Re: [v6ops] new draft: draft-taylor-v6ops-fragdrop

[Joe Touch <[e-mail]>]

On 10/31/2012 5:58 PM, Lorenzo Colitti wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 9:51 AM, Joe Touch <[e-mail]
> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>
>     However, you've answered the key issue - this is not about
>     fragments, but rather about two things:
>
>     a) DPI
>              DPI cannot be done on packets with any options
>              so this either means operators need to ignore DPI
>              on such packets or drop them
>
>
> I don't think we should use the term DPI, because we don't really have
> consensus on what it means. I suspect some would assert that just
> looking at layer 4 headers is not DPI and that it's only DPI if you look
> into layer 4 payloads as well.

IMO, a router that looks beyond the IP headers is doing DPI. I realize 
others think DPI means looking at the E2E data.

However, to avoid confusion, I'll just state that:

- anything that looks only at an IP packet is a router

- anything that looks at higher layer headers isn't a router anymore. it 
might be a firewall, filter, etc., and whether the box can do that at 
line rate is a question customers should ask their vendors, not a 
problem the IETF should solve.

Joe