significant change. Bottom line is that on my single IP at home, I
host all the services I want, use H.323, peer-to-peer apps, and whatever
else I please and yes it does work.

The annoyance at this point in time is manual configuration to make it
work, but with things such as UPNP and STUN it gets easier and easier.
If we were in a world where we did not need stateful firewalls, NAT
would be a lot more of a hassle than it is today; unfortunately dealing
with a stateful firewall with or without NAT is about the same amount of
work, so NAT is here to stay.

I have to say that given the recent trends and developments, I am now on
the fence WRT joining the camp that says that NAT is unavoidable for v6
so we might as well make it work. I have not made my mind yet but if
things continue the way they are now you will likely find me developing
a NATv6 box this time next year.

Michel.

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From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 07:55:21 +0200

> else I please and yes it does work.

But only because application and NAT box builders are bending over 
backwards to support it.

> the fence WRT joining the camp that says that NAT is unavoidable for v6

Where is this camp hiding?

> a NATv6 box this time next year.

When I sent you http://www.bgpexpert.com/darkside.mp3 a while ago that 
was a joke, you know.

I think adding NAT to the mix in IPv6 makes no sense at all, as NAT in 
itself doesn't provide any useful functionality, it's only a crutch to 
get around lack of address space (which isn't an issue in IPv6) or 
renumbering (which is less of an issue in IPv6).

It would certainly be possible to rearrange the IP architecture in such 
a way that NAT fits in. (There are numerous technologies where 
address-like fields change in transit.) However, this means a 
significant number of changes in many places, not unlike the changes 
necessary to support IPv6...

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From: Kurt Erik Lindqvist <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 08:55:57 +0200

> a NATv6 box this time next year.

Just out of curiosity, then why bother migrating to IPv6 at all? What 
have you gained?

- - kurtis -