Re: "Last Look" at the RADIUS Design Guidelines document

[Alan DeKok <aland@deployingradius.com>]

Wojciech Dec (wdec) wrote:
> It's not unreasonable to expect that whoever wants to use a complex
> attribute (against the recommendations of this BCP

  The BCP recommends against complex attributes when the traditional
data types would be sufficient for expressing the data.

  Where traditional data types are insufficient, the BCP allows complex
types.

> To put it in other words; if a radius server does not support an
> attribute that is deemed useful by an operator, it will get changed,
> period. 

  I agree.

> The point is thus, that the main value of Radius is in what the protocol
> does and not entirely in in how it does it. With the BCP, without a
> reference to "historic" or some other term to describe that server
> segment, we're constraining the "how" for all time to come without
> giving a path to evolve the "what".

  The BCP gives such a path: complex types are permitted.

  See Appendix B for a series of reviews of existing attributes.  The
reviews say things like:

... Therefore, this complex data type is acceptable in this situation.

  I have no idea how anyone can conclude that it forbids complex types.

  Alan DeKok.

--
to unsubscribe send a message to radiusext-request@ops.ietf.org with
the word 'unsubscribe' in a single line as the message text body.
archive: <http://psg.com/lists/radiusext/>