RE: FW: [802.1] MSTP MIB - mstpMapTable

["Romascanu, Dan \(Dan\)" <dromasca@avaya.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harrie Hazewinkel [mailto:harrie@lisanza.net] 
> Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 6:30 PM
> To: Romascanu, Dan (Dan)
> Cc: Mreview (E-mail); Keith McCloghrie
> Subject: Re: FW: [802.1] MSTP MIB - mstpMapTable
> 
> Romascanu, Dan (Dan) wrote:
> > This issue popped-up on the IEEE 802.1 WG list, around a 
> OCTET STRING 
> > object that would exceed 500 octets, and the authors 
> decided to break 
> > it into 'smaller pieces'.
> > While watching this discussion I checked with the MIB review 
> > guidelines, which do not say anything about a recommended size 
> > limiting of an OCTET STRING, excepting the fact that it is 
> recommended 
> > to be limited at some size, especially when the OCTET 
> STRING object is 
> > an index. See 
> > 
> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ops-mib-review-guidelin
> > es -04.txt Section 4.6.1.4. Is this OK? If so, how does this live 
> > together with Keith's comment?
> 
> I do not see a real problem here.
> 
> Immagine, cars should be smaller then 2.5 meters wide, since 
> otherwise the lanes on the road will not wide enough. If you 
> live in a small italian town with old roads the car may not 
> exceed 1.9 meters width, since you would otherwise not be 
> able to go into the little village.
> Even though, the little village adds extra limitations to the 
> width of the car, it does not forbid it. It only cannot go 
> into the little village.
> 
> Therefore, I do see the limitations of the size of an OCTET 
> STRING is still as defined by ASN.1. However, if you use some 
> transport mappings extra limitations may apply.
> 
> One might argue that this is confusing to MIB designers and a 
> hint might have been given about it.
> 

Soap...

Actually the narrower lanes I had to drive on were in Cornwall, UK, and
not in Italy :-)

Soap/

The question is whether the 1.9 meters (aka 484 bytes) limitation is a
remote corner case in Italy or Cornwall, or is a rather widely
encountered Internet highway norm, that SMIv2-based applications could
face and then, we should rather reflect this in the MIB review
guidelines. 

Dan