Re: [Idr] Benoit Claise's Discuss on draft-ietf-idr-large-community-11: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

["Jakob Heitz (jheitz)" <[e-mail]>]

There is no need to change the text.

The attribute is in fact suitable for use with four-octet ASNs.
Since all ASNs can be represented in 4 octets, there is no problem.

Thanks,
Jakob.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John G. Scudder [mailto:[e-mail]]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2017 11:51 AM
> To: Benoit Claise (bclaise) <[e-mail]>
> Cc: Job Snijders <[e-mail]>; Ignas Bagdonas <[e-mail]>; The IESG <[e-mail]>; draft-ietf-idr-
> [e-mail]; [e-mail]; [e-mail]; [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: Benoit Claise's Discuss on draft-ietf-idr-large-community-11: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)
> 
> Benoit,
> 
> I think the wording is accurate as written, but I see your point. I think your suggested wording is terse to a fault
> since it abandons the important "this will work with your four-byte ASN" information. IMO a change is not strictly
> needed, but if one is desired how about something like this?
> 
> OLD:
>    The attribute is suitable for use with four-octet
>    Autonomous System Numbers
> 
> NEW:
>    The attribute is suitable for use with all Autonomous System Numbers including four-octet
>    Autonomous System Numbers
> 
> Or a lawyer would probably say :-)
>    The attribute is suitable for use with, inter alia, four-octet
>    Autonomous System Numbers
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -John
> 
> > On Jan 4, 2017, at 1:43 PM, Benoit Claise <[e-mail]> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Job,
> >
> > So basically, you're telling me: "The attribute is suitable for use with ASNs.", right?
> > Is this what needs to be in the abstract?
> >
> > Regards, B.
> >> Hi Benoit,
> >>
> >> On Wed, Jan 04, 2017 at 04:39:25PM +0100, Benoit Claise wrote:
> >>>> Global Administrator field is a 4 octet integer that is used to carry AS
> >>>> number but it is not mandatory to interpret it as an AS number only
> >>>> (while a typical use case is for carrying AS number) - two peers can
> >>>> agree on any value that has meaning between those peers. Representation
> >>>> on the wire is in network byte order, and 2 byte AS number will get
> >>>> naturally padded with two zero bytes in front. Virtually all deployments
> >>>> today are AS4 capable and use AS4 encoding even for AS number values
> >>>> that fit into 16 bit value range therefore AS number is a 4 octet entity
> >>>> already.
> >>> Then this sentence in the abstract "The attribute is suitable for use
> >>> with four-octet ASNs." is misleading, right? At least to me. The
> >>> attribute is suitable for four-octets ASNs and two-octets ASNs encoded
> >>> in four-octets. This would be more in line with "This field SHOULD be
> >>> an Autonomous System Number (ASN)" later on.
> >> I am under the impression that nowadays the IETF community considers all
> >> ASNs to be four-octet ASNs, however, some of those ASNs can be encoded
> >> as a two octet value. The Large Communities specification is suitable
> >> for usage in Autonomous Systems from all walks of life, where as rfc1997
> >> communities are unsuitable for all ASNs, specifically those ASNs which
> >> cannot be encoded as two-octet values.
> >>
> >> Kind regards,
> >>
> >> Job
> >> .
> >>
> >