Subject: Re: [Int-area] I-D Action: draft-gont-intarea-obsolete-eid-option-00.txt

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 May 2012 10:36:40 +0100

I'm not sure we should do this. The base format defined by
draft-ietf-nimrod-eid-00 is generic, with only an initial variant
defined for Nimrod, so it could be used for pretty much any
future type of EID. I see no harm in leaving the option defined
but sleeping.

If the draft does proceed, there is a significant issue with
it. The Abstract says: "possibly serving as a basis for providing
advice about the filtering of packets containing this option."

However, the body of the draft doesn't expand on this point; indeed
it says:

> 2.  Security Considerations
> 
>    This document has no security implications.
> 
>    RFC Editor: Please remove this section before publication.

The last sentence is wrong since Security Considerations are
mandatory. I think the first sentence is wrong too - if we
do decide to obsolete the option, paranoid firewalls will tend
to discard packets containing it, and that needs to be noted.
All other implementations that skip extension headers will
need to continue to skip this one, even if it's officially
obsolete, for backwards compatibility.

(I have no idea whether current implementations actually do
skip this option correctly, but theoretically they ought to.)

Regards
   Brian Carpenter

On 2012-04-26 09:04, [email-masked] wrote:
> A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.
> 
> 	Title           : Obsoleting the Endpoint Identifier (EID) Option
> 	Author(s)       : Fernando Gont
> 	Filename        : draft-gont-intarea-obsolete-eid-option-00.txt
> 	Pages           : 8
> 	Date            : 2012-04-26
> 
>    This document formally obsoletes the IPv6 Endpoint Identification
>    (EID) option (hex value 0x8a), thus cleaning up the corresponding
>    IANA registry, and possibly serving as a basis for providing advice
>    about the filtering of packets containing this option.
> 
> 
> A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-gont-intarea-obsolete-eid-option-00.txt