[Ns-developers] Design Review of ns-3-ipv6-1st (ns-3.3 new feature)

[craigdo@ee.washington.edu]

Hi all,

We have received a request to merge a new feature into ns-3.3 (the upcoming
stable release of ns-3 scheduled for release in December).  Based on our
recently updated release process, we have to do a design review of the
feature addition, and the current maintainers of the ns-3 codebase have to
sign off on it, before we merge it into ns-3-dev and then into ns-3.3.

I sent the below email to the maintainers yesterday requesting an "official"
design review for Sebastien Vincent's ns-3-ipv6-1st feature.  The
maintainers are in general agreement that they want to do the review in a
public setting and also solicit input from people on the ns-developers
mailing list.  This means some technical emails will probably start flying
around regarding possibly abstract questions of IPv6 support in ns-3.  I
wanted to provide some context before that happens.

So, this email is an introduction to the design review thread for the first
piece of the IPv6 support in ns-3.  As far as timing goes, this all needs to
be wrapped up by about the end of the month.  Anyone reading should feel
free to take a look at the submitted code and voice opinions.

Regards,

-- Craig

> You are receiving this email because you are a maintainer of 
> ns-3 and a new
> feature addition is being considered for ns-3.3.
> 
> We have a submission of "ns-3-ipv6-1st" to be considered as a 
> new feature
> addition for ns-3.3.  As indicated in our release process, 
> this submission
> crosses maintainer responsibilities and so a design review 
> should be done.
> Also this could be a fairly significant change in terms of 
> usability and API
> that could be very visible in the future.
> 
> Before proceeding I'll need some kind of positive 
> acknowledgement from each
> of you that you don't have any issues and that we should go 
> ahead and merge
> this patch.
> 
> If there are any discussions about the change, it would 
> probably be good to
> copy everyone.
> 
> The following is the email from Sebastien 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Sébastien Vincent [mailto:vincent at clarinet.u-strasbg.fr] 
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 2:30 AM
> > To: craigdo at u.washington.edu
> > Cc: 'Tom Henderson'; 'Mathieu Lacage'; 'Craig Dowell'
> > Subject: ns-3-ipv6-1st 
> > 
> > Hi Craig,
> > 
> > Code :
> > ====
> > 
> > The repository that contains the first chunk of IPv6 is located at 
> > http://code.nsnam.org/vincent/ns-3-ipv6-1st/ and it is 
> > synchronized with 
> > ns-3-dev. The corresponding patch file is attached.
> > 
> > Summary of changes :
> > ==============
> > 
> > The features of this first chunk of IPv6 provide the addresses, the 
> > routes, the IPv6 header and some changes in *NetDevice to 
> > allow specific 
> > ethernet multicast addresses to be forward up to layer 3.
> > 
> > Files added : 
> > - src/node/ipv6-route.cc/h;
> > - src/node/ipv6-address.cc/h;
> > - src/node/inet6-socket-address.cc,h;
> > - src/node/ipv6-header.cc,h;
> > - src/node/icmp-socket.cc,h;
> > - example/test-ipv6.cc.
> > 
> > Changes on existing code :
> > - Add virtual method GetMulticast6 and MakeMulticast6Address  in 
> > NetDevice and all of its subclasses (CsmaNetDevice, ...);
> > - In CsmaNetDevice, we declare some ethernet representation of 
> > well-known IPv6 multicast address, and forward up all packet 
> > (that match 
> > these addresses) to layer 3.
> > 
> > This first chunk is not sufficient to do IPv6 simulations, 
> it is just 
> > the addresses and the changes in NetDevice. In very old 
> > previous mail, 
> > we planned to include the layer 3 (Ipv6L3Protocol, ...) in 
> > the second chunk.
> > 
> > Maybe it will be good to have IPv6 layer 3 protocol, ICMPv6 / 
> > Neighbor 
> > Discovery protocol and a Ping6 application & example. What do 
> > you think ?
> > 
> > Regards,
> > --
> > Sebastien Vincent
> > Network and Research team -  University of Strasbourg
> > 
> > 
>