Re: RE: AD request / L2 Triggers Chapter Statement

Phil Neumiller wrote:

> I am sorry about that "sand" comment.  It seems the arguments quickly get circuitous.  What we
> are suggesting is something really subtle.
>
> A).  IP needs to create a standard interface method on its unspecified bottom half.
> B).  It already has one on the top, namely sockets.
>
> This is quite different than saying, all L2s must do this or that.  What we want is a mechanism to
> pass L2 information in a standard way up to and through the IP stack.  In order for this to
> happen in the correct way, the IETF needs to specify it.

There are two sets of issues here:
1) What are the semantics the need to be passed up the stack, and how are they to be used at each
layer in the stack; and
2) What APIs should be used to pass those semantics

I think that most of the objections are to the IETF working on (2).  Frankly, I'm sceptical as to the
value of (2) myself, and certainly think that X-Open and like organizations are the place to do that
work.

As to (1), you are making the case that  packets on the wire are not the only stimulus that modifies
state in, or causes output from, the layers in the IP stack*.   If it is your interest to "look for
skeletons" vis a vis operation of IP in a wireless environment, then cataloging those things at a
semantic level is a useful exercise.


* Although the IP forwarding process is nominally "stateless", it has trivial, transient state.
Forwarding tables, routing databases, filter tables and the like are also state information and occur
at the IP layer.



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