Re: [Netconf] We NEED RESPONSES: WG Last Call ended for:draft-ietf-netconf-4741bis-04.txt

["Ersue, Mehmet (NSN - DE/Munich)" <[e-mail]>]

> > Apart from Security Considerations, text in Sec. 3 should be changed
> as
> > follows:
> >
> > OLD
> >
> >   All NETCONF messages MUST be well-formed XML, encoded in UTF-8.
> >
> > NEW
> >
> >   All NETCONF messages MUST be well-formed XML, encoded in UTF-8,
and
> >   MUST NOT contain the character sequence ']]>]]>'.
> 
> Still I believe it is the transport that has to deal with this. If a
> message contains ']]>]]>', a transport that can not handle this should
> either not accept to transport that message or have a mechanism to
> deal with it by quoting it or whatever. Pushing this issue up to the
> content layer just on the ground that the mandatory SSH transport is
> not totally robust seems odd from an architectural point of view.

It is true that NETCONF does not have any awareness of EOM character
sequence. NETCONF is aware of "well-formed XML" messages. The proposed 
text by Martin defines what NETCONF should do (on its level) if the XML 
message is not well-formed.

: NEW:
:    All NETCONF messages MUST be well-formed XML, encoded in UTF-8.  
:    If a server receives a message that is not well-formed XML, it MUST
:    reply with an 'operation-failed' error.

However, although EOM handling is not an issue on NETCONF level NETCONF 
has a concrete security thread if XML messages are not well-formed 
frequently. I proposed to discuss the security thread in the security
considerations section.

Mehmet