iFCP Revision 8 Released

[Charles Monia <cmonia@NishanSystems.com>]

Colleagues:

iFCP revision 8 was submitted to the IETF archive on 1/22/2002.  Pending its
availability, a copy of the text or PDF (with markups visible) can also be
obtained from the T11 archive at the URLs listed below.

iFCP Revision 8:

ftp://ftp.t11.org/t11/member/incoming/02-023v0.txt
ftp://ftp.t11.org/t11/member/incoming/02-023v0.pdf

Release notes:

ftp://ftp.t11.org/t11/member/incoming/02-028v0.txt
ftp://ftp.t11.org/t11/member/incoming/02-028v0.pdf.

After 1/24, the files will be available from:

Spec:

ftp://ftp.t11.org/t11/docs/02-023v0.txt
ftp://ftp.t11.org/t11/docs/02-023v0.pdf

Release notes:

ftp://ftp.t11.org/t11/docs/02-028v0.txt
ftp://ftp.t11.org/t11/docs/02-028v0.pdf.


The following information is extracted from the release notes.

====================================================
   These notes describe the changes incorporated in revision 8 of iFCP,
   including the disposition of review comments received from David
   Black via the IPS reflector on 11/13/01.

   The comments are taken verbatim from that posting, with edits where
   needed to fit the format of these notes.

2. New or Modified Material

2.1 Security

   a) Aligned the security section with version 7 of the IPS security
      draft.

   b) Added new certificate text (incorporating feedback from the ips
      security reflector).

   c) Added new text on transport mode requirements and RFC 2401
      compliance.

2.2 Liveness Test Mechanism

   Added a liveness message (LTEST) to periodically test the state of
   the iFCP session from the encapsulation interface at the
   transmitting gateway to the de-encapsulation interface at the
   receiving gateway.

   The intent of this feature is to provide a connectivity probe for
   sessions, such as an iFCP broadcast session, which may be dormant
   for long periods of time. The heartbeat is also useful for dealing
   with stateful intermediate boxes, such as NAPTs or firewalls, which
   may delete dormant TCP/IP connections.

2.3 iFCP Fabric Types

   Reorganized the explanation of address translation and address
   transparent modes around the concept of bounded and unbounded iFCP
   fabric types as the basis for internetworking a collection of
   gateways.
...........
======================================================
Charles Monia
Senior Technology Consultant
Nishan Systems
email: cmonia@nishansystems.com
voice: (408) 519-3986
fax:   (408) 435-8385