Re: Propagating IP/ECN field when L2TP sits between IP as both L2 payload and PSN

I am a little confused by the double negative in "non-optional".
Do you mean "mandatory"? If so, why not just say that?

The lack of a capabilities AVP that you were looking for is mainly
because it hasn't been needed so far. You are welcome to submit a
draft with something like that. Generally speaking, adding a simple
binary AVP is easy and simpler to handle.

I have no problem with the new suggested AVP, but can you explain
why is it important to know if the remote supports or not this
extension? Can't a tunnel end deduce this information by observing
the IP header received?

Regarding the extension vs update question: if it is an update,
then why negotiate support? Wouldn't ECN propagation be mandated
by this update?

There is no section for L2TPv2 (RFC2661) or any further suggestion
on how to handle it. I'm not saying that it is necessary, but since
it is mentioned earlier in the document, you may want to add a few
words. Note that things are a bit more complicated in v2 because
it transports PPP packets, which may include IP packets (or portions
of PPP packets if using Multilink). I have no issue punting on L2TPv2
details.

-Ignacio


At 15:49 5/30/2017, Bob Briscoe wrote:

>Hi l2tpext list, 
>[repeating previous post, but with self-explanatory subject line]
>
>This is a plea for help on a short subsection of a short draft that updates L2TP (amongst other tunnel protocols).
>
>In the Transport Area WG (tsvwg) we have been working on defining propagation of the ECN field between IP headers separated by shim header(s):
>    draft-ietf-tsvwg-rfc6040update-shim
>
>L2TP is one such protocol (when the payload of the L2 protocol is IP, and the outer PSN is IP). This is particularly relevant at the moment, because of the low latency (L4S) work based on ECN and because deployment of ECN has finally taken off {Note 1}.
>
>I presented this tunnelling work in intarea just under a year ago. Since then tsvwg has adopted the draft and asked that we include specific update text for each affected tunnel protocol. I just posted my first attempt at L2TP update text:
>    <https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tsvwg-rfc6040update-shim-01>draft-ietf-tsvwg-rfc6040update-shim-01
>
>Specific questions:
>
>Prize for the best answer to all 3 questions: you get to become a co-author (if you want :)
>
>Q1. L2TP is meant for all sorts of outers and inners, so it is not clear where to define behaviour for the special (but very common) case of IP as the L2 payload and IP and as the PSN. That is:
>     IP    :    [UDP]    :    L2TP    :    L2-specific-sublayer    :    L2    :    IP
>
>I decided on updating <Specific%20questions:>S.4.5 of RFC3931, but suggestions for a better place are welcome.
>
>Q2. L2TP is usually extended not updated. However, in this case, compliance with RFC6040 is non-optional, so I think update rather than extension is appropriate. Reason: Although RFC6040 is non-optional it includes a compatibility mode that defines what has to happen when a tunnel endpoint doesn't support ECN propagation. 
>
>Pls read the (short) draft and, if you disagree, suggest how an extension can be non-optional.
>
>Q3. The tunnel initiator needs to check that the other end supports ECN propagation. I have proposed an Attribute Value Pair (AVP) for this that is effectively just a boolean choice from each end (Yes or silence). I expected to find an AVP with per-control-connection flags for tunnel endpoint capabilities that I could just extend with one more flag, but there doesn't seem to be such a thing already in L2TP. Did I miss it?
>
>
>Cheers
>
>
>Bob
>
>{Note 1}: ~70% of Web servers, ~50% of Apple client devices on fixed or WiFi access, and now increasing router deployment of ECN is appearing.