Subject: RE: PANA FAQ

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 11:50:47 -0500

>I am not convinced it has to be in the charter, but we should
>resolve the question of the use of PANA prior to IP address.

Agreed.

>My opinion is that the definition of PANA over IP implies that
>PANA does not operate until the host has an IP address.

So you do not believe in the need for special cases that PANA should
be able to address. If we seriously want to make PANA applicable to
networks that use PPPoE (as an example only), we will need to consider
having PANA hosts operate with the all 0's address. I believe the
special case is applicable for IPv4 networks only (we can get away
with stateless address autoconfig in IPv6). 

So if there is consensus that using the all 0's address is a bad idea
for PANA and/or implies that the all 0's address is a L3 hack for L2
authentication, we can drop it from the scope. 

>
>We should reject complications that call for PANA relay agents,
>or special-purpose IP addresses, in order to enable PANA prior
>to the configuration of a host's IP address. Notice that the
>complication of relay agents for DHCP was logically implied by
>the purpose of DHCP to configure initial parameters such as the
>IP address - no such justification exists for PANA. I see no
>alternative but to follow the implication that PANA requires
>valid IP addresses at both the client and server, but this
>point keeps coming back.

I agree that we need to get this sorted out. I guess the point is,
Will network operators be willing to provide a host with an IP address
before it is authenticated? (Glen has a point as to why operators rely
today on L2 authentication). 

>John
-Basavaraj