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Re: [mif] WG Review: Multiple InterFaces (mif)

2009-04-22 12:36:19
Hi Lars,

Lars Eggert wrote:

On 2009-4-22, at 2:19, Christian Vogt wrote:
It seems that folks are considering two related, yet still orthogonal
topics for inclusion in the MIF charter:

- Conflicts between configuration parameters.

- Issues with address selection.

I agree that both of these are important and should be worked on (and with the rest of your email, basically).

The first one is what I thought MIF would be focusing on, as an INT WG is IMO the right venue for this.

The second one is also important, but much more tricky, because it ties in with transports and applications (as Keith and others have pointed out already). Topics that cross area boundaries are always a bit difficult to charter. I'm at this point not fully convinced that simply throwing this in with topic #1 into one WG is going to work.

I disagree with your conclusion for two reasons:

(1) As I pointed out in my previous message to Christian, address selection is not (today) a transport-layer or application-layer function in most cases. Given that this is currently an Internet-layer function, I think it makes sense to analyze the issues with address selection (as part of the whole address/interface/router selection process) in an Internet Area group. If we find that one of the problems we have is that the Internet layer doesn't have the right information to make these decisions, then possibly some follow-on work might need to be chartered elsewhere.

(2) There is no way that these decisions can be made solely at the transport or application layer, because source (and to a lesser degree destination) address selection is tightly tied to the first-hop forwarding decision. The outbound interface, source address and default router all have to be selected in a coordinate process, to avoid sending traffic that will be discarded on the outbound path, due to router filters.

So, while agree that address selection affects transport layers and applications, and that it might be necessary for transport layers and applications to have better ways of influencing it, I do not believe that address selection is a transport layer or applications layer function today, nor do I think it can be done solely at those layers in the future.

Margaret

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