Re: Question about draft-ietf-hubmib-rfc3636bis

["Randy Presuhn" <randy_presuhn@mindspring.com>]

Hi -

> From: "David T. Perkins" <dperkins@dsperkins.com>
> To: "Juergen Schoenwaelder" <j.schoenwaelder@iu-bremen.de>
> Cc: "C. M. Heard" <heard@pobox.com>; "Mreview (E-mail)" <mreview@ops.ietf.org>
> Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 1:47 PM
> Subject: Re: Question about draft-ietf-hubmib-rfc3636bis
>

> HI,
>
> I agree with Juergen, and believe that the Heard suggestion,
> while technically illegal, is a VERY practical approach
> to solve the problem. That is...
>
> If have
>   AMOD DEFINITIONS ::= BEGIN
>    ...
>     aOI OBJECT-IDENTITY
>       ...
>       :: = { foo 1 }
>    ...
>   END
> And change to
>   AMOD DEFINITIONS ::= BEGIN
>    ...
>     aOI OBJECT IDENTIFIER  :: = { foo 1 } -- change from OBJECT-IDENTITY
>    ...
>   END
>   BMOD DEFINITIONS ::= BEGIN -- a new MIB MODULE
>    ...
>    aOI2 OBJECT-IDENTITY
>      ...
>      :: = { foo 1 }  -- reuse OID value
>    ...
>    END
> is technically illegal, but practical.
>
> However, the following is legal and practical, but maybe a
> a little confusing, since the new MIB module, BMOD, would
> have "OBJECT IDENTIFIER" specifications for old items,
> and "OBJECT-IDENTITY" specifications for new items.
>   AMOD DEFINITIONS ::= BEGIN
>    ...
>    aOI OBJECT-IDENTITY
>      ...
>       :: = { foo 1 } -- no change from original
>   ...
>   END
>   BMOD DEFINITIONS ::= BEGIN -- a new MIB MODULE
>    ...
>    -- The following OID value is defined in AMOD, but is
>    -- defined here (with a different descriptor) so that
>    -- all OID values can be contained in one MIB module
>    aOI2 OBJECT IDENTIFIER :: = { foo 1 }  -- reuse OID value
>
>    ...
>    -- new items would use OBJECT-IDENTITY
>    END
...

One serious problem with both of these is that tools that actually
*do* something with OBJECT-IDENTITY invocations (e.g., generate
text for display to humans from the DESCRIPTION clause) will
no longer do the right thing when processing a reference to the
original module.

Of all the proposals I've seen so far, I like best the one to leave
the existing definitions where they are, and put future ones into
an IANA-maintained MODULE.

Randy