Subject: [Isis-wg] Error in IANA TLVs listing

From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2009 15:46:19 -0400

Hi,

I believe there is a significant error in the IANA listing of IS-IS TLVs at
http://www.iana.org/assignments/isis-tlv-codepoints

In particular, both TLV #2 and TLV #6 are listed as "IIS Neighbors". I
believe that is correct for TLV #6 but that TLV #2 is the older IS
Reachability TLV ("narrow metric"). Should someone contact IANA to get
this fixed?

Thanks,
Donald

PS: Actually, to be persnickety, since the reference is ISP 10589,
looking there, I think TLV #6 is called "IS Neighbors" or
"Intermediate System Neighbors", not "IIS Neighbors".
=============================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1-508-634-2066 (home)
 155 Beaver Street
 Milford, MA 01757 USA
 [email-masked]

---

From: Tony Li <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 01:42:41 -0700

Hi Donald,

> http://www.iana.org/assignments/isis-tlv-codepoints

I confirm the error.  It seems to source from RFC 3359, which initially 
populated the registry.

> "Intermediate System Neighbors", not "IIS Neighbors".

TLV 6 is indeed "Intermediate System Neighbors" (see 9.6).  However, TLV 
2 is also "Intermediate System Neighbors"  (see 9.8, 9.9).

I believe that the correct procedure here is for someone, in this case 
you, as discoverer, to contact IANA and inform them of the error.  As 
the registry is managed under the 'expert review' process, they can 
contact their experts and have this confirmed and corrected.

I propose that the correction be to make them both "IS Neighbors".  It's 
unfortunate that 10589 overloaded the term, but I believe that we're not 
in a position to correct that at this point.

Regards,
Tony

---

From: mike shand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:59:09 +0100

I agree with Tony.

    Mike

Tony Li wrote:
> I confirm the error.  It seems to source from RFC 3359, which 
> initially populated the registry.
>
>
> TLV 6 is indeed "Intermediate System Neighbors" (see 9.6).  However, 
> TLV 2 is also "Intermediate System Neighbors"  (see 9.8, 9.9).
>
> I propose that the correction be to make them both "IS Neighbors".  
> It's unfortunate that 10589 overloaded the term, but I believe that 
> we're not in a position to correct that at this point.

>
> Regards,
> Tony
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Isis-wg mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/isis-wg
>

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From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 10:38:38 -0400

OK, I'll send in an errata to IANA.

I think maintaining conflicting names is a bad idea so, while of
course the expert can do whatever they like, I plan to recommend that
the main listing name for TLV #2 be "IS Reachability TLV" with a
footnote stating that the ISO standard confusingly calls it the same
thing as TLV #6.

Thanks,
Donald

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 5:59 AM, mike shand<[email-masked]> wrote:
>> TLV 6 is indeed "Intermediate System Neighbors" (see 9.6).  However, TLV 2
>> is also "Intermediate System Neighbors"  (see 9.8, 9.9).
>>
>> you, as discoverer, to contact IANA and inform them of the error.  As the
>> registry is managed under the 'expert review' process, they can contact
>> their experts and have this confirmed and corrected.
>>
>> unfortunate that 10589 overloaded the term, but I believe that we're not in
>> a position to correct that at this point.
>
>
>
>>
>> Regards,
>> Tony
>>
>>
>>
>>

---

From: Tony Li <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:42:27 -0700

Donald,

If you want to propose name changes and fix the overloading, that would 
be fine by me.  However, I believe that would properly require an RFC.

Tony

---

From: Donald Eastlake <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:33:12 -0400

I'd be happy to write an RFC to do this if it seems like it has a
reasonable probability of approval. I'll poke around a bit and see if
there seems to be anything else such a hypothetical "IS-IS TLV
Nomenclature" RFC should do.

Thanks,
Donald

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 10:42 PM, Tony Li<[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> Donald,
>
> If you want to propose name changes and fix the overloading, that would be
> fine by me.  However, I believe that would properly require an RFC.
>
> Tony
>
>
> Donald Eastlake wrote:
>>
>>>>> I believe there is a significant error in the IANA listing of IS-IS
>>>>> TLVs
>>>>> at
>>>> 2
>>>> the
>>>> in

---

From: mike shand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:21:02 +0100

I'm not really sure how that would help unless we could get the names 
changed in ISO/IEC 10589 itself. I rather doubt both the ability to do 
that, and the desirability, even if we could.

We would simply be replacing the potential confusion caused by having 
two TLVs with the same name, but different numbers and which are used in 
different PDUs, with the confusion caused by having a TLV (2) which is 
called "Intermediate System Neighbors" in ISO/IEC 10589 (and probably 
much documentation and code based on that) and called "IS reachability 
TLV" in some obscure RFC.

Incidentally this duplicate naming has persisted since the days of 
DECnet PhaseV, where they were both called "Router Neighbors", since 
that is what they are. They contain the information about router (or in 
ISO terms IS) neighbors as is appropriate to the PDU in which they 
appear. Since they had different type numbers and appeared in different 
PDUs, there didn't seem any confusion.

I agree, however, that RFC 3563 is in error and the "name" field therein 
should be changed to match the relevant standard(s).

I haven't done so, but it would be wise to check the remaining names for 
consistency as well.

    Mike

---

From: Tony Li <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:06:59 -0700

Mike,

> that, and the desirability, even if we could.

Having it in an RFC would allow us to submit it to JTC1 on the fast 
track.  We could then also amend the IANA registry in anticipation of 
this being approved.  Please see RFC 3563, section 3.4.2.

> TLV" in some obscure RFC.

... and an update of 10589.

Tony

---

From: "Les Ginsberg (ginsberg)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:07:22 -0700

Tony -

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
Behalf
> Of Tony Li
> Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 8:07 PM
> To: Mike Shand (mshand)
> Cc: isis mailing list
> Subject: Re: [Isis-wg] Error in IANA TLVs listing
> 
> 
> Mike,
> 
> mike shand wrote:
> track.

Being one of a small group of folks who actively worked on getting the
most recent ISO 10589 update (2002) out I think I can authoritatively
(and hopefully non-offensively) chuckle at this statement.

Let's save our efforts for something more substantive and settle for
consistency. Folks have lived with the overloaded name for 20+ years - I
don't see any pressing need to change this.

   Les

>  We could then also amend the IANA registry in anticipation of

---

From: Tony Li <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:27:44 -0700

Les,

> don't see any pressing need to change this.

My statement was more procedural than about priorities.  I agree that we 
can live with the overloading.  However, if Donald and other folks feel 
sufficiently strongly that they want to fix this, it cannot hurt to 
submit it.

Further, over time there are likely to be other updates to 10589, even 
if only editorial.  Those would seem to be an opportunity.

Tony