RE: Evaluation: draft-ietf-ipv6-flow-label - IPv6 Flow Label Specification

["Peterson, Jon" <jon.peterson@neustar.biz>]

>                       Yes  No-Objection  Discuss  Abstain
> Jon Peterson         [   ]     [   ]     [ x ]     [   ]

> 
> 2/3 (9) Yes or No-Objection opinions needed to pass.
> 
> DISCUSSES AND COMMENTS:
> ======================
> 
> 

Along the same lines as the comments from the Routing Area Directorate, but
with a few different issues in the text:

I believe there are two purposes of flows given in the document - first, a
flow as a way of flagging a stream of related traffic coming from a node
(following Section 3, first paragraph), and second, a flow as something that
would be prioritized by routers (following Section 5.1, first paragraph).
There are a couple of ways in which the two seem to get mixed up.

1) In the last paragraph of 5.1, it suggests that a policy decision in the
source node should be made to determine whether or not an application or
transport protocol is allowed to use a non-zero Flow Label. But reading, for
example, the first paragraph of Section 3, the document suggests that "each
unrelated transport connection and application data stream" on a node should
be assigned to a new flow (which presumably means that they would have a
non-zero Flow Label).

2) Section 3, second paragraph, says:

   To enable applications and transport protocols to define what packets
   constitute a flow, the source node MUST provide means for the
   applications and transport protocols to specify the Flow Label values
   to be used with their flows.

Given that there is some sort of policy decision associated with the
assignment of flows, I don't think applications and transport protocols
could really get to 'specify' these Flow Labels. It also isn't clear how
collisions would be managed (Section 3, third paragraph) if it were possible
for any multiple applications on the same host to specify Flow Label values.

> 
> ^L 
> ---- following is a DRAFT of message to be sent AFTER approval ---
> From: The IESG <iesg-secretary@ietf.org>
> To: IETF-Announce:;
> Cc: Internet Architecture Board <iab@iab.org>,
>     RFC Editor <rfc-editor@isi.edu>, <ipng@sunroof.eng.sun.com>
> Subject: Protocol Action: 'IPv6 Flow Label Specification' to 
>          Proposed Standard 
> 
> The IESG has approved the Internet-Draft 'IPv6 Flow Label 
> Specification' 
> <draft-ietf-ipv6-flow-label-07.txt> as a Proposed Standard. 
> This document is 
> the product of the IP Version 6 Working Group Working Group. The IESG 
> contact persons are Thomas Narten and Margaret Wasserman.
> 
> Technical Summary
>  
> The details of the IPv6 Flow Label are not defined in detail in the
> base IPv6 documents (i.e., RFC 2460). Although an appendix in 2460
> provides some background and a possible usage, they are not considered
> part of the specification itself. This document specifies the IPv6
> Flow Label field, the requirements for IPv6 source nodes labeling
> flows, the requirements for IPv6 nodes forwarding labeled packets, and
> the requirements for flow state establishment methods.
> 
> Working Group Summary
>  
> There was consensus in the WG for the current definitions. Indeed,
> there has been a desire for sometime to define the Flow Label, as its
> considered a part of IPv6, and its lack of a clear definition
> contributed to an appearance of lack of completeness.
>  
> Protocol Quality
>  
> This document has been reviewed for the IESG by Thomas Narten.
> 
>