Subject: RE: RFC2461bis: Semantics of "advertising interface"

From: "Soliman Hesham" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 08:46:59 -0400

> It seems like in 2461bis-00.txt that the introduction of IsRouter in
 > 6.2.1 is inconsistent with the text in 6.2.2 about 
 > AdvSendAdvertisements.
 > 
 > RFC 2461 reads as if a node "advertises" itself as a router 
 > (by sending RAs
 > and setting the R-flag in NAs any time AdvSendAdvertisements is set.
 > Thus the "AdvSendIsRouter" is really the same as 
 > AdvSendAdvertisements.
 > (Note that reusing "IsRouter" is confusing since that is the name of
 > the conceptual per-neighbor cache entry variable.)

=> Yes (to the note in brackets), I noticed that but when I looked at the 
rest of the text regarding the IsRouter definition and processing (including
the appendix) I thought that it would pass for that dual use. I was hoping 
that we can separate the enabling of forwarding from the sending of 
router advertisements. Practically, it's probably not a big deal but it seems
cleaner to separate those two functions. However, I think it's difficult to 
achieve this in a backward compatible way given the text in 2461. 

So I agree with your suggested text below.

Thanks,
Hesham

 > 
 > Thus I think we can accomplish the intended clarification by 
 > changing section 
 > 6.2.1 FROM
 >       IsRouter       A flag indicating whether routing is enabled on
 >                      this interface. Enabling routing on the 
 > interface
 >                      would imply that a router can forward packets
 >                      to or from the interface.
 > 
 >                      Default: FALSE
 > 
 >       AdvSendAdvertisements
 >                      A flag indicating whether or not the 
 > router sends
 >                      periodic Router Advertisements and responds to
 >                      Router Solicitations.
 > TO
 >       AdvSendAdvertisements
 >                      A flag indicating whether or not the 
 > node performs all of
 > 			- sends periodic Router Advertisements, 
 > 			- responds to Router Solicitations, and
 > 			- forwards packets to or from the interface.
 > 		     In short, whether or not the node behaves 
 > as a router
 > 		     on the interface.
 > 		     In particular, AdvSendAdvertisements 
 > affects whether
 > 		     the R-flag in the Neighbor Advertisement 
 > messages is set.
 > 
 >    Erik
 > 
 > 
 > 
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