> Anyone know *which* RFC says a packets should be routed using
> the most specific route in a routing table, not (for instance)
> the first route in the table that matches, or, for instance,
> using a less specific route that has a better metric?
It might be worth your while to look through the sections of RFC 791
and subsequent revisions which define the second byte of the IP
header, which sets the delivery-priority and the class-of-service for
the packet. The class-of-service (type-of-service?) field lets you
specify whether you want the shortest, largest, cheapest, or most
reliable route, those being mutually exclusive. In my experience,
both fields are set to 0 on just about all packets, which doesn't
specify any requested class-of-service. That presumably leaves the
router free to choose any route it likes, at its discretion.
> This is so basic I hardly know where to find it
If the router, in its discretion, chooses to route the packet in the
wrong direction, that should be easily demonstrated and reasonably
incontrovertable, no? What's your vendor's argument in favor of
shipping the packet to a nearby site which isn't associated with your
destination? I'm kind of curious to hear it...
Who's the vendor? Please humiliate them publicly. :-)
-Bill
______________________________________________________________________________
bill woodcock woody(a)zocalo.net woody(a)nowhere.loopback.edu user(a)host.domain.com
