Subject: RE: IPv6 Src/Dst Address Pairing

From: Richard Draves <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 10:29:25 -0700

> In this case I mention (very specific too) the DNS is sending back an
> ordered list of addresses to you use in hostent with the best load
> balancing information it has at this time.

I think the ordering of the addresses inside getipnodebyname() should be a
"stable sort", so if there's a tie between two addresses (looking at the
node's own source addresses, there is no reason to prefer one destination
address over another destination address), then the two addresses are left
in the same order returned by DNS.

I think this should produce pretty good results -

When the DNS order is trying to load-balance among a cluster of closely
connected servers (so they have similar prefixes), then the
getipnodebyname() ordering will leave the DNS order alone.

When the DNS order is trying to load-balance among servers that are far
apart in the Internet (so they have different prefixes), then the
getipnodebyname() ordering will favor servers that are closer to the host.

Rich
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