More long AS-sets announced

Tue Jun 21 16:42:58 UTC 2005

On Tue, 21 Jun 2005, Pete Templin wrote:

> Randy Bush wrote:
>
>> showing that ios won't crash is very difficult because the number
>> of versions of ios, and the amazing dependencies of things on which
>> blade is in which slot and what phase is the moon.
>
> Thank you.  You've provided a clean, concise counter to Lorenzo's original 
> claim that long AS sets won't trip on IOS bugs.
>
..
> Alternatively, why can't the test be conducted in a lab, with 
> interested operators providing router configurations and xOS versions to give 
> the test bed the most realistic sample of the 'net, without using the 
> production 'net?

Has anyone considered that the project may have indeed done testing of 
available IOS/$ROUTER versions in a lab environment before even 
considering testing on the 'live' internet?  Reading the cited material 
might be of benefit to the vocal complainers.

I think Lorenzo would be the first to admit that the timing of operator 
notifications, and more importantly the wording, may be less than desired, 
however this does not detract from the caution, and professionalism 
exhibited thus far in this set of experiments.

> This may be a well-run, very small experiment, but it's experimenting with a 
> space that's rarely explored and therefore less likely to have encountered 
> the same level of operational testing that horrifying garbage leaks have 
> tested.

Part of the problem is that because it is, as you put it, a rarely 
explored problem space, the number of interested parties with sufficient 
and varied resources is extremely small, resulting in a less-than-complete 
testing environment.

Another part of the problem is that you cannot put the concept back in the 
box.  The black-hats do read operational lists, and with all the fuss 
being made over possible breakage caused by AS-sets, some of them will do 
will perform their own, possibly destructive experiments in order to find 
out what specific $ROUTER versions do under various inputs.

So, which would you prefer.. Lorenzo at a known contact number with known 
working hours (+31 20 535 4444, 10am to 5pm GMT +1), and with the 
Internet's best interests at heart, or some malcontent with unknown 
contacts, unknown hours, and very definitely not your best interests at 
heart ?

--==--
Bruce.

Unfortunately, option 3, do nothing to see whether it is actually 
a problem, is no longer valid.