Re: [Dime] WG adoption call for draft-zorn-dime-rfc4005bis-01

["Glen Zorn" <[e-mail]>]

Sebastien Decugis [mailto:[e-mail]] writes:

>  Hello again,
> 
> > Would you then consider
> > http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-zorn-dime-radia-gate-01.txt to be
> unsuitable?
> Yes. That document describes how to use Diameter as a tunneling protocol
> (I don't understand the purpose of this, but anyway), it does not
> address the translation of the RADIUS messages to Diameter.

Exactly.  Since it is manifestly impossible to perform the reverse
translation (from Diameter to RADIUS) it seems rather pointless.

> 
> > Be that as it may, however, the point is that it's very unclear
> whether such
> > functionality is actually useful...
> First of all, not being useful is a good enough rationale to revise a
> RFC?

Yes.

> 
> Secondly, I believe that yes, this mechanism is actually useful, to help
> transition to Diameter. It provides a way to interconnect several realms
> where some use RADIUS while others already moved to Diameter (example:
> take a consortium like EDUROAM. How would you migrate someday to
> something else that RADIUS, without a translation mechanism?)

The problem is that apparently nobody has _ever_ transitioned from RADIUS to
Diameter and it appears as if nobody ever will.  Regarding EDUROAM, Diameter
existed long before EDUROAM but they chose to hack RADIUS in their own way.
In any case, if they decided to migrate to Diameter they could use the
pointless tunneling protocol, retiring their RADIUS server when the
transition was complete.

> 
> Best regards,
> Sebastien.
> 
> --
> Sebastien Decugis
> Research fellow
> Network Architecture Group
> NICT (nict.go.jp)
>