RE: RFC 4181 indeed updates RFC 2578..2580 (fwd)

["David B Harrington" <dbharrington@comcast.net>]

Hi Mike,

I view this as a CLR.

I can accept this CLR as a BCP guideline that SHOULD be followed to
help improve interoperability between agent implementations and
management applications. If we make this an Update to a STD, and
enforce it as if it were a STD, then it is something to hit people
over the head with. We already have enough CLR-hammers; we don't need
more.

Here's a question for you - how will making this an official update
improve my ability to manage a network, as compared to this being just
BCP guidelines applied during MIB Doctor reviews? 

I suspect the answer is "It would give us a bigger hammer." If these
are just guidelines, then WGs and WG chairs can argue with the MIB
Doctors that it doesn't apply in certain circumstances; if we Update
the STD, WGs and WG chairs are denied that privilege. The IETF has not
given us the right to make that change in process.

David Harrington
dbharrington@comcast.net

> -----Original Message-----
> From: C. M. Heard [mailto:heard@pobox.com] 
> Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 4:05 PM
> To: David B Harrington
> Cc: Mreview (E-mail)
> Subject: RE: RFC 4181 indeed updates RFC 2578..2580 (fwd)
> 
> On Mon, 24 Oct 2005, David B Harrington wrote:
> > As I contributed to the development of the mib guidelines, I
> > thought we were producing guidelines to help people, not new
> > rules to hit them over the head with.
> 
> Just out of curiousity, do you consider things like this:
> 
> |   - If dynamic row creation and/or deletion by management 
> applications
> |     is supported, then:
> |   [ ... ]
> |     - There either MUST be one columnar object with a 
> SYNTAX value of
> |       StorageType [RFC2579] and a MAX-ACCESS value of 
> read-create, or
> |       else the row object (table entry) DESCRIPTION clause 
> MUST specify
> |       what happens to dynamically-created rows after an 
> agent restart.
> |
> |     - If the agent itself may also create and/or delete 
> rows, then the
> |       conditions under which this can occur MUST be clearly 
> documented
> |       in the row object DESCRIPTION clause.
> 
> to be "new  rules to hit them over the head with" or 
> something than helps
> people?  The rules cited above are (a) above and beyond the 
> requirements
> of RFCs 2678/2579/2580, (b) sometimes painful for writers of 
> MIB modules
> (and possibly for agent implementors as well), but (c) it 
> should make life
> a whole lot easier for the writers of management applications.
> 
> //cmh
> 
>