Subject: [Ipoverib] RARP usage

From: Kanoj Sarcar <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 17:52:01 -0800

Hi,

In section 3.0 of 

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ipoib-ip-over-infiniband-01.txt

RARP is indicated as one of the valid traffic types. This might lead people
to falsely believe that RARP needs to be implemented on IPoIB. In fact, this
might not be possible, since there is no mechanism in IBA to allocate the
same QPN to the same interface each time the machine reboots, thus the mac
address defined in the draft is variable across reboots, and thus RARP does
not make sense.

As pointed out in section 2.1.1 in

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ipoib-dhcp-over-infiniband-05.txt

some implementations might choose to preserve the same QPN for the same
interface (refer to "... if the implementation is designed to keep this 
association constant across boots"), and only then RARP might make sense. 

I propose some verbiage to the effect of

"Implementation of RARP is optional for IPoIB and is only suggested on
implementations designed to keep the QPN (which is a part of the mac
address) to network interface association constant across boots. If the
implementation does support RARP, it must use the 'ETHER TYPE' specified
in this document."

be added in section 3.0 of the previous draft just after Table 1.

Thanks.

Kanoj
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