Subject: [midcom] question about direction requirements

From: Mark Duffy <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 00:22:38 -0400

Another requirements question related to direction.  The proposed
requirements mention direction as part of the tuple.  My understanding is
that this refers to direction of individual packets.  Do we also need
support for expressing to the middlebox the direction of transport session
setup?

We might consider adding the following requirement to the to-be-discussed
list:

Ri:  The Midcom protocol must allow the agent to specify to the middlebox
that a pinhole (etc...) is to be opened only if the transport connection as
viewed by the middlebox is initiated in a certain direction relative to the
realms mediated by the middlebox.

Discussion:  Legacy middleboxes typically allow for rules that says e.g.:
open pinhole for packets matching this tuple only if the tcp (etc.) session
is  initiated from inside towards outside.  Do we need the midcom agent to
be able to specify such a rule?

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From: "Cedric Aoun" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 03:52:57 +0100

"Discussion:  Legacy middleboxes typically allow for rules that says e.g.:
open pinhole for packets matching this tuple only if the tcp (etc.) session
is  initiated from inside towards outside.  Do we need the midcom agent to
be able to specify such a rule?"

This = allow tcp SYN sent inside towards outside.
This is similar to R55 but with the added direction, and I support that this
is required. 

It's just on in which format does this go to into the reqs document.

We need to decide to group all the matching expression under, something
similar to:
The protocol should have sufficient syntax to allow the MB to identify a
flow by all it's possible characteristics.
Or depict every single matching expression, I think that everybody will
raise hands for the previous (although it sounds a bit really really
general).

Cedric