[e2e] IP options inserted in transit

[Angelo Dell'Aera]

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On Thu, 7 Aug 2003 12:20:16 -0500 (CDT)
David Borman <dab at windriver.com> wrote:


>Not to mention ensuring that there  was enough room in the packet for
>the intermediate router to insert the information.  That's what I see
>as the biggest issue in Craig's question.  The entire packet could be
>the maximum size, not providing  any space to insert new options, (or
>more rarely, the IP header could  already be at the maximum length of
>60 bytes)  Other than that, I  don't see any problem  with IP options
>being added and  removed by intermediate routers.  I'd  view it along
>the same  lines as  encapsulating/decapsulating the packet  along the
>path.

I don't agree. Letting intermediate routers adding/deleting IP options
on-the-fly means  just losing   performance. If a  router is  asked to
modify every IP header (whose size could be variable), it will waste a
lot of time searching where it's  possible to add one or more bytes or
which bytes to remove. It doesn't seem reasonable. If really needed, I
think  it's better  to include  this  information directly  in the  IP
header thus  letting the router know  where to find it (if useful) not
wasting time in "parsing the datagram".

Regards.

- --

Angelo Dell'Aera 
Antifork Research, Inc.	  	http://buffer.antifork.org

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