InfoMagic Internet Tools 1993 July/Internet Tools.iso/RockRidge/ip/manage/snmp/kip/doc/rev1086

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10/86 REVISION OF IP-ETHER/APPLETALK GATEWAY CODE

The October 1986 Stanford revision of the IP-ether/appletalk gateway
code (KIP) is used with the Kinetics KFPS.  It contains the following
new features over the previous, 'KUDP' / seagate release.  Some of
these items will be discussed in more detail below.

    Improved IP address management.

    Centralized configuration/booting control.

    Full routing using NBP/RTMP/ZIP;  'core' gateway scheme.

    Gateway debugging via symbolic net ddt.

    Simple integration with libraries such as CAP/KHOST.

    Improved packet throughput.


IP ADDRESSING

IP nets/subnets are no longer tied directly to appletalk net numbers.
If your Mac applications are only using appletalk protocols (not
MacIP), then only one IP address needs to be assigned, that of the
gateway itself.

If Mac applications use IP protocols, then each Mac must be assigned a
unique IP address.  In the past this was done by assigning an IP net or
IP subnet number to the appletalk cable, then placing a 'customization
file' on each Mac containing its unique IP address.  There are a number
of administrative reasons this is not a good approach:  (1) the custom
file must be carefully configured and not accidently copied or moved to
another machine/cable.  (2) IP net/subnet numbers are valuable
resources in certain campuses and companies;  assigning one per
appletalk cable can be wasteful.  (3) the old IP address 'ARP' (address
resolution protocol) scheme does not work through 'standard' appletalk
bridges such as the Hayes.

For these reasons, the gateway code now manages appletalk IP
addresses in a new fashion.  This is described in detail in the file
'ip.at' in this directory.  Briefly, the gateway can be configured so
that it takes over responsibility for a 'range' of IP addresses on the
ethernet side of the gateway.  These addresses can be dynamically or
staticly bound to MacIP clients on the appletalk side.  Typically a
MacIP client program will ask the gateway for an IP address assignment
each time the client program (such as Telnet or FTP) executes.  The
gateway remembers these assignments (even after the client exits) and
thus the mapping used between IP address and appletalk address remains
relatively fixed.  Appletalk NBP (name binding protocol) is used to
provide the ARP function.


GATEWAY CONFIGURATION / BOOTING CONTROL

Rather than each gateway physical site having to edit and maintain a
detailed download configuration file, this function is now controlled
by an 'appletalk administrator' host / daemon.

Each gateway is only configured with a few basic items at download
time, such as the IP/ether address of itself and the IP addresses
of the admin host, and the nearest 'real' gateway.  This information
is placed in a special 'read only' section of the gateway RAM along
with the TEXT and DATA of the gateway program.

When the gateway is powered up or restarts, it asks the admin host for
the rest of its configuration, and for the initial routing table
showing the next hop IP address for all appletalk net numbers.
After this time the admin host is no longer needed and the gateways
keep each other informed of dynamic additions to the appletalk topology
(such as a Hayes bridge), as they are plugged in.

The appletalk admin daemon, /etc/atalkad, runs on the admin host and
usually just answers requests from booting gateways (a rare
occurance).  However the daemon can also be signaled to propagate new
routing or config info out to all the gateways.  This simplifies
administration.  Another file in this directory, 'install' describes
the daemon and how to setup its database file, /etc/atalkatab.  A
sample atalkatab is also provided with extensive comments.


ROUTING PROTOCOLS

This is an outline description of how appletalk routing works in the
new gateway code.  At boot time the initial routing table is obtained
from the admin host.   This downloaded table is an array of structures
with the following fields:

    appletalk net number (anet)
    flags
    IP net or host address
    zone name

The flags show what kind of appletalk net this IP address represents,
either a kbox acting as a gateway to the anet, or an IP net/subnet
representing the anet (typically an ethernet segment).  For the latter
case, other flags show what format of directed broadcast address is
used to reach all hosts on that ether segment.  Provision is also
made for IP nets that dont offer directed broadcast (discouraged).
Yet another flag shows which gateways are marked as 'core' gateways,
that are used to centralize dynamic updates, discussed below.

In the routing table inside the gateway, further fields and flags are
available to describe other aspects of the anet entry.  For example,
the 'hop count' field is used in the appletalk routing update
algorithms.  For use in the discussion below, we characterize the type
of route entry with the following keywords.

    hop0 - there are only two routes in the table with hop count
        equal to 0, these are the directly connected cables to
        the ethernet and appletalk.
    local - this kind of route points to an appletalk node number
        of a bridge accessible on the directly connected appletalk.
    IP - this route points to another kbox or to an IP net.
    AA - this route was downloaded from the appletalk administrator
        in the initial route table.  AA routes are a subset of
        IP routes;  IP routes can include nets discovered
        dynamically.

Within the gateway code, the following subroutine functions are invoked
as described upon timer expiration or packet input:

    RTMPTIMER runs every 10 seconds and broadcasts an RTMP packet
    to the directly connected appletalk cable.  (10 seconds seems
    short but this is the Apple standard).  This causes the campus
    route situation to propagate out thru any bridges on the
    appletalk cable.

    RTMPTIMER (every 20 seconds) ages the route table.  AA and hop0
    routes are excluded from aging.  Routes are deleted if they are
    age >= 40 seconds (local routes) or >= 5 minutes (IP routes).

    RTMPINPUT is called when an RTMP packet is received from the
    appletalk segment (from other bridges).  It updates and adds
    local routes;  doesnt touch hop0 or IP routes.

    ARTTIMER.  'art' stands for 'arouteTuple'.  This is an extended
    form of routing packet sent between gateways.  It contains
    information similar to the RTMP packets, but also contains IP
    address information.  ARTTIMER runs every 60 seconds.  If the
    gateway hasnt yet obtained its initial routing table, it asks
    the admin host to send one.  Otherwise ARTTIMER sends any local
    additions in its table to ONE of the core gateways (but never
    itself).  The core is chosen by circularly scanning the table
    for an entry so flagged.  In other words if there are two
    core's marked, the updates will be sent alternately to them.

    ARTINPUT is called when an arouteTuple arrives.  It could have
    been sent by the admin host (opcode ROUTEI, 'initial'), by the
    arttimer above (ROUTEQ, 'query') or as a response to a ROUTEQ,
    (opcode ROUTE).  If it was a ROUTEI, all previous AA routes are
    purged before merging additions.  Hop0 and local routes are
    never affected;  after merging additions/changes the gateway
    checks the op code again.  If it was ROUTE, we're done.  If it
    was ROUTEQ (query), we respond with another arouteTuple
    containing all of our own non-AA routes.  If it was ROUTEI we
    simply send an acknowledgement so that the admin host knows we
    got it ok.

Now that we have a valid route table, processing NBP BrRq's (bridge
requests) is simple:  the gateway just goes down the table, sending a
LkUp directed broadcast request to each net.  The gateway throttles
itself so that it doesnt fill all the output queues or deny incoming
packets while performing this broadcast propagation.

As a form of misconfiguration and security protection, the artinput
function in the gateway only accepts routing packets from other
'trusted' gateways:  i.e. from the admin host or one of the kboxes
configured initially in the database.


SYMBOLIC DDT DEBUGGER

To aid in debugging the running gateway, some code was added to an
existing ddt program to allow network access to the address space in
the gateway.  The ddt, object file, and symbol table reside on UNIX and
simple deposit/examine packets are sent to the gateway.  A 'debug host'
is setup as part of the gateway configuration and only requests from
this host (and in the privileged socket range, superusers only) are
allowed.  To invoke ddt call it as "ddt gw.sym IP_name_or_address".

We have found it useful for monitoring/changing tables, statistics
counters and such.  There is also a (kludge) way of printing gateway
generated packets (if an etherwatcher isnt on your desk):  just setup
to send the IP packet to an 'undefined' IP address;  since these stay
in the ARP cache for a few minutes, you have time to find the packet in
the cache and print it out.

Since the KFPS checksum/powercycle restart code also depends on the
TEXT/DATA portion of RAM staying intact, a new operation was added to
ddt to do a memory compare between the running gateway and the object
file on UNIX.  Another operation allows toggling between the display of
the gateway address space and the object file.


LIBRARY INTEGRATION

Talking to the new gateway code is simple for UNIX libraries such
as CAP (or KHOST).  A configuration file exists per host showing the
appletalk addresses of the host itself, and its closest appletalk
gateway (which may not be on the same ether cable).  We have modified
CAP to look in the file /etc/atalk.local, an example of which is shown
here:

    # mynet mynode myzone
    123 9 MyZoneName
    # bridgenet bridgenode bridgeIP
    123 240 36.9.0.240

Routing for the host is straightforward:  the host keeps variables
source_anet, source_anode, and source_IPaddress which are reset by each
incoming appletalk packet.  Now when the host wants to send, if the
appletalk address the host is sending to matches source_anet /
source_anode, the host can send the appletalk packet directly to
source_IPaddress.  This will be the address of a kbox or another ether
host.  If there is no match, the host simply sends to the 'bridgeIP'
address found in /etc/atalk.local.  The gateway will do the proper
appletalk forwarding.  Eventually as a connection becomes established,
the host will naturally have cached the addresses of the peer at the
other end and thus the appletalk packet can be routed directly.

Similarly, NBPLookup's from the UNIX host are sent to the nearest
gateway for directed broadcast propagation to all appletalk nets
(including the host's own).

It would be great if the UNIX host could somehow determine its nearest
bridge and appletalk addresses dynamically by sending or listening for
special packets from the gateways.  But we havent figured out how to do
this for the general case when the gateway may be several hops away,
behind non-appletalk speaking gateways.  If you have some ideas, please
post them to info-applebus.


IMPROVED THROUGHPUT AND ORGANIZATION

The new code has an improved organization that does less buffer copying
and handles / routes packets more consistently.  Kinetics and Columbia
have contributed mods to the ethernet device driver code that perform
DMA directly to and from the buffer pool.  (The original seagate driver
had to contend with separate buffer memory on the Interlan NI3210
interface card).

We've made some steps toward reducing the Kinetics dependencies for the
dozen or so 'original' seagate builders out there, but this will not
be completed until next release.  (I'm surprised people are still using
that prototype hardware.)

    --Bill Croft, Stanford University, CSLI.