Subject: RE: [AAA-WG]: Issue 360: Accounting standalone

From: "Harri Hakala (LMF)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 09:45:05 +0200

Hi,

If the Accounting functionality of the Diameter base protocol
can be used without a corresponding application, which would be
good, what application id should a Diameter accounting client
advertise during the capabilities exchange phase and when sending
Accounting Request command ? Relay application Id ?

Regards........Harri

-----Original Message-----
From: Bernard Aboba [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: 11. syyskuuta 2002 4:03
To: [email-masked]
Subject: [AAA-WG]: Issue 360: Accounting standalone

Issue 360: Accounting standalone
Submitter: Bernard Aboba
Submitter email address: [email-masked]
Date first submitted: September 9, 2002
Reference:
Document: BASE-12
Comment type: T
Priority: S
Section: 1, 2, 7.1.3
Rationale/Explanation of issue:

The specification is contradictory on whether the Accounting
functionality of the Diameter base protocol can be used without
a corresponding application (MIP, NASREQ, etc.) For example,
the SIP accounting extension does not include an authentication
application definition, yet makes use of the Base protocol:

(see
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-narayanan-sipping-aaa-diameter-00.txt

Thus, the above specification seems to provide an example of how the
Diameter Accounting can be used by itself, and I would argue that this is to be
encouraged instead of create Yet Another Accounting Protocol (YAAP). The
proposed fix is to adjust the text in the following places to make this clear:

Page 14: Change definition of Diameter Server to the following:

"A Diameter Server is one that handles authentication, authorization and
accounting requests for a particular realm."

Section 2, page 17, first paragraph.

Change the first sentence of the first paragraph to:

"The base Diameter protocol may be used by itself for accounting
applications, but for use in authentication and authorization it is always
extended for a particular application."

Section 7.1.3, Page 81, DIAMETER_UNABLE_TO_DELIVER

Change "no host within the realm was available" to
"no host within the realm supporting the required application was
available"

Page 94, last paragraph

Delete the paragraph starting with "Note that the server side state
machine..."
This paragraph appears to be redundant with the first paragraph of page
93.

---

From: Bernard Aboba <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 07:14:33 -0700 (PDT)

> Accounting Request command ? Relay application Id ?

Since Accounting support is required on both Diameter clients and servers,
if the client only wanted to do accounting and nothing else, since there
is no application id for accounting (not clear why this is, really), then
it would not offer any application id. The server would offer the
applications it supports -- and the CER/CEA negotiation would succeed, no?

---

From: Pete McCann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 10:20:57 -0500

> applications it supports -- and the CER/CEA negotiation would succeed, no?

But the question was about the header of the ACR/ACA messages during
actual operation of the accounting protocol, not pre-negotiation in
CER/CEA.  What application ID goes there?

-Pete