Subject: RE: "DVMRP unicast routing"

From: Arlie Davis <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 10:12:39 -0500

Agreed.  "DVMRP unicast routing" is confusing, but it's not a total
misnomer, since it's unicast routes that are being redistributed, and
since under IOS, DVMRP occupies a similar role as the other unicast
routing protocols, with the exception that you can't actually send
unicast packets to sources learned by using DVMRP.

Your proposed terminology sounds fine to me.

-- arlie

>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Steve Deering [SMTP:[email-masked]]
>Sent:	Monday, February 17, 1997 6:25 PM
>To:	[email-masked]
>Subject:	"DVMRP unicast routing"
>
>I wish people would stop using the the expression "DVMRP unicast routing".
>It is bound to confuse some folks into thinking it means routing unicast
>packets via DVMRP, and heaven knows this stuff is confusing enough without
>us making it worse with such misleading terminology.  How about we use the
>expression "DVMRP route exchange" instead?
>
>The other part of what DVMRP does, which PIM-DM does in a different way,
>could be called "branch maintenance".
>
>Steve
>
>

---

From: Steve Deering <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 10:04:10 -0800

Arlie Davis wrote:

> misnomer, since it's unicast routes that are being redistributed,...

No, it's not "unicast routes" that are being distributed -- it's just
"routes" that are being distributed (direction and topological distance
to various address clusters).  The subsequent use of those routes by
either unicast or multicast packet forwarding determines whether or not
thay are "unicast routes", "multicast routes", or both.  As you pointed
out:

> ...you can't actually send unicast packets to sources learned by using
>    DVMRP

so it seems incongruous to me to call them unicast routes.

Steve