Subject: [AAA-WG]: Clarification on identifying requests and replies at application level

From: Balazs Czoma <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 16:17:23 -0400

Hi,

The latest Base Protocol Draft states about the Hop-by-hop ID:
"Hop-by-Hop Identifier
      The Hop-by-Hop Identifier field is four octets, and aids in
      matching requests and replies."

My question is if the Hop-by-hop ID is meant to be used
1) to match requests and replies at Base Protocol level only (i.e: for
agents to maintain transaction state, which is used for failover purposes)
2) or can the application also use it to match requests and replies when
processing the answer.

If the answer is option 1, what is the correct way to match requests and
replies at application level? The session ID alone surely not since it may
be the same over more then 1 transactions.

Thank you for the clarification in advance.

Regards:
Balazs
____________________________________________
Balazs Czoma
Siemens Telecom Innovation Centre
mailto:[email-masked] 
____________________________________________

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From: Pat Calhoun <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 09:35:51 -0700

> 2) or can the application also use it to match requests and replies when

It can work at both levels, but the problem with doing it at the application
level is that the app would have to be aware of the set of peers, where messages
are sent, and from whom they are received.

I would propose that a translation occur somewhere in the shim between your
base and app. Perhaps the app provides some form of handle, which the base
protocol (let's just call it the library, in API terms) would cache, and
provide back to the app when the answer is received.

That's the way I would design it.

> be the same over more then 1 transactions.

See above.

PatC