Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!hc!beta!cmcl2!rutgers!bellcore!faline!karn
From: karn@faline.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Internet routing problems
Message-ID: <1527@faline.bellcore.com>
Date: Wed, 4-Nov-87 23:27:32 EST
Article-I.D.: faline.1527
Posted: Wed Nov  4 23:27:32 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 00:45:05 EST
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc
Lines: 23
Keywords: EGP table overflow

Our gateway between bellcore-net and the ARPANET is
ipswitch.bellcore.com, a Sun 3/160 running Sun Unix 3.4 and Sun Link DDN
5.0. We're running Kirton's EGP as distributed by Sun.

Lately I've noticed some rather persistent routing connectivity problems
in the Internet. Many destinations fail to respond to packets sent from
hosts on bellcore-net (128.96) but are shown to be up when I initiate
connections from ipswitch. A given host can be unresponsive for days. I
know that ipswitch is sending the proper connectivity information to the
core because I can see bellcore-net in another ARPANET machine's routing
table.

I suspect the problem is related to the inability of many gateways to
handle ever-larger EGP updates. I noticed problems on ipswitch in that
entries for outside sites would appear in the routing table shortly
after booting, but after several minutes they would disappear leaving
only the entry for network 10.  Some sleuthing revealed that every
incoming EGP update had a checksum error. I increased the size of
MAXPACKETSIZE in defs.h from 1006 to 2048 and recompiled. The problem
has not recurred. I suspect that there are many other gateways out there
with the same problem; what can we do to get them fixed?

Phil