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RE: RADIUS Calling-Station-Id for WiMAX

Existing RADIUS servers typically expect the Calling-Station-Id Attribute in
ASCII format, and apparently some ASN-GWs are also sending it this way.
This seems counter to the argument that RFC 3580 somehow breaks "backward
compatibility".  Backward compatibility with what, exactly? 

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Bean [mailto:bean@alcatel-lucent.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 7:55 AM
To: David B. Nelson
Cc: 'Avi Lior'; 'Glen Zorn'; 'Ray Bell'; 'Matt Holdrege'; 'Bernard Aboba';
'Congdon, Paul T (ProCurve)'; radiusext@ops.ietf.org; 'Dan Romascanu'
Subject: Re: RADIUS Calling-Station-Id for WiMAX

All,

I think backwards compatibility is poor excuse to preserve 6 octet 
Calling-Station-Id given Alcatel-Lucent and, according to ASN-GW 
documentation, Cisco use RFC 3580 Calling-Station-Id format with WiMAX.  
I have a trace that shows Huawei ASN-GW sends Calling-Station-Id as 12 
hex characters lowercase, not binary.  Not sure what other vendors send 
but at least there is some confusion among some vendors.  I think a 
survey of additional WiMAX ASN-GW vendors would show whether there is an 
actual backwards compatibility issue.

BR,

Mike

Michael Bean (Mike)
Alcatel-Lucent
AAA Product Group
3461 Robin Ln, Ste 1
Cameron Park, CA 95682
Email: bean@alcatel-lucent.com
Phone: 530 672 7577
Fax: 530 676 3442



David B. Nelson wrote:
> Avi Lior writes...
>
>   
>> It seems to me that a binary representation would be a more 
>> appropriate treatment for this value.
>>     
>
> Perhaps, but RFC 3580 followed many years of tradition in choosing the
> dashed-ASCII representation.
>
>   
>> So it is best to leave the presentation to a presentation layer 
>> and not the RADIUS layer.
>>     
>
> Well, no.  The syntax and semantics of RADIUS attribute are a matter of
the
> RADIUS protocol.  There is no presentation layer, and contrary to commonly
> held belief, RADIUS is not simply a transport protocol.  :-)
>
>   
>> It isn't busted.
>>     
>
> Not within the "walled garden" of WiMAX.  On a global interoperability
> scale, I claim that it is broken. 
>
>   
>> And changing it now will break backwards compatibility.
>>     
>
> Yes.  The question is whether to "cowboy up" and fix it now.
>
>
>
>   


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