Adding something to my last email, after an offline discussion with
Sebastian:
[...]
REQ. ARv14-6: Partially compliant, with comment: In addition
to IPv4/6 addresses/prefixes the document only defines one
host group descriptor type, namely PIDs. The mapping mechanism
from IP prefixes to PIDs ("Network Map") is described in
4. and 7.7.1.1.
The document allows the definition of additional host group
descriptor types by means of extension documents (see ARv14-5),
but it does not mention the mapping mechanism for them at all.
I propose:
1.) add a clarification in section 7.5.3.1 that the extension
documents not only have to define new Address Types but also
an appropriate mapping mechansim.
At least in the initial discussions of ALTO, there was mention about
using these for addresses other than IP addresses, such as e.164
numbers. That said, I haven't seen any concrete use cases for
anything other than IP addresses or things that can map to IP
addresses.
I don't intend to start a debate on the requirements document at this
stage, but I'm a bit hesitant to say that extensions MUST do this. I
completely agree that those proposing extensions should be thinking
about this, but tend to think that MUST is too strong. How about
extending 7.5.3.1 to state "extension documents defining a new Address
Type SHOULD also document a mechanism to map addresses of the new type
to IPv4 and/or IPv6 addresses prefixes."
A SHOULD is fine, as it implies that people must say why they are not
specifying a mapping mechanism.
Thinking twice about it:
The requirements are actually crisp about that: The MUST document such a
mapping. Therefore we should have it this way in the protocol.
Such an extension is sort of useless, at least by today's measures, if
there is no mapping mechanism to IPV4/IPv6 addresses.
Martin
--
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NEC Laboratories Europe - Network Research Division NEC Europe Limited
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