IP and ARP over

                         Fibre Channel (FC)


                           Yakov Rekhter
                    T.J. Watson Research Center
                          IBM Corporation
                       yakov@watson.ibm.com

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Design Objectives

  o  IP level interoperability between conformant implementations

  o  Internet-Draft - draft-rekhter-fibre-channel-03.txt

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Inside the Scope

  o  Mechanisms to exchange IP and ARP

  o  Constraints on FC-2 Frame Header parameters

  o  IP to N_Port Identifier mapping

  o  Fair access to node's resources

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Outside the Scope

  o  Everything else:

     -  ARP Server solution

     -  IP Multicast

     -  Network configuration and management

     -  IEEE 802 MAC Layer bridging

     -  Interaction with other FC-4s running over the same N_Port

     -  Full support for IEEE 802.2 LLC

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FC-2 Frame Header

  o  R_CTL field:

     -  Routing bits - Device Data

     -  Information Category - Unsolicited Data

  o  TYPE = IEEE 802.2 LLC/SNAP (LLC + SNAP encapsulation)

  o  Other Headers

     -  Association Header - optional (if present must be with a 
        non-null Initial Process Associator)

     -  Expiration/Security Header - optional

     -  Network Header - not used

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Login Parameters

  o  Fabric Login and N_Port Login are required to exchanged IP/ARP

  o  Obtaining N_Port Identifier is outside the scope

  o  No constraints on

     -  Common Login Parameters

     -  Parameters for Fabric Login

     -  Parameters for N_Port Login

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Exchanging IP/ARP Packets

  o  One IP Packet <==> One Information Unit

  o  One ARP Packet <==> One Information Unit

  o  Exchange to pass Information Units

     -  Only the Exchange Originator sends IP/ARP packets ==>

        * bidirectional traffic required two Exchanges

     -  One or more Exchanges between a given pair of N_Ports

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LLC/SNAP Header

  o LLC + SNAP encapsulation

  o Used with IP over HIPPI, IEEE 802.3, IEEE 802.5

  o  Single FC-2 TYPE for both IP and ARP

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Address Resolution

  o  < N_Port Identifier, Initial Process Associator > = hardware address

  o  Support multiple hardware addresses per single IP address

  o  Local Mapping (required to support)

  o  ARP Server (optional)

     -  Well-known N_Port Identifier - "FFFFFC"

     -  A Node registers with an ARP Server after Fabric Login

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Fair Access

  o  Class 1

     -  Limiting time of open Class 1 connection (500 milliseconds)

  o  Resources associated with an Exchange

     -  Independent of a particular Class

     -  Ability to terminate an Exchange (by either the Originator
        or the Responder)

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MTU

  o  Single Information Unit - up to (2^{32} - 1) octets

  o  Maximum IP packet size - 652080 octets

     -  Consistent with HIPPI

     -  Single IP packet into 64 Kbytes buffer with up to 256
        octets of overhead