RE: [RPRWG] CRC check in each node?
Nader,
"packet stripping" is exactly Media Access Control function and as long as
you have more than 1 possible destination (fiber egress and drop port)
you'll have to make a switching decision and perform actual switching. As
for the other 802 MACs - some do remove packets, some - don't. Mostly out of
necessity, rather than free choice.
Igor
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-stds-802-17@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-stds-802-17@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Nader Vijeh
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2001 8:12 PM
To: ieee 802.17 list
Subject: RE: [RPRWG] CRC check in each node?
One of the challenges we have in 802.17 is emulation of the "broadcast
media", which is the basic assumption for most if not all of the 802 MACs.
The act of "destination stripping" complicates this as the receive function
of 802 MACs is not the same as packet removal. 802.3,5, 11 ,etc. all perform
receive function without removing the packet. In other ring MACs (e.g.
802.5), the source MAC removes the packet with the assumption that all other
MACs have "seen" the packet.
The challenge is to perform destination stripping without performing
bridging (switching) function, as that will be outside the scope of the
802.17.
We can specify functions such as CRC checks and may be manipulating the CRC
filed or a bit in the header to indicate a bad packet, etc, as a MAC
function. Specifying packets to be discarded or re-ordered or otherwise
"received" and "re-transmitted", is harder to do in the context of an 802
MAC. In other words, specific implementations may wish to buffer packets in
transit or not, without making that a requirement in the standard.
As for "fairness", if there is an "active" control mechanism, as covered by
multiple proposals, it is possible to regulate access to media without the
need to perform packet switching at each node (station). After all, it is
the main objective of the WG to devise a Media Access Protocol and not a
packet switching technology.
The option to receive (drop) all packets and then re-queue them above the
MAC and then re-transmit them, is an option when the MAC is operating in
"promiscuous" mode.
Nader
-----Original Message-----
From: igorz [mailto:igorz@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 8:36 AM
To: Nader Vijeh; ieee 802.17 list
Subject: RE: [RPRWG] CRC check in each node?
Nader,
the actual MAC operation is very "straight forward". There are 2 possible
destinations for the packets entering MAC from the ring - back to the ring
and to the drop port (3 - if you'll count a bit bucket). There are at least
3 operations required in order to chose one of them:
1. Physical reception of the packet's bits into ingress buffer
2. Key fields lookup in order to determine packet's destination
3. Validation of the packet's integrity by checking the CRC etc.
In my mind the above operations constitute the packet reception. TP, on the
other hand, is highly implementation dependent. It can be ingress connected
directly to egress, it can be routed through the higher layers etc. In any
case, if the fair access to the ring is an objective then the transit
traffic of a specific class will have to be scheduled for the transmission
taking into account the add traffic of the same class. This assumes one (at
least logical) queue for both.
I also have another question - which "802 MAC" you are referring to? There
are several (quite different) possibilities.
Igor
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-stds-802-17@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-stds-802-17@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Nader Vijeh
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 7:30 PM
To: ieee 802.17 list
Subject: RE: [RPRWG] CRC check in each node?
The transit path (TP) is "logically" separate from the "receive" path in the
MAC. That is, packets in "transit" are not actually "received" by the MAC.
Therefore, discarding packets in transit or re-queuing and re-ordering them
would not fit well with the 802 MAC model.
As for the promiscuous mode, you are correct that address recognition part
of the MAC operates independently of the CRC function.
-----Original Message-----
From: igorz [mailto:igorz@xxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 1:23 PM
To: Nader Vijeh; ieee 802.17 list
Subject: RE: [RPRWG] CRC check in each node?
Nader,
what do you mean by "...MAC is not actually "receiving" packets in
transit."?
Also "promiscuous" mode has nothing to do with checking the CRC.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-stds-802-17@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-stds-802-17@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Nader Vijeh
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 3:25 PM
To: ieee 802.17 list
Subject: RE: [RPRWG] CRC check in each node?
I agree with Harry on not discarding packets with bad CRC. Not only carriers
will not like this, but it also goes against the fact that MAC is not
actually "receiving" packets in transit. Packet discard due to CRC error is
defined as part of the "receive function" in the 802 MACs.
To answer Mike's question on Ethernet MACs, they all have a "promiscuous"
mode that allows them to receive all packets on the media, this mode is
normally used in bridges, allowing the bridge to make the decision on
forwarding.
-----Original Message-----
From: Harry Peng [mailto:hpeng@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 10:03 AM
To: ieee 802.17 list
Subject: RE: [RPRWG] CRC check in each node?
Ray, Mike, Raj, Angela:
There are two issues here:
1) If there is only one CRC that covers the ring header (DA) and the
payload, then you don't
known if the error occurred in the header (un-routable packet) or in the
payload.
If the TTL is also covered by the CRC then the only way TTL can remove
packet
is because the DA is unknown to all the stations on the ring. This TTL is
rather useless.
all error packets must be discarded.
This violate the Transparent Lan Service model. Error packet is delivered
to the
customer for SLA reasons. Any packet discarded will have to be able to be
validate
at the receive end. Keeping statistics on the ring becomes a big scaling
problem.
This also prevents any of you out there who want to do transparent
mapping.
2) in the cut through mode, error packet are delivered to its destination
which may
decide to discard or not and keep stats accordingly.
In cut-through the header will have to processed for source removal,
destination strip,
and TTL processing.
In either case, Adding a ring header error checking can be used to
validate the correctly
of the header. If the packet is routable, forward it.
For store and forward mode, you can check if the packet CRC is correct
and discard the packet depending on the
configuration of the MAC and the service the box is offering.
Recommendation:
Header error checking is valuable, there is an error floor rate for any
transmission medium.
For all possible services that the ring can offer, and for RPR to be
payload agnostic then it shall not drop any error packet. Unless a header
error is detected.
Un-routable packet is a given, there is not much one can do but to
discard it!
Remove un-routable packet so it does not circulate on the ring forever.
Regards,
Harry
-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Zeisz [mailto:Zeisz@xxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 7:23 AM
To: 'Mike Takefman'; Raj Sharma
Cc: 'Angela T. Faber'; ieee 802.17 list
Subject: RE: [RPRWG] CRC check in each node?
There are plenty of Ethernet switches that operate in (gasp!) cut-through
mode. These switches propagate CRC errored frames because they switch from
one port to another after only receiving the MAC header. The original
Ethernet switch (Kalpana) operated this way...and received a lot of
criticism. From my perspective, it appears that most of the Ethernet switch
industry is moving away from this and not propagating CRC errors. This is
largely due to the fact that the industry is moving away from shared bus
architectures.
Today, most Ethernet MACs and Network Processors have control bits that
allow you to selectively receive or discard packets that are CRC errored,
too long or runt (too short).
I believe that Raj mentioned some services that require errored packets to
be delivered at the Orlando meeting. Maybe he could tell us more about
these and what the errored packets provide to the end station.
FYI: IBM has a patent for adaptively running in cut-through or
store-and-forward based on the bit error ratio over a period of time, on a
per link basis.
Ray Zeisz
LVL7 Systems
http://www.LVL7.com
(919) 865-2735
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Takefman [mailto:tak@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2001 9:05 PM
To: Raj Sharma
Cc: 'Angela T. Faber'; ieee 802.17 list
Subject: Re: [RPRWG] CRC check in each node?
Raj,
It is not clear to me that the ttl has to be within the packet, and
protected by the crc. There are successful implementations that
have the ttl protected outside of the packet. There are advantages
to doing this in terms of the complexity of the implementation.
I do come down on the camp of removing the packet from the ring
once there is corruption. There is no reason to waste BW with
a packet that will be dropped once it is received.
I would be interested to know if there are any Ethernet MAC/
Switch chips sets that do not drop CRC errored packets
when received or any that do it selectively. I would be interested
in understanding the mechanism for differentiating drop behaviour
to understand if it belongs in the transit path.
cheers,
mike
Raj Sharma wrote:
> Angela,
>
> This is an intesting question and is sort of the tip of an iceberg
> (pardon the cliché - I feel the answer to this question is loaded)
>
> There are fundamentally 2 issues here. Misrouting of packets due
> to errors and corruption of the payload.
>
> IMHO, packets whose headers are corrupted must be discarded
> in order to prevent misrouting. The question is whether the misrouting
> prevention is limited between RPR MACs or to the ultimate destination
> entity connected to a RPR MAC. I am assuming that a RPR MAC has
> multiple clients.
>
> Certain services require persistent delivery of frames. Such services
> will make their won decision on what to do with corrupted frames.
> For these services it may require that corrupted frames be still delivered
> to the specific MAC client.
>
> Now, it maybe of significant value in debugging networks and from
> an operational perspective to know over which span on the ring the
> frame got corrupted. Hence CRC recomputation at every node may
> have some value from an operational perspective. Also, since the TTL
> field is part of the frame CRC recomputation cannot be avoided at least
for
> the header.
>
> raj
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Angela T. Faber [mailto:afaber@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2001 12:44 PM
> To: ieee 802.17 list
> Subject: [RPRWG] CRC check in each node?
>
> Folks
>
> One question regarding CRC check: are we assuming CRC will be checked
at every node (as the frame is
> forwarded) or it will be checked only at the destination/source node?
> My initial thought on this is that, if we don't do it at every node,
than how do we remove the frame from ring if the
> source and destination addresses are corrupted? On the other hand I
assume that if every node checks it, more
> time is spent with forwarding it....
>
> Any insights are welcomed.
> Thanks!
>
> Angela
>