CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_


Reported by Dean Throop/Data General

Minutes X.25 Management Information Base (X25MIB)

The X25mib Working Group met at the IETF meet in Santa FE on Monday,
November 18th, 1991.  All draft documents were discussed and all were
referred back to the editor for further changes.

Inter-MIB Structural Issues

Fred Baker raised the issue of a single X.25 packet layer running over
multiple LAPB sessions.  The current X.25 MIB will not support such a
structure.  Since the one over several structure occurs in other
situations, it was agreed a general solution would be better than
putting direct support for such structures into the X.25 MIB. Fred Baker
volunteered to draft a MIB that would allow one level_X_MIB to be
redirected to identify multiple level_X-1_MIBs.

To facilitate this, the SYNTAX of the x25InfoDataLinkId will be changed
from INTEGER to OBJECT IDENTIFIER. That object identifier will identify
an instance of the index for the first table of the MIB for the layer
under that X.25.  For X.25 running over LAPB, it will be an instance of
lapbParamIndex.  For X.25 running over multiple link layer entities, it
will be an instance in the table of the MIB that Fred will draft (see
above).  For X.25 running over interfaces that don't have specific MIBs,
it could also be the ifIndex for an interface.

A similar change will be made in how the HDLC MIB identifies the port
below it.  The hdlcParamPortIndex will be deleted and the SYNTAX of
hdlcParamPortId will be changed to OBJECT IDENTIFIER. The object
identifier will identify an instance of the index for the first table of
the MIB for the port under LAPB. In general this will be an instance of
rs232PortIndex.

Dave Perkins said he had a new tool which identified several syntax
problems with the current drafts.  It was agree the MIBs should be
changed to correct these problems and the issue was referred to the
editor to complete.

HDLC MIB

It was agreed to change the name of HDLC back to LAPB because the MIB
wasn't broad enough to cover all variants of HDLC. It didn't cover basic
HDLC framing, nor SDLC, nor LAPD. It is indeed a LAPB MIB and should be
so named.

The LAPB MIB will be expanded to include support for ISO 8885 XID
negotiations.  Some of the attendees with European experience indicated
that XID negotiations are important for that community.

Conformance

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The issue of conformance was discussed.  It was agreed that the MIBs
will contain tables that are mandatory and optional.  A vendor must
implement all mandatory tables to claim conformance.  The optional
tables will be present to allow management of implementations that
implement more than a minimal X.25/LAPB stack.

X.25 MIB

With the conformance issue in mind, the X.25 MIB will be examined to
restructure the tables to make some tables optional.  The objects
required by a minimal X.25 implementation should be in required tables
and all other objects should be in optional tables.

The X.25 MIB will also be examined to determine if some objects can be
eliminated.  Herve Goguely from LIR Corporation volunteered to review
the current MIB in light of his European experience and develop a list
of objects to consider deleting.

The group discussed recording error conditions from the last closed
connection.  It was agreed a table should be added to record the reason
for the last abnormal close.  The table should allow recording the last
N conditions however vendors will only be required to keep 1 condition;
vendors may choose to keep more if resources permit.  The RMON MIB will
be examined for a possible paradigm for structuring the table.

IP over X.25

Andrew Malis informed the Working Group that the IPLPDN Working Group
has started writing a new RFC to replace RFC 877.  He said there were
several aspects of that draft that were inconsistent with the IP over
X.25 MIB. The IP over X.25 MIB will be examined to align it with the
revised RFC on IP over X.25 coming from the IPLPDN Working Group.
Andrew Malis and Fred Baker will serve as liaison between the IPLPDN and
X25MIB Working Groups.

Attendees

Fred Baker               fbaker@emerald.acc.com
James Davin              jrd@ptt.lcs.mit.edu
Herve Goguely            lircorp1!roger@uunet.uu.net
Cheryl Krupczak          cheryl@cc.gatech.edu
Andrew Malis             malis@bbn.com
Evan McGinnis            bem@3com.com
David Perkins            dperkins@synoptics.com
Philippe Roger           lircorp1!roger@uunet.uu.net
Bob Stewart              rlstewart@eng.xyplex.com
Mark Therieau            markt@python.eng.microcom.com
Dean Throop              throop@dg-rtp.dg.com



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