Subject: RP holdtimes in BSR messages

From: "Andrew L. Adams" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2000 10:24:23 -0400

Hi all. Can someone explain to me the purpose of the RP-holdtimes that 
are advertised in BSR messages?  My understanding from the latest
draft is that they aren't used by anyone.  The only routers
interested in RP-holdtimes are BSR's, and those holdtimes are read
from CRP-Adv messages. For a BSR, if a CRP doesn't send a 
CRP-Adv message before the RP-holdtime expires, then that CRP is 
not advertised in the next BSR message....And all other routers 
are supposed to _replace_ their RP set with the set received
in a new BSR message. (As opposed to set/refresh hold-timers for 
RP's learned from the BSR message.)

A description of the holdtime field in the BSR packet doesn't
accompany the BSR packet format description in section 4.6.
The only mention of it that I can find (relating to the BSR
message) is in 3.6.2

   The Bootstrap message is subdivided into sets of group-prefix,RP-
   Count,RP-addresses.  For each RP-address, the corresponding Holdtime
   is included in the "RP-Holdtime" field.  

Thanks for any help,

-Andy