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Status:

PROPOSED STANDARD (changed from EXPERIMENTAL)

Authors:

IJ. Wijnands, Ed.
E. Rosen, Ed.
A. Dolganow
T. Przygienda
S. Aldrin

Stream:

IETF

Source:

bier (rtg)

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DOI:  https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC8279

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Abstract

This document specifies a new architecture for the forwarding ofmulticast data packets. It provides optimal forwarding of multicastpackets through a "multicast domain". However, it does not require aprotocol for explicitly building multicast distribution trees, nordoes it require intermediate nodes to maintain any per-flow state.This architecture is known as "Bit Index Explicit Replication"(BIER). When a multicast data packet enters the domain, the ingressrouter determines the set of egress routers to which the packet needsto be sent. The ingress router then encapsulates the packet in aBIER header. The BIER header contains a bit string in which each bitrepresents exactly one egress router in the domain; to forward thepacket to a given set of egress routers, the bits corresponding tothose routers are set in the BIER header. The procedures forforwarding a packet based on its BIER header are specified in thisdocument. Elimination of the per-flow state and the explicittree-building protocols results in a considerable simplification.

For the definition ofStatus,seeRFC 2026.

For the definition ofStream, seeRFC 8729.