Re: [Gen-art] Gen-art LC review of draft-ietf-insipid-session-id-24

[Elwyn Davies <[e-mail]>]

Hi.
Thanks for the very rapid response.  
Most of this looks just fine.
Couple of points:- On the conference CANCEL issue: My SIP knowledge is severely lacking... could the CANCEL ever apply to the original INVITE?  If not it is probably sufficient just to remind people that the M' UUID would be used once the conference was joined.  I guess you might want to use M1 etc if the conferece joining failed in some way.  In any case I'd add a few words to clarify which UUID they should be using - I'm not sure it is totally obvious.    
- On the s11 nit.. whether you need to do something here depends on what the decision on the spec of sess-uuid settles as.
I'd be happy to scan a pre-release of the updated draft before publishing if you send it along.
Cheers,Elwyn
Sent from Samsung tablet.
-------- Original message --------From: "Paul Giralt (pgiralt)" <[e-mail]> Date: 04/08/2016  21:40  (GMT+00:00) To: Elwyn Davies <[e-mail]> Cc: General area reviewing team <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] Subject: Re: Gen-art LC review of draft-ietf-insipid-session-id-24 
Elwyn, 
Thank you for the review. We should be able to address these issues. See my comments inline.. 



    Minor issues:
    

    Interoperability with H.323

    The requirements for the Session Identifier [RFC7206] Section 4.2
    stresses interoperability with H.323.  This is mentioned in passing
    in s1 and in a bit more detail in s3.  I think it would be worth
    mentioning this somewhat more prominently and  that the relevant
    interoperability will potentially be achieved since the format of
    the Session-ID in H.460.27 appears to match the one defined in this
    draft. To this end, I suggest:

    - Mentioning the interoperability in the abstract and stating the
    ITU rec number - this effectively indicates its 'use' in H.323 per
    the end of para 1 in the abstract.

    - Say a bit more about about interoperability in s1, mention
    H.460.27 and give it as a reference there also.

    

ok - sounds reasonable. 



    GIven that H.323 now supports the use of Session Identifiers, it
    might be useful to indicate how Session-IDs need to be handled at
    SBCs [Caveat: I am not a SIP expert and this may be trivial, but I
    think something probably needs to be mentioned.]

    


An SBC interworking between H.323 and SIP should still follow the rules of an intermediary. This draft will define its behavior for the SIP call leg and H.460.27 will define its behavior for the H.323 call leg. I can put some verbiage to this effect. 


    s4.1: Para 2 mentions the possible use of Version 4 or Version 5
    UUIDs.  The last para constrains stateless intermediaries to using
    Version 5 UUIDs 'to ensure consistent generation'.    I am confused
    about whether this consistency would be maintained if endpoints
    and/or stateful intermediaries generated Version 4 UUIDs, or whether
    in fact all UUIDs should be Version 5?

    


Both Version 4 and Version 5 UUIDs would be maintained for endpoints / stateful intermediaries because they can retain the value of the generated Version 4 UUID as part of that state. The reason stateless intermediaries must use Version 5 is they need a way to generate the same UUID for the session without storing the UUID between messages and a Version 4 UUID would not provide this consistency. 


    s8, bullet 5, s6 , s7 and s9:  If an endpoint is involved in a
    multi-point conference has to send a CANCEL message, which remote
    UUID should it be using?  The one that came back with the original
    INVITE response or the one used to identify the conference that is
    sent in the re-INVITEs from the conference focus? (e.g., in s10.4,
    for Alice M1 or M'). [Note lack of SIP expertise:  I am not sure if
    there are circumstances in which this would arise.]


CANCELling a re-INVITE would be unusual and unlikely to happen in the scenario you describe, but is technically possible. As mentioned in s8, bullet 5, the Session-ID header field value in the CANCEL request MUST be identical to the Session-ID header field value in the corresponding INVITE. In this case, because the CANCEL corresponds to the re-INVITE, the Session-ID header field value would be that of the re-INVITE, as that is the transaction being cancelled. I think the draft as it stands is clear enough on the expected behavior but can modify if you feel strongly that this should be clarified. 


    

    Nits/editorial comments: 

    s1, paras 1 and 3; s2, last para : s/like/such as/ (total of 3
    places)

    

Will change. Thanks. 


    s2:  There is no definition of the term 'communication session' in
    the draft.  A definition is given in s3.2 of RFC 7206 and H.460.27
    has:

    3.2.1 communication session: A communication
      session, or simply ''session'', refers to a call or series of
      calls initiated or received by an endpoint for which the endpoint
      utilizes the same universally unique identifier (UUID) value in
      call signalling messages. From a calling user's perspective, this
      would be all call signalling messages from the time the user
      initiates a call until the time the call is terminated. From the
      called user's perspective, this would be all call signalling
      messages from first message received by the user's terminal until
      the call is terminated.


I’m good with copying this text from 7206 into Section 2. 


    
    In the light of the interoperability question, should the definition
    say something about SBCs? And how the session identifier is
    generated/interpreted in a 'session' that extends across an
    interconnected SIP/H.323 network?  Would SBC be an 'intermediary'
    within the meaning of the definition in s2?

    

    
Yes, it would be considered an intermediary except Section 2 specifically calls out intermediaries as being “any SIP entity”. It might be softening the language there to include any intermediaries that are interworking between SIP and another protocol that also supports the Session Identifier defined in this draft. 
Section 7, which discusses the behavior of intermediaries, already notes that SBC’s are a type of intermediary, so don’t think we need to make that callout. 

s2, last para:  The expansion of the B2BUA acronym occurs on the
    second instance rather than the first that is a couple of lines
    earlier.

Good catch. Thanks. 

    

    s4.2, end of para 2 and in many places thereafter:  The 'null UUID'
    is known as the 'nil UUID' in s4.1.7 of RFC 4122.  For consistency
    s/null/nil/g.  A reference to s4.1.7 of RFC 4122 should be added to
    the first instance in s4.2. 


Thanks for this. I wasn’t aware of this and makes sense to use consistent naming from 4122. 


    

    s5: Given that RFC 7329 will be obsoleted by this document, it would
    be desirable to copy the gist of the  statements in the first para
    of s7 of RFC 7329:

    
         This document adds the "Session-ID" token to the definition of the
   element "message-header" in the SIP message grammar.  The Session-ID
   header is a single-instance header.

    
    Something like an additional para at the beginning of s5:

       This document replaces the definition of the "Session-ID" token
    that was added to the definition of the

       element "message-header" in the SIP message grammar by
    [RFC7329].  The Session-ID

       header is a single-instance header.

    


Sounds reasonable. I can add something along those lines for clarity. 



    s5, para 3:

    OLD:

    The UUID values for each endpoint are inserted into the "Session-ID"

       header field of all transmitted SIP messages.

    

    This is potentially confusing when it comes to conference calls as
    there may be more than two endpoints involved in a communication
    session if it is a multi-point conference.  Maybe 

    NEW:

    Any SIP message associated with a communication session has the
    UUIDs for the session created by the message source and destination
    endpoints inserted into the "Session-ID header field of the
    transmitted SIP message.

    END

    


Let me see how I might be able to clarify this for the multipoint use case where there are more than two endpoints in the session. I don’t think your new version is as clear as it could be either. 


    s5, last para:

    
         The Session-ID header field value is technically case-INSENSITIVE,
   but only lowercase characters are allowed in the sess-uuid
   components.  Receiving entities MUST treat sess-uuid components as
   case-insensitive and not produce an error if an uppercase hexadecimal
   character is received.

    
    I know this is partly carried over from RFC 7329, but, as currently
    drafted, it seems pointless.  Can we not just have:

    

         sess-uuid = 32(DIGIT / %x41-46 / %x61-66) ;32 chars of
      [0-9A-Fa-f]

    

    If the reasoning is that sending upper case to 'old' implementations
    will break them, then it would be better to be explicit about it.
    Perhaps, replace the para with:

         To allow interoperation with implementations conforming to
      the 

         pre-standard specification in [RFC7329], implementations SHOULD
      use 

         only lower case letters ("a" - "f") in the sess-uuid field.

    


To be honest I’m not sure why this was written this way originally and, like you say, it was just carried over from 7329. Will look into whether we should make a change here. 


    s6, para 2: There could be some minor confusion as to whether the
    'no change of UUID' rule is broken when a conference focus (per s9
    and the examples in s10) changes its UUID after processing the
    initial INVITE and issuing a re-INVITE with a different UUID
    associated with the conference.  Some words covering (I guess) the
    idea that the conference itself is a different communication session
    from the setup request(s) would be useful.  See also the comments on
    s10.4 in Minor Issues above.


Section 6 describes Endpoint behavior so don’t think a change is needed there, but could possibly add some text in Section 9 that describes what is shown in the example in section 10.4. 

    

    s6 and s7, next to last paras:  These are near duplicates.  They
    could be replaced by a single instance at the end of s5, but no big
    deal.

    


I’m not totally sure if it makes sense as-is in section 5, but could probably modify slightly to make it fit into section 5. 


    s7, para 12: Expand 3PCC on first use.

    


Will do. Thanks. 


    s7, para 12: s/locally-frabricated/locally-fabricated/


Thanks. 


    

    s8, bullet 5: s/487/Request Terminated (487 - see Section 15.1.2 of
    [RFC3261])

    

Ok. Thanks. 


    s10.1, start of expansion of SIP messages:

    I think there is a missing 'example.'...

    OLD:

       INVITE sip:[e-mail] SIP/2.0

    NEW:

       INVITE sip:[e-mail] SIP/2.0

    END

    


Nice catch. Thanks!


    s11: Effectively there is another new/old requirement: the sess-uuid
    field has to use lower case letters (probably).

    


The old and the new both specify the identifier is lowercase, so not sure what needs to change here. 



    s12, para 3:

    I think 'inherit' is not what you mean here...

    OLD:

    Because of the inherit property that Session Identifiers are
    conveyed 

       end-to-end

    NEW

    Because of the inherent property that Session Identifiers are
    conveyed

       end-to-end

    END

    


Yes, thanks for the correction. 


    s13.2: As of this moment, no header parameters have been registered
    for the old RFC 7329 Session-ID header.  I don't know if any
    proprietary, non-documented parameters are around given the status
    of RFC 7329, but would it be worth explicitly banning the
    registration of any new parameters under the old scheme - and maybe
    explicitly not allowing any other parameters than 'remote'  for the
    new version, to avoid issues of privacy etc. If not it might be
    necessary to copy over some of the words about the nature of
    parameters in Session-ID headers and what B2BUAs might have to do
    from the security considerations of RFC 7329.

  


I’d actually prefer to leave generic-param as allowed so that this version could interoperate with any potential future version that might add additional parameters. Explicitly banning such additional parameters could cause issues if we decide to extend the capabilities in a future draft. That said, some mention along the same lines as specified in 7329 are worth considering so that arbitrary additional parameters are not added which could then lead to privacy issues. Let me chew on this one… 
-Paul