[tcpm] draft-eggert-tcpm-tcp-abort-timeout-option-00.txt

[Wesley Eddy <[e-mail]>]

Is there really a need to allow the first ACK to carry an ATO?  It
should be enough to just allow them on the SYN and SYN-ACK.  If a host
sends an ATO of X on a SYN and gets back an ATO of X-Y on the SYN-ACK, it
probably won't want to go any shorter than X-Y, as that's already shorter
than it requested.

If the SYN-ACK carries a value too-low, then it's just tough luck,
because it's likely a web server (or similar) saying "I'm too busy to
just keep your state around forever, but I am willing to hold onto it
for exactly this long".  No matter how politely you ask in an ATO on a
ACK you send back, I don't think it'll be convinced to oblige you with
the longer ATO (and you'll have no way of knowing since it's not allowed
to send any more ATO options back at that point).

Removing the ability to send an ATO on the first ACK would rid the draft
of some inconsistency (ie between figure 2 and the first paragraph of 2.1).

-Wes