Subject: IPComp bake-off report

From: Avram Shacham <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 14:01:04 -0800

1. Summary

The IPSec/IKE bake-off took place this week in Raleigh, NC. For the first
time ever, IPComp vendors took part in this interoperability test.  Six
implementations from five vendors registered during the bake-off for
compression testing. Several vendors successfully negotiated IPComp over IKE
- with ESP/AH or stand-alone - and also succeeded in exchanging compressed
ICMP IP packets.

2.  CPI

Up to now the smallest IKE negotiated SPI field was sizeof(long int) or 4
octets. Changes were made on the fly during the bake-off to support the
negotiations of two octets CPI field.  I suggest vendors provide support for
IKE negotiations of CPI in both field size - 2 and 4 octets.

All implementations used the CPI in the values above 64 and not the
predefined DOI IPCOMP Transform identifiers. This issue needs to be tested
in the next interoperability test.

3. Future

Continuing IPComp interoperability tests within the framework of IPSec
bake-off is required to advance the protocol to a mature state.

Regards,
avram