RE: registration OIDs: do the values matter?

["Wijnen, Bert (Bert)" <bwijnen@lucent.com>]

Inline

> -----Original Message-----
> From: C. M. Heard [mailto:heard@pobox.com]
> Sent: maandag 24 februari 2003 21:33
> To: Mreview (E-mail)
> Subject: RE: registration OIDs: do the values matter?
> 
> 
> On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, Wijnen, Bert (Bert) wrote:
> > Oh... an idea might be that we ask IANA to assign
> > a 999999 under mib-2 and under experimental and that
> > we name it something like
> > 
> >   999999 -- placeholder for new modules, not a real OID branch. 
> 
> One hears in this an echo of the suggestions in
> 
> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-narten-iana-experime
> ntal-allocations-03.txt
> 
Mmm... that was not what I am after.
My proposal was more to make sure that IF people do indeed
want to put a real number in the MIB module, that they all
use the same and that we know that it is just a placeholder
and NOT a valid OID sub-tree for MIB modules.

> > That way it is still kind of risky, but we then at least have
> > documented the intention of that number.
> > 
> > Just thinking aloud here.
> 
> I tend to think that having placeholder OIDs is not really necessary
> since the OID number space is practically unlimited (unlike the
> situations contemplated in the above-referenced I-D).  We have the
> whole experimental subtree (or rather the part of it that remains
> unallocated) as a playpen, so if we need experimental codepoints we
> can just go get them.
> 
Just to be clear, it was/is NOT my intent to make it an experimental
codepoint/namespace. It is ONE single number to allow in a MIB 
under development instead of the { mib-2 xxx }.

> > I had once suggested that all MIB compilers should accept xxx
> > as a acceptable number... but that seems not to work.
> 
> I see the non-compilability of { mib-2 xxx } and friends as a
> feature, not a bug.  It makes it clear that proper number has not

Same here, that is why I keep pushing it. 
I was trying to be listening to people who seem to insist on/want
to having/have digits instead of xxx

> been allocated and that the stuff in the module can be changed
> arbitrarily.  Putting in a temporary replacement for compilation
> purposes is is not so hard.  Indeed, the fact that you don't have to
> do that with real OIDs that will later need to be changed makes it
> easy to miss the change when it does come.  That comment applies
> equally to { mib-2 999999 } IANA-allocated experimental nodes.
> 
Oh well.. 
Bert
> //cmh
> 
>