RE: [RRG] Re: Should the identifier be used as local locator

["Tony Li" <tony.li@tony.li>]

Brian,
 
|The way I read the Ethernet specification (or Token Ring or FDDI for
|that matter), the MAC address is strictly an identifier - it's when
|a station sees its own MAC address in a frame that it knows the frame
|is for itself.


In any switched network, the MAC address is used for a lookup in the bridge
table to determine destination location.  Thus, it clearly also has some
locator functionality.


|But you're correct too. Whether a bit string is a locator or an
|identifier depends entirely on context. (That's why I've objected to
|EIDs in LISP being called EIDs from the start - once they hit
|the site network, they become locators instantaneously; they
|are only identifiers in the global context.)


Indeed.  It's pretty clear that we can still have semantic cleanliness tho,
as we can isolate a particular bit string as having L3 identifier semantics
(coupled with L2 locator and L2 identifier semantics) and distinct from L3
locator semantics.

Tony


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