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RE: draft-bonica-tunneltrace-02



All,
David has raised many good points that don't seem cosmetic but rather more fundamental. Why should a document be approved as a WG doc. if there are so many conflicting issues?

Enrique Cuevas
AT&T Labs
_______________
ecuevas@att.com
Tel. (732)-420-3252


>-----Original Message-----
>From: Loa Andersson [mailto:loa.andersson@utfors.se]
>Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 11:31 AM
>To: David Allan
>Cc: Ron Bonica; ccamp@ops.ietf.org
>Subject: Re: draft-bonica-tunneltrace-02
>
>
>All,
>
>a more IETF (possibly ccamp) philosophical question. What do
>we do when we accept a document as a WG document. In my mind
>it is a step taken when we realise that this is something that
>the WG group should do and the document is a good enough starting
>point for doing this work.
>
>Even if I agreed with all of Dave's comments it is my 2 c's
>that both the criteria above are met and that we should progress
>the doc as a WG document.
>
>There will be a couple of iterations where the comments will be
>addressed and possibly be worked into the final req doc.
>
>
>/Loa
>
>David Allan wrote:
>
>> Ron:
>> 
>> I have a number of comments on the draft.
>> 
>> Clarifications:
>> 
>> The discussion of traceroute in section 5, 2nd para. Are you really 
>> saying that
>> traceroute only reveals the current layer/level and reveals 
>no knowledge 
>> of nesting of
>> lower layer/level tunnels or the relationship of the current 
>level to 
>> higher levels?
>> It doesn't clearly come out.
>> 
>> Comments on application requirements (numbers correspond to the 
>> requirement):
>> 
>> 1) I think a broader discussion of some of the security 
>issues needs to 
>> be raised. First by
>> whatever means a trace request needs to be able to be 
>instantiated at a 
>> tunnel end
>> point. Second, as a result of initiating a trace, any node in the 
>> network may be required to
>> generate a response to the tracing application. Therefore 
>the tracing 
>> application is required
>> to promiscuously accept responses. A mechanism is required to 
>> authoritatively associate
>> responses with requests and discard spurious messages. 
>Further such a 
>> mechanism should not be
>> able to be leveraged for denial of service attacks (e.g. 
>spurious trace 
>> responses forcing lots
>> of cryptography, defense against replay attacks etc.).
>> 
>> 2) Any interface? I think any routable interface (mind you 
>this is where 
>> separating out routing
>> limitations into a separate section reduces the clarity). I 
>think there 
>> is a separate stipulation that
>> there is no representation as to the number of protocol exchanges it 
>> takes to perform a trace
>> (other than permitting the trace originator to perform some 
>measure of 
>> flow control by the protocol
>> being designed to bound the number of responses a transaction will 
>> elicit; ideally 1 to 1, this also
>> has DOS implications similar to ICMP smurf type attacks whereby the 
>> responses to a single
>> message can be unbounded). You actually bring this up 
>obliquely in the 
>> protocol requirements, but IMHO it
>> should be expressed less prescriptively.
>> 
>> 3) Is third party really a special case? Can I not instantiate an 
>> in-line trace using management
>> protocols etc. and pull back the results.
>> 
>> 4) the application "displays" tunnels (editorial nit)? are we really 
>> discussing how much information the
>> application collects and reports on. The alternative 
>interpretation is 
>> that the same amount of
>> information is always collected, and somehow filtered during 
>presentation.
>> 
>> 4) When you say "single hop" or "in detail", are you really 
>saying "this 
>> layer" or "constituent
>> lower layer components"? It could use clarification.
>> 
>> 5) Are you sure the collected information includes round trip delay? 
>> It's not clear to me
>> whether this is some pre-existing chunk of information just lying 
>> around, or where the trace
>> transaction is expected to measure RTT on the fly for every hop and 
>> provide current view.
>> 
>> 6) I think are more accurate statement is support any tunneling 
>> technology that is used between
>> IP endpoints. Otherwise this is not a sustainable requirement. I am 
>> concerned, for example, that
>> any intervening L2 or layer 2 and a half skewers the model. (e.g.. 
>> IP/PPP/L2TP, you can only
>> reveal the PPP end points, or if you look at L2TP tunnel 
>switches, you 
>> appear to be SOL)
>> 
>> 7) This is the "detail" referred to earlier? Seems this one 
>is subject 
>> to the routing
>> requirements reported later. Might be easier simply to 
>introduce that 
>> limitation here.
>> 
>> 8) Is the expectation that the quality of information 
>obtained from a 
>> control plane trace and a
>> forwarding plane be comparable? Can you clarify what you mean by a 
>> control plane trace? I can see augmenting
>> signalling protocols to faciliate this (e.g. LSP query I-D), 
>but that 
>> does not fit into this discussion.
>> 
>> 10) This seems to be overlapping with a solution framework.
>> 
>> 11) Any intention of aligning TTL models with the 
>terminology emerging 
>> elsewhere (pipe or uniform
>> models?).
>> 
>> 13) Don't quite grok the motivation. I plead ignorance ;-)
>> 
>> The protocol requirements section is actually rather 
>prescriptive. There 
>> are specific requirements
>> in there that end up as either application limitations or part of an 
>> applicability statement (e.g. routing
>> requirements) or design guidelines. The rest shouldn't be in 
>this document.
>> 
>> IMHO at the present time the document is not quite ready for 
>"prime time".
>> 
>> my two cents
>> Dave
>> 
>
>
>-- 
>Loa Andersson
>Chief Architect,
>Utfors Research, Architecture and Future Lab (URAX)
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