[Babel-users] Question about AHCP

[Juliusz Chroboczek]

> (If the network would have a mesh-wide multicast implementation, you could 
> just use it and forget about the forwarders, right ?)

Bootstrapping issues.  The main reason AHCP implements its own multicast
routing rather than relying on the IP layer is that at the point when
you run AHCP, the network has not bootstrapped yet.

I find it simpler and more reliable to make AHCP a self-contained
protocol, hence the need for AHCP forwarders.

> My problem with AHCP for IPv4 is that it's a little bit difficult to
> manage in a mesh with a "distributed" administration. Do you ever
> planned to add the possibility that AHCP-servers could somehow "trade"
> free IP space so you don't need the totally strict IP separation of
> servers. Or maybe to distribute the leases to other AHCP-servers so
> you have some redundancy ?

Yes, that's prefix delegation.  Discussed on this list a few weeks ago.

The trouble with relying too much on prefix delegation is that it
introduces a single point of failure, so I personally prefer to have
multiple completely independent AHCP servers.  Note that you should not
need more than 2 or 3 AHCP servers in your mesh, so the amount of
administration should be quite reasonable.

                                        Juliusz