CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_



Reported by Philip Almquist/Consultant

RREQ Minutes

The Router Requirements Working Group held extensive meetings in Atlanta
in an attempt to resolve the remaining outstanding issues.  We were
mostly very successful:  although a considerable number of loose ends
remain, we expect that they can be handled on the mailing list (and, if
necessary, in a videoconference).  Our goal is to have a final version
of the document available in October to be formally submitted to the
standards process at the November IETF meeting.

The meetings focused on three activities:


  1. Review of the Router Requirements draft (Monday, Wednesday, and
     Thursday).

  2. Discussion of the theoretical basis of routing in border routers
     (Tuesday and Wednesday).

  3. Review of a draft document describing IP type of service (Tuesday).


Some visitors from the IPLPDN Working Group asked us to consider the
changes to the IP routing architecture that they are considering, but we
did not have time to hold the extensive discussion which would have been
necessary to reach consensus on that issue.

Each is described in more detail below.  The Chair would like to thank
Frank Solensky for recording the decisions reached during the meeting.

Review of Router Requirements Draft

The entire document was reviewed in detail.  This process was
considerably less contentious than at many previous meetings, since the
most divisive issues had previously been resolved.  Some of the issues
included:


   o The relationship between our document and the Host Requirements,
     and the extent to which our document ought to replicate material
     found in the Host Requirements.
   o When (if ever) a router should believe ICMP Redirects.
   o Metrics for static routes.
   o Whether SNMP may be implemented via a proxy agent.
   o The security of in-band configuration mechanisms.
   o The allowability of IP multicast addresses in source routes.
   o What still needs to be done to complete the document.

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In regard to the first issue, we concluded that overlap is generally not
desirable, and that we should work to eliminate it.  The resolution of
the other issues should be obvious from the next version of the draft.

Theory of Border Routers

The Working Group continued its discussion from previous meetings of how
a router which is in multiple routing domains can choose from among
routes to the same destination learned from different routing protocols
(``route believability'') and how can it pass routing information
between multiple routing domains (``route leaking'').  Our discussion of
these difficult topics was guided by several papers by Working Group
members (all available as Internet Drafts):  ``Ruminations on the Next
Hop'' and ``Ruminations on Route Leaking'', both by Philip Almquist, and
``Some Thoughts on Multi-Domain Routing'' by Ross Callon.

The Working Group concluded that the discussion in the papers was
generally correct.  However, two issues were raised concerning the first
paper:


  1. The meta-lookup algorithm always picks the most specific route to
     any destination; administrative policy controls are used only to
     choose among routes that are equally specific.  Some felt that some
     network managers may wish to have policy influence route choice
     among routes that are not equally specific (in particular, some may
     wish to emulate the result of the ``Rank Ordering of Routing
     Protocols'' approach).

  2. The preference of a route is not influenced by route leaking.  Some
     felt that this is incorrect:  the preference of a route ought to
     improve if the route is leaked into a routing protocol whose
     default preference value is better than the original preference
     value of the route.


Neither of these issues were completely resolved at the meeting, so the
author was tasked to consider them in the next version of the paper.

IP Type of Service

Philip Almquist is attempting to write an RFC on the use of the TOS bits
in the IP header.  The group briefly reviewed the then-current draft
(``Type of Service in the Internet Protocol'', available as an Internet
Draft).  Although the group raised some editorial concerns, consensus on
the technical content was reached with almost no debate.

Attendees

Philip Almquist          almquist@jessica.stanford.edu
William Barns            barns@gateway.mitre.org
Arthur Berggreen         art@acc.com
David Bridgham           dab@asylum.sf.ca.us


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Gregory Bruell           gob@shiva.com
Ross Callon              callon@bigfut.enet.dec.com
Vinton Cerf              vcerf@nri.reston.va.us
Peter Chang              tpc@mtunm.att.com
Rob Coltun               rcoltun@ni.umd.edu
Kurt Dobbins             dobbins@ctron.com
Robert Elz               kre@munnari.oz.au
Dino Farinacci           dino@cisco.com
Dennis Ferguson          dennis@canet.ca
William Fink             bill@wizard.gsfc.nasa.gov
David Forster            forster@marvin.dec.com
Vince Fuller             vaf@stanford.edu
Deborah Futcher          dfutche@eco.twg.com
Chris Gunner             gunner@osicwg.enet.dec.com
Steven Hotz              hotz@isi.edu
B.V. Jagadeesh           bvj@3com.com
Frank Kastenholz         kasten@europa.clearpoint.com
Michael Khalandovsky     mlk@ftp.com
Paulina Knibbe           knibbe@cisco.com
Stev Knowles             stev@ftp.com
Richard Larkin           rblarkin@sprintf.merit.edu
John Lekashman           lekash@nas.nasa.gov
Mark Lewis               mlewis@telebit.com
Tony Li                  tli@cisco.com
John Lynn                lynn@ttcllcat.cit.cornell.edu
Shane MacPhillamy        slm@netrix.com
Gary Malkin              gmalkin@ftp.com
Bill Manning             bmanning@rice.edu
Bernie May               bfm@houxa.att.com
April Merrill            abmerri@tycho.ncsc.mil
John Moy                 jmoy@proteon.com
Karen O'Donoghue         kodonog@relay.nswc.navy.mil
David O'Leary            oleary@sura.net
Radia Perlman            perlman@radia.enet.dec.com
Jason Perreault          perreaul@interlan.interlan.com
Lars Poulsen             lars@cmc.com
James Rees               rees@ifs.umich.edu
Michael Reilly           reilly@nsl.dec.com
Gershon Schatzberg       439-3582@mcimail.com
John Scudder             jgs@merit.edu
John Seligson            johns@ultra.com
Richard Smith            smiddy@pluto.dss.com
Frank Solensky           solensky@clearpoint.com
Emil Sturniolo           emil@dss.com
Osamu Takada             takada@sdl.hitachi.co.jp
Ross Veach               rrv@uiuc.edu
Jonathan Wenocur         jhw@shiva.com
Walter Wimer             walter.wimer@andrew.cmu.edu
Cathy Wittbrodt          cjw@nersc.gov
John Wobus               jmwobus@suvm.acs.syr.edu
Robert Woodburn          woody@cseic.saic.com
Joseph Zur               fibrontics!zur@uunet.uu.net
Peter de Vries           peter@wco.ftp.com


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