Subject: Re: (radius) RFC2139: User-Name should be MUST

From: Barney Wolff <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 14:08 EST

> Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 10:58:06 -0800 (PST)
> From: Glen Zorn <[email-masked]>
> 
   (BW assertion):
>  > > By my way of thinking, an invalid
> length is <2 or beyond the end
> of > > the packet, making further processing impossible.  At best, you can
> > > claim that an empty attribute of a type that is not allowed to be
> > > empty makes its *attribute* invalid, but not the whole packet.
> 
> The RFC is pretty specific about this.

Well, no, it isn't.  Since we're talking here about 2139, let's remember
that the actual text does not say "MUST" or even "SHOULD" but just "should."
So even if you interpret "invalid" to mean "invalid for this particular
attribute" the acct server is free to ignore the "error" if it has good
reason.  Hey, live by strict construction, die by strict construction.

Barney, who's done arguing this point
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From: Glen Zorn <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 11:59:43 -0800 (PST)

> that the actual text does not say "MUST" or even "SHOULD" but just "should."

In section 1.1 it uses the standard definition
of requirements specification, which says about "should", "must", etc.
that these words are "often capitalized".  I take this to mean that
"should" = "SHOULD" in the context of specifying a requirement (which the 
"Length" paragraph is apparently meant to do).

> reason.  

Sure, that's true for 2138 too, but what's a "good reason"?  Just MHO, but
I don't think that hacking to get around protocol lameness is a good
reason (except _very_ short term) but that seems to be what we've been
reduced to...

>Hey, live by strict construction, die by strict construction.
> 

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