Subject: (radius) Extensions draft

From: MegaZone <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 12:41:46 -0700 (PDT)

Perhaps this is a nit, however:
---
String

      The String field is encoded as ASCII characters.  The connection
      speed SHOULD be included at the beginning of the first Connect-
      Info attribute in the packet.  If the Transmit and Receive
      connection speeds differ, they may both be included in the first
      attribute with the receive speed first (the speed the NAS modem
      receives at), a slash (/), the transmit speed, then optionally
      other information.

      For example, "28800 V42BIS/LAPM" or "52000/33600 V90"
---

This struck me as confusing.  If it is RECEIVE/TRANSMIT from the POV of
the NAS, wouldn't the example be more appropriate as "31200/52000 V90"?
Since nearly every use with a NAS is going to have the NAS as the digital
end of the PCM connection, it will have the high transmit, low receive.

(I believe the 33.6 symbol table is disabled in V.90 in case you're
wondering why I changed that speed.)

-MZ
-- 
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---

From: "Nelson, David" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 10:57:54 -0400

>       For example, "28800 V42BIS/LAPM" or "52000/33600 V90"
That set me to pondering.  I don't recall the details of the original
discussion of this feature, as I think it started a couple of years ago.
But I seem to recall that the intent was for the NAS to pass along
connection information from the "modem", and to do so without much, if
any, processing or string manipulation.  In some cases the "modem" may
be tightly integrated to the NAS, and the "modem" software/firmware may
be under the control or authorship of the NAS vendor.  In other cases
the "modem" may be an external device or a standard chip set, in which
case the connect messages are not customizable.

Is it the intent of this section of the ID that the NAS be responsible
for conforming the connection information to a standardized ASCII
format, or is it the intent that the NAS simply pass along the ASCII
connect string verbatim as provided by the modem?  I would argue for the
latter, to preserve generality of application and the notion that the
NAS is "simple".  Parsing and reformatting connect strings from various
kinds of modems does seem to stretch the notion of "simple".

Regards,

Dave

David B. Nelson                          Cabletron Systems, Inc.
Software Engineer V                      50 Minuteman Road
(978) 684-1330                           Andover, MA 01810

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