[netmod] ACL draft defines ether-type as a string

[Mahesh Jethanandani <[e-mail]>]

The issue of ether-type defined as a string was discussed with participants from IEEE in IETF. It was generally agreed that since ether-types are well known values, and centrally managed, that they be defined as enumerations. There was some clarification sought by IEEE on which values need to be published. It was suggested that ether-types that are either private or do not have a protocol identified would be named as ether-type-0xXXXX where 0xXXXX represents the value assigned. All the remaining ether-types will be defined as enums with the well known names. 

As far as the impact of that on the ACL draft is concerned, it will be to remove all local definitions for ether-type from the draft, such as the one below and instead use the definition from IEEE, whenever that is done. It does however put a dependency on the IEEE model.

    leaf ether-type {
      type string {
        pattern '[0-9a-fA-F]{4}';
      }
      description
        "The Ethernet Type (or Length) value represented
         in the canonical order defined by IEEE 802.
         The canonical representation uses lowercase
         characters.

         Note: This is not the most ideal way to define
         ether-types. Ether-types are well known types
         and are registered with RAC in IEEE. So they
         should well defined types with values. For now
         this model is defining it as a string.

         There is a note out to IEEE that needs to be
         turned into a liaison statement asking them to
         define all ether-types for the industry to use.";
      reference
        "IEEE 802-2014 Clause 9.2";
    }
    reference
      "IEEE 802: IEEE Standard for Local and Metropolitan
       Area Networks: Overview and Architecture.";
  }

Mahesh Jethanandani
[e-mail]