Document Writeup for draft-ietf-radext-bigger-packets-05
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This writeup is based on the template dated 24 February 2012.
(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?
This document is aiming for Experimental status; this is indicated in the title
page header. This is the correct choice because it proposes complex changes to
the RADIUS operational model to achieve transmission of payload sizes beyond
the current maximum (4096 bytes). A distinguishing factor between this
document and RFC7499 is that there is no support for backwards compatibility,
i.e. with implementations of RFC6613 which do not support this experiment, nor
with intermediate proxies which use RFC2865 to transmit the RADIUS payload. The
real-life consequences of this lack of backward compatibility - particularly to
UDP-based RFC2865 RADIUS servers - needs further study; hence Experimental.
(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:
The Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) protocol is limited to
a total packet size of 4096 octets. The RADIUS over TLS experiment described in
RFC 6614 has opened RADIUS to new use cases where the 4096-octet maximum size
limit of RADIUS packets proves problematic. This specification extends the
RADIUS over TCP experiment (RFC 6613) to permit larger RADIUS packets. This
specification compliments other ongoing work to permit fragmentation of RADIUS
authorization information. This document registers a new RADIUS code, an
action which requires IESG approval.
Working Group Summary:
The document advanced through the working group stage smoothly. The amount of
review it got was not overwhelming, but enough people participated to make it a
solid and credible review and consensus overall.
Document Quality:
The document was reviewed by key contributors of the radext working group. It
has not undergone an external review yet. There should be a review of the new
Protocol-Error packet type during the IETF Last Call and IESG evaluation, since
the allocation of a new packet type requires IESG approval. At least one vendor
(FreeRADIUS) has indicated an interest to implement this specification.
Personnel:
The Document Shepherd is Stefan Winter <stefan.winter@restena.lu>. The
responsible Area Director is Kathleen Moriarty
(kathleen.moriarty.ietf@gmail.com); currently Stephen Farrell
(stephen.farrell@cs.tcd.ie).
(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 shepherd has thoroughly reviewed revision -03 of the document for
this writeup. The outcome were a number of questions to the mailing list with a
total of five substantial issues and a number of nits. The author subsequently
cleared all the issues in revisions -04 and -05. This revision was again
reviewed by the shepherd to verify that all issues were indeed satisfactorily
taken care of in the revised document.
(4) Does the document Shepherd have any concerns about the depth or breadth of
the reviews that have been performed?
No concerns; the document was read by and commented on by core members of the
working group.
(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.
The new packet type Protol-Error requires IESG approval, so should be reviewed
by the IETF community during IETF Last Call and during the IESG evaluation
phase.
The new Error-Cause value "Response Too Big" requires expert review. It is the
opinion of the document shepherd that enough subject matter experts have been
participating in the working group stage, and that the successful completion of
working group last call is indication that the allocation of the value is
agreed.
(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.
No issues.
(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, the author confirmed that he does not have any IPR which he is required to
disclose.
(8) Has an IPR disclosure been filed that references this document? If so,
summarize any WG discussion and conclusion regarding the IPR disclosures.
No IPR disclosure has been filed that references this document.
(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?
It is a consensus of the (few, but core) people who care about the topic.
(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 was threatened, and there were no extreme bad feelings about the
document.
(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.
There are three remaining minor issues reported by idnits on the -05 version.
They are small enough to be fixed along with IETF LC comments. The issues are
being tracked at https://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/radext/trac/ticket/197
(12) Describe how the document meets any required formal review criteria, such
as the MIB Doctor, media type, and URI type reviews.
There are no MIBs, media types, or URI requests in this document.
As noted above, the new Error-Cause value "Response Too Big" requires expert
review. It is the opinion of the document shepherd that enough subject matter
experts have been participating in the working group stage, and that the
successful completion of working group last call is indication that the
allocation of the value is agreed.
As noted above, Protocol-Error requires IESG approval. Naturally, the
corresponding community review needs to happen after this writeup is finished,
so nothing can be said about this review.
(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?
All normative references are issued RFCs.
(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.
Considering that the draft itself is aiming for Experimental, no RFC category
in the normative references is blocking it.
(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.
The document changes a size limit of RFC2865; but only when transported over a
RFC6613 transport. The size limit in question is mentioned in the abstract, and
RFC6613 is mentioned as well. RFC2865 is not mentioned because the change is
specific to the subset of packets that are transported over RFC6613 only. The
size limit problem space and RFC number are mentioned in the introduction.
(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).
The IANA considerations section is in order. No new registries are created,
merely existing registries get new value allocations.
(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.
No new registry is created.
One item to note to IANA is that the allocation of the two new attributes
Response-Length and Original-Packet-Code should happen in the short extended
space. This follows from the "Allocation Preference" section in 10.3 of RFC6929
and the fact that the standard space is fully depleted.
(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 definitions in the document.