Subject: Protocol Action: NBMA Next Hop Resolution Protocol (NHRP) to Proposed Standard

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 07:01:13 -0500

The IESG has approved publication of the following four Internet-Drafts
as Proposed Standards:

o NBMA Next Hop Resolution Protocol (NHRP) <draft-ietf-rolc-nhrp-15.txt>
o NHRP Protocol Applicability Statement <draft-ietf-ion-nhrp-appl-02.txt>
o Server Cache Synchronization Protocol (SCSP) <draft-ietf-ion-scsp-05.txt>
o A Distributed NHRP Service Using SCSP <draft-ietf-ion-scsp-nhrp-05.txt>

The IESG also approved publication of Classical IP to NHRP Transition
<draft-ietf-ion-transition-03.txt> as an Informational RFC.

These documents are the product of the Internetworking Over NBMA
Working Group.  The IESG contact persons are Jeffrey Burgan and Thomas
Narten.

Technical Summary
 
The NHRP protocol allows a sender attached to a NBMA network to
determine the link-layer address of a destination (or egress router)
for a destination that is on the same NMBA network, but not necessarily
on the same logically independent IP subnet (LIS). That is, NHRP
provides "cut-through" routing so that communication between two nodes
attached to the same NBMA network can take place directly, even in
cases where the traditional LIS model would require one or more extra
hops through routers. The NHRP protocol is documented in "NBMA Next Hop
Resolution Protocol (NHRP)".

The SCSP protocol provides a way to synchronize distributed databases.
The idea behind SCSP is to use the same general flooding algorithm used
by link-state routing algorithms such as OSPF to propagate the database
information from its point of origin to all of the nodes within a
Server Group. For the most part, SCSP does not care about the nature of
the information that needs to be distributed and can be used to
synchronize many kinds of data objects. To use SCSP, a protocol will
generally define a separate document that describes details of how to a
protocol makes use of SCSP's capability (e.g., "A Distributed NHRP
Service Using SCSP). The SCSP protocol is documented in "Server Cache
Synchronization Protocol (SCSP)"

The document "A Distributed NHRP Service Using SCSP" describes how to
use SCSP to distribute and synchronize specific information used by
NHRP. The document "NHRP Protocol Applicability Statement" describes
the type of environment in which NHRP is expected to be useful. The
document "IP to NHRP Transition" describes how to transition a site
using ATMARP servers to one based on NHRP.

Working Group Summary

There was no significant WG dissent with these documents.

Protocol Quality

These protocols have been reviewed by the IESG by Thomas Narten.

Note to RFC Editor:

1. Please replace the Security Considerations text in draft-ietf-ion-nhrp-appl-02.txt 
   with the following:

   NHRP is an address resolution protocol, and SCSP is a database
   synchronization protocol.  As such, they are possibly subject to
   server (for NHRP) or peer (for SCSP) spoofing and denial of service
   attacks.  They both provide authentication mechanisms to allow their
   use in environments in which spoofing is a concern.  Details can be
   found in sections 5.3.4 in [1] and B.3.1 in [8].  There are no
   additional security constraints or concerns raised in this document
   that are not already discussed in the referenced sections.

2. Please change the title of draft-ietf-ion-transition-02.txt to:

	Classical IP and ARP over ATM to NHRP Transition

3. Please replace Section C of draft-ietf-ion-scsp-05.txt. New text:

     Any and all requests for value assignment from the various number
     spaces described in this document require proper documentation.
     Possible forms of documentation include, but are not limited to, RFCs
     or the product of another cooperative standards body (e.g., the MPOA
     and LANE subworking group of the ATM Forum). Other requests may also
     be accepted, under the advice of a "designated expert" (Contact the
     IANA for the contact information of the current expert.)

4. The IANA designated expert as mentioned in Section C of draft-ietf-ion-scsp-05.txt
   is James V. Luciani <[email-masked]>.