IP FORWARDING ACROSS A LINK STATE PROTOCOL CONTROLLED ETHERNET NETWORK

摘要

Nodes on an Ethernet network run a link state protocol on the control plane and install shortest path forwarding state into their FIBs to allow packets to follow shortest paths through the network without requiring MAC header replacement at each hop on the network. When a node learns an IP address, it inserts the IP address into a LSA to advertise reachability of the IP address on the network. Each node will add this IP address to its link state database. If a packet arrives at an ingress node, the ingress node will read the IP address, determine which node on the link state protocol controlled Ethernet network advertised the IP address, and construct a MAC header to forward the packet to the node. The DA/VID of the MAC header is the nodal MAC of the node that advertised the IP address. Unicast and multicast IP forwarding are implemented.