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Versions: 00 01 RFC 5719
dime D. Romascanu
Internet-Draft Avaya
Updates: rfc3588 H. Tschofenig
(if approved) Nokia Siemens Networks
Intended status: Standards Track July 13, 2009
Expires: January 14, 2010
Updated IANA Considerations for Diameter Command Code Allocations
draft-ietf-dime-diameter-cmd-iana-01.txt
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Abstract
The Diameter Base specification, described in RFC 3588, provides a
number of ways to extend Diameter, with new Diameter commands, i.e.
messages used by Diameter applications, and applications as the most
extensive enhancements. RFC 3588 illustrates the conditions that
lead to the need to define a new Diameter application or a new
command code. Depending on the scope of the Diameter extension IETF
actions are necessary. Although defining new Diameter applications
does not require IETF consensus, defining new Diameter commands
requires IETF consensus per RFC 3588. This has lead to questionable
design decisions by other Standards Development Organizations which
chose to define new applications on existing commands rather than
asking for assignment of new command codes for the pure purpose of
avoiding bringing their specifications to the IETF. In some cases
interoperability problems were causes as an effect of the poor design
caused by overloading existing commands.
This document aligns the extensibility rules of Diameter application
with the Diameter commands offering ways to delegate work on Diameter
to other SDOs to extend Diameter in a way that does not lead to poor
design choices.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Conventions used in this document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
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1. Introduction
The Diameter Base specification, described in RFC 3588 [RFC3588],
provides a number of ways to extend Diameter, with new Diameter
commands, i.e. messages used by Diameter applications, and
applications as the most extensive enhancements. RFC3588 illustrates
the conditions, which require the definition of a new Diameter
application or a new command. Depending on the scope of the Diameter
extension IETF actions are necessary. Although defining new Diameter
applications does not require IETF consensus, defining new Diameter
commands requires IETF consensus per RFC 3588. This has lead to
questionable design decisions by other Standards Development
Organizations which chose to define new applications on existing
commands rather than asking for assignment of new command codes for
the pure purpose of avoiding bringing their specifications to the
IETF. In some cases interoperability problems were causes as an
effect of the poor design caused by overloading existing commands.
This document aligns the extensibility rules for Diameter command
codes with those defined for Diameter application identifiers and
offers a consistent way to delegate work on Diameter to other SDOs to
extend Diameter in a way that does not lead to poor design choices.
This is achieved by splitting the command code space into ranges and
providing different allocation policies to them: the first range is
reserved for RADIUS backward compatibility, allocation of a command
code in the second number range requires IETF review, the third range
is utilized by vendor-specific command codes, and finally the last
range is for experimental commands. Section 4 provides more details
about the command code number ranges and the different allocation
policies are described in [RFC5226].
A revision of RFC 3588 is currently in development in the IETF DIME
WG [I-D.ietf-dime-rfc3588bis] and when approved will obsolete RFC
3588 as well as this document. This document has as a goal providing
in advance the change in the command codes allocation policy, so that
interoperability problems as the ones described above are avoided as
soon as possible.
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2. Conventions used in this document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
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3. Security Considerations
This document modifies the IANA allocation of Diameter Command Codes
in relationship to RFC 3588. This process change itself does not
raise security concerns, but the command codes space is split into a
standards commands space and a vendor-specific command codes space,
the later being allocated on a First Come, First Served basis by IANA
at the request of vendors or other standards organizations. Whenever
work gets delegated to organizations outside the IETF there is always
the chance that fewer security reviews are conducted and hence the
quality of the resulting protocol document is weaker compared to the
rather extensive reviews performed in the IETF. The members of the
DIME working group are aware of the tradeoff between better
specification quality and the desire to offload work (e.g., to reduce
the workload in the IETF) to other organizations. Other
organizations are therefore made responsible for the quality of the
specifications they produce.
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4. IANA Considerations
This section describes changes to the IANA consideration sections
outlined in RFC 3588 regarding the allocation of Command Codes by
IANA.
The Command Code namespace is used to identify Diameter commands.
The values 0-255 (0x00-0xff) are reserved for RADIUS backward
compatibility, and are defined as "RADIUS Packet Type Codes" in
[RADTYPE]. Values 256 - 8,388,607 (0x100 to 0x7fffff) are for
permanent, standard commands, allocated by IETF Review [RFC5226].
[RFC3588] defines the Command Codes 257, 258, 271, 274-275, 280 and
282. See Section 3.1 in [RFC3588] for the assignment of the
namespace in this specification.
The values 8,388,608 - 16,777,213 (0x800000 - 0xfffffd) are reserved
for vendor-specific command codes, to be allocated on a First Come,
First Served basis by IANA [RFC5226]. The request to IANA for a
Vendor-Specific Command Code SHOULD include a reference to a publicly
available specification which documents the command in sufficient
detail to aid in interoperability between independent
implementations. If the specification cannot be made publicly
available, the request for a vendor-specific command code MUST
include the contact information of persons and/or entities
responsible for authoring and maintaining the command.
The values 16,777,214 and 16,777,215 (hexadecimal values 0xfffffe -
0xffffff) are reserved for experimental commands. As these codes are
only for experimental and testing purposes, no guarantee is made for
interoperability between Diameter peers using experimental commands,
as outlined in [RFC3692].
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5. Acknowledgements
The content of this document is the result of the work in the IETF
Diameter Maintenance and Extensions (dime) working group. We would
therefore like to thank all the working group members who were
involved in that discussion. While it appears to be a fairly small
change in the allocation policy the effect on implementations is
rather dramatic.
We would like to thank Mark Jones for his review comments.
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6. References
6.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC3588] Calhoun, P., Loughney, J., Guttman, E., Zorn, G., and J.
Arkko, "Diameter Base Protocol", RFC 3588, September 2003.
[RFC3692] Narten, T., "Assigning Experimental and Testing Numbers
Considered Useful", BCP 82, RFC 3692, January 2004.
[RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
May 2008.
6.2. Informative References
[I-D.ietf-dime-rfc3588bis]
Fajardo, V., Arkko, J., Loughney, J., and G. Zorn,
"Diameter Base Protocol", draft-ietf-dime-rfc3588bis-18
(work in progress), July 2009.
[RADTYPE] "IANA, RADIUS Types,
http://www.iana.org/assignments/radius-types".
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Authors' Addresses
Dan Romascanu
Avaya
Industrial Park Atidim, Bldg#3
Tel Aviv 61581
Israel
Phone: +972-3-645-8414
Email: dromasca@avaya.com
Hannes Tschofenig
Nokia Siemens Networks
Linnoitustie 6
Espoo 02600
Finland
Phone: +358 (50) 4871445
Email: Hannes.Tschofenig@gmx.net
URI: http://www.tschofenig.priv.at
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