Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) R. Perlman
Request for Comments: 6325 Intel Labs
Category: Standards Track D. Eastlake 3rd
ISSN: 2070-1721 Huawei
D. Dutt
S. Gai
Cisco Systems
A. Ghanwani
Brocade
July 2011
Routing Bridges (RBridges): Base Protocol Specification
Abstract
Routing Bridges (RBridges) provide optimal pair-wise forwarding
without configuration, safe forwarding even during periods of
temporary loops, and support for multipathing of both unicast and
multicast traffic. They achieve these goals using IS-IS routing and
encapsulation of traffic with a header that includes a hop count.
RBridges are compatible with previous IEEE 802.1 customer bridges as
well as IPv4 and IPv6 routers and end nodes. They are as invisible
to current IP routers as bridges are and, like routers, they
terminate the bridge spanning tree protocol.
The design supports VLANs and the optimization of the distribution of
multi-destination frames based on VLAN ID and based on IP-derived
multicast groups. It also allows unicast forwarding tables at
transit RBridges to be sized according to the number of RBridges
(rather than the number of end nodes), which allows their forwarding
tables to be substantially smaller than in conventional customer
bridges.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6325.
Perlman, et al. Standards Track [Page 1]RFC 6325 RBridge Protocol July 2011Copyright Notice
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Perlman, et al. Standards Track [Page 2]RFC 6325 RBridge Protocol July 2011Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................6
1.1. Algorhyme V2, by Ray Perlner ...............................7
1.2. Normative Content and Precedence ...........................7
1.3. Terminology and Notation in This Document ..................7
1.4. Categories of Layer 2 Frames ...............................8
1.5. Acronyms ...................................................9
2. RBridges .......................................................11
2.1. General Overview ..........................................11
2.2. End-Station Addresses .....................................12
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