Re: [gentoo-user] /etc/hosts include file?

[Alan McKinnon]

On 08/03/2013 15:40, Michael Mol wrote:
>> IPv6 is wonderfully easy to use client-side and reasonably easy to plug
>> > into an existing network (the routers mostly know what to do already).
>> > The fun starts when you need to write an app that tracks and does range
>> > allocations at ISP scale, all while keeping the PTRs in line too. Sadly
>> > for me, my team works in that area and such a magic app is one of our
>> > deliverables
> My mouth is watering...
>
>> >
>> > One day when I've climbed down off the walls and my fingernails have
>> > grown back, I might be up to relating what it is taking to get that
>> > done.... :-)
> I don't suppose you knew I'm a huge IPv6 advocate, and travel around my
> state giving free training sessions...
>
> I would absolutely love to hear about the problems you're facing.
> Further, I'd love to help you get past them...and can put you in touch
> with experts who might also be able to help.
>
>

I too am a huge fan of IPv6. It will all at once fix two things:

1. The craziness of trying to conserve IPv4 space
2. NAT. Finally, a good solid techical reason to make NAT just go away
and stay away. Permanently. Forever.

Without getting into huge amounts of boring detail on the list, the
major problem is finding software that can fulfil our backend needs.

We're an ISP and we sell address space. We also allocate space
internally to our own customers and need to keep accurate records as to
who has what. There are some good packages on the market that function
as a DNS backend where you enter the relevant IPv6 data and it takes
care of the forward and reverse entries. We need something a bit more
than that, we need the software to do block allocation. So it must not
be a mere record of stuff, it must be the authoritative source of
reference for that stuff, and it must understand the people involved and
their roles (what they may allocate etc).

The best package we found so far is one from Cricket Liu's company (I
forget the app name for the moment, it was a while ago) but it doesn't
do allocation and the backend db isn't really designed for that.

And I nearly forgot to mention, I also need magic post-allocation hooks
in the code. I'm determined to get to a point where unallocated blocks
will be black-holed by the core routers. They must only start passing
the traffic once a properly assigned block has been allocated and
recorded as such. If you ever worked at ISP level, you will immediately
understand why that is rather important :-)

Speak later.


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@×××××.com