RE: How many can administrative groups assigned?

[Kireeti Kompella <kireeti@juniper.net>]

On Wed, 8 May 2002, Don Fedyk wrote:

> You state the definitions are clear

Here's what the OSPF TE doc says:

2.5.9. Resource Class/Color

   The Resource Class/Color sub-TLV specifies administrative group
   membership for this link, in terms of a bit mask.

The ISIS TE doc has:

4.1 Sub-TLV 3: Administrative group (color, resource class)

   The administrative group sub-TLV contains a 4-octet bit mask assigned
   by the network administrator.  Each set bit corresponds to one
   administrative group assigned to the interface.

Seems perfectly clear to me that both are talking about *bits*; the
OSPF doc uses the term 'bit mask', which makes it crystal clear.

> but last time I read a couple of
> implementations
> from vendor specification they were different.

Since when does a vendor's "specification" define a standard?

> While I agree we should keep the complexity to a minimum,
> when I floated a simple request to define the bits the
> pushback we got was it was too inflexible.

Different issue altogether.  The semantics of *bits* is perfectly
clear.  The *use* of bits should be left completely up to the user.

Kireeti.