Packet-Loss Resiliency for Router Solicitations
draft-ietf-6man-resilient-rs-06

[Ballot comment]
Thank you for working through my discuss (and Alia's comment), which was

---

I'm piling on Barry's Comment as a Discuss, which should be easy to discuss, but ... in this text:

3.  Configuring the use of retransmissions

  Implementations of this specification MAY provide a configuration
  option to enable or disable the use of such potentially infinite
  retransmissions.  If the implementation provides such a configuration
  option, it MUST be able to enable/disable retransmissions on a per-
  interface basis.
 
You can tell me that it's a LAN, so the transport ADs can go back to sleep, but I was surprised that this configuration option was a MAY.

I was also surprised that there was no guidance about the default setting (on or off), but let's start with the MAY.

IP does get tunneled to new and exciting places ... and infinite retransmissions are infinite ...

---

Extreme nit alert:

  In general, the delay may be unacceptable in some
  scenarios.
 
would make more sense to me without the "in general".

[Ballot comment]
I can live with it.

It doesn't really dwell on costs to devices from the potential for devices on very large but unrouted adhoc networks to spend resources soliciting routers essentially forever.

[Ballot comment]
I can live with it.

It doesn't really dwell on potential for devices on very large but unrouted adhoc networks to spend resources soliciting routers essentially forever.

[Ballot comment]

security considerations: I note that RFC 4861 has been
updated, including by RFC 5942, which specifically says it
addresses a security concern in 4861. (I didn't check the
others.) I think it'd be better to say here "beyond those
discussed in [RFC4861] and RFCs that update that" or some
such. Or point to all the relevant ones, or tell me that it
doesn't matter for this:-)

[Ballot comment]
To continue a bit on Spencer's Discuss and Barry's Comment, I'd prefer to see a default for the configuration.  I'd assume it would be "off" to continue to provide current behavior, but I don't really care.  Consistency is my concern.

[Ballot discuss]
I'm piling on Barry's Comment as a Discuss, which should be easy to discuss, but ... in this text:

3.  Configuring the use of retransmissions

  Implementations of this specification MAY provide a configuration
  option to enable or disable the use of such potentially infinite
  retransmissions.  If the implementation provides such a configuration
  option, it MUST be able to enable/disable retransmissions on a per-
  interface basis.
 
You can tell me that it's a LAN, so the transport ADs can go back to sleep, but I was surprised that this configuration option was a MAY.

I was also surprised that there was no guidance about the default setting (on or off), but let's start with the MAY.

IP does get tunneled to new and exciting places ... and infinite retransmissions are infinite ...

[Ballot comment]
Extreme nit alert:

  In general, the delay may be unacceptable in some
  scenarios.
 
would make more sense to me without the "in general".

(1) What type of RFC is being requested (BCP, Proposed Standard,
Internet Standard, Informational, Experimental, or Historic)?  Why
is this the proper type of RFC?  Is this type of RFC indicated in the
title page header?

  Proposed Standard document. This is the correct type because it
  updates a standards documents with changes to the initial sending of
  Router Solicitations. The type is indicated on the title page.

(2) The IESG approval announcement includes a Document Announcement
Write-Up. Please provide such a Document Announcement Write-Up. Recent
examples can be found in the "Action" announcements for approved
documents. The approval announcement contains the following sections:

Technical Summary

  When an interface on a host is initialized, the host transmits
  Router Solicitations in order to minimize the amount of time it
  needs to wait until the next unsolicited multicast Router
  Advertisement is received. In certain scenarios, router
  solicitations transmitted by the host might be lost. This document
  specifies a mechanism for hosts to cope with the loss of the
  initial Router Solicitations.

Working Group Summary

  The initial revision of this work was published in July 2012. There
  is a strong consensus that this solves a real problem.

Document Quality

  The 6man working group appoints reviewers for all documents being
  advanced to the IESG. This document has been reviewed in detail by
  6man reviewers, and it has had extensive discussion on the mailing
  list.
 
Personnel

  Document Shepherd: Ole Troan
  Responsible Area Director: Brian Haberman

(3) Briefly describe the review of this document that was performed by
the Document Shepherd.  If this version of the document is not ready
for publication, please explain why the document is being forwarded to
the IESG.

  The document has been reviewed by the 6man chairs, ID nits have been
  checked, as well as by the appointed 6man reviewers.

(4) Does the document Shepherd have any concerns about the depth or
breadth of the reviews that have been performed? 

  No.

(5) Do portions of the document need review from a particular or from
broader perspective, e.g., security, operational complexity, AAA, DNS,
DHCP, XML, or internationalization? If so, describe the review that
took place.

  No.

(6) Describe any specific concerns or issues that the Document Shepherd
has with this document that the Responsible Area Director and/or the
IESG should be aware of? For example, perhaps he or she is uncomfortable
with certain parts of the document, or has concerns whether there really
is a need for it. In any event, if the WG has discussed those issues and
has indicated that it still wishes to advance the document, detail those
concerns here.
 

  The document shepherd is uncertain about the second
  paragraph of section 2.1 and the recommendation about continuing
  retransmission of RSes on "non-multicast links". He believes that
  this term is not clearly defined. If this parapgraph is there to
  cover the case of ISATAP, then that should be clarified in an update
  to the ISATAP specification.


(7) Has each author confirmed that any and all appropriate IPR
disclosures required for full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78
and BCP 79 have already been filed. If not, explain why.

  Yes.

(8) Has an IPR disclosure been filed that references this document?
If so, summarize any WG discussion and conclusion regarding the IPR
disclosures.

  No.

(9) How solid is the WG consensus behind this document? Does it
represent the strong concurrence of a few individuals, with others
being silent, or does the WG as a whole understand and agree with it? 

  Strong consensus.

(10) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme
discontent? If so, please summarise the areas of conflict in separate
email messages to the Responsible Area Director. (It should be in a
separate email because this questionnaire is publicly available.)

  No appeal or discontent registered.

(11) Identify any ID nits the Document Shepherd has found in this
document. (See http://www.ietf.org/tools/idnits/ and the Internet-Drafts
Checklist). Boilerplate checks are not enough; this check needs to be
thorough.

No nits.

(12) Describe how the document meets any required formal review
criteria, such as the MIB Doctor, media type, and URI type reviews.

  No formal reviews required.

(13) Have all references within this document been identified as
either normative or informative?

  Yes.

(14) Are there normative references to documents that are not ready for
advancement or are otherwise in an unclear state? If such normative
references exist, what is the plan for their completion?

  No.

(15) Are there downward normative references references (see RFC 3967)?
If so, list these downward references to support the Area Director in
the Last Call procedure.

  None.

(16) Will publication of this document change the status of any
existing RFCs? Are those RFCs listed on the title page header, listed
in the abstract, and discussed in the introduction? If the RFCs are not
listed in the Abstract and Introduction, explain why, and point to the
part of the document where the relationship of this document to the
other RFCs is discussed. If this information is not in the document,
explain why the WG considers it unnecessary.

  It will update RFC 4861.

(17) Describe the Document Shepherd's review of the IANA considerations
section, especially with regard to its consistency with the body of the
document. Confirm that all protocol extensions that the document makes
are associated with the appropriate reservations in IANA registries.
Confirm that any referenced IANA registries have been clearly
identified. Confirm that newly created IANA registries include a
detailed specification of the initial contents for the registry, that
allocations procedures for future registrations are defined, and a
reasonable name for the new registry has been suggested (see RFC 5226).

  I can confirm all points.

(18) List any new IANA registries that require Expert Review for future
allocations. Provide any public guidance that the IESG would find
useful in selecting the IANA Experts for these new registries.

  None.

(19) Describe reviews and automated checks performed by the Document
Shepherd to validate sections of the document written in a formal
language, such as XML code, BNF rules, MIB definitions, etc.

  There are no formal language in this document.

[Ballot comment]
-- Section 1 --

  In certain scenarios, these router solicitations
  transmitted by the host might be lost. e.g. The host is connected to
  a bridged residential gateway over Ethernet or WiFi.  LAN
  connectivity is achieved at interface initialization, but the
  upstream WAN connectivity is not active yet.

Purely minor editorial: I got a little tangled in that, and suggest tying it together better this way:

NEW
  In certain scenarios, these router solicitations
  transmitted by the host might be lost. For example, if the
  host is connected to a bridged residential gateway over
  Ethernet or WiFi, LAN connectivity is achieved at interface
  initialization but the upstream WAN connectivity is not
  yet active.
END

-- Section 3 --

  Implementations of this specification MAY provide a configuration
  option to enable or disable the use of such potentially infinite
  retransmissions.  If the implementation provides such a configuration
  option, it MUST be able to enable/disable retransmissions on a per-
  interface basis.

I find this a slightly odd usage of MAY and MUST: you're making the configuration option entirely optional, but then you're saying that if I have that configuration option, it MUST work a certain way.  Is it really better not to be able to disable the infinite retransmissions at all, than to make it all or nothing?  What is harmed by having a configuration option that affects all interfaces at the same time... that is worse than not having that configuration option at all?

In the end, do as you think best; I just wanted to bring up the comment.

IESG/Authors/WG Chairs:

IANA has reviewed draft-ietf-6man-resilient-rs-04, which is currently in Last Call, and has the following comments:

We understand that, upon approval of this document, there are no IANA Actions that need completion.

While it is helpful for the IANA Considerations section of the document to remain in place upon publication, if the authors prefer to remove it, IANA doesn't object.

If this assessment is not accurate, please respond as soon as possible.

The following Last Call announcement was sent out:

From: The IESG
To: IETF-Announce
CC:
Reply-To: ietf@ietf.org
Sender:
Subject: Last Call:  (Packet loss resiliency for Router Solicitations) to Proposed Standard


The IESG has received a request from the IPv6 Maintenance WG (6man) to
consider the following document:
- 'Packet loss resiliency for Router Solicitations'
  as Proposed Standard

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
ietf@ietf.org mailing lists by 2015-02-16. Exceptionally, comments may be
sent to iesg@ietf.org instead. In either case, please retain the
beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.

Abstract


  When an interface on a host is initialized, the host transmits Router
  Solicitations in order to minimize the amount of time it needs to
  wait until the next unsolicited multicast Router Advertisement is
  received.  In certain scenarios, these router solicitations
  transmitted by the host might be lost.  This document specifies a
  mechanism for hosts to cope with the loss of the initial Router
  Solicitations.  Furthermore, on some links, unsolicited multicast
  Router Advertisements are never sent and the mechanism in this
  document is intended to work even in such scenarios.




The file can be obtained via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-6man-resilient-rs/

IESG discussion can be tracked via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-6man-resilient-rs/ballot/


No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.

(1) What type of RFC is being requested (BCP, Proposed Standard,
Internet Standard, Informational, Experimental, or Historic)?  Why
is this the proper type of RFC?  Is this type of RFC indicated in the
title page header?

  Proposed Standard document. This is the correct type because it
  updates a standards documents with changes to the initial sending of
  Router Solicitations. The type is indicated on the title page.

(2) The IESG approval announcement includes a Document Announcement
Write-Up. Please provide such a Document Announcement Write-Up. Recent
examples can be found in the "Action" announcements for approved
documents. The approval announcement contains the following sections:

Technical Summary

  When an interface on a host is initialized, the host transmits
  Router Solicitations in order to minimize the amount of time it
  needs to wait until the next unsolicited multicast Router
  Advertisement is received. In certain scenarios, router
  solicitations transmitted by the host might be lost. This document
  specifies a mechanism for hosts to cope with the loss of the
  initial Router Solicitations.

Working Group Summary

  The initial revision of this work was published in July 2012. There
  is a strong consensus that this solves a real problem.

Document Quality

  The 6man working group appoints reviewers for all documents being
  advanced to the IESG. This document has been reviewed in detail by
  6man reviewers, and it has had extensive discussion on the mailing
  list.
 
Personnel

  Document Shepherd: Ole Troan
  Responsible Area Director: Brian Haberman

(3) Briefly describe the review of this document that was performed by
the Document Shepherd.  If this version of the document is not ready
for publication, please explain why the document is being forwarded to
the IESG.

  The document has been reviewed by the 6man chairs, ID nits have been
  checked, as well as by the appointed 6man reviewers.

(4) Does the document Shepherd have any concerns about the depth or
breadth of the reviews that have been performed? 

  No.

(5) Do portions of the document need review from a particular or from
broader perspective, e.g., security, operational complexity, AAA, DNS,
DHCP, XML, or internationalization? If so, describe the review that
took place.

  No.

(6) Describe any specific concerns or issues that the Document Shepherd
has with this document that the Responsible Area Director and/or the
IESG should be aware of? For example, perhaps he or she is uncomfortable
with certain parts of the document, or has concerns whether there really
is a need for it. In any event, if the WG has discussed those issues and
has indicated that it still wishes to advance the document, detail those
concerns here.

  The document shepherd has no concerns. As background
  information. There was significant discussion if this document
  should be extended to support links without multicast RAs
  altogether. The consensus in the WG was to not do that in this
  document. There is additional work being done on "Efficient ND" in
  other drafts the WG is working on.

(7) Has each author confirmed that any and all appropriate IPR
disclosures required for full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78
and BCP 79 have already been filed. If not, explain why.

  Yes.

(8) Has an IPR disclosure been filed that references this document?
If so, summarize any WG discussion and conclusion regarding the IPR
disclosures.

  No.

(9) How solid is the WG consensus behind this document? Does it
represent the strong concurrence of a few individuals, with others
being silent, or does the WG as a whole understand and agree with it? 

  Strong consensus.

(10) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme
discontent? If so, please summarise the areas of conflict in separate
email messages to the Responsible Area Director. (It should be in a
separate email because this questionnaire is publicly available.)

  No appeal or discontent registered.

(11) Identify any ID nits the Document Shepherd has found in this
document. (See http://www.ietf.org/tools/idnits/ and the Internet-Drafts
Checklist). Boilerplate checks are not enough; this check needs to be
thorough.

No nits.

(12) Describe how the document meets any required formal review
criteria, such as the MIB Doctor, media type, and URI type reviews.

  No formal reviews required.

(13) Have all references within this document been identified as
either normative or informative?

  Yes.

(14) Are there normative references to documents that are not ready for
advancement or are otherwise in an unclear state? If such normative
references exist, what is the plan for their completion?

  No.

(15) Are there downward normative references references (see RFC 3967)?
If so, list these downward references to support the Area Director in
the Last Call procedure.

  None.

(16) Will publication of this document change the status of any
existing RFCs? Are those RFCs listed on the title page header, listed
in the abstract, and discussed in the introduction? If the RFCs are not
listed in the Abstract and Introduction, explain why, and point to the
part of the document where the relationship of this document to the
other RFCs is discussed. If this information is not in the document,
explain why the WG considers it unnecessary.

  It will update RFC 4861.

(17) Describe the Document Shepherd's review of the IANA considerations
section, especially with regard to its consistency with the body of the
document. Confirm that all protocol extensions that the document makes
are associated with the appropriate reservations in IANA registries.
Confirm that any referenced IANA registries have been clearly
identified. Confirm that newly created IANA registries include a
detailed specification of the initial contents for the registry, that
allocations procedures for future registrations are defined, and a
reasonable name for the new registry has been suggested (see RFC 5226).

  I can confirm all points.

(18) List any new IANA registries that require Expert Review for future
allocations. Provide any public guidance that the IESG would find
useful in selecting the IANA Experts for these new registries.

  None.

(19) Describe reviews and automated checks performed by the Document
Shepherd to validate sections of the document written in a formal
language, such as XML code, BNF rules, MIB definitions, etc.

  There are no formal language in this document.