[arin-ppml] What is a "host"?

[Hannigan, Martin]

On 9/9/10 3:23 PM, "William Herrin" <bill at herrin.us> wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 1:50 PM, Loki Jorgenson <ljorgenson at inetco.com> wrote:
>> "Host" tends to be rather over-loaded semantically and in general has
>> connotation that ties it to a physical or virtual machine.  It will likely
>> be problematic if you don't get your key terms defined, particularly as it
>> appears in policy and will need to be interpreted.  "Host" doesn't map well
>> to IP addresses except in the simplest case.  And in an increasingly sensor
>> network, mobile, and cloud-based world, this won't fit well.
> 
> 
> Classically (read: not IPv6), a host is any device that speaks TCP/IP.
> Node is used interchangeably while other terms are used to specify
> specific types of host, such as a router.
> 
> 
> Officially in IPv6: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4294.txt
> 
>       Description of an IPv6 Node
>          -  a device that implements IPv6.
> 
>       Description of an IPv6 router
>          -  a node that forwards IPv6 packets not explicitly addressed
>             to itself.
> 
>       Description of an IPv6 Host
>       -  any node that is not a router.
> 


+1