RE: [Diffserv] DHCP user class

-----Original Message-----
> From: Brian E Carpenter [mailto:brian@hursley.ibm.com]
> Sent: Sunday, July 09, 2000 2:35 PM
> To: Diff Serv
> Subject: [Diffserv] DHCP user class
> 
> 
> Diffservers might want to look at
> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-dhc-userclass-08.txt
> 
> It's already passed last call and is on the IESG's plate. But it
> says
> 
>    It is often desirable to provide different levels of service
>    to different users of an IP network.
>    In order for an IP network to implement this service
>    differentiation, it needs a way to classify users. A simple
>    solution to this is to use source IP addresses for classification.
>    Under this scheme, network administrators first configure network
>    devices such as routers to recognize traffic from a particular
>    source IP address (or address range) and handle it specially to
>    meet the desired level of service. 
> 
> If you think this is a good/bad idea, *now* is the time to say so.
> 
>    Brian

Here's a little more quoted:

"This document describes a simple extension of the DHCP protocol
that enables a DHCP server to assign IP addresses from different
address pools depending on the type of users from which it receives
DHCP requests. With this new extension, network administrators will
be able to use DHCP to hand out the appropriate addresses to clients."

The reason I quoted this is that it seemed strange to assign service
category based only on the source IP address, and that extension explains
that the address assigned by DHCP would indeed depend only on the host,
_not_ on the application_s_ the host was going to be running. The DHCP
server obviously won't know the applications that would be running until
after the IP address is assigned.

Reading further into the I-D does not dispell this notion.

Seems like a strange idea in a time of multimedia apps? Request for service
differentiation belongs at the application layer, maybe not exclusively, but
that should be the norm.

Bert
albert.e.manfredi@boeing.com

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