Ron,
The first is a syntactic question. That is, "Do we want to
define a syntax that allows us to extend ICMP messages?" ...
In principle, we already have such a mechanism: introducing new
message Types with new message contents. ...
I considered this and decided that it was impractical for IPv4. ...
The second question is architectural. In the future, do we want
to extend ICMP so that it will contain information that might
be useful for debugging, even if that information is not
strictly IP information (i.e., even if it constitutes a small
layer violation).
As long as those messages would be informational, I don't see
much problems....
...
Your point is well-taken and we did consider it at first. However,
these extentions have been widely deployed for several years and I
am not aware of any legacy applications having broken.
So, publish the current draft as Informational with a suitable note
saying that this is the currently deployed practise, stating that
there are architectural problems in the way it is done, and that the
practise should not be extended? And at the same time, try to do the
right thing for IPv6, and possible future IPv4 extensions?
--Pekka Nikander
_______________________________________________
Int-area mailing list
[email protected]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/int-area
