How to specify InetAddressType COMPLIANCE requirements

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

Dear MIB-Doctors

I have some people (IPCDN WG) who have (In MODULE-COMPLIANCE):

   OBJECT diffServMultiFieldClfrAddrType
      SYNTAX  InetAddressType { ipv4(1) }
      DESCRIPTION
         "An implementation is only required to support IPv4
          addresses."

      Or possibly a DESCRIPTION text of:
         "A DOCSIS 1.0, 1.1 or 2.0 implementation is required
          to support IPv4 addresses at a minimum."

And I have people (MPLS WG) who have:

   OBJECT mplsFTNAddrType
   SYNTAX InetAddressType { ipv4(1), ipv6(2) }
   DESCRIPTION
       "An implementation is only required to support IPv4
        and/or IPv6 addresses.  An implementation is only
        required to support the address types that are actually
        supported on the LSR."


The question here is that people want to express that IPv4 support
is sufficient for devices that do not (yet) have IPv6 stacks
but they would want to also indicate that IPv6 support is needed
(required) if the device DOES have an IPv6 stack. In fact, with
our IETF drive to make sure that all new specs are both IPv4 and
IPv6 friendly, we sort of force them to consider IPv6.

I guess in the future (well probably after we all retire) we may
find devices that no longer have an IPv4 stack, and so we might
want to carter for that too. I think the mplsFTNAddrType spec
covers that all pretty well. 

Can we use that sort of statement as a suggestion/recommendation
for all such MIB modules that are facing this issue?

I think we can/should. Comments please.

Thanks,
Bert