Hi Dhruv,

Regarding whether this is a verifiable erratum or not, the submitter notes, 
“Hence, it is not clear if CLASSTYPE or LSP goes after END-POINTS. Hence, to 
disambiguate and avoid interoperability issues, the proposal is to include the 
CLASSTYPE object in the updated grammar.” The use of the word “proposal” 
suggests to me that this goes beyond the scope of an erratum, which is limited 
to correcting errors in a manner consistent with the consensus at time of 
publication 
(https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/processing-errata-ietf-stream/).
 Unless there was specific consensus for the proposed sorting order, it seems 
to me the erratum oversteps this boundary.

Thanks for your reference to draft-cmfg-pce-pcep-grammar-02. Looking at the 
list traffic, it doesn’t appear there was much (any, really) discussion of it, 
unfortunately. It also led me to find 
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/pce/VUM5GymISrBiPgoUEVH8IkaM3tU/ , where 
the AD at the time (Adrian) rejected erratum 3672, which is similar to 6627 in 
that it complains about ambiguous ordering and asks for a fix. Adrian ends his 
rejection comment with

“In rejecting this Errata report I note that the reported error is not a typo,
but a deliberate decision of the authors and working group. The fix, therefore,
if it is to be applied needs to be achieved through a consensus document.”

AFAICT this reasoning applies equally in the current case. Actually, it applies 
even more so, because the WG was offered draft-cmfg-pce-pcep-grammar-02 and 
didn’t do anything with it, which implies a lack of consensus to go forward 
with a solution to the identified problem.

I do agree that since this topic won't be going away, it seems worth expending 
some effort to solve it instead of ignoring it. Unless someone wants to make 
the argument that the RBNF grammar isn’t subject to IETF consensus, I’m not 
sure the methods you suggest are suitable, at least not without some additional 
consideration for how to make sure they reliably reflect consensus.

Finally I note this other paragraph from Adrian’s message:

“Discussion of this point led to a debate about whether the RBNF is normative 
and
should be "compilable". Some hold the view that being conservative in what you
send and liberal in what you receive could only make this text normative for
building messages not parsing them. Others noted that, as with RSVP, the object
ordering is advisory not mandatory except as where noted explicitly in the 
text.”

(FYI the discussion he references is here: 
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/pce/Og5fW8dZU2VgDjQywSIPm9jU87w/)

This implies to me that there’s at least one other possible way forward, which 
would be to update RFC5440, making object ordering optional. Something like 
this:

OLD:
An implementation MUST form the PCEP
   messages using the object ordering specified in this document.

NEW:
An implementation SHOULD form the PCEP
   messages using the object ordering specified in this and subsequent
documents when an ordering can be unambiguously determined; an
implementation MUST be prepared to receive a PCEP
message with objects in any order.

In other words, fix the problem by fiat, retroactively declaring it to be a 
non-problem. Let me be the first to say that this proposal might be technically 
unsound for some reason, but since it was mentioned in the earlier email and 
represents a different way forward, I thought I’d include it here.

I’ll wait for further discussion, but for now my plan is to reject the erratum 
for the same reason 3672 was rejected.

Thanks,

—John

On Sep 30, 2021, at 12:04 PM, Dhruv Dhody 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:



Hi John, WG,

Oscar is correct in pointing this issue with RBNF when multiple I-Ds extend the 
PCEP message. The erratum could be marked as "Held for Document Update" so that 
any future update to RFC8231 could handle it.

Note that the RBNF grammar inconsistency was discussed in the past [1]. Since 
PCEP messages will keep getting extended it might be worth checking if a living 
document (wiki, GitHub) could be used to maintain the full RBNF of PCEP 
messages.

Thanks!
Dhruv & Julien

[1] 
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-cmfg-pce-pcep-grammar-02.txt<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-cmfg-pce-pcep-grammar-02.txt__;!!NEt6yMaO-gk!UQN1qCMKzSbkTI8Rrsuon-yIYbBWV3jjfq4aE_B-dY1CpwZH8u0oWlaZrF1eYg$>

On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 3:08 PM RFC Errata System 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
The following errata report has been submitted for RFC8231,
"Path Computation Element Communication Protocol (PCEP) Extensions for Stateful 
PCE".

--------------------------------------
You may review the report below and at:
https://www.rfc-editor.org/errata/eid6627<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.rfc-editor.org/errata/eid6627__;!!NEt6yMaO-gk!UQN1qCMKzSbkTI8Rrsuon-yIYbBWV3jjfq4aE_B-dY1CpwZH8u0oWlYLm_GsQA$>

--------------------------------------
Type: Technical
Reported by: Oscar Gonzalez de Dios 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>

Section: 6.4

Original Text
-------------
  <request>::= <RP>
                      <END-POINTS>
                      [<LSP>]
                      [<LSPA>]
                      [<BANDWIDTH>]
                      [<metric-list>]
                      [<RRO>[<BANDWIDTH>]]
                      [<IRO>]
                      [<LOAD-BALANCING>]

Corrected Text
--------------
  <request>::= <RP>
                      <END-POINTS>
                      [<LSP>]
                      [<CLASSTYPE>]
                      [<LSPA>]
                      [<BANDWIDTH>]
                      [<metric-list>]
                      [<RRO>[<BANDWIDTH>]]
                      [<IRO>]
                      [<LOAD-BALANCING>]

Notes
-----
RFC 5455 defines the CLASSTYPE object and specifies that the CLASSTYPE object 
MUST
   be inserted after the END-POINT objects. RFC 8231 defines the LSP object and 
specifies that  the LSP object MUST be inserted after the END-POINTS object. 
Hence, it is not clear if CLASSTYPE or LSP goes after END-POINTS. Hence, to 
disambiguate and avoid interoperability issues, the proposal is to include the 
CLASSTYPE object in the updated grammar. The order would be 
<END-POINTS>[<LSP>][<CLASSTYPE>]

Instructions:
-------------
This erratum is currently posted as "Reported". If necessary, please
use "Reply All" to discuss whether it should be verified or
rejected. When a decision is reached, the verifying party
can log in to change the status and edit the report, if necessary.

--------------------------------------
RFC8231 (draft-ietf-pce-stateful-pce-21)
--------------------------------------
Title               : Path Computation Element Communication Protocol (PCEP) 
Extensions for Stateful PCE
Publication Date    : September 2017
Author(s)           : E. Crabbe, I. Minei, J. Medved, R. Varga
Category            : PROPOSED STANDARD
Source              : Path Computation Element
Area                : Routing
Stream              : IETF
Verifying Party     : IESG

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