RE: Distribution CPG Protocol - Some Thoughts

[Stephen Thomas <stephen.thomas@transnexus.com>]

At 10:22 AM 2001-01-05 -0500, Oliver Spatscheck wrote:
>Internally we define a region as:
>
>REGION : <NAME> {
>        <IP>,<PREFIXLEN>;
>        <IP>,<PREFIXLEN>;
>        ....
>}!

If a CDN advertises (or otherwise claims to "cover") a particular IP 
address prefix, what exactly does that mean? Does it mean (a) that the 
prefix is an atomic subnet, and (b) that there's a surrogate on that subnet?

Here's an example of where things might get tricky. Suppose I own the IP 
addresses 172.16.0.0/16. If I've further subnetted to 172.16.1.0/24, 
172.16.2.0/24, etc., is there any way I can claim 172.16.0.0/16 in the CDN 
protocol? Do I have to have a surrogate on all 256 subnets? Just on the 
subnets that actually exist at the moment? Or can I just put one surrogate 
(say, 172.16.1.1) and argue that no one else is going to get any "closer" 
to the other subnets? (Even if 172.16.99.0/24 is connected by a cruddy 
radio link that's no better than 9600 baud?)

Is this stuff that we even care about in a protocol? Or should we leave it 
open to "good citizenship". After all, the IETF doesn't have a police 
force. So even if we said that you had to have a surrogate physically on 
the subnet, who will punish the liars.

Stephen



____________________________________________________________________
Stephen Thomas                                       +1 770 671 1888
TransNexus, Chief Technical Officer    stephen.thomas@transnexus.com