[IPFIX] No active/inactive timeout definitions in any IPFIX RFCs? Idle versus inactive terminology? (part of draft-ietf-bmwg-ipflow-meth-09 review)

Benoit Claise <bclaise@cisco.com> Tue, 10 April 2012 11:07 UTC

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Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:07:51 +0200
From: Benoit Claise <bclaise@cisco.com>
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Cc: Al Morton <acmorton@att.com>, Ron Bonica <rbonica@juniper.net>
Subject: [IPFIX] No active/inactive timeout definitions in any IPFIX RFCs? Idle versus inactive terminology? (part of draft-ietf-bmwg-ipflow-meth-09 review)
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Dear all,

Reading draft-ietf-bmwg-ipflow-meth-09.txt, I realized that this draft 
defines two new terms: Active Timeout and Inactive Timeout.
I was thinking: surely, we have defined those terms already in some 
IPFIX RFCs.
Actually, I was unable to find any references.... Have I overlooked 
something?

The only pointers I could find are in RFC5102


        5.11.1. flowActiveTimeout


    Description:
       The number of seconds after which an active Flow is timed out
       anyway, even if there is still a continuous flow of packets.
    Abstract Data Type: unsigned16
    ElementId: 36
    Status: current
    Units: seconds


        5.11.2. flowIdleTimeout



    Description:
       A Flow is considered to be timed out if no packets belonging to
       the Flow have been observed for the number of seconds specified by
       this field.
    Abstract Data Type: unsigned16
    ElementId: 37
    Status: current
    Units: seconds


        5.11.3. flowEndReason

Description:
       The reason for Flow termination.  The range of values includes the
       following:

       0x01: idle timeout
             The Flow was terminated because it was considered to be
             idle.

       0x02: active timeout
             The Flow was terminated for reporting purposes while it was
             still active, for example, after the maximum lifetime of
             unreported Flows was reached.

       ...

Here is one issue.
Some documents refer to inactive timeout
     RFC5472,
     ipfixMeteringProcessCacheInactiveTimeout in 
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ipfix-rfc5815bis-03
     inactiveTimeout in 
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ipfix-configuration-model-10
While some others refer to idle timeout
     RFC 5102,
     draft-ietf-bmwg-ipflow-meth-09

Any proposal to fix this problem?

Regards, Benoit (OPS A.D.)