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Diameter : What is the difference between rfc 3588 and 6733 ?

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Both the RFCs are referred for Diameter protocol. I want to know why two RFCs are defined for same Diameter protocol ? Difference between these two RFCs in term of contents ?

posted Aug 16, 2016 by Ganesh

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1 Answer

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Hi Ganesh

The main diffrence between these two RFCs are

  1. In 3588 CER/CEA message is used to know whether to establish TLS channel (secure transport) using INBAND-SECURITY AVP.
    In RFC-6733, it is specified that whether to use secure channel or not to use is to be decided at the time of Transport-Connection (i.e. when TCP or SCTP connections are created) not after CER.

  2. rfc 3588 Doesn’t clearly state about the usage of Application Id in session based application and base DIAMETER messages.
    In rfc 6733 if two nodes communicate on session base application X with application ID 12345 (say), must publish the application Id 12345 for all session based messages such as ASR/ASA, RAR/RAA and STR/STA, Although these messages are of Base-Diameter.

  3. In 3588 No Mechanism of Capability Update is specified.
    RFC-6733 provides a mechanism when CER/CEA message can be exchanged during established DIAMETER Connection.

    for more details refer to below link:
    http://diameter-protocol.blogspot.in/2013/02/blog-post.html

answer Aug 25, 2016 by Lavanya L
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