Subject: Re: [secdir] Secdir review of draft-ietf-pwe3-vccv-impl-survey-results-02

From: "Malis, Andrew G (Andy)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2013 15:14:55 -0400

Alexey,

Thanks for your review, and sorry for the delay. Stewart shared with me an
email conversation about the draft and I'll be updating the draft to
include the results of that conversation.

Cheers,
Andy

On 9/8/2013 12:39 , "Alexey Melnikov" <[email-masked]> wrote:

Hello,

I have reviewed this document as part of the security directorate's
ongoing effort to review all IETF documents being processed by the
IESG.  These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the
security area directors. Document editors and WG chairs should treat
these comments just like any other last call comments.

--

Most pseudowire Emulation Edge-to-Edge (PWE3) encapsulations mandate
the use of the Control Word (CW) to carry information essential to
the emulation, to inhibit Equal-Cost Multipath (ECMP) behavior, and
to discriminate Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM)
from Pseudowire (PW) packets.  However, some encapsulations treat the
Control Word as optional.  As a result, implementations of the CW,
for encapsulations for which it is optional, vary by equipment
manufacturer, equipment model and service provider network.
Similarly, Virtual Circuit Connectivity Verification (VCCV) supports
three Control Channel (CC) types and multiple Connectivity
Verification (CV) Types.  This flexibility has led to reports of
interoperability issues within deployed networks and associated
drafts to attempt to remedy the situation.  This survey of the PW/
VCCV user community was conducted to determine implementation trends.
The survey and results are presented in this document.

As the document is a survey of what existing implementations do in this
area, I agree with editors that it doesn't introduce new security concerns.
Editors also clarified that they took precautions to ensure the validity
of the sample and the data, in particular they verified email addresses
of respondents and that they are representing different companies, not
including equipment vendors.
I don't have any concerns about security considerations for this document.

With no disrespect to document editors, the WG and the shepherding AD, I
am however concerns that this document doesn't contain information that
is useful for publishing as an RFC. I would be happy to be proven wrong
on this.

Best Regards,
Alexey