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Re: [STDS-802-11] Fwd: [802SEC] IEEE 802 Nov 14 Plenary - "PARs under Consideration" Posted



--- This message came from the IEEE 802.11 Working Group Reflector ---

  Hi Jon,

  Thank you for the opportunity to comment on one of these PARs.

  I have serious problems with the 802c PAR. This proposes
forming a group to partition and allocate portions of the local
address space (those ethernet addresses with the "local" bit
set to 1). Currently the local address space has 2^46 entries
in it (48 bits with local bit = 1 and broadcast/multicast = 0).
There are a number of issues with this plan.

  First of all, the IEEE RAC has been assigning OUIs for years.
Historically, with an OUI an assignee also got 2^24 unique
addresses assigned (an MA-L). Now the IEEE RAC is requiring
first-time applicants to apply for a MA-M or MA-S first,
providing 2^20 or 2^12 addresses, respectively. In any event,
purchasing of an OUI gets an assignment of globally-unique
addresses. Also, the IEEE RAC will sell a "company ID", or CID.
CIDs are intended for "non-address applications" such as protocol
identifiers or context-dependent identifiers and assignees get a
total of zero addresses, which makes sense (non-address application
gets no addresses). These CIDs look just like OUIs, they are 24
bits, except if you were to construct an address out of a CID it
would be in the local address space because the difference between
an OUI and CID is a bit which maps to the "local" bit. This has
not been a problem historically because CIDs are for "non-address
applications" and you should not be forming addresses out of
CIDs so there could be no conflict.

  This PAR wants to allocate a portion of the local address
space using IEEE RAC assigned CIDs. It actually wants to form
addresses out of things that have been assigned for non-address
applications. That does not seem to be consistent with the past
or current practice of the IEEE RAC. And it creates new problems
that IEEE RAC assignment of CIDs did not used to have, namely
devices that use the local address space today may now become
"illegal" as they will infringe on addresses this 802c group may
allocate if the PAR is approved.

  Another problems is that applications that want to randomize
MAC addresses, for example following the recommendations from
11-14/0367r2, the probability of a collision of randomly-chosen
MAC addresses must be kept as remote as possible. Partitioning
the local address space will vastly increase the probability of
collision and when there's a collision of MAC addresses on a
network there are networking problems. Randomly-chosen MAC
addresses do not need to be globally unique, they just need to
be unique on the locally-switched network. As soon as a router
is reached the addresses don't matter-- i.e. a device on the
other side of the router could choose the same MAC address as
my device does and that's not a problem.

  Using the birthday paradox we can tell the probability of a
collision p(N:C) with C being the number of MAC addresses
available to choose from and N being the number of STAs on a
locally-switched network. How many STAs can we expect? Well
for a small IEEE/verilan kind of network it's going to be
less than 5000. The record for the largest 802.11 deployment
is 30,000+ simultaneous STAs seen (Levi's Stadium in Santa
Clara, CA at a 49ers game).

If the entire local address space is available we get:

  p(500, 2^46) = 0.0000000018
  p(1000, 2^46) = 0.0000000071
  p(5000, 2^46) = 0.0000001776
  p(10000, 2^46) = 0.0000007105
  p(30000, 2^46) = 0.00000639 (about 1:156,000)
  p(64000, 2^46) = 0.0000291 (about 1:34000)

Keep in mind that modern switches don't really function too
well when the forwarding table gets too big (which is why vendors
recommend it not get bigger than 32k even though the theoretical
max is 64k). If the 802c PAR requires randomly choosing based on
a CID we end up with:

  p(500, 2^24) = 0.0074
  p(1000, 2^24) = 0.029
  p(5000, 2^24) = 0.525

and that's already worse than a coin flip, for just 5000 STAs.

  Actually, the probability of collision for an average home
network with the 802c partitioning, p(15, 2^24), is about the
same as it is for the largest 802.11 network ever without the
802c partitioning, p(30000, 2^46).


  So this PAR will guarantee that collisions will happen
constantly on even the smallest 802.11 network. This PAR
will guarantee chaos on a network of any reasonable size.

  To sum, this PAR will create problems with the way the IEEE RAC
has historically allocated CIDs (they are for non-address purposes
and you get no addresses) and it will guarantee chaos on switched
networks. Well what problem does this PAR solve if it's producing
all these problems you ask? It doesn't look like it solves a problem.

  It says that "[i]ncreasing use of virtual machines and Internet
of Things (IoT) devices could exhaust the global address space if
global addresses are assigned. This project will enable protocols
that automatically configure addresses from a portion of the local
address space. Such protocols will allow virtual machines and IoT
devices to obtain a local address without local administration."

  But these devices can already automatically configure addresses
from the local address space by just choosing randomly and the
probability of collision is very remote. This PAR is actually
describing a non-problem-- IoT devices cannot obtain local addresses
without local administration-- and then proposing to create huge
problems because of it-- partitioning of the local address space.


  I am strongly opposed to this PAR. IEEE 802 should not be
approving groups that will cause huge problems on networks,
especially when they do not appear to provide any tangible benefit.

  Thank you for giving me this opportunity to express my opinion
on the 802c PAR. Regards,

  Dan.

On 10/6/14 6:28 AM, "Jon Rosdahl" <jrosdahl@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
>
>
>--- This message came from the IEEE 802.11 Working Group Reflector ---
>This is the list of PARs that will be reviewed during the November
>Plenary.
>If you have comments on the PARs or the CSD files please let me know.
>Thanks,
>
>Jon
>
>1st Vice Chair 
>
>IEEE 802.11
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>---
>Jon Rosdahl                    Senior Standards Architect
>hm:801-756-1496             CSR Technologies Inc.
>cell:801-376-6435            10871 North 5750 West
>office: 801-492-4023         Highland, UT 84003
>
>A Job is only necessary to eat!
>A Family is necessary to be happy!!
>
>
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>From: John D'Ambrosia <John_DAmbrosia@xxxxxxxx>
>Date: Sat, Oct 4, 2014 at 4:39 AM
>Subject: [802SEC] IEEE 802 Nov 14 Plenary - "PARs under Consideration"
>Posted
>To: STDS-802-SEC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>All,
>The page for ³PARs under Consideration² have been posted to include the
>information below.  See
>http://www.ieee802.org/PARs.shtml.
> 
>Nov 2 - 7, 2014, San Antonio, TX, USA
>* 802c, Amendment: Local Media Access Control (MAC) Addressing,
>
>PAR 
><http://www.ieee802.org/1/files/public/docs2014/new-addresses-thaler-local
>-address-par-v01.pdf> and
>CSD 
><http://www.ieee802.org/1/files/public/docs2014/new-addresses-thaler-local
>-address-csd-v01.pdf>
>* 802.1AS-rev - Timing and Synchronization for Time-Sensitive
>Applications,
>
>PAR 
><http://www.ieee802.org/1/files/public/docs2014/new-802-1AS-rev-draft-par-
>0514-v1.pdf> and 
>CSD 
><http://www.ieee802.org/1/files/public/docs2014/new-802-1AS-rev-draft-csd-
>0514-v1.pptx> 
>* 802.1Qch- Amendment: Cyclic Queuing and Forwarding,
>PAR 
><http://www.ieee802.org/1/files/public/docs2014/ch-mjt-cyclic-queuing-and-
>forwarding-par-0914-v01.pdf> and
>CSD 
><http://www.ieee802.org/1/files/public/docs2014/ch-mjt-cyclic-queuing-and-
>forwarding-par-csd-0814-v01.pdf>
>* 802.3bv- Amendment, 1000 Mb/s Operation Over Plastic Optical Fiber ,
>
>PAR <http://www.ieee802.org/3/GEPOFSG/P802_3bv_PAR_240914.pdf> and
>CSD <http://www.ieee802.org/3/GEPOFSG/CSD_GEPOF_0914.pdf>
>* 802.3by- Amendment: Media Access Control Parameters, Physical Layers
>and Management Parameters for 25 Gb/s Operation,
>
>PAR <http://www.ieee802.org/3/25GSG/25GE_PAR_final_110914.pdf> and
>CSD <http://www.ieee802.org/3/25GSG/25GE_CSD_0914_adopted.pdf>
>* 802.15.7a- Amendment for a Physical Layer Supporting Optical Camera
>Communications, 
>
>PAR 
><https://mentor.ieee.org/802.15/dcn/14/15-14-0601-00-007a-p802-15-7a-par-m
>yproject-2014-09-28.pdf> and
>5C 
><https://mentor.ieee.org/802.15/dcn/14/15-14-0216-03-007a-draft-csd-for-ie
>ee-802-15-sg7a-occ.docx>
>
>Regards,
>John D¹Ambrosia
>Recording Secretary, IEEE 802 LMSC
> 
> 
> 
>
>
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>
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>
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