Subject: Re: [Hipsec] FW: I-D ACTION:draft-henderson-hip-generalize-00.txt

From: Pekka Nikander <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 12:44:05 -0600

[Limiting the discussion to the WG ML.]

I like the general direction and ideas of this draft a lot.

The only bigger thing that I am concerned about is allowing HITs/ULIDs 
of any length.  My feeling is that such a change would be detrimental, 
and create potential problems in the early packet handling code.  For 
example, the code needed for finding the right existing context would 
probably become much more complex.  Additionally, the code needed to 
determine if the Responder HIT/ULID in an I1 is one that belongs to the 
host may also become rather hairy.

Therefore I would suggest that if we want to allow HITs/ULIDs of 
different lengths, we would limit those lengths only to a few choices, 
like 128 bits or 256 bits.  Alternatively, I'm willing to consider a 
situation where the HIT/ULID type field implicitly defines the length.  
That's probably fine for end hosts; if you don't know an ULID type, you 
just reply with an appropriate ICMP. However, that seems bad for middle 
boxes; they would have more problems in deciding what to do with 
packets that carry ULIDs whose lengths they do not know.

I've send some editorial and other minor notes separately.

--Pekka

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