RE: EDIINT AS2 Status

If it's not too late, I would like to submit a concern we have about the AS2
standard...

We (EDS) have participated in the past several rounds of AS2
interoperability testing.  During each round, we inevitably have to open a
number of ports on our corporate firewalls due to the current arbitrary port
selection process that vendors use when bringing up an AS2 server.  As a
result, we currently have 60+ ports open to allow AS2 traffic in and out of
our corporate network.  Not only does this cause a lot of effort to be
needlessly expended, it also presents an increased security risk.

This is not only an issue with interoperability testing, it is also a
production AS2 issue.  If the standard assumes the use of the default ports
80/443 it isn't happening.  We believe some guidance in the standard with
respect to port selection would help.

It seems to us that if the AS2 standard RECOMMENDED a pair of ports that it
would simplify AS2 implementation and improve the standard.  The ports could
be registered with IANA at http://www.iana.org/cgi-bin/usr-port-number.pl.
For example, ports 5080/5443 are currently unregistered and could be
recommended as ports to use in an AS2 implementation.

Marc Nurmi - EDS
phone: 248-265-4514 (8-365)
mailto:[email protected]



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of Rik Drummond
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 2:56 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: EDIINT AS2 Status



I believe we have answered all the concerns posted about the draft on the
previous WG Last Call for AS2. Kyle and Dale have done their normal
excellent job on applying the comments. 

There are some new requirements for draft submissions formats what we are
attempting to implement in the AS2 document before doing, hopefully, our WG
last final call.

We are almost there!

Best Regards, Rik Drummond