High Availability within a Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES) Network Element
draft-ietf-forces-ceha-10

[Ballot comment]

This might be part of Sean's discuss in which case I'll
clear and it'll be resolved there, but what is meant in
the security considerations where it says that "CEs should
use secure communication channels"?

Some mail reveals the vendors do proprietary things
with various nice names. It might or might not be worth
adding a little description about that to the draft.

[Ballot discuss]


This might be part of Sean's discuss in which case I'll
clear and it'll be resolved there, but what is meant in
the security considerations where it says that "CEs should
use secure communication channels"?

[Ballot discuss]
I think this might be a simple misunderstanding on my part but I'd like to discuss it a bit.

  It should be noted that since the FE is initiating the association
  with a CE, a CE cannot initiate association with the FE and such
  message will be dropped.  Thus the FE is secured from rogue or
  malfunctioning CEs.

I'm not sure I get to the thus sentence because it assumes that the CE can't be compromised after an association has been established with the FE.  You're telling me a CE is never compromised when it's running?  In other words, the CE can only be comprised when it's not associated.

Document: draft-ietf-forces-ceha-07.txt
Title:    ForCES Intra-NE High Availability
Authors:  K. Ogawa, W. M. Wang, E. Haleplidis, and J. Hadi Salim
Intended status:  Standards Track

(1) What type of RFC is being requested (BCP, Proposed Standard, Internet Standard,
Informational, Experimental, or Historic)? Why is this the proper type of RFC? Is this
type of RFC indicated in the title page header?

Yes, this document is a Standards Track document (Proposed Standard). The title
page of the draft reflects the RFC type. The choice of standards track is a WG
mandate based on previous charter. 

(2) The IESG approval announcement includes a Document Announcement Write-Up.
Please provide such a Document Announcement Write-Up. Recent examples can be
found in the "Action" announcements for approved documents. The approval
announcement contains the following sections:

Technical Summary: This draft discusses Control Element High Availability (CE HA)
within a ForCES Network Element. Architecture, protocol, and message exchange
(sequence) for hot and cold standby of ForCES control element are discussed.  Since
the HA parameterization in an FE is driven by configuring the FE Protocol Object
(FEPO) LFB, new validated (against the schema defined in RFC5812) XML version of
FEPO has also been presented.

Working Group Summary: Standard WG discussions, nothing controversial.

Document Quality: Based on discussions with ForCES mtg. attendees and dialog
participants, it appears that there are a few implementations of this draft. The original
version (ver. 00) of this draft was published in Oct. 2010 and since then it has
undergone updates based on implementation experiences and other discussion.

Personnel: Bhumip Khasnabish is the Document Shepherd.
Adrian Farrel is the Responsible Area Director.

(3) Briefly describe the review of this document that was performed by the Document
Shepherd. If this version of the document is not ready for publication, please explain
why the document is being forwarded to the IESG.

Yes, I reviewed this draft thoroughly and gave comments/suggestions on earlier
versions. The authors have used my suggestions to update this draft.

(4) Does the document Shepherd have any concerns about the depth or breadth of the
reviews that have been performed?

No I have no concerns. This draft has gone through sufficient number of reviews and
implementation cycles/refinements.

(5) Do portions of the document need review from a particular or from broader
perspective, e.g., security, operational complexity, AAA, DNS, DHCP, XML, or
internationalization? If so, describe the review that took place.

No, not at this point in time or for this version.

(6) Describe any specific concerns or issues that the Document Shepherd has with this
document that the Responsible Area Director and/or the IESG should be aware of?
For example, perhaps he or she is uncomfortable with certain parts of the document,
or has concerns whether there really is a need for it. In any event, if the WG has
discussed those issues and has indicated that it still wishes to advance the document,
detail those concerns here.

None.

(7) Has each author confirmed that any and all appropriate IPR disclosures required
for full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79 have already been
filed. If not, explain why?

The shepherd has polled the authors of this draft. There are no IPR issues disclosed
or known for the materials presented in this draft.

(8) Has an IPR disclosure been filed that references this document? If so, summarize
any WG discussion and conclusion regarding the IPR disclosures.

There are no IPR issues related to this draft.

(9) How solid is the WG consensus behind this document? Does it represent the
strong concurrence of a few individuals, with others being silent, or does the WG as a
whole understand and agree with it?

Yes, the WG consensus is strong.

(10) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme discontent? If
so, please summarise the areas of conflict in separate email messages to the
Responsible Area Director. (It should be in a separate email because this
questionnaire is publicly available.)

No one has threatened an appeal or indicated any extreme discontent on this draft.

(11) Identify any ID nits the Document Shepherd has found in this document. (See
http://www.ietf.org/tools/idnits/ and the Internet-Drafts Checklist). Boilerplate checks
are not enough; this check needs to be thorough.

All nits were fixed in -08, but one new simple one crept in.
It is only a reference in the Abstract and the RFC Editor will fix it easily.

(12) Describe how the document meets any required formal review criteria, such as
the MIB Doctor, media type, and URI type reviews.

The document has an IANA considerations section that is appropriately filled out that
change a core LFB (FEPO). YES, it does require review by the ForCES IANA experts

(13) Have all references within this document been identified as either normative or
informative?

Yes, however, update(s) may be required after the ID nits check based fixes are done.

(14) Are there normative references to documents that are not ready for advancement
or are otherwise in an unclear state? If such normative references exist, what is the
plan for their completion?

No.

(15) Are there downward normative references (see RFC 3967)? If so, list these
downward references to support the Area Director in the Last Call procedure.

No.

(16) Will publication of this document change the status of any existing RFCs? Are
those RFCs listed on the title page header, listed in the abstract, and discussed in the
introduction? If the RFCs are not listed in the Abstract and Introduction, explain why,
and point to the part of the document where the relationship of this document to the
other RFCs is discussed. If this information is not in the document, explain why the
WG considers it unnecessary.

The publication of this drat will not change the status of any existing RFCs.

(17) Describe the Document Shepherd's review of the IANA considerations section,
especially with regard to its consistency with the body of the document. Confirm that all
protocol extensions that the document makes are associated with the appropriate
reservations in IANA registries. Confirm that any referenced IANA registries have been
clearly identified. Confirm that newly created IANA registries include a detailed
specification of the initial contents for the registry, that allocations procedures for future
registrations are defined, and a reasonable name for the new registry has been
suggested (see RFC 5226).

Yes, there are impacts due to the existence of and configuration of the new FE
Protocol Object (FEPO) Logical Functional Block (LFB).

(18) List any new IANA registries that require Expert Review for future allocations.
Provide any public guidance that the IESG would find useful in selecting the IANA
Experts for these new registries.

ForCES IANA expert review is required for the new registries that are described in #17
above.

(19) Describe reviews and automated checks performed by the Document Shepherd to
validate sections of the document written in a formal language, such as XML code,
BNF rules, MIB definitions, etc.

The XML definitions have been vetted by various XML validators against the ForCES
model schema. The XML defined in the document has also been verified by
implementations about which the Document Shepherd has been made aware of.

IESG/Authors/WG Chairs:

IANA has reviewed draft-ietf-forces-ceha-08.  Authors should review
the comments and/or questions below.  Please report any inaccuracies
and respond to any questions as soon as possible.

We received the following comments/questions from the IANA's reviewer:

IANA has a question about one of the IANA actions requested in this document.

IANA understands that, upon approval of this document, there are two actions which IANA must complete.

First, in the Logical Functional Block (LFB) Class Names and Class Identifiers subregistry of the Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES) registry located at:

http://www.iana.org/assignments/forces/

A new column, called LFB version, is added to the table after the LFB Class Name.  The table now reads as follows:

+----------------+---------+-----------+---------------+------------+
|  LFB Class    |  LFB  |    LFB    |  Description  | Reference  |
|  Identifier  |  Class  |  Version  |              |            |
|                |  Name  |          |              |            |
+----------------+---------+-----------+---------------+------------+

The registration rules for the existing registry remain the same except that new entries must provide the LFB version as a string.

All current entries in the Logical Functional Block (LFB) Class Names and Class Identifiers subregistry are assigned a value of 1.0.

Second, also in the Logical Functional Block (LFB) Class Names and Class Identifiers subregistry of the Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES) registry located at:

http://www.iana.org/assignments/forces/

a new entry is added to this registry as follows:

+--------------+------------+---------+-----------------+---------------+
|  LFB Class  | LFB Class  |  LFB  |  Description  | Reference    |
|  Identifier  |    Name    | Version |                |              |
+--------------+------------+---------+-----------------+---------------+
|      2      |    FE    |  1.1  |    Defines    | [ RFC-to-be ] |
|              |  Protocol  |        |  parameters for |              |
|              |  Object  |        |    the ForCES  |              |
|              |            |        |    protocol    |              |
|              |            |        |    operation    |              |
+--------------+------------+---------+-----------------+---------------+

IANA Question --> Should the LFB 1.0 entry for the FE Protocol Object remain in the registry, or is this a replacement for the version 1.0 LFB?  If both entries are to remain with the same Class Name, should they appear in
sequence in the registry?

IANA understands that these are the only actions required to be completed upon approval of this document.

Note:  The actions requested in this document will not be completed
until the document has been approved for publication as an RFC.
This message is only to confirm what actions will be performed.

The following Last Call announcement was sent out:

From: The IESG
To: IETF-Announce
CC:
Reply-To: ietf@ietf.org
Sender:
Subject: Last Call:  (ForCES Intra-NE High Availability) to Proposed Standard

The IESG has received a request from the Forwarding and Control Element
Separation WG (forces) to consider the following document:
- 'ForCES Intra-NE High Availability'
  as Proposed Standard

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
ietf@ietf.org mailing lists by 2013-11-06 (the last call period has been
extended by one week to allow additional time as people prepare for
IETF-88). Exceptionally, comments may be sent to iesg@ietf.org
instead. In either case, please retain the beginning of the Subject line
to allow automated sorting.

Abstract

  This document discusses Control Element High Availability within a
  ForCES Network Element.  Additionally this document updates [RFC5810]
  by providing new normative text for the Cold-Standby High
  availability mechanism.


The file can be obtained via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-forces-ceha/

IESG discussion can be tracked via
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-forces-ceha/ballot/


No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.

AD Review
=========

Hi,

I have done my AD review of your document and see nothing major to hold
it back, but there are a large number of nits and a few petty questions.
We have a responsibility to send the I-D to IETF last call in the best
possible shape so that it gets a good review.

Therefore, I have put the I-D into "Revised I-D Needed" state and will
issue IETF last call when I see a new revision.

Thanks for the work,
Adrian

===

Section 1

Need to fix the 2119 boilerplate to include a reference to [RFC2119]

---

Section 1

OLD
  The following definitions are taken from [RFC3654]and [RFC3746]:
NEW
  The following definitions are taken from [RFC3654] and [RFC3746]. 
  They are repeated here for convenience, but the normative definitions
  are found in the referenced RFCs.
END

---

Section 1

  o  ForCES Protocol -- The protocol used at the Fp reference point in
      the ForCES Framework in [RFC3746].

You need to explain what "Fp" is.

---

Section 1

  o  ForCES Protocol Layer (ForCES PL) -- A layer in the ForCES
      architecture that embodies the ForCES protocol and the state
      transfer mechanisms as defined in [RFC5810].

How can this definition come from 3654 or 3746 when it has a reference to
5810?

---

Figure 1

Maybe more normal to use "CEn" rather than "CEN"

---

Section 2

  The master CE controls the FEs via
  the ForCES protocol operating in the Fp interface.

s/in/on/

---

Section 3

  To achieve CE High Availability (HA), FEs and CEs MUST inter-operate
  per [RFC5810] definition which is repeated for contextual reasons in
  Section 3.1.

While you are repeating some of the material from 5810, you are also
restating some of it in new words, and adding text.

This gives a real problem with determining where the normative
definition sits. We have to fix this!

Can you determine which sections are informational for this document and
which contain new text?

Possibly the whole of Section 3 is just informational. If this is the
case you can replace the text quoted above with the following:

  To achieve CE High Availability (HA), FEs and CEs MUST inter-operate
  per [RFC5810].  The normative description of cold standby for CE HA
  is provided in [RFC5810].  This section provides a more wordy
  description of the procedures and is purely informational.  In the
  event of any discrepancies between this text and that in RFC 5810,
  the text in RFC 5810 takes precedence.

---

Figure 2

Will it be obvious to the reader of this document what is meant by
"Asso Estb,Caps exchg"

---

Section 3.1.1

"CEID" is used without expansion. Although sometimes I find "CE ID" for
example in 3.1.2.

---

Section 3.1.1 has

  The FE connects to the CE specified on FEPO CEID component.  If it
  fails to connect to the defined CE, it moves it to the bottom of
  table BackupCEs and sets its CEID component to be the first CE
  retrieved from table BackupCEs.

This is not a problem, but is unusual. In many redundancy cases, the
primary object remains the favorite even when it has failed so that
when there is a restoration opportunity (such as a failure of the new
primary) it will resume its position as primary.                                       

The question here is perhaps whether there is any distinction between
CEs except their role as primary or backup.

---

Figure 3 has "CEFTI" without explanation.

---

Section 3.1.1 has

  If the FE's FEPO CE Failover Policy is configured to mode 1, it
  indicates that the FE will run in HA restart recovery.  In such a
  case, the FE transitions to the Not Associated state and the CEFTI
  timer [RFC5810] is started.  The FE MAY continue to forward packets
  during this state.

This use of "MAY" implies to me that it is at least as common that the
FE does not forward packets in this state. Is that the intention?

---

Section 3.1.1

"HB" is used without expansion.

---

Section 4.2

"CEHB" and "FEHB" are used without expansion

---

Need to fix the line-length problems in Figure 4

---

Figure 5 implies that the association with the primary CE is the first
association formed. Is this a requirement?

---

Section 5 needs to give clear and unambiguous instructions to the IANA.
It seems that the text in Section 5 is currently a placeholder for the
correct text.

The shepherd write-up notes the need for this section to be reviewed by
"ForCES IANA experts". If these people are not to be found in the ForCES
working group, then they exist nowhere. So the WG needs to look at this
section and work out what it should really say.

---

Section 6 is too sparse.

The Security Section in RFC 5810 is sound, so that is not the issue.
However, in considering HA you are considering a more complex scenario
where each CE must have its communications secured with the FE, and each
CE must be authenticated to the FE. That needs discussion.

Additionally, can the system be disrupted by simulating CE failure or by
disrupting CE-FE communications?

---

Section 7.2

I think 5812 is used in a normative way.