Subject: [eap] Issue 138: Miscellaneous -03 Issues

From: [email-masked] (Bernard Aboba)
Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 08:37:09 -0700 (PDT)

Submitter name: Jari Arkko
Submitter email address: [email-masked]
Date first submitted: May 14, 2003
Reference:
Document: EAP-03
Comment type: T
Priority: S
Section: Various
Rationale/Explanation of issue:
The description of the Length field is as follows:

The Length field is two octets and indicates the length of the EAP
packet including the Code, Identifier, Length and Data fields.
Octets outside the range of the Length field should be treated as
Data Link Layer padding and should be ignored on reception.

What happens if the Length field indicates a length greater than
the received number of octets? Perhaps this should also be specified:

A message with the Length field set to a value larger than the
number of received octets MUST be silently discarded.

Also, perhaps change "should be ignored" to "MUST be ignored".

2284bis-03.f:

The authenticator MUST NOT send a Success or Failure packet as a
result of a timeout. After a suitable number of timeouts have
elapsed, the authenticator SHOULD end the EAP conversation.

2284bis could be clearer, imho, that even after a number
of timeouts you don't send a Failure. Suggested rewrite:

"The authenticator is responsible for retransmitting requests
as described in Section 4.1. After a suitable number of
retransmissions, the authenticator SHOULD end the EAP
conversation. The authenticator MUST NOT send a Success
or Failure packet when retransmitting or when it fails
to get a response from the peer."