Date:        Thu, 10 Feb 2000 03:23:11 +0900
    From:        itojun@iijlab.net
    Message-ID:  <25493.950120591@coconut.itojun.org>

I am (once again) in a period of mail catch up, so this is delayed...

  | 	The IPv6 specification clearly separates routers and hosts.
  | 	Only hosts are supposed to be autoconfigured.

This may be just a matter of language, but as I read this, it isn't
quite correct.   There's nothing about IPv6 that prevents routers
being autoconfigured.   There is however, also nothing there (yet
anyway) to make autoconfiguring a router something that you would
want to attempt right now (there is information that a router will
need that there is currently no good way to get - eg: what subnet numbers
to assign to various interfaces, and what routing protocols should be
enabled, and to what peers).  Router renumbering is the first step towards
this, but of itself, isn't nearly enough.

  | 	The specification prohibits autoconfiguration of routers.

No it doesn't.   However, you can't treat a router as a host and just
do host autoconfig, and then magically turn into a router somehow, if
you try that you'll end up in something of a mess in general.

There are some IPv6 people who don't see much benefit (or desire) to
autoconfig routers, but I suspect they're imagining that routers are
ciscos (and big ciscos at that) (or substitute your favourite replacement
brand name there).   When it gets to cable modems, and all kinds of other
consumer devices that really ought to be "plug in and turn on", some kind
of router auto-configuration is clearly going to be needed - and will
eventually be defined.

Of course, you should all take itojun's advice, and not attempt to
mangle the KAME code into doing something it was not designed to do.

kre