[rbridge] Consensus Check: MAC learning timers

[Joe Touch]

James Carlson wrote:
> Joe Touch writes:
>> Eastlake III Donald-LDE008 wrote:
>>> This is a check via the mailing list to confirm or refute an apparent
>>> consensus at the Chicago meeting:
>>>
>>>    MAC address remembering timers in TRILL should have the same
>>>    configuration limits and default as in 802.1Q-2005.
>> Minor nits:
>>
>> replace "remembering" with "cache persistence"
>>
>> replace "default" with "defaults" (isn't there more than one timer?)
>>
>> Minor question:
>>
>> Do we want a stronger wording, e.g., MUST, SHOULD (vs should), etc?
> 
> What would be the basis of the MUST?  Is there something in TRILL that
> falls apart if an implementation fails to heed this advice?  I don't
> see what the exact interoperability issue would be.
> 
> Lacking a clear interoperability issue for TRILL itself, SHOULD seems
> right to me.  It means that implementations are required to follow
> that IEEE standard unless they've got a good reason to do otherwise.

I'd say MUST follow IEEE requirements.

I'm wondering how the IEEE spec's the defaults; if they're a MUST, then
why wouldn't we follow suit? How would we know what would break with
intermediate bridges? If, alternately, the defaults are SHOULDs, then
ours can be too.

I don't think it would be useful to diverge from those specs except
where we deliberately need to.

Joe

-- 
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Joe Touch                Sr. Network Engineer, USAF TSAT Space Segment
               Postel Center Director & Research Assoc. Prof., USC/ISI

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