Subject: [eap] Potential resolution to Issue 165: Applicability Statement

From: Bernard Aboba <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2003 10:35:11 -0700 (PDT)

Here is a rewrite of the applicability statement to address some of the
concerns discussed on the list:

1.4 Applicability

EAP is an authentication framework primarily for use in situations
such as network access, in which IP layer connectivity may not be
available.  Since the goal of EAP is to support authentication without
requiring IP connectivity, it provides just enough support for the
reliable transport of authentication protocols, and no more. While EAP
provides support for retransmission, it assumes ordering guarantees
provided by the lower layer, so that out of order reception is not
supported.

As noted in Section 3.1, EAP does not support fragmentation
and reassembly although EAP methods may provide this support.
As a result, authentication protocols generating payloads larger
than the EAP MTU will need to be modified in order to provide
fragmentation support.

Since EAP does not support fragmentation as in IP, or an efficient
reliable transport service as in TCP [RFC793] or SCTP [RFC2960],
an authentication protocol will typically require more round-trips
when run over EAP than when run over IP. In particular, a large
number of round-trips can result when certificate-based authentication
protocols and long certificate chains are involved.

Where transport efficiency is a consideration, and IP
transport is available, it may be preferrable to expose an
artificially high EAP MTU to EAP and allow fragmentation to take
place in IP. Alternatively, it is possible to choose an
alternative authentication framework such as SASL [RFC2222] or
GSS-API [RFC2743].

[RFC2743]
Linn, J., "Generic Security Service Application Program Interface, Version
2", RFC 2743, January 2000.

[RFC2222]
Myers, J., "Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL)", RFC 2222,
October 1997.
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From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2003 13:13:48 +0300

Looks good. Thanks!

--Jari

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From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2003 11:15:30 +0300

Looks good. Thanks!

--Jari