Please help me understand the changes in dictionary.rfc4679

[Alan DeKok]

On Mar 18, 2019, at 1:01 PM, Daniel Finger <daniel.finger at ewetel.de> wrote:
> I am a bit confused about the dictionary.rfc4679
> There are 2 entries (ADSL-Agent-Remote-Id and ADSL-Agent-Circuit-Id), that were changed from string to octets:
> https://github.com/FreeRADIUS/freeradius-server/commit/0838f3d58a56f63f715156cea110426e6e514f45#diff-d50b31ca7578df0305cc37e831799353
> 
> The RFC states:
> The format of the value field is one of 2 data types, string or integer [RFC2865] (from: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4679#section-3.2)
> 
> Can you help me understand why this is octet and not string.

  Because RFC 2038 used "string" for both printable and non-printable attributes.  That was wrong, so I made FreeRADIUS use "string" for printable ones, and "octets" for binary ones.

  The IETF didn't listen to me (at the time), and chose to use "text" for printable attributes, and "string" for binary ones.  So they're wrong.

  We don't use the IETF names, and won't use them.  The IETF uses "octets" when referring to binary data everywhere else.  And using "string" is wrong, IMHO.  But that can't be changed now.

  Alan DeKok.