Next steps: I'm expecting a response from Eric (and/or comments from the
others) on the use of the word "unauthorized" (below). Once that is
settled one way or the other, someone (not me) could make a decision
whether to push the existing rev to IESG evaluation or revise at this
point. I'll wait advice from DavidW or the chairs before proceeding.
I've added PIM WG chairs to cc:.
Eric, thanks for your comments, my responses inline,
On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, Eric Gray wrote:
> COMMENTS/QUESTIONS
> ==================
>
> I don't understand the following statement (from Introduction,
> page 3):
>
> "The impact on the outside of the link is described in [RFC4609]."
>
> What is the "outside of the link" in this context?
It should probably say, "outside of the link connecting the host". I.e.
this document is focused on the first and last hop. The title was
slightly revised a couple of revisions back and this should maybe have
been reflected at this point.
> __________________________________________________________________
>
> In section 2, an attacking node is defined to be either a host or
> an unauthorized router. This brings up a point - perhaps it is
> necessary to point out that attacks based on subversion of an
> authorized router are out of scope (in the Introduction)?
Good point, this could be added.
> __________________________________________________________________
>
> "Unauthorized" may not be the right word in section 2.2. The text
> in the section seems to imply that enabling PIM on a router's host
> interface effectively "authorizes" hosts to become PIM neighbors.
>
> Perhaps "Nodes May Exhibit Unauthorized Behavior as PIM Neighbors"
> or "Nodes May Be Invalid PIM Neighbors" would be more correct?
> __________________________________________________________________
Good observation, though the document uses "unauthorized" in many places,
in most of Section 2. It would seem that all of those should be changed
if 'unauthorized' is not suitable; there are some minor variations on what
unauthorized implies in each context but in the higher level view they
seem similar. I agree it's not an ideal word but I can't think of better
ones: "unauthorized behaviour" is longer and has similar problems with
'unauthorized'. Invalid has a chance to lead the reader astray because
invalid often implies that it is a protocol violation.
How about "irregular" would be any better? It has more possible
interpretations so I'm not sure if it's much better.
The thing I'm looking for is "unexpected by the network administrator or
the spirit of the PIM-SM specification".
If a better word can't be found, maybe this can be left as is, or some
clarifying text added at the top of section 2. Suggestions would be
welcome.
> There is a bit of confusion in the bullets in section 3.1 (page 6)
> - the lead in appears to assume that bullets apply to an attacker
> that has managed to have itself elected as the DR, yet the third
> bullet doesn't seem to require this.
Good observation. First I thought your reading was careless, but
re-reading proved me wrong :-).
> I would suggest breaking the bit about "even if the router is not
> DR" out into a separate paragraph after the bullets (along the
> lines of "Sending PIM Prune messages may also be an effective
> attack vector even if the attacking node is not elected DR, since
> PIM Prune messages are accepted from (on?) downstream interfaces
> even in this case.")
Yes, this seems like a good suggestion. I'll work on that.
> __________________________________________________________________
>
> NITs
> ====
>
> In section 2.1 "as unicast" or just "unicast" as opposed to "by
> unicast"?
>
> ("unicast" is not - AFAIK - an active element or agent capable of
> sending [Register] messages...)
> __________________________________________________________________
simply "unicast" is probably right.
Thanks,
Pekka
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