Protocol Action: IP Router Alert Option to Proposed Standard

[The IESG <[e-mail]>]

  The IESG has approved the Internet-Draft "IP Router Alert Option"
  <draft-katz-router-alert-04.txt> as a Proposed Standard. This
  document is the not the product of a working group, but has been
  reviewed by the Resource Reservation Setup Protocol Working Group.
  The IESG contact persons are Allison Mankin and Allyn Romanow.


Technical Summary

  This document describes a new IP option type, router alert, which
  tells transit routers to examine the IP packet. This is especially
  useful for new protocols that require special treatment from routers
  and cannot be handled in a router's mainline forwarding path. Two
  such currently existing protocols are IGMP and RSVP.  This mechanism
  makes it possible for routers to intercept packets not addressed to
  them without incurring a significant performance penalty on the
  forwarding of normal data packets.

Working Group Summary

  This is not a product of an IETF working group. However, it was
  reviewed by the RSVP working group, which adopted it as a recommended
  mechanism and requested that it be submitted for standards track
  publication. Since router alert is a general router mechanism, it is
  important that there be more than a single protocol as constituency
  for it. The inclusion of router alert in IGMP version 2 constitutes
  sufficient generality from the point of view of the several working
  group chairs and the Area Directors.

  A similar draft is in Last Call for Router Alert for IPv6.

  No problems surfaced during the four week IETF Last Call.

Protocol Quality

  The protocol was reviewed for the IETF by Allyn Romanow