Re: [nfsv4] Update on documents related to rfc5661bis effort.

[Chuck Lever III <[e-mail]>]

On Oct 9, 2022, at 10:06 AM, David Noveck <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:

As before, my remarks are made as the editor of draft-{ietf,dnoveck}-nfsv4-{internationaization,security,rfc5661bis,rfc5662bis} and a wg member and not as wg co-chair.

On Sat, Oct 8, 2022 at 11:23 AM Chuck Lever III <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:

On Oct 8, 2022, at 5:54 AM, David Noveck <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 5, 2022, 10:44 AM Chuck Lever III <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:

Thanks for posting your plan!

We already have three WG documents (not counting the RPC/RDMA v2 documents that are to expire), at least two of which might require significant external review. In years past, we had a large body of folks who could help out. But these days, and considering the total number of pages involved, does the WG have enough review and document stewardship resources to proceed with all of these in parallel?

Rfc5661bis has already been put off far too long, so I  really can't see us doing these seriatim.  By the time we get to the bis, it will be difficult to remember the issues, even though they will still need to be dealt with. Sigh!

Note that it is already almost 13 years since rfc5661 was published and that it is clearly deficient in a  number of major areas.  That is why I have devoted a lot of my time to this effort.  I had been assuming that the working group in general was in a position to do its part.  If it isn't, then the working group is in the position of doing extensions to v4.1 without a good description of v4.1, the previous approval of rfc5661 and rfc8881 as a Proposed Standards notwithstanding.

You might misunderstand my concern.

I might or might not understand your concern.  You appear to want to give the three documents you refer to priority over my three documents related to the bis effort.  Since you do not provde any reason for this stance, it is quite hard to understand your position.

I want to give the three existing WG documents (including i18n) a fair shot at available resources because they are already adopted. The other bis documents have not yet been adopted, and I fear that once they are, they will consume all remaining oxygen, leaving nothing left for completing documents that were adopted before them.

The minutiae around adoption of the i18n document were not especially transparent to the WG diaspora. Even though I agree with the outcome, I think WG contributors need to have some oversight on those decisions simply because resources are quite scarce.


In any case, I am troubled by the fact that in your previous email you were only objecting to adoption of security but now are objecting to all the documents except internationalization.

I'm technically objecting to the security document, and you have stated that it doesn't make sense to consider adopting the remaining bis document without adopting the security document at the same time.

The security document appears to contain new protocol in it, but because this effort is officially a bis effort, it should be constrained to documenting existing implementations. I'm requesting that the new protocol elements be moved out of this document before it is adopted.


I surmise that, for some reason, you are reading far more into adoption of documents as  working group documents than is reasonable or was intended by the working group.

Adoption as a wg document has never come with a guarantee that a document will move forward or that other documents will be deferred on that basis.  When we agreed to wg adoption, I don't believe that wg members were agreeing to that.

I wasn't clear before. My technical objection is as stated above. If you prefer, my concern about available review and stewardship resources can be considered outside of the adoption process.


I'd like to clear the decks of the current set of adopted documents so that we can guarantee the the already adopted documents move forward,

I don't think it is realistically possible to have such a guarantee and the wg has never provided one.  Let's look at those specific documents:

  *   draft-ietf-nfsv4-scsi-layout-nvme-00 is an eight-page draft for an informational RFC.  Normally, I would think that it is reasonable to get this in shape for submission in a limited time, although there is no way to guarantee that.  However, in recent discussions, many people indicated a desire for a standards-track document and I don't see how the wg can guarantee its prompt completion, although there is a considerable interest in getting that done.

This applies no matter what restrictions are placed on the bis documents and restricting consideration of the bis documents will not make this happen any faster.

  *   draft-ietf-nfsv4-delstid-01 is a fifteen-page draft containing some useful extensions.   There is need for further working group discussion of those extensions although I fail to see how work on the bis document would interfere with that.   No guarantee of progress is possible but the big issue with this document, as indicated in my review, is that it includes modifications of internal flexible-files data structures.  This document may have to be split into two documents but we will have to hear from Tom, before we can assess this document's future path.

I don't see any reason to deal with this document on an expedited basis.  It spent over two years as an expired document before being revived without change in June 2022.  It has had very little working group discussion.  The fact that I was working on the bis documents did not stop me from providing a serious review and I don't see how restricting bis work would help it to progress.

  *   draft-ietf-nfsv4-internationalization-00 is a sixty-page draft which has needed more working group discussion for quite some time.  In any case, I don't see how delaying the other bis-related documents would, realistically, help this one progress.


and then afterwards ensure that the WG can proceed with the bis documents in parallel.

I think they all of these should be done in parallel, including internationalization.  There is no point in delaying three of these while doing internationalization first.

Again, the WG has limited resources, and the bis documents comprise a very high page count.

Yes. There is a lot to do.  In my view, this makes imposing an artificial delay inadvisable.

I'm not certain why WG adoption is necessary in order to make progress. What delay do you think I'm imposing?


--
Chuck Lever