RE: RE: Historic confusion over Ethernet MIBs!

Please see comments below. As the issues have a rather strong admin and 'political' content, I am not sure which hat I am wearing ;-)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: C. M. Heard [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 11:06 AM
> To: Hubmib Mailing List; [email protected]
> Subject: RE: [Hubmib] RE: Historic confusion over Ethernet MIBs!
> 
> 
> On Tue, 7 May 2002, Andrew Smith wrote:
> 
> > A couple of points on this issue:
> > 
> > 1. There is a mismatch between the base IEEE 802.3 
> "Ethernet" specification
> > numbering space and the RFC numbering space used to 
> document these MIBs for
> > 802.3. A mapping is needed between them.
> 
> In other words, you'd like to see a table somewhere that lists, for
> each RFC containing a revision of the EthernetLike-MIB, the version
> of IEEE Std 802.3 to which it corresponds?  (Each EthernetLike-MIB
> RFC does contain that information.)

I think it would be a good thing to add this table in the next version of the Internet-Draft.

> 
> > 2. The underlying IEEE 802.3 specification is a moving 
> target, a living
> > document.
> 
> Which is a different model than in used in the Internet standards
> process.
> 
> > 3. The underlying 802.3 specifications have always been, 
> and will continue
> > to be for the foreseeable future, "re-affirmed" every few years.
> 
> No, the trend over the last few years has been for the 802.3 
> publication to
> be REVISED, as in adding major new features (like 100 Mb/s, 
> 1000 Mb/s, and
> now 10 Gb/s).
> 
> > 4. RFC 1643 stands as a self-contained snapshot of Ethernet 
> management in
> > 1994, both the underlying technology (10Mbps Ethernet) and 
> the grammar used
> > to describe the manageable objects in it (SMI version 1). Later RFCs
> > translated it to SMIv2 and played around with its objects a 
> bit but none of
> > them contains the phrase "Obseletes RFC 1643".
> 
> No, but in retrospect I think RFC 2358 should have.
> 
> > So, what to do about it?
> > 
> > Option A) align the numbering schemes: this means 
> introducing a "version
> > number" for these MIBs, if not in the RFC document 
> boilerplate then, at
> > least, in the SMI module(s) contained therein. Conformance 
> is then to be
> > claimed with the thing with the version, probably not just 
> with the RFC
> > number. This would need some re-education of marketing 
> folks :-) I'd suggest
> > that there be some sort of matchup between IEEE 802.3 
> "clause" numbers and
> > the unit of conformance since, typically, 802.3 does not go 
> back to change
> > an existing clause but adds new clauses with new management 
> functionality.
> 
> Something like this already exists:  it's called a MODULE-COMPLIANCE
> invocation, it has a name and and OID, and implementors can claim to
> conform to it.

Andy means (I think) adding the IEEE Standard version explicitly in the Module Compliance and REFERENCE clauses. This seems a good addition.

> 
> As for matching this up with 803.3 clause numbers:  it turns out that
> Clause 30, which contains the 802.3 protocol-neutral MIB object
> definitions, seems to get updated with every revision of 802.3.  Its 
> subclauses figure prominently in the REFERENCE clauses of the
> EthernetLike-MIB.

Indeed, but mentioning the version / edition of the IEEE document would solve this.

> 
> > Option B) toss this work over the fence to IEEE 802.3: I 
> think they might
> > now be ready to accept SNMP/SMI as mainstream (GDMO doesn't 
> really have much
> > of a following, even amongst those purists, any more). IEEE 
> 802.1 and 802.3
> > have already bitten this bullet and written SMIv2 MIBs for 
> themselves and
> > included them in e.g. 802.1X (network access control) and 
> 802.3ad (link
> > aggregation) specs.

I would object to this. Actually the IEEE 802.3 people seem to be very happy with the IETF taking upon the SNMP MIBs work. They have little experience in SNMP, and prefer to take the protocol agnostic approach again nowadays.

There are other good reasons for taking this work to the IETF beyond SNMP expertise:
- The new horizons that Ethernet is crossing get closer tot he providers space (metro transport, WAN, residential subscribers), and there is little experience in the IEEE about how these application spaces are managed. 
- The WIS MIB has specific 'cross-technology' issues with the SONET MIB, and this may happen in the future with EFM-copper for example
- In many cases the Ethernet MIBs added new objects beyond the direct reflection of the GDMO HW-related objects. Implementations seem to prove that at least some of these additions were considered valuable and adopted.

I would also note that some customers were confused by the IEEE issuing SNMP MIBs, as it was done for 802.1X and 802.3ad. Beyond the root OID issue, some big customers miss the IETF process of progressing the standards status. As you are probably aware the Bridge MIB WG is currently 'translating' the 802.1X MIB to the IETF space.

> > 
> > Option C) my least favourite: write a BCP-AS that is a 
> living document,
> > providing the glue to match up the appropriate versions of 
> 802.3 and of the
> > RFCs. It needs to be revised every time one of them changes 
> and its WG,
> > therefore, become vampire-like and never gets to sleep :-)
> 
> Guess what:  that's what essentially we've been doing, except 
> that instead
> of BCP the MIB document just recycles at Proposed Standard.  
> That always
> happens if you add objects to a MIB module.  Sometimes it can 
> be avoided by
> making supplemental MIB modules, but that approach did not 
> seem appropriate
> in this case.
>  
> > Option D) do nothing: actually, not a bad approach. 
> Implementors and users
> > make their own decisions about whether this week's version 
> of the ID, a
> > draft-, a proposed- or a full-standard are what they build 
> or purchase. The
> > statement in the RFC-to-Historic draft about
> >    "Having it remain an Internet Standard while the 
> replacement RFCs make
> > their
> >    way through the standards track serves no useful purpose 
> and may even
> >    have the undesirable effect of encouraging vendors to 
> implement it
> >    instead of its more up-to-date replacements."
> > is too myopic for my liking and ignores the status that 
> full-standard is
> > supposed to carry. If the more up-to-date replacements are 
> so wonderful then
> > we should put our efforts into getting full-standard status 
> for them (or in
> > improving the process to make that easier/quicker) and in 
> getting the magic
> > phrase "Obseletes RFC 1643" placed in a full-standard RFC.
> > 
> > i.e. I do not think that "Historic" is the right approach 
> here. But whatever
> > is done, do it right, because this issue is not going away 
> any time soon.
> 
> What useful purpose is served by maintaining the designation 
> of Internet
> Standard for a document, such as RFC 1643, that has been superseded by
> other documents?  To me, _that_ seems to ignore the status that full
> standard is supposed to carry.
> 

I am personally confused because I think that I am hearing conflicting messages from the IESG. I am not interested in entering a philosophical discussion about what 'Historical' means. Our purpose as a Working Group is to encourage customers to adopt the more recent versions of the MIB because they cover the new Ethernet technology extensions, and to use SMIv2 and SNMPv3, reflecting the progress of the SNMP technology. The scope of the current discussion is to find the best way to do it.

> //cmh
> 
> 
> 
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Regards,

Dan