Re: Port numbers and IPv6 (was: I-D

[Bob Hinden <bob.hinden at nokia.com>]

David,

> I was looking more for an explanation of how and why it was decided to
> be out of scope.
>
> The arguments for considering it to be in scope would have been:
>
>  - the TCP and UDP "pseudo-headers" needed to be changed anyway to
>    accomodate IPv6 addresses (see section 8.1 of RFC 2460);
>
>  - the pressure on well-known port numbers was obvious at the time;
>
>  - supporting 32-bit port numbers in IPv6 stacks could have been done
>    at very little incremental cost;
>
>  - a larger port space would have been an additional incentive to
>    adopt IPv6;
>
>  - more ambitious changes to TCP would have a low probability of
>    adoption within a relevant timeframe;
>
>  - it makes sense for the port number space to be the same size for
>    UDP-over-IPv6 and TCP-over-IPv6.

It was for the pragmatic reason of not wanting to redesign IP and TCP at 
the same time.  This would have made the overall IPng effort much 
harder.  At the time, there wasn't a pressing need to redesign TCP.  I 
don't remember any detailed technical analysis.

Bob



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