Folks,
please take attached matter *very* seriously - lack of appropriate
tracing/debugging will be a roadblock for the protocol!
Abbie agreed to summarize the thoughts and issues around tracing and
debugging some time next week. So, please, make sure that Abbie will
have plenty of material to talk about and post your thoughts to the
mailing list (hard to believe that no one has any opinion about what
to do here and how...).
Thanks,
Markus
--- Begin Message ---
Hi,
with a first draft on the fundamental design of the OPES callout
protocol being distributed, allow me to remind the WG of the
importance of the tracing and debugging functionality (also given by
the IAB considerations for OPES). We've to take this very seriously!
We have to look at tracing and debugging *now* and must not assume
that it can easily be tagged onto the protocol at some later point. I
would like to see some discussion on how we actually do the tracing
and debugging, based on which the (possible) impact on the callout
protocol can be determined. Only than, we can advance with the callout
protocol!
In particular, one might ask
- what has to be identified by the tracing capabilities? The
OPES processors, the callout servers, the services themselves?
All entities/services on the path between content consumer and
content provider, or only the those in the direct trust domain?
- how are the entities identified, what's the name space? In
particular, we need to keep in mind that the IP address of an
entitiy might not work out, since it might be a non-routable one
(e.g. a callout server behind a NAT/firewall)
- how exactly is thetracing information conveyed to the end points?
In-band in the application message protocol (e.h. in HTTP
extensions?)
- what does the endpoint do with the tracing information, i.e. how
can it contact possible faulty OPES service providers etc.
- can the tracing and debugging feature be enforced? How?
- are there implications on the callout protocol with respect to
tracing and debugging? If no, are we suree about this? If yes,
what do we have to build into the callout protocol to make it work
(and possibly to enforce it?
These are just a few questions to start with. I'm sure more will pop
up and will have to be answered.
Would anyone be interested in taking a lead on the discussion of
tracing and debugging, possibly by putting together some thoughts in
text form (maybe giving a specific example on how tracing/debugging
will work)? This is *very* important for advancing our protocol work.
Thanks,
Markus
--- End Message ---