Re: [trill] RtgDir review of draft-ietf-trill-directory-assist-mechanisms-07.txt

[Donald Eastlake <[e-mail]>]

Hi Joel,

On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 11:46 PM, Joel M. Halpern <[e-mail]> wrote:
> If by the connectivity check to the directory server, you mean the
> underlying IS-IS routing reporting connectivity, then say that.

OK.

> While that
> is not actually interchangeable with real connectivity, it is perfectly
> reasoanble for the WG to deem it sufficient.  I think it would only take a
> sentence or two to clarify for the reader that what is meant is apparent
> topological connectivity, as distinct from verified communication.

The phrase usually used in TRILL (See RFC 7780) is "data reachable".

Thanks,
Donald
=============================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   [phone] (cell)
 155 Beaver Street, Milford, MA 01757 USA
 [e-mail]

> Yours,
> Joel
>
>
> On 4/15/16 11:12 PM, Donald Eastlake wrote:
>>
>> Hi Joel,
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 11:51 AM, Joel M. Halpern <[e-mail]>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Thank you Donald.  Points of agreement elided, some responses to try to
>>> clarify my observations.  I will note that from your comments about 3.1,
>>> I
>>> believe my concerns, now moved to 3.7, are larger, as I had assumed that
>>> the
>>> magic was in some other protocol, and you now say it is not defined
>>> there.
>>>
>>> Yours,
>>> Joel
>>>
>>> On 4/15/16 11:23 AM, Donald Eastlake wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi Joel
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for your thorough review and comments. See below
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 4:47 PM, Joel M. Halpern <[e-mail]
>>>>   <mailto:[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>>>> Major Issues:
>>>>> In the state machine transitions in section 2.3.3
>>>>> for push servers, it appears that if the event indicating that the
>>>>> server is being shut down occurs while the server is already Going
>>>>> Stand-By or Uncompleting, the transitions indicate that this
>>>>> "going
>>>>> down" event will be lost.  A strict reading of this would seem to
>>>>> mean that the "go Down" event would need to recur after the
>>>>> timeout
>>>>> condition.  This would seem to be best addressed by a new state
>>>>> "Going-Down" whose timeout behavior is to move to down state.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I understand your point but "going down" and the like are called
>>>> "events or conditions" in this draft, not just events.
>>>> The problem with adding a single "Going-Down" state is that
>>>> transition
>>>> to that state would lose the information as to whether or not the
>>>> Push
>>>> Directory had been advertising that it was pushing complete
>>>> information or not. The reason to remember this is that you would
>>>> want
>>>> to behave a differently if the "going down" condition was revoked
>>>> before it completed. This information could be preserved in a
>>>> Boolean
>>>> pseudo variable but the current style of state machine in this draft
>>>> avoids such pseudo variables and encodes all of the relevant push
>>>> directory's state into the state machine state. Thus, I can see
>>>> three
>>>> possible responses to your comment:
>>>>
>>>> 1) Change wording to emphasize that these "events or conditions" can
>>>> be conditions that cause a state transition some substantial time
>>>> after they become true.
>>>>
>>>> 2) Add two new states: (1) going down - was complete; (2) going down
>>>> -
>>>> was incomplete.
>>>>
>>>> 3) Change the style of state machine to admit pseudo variables which
>>>> can be set and testing as part of the state machinery.
>>>>
>>>> Option 1 is just some minor wording changes but adopting either
>>>> options 2 or 3 involves more extensive changes so I would prefer to
>>>> avoid them.
>>>
>>>
>>>  From what I have seen, trying to build a state machine with conditions
>>> rather than events is fraught with problems and tends to lead to errors
>>> in
>>> implementation.  It amounts to hiding pseudo-variables inside the states,
>>> but not describing them.
>>> Thus, I would much prefer solution 2, but it is of course up to the WG.
>>
>>
>> Well, option 2 wouldn't be too hard. Option 3 would probably involve the
>> most
>> change.
>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>>>> Minor Issues:
>>>>> In section 2.3.3 describing the state transitions for push
>>>>> servers, there is an event (event 1) described as "the server was
>>>>> Down but is now Up."  The state transition diagram describes this
>>>>> as
>>>>> being a valid event that does not change the servers state if the
>>>>> server is in any state other than "Down." In one sense, this is
>>>>> reasonable, saying that such an event is harmless.  I would
>>>>> however
>>>>> expect some sort of logging or administrative notification, as
>>>>> something in the system is quite confused.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Again, I see your point but it seems to me to be a matter of state
>>>> machine style. Note that the "event" is described as a condition, so
>>>> from that point of view, it is true anytime the state is other than
>>>> Down. On the other hand, if you view it as strictly an event, you
>>>> are
>>>> left with the question of what to put at the intersection of a state
>>>> and event in the table when it is impossible for that event to occur
>>>> in that state. Some people note this with an "N/A" (not applicable)
>>>> entry. In fact, previous TRILL state diagrams such as in RFC 7177
>>>> use
>>>> "N/A" so it would probably be simplest to change to that for
>>>> consistency.
>>>
>>>
>>> I think N/A would be good.
>>
>>
>> OK.
>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>>>> Text in section 3.2.2.1 on lifetimes and the information
>>>>> maintenance in section 3.3 imply that the clients and servers must
>>>>> maintain a connection. Presumably, this is required already by the
>>>>> RBridge Channel protocol, and I understand that we should not
>>>>> repeat
>>>>> the entire protocol here.  It would seem to make readers life MUCH
>>>>> simpler if the text noted that the RBridge Channel protocol
>>>>> requires
>>>>> that there be a maintained connection between the client and the
>>>>> server, and that these mechanisms leverage the presence of that
>>>>> connection.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The basic RBridge Channel protocol [RFC7178] is a datagram protocol
>>>> rather than a connection protocol. So there is no guaranteed
>>>> continuity of connection between RBridges that have previously
>>>> exchanged RBridge Channel messages. But connection would only be
>>>> lost
>>>> if the network partitions since RBridge Channel messages look like
>>>> data packets to any transit RBridges and will get forwarded as long
>>>> as
>>>> there is any route. Network partition is immediately visible in the
>>>> link state database to the RBridges at both ends of an RBridge
>>>> Channel
>>>> exchange.  Section 3.7 provides that if a Pull Directory is no
>>>> longer
>>>> reachable (i.e., RBridge Channel protocol packets would no longer
>>>> get
>>>> through), then all pull responses from that Pull Directory MUST be
>>>> discarded since cache consistency update messages can't get through.
>>>> Perhaps a reference to Section 3.7 should be added to Section 3.3.
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't think a reference to 3.7 is sufficient, although it is helpful.
>>> If the protocol is a datagram protocol, and if it is important to discard
>>> data from unreachable pull servers, then I think 3.7 NEEDS to say more
>>> than
>>> just ~if you happen to magically figure out you can't reach the server,
>>> discard data it has given you.~  From the rest of the text, this is an
>>> important and unspecified protocol mechanism.
>>
>>
>> Figuring out whether/how you can reach other RBridges is a basic
>> function of TRILL IS-IS based routing, not something "magical".
>> Whenever their is a topology change, an RBridge MUST determine routes
>> to all data reachable RBridges in the new topology. If there was an
>> RBridge previously reachable but no longer reachable, as would be the
>> case for all RBridges on the other side of a network partition, this
>> MUST be noticed so that, for example, all MAC reachability information
>> associated with each of the no longer reachable RBridges can be discarded.
>> It does not seem like much of a stretch to believe that an RBridge would
>> keep track of the Pull Directory or Directories it was using, each of
>> which will be some other RBridge, and notice when a topology change
>> makes any of them inaccessible. But I have no problem adding some
>> wording to make this clearer.
>>
>>> ...
>>> In the flooding flag and behavior, (long text elided) I don't think there
>>> is
>>> anything wrong with the intended behavior.  It is just that the very
>>> brief
>>> description of the FL flag leads the reader to an incorrect expectation.
>>> Yes, it gets sorted out, but that is not good.  What I would suggest is
>>> when
>>> the flag is defined (with whatever name you choose) note that "for the
>>> qtypes 2,3,and 4, the flag indicates that the server should flood its
>>> response."
>>
>>
>> We can work  on clarifying the wording.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Donald
>> =============================
>>   Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   [phone] (cell)
>>   155 Beaver Street, Milford, MA 01757 USA
>>   [e-mail]
>>
>