Re: Bug#594672: ITP: dhcpcd5 -- a DHCP client

[Bjørn Mork <bjorn@mork.no>]

Philipp Kern <trash@philkern.de> writes:

> DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 are sufficiently different protocol-wise to warrant two
> different clients.  (The v6 people might not want to deal with the cruft
> of DHCPv4 too...)

Absolutely!  

Create a new DHCPv6 client, cleanly implementing the protocol without
having to carry all the unnecessary DHCPv4 baggage.  Or even better:
Work on improving some of the *existing* DHCPv6 clients.  Maybe we can
get at least one of them in good enough shape to be actually usable.  I
tried to summarize the situation here in December:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/nsp/ipv6/20683

I don't think much has changed since then. 

The ISC has already demonstrated that combining the clients is a big
mistake, no matter how big your existing IPv4 codebase is.  Their IPv6
support is still not usable in some for what will be the most common
DHCPv6 scenario due to the lack of ppp support (which of course is
completely unnecessary for IPv4).

An example: xs4all has recently announced native IPv6 access for all
their users (opt-in), using DHCPv6-PD on top of PPP:
http://www.xs4all.nl/klant/ipv6/

This is exactly what the ISP I'm working for will do when we get that
far, and I assume many other ISPs will do something similar. DHCPv6-PD
is essantial.  And using PPP for the link simplifies a lot in a world
where most layer 2 equipment is still unprepared for IPv6.



Bjørn