Subject: [Idr] SAFI and other codepoint issues

From: Jeffrey Haas <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2005 17:02:22 -0400

I am unable to attend this IETF and am unable to bring this issue 
up in front of the sitting working group. I'd like to suggest
that the working group spend a few cycles on what I perceive to be
an issue with code point assignments.

RFC 2858's IANA considerations requested the following:

:    As specified in this document, the MPL_REACH_NLRI and MP_UNREACH_NLRI
:    attributes contain the Subsequence Address Family Identifier (SAFI)
:    field. The SAFI name space is defined in Section 9. The IANA will
:    maintain and register values for the SAFI namespace as follows.  SAFI
:    value 0 is reserved. SAFI values 1, 2, and 3 are assigned in this
:    document.  SAFI values 4 through 63 are to be assigned by IANA using
:    the "IETF Consensus" policy defined in RFC 2434. SAFI values 64
:    through 127 are to be assigned by IANA, using the "First Come First
:    Served" policy defined in RFC 2434. SAFI values 128 through 255 are
:    for "private use", and values in this range are not to be assigned by
:    IANA.

(I never noticed the typo, MPL_REACH_NLRI :-)

By definition of RFC 2434, private use is:

:       Private Use - For private or local use only, with the type and
:            purpose defined by the local site. No attempt is made to
:            prevent multiple sites from using the same value in different
:            (and incompatible) ways. There is no need for IANA to review
:            such assignments and assignments are not generally useful for
:            interoperability.

I am under the general impression that "private use" should NOT be used
for any protocol mechanism standardized by the IETF.  However, a number
of mechanisms, deployed or in the process of being deployed, are making
use of these supposed "private use" codepoints.  For example, RFC 2547
utilizes SAFI 128.

IANA seems to be tracking this usage:
http://www.iana.org/assignments/safi-namespace

An author of one of these recent mechanisms put it to me during
a review:

: IANA managed space is not a realistic option imho... the process to
: get a number assigned takes too long given that it is usually tied to
: WG/IESG approval. At least in my experience requesting a number from
: IANA is equivalent to attempting a conversation w/ /dev/null.

It seems to me that FCFS is the appropriate mechanism for this.  I have
no experience in getting a FCFS assignment from IANA so I can't vouch
for whether this experience is typical or not.

For the working group, I'd like to ask: Is there a better way to 
avoid collisions other than behind-the-scenes collusion between vendors?

For the area directors: Are there really issues with IANA?  Why are
we approving protocol mechanisms with code point assignments in
supposedly private space?  Why is IANA tracking them?

This issue, in the grand scheme of things, is minor.  Work gets done and
code gets written.  However, it argues we have a procedural issue.

-- 
Jeff Haas 
NextHop Technologies

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From: Yakov Rekhter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2005 15:03:37 -0700

Jeff,

> code gets written.  However, it argues we have a procedural issue.

Thanks for bringing this up. May I suggest that folks should look
at the discussion on the pwe3 wg mailing list subject "[PWE3] PWE3 
IANA policy - rough consesnus", as it is relevant to the topic brought
up here.

Yakov.