[e2e] ICMP & TCP segments with IP ID = 0?

[Vernon Schryver]

> From: Alex Cannara <cannara at attglobal.net>

> TTL is only decremented by routers, not hubs/switches/bridges.  This
> succinct but ineffective comment illustrates the narrow view. 

> > > This is a narrow view.  Since IP is not LAN aware, it's a good feature
> > > to have a unique identifier in any network-layer stream to allow loop
> > > resolution, which is otherwise difficult.
> > 
> > TTL.

More important than the breadth of one's view is it's consistency with
reality.  A sufficiently broad view is useless because it is incapable of
distinguishing black from white or x.25 from TCP/IP.

Please name a single real piece of equipment or software that has ever
used the IP ID field for anything might reasonably be called loop
resolution in production (i.e. none of the wild and crazy things done
in lab smoke-testing of software and hardware, including ASIC's).  Feel
free to name more than 5 instances where the IP ID was used manually while
staring at packet traces to diagnose broken bridges or other loops.

Of course, it is impossible to name such hardware or software that has
been used on the Internet or major corporate networks at least within the
last 10 or 15 years, because the IP ID is not now and never has been either
sufficient or necessary for anything that might be called loop resolution.
This is proven by many facts, including the bazillions of Linux boxes now
on the Internet that are using evil, nasty, cheating, evil, and unjustified
constant-0 ID's but nevertheless working just fine.

Moreover, hubs, switches, and bridges that do not use the IP TTL field
are even less likely to notice (not to mention use) the IP ID field.  In
theory they might, but such a theory would require them to keep and compute
with far more state than is even slightly plausible except in toy
situations that don't need anything that might be called loop resolution.
Sheesh!--how is a hub, switch or bridge supposed to use a packet ID field
to detect loops except by noticing when it sees a single ID too many times,
and how could it do that except in a marketeer's cloud diagram?

Insisting on not putting a reasonably distinguishing value in the IP ID
field such as with an equivalent of "field=++cnt" for mere ideological
reasons is bad, but not as bad as insisting that the ID field can, is,
will be, or ever has been used for things that it hasn't, can't, and won't
ever be used for.

In yet other words, TCP/IP counts bytes instead of packets for several
reasons starting with the fact that TCP/IP is not x.25, and neither of
those facts is a bug or a mistake in TCP/IP or x.25.  It is not a broad
but an extremely narrow view that cannot see any good in the differences
between x.25 and TCP/IP.


Vernon Schryver    vjs at rhyolite.com