Subject: L2TP to Proposed Standard

From: Karl Fox <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 12:47:41 -0800

Jeff and Thomas,

The PPPEXT Working Group recommends that Layer Two Tunneling Protocol
"L2TP", draft-ietf-pppext-l2tp-10.txt, be advanced to Proposed
Standard.

Please note that this document is not yet available in the standard
public internet-drafts repositories.  It is currently available from

    ftp://ftp-eng.cisco.com/townsley/l2tp/draft-ietf-pppext-l2tp-10.txt

Mark Townsley and Bill Palter will deliver it to the RFC editor for
posting as an I-D as soon as the L.A. meeting blackout period is over.
-- 
Karl Fox, servant of God, employee of Ascend Communications
655 Metro Place South, Suite 370, Dublin, Ohio  43017   +1 614 760 4041

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From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 14:56:28 -0400

> "L2TP", draft-ietf-pppext-l2tp-10.txt, be advanced to Proposed

Quick question. Looking at the references in this document, there are
several that are internet drafts:

    [2] A. Valencia, M. Littlewood, T. Kolar, "Layer 2 Forwarding", Internet
        draft, April 1996

    [3] K. Hamzeh, G. Pall, W. Verthein, J. Taarud, W. Little, "Point-to-Point
        Tunneling Protocol", Internet draft, June 1996
	
    [7] D. Carrel, L. Grant, "The TACACS+ Protocol", draft-grant-tacacs-00.txt,
        October 1996
	
   [13] G. Zorn, D. Leifer, A. Rubens, J. Shriver, "RADIUS Attributes for
        Tunnel Protocol Support," draft-ietf-radius-tunnel-auth-04.txt,
        November 1997

An RFC can't reference a draft. You have three choices:

1) delete the reference completely.

2) change the reference to "work in progress". Note that this can only
be done if the reference is unimportant with respect to implementing
the draft.

3) wait until the other document is an RFC. Even in the this case, you
can't have a Standards Track document reference a non-Standards Track
document in a normative sense.

I don't think the first 3 references will be an issue, as they aren't
normative (i.e., aren't needed to implementat l2tp). However, the last
one might be. Specifically, the document says:

>   The Private Group ID is a string corresponding to a table in the LNS
>   that defines the particular characteristics of the selected group.  A
>   LAC MAY determine the Private Group ID from a RADIUS response
>   containing the PrivateGroupID attribute [13].

Is this a normative reference? Also, what is the status of draft [13]?
Will it become a Standards Track document and will it be published
anytime soon?

Thomas

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From: "W. Mark Townsley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 15:59:17 -0400 (EDT)

> normative (i.e., aren't needed to implementat l2tp). However, the last

I agree, we can change them to work in progress as you suggest in 2. 

> Is this a normative reference? Also, what is the status of draft [13]?

As this is only a MAY, by definition it is just a suggestion. I don't
think there would be much opposition in removing it. 

> Will it become a Standards Track document and will it be published

The dissolution of the RADIUS working group will force them to decide
quite soon what documents will advance and what documents will not. If
this remains on their list of advancing documents, perhaps they could go
together.

However, untethering the documents is still probably the prudent choice. 
Unless I hear otherwise from the group, that is what we will plan on
doing. 

Thanks,

- Mark

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From: Dory Ethan Leifer <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1998 21:59:10 -0400

>think there would be much opposition in removing it.

The reference here is very important for implementors that don't
know the history of the attribute - and as Glen mentioned, the
Radius document is moving ahead.

Dory

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From: "W. Mark Townsley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 09:29:50 -0400 (EDT)

> Radius document is moving ahead.

OK, agreed. I still think there is a good argument for citing RADIUS as a
'work in progress' for now, and changing it to RFCxxxx when we move to
draft standard (as was already suggested on the list). Thomas, will this
be sufficient?

- Mark

---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 07:13:17 -0400

> draft standard (as was already suggested on the list). Thomas, will this

Probably not. An RFC can't point to a non-RFC (i.e. a draft or "work
in progress) if an implementor needs access to that reference in order
to implement the spec at hand. Saying that an implementation MAY want
to take a specific action based on something specific in another
document depends on the other document. The problem is what if that
other thing gets redefined, or never gets published?

Re: the PPTP/L2F documents. As noted in an earlier message, the latter
document is already in the queue to be published as an RFC. Are the
authors of the PPTP draft on this list, and are they willing to take
an action item on getting it published as an RFC?

For now, I'll assume that the Radius Attributes draft will be
published as an RFC via the radius WG and that no special action is
needed on our part.

>     [7] D. Carrel, L. Grant, "The TACACS+ Protocol", draft-grant-tacacs-00.txt,

Is the consensus to remove the reference to this one?

Thomas