Subject: Some comments RE: [Ipoverib] Meeting minutes from the 12/10/01 meeting

From: "Bill Swortwood" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 11:10:09 -0800

All -

 Apologies for not being able to make the last meeting. Thanks to Mr.
Jim Pinkerton for his fine notes.  A few comments on the proceedings:

 1) Exposure of the M_Key in the SM MIB.

 - I agree with Jeff Young that exposure of the M_Key is a concern.
The statement that "the M_Key is sent in the clear" is somehat of a
misnomer,
if one views an InfiniBand subnet more as a PCI bus or system backplane,
rather than a snoopable exposed network media - the M_Key is not
exposed outside of the subnet currently. As InfiniBand management
communications
are point to point switched, and SM communications are not allowed to be
routed outside of the subnet, while it is true the M_Key is unencrypted,
it is also currently unexposed.

Carl's need to be able to share the M_Key is also quite understandable.
If one is communicating between SMs using SNMP via a secured ethernet
management network, across a VPN, or some other methodologies, use of
SNMP communications seems as good as any secured XML or RPC mechanisim
for such exchange.

A possible compromise solution would be to add in a IsMKeyExposed boolean,
and allow the SM itself determine if it allows M_Key transferance outside
of the subnet.

 2) The device management MIB not having baseboard management.

- This is intentional. The InfiniBand device management class does not
include baseboard management either. Further, unless the object in
question is an InfiniBand module, full baseboard management is not
required. I will be more than happy to work with anyone wanting to
model InfiniBand baseboard management in an SNMP MIB. However, InfiniBand
device management does not require baseboard management support beyond
the VPD data as currently specified in Vol2 of of the IB specification.

Thanks to all working the MIBs !

-------------------------------
Bill Swortwood
(Office)(503) 690 8578
(CELL)  (503) 819-5281
--------------------------------

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