There is not much to 'change' for the Heartbeat protocol, it is also drafted and submitted and done, we won't change anything to it. It has been proven to work by many users and thus we see no need to change it. Do ignore any packet which doesn't match the requirements btw as there are plans for some other additions on the same port and in UDP, draft for that coming up this week with a bit of luck. If you are speaking of the Configuration Service, expect that to disappear or to be rewritten completely, depending on the IETF etc. If the IETF picks a certain configuration protocol as the standard we will go with that. I wonder btw why you might want to make a 'clone' or better, what features you are missing in the current client etc. Throw them here or to the main contact address and maybe it can simply be added. Notez bien that BSD ports have already picked this tool up. In any case SixXS will continue to support this protocol, keeping many users happy. If for some reason something better comes along we might go in that direction but we will then still give users enough time to switch over.

It is always available from: draft-massar-v6ops-heartbeat-00.txt and other places. Some additional pushing will be done before the next IETF though. The AYIYA draft also expired, as we are still waiting for IANA to actually allocate a portnumber.