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Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL) Single Area Border RBridge Nickname for Multilevel
draft-ietf-trill-multilevel-single-nickname-08

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 9183.
Authors Mingui Zhang , Donald E. Eastlake 3rd , Radia Perlman , Margaret Cullen , Hongjun Zhai
Last updated 2019-06-24 (Latest revision 2019-03-10)
Replaces draft-zhang-trill-multilevel-single-nickname
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
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Reviews
Additional resources
Stream WG state Submitted to IESG for Publication
Document shepherd Susan Hares
IESG IESG state Became RFC 9183 (Proposed Standard)
Consensus boilerplate Yes
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Responsible AD Martin Vigoureux
Send notices to (None)
draft-ietf-trill-multilevel-single-nickname-08
INTERNET-DRAFT                                                  M. Zhang
Intended Status: Proposed Standard                           D. Eastlake
                                                                  Huawei
                                                              R. Perlman
                                                                     EMC
                                                               M. Cullen
                                                       Painless Security
                                                                 H. Zhai
                                                                     JIT
Expires: September 9, 2019                                 March 8, 2019

          Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL)
           Single Area Border RBridge Nickname for Multilevel
           draft-ietf-trill-multilevel-single-nickname-08.txt

Abstract

   A major issue in multilevel TRILL is how to manage RBridge nicknames.
   In this document, the area border RBridge uses a single nickname in
   both Level 1 and Level 2. RBridges in Level 2 must obtain unique
   nicknames but RBridges in different Level 1 areas may have the same
   nicknames.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other
   groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html

Copyright and License Notice

   Copyright (c) 2019 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors. All rights reserved.
 

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   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document. Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
   2. Acronyms and Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   3. Nickname Handling on Border RBridges  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     3.1. Actions on Unicast Packets  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     3.2. Actions on Multi-Destination Packets  . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   4. Per-flow Load Balancing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     4.1. Ingress Nickname Replacement  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     4.2. Egress Nickname Replacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   5. Protocol Extensions for Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     5.1. Discovery of Border RBridges in L1  . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     5.2. Discovery of Border RBridge Sets in L2  . . . . . . . . . .  8
   6. One Border RBridge Connects Multiple Areas  . . . . . . . . . .  8
   7. E-L1FS/E-L2FS Backwards Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   Appendix A. Clarifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     A.1. Level Transition  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   Author's Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

1. Introduction

   TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links [RFC6325]
   [RFC7780]) multilevel techniques are designed to improve TRILL
   scalability issues. As described in [RFC8243], there have been two
   proposed approaches. One approach, which is referred to as the
   "unique nickname" approach, gives unique nicknames to all the TRILL
   switches in the multilevel campus, either by having the Level-
   1/Level-2 border TRILL switches advertise which nicknames are not
   available for assignment in the area, or by partitioning the 16-bit
   nickname into an "area" field and a "nickname inside the area" field.
    The other approach, which is referred to in [RFC8243] as the
   "aggregated nickname" approach, involves assigning nicknames to the
 

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   areas, and allowing nicknames to be reused in different areas, by
   having the border TRILL switches rewrite the nickname fields when
   entering or leaving an area.

   The approach specified in this document is somewhat similar to the
   "aggregated nickname" approach in [RFC8243] but with very important
   difference. In this document, the nickname of an area border RBridge
   is used in both Level 1 (L1) and Level 2 (L2). No additional
   nicknames are assigned to the L1 areas. Instead, each L1 area is
   denoted by the set of all nicknames of those border RBridges of the
   area. For this approach, nicknames in L2 MUST be unique but nicknames
   inside an L1 areas MAY be reused in other L1 areas that also use this
   approach. The use of the approach specified in this document in one
   L1 area does not prohibit the use of other approaches in other L1
   areas in the same TRILL campus. 

2. Acronyms and Terminology

   Data Label: VLAN or FGL Fine-Grained Label (FGL)

   DBRB: Designated Border RBridge.

   IS-IS: Intermediate System to Intermediate System [IS-IS]

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

   Familiarity with [RFC6325] is assumed in this document.

3. Nickname Handling on Border RBridges

   This section provides an illustrative example and description of the
   border learning border RBridge nicknames.

           Area {2,20}             level 2             Area {3,30}
   +-------------------+     +-----------------+     +--------------+
   |                   |     |                 |     |              |
   | S--RB27---Rx--Rz----RB2---Rb---Rc--Rd---Re--RB3---Rk--RB44---D |
   |     27            |     |                 |     |     44       |
   |                 ----RB20---             ----RB30---            |
   +-------------------+     +-----------------+     +--------------+

          Figure 1: An Example Topology for TRILL Multilevel

   In Figure 1, RB2, RB20, RB3 and RB30 are area border TRILL switches
 

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   (RBridges). Their nicknames are 2, 20, 3 and 30 respectively and are
   used as TRILL switch identifiers in their areas [RFC6325]. Area
   border RBridges use the set of border nicknames to denote the L1 area
   that they are attached to. For example, RB2 and RB20 use nicknames
   {2,20} to denote the L1 area on the left.

   A source S is attached to RB27 and a destination D is attached to
   RB44. RB27 has a nickname, say 27, and RB44 has a nickname, say 44
   (and in fact, they could even have the same nickname, since the TRILL
   switch nickname will not be visible outside these Level 1 areas).

3.1. Actions on Unicast Packets

   Let's say that S transmits a frame to destination D and let's say
   that D's location is learned by the relevant TRILL switches already.
   These relevant switches have learned the following:

   1) RB27 has learned that D is connected to nickname 3.
   2) RB3 has learned that D is attached to nickname 44.

   The following sequence of events will occur:

   -  S transmits an Ethernet frame with source MAC = S and destination
      MAC = D.

   -  RB27 encapsulates with a TRILL header with ingress RBridge = 27,
      and egress RBridge = 3 producing a TRILL Data packet.

   -  RB2 and RB20 have announced in the Level 1 IS-IS instance in area
      {2,20}, that they are attached to all those area nicknames,
      including {3,30}. Therefore, IS-IS routes the packet to RB2 (or
      RB20, if RB20 on the least-cost route from RB27 to RB3).

   -  RB2, when transitioning the packet from Level 1 to Level 2,
      replaces the ingress TRILL switch nickname with its own nickname,
      so replaces 27 with 2. Within Level 2, the ingress RBridge field
      in the TRILL header will therefore be 2, and the egress RBridge
      field will be 3. (The egress nickname MAY be replaced with an area
      nickname selected from {3,30}. See Section 4 for the detail of the
      selection method. Here, suppose nickname 3 is used.) Also RB2
      learns that S is attached to nickname 27 in area {2,20} to
      accommodate return traffic. RB2 SHOULD synchronize with RB20 using
      ESADI protocol [RFC7357] that MAC = S is attached to nickname 27.

   -  The packet is forwarded through Level 2, to RB3, which has
      advertised, in Level 2, its L2 nickname as 3.

   -  RB3, when forwarding into area {3,30}, replaces the egress
 

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      nickname in the TRILL header with RB44's nickname (44). (The
      ingress nickname MAY be replaced with an area nickname selected
      from {2,20}. See Section 4 for the detail of the selection method.
      Here, suppose nickname 2 is selected.) So, within the destination
      area, the ingress nickname will be 2 and the egress nickname will
      be 44.

   -  RB44, when decapsulating, learns that S is attached to nickname 2,
      which is one of the area nicknames of the ingress.

3.2. Actions on Multi-Destination Packets

   Distribution trees for flooding of multi-destination packets are
   calculated separately within each L1 area and in L2. When a multi-
   destination packet arrives at the border, it needs to be transitioned
   either from L1 to L2, or from L2 to L1. All border RBridges are
   eligible for Level transition. However, for each multi-destination
   packet, only one of them acts as the Designated Border RBridge (DBRB)
   to do the transition while other non-DBRBs MUST drop the received
   copies. All border RBridges of an area MUST agree on a pseudorandom
   algorithm and locally determine the DBRB as they do in the "Per-flow
   Load Balancing" section. It's also possible to implement a certain
   election protocol to elect the DBRB. However, such kind of
   implementations are out the scope of this document. By default, the
   border RBridge with the smallest nickname, considered as an unsigned
   integer, is elected DBRB.

   As per [RFC6325], multi-destination packets can be classified into
   three types: unicast packet with unknown destination MAC address
   (unknown-unicast packet), multicast packet and broadcast packet. Now
   suppose that D's location has not been learned by RB27 or the frame
   received by RB27 is recognized as broadcast or multicast. What will
   happen, as it would in TRILL today, is that RB27 will forward the
   packet as multi-destination, setting its M bit to 1 and choosing an
   L1 tree, flooding the packet on the distribution tree, subject to
   possible pruning. 

   When the copies of the multi-destination packet arrive at area border
   RBridges, non-DBRBs MUST drop the packet while the DBRB, say RB2,
   needs to do the Level transition for the multi-destination packet.
   For a unknown-unicast packet, if the DBRB has learnt the destination
   MAC address, it SHOULD convert the packet to unicast and set its M
   bit to 0. Otherwise, the multi-destination packet will continue to be
   flooded as multicast packet on the distribution tree. The DBRB
   chooses the new distribution tree by replacing the egress nickname
   with the new root RBridge nickname. The following sequence of events
   will occur:

 

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   -  RB2, when transitioning the packet from Level 1 to Level 2,
      replaces the ingress TRILL switch nickname with its own nickname,
      so replaces 27 with 2. RB2 also needs to replace the egress
      RBridge nickname with an L2 tree root RBridge nickname, say 2. In
      order to accommodate return traffic, RB2 records that S is
      attached to nickname 27 and SHOULD use ESADI protocol to
      synchronize this attachment information with other border RBridges
      (say RB20) in the area.

   -  RB20, will receive the packet flooded on the L2 tree by RB2. It is
      important that RB20 does not transition this packet back to L1 as
      it does for a multicast packet normally received from another
      remote L1 area. RB20 should examine the ingress nickname of this
      packet. If this nickname is found to be a border RBridge nickname
      of the area {2,20}, RB2 must not forwarded the packet into this
      area.

   -  The packet is flooded on the Level 2 tree to reach both RB3 and
      RB30. Suppose RB3 is the selected DBRB. The non-DBRB RB30 will
      drop the packet.

   -  RB3, when forwarding into area {3,30}, replaces the egress
      nickname in the TRILL header with the root RBridge nickname, say
      3, of the distribution tree of L1 area {3,30}. (Here, the ingress
      nickname MAY be replaced with a different area nickname selected
      from {2,20}, the set of border RBridges to the ingress area, as
      specified in Section 4.) Now suppose that RB27 has learned the
      location of D (attached to nickname 3), but RB3 does not know
      where D is. In that case, RB3 must turn the packet into a multi-
      destination packet and floods it on the distribution tree of L1
      area {3,30}. 

   -  RB30, will receive the packet flooded on the L1 tree by RB3. It is
      important that RB30 does not transition this packet back to L2.
      RB30 should also examine the ingress nickname of this packet. If
      this nickname is found to be an L2 border RBridge nickname, RB30
      must not transition the packet back to L2.

   -  The multicast listener RB44, when decapsulating the received
      packet, learns that S is attached to nickname 2, which is one of
      the area nicknames of the ingress.

4. Per-flow Load Balancing

   Area border RBridges perform ingress/egress nickname replacement when
   they transition TRILL data packets between Level 1 and Level 2. This
   nickname replacement enables the per-flow load balance which is
   specified as follows. 
 

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4.1. Ingress Nickname Replacement

   When a TRILL data packet from other areas arrives at an area border
   RBridge, this RBridge MAY select one area nickname of the ingress
   area to replace the ingress nickname of the packet so that the
   returning TRILL data packet can be forwarded to this selected
   nickname. The selection is simply based on a pseudorandom algorithm
   as defined in Section 5.3 of [RFC7357]. With the random ingress
   nickname replacement, the border RBridge actually achieves a per-flow
   load balance for returning traffic. 

   All area border RBridges in an L1 area MUST agree on the same
   pseudorandom algorithm. The source MAC address, ingress area
   nicknames, egress area nicknames and the Data Label of the received
   TRILL data packet are candidate factors of the input of this
   pseudorandom algorithm. Note that the value of the destination MAC
   address SHOULD be excluded from the input of this pseudorandom
   algorithm, otherwise the egress RBridge will see one source MAC
   address flip flopping among multiple ingress RBridges.

4.2. Egress Nickname Replacement

   When a TRILL data packet originated from an L1 area arrives at an
   area border RBridge, that RBridge MAY select one area nickname of the
   egress area to replace the egress nickname of the packet. By default,
   it SHOULD choose the egress area border RBridge with the least cost
   route to reach. The pseudorandom algorithm as defined in Section 5.3
   of [RFC7357] may be used as an alternative. In that case, however,
   the ingress area border RBridge may take the non-least-cost Level 2
   route to forward the TRILL data packet to the egress area border
   RBridge.

5. Protocol Extensions for Discovery

5.1. Discovery of Border RBridges in L1

   The following Level 1 Border RBridge APPsub-TLV will be included in
   an E-L1FS FS-LSP fragment zero [RFC7780] as an APPsub-TLV of the
   TRILL GENINFO-TLV. Through listening for this APPsub-TLV, an area
   border RBridge discovers all other area border RBridges in this area.

   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   | Type = L1-BORDER-RBRIDGE      | (2 bytes)
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   | Length                        | (2 bytes)
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   | Sender Nickname               | (2 bytes)
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
 

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   o  Type: Level 1 Border RBridge (TRILL APPsub-TLV type tbd1)

   o  Length: 2

   o  Sender Nickname: The nickname the originating IS will use as the
      L1 Border RBridge nickname. This field is useful because the
      originating IS might own multiple nicknames.

5.2. Discovery of Border RBridge Sets in L2

   The following APPsub-TLV will be included in an E-L2FS FS-LSP
   fragment zero [RFC7780] as an APPsub-TLV of the TRILL GENINFO-TLV.
   Through listening to this APPsub-TLV in L2, an area border RBridge
   discovers all groups of L1 border RBridges and each such group
   identifies an area.

   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   | Type = L1-BORDER-RB-GROUP     | (2 bytes)
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   | Length                        | (2 bytes)
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   | L1 Border RBridge Nickname 1  | (2 bytes)
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   | ...                           |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   | L1 Border RBridge Nickname k  | (2 bytes)
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   o  Type: Level 1 Border RBridge Group (TRILL APPsub-TLV type tbd2)

   o  Length: 2 * k. If length is not a multiple of 2, the APPsub-TLV is
      corrupt and MUST be ignored.

   o  L1 Border RBridge Nickname: The nickname that an area border
      RBridge uses as the L1 Border RBridge nickname. The L1-BORDER-RB-
      GROUP TLV generated by an area border RBridge MUST include all L1
      Border RBridge nicknames of the area. It's RECOMMENDED that these
      k nicknames are ordered in ascending order according to the 2-
      octet nickname considered as an unsigned integer.

   When an L1 area is partitioned [RFC8243], border RBridges will re-
   discover each other in both L1 and L2 through exchanging LSPs. In L2,
   the set of border RBridge nicknames for this splitting area will
   change. Border RBridges that detect such a change MUST flush the
   reach-ability information associated to any RBridge nickname from
   this changing set.

6. One Border RBridge Connects Multiple Areas
 

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   It's possible that one border RBridge (say RB1) connects multiple L1
   areas. RB1 SHOULD use a single area nickname for all these areas. 

   Nicknames used within one of these areas can be reused within other
   areas. It's important that packets destined to those duplicated
   nicknames are sent to the right area. Since these areas are connected
   to form a layer 2 network, duplicated {MAC, Data Label} across these
   areas ought not occur. Now suppose a TRILL data packet arrives at the
   area border nickname of RB1. For a unicast packet, RB1 can lookup the
   {MAC, Data Label} entry in its MAC table to identify the right
   destination area (i.e., the outgoing interface) and the egress
   RBridge's nickname. For a multicast packet: suppose RB1 is not the
   DBRB, RB1 will not transition the packet; otherwise, RB1 is the DBRB,

   -  if this packet originated from an area out of the connected areas,
      RB1 replicates this packet and floods it on the proper Level 1
      trees of all the areas in which it acts as the DBRB.

   -  if the packet originated from one of the connected areas, RB1
      replicates the packet it receives from the Level 1 tree and floods
      it on other proper Level 1 trees of all the areas in which it acts
      as the DBRB except the originating area (i.e., the area connected
      to the incoming interface). RB1 might also receive the replication
      of the packet from the Level 2 tree. This replication MUST be
      dropped by RB1. It recognizes such packets by their ingress
      nickname being the nickname of one of the border RBridges of an L1
      area to which the receiving border RBridge is attached.

7. E-L1FS/E-L2FS Backwards Compatibility

   All Level 2 RBridges MUST support E-L2FS [RFC7356] [RFC7780]. The
   Extended TLVs defined in Section 5 are to be used in Extended Level
   1/2 Flooding Scope (E-L1FS/E-L2FS) PDUs. Area border RBridges MUST
   support both E-L1FS and E-L2FS. RBridges that do not support both
   E-L1FS or E-L2FS cannot serve as area border RBridges but they can
   appear in an L1 area acting as non-area-border RBridges.

8. Security Considerations

   For general TRILL Security Considerations, see [RFC6325].

   The newly defined TRILL APPsub-TLVs in Section 5 are transported in
   IS-IS PDUs whose authenticity can be enforced using regular IS-IS
   security mechanism [IS-IS] [RFC5310]. This document raises no new
   security issues for IS-IS.

   Using a variation of aggregated nicknames, and the resulting possible
   duplication of nicknames between areas, increases the possibility of
 

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   a TRILL Data packet being delivered to the wrong egress RBridge if
   areas are unexpectedly merged. However, in many cases the data would
   be discarded at that egress because it would not match a known end
   station data label/MAC address.

9. IANA Considerations

   IANA is requested to allocate two new types under the TRILL GENINFO
   TLV [RFC7357] from the range allocated by standards action for the
   TRILL APPsub-TLVs defined in Section 5. The following entries are
   added to the "TRILL APPsub-TLV Types under IS-IS TLV 251 Application
   Identifier 1" Registry on the TRILL Parameters IANA web page.

      Type       Name                     Reference
      ---------  ----                     ---------
      tbd1[256]  L1-BORDER-RBRIDGE        [This document]
      tbd2[257]  L1-BORDER-RB-GROUP       [This document]

10. References

10.1. Normative References

   [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
             Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI
             10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, <http://www.rfc-
             editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC6325] Perlman, R., Eastlake 3rd, D., Dutt, D., Gai, S., and A.
             Ghanwani, "Routing Bridges (RBridges): Base Protocol
             Specification", RFC 6325, DOI 10.17487/RFC6325, July 2011,
             <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6325>.

   [RFC7356] Ginsberg, L., Previdi, S., and Y. Yang, "IS-IS Flooding
             Scope Link State PDUs (LSPs)", RFC 7356, DOI
             10.17487/RFC7356, September 2014, <http://www.rfc-
             editor.org/info/rfc7356>.

   [RFC7357] Zhai, H., Hu, F., Perlman, R., Eastlake 3rd, D., and O.
             Stokes, "Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links
             (TRILL): End Station Address Distribution Information
             (ESADI) Protocol", RFC 7357, DOI 10.17487/RFC7357,
             September 2014, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7357>.

   [RFC7780] Eastlake 3rd, D., Zhang, M., Perlman, R., Banerjee, A.,
             Ghanwani, A., and S. Gupta, "Transparent Interconnection of
             Lots of Links (TRILL): Clarifications, Corrections, and
             Updates", RFC 7780, DOI 10.17487/RFC7780, February 2016,
             <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7780>.
 

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   [RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119
             Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May
             2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

10.2. Informative References

   [IS-IS]   International Organization for Standardization, ISO/IEC
             10589:2002, "Information technology -- Telecommunications
             and information exchange between systems -- Intermediate
             System to Intermediate System intra-domain routeing
             information exchange protocol for use in conjunction with
             the protocol for providing the connectionless-mode network
             service", ISO 8473, Second Edition, November 2002.

   [RFC5310] Bhatia, M., Manral, V., Li, T., Atkinson, R., White, R.,
             and M. Fanto, "IS-IS Generic Cryptographic Authentication",
             RFC 5310, DOI 10.17487/RFC5310, February 2009,
             <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5310>.

   [RFC8243]  Perlman, R., Eastlake 3rd, D., Zhang, M., Ghanwani, A.,
             and H. Zhai, "Alternatives for Multilevel Transparent
             Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL)", RFC 8243, DOI
             10.17487/RFC8243, September 2017, <https://www.rfc-
             editor.org/info/rfc8243>.

Appendix A. Clarifications

A.1. Level Transition

   It's possible that an L1 RBridge is only reachable from a non-DBRB
   RBridge. If this non-DBRB RBridge refrains from Level transition, the
   question is, how can a multicast packet reach this L1 RBridge? The
   answer is, it will be reached after the DBRB performs the Level
   transition and floods the packet using an L1 distribution tree. 

   Take the following figure as an example. RB77 is reachable from the
   border RBridge RB30 while RB3 is the DBRB. RB3 transitions the
   multicast packet into L1 and floods the packet on the distribution
   tree rooted from RB3. This packet will finally flooded to RB77 via
   RB30.

                    Area{3,30}
                  +--------------+          (root) RB3 o
                  |              |                      \
             -RB3 |              |                       o RB30
               |  |              |                      /
             -RB30-RB77          |                RB77 o
                  +--------------+
 

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                  Example Topology               L1 Tree

   In the above example, the multicast packet is forwarded along a non-
   optimal path. A possible improvement is to have RB3 configured not to
   belong to this area. In this way, RB30 will surely act as the DBRB to
   do the Level transition.

 

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Author's Addresses

   Mingui Zhang
   Huawei Technologies
   No. 156 Beiqing Rd. Haidian District
   Beijing  100095
   China

   Email: zhangmingui@huawei.com

   Donald E. Eastlake, 3rd
   Huawei Technologies
   1424 Pro Shop Court
   Davenport, FL 33896
   United States

   Phone: +1-508-333-2270
   Email: d3e3e3@gmail.com

   Radia Perlman
   EMC
   2010 256th Avenue NE, #200
   Bellevue, WA 98007
   United States

   Email: radia@alum.mit.edu

   Margaret Cullen
   Painless Security
   356 Abbott Street
   North Andover, MA  01845
   United States

   Phone: +1-781-405-7464
   Email: margaret@painless-security.com
   URI:   http://www.painless-security.com

   Hongjun Zhai
   Jinling Institute of Technology
   99 Hongjing Avenue, Jiangning District
   Nanjing, Jiangsu 211169
   China

   Email: honjun.zhai@tom.com
 

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