Ron, all,

I have reviewed this specification. I have a few technical issues
and one question to the community about IPv6 support in this
space.

Technical issues:

>       - An ICMP Extension Structure MAY be appended to any ICMP message
>       except for those excluded below.

Given the nature the extensions we can do at this stage,
and the goals of this draft, I think it would be much better
if the draft explicitly restricted itself to a known subset of ICMP
messages (as opposed to "any").

> 5.  Backwards Compatibility

I have some unease about this section, mainly due
to the central role that the interoperability with
the currently deployed extension scheme that is
not compatible with what this spec says. It is
indeed important that we document how to
stay interoperable to the old extension scheme.
However, Section 5.5 almost recommends
making a non-compliant implementation due to
the backwards compatibility reasons. I would
suggest requiring compliant behaviour and
then allowing backwards compatibility mode
to be enabled through configuration or traceroute
option. Perhaps also some editorial changes.

This issue was also raised by the two reviewers
that I asked to look at this spec (Joe Touch and
Pekka Savola; thanks for your reviews! The detais
have been forwarded to Ron.).

The question:

In the discussion on the int-area list it was brought up that
that we need to "accept reality" in the IPv4 world but for IPv6
we should design something better. Now, as it turns out, one
of reasons for doing this, MPLS traceroute, *has* already
been implemented for IPv6, by at least one large vendor.
I'd like to get input from this list whether this fact changes
any of the conclusions we've had on this topic so far.
Including, for instance, that the draft should be silent on
IPv6.

--Jari


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