Technical Summary
This document describes a protocol for asking an IPv6 node to supply
certain network information, such as its hostname or fully-qualified
domain name. IPv6 implementation experience has shown that direct
queries for a hostname are useful, and a direct query mechanism for
other information has been found useful in serverless environments
and for debugging.
Working Group Summary
The latest specification does differ from what is currently deployed.
Reviews revealed that the multicast prefix used by the Node Info
Queries does not conform to the requirements of RFC 3307. The
editors corrected the oversight within the specification to ensure
proper operation over the long-term. Those who have already
implemented the protocol agreed with the change and plan on
updating their code to conform to the new multicast prefix.
Other minor changes were made to address deprecated functionality
that no longer needs to be supported (e.g. IPv4-compatible addresses
and site-local addresses).
Protocol Quality
IPv6 Node Information Queries have been widely implemented in the ping6
program in the KAME (<http://www.kame.net>), USAGI, and other IPv6
implementations. It is proved to be very useful when
debugging problems or when bringing up IPv6 service where there isn't
global routing or DNS name services available. IPv6's large auto-
configured addresses make debugging network problems and bringing up
IPv6 service difficult without these mechanisms.