MIB for the UDP-Lite protocol
RFC 5097
Network Working Group G. Renker
Request for Comments: 5097 G. Fairhurst
Category: Standards Track University of Aberdeen
January 2008
MIB for the UDP-Lite Protocol
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
This document specifies a Management Information Base (MIB) module
for the Lightweight User Datagram Protocol (UDP-Lite). It defines a
set of new MIB objects to characterise the behaviour and performance
of transport layer endpoints deploying UDP-Lite. UDP-Lite resembles
UDP, but differs from the semantics of UDP by the addition of a
single option. This adds the capability for variable-length data
checksum coverage, which can benefit a class of applications that
prefer delivery of (partially) corrupted datagram payload data in
preference to discarding the datagram.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
1.1. Relationship to the UDP-MIB ................................2
1.2. Relationship to HOST-RESOURCES-MIB and SYSAPPL-MIB .........4
1.3. Interpretation of the MIB Variables ........................5
1.4. Conventions ................................................8
2. The Internet-Standard Management Framework ......................8
3. Definitions .....................................................8
4. Security Considerations ........................................19
5. IANA Considerations ............................................20
6. Acknowledgments ................................................20
7. References .....................................................20
7.1. Normative References ......................................20
7.2. Informative References ....................................21
Renker & Fairhurst Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 5097 MIB for the UDP-Lite Protocol January 2008
1. Introduction
The Lightweight User Datagram Protocol (UDP-Lite) [RFC3828] (also
known as UDPLite) is an IETF standards-track transport protocol. The
operation of UDP-Lite is similar to the User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
[RFC768], but can also serve applications in error-prone network
environments that prefer to have partially damaged payloads delivered
rather than discarded. This is achieved by changing the semantics of
the UDP Length field to that of a Checksum Coverage field. If this
feature is not used, UDP-Lite is semantically identical to UDP.
The interface of UDP-Lite differs from that of UDP by the addition of
a single option, which communicates a length value. At the sender
this specifies the intended datagram checksum coverage; at the
receiver it signifies a minimum coverage threshold for incoming
datagrams. This length value may also be modified during the
lifetime of a connection. UDP-Lite does not provide mechanisms to
negotiate the checksum coverage between the sender and receiver.
Where required, this needs to be communicated by another protocol.
The Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP) [RFC4340] for
instance includes a capability to negotiate checksum coverage values.
This document defines a set of runtime statistics (variables) that
facilitate network management/monitoring as well as unified
comparisons between different protocol implementations and operating
environments. To provide a common interface for users and
implementors of UDP-Lite modules, the definitions of these runtime
statistics are provided as a MIB module using the SMIv2 format
[RFC2578].
1.1. Relationship to the UDP-MIB
The similarities between UDP and UDP-Lite suggest that the MIB module
for UDP-Lite should resemble that of UDP [RFC4113], with extensions
corresponding to the additional capabilities of UDP-Lite. The UDP-
Lite MIB module is placed beneath the mib-2 subtree, adhering to the
familiar structure of the UDP-MIB module to ease integration.
In particular, these well-known basic counters are supported:
o InDatagrams
o NoPorts
o InErrors
o OutDatagrams
Renker & Fairhurst Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 5097 MIB for the UDP-Lite Protocol January 2008
The following read-only variables have been added to the basic
structure used in the UDP-MIB module:
InPartialCov: The number of received datagrams, with a valid
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