Re: [Autoconf] Call for comments to a new AUTOCONF charter proposal.

["Dearlove, Christopher (UK)" <[e-mail]>]

Just a brief comment for the moment. My current thoughts in ad hoc
nedworks relate to security. And I think the interactions of security
and address configuration will turn out to be critical. There are
numerous solutions to address configuration that turn out to be
pointless when combined with security configuration issues. I'm
interested in more than just "assume all nodes have a shared secret
X unknown to anyone else".
 
-- 
Christopher Dearlove
Technology Leader, Communications Group
Networks, Security and Information Systems Department
BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre
West Hanningfield Road, Great Baddow, Chelmsford, CM2 8HN, UK
Tel: [phone]  Fax: [phone]

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________________________________

From: Jari Arkko [mailto:[e-mail]] 
Sent: 29 June 2010 23:23
To: Dearlove, Christopher (UK)
Cc: Henning Rogge; [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [Autoconf] Call for comments to a new AUTOCONF charter
proposal.


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Christopher,



		Does this proposal mean the autoconf group will not work
on a
		    

	distributed 
	  

		address configuration scheme for mesh networks ?
		    

	
	Same question, except I'd stick with the terminology ad hoc
network.
	A centralised distribution mechanism is a very poor fit to much
of
	what's attractive about an ad hoc network, and a very poor fit
(due
	to having a single point of failure) to many application areas
for
	ad hoc networks.
	
	This is not the direction I for one had hoped that the Autoconf
WG
	would go in. I note the reference to "future extensions", but
first
	I assume that this is not chartered work, and second that forces
	decentralised work into a certain shape, rather than working
from
	the problem more generally.
	
	I appreciate that the WG can only work on solutions that people
are
	prepared to work on, and unfortunately I can't offer the effort
needed
	to make a concrete alternative proposal. I think however I've
put in
	at least my share of work in the Manet WG.
	  


Just so that you know who to blame :-) I was the one who asked Thomas
and Ryuji to consider a simple solution with no new protocols.

But back to your feedback on the charter. I would like to respond in two
ways. First, I am by no means wedded to the particular solution details.
Do you have a suggested edit?

But, second, I will defend the idea that the working group needs to
learn to walk before running. We've been through a five year exercise
just to define the addressing model. When we attempted to define the
architecture as a general model we realized that it was hard, and
explaining the model to non ad hoc networking experts was even harder.
But when we described a concrete addressing model that some deployments
are using we did finally get an RFC. Or almost have, at least. I would
like to continue on the same path. I'm told that there are deployed
autoconfiguration mechanisms and that some level of support is doable
even with existing protocols.

I would like to avoid repeating the experience we had earlier on trying
to describe the autoconf problem. One way of avoiding it is to describe
either a deployed autoconfiguration mechanism or describe how to employ
standard protocols and components to provide autoconfiguration for an ad
hoc network. Once this work is complete, we can describe the limitations
of this mechanism as the remaining autoconfiguration problem, and work
on that. But I do not look forward to more years of discussion of
complex routing protocol/neighbor discovery extensions and a constant
stream of questions from the outsiders about why ND or DHCP cannot do
the job.

I do get that a solution with a central node (and perhaps any solution
with DHCP) does not solve all needs. Would you be happier if the charter
had four work items:

1. Design space survey (Informational)
2. The simple solution (such as DHCP) (PS)
3. Limitations of the simple solution (Informational)
4. Recharter for work on the more general solution

Jari



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