Subject: [dhcwg] draft-droms-dhc-container-opt-00.txt

From: Thomas Herbst <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 16:57:15 -0700

I've been thinking about this draft since the WG meeting
last week and time has not made it smell any better.

The principal purported benefit of the proposal is it's
major problem - the unlimited extensibility enables the
SP to pass any DHCP option to the clients with the RG
not having any visibility to apply policy.  

In the case that the RG is provided as part of a SP service,
it can be rationally argued that the SP can inflict
any parameters they choose on their customer.  In the case
where the RG is consumer owned, they should get the opportunity
to apply policy to the parameters the SP is attempting to foist
upon them.  Should the SP have a list of specific parameters
they would like to be passed to set top boxes or other devices
behind the RG, they can provide that list to the RG vendor
for propagation.   Not planning the parameters needed for your
service is not an excuse to have a standards codified, protocol 
based blank check for the future.

This is not a "policy detail", this is the whole issue with the
container approach.  

tom

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From: Josh Littlefield <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:42:41 -0400

Tom,

I'm not sure I'm a fan of this container option either, but I see the
need, and I also see another view of what you describe:  If the RG is
owned by the user, then presumably the RG can provide the user with RG
configuration access to create the desired policy.  Then the data
provided by the SP is simply available for use, but not necessarily
used.  A device owned by a user is not going to force a user to do
something it doesn't want to do.  If it did, the user would buy a
different device.

The more common case is that the user (whether a RG owner or not) has no
clue and trusts the SP completely, and the SP wants to provide relevant
configuration data to let the devices in the home take advantage of the
service.  But doesn't have to be the only case allowed by the container
option.

-josh

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Josh Littlefield                                  Cisco Systems, Inc.
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