Subject: draft-stokes-vkompella-ppvpn-hvpls-oam-02.txt

From: Thippanna Hongal <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 15:08:09 -0800

hi Stokes,

Below is the packet format on the wire as we understand from the draft.
We have a few questins on this.

Packet for the PING

   dmac1 (Next hop router)
   smac1 (Of the originating router)
   Etype - 8847
   Transport label -|__________________ Pseudo wire
   Vc label   ------|
   dmac2 (of the target mtu/pe to which the ping is targeted)
   smac2 (of the originating router (PE/MTU))
   etype (IP 0x800)
    ...
    Mac TLV
      smac3 --  (??)
      dmac3 --  (customer's mac/spoke's mac to be pinged).

  a) Is the above representation correct?

  b) What is the value of the smac3 in the TLV. Is it mandatory ?.
     Should the reply take the path  using the smac3 for lookup
     (for reply mode 5)?  Pseudo Wire Connectivity verification ?.

  c) Is there any relation between smac2 and smac3 ?.

  d) We have assumed that the dmac2 is either the mac of the
     target MTU/PE. This is because if the customer dmac is
     used the packet would show up at the customer. If the
     router alert is used the the packet would not go beyond
     the PE. So is this assumption correct ?.

  e) pre-condition:
     To do a VPLS ping to verify customer MAC  sitting at
     the remote end, we have to have a actual customer traffic flowing on
     the pseudo-wire, or at least some customer traffic has to be there
     within the 'L2 age out' time period.
     For VPLS ping to work, this is a pre-condition.

     Question is 'Is this a valid pre-condition ?', If yes, are users
     OK with this model of OAM ?.

thanks
hongal