eap Mailing List: Re: Issue 376: Proposed Resolution (Section 2)

[Bernard Aboba (bernard_aboba]

Section 2

  This problem spans multiple protocol layers and has been the subject
  of discussions in IETF, 3GPP, and IEEE.  This document summarizes the
  discussion held about this problem in the Extensible Authentication
  Protocol working group at IETF.  There are a set of somewhat
  orthogonal problems being discussed under the rubric of "network
  discovery and selection".

[BA]  Suggest changing to:

The network discovery and selection problem can be broken down into
multiple sub-problems.  These include:


  o  The problem of "discovery of points of attachment".  This is the
     problem of discovering points of attachment available in the
     vicinity, and the capabilities associated with these points of
     attachment.

  o  The problem of "Identifier selection".  This is the problem of
     selecting which identity (and credentials) to use to authenticate
     in a given point of attachment to the network.

  o  The problem of "AAA routing" which involves figuring out how to
     route the authentication conversation originating from the
     selected identity back to the home realm.

  o  The problem of "Payload routing" which involves figuring how the
     payload packets are routed, where more advanced mechanisms than
     destination-based routing is needed.  However, while being an
     interesting problem, this document does not attempt to do any
     analysis or suggestions on it.

[BA] Suggest changing to:

o Discovery of points of attachment.  This involves the discovery
of points of attachment in the vicinity, as well as their
capabilities.

o  Identifier selection.  This involves selection of the
NAI (and credentials) used to authenticate to the selected
ponit of attachment.

o  AAA routing. This involves routing of the AAA
conversation back to the home AAA server, based on the realm
of the selected NAI.

o  Payload routing.  This involves the routing of data packets, in
the situation wh ere mechanisms more advanced than destination-based
routing are required.  While this problem is interesting, it is not
discussed further in this document.


  o  The problem of "network capability discovery".  This is the
     problem of discovering the capabilities of a particular
     destination network.  For example, it may be important to know
     whether a given network supports enrollment, what the charges are,
     etc.

[BA] I'm not sure what "network capability discovery" means.  Is this
about discovery the capabilities of the access network, or of the
home realm?  On the assumption that this is about the home realm,
I suggest that the text be changed to the following:

o Realm capability discovery.  This involves discovering the
capabilities of a home AAA server, such as whether the
home AAA server supports enrollment.