CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_

Reported by Gary Malkin/Xylogics

Minutes of the RIP Version II Working Group (RIPV2)

Progress:  Received general approval of ``RIP-II Cryptographic
Authentication'' specification.  Agreed to proceed with development of
RIPng for IPv6.  RIP-2 and Demand Circuit RIP awaiting timeout for
advancement in the standards track.


Agenda

   o Review New Charter

   o RIP-2 Status

   o Review of ``RIP-II Cryptographic Authentication'' Internet-Draft
     Open Issues:  backwards compatibility

   o Discuss RIPng
     Should there be a RIPng?  Perhaps a DVng?  The RIPng Internet-Draft
     may also be discussed.

   o Any other issues
   o Summary of decisions and action items


Summary

Yesterday, the Router Requirements Working Group decided that RIP-1
should be moved to Historic status, now that RIP-2 is a Draft Standard.
Joel Halpern, the Routing Area Area Director, requested that the RIPv2
Working Group make the same request.  There were no objections to the
motion, so a formal request for the status change will be issued by this
working group.

Discussion of the new charter was put off pending a decision on the
desirability of implementing RIPng.

The first major topic discussed was the desirability of implementing
RIPng.  This discussion was prompted by the belief that RIP served only
to allow hosts to learn about routers, a feature relatively new to IPv4
but an intrinsic part of IPv6.  Most people attending the meeting,
however, believe that RIP serves a useful niche as a routing protocol,
despite the existence of OSPF. The argument is that OSPF requires far
more effort to implement and configure than RIP, and that OSPF is far
more CPU and memory intensive than RIP. Further, there was the general
opinion that if RIPng is not created as an IETF standard, most vendors
will implement a RIP-like protocol which may not interoperate with other
vendors' RIP-like protocols.  This is the situation which prompted the
creation of RFC 1058.  It was generally agreed that such a situation
should not be allowed to occur in IPv6.

Ran Atkinson gave a presentation on the ``RIP-II Cryptographic
Authentication'' Internet-Draft.  It was generally viewed as a ``good
thing.''  In a few weeks, to allow time for any comments/corrections,
the draft will be submitted to the IESG for consideration as a Proposed
Standard.

The final topic of discussion was a review of the ``RIP for IPv6''
Internet-Draft.  This was a Drafty Draft, as there was some doubt as to
whether or not there would be a need for any such protocol.  The major
comments were:


   o Remove the throughput class
   o Indicate that RIPng packets may be carried across IPv4 and IPv6
   o Indicate that RIPng/IPv4 should support authentication
   o Indicate that RIPng/IPv6 does not need authentication because such
     is incorporated into IPv6


Additionally, Keith Sklower proposed a mechanism to reduce the size of
some RIPng entries by making use of the fact that the higher half (or
so) of the destination route addresses will usually be identical.  A lot
of discussion regarding RIPng will need to occur on the mailing list
before the next draft is ready for the Danvers meeting.