jones@ingr.UUCP (Mark Jones) (09/16/88)
Is anyone out there doing any work with EGP3. We have a copy of the latest document, and I have heard rumors about publishing it, but the it looks to me like it needs some major work. One of the biggest problems is the sequence numbers, why are they so big (32-bits), this is ridiculous! The numbers are also sparse, which makes for lots of overhead when you go to search your routing tables, you can't use any form of subtraction or anything else, all you can do is loop through the table and count them. Also, what good does it do you to even have them? Another problem is the metrics, they are also to long. 32 bits is an awful lot of bits to only use the values 1-255 and 0,1,2,255. To quote the document: Metric Type 0 Hop Count: each gateway increments the hop count by 1 >=255 indicates the Down State +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | 0 |N| hopcount | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Metric Type 1 Reachability: 0 primary 1 secondary 2 tertiary 3-254 discard >= 255, no connection +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | 1 |N| reachability flag | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Metric Type > 1 Reserved for future use Why are we wasting soooo many bits? This looks like it was engineered for the military( ie definition of Elephant: Mouse built to mil-specs). The spec seems to almost require infinite memory, and instructions the operate in zero time. Where are the authors, if you have reasons for these seemingly mindless acts, defend you spec. I gave you the chance to respond via e-mail, now you can tell everybody at once! PS Why are we using a minimum of 12 bytes for each entry? Do you have some pet machine you are trying to keep things on longword boundaries for? Mark Jones