Multicast Router Discovery SSM Range Option
draft-ietf-magma-mrdssm-03

Mail from Brian Haberman on 23-Mar-04 says:

As for MRDSSM, I believe the decision was made to let that
draft die after reaching consensus on not needing to advertise
SSM ranges to hosts via MRD.  So, unless Isidor objects, I believe
MRDSSM can be taken off your to-do list.

Partial write-up, saved for later reference:

The IESG has approved the Internet-Draft 'Multicast Router Discovery
SSM Range Option'  as a Proposed
Standard. This document is the product of the Multicast & Anycast
Group Membership Working Group. The IESG contact persons are Margaret
Wasserman and Thomas Narten.


Technical Summary


This document defines the Multicast Router Discovery protocol option
for advertising the configured IPv4 Source Specific Multicast
destination address range.


Working Group Summary

Protocol Quality

This protocol has been reviewed for the IESG by Margaret Wasserman
and Erik Nordmark.

Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 11:13:01 +0200 (CEST)
From: "Erik Nordmark"
Subject: AD comments on magma-mrdssm-02
To: magma@ietf.org
Cc: erik.nordmark@sun.com


Draft-ietf-ssm-arch-00.txt is listed as a normative reference.
When is that document likely to become a proposed standard?
The RFC editor would not publish this as an RFC until all normative
references have been published.

So perhaps ssm-arch was intended to be a non-normative reference?

In section 1 it would be quite useful to include the motivation for
needing local ssm range for IPv4 (and not for IPv6).
As I understand it, but I could be off base, a single /8 is not
believed to be sufficient for IPv4 SSM (and in IPv6 there is a whole
/32).

Section 1 could benefit from a reference where it says "the SSM range for
IPv6 is well defined ..." to the actual definition.

Section 2:
Length
    The length of the SSM Range Discovery option is variable and
    depends on the number of destination ranges present in the option
    as well as the sizes of the ranges.
In what unit? (octets I assume)
Does the length include the type and length fields?
(pretty basic to have missed this IMHO.)

Mask-Len-n
    The mask length for the nth address range.
In what unit? (bits I assume)
What is the relationship between this and the number of octets used for
the prefix-N field?
(pretty basic to have missed that as well.)

Prefix-n
    The multicast destination address prefix for the nth range present
    in this option. The size of the prefix field is variable and
    depends on the number of significant bits in the prefix (specified
    in the corresponding Mask-Len field). The field is padded by enough
    trailing bits to make the end of the field fall on an octet
    boundary. Note that the value of the trailing bits is irrelevant.
s/irrelevant/must be sent as zero and ignored on receipt/ ??

This section could benefit from examples e.g with a /16 prefix and a /17
prefix.

Nits:
The document seems to call the option "SSM Range option" but in many
places it has an added "Discovery" to make it "SSM Range Discovery option".
Pick one of them.

> 8.  Normative
Missing "References".

  Erik

From: Brian Haberman <bkhabs@nc.rr.com

Erik,
            On behalf of the MAGMA working group, we would like to
request advancement of:

                Title : Multicast Router Discovery SSM Range Option
                Author(s) : I. Kouvelas
                Filename : draft-ietf-magma-mrdssm-02.txt,.ps
                Pages : 5
                Date : 2003-3-3
               
as a Proposed Standard. The working group last call completed on
02/24/2003.

Regards,
Brian & Bill