RE: IF types durring review of EPON-04

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

(copying IANA and Keith McCloghrie)

If I understand well the issue that you are raising is the lack of
documentation of many of the values defined at IANAifType. Indeed, many
entries have some comments but no references, in some other cases the
name of the enumerated value is the only available information. 

My assumption is that for a new MIB module designer and for reviewers
the majority of the entries can be eliminated from start and with a
small research effort the rest can be clarified. Sure we can improve
documentation, and we can recommend to IANA that in the future each new
assigned ifType value documents in more detail the technology and
provides a reference. Note that in some cases providing a reference is
not that easy, at initial registration the reference is an
Internet-Draft, but then when it becomes an RFC who will be in charge
with updating the reference? It would be interesting to hear other
opinions to what extend is this a problem and to what extend this can be
solved. Probably IANA has some historical records from previous
registrations that could be used to improve the IANAifType TC
documentation, but this is a small project that somebody needs to take
charge about, and resources are scarce in our community. 

Dan





 
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-mreview@ops.ietf.org 
> [mailto:owner-mreview@ops.ietf.org] On Behalf Of David T. Perkins
> Sent: Friday, May 12, 2006 8:25 PM
> To: mreview@ops.ietf.org
> Subject: IF types durring review of EPON-04
> 
> HI,
> 
> I'm doing a second review of EPON-04 I-D, which is 
> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-hubmib-efm-epon
> -mib-04.txt
> 
> It is very complex and the previous review raised many questions.
> The good news is that it is MUCH better, and it is finally to 
> the level that someone can make sense of it. However, given 
> that it is an interface MIB module, there are many additional 
> considerations that must be followed. I don't remember all of 
> them, and would need to refresh myself with these 
> considerations to do a complete job. Is there anyone that can 
> do a scan after I finish the first pass?
> 
> One question that I have so far is what interface type to use 
> for the virtual links. The document uses the same value as 
> the physical (which is gigabitEthernet(117)), but it seems to 
> me that the propVirtual(53) is more appropriate.
>  
> In trying to determine the value for ifType, I looked at 
> http://www.iana.org/assignments/ianaiftype-mib
> In it I see that there are 234 types defined.
> This seems like an extremely large number. Also, there is not 
> a reference for each assigned value.
> Thus, I could not figure out from looking at these values 
> what values the should be used in the EPON MIB module. This 
> seems like a generic problem that anyone implementing object 
> ifType would encounter. And a delemma for anyone creating a 
> new interface MIB module. 
> 
> Are there any suggestions that would help me now with the 
> EPON MIB module, and for making it easier for future 
> interface MIB module developers?
> 
> Regards,
> /david t. perkins
> 
> 
> 
> 
>