[e2e] What should e2e protocols know about lower layers?

[Joe Touch]

sthaug at nethelp.no wrote:

>>I guess I'm the one on the other side of the debate.
>>
>>IPv4 certainly has a notion of local - the subnets to which you are 
>>directly connected. This is why, IMO, broadcasts are permitted there.
>>
>>IMO, a network that has a long link (as above) that is not configured as 
>>point-to-point is misconfigured.
>>
> 
> You may certainly argue so. However, it seems fairly clear to me that in
> the current networking environment we're seeing a steady increase in the
> number of such long links which are configured as L2 broadcast networks.
> 
> It would probably not be a good idea to simply ignore such configurations
> in the hope that they magically disappear...


We're also seeing a proliferation of NAT boxes.

At some point we have to decide what is an appropriate or meaningful 
part of the architecture. Certainly misconfigured things aren't. Perhaps 
such NATs and long links configured as broadcast should be in the same bin.

Joe