Re: Last Call: <draft-ietf-tsvwg-iana-ports-09.txt> (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Procedures for the Management of the Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry) to BCP

[Cullen Jennings <[e-mail]>]

I read the draft to say that there would only be one port allocated - I took strive to mean that Joe would deny my port requests for two ports. If the intention is actually for the draft to say that it strives for one port but allows assignment of two where the that is what the protocol design desire, then I have no problem. Perhaps we just need to clarify what "strive" means. This definition of "strive" leads into exactly my other complain that this draft provides no guidance on what the expert will or will not approve. 

We probably need to adjust text like 

o  IANA strives to encourage the deployment of secure protocols, and
     so strives to avoid separate assignments for non-secure variants

and 

 The use of separate
  service name or port number assignments for secure and insecure
  variants of the same service is to be avoided in order to discourage
  the deployment of insecure services.

and 

 Services are expected to include support for security, either as
  default or dynamically negotiated in-band.


In band negotiation of security is applicable for some cases, but it adds latency, bandwidth, and complicated multiplexing in non session based transports. I think this is a bad idea in many cases. I also view separation even for stream based protocols as something that helps management and debugging as well as policy. 


On Jan 27, 2011, at 1:17 , Magnus Westerlund wrote:

> 
> We have extensive discussion on this in the WG last call. There was no
> consensus for having two ports. At the same time we did also have no
> consensus on mandating one port for any future protocol. Thus we
> adjusted the text to say in Section 7.2:
> 
> IANA strives to assign only one assigned port number per service or
> application
> 
> To my knowledge "strive" is not a binding RFC2119 term. I also think it
> is a good trade-off with the intention of preserving the space as well
> as possible with only assigning one port, and still allow for more than
> one if it really is needed.
> 
> Is it the above text that triggered your comment or some other text?
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Magnus Westerlund


Cullen Jennings
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