Re: [Idr] WGLC for draft-ietf-idr-rfc5575bis-04

[Christoph Loibl <[e-mail]>]

Hi Job,

>> 
>> No. What actually should happen is:
>> 
>> 1) compare the “common” prefix (in this case the common prefix length = 8)
>> 
>> 10.0.0.0/8 == 10.5.0.0/8 -> the common prefix is equal.
> 
> Why would you ever see 10.5.0.0/8 - that looks like an incorrect CIDR
> notation to me?

Yes - 10.5.0.0/8 - no “correct” cidr notation. I just wanted to express that we look at the first 8 bits of the 10.5.0.0 - and compare it to the first 8 bit of 10.0.0.0 - both times this is 10 => they match.

>> 2) if the common prefix is equal (which is the case) the prefix with
>> the longest match takes precedence:
>> 
>> 10.0.0.0/8 <- 8 bit
>> 10.5.0.0/24 <- 24 bit <- this one wins!
>> 
>> Another example: 9.0.0.0/8 vs 10.5.0.0/24
>> 
>> 1) compare the “common” prefix (in this case the common prefix length = 8)
>> 
>> 9.0.0.0/8 == 10.5.0.0/24 -> the common prefix is _not_ equal
>> 
>> 2) lower value takes precedence:
>> 
>> 9.0.0.0 < 10.5.0.0/24
>> 
>> 9.0.0.0/8 wins!
> 
> I'm sorry, but I still don't understand. 9.0.0.0/8 and 10.5.0.0/24 don't
> overlap, shouldn't they both be installed as ACLs? Maybe I don't
> understand when this algorithm is used?

Both are actually installed (but the order is determined). This algorithm is used for sorting the ACL terms. In our case 9.0.0.0/8 will get sorted “above” 10.5.0.0/24. (In case of overlapping prefix the match behaviour is changed to longest prefix-length “first").

Since the arrival-time of the BGP updates is non predictable some sorting is needed to have a consistent order of ACL-terms in the network.

When programming a “sorting” algorithm you usually need a compare function that allows to compare items. In python I think you need to implement __lt__ for classes that you want the built-in sort() to work. The code that I put on github can be easily adopted to be used for sorting “flowspec_nlri” objects.

> 
>>>   Another question, and I realise this is a big ask: Is it possible to
>>>   replace the pseudocode with an actual code example? Pseudo languages
>>>   tend to not follow any specific set of rules and therefor oftentimes
>> 
>> IF the group thinks we shall use this - please carefully analyse the
>> behaviour. I am sure I have hidden some bugs in there and I am sure it
>> is possible to beautify what I came up with (I am not the programmer).
> 
> I think this is a very good direction and I hope the WG sees this as
> path forward too.
> 
> In the I-D I'd leave out the unittest part for the sake of brevity. I'd
> also specify what version of python this code was tested against. And
> of course you can include a link to that github repository in the I-D.
> For other drafts we've taken a similar approach.

Can you point me to some I-Ds that use a similar approach - maybe one can learn from that.

Cheers Christoph