Subject: 2495bis/2496bis misaligned with 2493bis/2558bis

From: "C. M. Heard" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 14:42:45 -0700 (PDT)

On Wed, 29 May 2002, Kaj Tesink made the following comment
in an off-line discussion regarding the interpretation of
the xyzInvalidIntervals objects in the trunk MIBs:

> i did notice some discrepancies between 2558/2493/2496bis
> that do leave room for misinterpretation

Indeed there are significant discrepancies between the definitions
of dsx1TimeElapsed, dsx1ValidIntervals, dsx1InvalidIntervals,
dsx1FarEndTimeElapsed, dsx1FarEndValidIntervals, and
dsx1FarEndInvalidIntervals in the 2495bis draft and the definitions
of dsx3TimeElapsed, dsx3ValidIntervals, dsx3InvalidIntervals,
dsx3FarEndTimeElapsed, dsx3FarEndValidIntervals, and
dsx3FarEndInvalidIntervals in the 2496bis draft on the one hand
and the instructions in RFC 2493 and the 2493bis draft regarding
xyzTimeElapsed, xyzValidIntervals, and xyzInvalidIntervals and the
definitions of sonetMediumTimeElapsed, sonetMediumValidIntervals,
and sonetMediumInvalidIntervals in RFC 2558 and the 2558bis draft
on the other hand.

Oddly enough, these discrepancies are, for the most part, _absent_
from RFC 2495 and RFC 2496.

After searching my trunk-mib mail archives I think I have figured
out how this arose.  Late in the process of advancing the drafts
that became RFC 2493, 2495, 2496, and 2558, Kaj Tesink and I noticed
some discrepancies between the text of PerfHist-MIB/SONET-MIB and
DS1-MIB/DS3-MIB.  We provided to the INT ADs corrections to various
DESCRIPTION clauses in DS1-MIB/DS3-MIB that were not included in any
Internet Draft but rather were forwarded by the IESG directly to the
RFC Editor for inclusion in the published text.  David Fowler, then
the DS1-MIB/DS3-MIB editor, was on vacation at the time and therefore
was out of the loop while this went on, and all of us who were involved
dropped the ball by failing to inform him of these last-minute changes.
My guess is that these changes were never incorporated into the editor's
nroff source and that the current editor Orly Niklass started from a
baseline that did not include them.  Perhaps Orly and/or David can
confirm this.

In any case, an investigation with the smidiff tool from libsmi-0.3.1
reveals that the following objects in 2495bis have DESCRIPTION
clauses which agree with the ones in the 1998 DS1-MIB draft
draft-ietf-trunkmib-ds1-mib-09.txt but which disagree with the
ones in RFC 2495:

dsx1TimeElapsed
dsx1ValidIntervals
dsx1InvalidIntervals
dsx1IntervalValidData
dsx1FarEndTimeElapsed
dsx1FarEndValidIntervals
dsx1FarEndInvalidIntervals
dsx1FarEndIntervalValidData

A similar investigation reveals that the following objects in
2496bis have DESCRIPTION clauses which agree with the ones in the
1998 draft draft-ietf-trunkmib-ds3-mib-09.txt but which disagree
with the ones in RFC 2496:

dsx3TimeElapsed
dsx3ValidIntervals
dsx3InvalidIntervals
dsx3IntervalValidData
dsx3FarEndTimeElapsed
dsx3FarEndValidIntervals
dsx3FarEndInvalidIntervals
dsx3FarEndIntervalCESs
dsx3FarEndIntervalValidData

Attached below are two set of context diffs, relative to the current
2495bis and 2496bis drafts, that are intended to restore alignment
with 2493/2493bis/2558/2558bis for the objects mentioned above.
These context diffs are functionally identical to those I sent to
the INT ADs back in 1998 for the -09 ds1 and ds3 drafts, and thus
put back the DESCRIPTION clause text found in RFC 2495 and 2496,
with the following exceptions:

1.) Several typos are fixed in the definition of the term Proxy
in Section 2.4.5 of 2495bis (DS3/E3 changed to DS1/E1).

2.) The column alignment is fixed in the definition of
dsx1SendCode.

3.) A typo is fixed in the dsx1Ds1ChannelNumber DESCRIPTION
clause (Ds2/E2 changed to DS2/E2).

4.) The following sentence is added to the end of the DESCRIPTION
clauses for dsx1FarEndValidIntervals and dsx3FarEndValidIntervals:

    In the case where the agent is a proxy, it is
    possible that some intervals are unavailable.  In
    this case, this interval is the maximum interval
    number for which data is available.

Note that this addition aligns the DESCRIPTION clauses for these
far-end objects with those for their near-end counterparts
dsx1ValidIntervals and dsx3ValidIntervals.  This sentence was
inadvertently omitted from the far-end DESCRIPTION clauses 
in the 1998 submission to the INT ADs.

I hope that these updates are non-controversial and can be
included in the next spin of the 2495bis and 2496bis drafts.
Let me emphasize once again that they are intended (with
just the exceptions noted above) to back out unintended
changes in 2495bis and 2496bis relative to the baseline
RFCs, and _not_ to introduce new changes to the MIBs.  Also,
let me apologize to the WG and DS1/DS3 editors for my part
in creating this mess.

Regards,

Mike
-- 
C. M. Heard
[email-masked]