Re: [Sidrops] XML in RRDP (Was: mft/ee validity time window alignment issue)

[Julian Reschke <[e-mail]>]

Am 09.07.2021 um 14:19 schrieb Job Snijders:
> On Fri, Jul 09, 2021 at 01:31:01PM +0200, Julian Reschke wrote:
>> Am 09.07.2021 um 12:59 schrieb Job Snijders:
>>> ... > If we are looking to decrease traffic, I'd first remove XML from RRDP as
>>> that appears a 50% bloat compared to using DER as container :-)
>>> ...
>>
>> 1) Even with Content-Coding gzip?
>
> Supporting gzip encoding is not a requirement for RPKI RPs. But indeed,
> it helps reduce transfer size:
>
>      https://rrdp.ripe.net/c85a5e87-ad1a-4b5a-b73f-8325877826fd/3059/snapshot.xml
>      gzip encoded transfer: 67.9M
>      non-gzip transfer: 141M
>
> However, if we jokingly entertain 'tar' as a container format instead of
> XML, the raw DER data can be gzip compressed to 57.5M! ~ 20% reduction :-)

But that would require a change in the protocol, right?

> My beef with the XML in RRDP is more than just the size: the requirement
> to have to link a full blown XML parser library into an RP
> implementation, while each RP already has a DER decoder, is bloat of
> some sorts. XML in RRDP is merely used as a very expensive field
> separator.

That is true, but then, XML parsers are mature and widely available.

> I know the original RRDP author was not specifically attached to XML,
> and perhaps it was useful in the proof-of-concept phase. In the next
> version of RRDP I'd recommend to get rid of the XML dependency.
>
>> 2) How many RRDP requests are currently 304s, or could be 304s if
>> clients and servers would take advantage of it?
>
> Probably the majority. As far as I know most RPs implemented support for
> 'If-Modified-Since'.
>
> A quick'n'dirty inspection of my publication webserver access log
> searching for '304' requests shows that the most RPs support this
> functionality:
>
>      Apache-HttpClient/4.3.6 (java 1.5)   <-- unsure which RP this is
>      OpenBSD rpki-client
>      Routinator/0.8.0 - 0.10.0-dev
>      fort/1.4.0 - 1.5.0

...good to know. Now is this true for the servers in use as well?

> OctoRPKI & RIPE NCC's Validator don't appear to have If-Modified-Since
> support.

One EOLd, one currently without maintainers...

Best regards, Julian