Determining liveness of protocols and interfaces

摘要

The liveness of routing protocols can be determined using a mechanism to aggregate liveness information for the protocols. The ability of an interface to send and receive packets and the forwarding capability of an interface can also be determined using this mechanism. Since liveness information for multiple protocols, the liveness of interfaces, the forwarding capability of interfaces, or both, may be aggregated in a message, the message can be sent more often than could individual messages for each of the multiple protocols. This allows fast detection of failures, and sending connectivity messages for the individual protocols, such as neighbor “hellos,” to be sent less often.

主权项

1. For use with a node of a communication network, a method comprising:
a) accepting, using the node, status information indicating a state of each of at least two different kinds of routing protocols; b) composing, using the node, an aggregated message including at least two indicators, each indicator identifying a different one of the at least two different kinds of routing protocols and the corresponding status information indicating a state of each of the at least two different kinds of routing protocols as data within the aggregated message; c) sending, using the node, the aggregated message towards a neighbor node; d) maintaining, using the node, a first timer tracking a send time interval, wherein the acts of composing the aggregated message and sending the aggregated message are performed after each recurring expiration of the first timer; and e) restarting, using the node, the first timer after the aggregated message is sent, wherein the aggregated message further includes a single dead time interval associated with all of the at least two different kinds of routing protocols, wherein the send time interval is less than the single dead time interval, and wherein the single dead time interval defines a time interval after which, if no further aggregated message is received, all of the at least two different kinds of routing protocols are declared as down.