Subject: [Bier] problem bier-mpls-encap-sraft

From: David Mozes <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2016 05:02:10 +0000

Hi * ,
I have problems with the MPLS encap draft  .

I thing using the label as the bier identifier on the packet as well as the bit string length is not a good approach for HW/Silicon supporting  .
This make the support difficult  and very unique,especially to intermedia node that not supporting MPLS  entropy label  and like   to support ECMP by deep looking inside the IP header .
I think we should :

1)      Define some protocol type or control  word  to strictly detect the beir header . Or define the guessing of the first 4 bits as a valid parsing  approach  .

2)      Make the  bits string  length inside the bear header as  mandatory  .

This will help a lot

Your thought  ?
Thx

---

From: Tony Przygienda <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Feb 2016 21:11:59 -0800

David,

1) there was a longish discussion on the list about the 4 bits and the
value chosen & the DPI-ECMP problem. I suggest to read the archives. the
problem is not specific to BIER. Actually, I recently heard a suggestion
that we should provide from IETF side a registry for the values in the 4
bits but it's A-Ds business, not WG level IMO (if there isn't such a
registry for 'IP versions' already).

2) The length is present for analytics tools but silicon MUST NOT use it to
derive the length but the length is implied in the label. It's simply
architectural DRY. If you repeat semantically the length implied in the
label, you'll end up with error scenarios you need to provide for.
Actually, the draft already mandates that on mismatch the packet SHOULD be
discarded (which means silicon doesn't actually need to check it if it
wants to go at max. speed).

Generally, sweeping assertions like "using the label as the bier identifier
on the packet as well as the bit string length is not a good approach for
HW/Silicon supporting" would need a little more elaboration as to what
they're based upon ?

thanks

--- tony

On Mon, Feb 29, 2016 at 9:02 PM, David Mozes <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I thing using the label as the bier identifier on the packet as well as
> the bit string length is not a good approach for HW/Silicon supporting  .
>
> This make the support difficult  and very unique,especially to intermedia
> node that not supporting MPLS  entropy label  and like   to support ECMP by
> deep looking inside the IP header .
>
> I think we should :
>
> 1)      Define some protocol type or control  word  to strictly detect
> the beir header . Or define the guessing of the first 4 bits as a valid
> parsing  approach  .
>
> _______________________________________________
> BIER mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/bier
>
>

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