NAT IMHO has been vilified for a lot of bad instances of NAT from the past. Now unfortunately, the term is identified with evil only, so maybe we should find a better term for what IMHO are really useful/beneficial instances. Maybe "address rewrite".
Non-evil address rewrite IMHO is per-flow-stateless as for example used in IP with the various SIIT variants. There are various interesting benficial scenarios for stateless address rewrite, such as (but not limited to): a) the ability to eliminate the need for a single global address plan which eliminates a lot of administrative work for many type of private networks b) the ability to build light-weight embedded equipment with hard-burned "generic" addresses - c) Host stack address stability d) Traffic steering a), b), d) are example use-cases for which i've also looked into my FA-IINAS draft and its address rewrite functions. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-eckert-intarea-functional-addr-internets/ Cheers Toerlss On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 12:48:59PM +0100, Alexandre Petrescu wrote: > Sorry, I take advantage of this valuable public conversation between > you to mention a point that might be related. > > Le 25/01/2022 à 20:30, Geoff Huston a écrit : > > [...] various judgemental observations (Like "NAT is evil”, “NBATs break > > stuff”, etc,) feel free, but they are your constructions, not mine. The > > issue for me is not judgments of “good” or “bad”, but simply to explore, > > without overtones of judgement, exactly what an IP > > address represents in today’s Internet. [...] > > Without jugding, and without thinking others might judge, i.e. to > qualify as 'good' or 'bad'. > > I do think there might be value in questioning whether there might be > something inherent in the IP addressing system which might lead to less > positive consequences. It is a question on the cause-to-effect dynamics. > > What in the IP addressing system makes it possible that NAT has been > designed and used largely? Lack of space in v4 - ok - but is there > anything more to that problem, now that IPv6 solves the space size > problem? Is the fact that NAT kind of probably protection is helping? > > For example, if the IP addressing system had variable length addresses > (instead of fixed length) - would that make the translation process of > NAT be unacceptably long, and hence no NAT would be feasible? > > Other than that, what other characteristic of the IP addressing system > might have an impact on the existence of NATs? > > What other characteristic of the IP addressing system has no impact at > all on the existence of NATs? I.e. one could change that characteristic > but NATs would still be designed. > > Other than NAT and IP addresses, there are other aspects of the current > Internet addressing that are less desirable. > > For example: the open Internet and its open addressing system leads to a > need of privacy respecting for the individual; which is good. At the > same time, the new privacy rules are not making everyone happy. Some > times it goes to large extents. For example, some addresses of web > sites are not visible to others _because_ of that privacy ruling. Not > all websites in all countries accept to abide to the privacy rules of > other countries. Such websites refuse to abide and block access altogether. > > That situation is clearly against the openness of access in the Internet. > > It is not a matter of paying money or not to access data. Even if one > pays one is still not given access because one is situated in a country > of a particular privacy ruling. > > It is a strange situation in which the ruling of privacy is not > accepted. Those sites who do not accept to deliver data according to > the privacy rules do so not because they dont agree with a general > principle of privacy, but because they dont agree with that particular > ruling (GDPR in this case) of privacy. > > What is at fault for that situation? > > Is there something in the Internet addressing system at higher layer > (above IP) that might be qualified as being a little bit in error for > that lack of access? > > For example, if the 'cookies' used by HTTP involved host names (host > names are also a sort of addresses) whose structure was agreed locally, > then there would be more positive view of the generally negative view of > 'tracking'. For example, a locally agreed way to identify people is > generally accepted (license plates, faces, more) but a universal way of > identification (hostname containing 'Windows' characteristics) might be > less accepted. > > Alex > > _______________________________________________ > Int-area mailing list > Int-area@ietf.org > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/int-area -- --- t...@cs.fau.de _______________________________________________ Int-area mailing list Int-area@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/int-area
