ILMI-Based Server Discovery for MARS (RFC2602)

Network Working Group M. Davison Request for Comments: 2602 Cisco Systems Category: Standards Track June 1999

ILMI-Based Server Discovery for MARS

Status of this Memo

This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

This memo defines how ILMI-based Server Discovery, which provides a method for ATM-attached hosts and routers to dynamically determine the ATM addresses of servers, shall be used to locate MARS servers.

1. Introduction

Presently, configuring a host or router to use MARS [1] is cumbersome and error-prone since it requires at least one ATM address to be statically configured on each host or router in the network. Further, it is impossible to implement a diskless host to use MARS since local configuration is required. ILMI-based Server Discovery, hereafter referred to as "server discovery," provides a solution to these problems.

A brief overview of the Integrated Local Management Interface (ILMI) and the Service Registry MIB, as defined by the ATM Forum, are provided in this memo. The reader should consult [2] for a complete description of ILMI and this MIB, but the information contained here is sufficient for an understanding of its use to support MARS server discovery.

Davison Standards Track [Page 1]

RFC 2602 ILMI-Based Server Discovery for MARS June 1999

2. Integrated Local Management Interface

The Integrated Local Management Interface (ILMI) [2] provides a mechanism for ATM-attached devices, such as hosts, routers, and ATM switches, to transfer management information. It is based on the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Version 1, and supports get, get-next, set and trap operations.

The ILMI specification designates the switch side of the ATM link as the ’network side’ and the host/router side of the ATM link as the ’ user side.’ The Service Registry MIB, which is outlined in Section 3, is implmented on the network side and is queried from the user side.

3. ILMI 4.0 Service Registry MIB

Server discovery utilizes the Service Registry MIB defined by the ATM Forum in ILMI Specification Version 4.0 [2]. To support the existing framework for IP over ATM, as embodied by ATMARP and MARS, ATM switches must support the Service Registry MIB.

A row in the service registry table [2] is defined as:

AtmfSrvcRegEntry ::= SEQUENCE { atmfSrvcRegPort INTEGER, atmfSrvcRegServiceID OBJECT IDENTIFIER, atmfSrvcRegATMAddress AtmAddress, atmfSrvcRegAddressIndex INTEGER, atmfSrvcRegParm1 OCTET STRING }

The definition of each field in this structure is:

atmfSrvcRegPort - The ATM port number for which this entry contains management information. The value of zero may be used to...