Subject: Proposed use of PPP in the OIF UNI

From: Jonathan Sadler <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 16:40:25 -0500

Hello all...

I have some concerns regarding the proposed configuration of PPP for the
OIF UNI that I would like the PPP working group to look at.

In the OIF UNI (http://www.oiforum.com/public/documents/UNI_1.0.pdf),
Section 6.1 page 22 defines the configuration of PPP on the SONET DCC as
follows:

"...IP packets are encapsulated using PPP in HDLC like framing as per
RFC1662. ... only PPP encapsulation must be used with no other PPP
procedures (i.e. LCP and NCP need not be executed)."

Is PPP without LCP/NCP negotiation considered a standard implementation
by the IETF?  RFC 1661 (which is never referenced by the OIF UNI
document) seems to have strong words preventing this.

It should be noted that the OIF has chosen this in part to facilitate
the misconnection detection feature specified in LMP
(draft-ietf-ccamp-lmp-00.txt, and OIF UNI section 8).  Specifically, the
test messages for LMP are defined to be carried within IP PDUs on the
data link.  Because successful LCP/NCP negotiation requires a correctly
connected full-duplex link, these IP PDUs be prevented from being sent
on a misconnected link.  As a result, LMP would not have a chance to
detect this case.

While the current LMP solution has this problem, other solutions may
not.  For example, the test messages could be carried within an LCP
option (similar to the Identification option specified in RFC 1570). 
This way the misconnection would be detected while still complying with
the requirements of RFC 1661.

Please provide the feeling of the working group on this issue.

Jonathan Sadler