In the July 20, 2001 version of the Framework
Policy Information Base Section 3.1 Roles
states in paragraph three that the ifindex
is opaque to the policy. But then in Section
5, Summary of the Framework PIB under the
Device Capabilities Group, a PRC is added to
bind the IfIndex to a RoleCombination. The
RoleCombination attribute identifies some
set of policies and an ifIndex attribute
identifies an unique interface that enforces
the policy set. These two sections are
incompatible. (Excerpts are inserted below)
I'm repeatedly hearing that both the
configuration policies and the usage
feedback policies need to configure and/or
report information on a per "interface"
basis. There are good reasons that the PDP
DOES need to be aware of the ifIndices and
manage policies accordingly.
I propose removing the Section 3.1 paragraph
declaring ifindex as being opaque and, in
addition to the Role Combination and
Interface Table, adding a PRC that parallels
the MIB-II ifTable but without the counters.
The policy feedback framework can
incorporate the usage related counters into
its PIB.
The following excerpts are from 05 version
" Section 3.1
Thus, roles provide a way to bind policy to
interfaces without having to explicitly
identify interfaces in a consistent manner
across all network devices. (The SNMP
experience with ifIndex has proved this to
be a difficult task.) That is, roles provide
a level of indirection to the application of a
set of policies to specific interfaces.
Furthermore, if the same policy is being applied
to several interfaces, that policy need be
pushed to the device only once, rather than once
per interface, as long as the interfaces are
configured with the same role combination.
We point out that, in the event that the
administrator needs to have unique policy for
each interface, this can be achieved by
configuring each interface with a unique role. "
But later in the same section under the
Interface and Role Combination Table discussion
"The Interface and Role Combination Table
describes the association between specific
interfaces with each role combination. It
answers the questions of which interfaces
have a specific role combination and what
role combination a specific interface is a
part of. The Interface and Role Combination
Table entries each contains a
<ifIndex, Role Combo> two-tuple to
accomplish this mapping. "
"FrwkIfCapSetInterfaceEntry ::= SEQUENCE {
frwkIfCapSetInterfacePrid InstanceId,
frwkIfCapSetInterfaceIfIndex InterfaceIndex,
frwkIfCapSetInterfaceRoles RoleCombination
}"
-Diana