Fwd: Re: [Idr] Last Call: <draft-ietf-idr-rfc4893bis-06.txt> (BGP Support for Four-octet AS Number Space) to Proposed Standard

[Stewart Bryant <[e-mail]>]

FYI

Copying to IETF list as this is an IETF LC

Stewart

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [Idr] Last Call: (BGP Support for Four-octet AS Number 
Space) to Proposed Standard
Date: 	Tue, 12 Jun 2012 15:54:55 +0200
From: 	Claudio Jeker <[e-mail]>
To: 	Stewart Bryant <[e-mail]>
CC: 	<[e-mail]>



On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 11:30:11AM +0100, Stewart Bryant wrote:
> On 01/06/2012 23:00, Claudio Jeker wrote:
> >On Fri, Jun 01, 2012 at 11:54:44AM -0700, The IESG wrote:
> >>The IESG has received a request from the Inter-Domain Routing WG (idr) to
> >>consider the following document:
> >>- 'BGP Support for Four-octet AS Number Space'
> >>   <draft-ietf-idr-rfc4893bis-06.txt> as Proposed Standard
> >>
> >>The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
> >>final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
> >>[e-mail] mailing lists by 2012-06-15. Exceptionally, comments may be
> >>sent to [e-mail] instead. In either case, please retain the
> >>beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.
> >>
> >>Abstract
> >>
> >>
> >>    The Autonomous System (AS) number is encoded as a two-octet entity in
> >>    the base BGP specification. This document describes extensions to BGP
> >>    to carry the Autonomous System numbers as four-octet entities.  This
> >>    document obsoletes RFC 4893.
> >>
> >Just for the sake of clarity, OpenBGPD will not do the following:
> >
> >    In addition, the path segment types AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE and
> >    AS_CONFED_SET [RFC5065] MUST NOT be carried in the AS4_PATH attribute
> >    of an UPDATE message.  A NEW BGP speaker that receives these path
> >    segment types in the AS4_PATH attribute of an UPDATE message from an
> >    OLD BGP speaker MUST discard these path segments, adjust the relevant
> >    attribute fields accordingly, and continue processing the UPDATE
> >    message.  This case SHOULD be logged locally for analysis.
> >
> >There is no point to do this fiddeling instead we will treat this like any
> >other parse error of AS4_PATH.
> >
> Claudio
>
> Since this is in last call, I have to ask whether you have objection
> to the publication
> of the above text, or have any proposed text changes?

I see no reason to enforce AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE and AS_CONFED_SET stripping
on all AS4 implementations. It forces bgp implementations that don't have
confederation support to strip out something that will cause an error in
the regular path and for those systems ignoring the AS4_PATH attribute
is perfectly fine. I do not understand how a workaround needs to be a
MUST for something that is a MUST NOT at the same time? Why MUST we
workaround something that MUST NOT appear? Why do we need to add extra
code that is hard to test and maybe cause for further errors because it
modifies attributes in very uncommon way?

I propose to remove that paragraph entierly since it does only add
complexity to the protocol for no reason and therefor is only a source of
errors without any benefit.
-- 
:wq Claudio