Re: [Gen-art] [manet] review: draft-ietf-manet-nhdp-mib-12

[Ulrich Herberg <[e-mail]>]

 Dear Joel,

thank you very much for your review and apologies for our late reply. Find
our answers below, and
please tell us if they address your comments.

 ---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joel M. Halpern <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 8:59 AM
Subject: [manet] [Gen-art] review: draft-ietf-manet-nhdp-mib-12
To: [e-mail]
Cc: [e-mail], "A. Jean Mahoney" <[e-mail]>,
[e-mail]


> I am the assigned Gen-ART reviewer for this draft. For background on
> Gen-ART, please see the FAQ at
> <http://wiki.tools.ietf.org/area/gen/trac/wiki/GenArtfaq>.
>
> Please resolve these comments along with any other Last Call comments
> you may receive.
>
> Document: draft-ietf-manet-nhdp-mib-12
>    Definition of Managed Objects for the
>        Neighborhood Discovery Protocol
> Reviewer: Joel M. Halpern
> Review Date: 6-April-2012
> IETF LC End Date: 16-April-2012
> IESG Telechat date: (if known)
>
> Summary: This document is almost ready for publication as a Proposed
> Standard.


<nhdp-mib-authors>
That's good :-)
</nhdp-mib-authors>




> Major issues:
>    Section 5.1.3.1 on Ignoring Initial Activity is trying to do a very
> reasonable thing, namely suppress notifications for activity which is
> expected.  The text references RFC 4750 as precedent.  RFC 4750 is
> clear that the suppress window is tied to specific events (interface
> up and election as a DR.)  Section 5.1.3.1 does not specify which
> condition(s) start(s) the suppress window.  If, as seems likely, it is
> Interface Up which starts the window, please state that explicitly in
> the text.


<nhdp-mib-authors>
How about adding the following sentence at the end of
the paragraph of 5.1.3.1:
"The suppression window for notifications is started when the 'nhdpIfStatus'
transitions
 from its default value of 'false' to 'true'."
</nhdp-mib-authors>



>    In section 5.4, in addition to describing objects which are defined
> in the MIB, the text describes, under the heading "The following
> objects return statistics related to HELLO messages:", a number of
> what it refers to as "Derived Objects".  These do not appear to be
> actual elements of the MIB.  They appear rather to be descriptions of
> calculations which the manager can perform using the information from
> the MIB.  It is not at all clear why they are here.  If I am
> understanding their role properly, and if they belong in this
> document, they belong in some other section, as they are NOT objects
> which return statistics related to HELLO messages.  They appear not to
> be returned by the managed device at all.



<nhdp-mib-authors>
Yes, you are right. We we pull these from the draft and
save the text and possibly use elsewhere in the future.
</nhdp-mib-authors>



> Minor issues:
>    I can not find the object that corresponds to the setting for
> Ignoring the Initial Activity.  I presume this is my error.  The
> document would be helped if the object were named in section 5.1.3.1.
>


<nhdp-mib-authors>
We can change 'HELLO_INTERVAL' in Section 5.1.3.1 to 'nhdpHelloInterval'.
</nhdp-mib-authors>



>    I believe section 5.1.3.2 on Throttling Traps is intended to refer
> to the StateChange Threshold and StateChangeWindow objects.  It would
> be very helpful if these were actually named in section 5.1.3.2.


<nhdp-mib-authors>
How about adding the following sentence to 5.1.3.2:
The following objects are used to define the thresholds and time
windows for specific Notifications defined in the NHDP-MIB module:
nhdpNbrStateChangeThreshold,
nhdpNbrStateChangeWindow, nhdp2HopNbrStateChangeThreshold,
nhdp2HopNbrStateChangeWindow,         nhdpIfRxBadPacketThreshold,
nhdpIfRxBadPacketWindow.
</nhdp-mib-authors>


>    Most MIBs I review have a description of the tables they contain,
> how the tables relate to each other, and how they are indexed, in the
> front matter that is roughly equivalent to section 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4.
> As I am not a MIB Doctor, I do not know if that is formally required,
> but I find it very helpful, and am surprised not to see it here.


<nhdp-mib-authors>
We agree that this is probably a good practice to follow and will work up
text to handle this.
</nhdp-mib-authors>


>    In looking at the fields in the NhdpInterfaceEntry, some of the
> field definitions include some of the constraints from RFC 6130
> section 5 in their DESCRIPTION clauses.  Some do not.  (For exampple,
> REFRESH_INTERVAL >= HELLO_INTERVAL is captured in
> nhdbpRefreshInterval, but not in nhdpHelloInterval.  The requirement
> that nhdpHelloInterval be greater than 0 is not captured anywhere.
>  Neither is H_HOLD_TIME >= REFRESH_INTERVAL captured.)  Some elements
> have a statement that the object is persistent, while others do not,
> but these do not seem to correspond to a difference in RFC 6130.  It
> is possible that there is a good reason for this apparent variation.
>  Is there?


<nhdp-mib-authors>
That's true. We will go through all constraints from NHDP and
add them to the MIB.
</nhdp-mib-authors>



>    Particularly for top-level objects such as nhdpNHoldTime and
> NhdpIHoldTime I would really like to see a better description than
> just this is <named> object from section 5 of RFC 6130.  Someone who
> is using the MIB, who is looking at the description clause for
> assistance, really needs something more than the name of the field in
> the MIB.  (I think better descriptions would be a good idea through
> much of the MIB.)



<nhdp-mib-authors>
We will can look at the descriptions and copy some more text from
NHDP. However, we would like to avoid copying all NHDP into the MIB.
</nhdp-mib-authors>


> Nits/editorial comments:
>    The tracker claims this is "In WG Last Call (manet), but also seems
> to indicate that it is in IETF Last Call.  Are the two happening at
> the same time?


<nhdp-mib-authors>
We actually don't know, and will ask the chairs about that.
</nhdp-mib-authors>


Best regards
Ulrich and Bob