Conference 7.286::fddi

I don't believe either is supported at present.

What application do you have in mind for "vendor code" filtering?

	paul

    Forgive the somewhat fragementary nature of this question.  Late
    afternoon customer call will missing data...
    
    Customer has DECbridge 620s and would like to set individual filters
    for multicast addresses on each of the three Ethernet ports.  They
    claim to have DECmcc and the ELM AM but cannot get it to work.
    
    Everything I have read/heard tells me this should work.  (They do this
    on LANbridges all the time, but there is only one port in that case.)
    
    My basic question is, is this supported (for multi-cast addresses) in
    the current versions?
    
    Aux. questions are, when I can talk to them tomorrow, which version
    numbers of things should they be running so I can verify them.  (I guess
    I am asking, are there old versions where this would not work?)
                                                
    
    Thanks ahead of time for any assitance you can provide.
    
    
    Terry Stowers, MidAtlantic Telecomm. & Util.

    Could you expand on what you mean by "individual multicast filters"?
    What's the application?  And how is it available on 2-port bridges?
    
    Anil

    The application involves a number of VAX4000's collecting information
    from telephone switches and attached processors.  The way they have
    written it, they use multi-cast to send the information to multiple
    "hosts" on FDDI where it can be accessed by real people.
    
    (A variant of this is currently in use using LANbridge 200s with the
    host systems on an Ethernet backbone.  This new application collects
    and distributes ALOT more information than the current one and Ethernet
    will not cut it for the ne application.  They use the multicast
    filtering to keep the messages from showing up on other Ethernet
    segments.  They use multicast because there are multiple redundant
    hosts and want to minimize the number of sends and packets.)
    
    Now, I believe what they would like to be able to do is to set up
    filters on each Ethernet port restricting where the multicasts should
    go.  In an ideal world, all the systems would be on FDDI but this is
    problematic for the 4000's right now.
    
    I am starting to have an uneasy feeling that to do what they want they
    may need to use multiple single port bridges to give them the "point to
    point" control they want.  Someone, (that of course, I have not been
    able to speak to directly yet) have been experimenting with a 620 using
    DECmcc and the ELM AM and the rumor is that they cannot setup the
    filtering they would like.  I want to verify whether it is a software
    version problem, bridge version problem, or something that just isn't
    there (or planned to be there?)
    
    I can hopefully get some more details today if I can establish direct
    contact.
    
    Terry S.

    So, it looks like you need to ensure that these multicasts
    are always funnelled to the FDDI, regardless of the Ethernet port they
    were received on.  (By "individual filters" I thought you meant
    that you wanted a different forwarding decision depending on which
    port the multicast was received on -- which by the way is possible
    as well, the DB6XX has many many filtering features)
    
    In order to achieve this, you can "lock down" the multicast address
    on the FDDI port (port 1) on all of your DB's.  This will restrict
    packets with this DA, received on any of the Ethernet ports, to being
    forwarded only to the FDDI.  You can do this via MCC/ELMS, MSU/ELMS
    or any vendor's SNMP NMS.
    
    Anil