Nimrod Documentation Page

Nimrod Documentation

"In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away..."
	-- Antoine de Saint Exupery, "Wind, Sand and Stars"
		(quoted in "Multics: The First Seven Years",
		 F. J. Corbato, J. H. Saltzer)
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."
	-- J. R. R. Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"

Introduction

NIMROD: It Might Run One Day.

"Nimrod is a scalable routing architecture designed to support a dynamic internetwork of arbitrary size, to provide service-specific routing in the presence of multiple constraints, and to admit incremental deployment throughout an internetwork. The key features of Nimrod include representation of internetwork connectivity and services in the form of maps at multiple levels of abstraction; source- and destination-controlled route generation and selection based on maps and traffic service requirements; and source- and destination-controlled message forwarding according to the routes selected." [Steenstrup94]

A fair amount of documentation for the Nimrod Routing Architecture never made it into RFC form. They are collected here, along with a list of the Nimrod RFC's.

If you're just starting, and trying to learn something about Nimrod, and you're looking for one single document to read, at the moment the best thing to start with is the Nimrod presentation, which IMHO offers up the all important fundamental ideas, in the right order. It is short on detail in many areas, so if you want to know more, good places to go after that are the Nimrod Routing Architecture document, and the Perspective on Nimrod Functionality.

Since many of the documents here are in rough draft form, please do not reproduce anything here without the explicit permission of the author of the document.

BBN also used to maintain a repository of Nimrod documentation, Nimrod source code, IETF WG minutes, IETF WG presentations, and other material. Caveat haquur: there is much duplication of material between here and there, and almost all significant document material is available here.

Many people find this slide by Charlie Lynn particularly amusing, given the A. de Saint Exupery quote (found above) used as a motto for Nimrod. (Available here as the original PostScript file.)

RFC's

These are available from your nearest RFC server, but the listing here includes a link to a copy at the main RFC server at USC-ISI.


1753 IPng Technical Requirements Of the Nimrod Routing and Addressing
     Architecture; Noel Chiappa; December 1994. (Format: TXT=46586 bytes)
     (Status: INFORMATIONAL)


1992 The Nimrod Routing Architecture; Isidro Castineyra, Noel Chiappa,
     Martha Steenstrup; August 1996. (Format: TXT=59848 bytes) (Status:
     INFORMATIONAL)


2102 Multicast Support for Nimrod: Requirements and Solution
     Approaches; Ram Ramanathan; February 1997. (Format: TXT=50963 bytes)
     (Status: INFORMATIONAL)


2103 Mobility Support for Nimrod: Challenges and Solution Approaches;
     Ram Ramanathan; February 1997. (Format: TXT=41352 bytes) (Status:
     INFORMATIONAL)

Rough Drafts

"We are releasing preliminary versions of the Nimrod protocol, procedure, and database specifications as separate memos. ... This is .. a series of articles that we expect, after revisions, to comprise the Nimrod Protcol Specification document. Other members of the working group will cover the following in other articles:

Path Setup and Teardown Protocol
Nimrod Database Contents organization
Agent and Neighbor discovery protocols
Reliable Transport Protocol

Eventually, all of this information will be integrated into a single Nimrod specification document, but we figured that it would be easier for readers to digest the memos separately rather than as one large document."

Nimrod Packet Forwarding and Path Management, January 1995

Abstract

This (drafty) memo describes the Nimrod packet forwarding procedures and path management protocol. The design is based on the one described in the Nimrod functionality document ... We assume that the reader is familiar with the terminology defined in the Nimrod architecture and functionality documents.

Hierarchical Update and Hierarchical Query-Response Protocols for Nimrod, January 1995

Abstract

This article describes the Hierarchical Update Protocol (henceforth referred to simply as the Update Protocol) and the Hierarchical Query-Response Protocol (henceforth referred to simply as the Q-R Protocol) for Nimrod. Emphasis is on protocol engines and packet contents and not packet formats. Additionally, we also briefly discuss the functionality of Map Construction and Association Maintenance and their realization using the Update and Q-R protocols.

Nimrod Software Architecture, March 1995

Abstract

In a Nimrod internet, Nimrod software will be run on both general purpose computing platforms such as PCs and workstations as well as on special purpose platforms such as routers and servers, from a variety of vendors. However, not all platforms will need to support the full range of functions described in the Nimrod Architecture and Functionality documents. The software architecture must make it straight forward for the vendors to move Nimrod code to their often proprietary environments, possibly by porting code from a reference implementation or by developing code directly from the Nimrod Functional Specification. Thus the usual architectural goals of a clean, modular design with clear inter-module interfaces becomes even more important.

Nimrod functionality may be categorized into a collection of databases, agents that both maintain and provide requested information from those databases, and various support modules that provide the communications and other services the agents need to perform their tasks. Low level packet forwarding and discovery mechanisms are also required. This document uses the paradigms of layering, client-server, message passing, and events. Implementors may cast the software architecture described here to other paradigms that may be more suitable to their target platform(s).

Slide Sets

Here are some slide sets which contain useful material.

A New Routing and Addressing Architecture for the Internet, June 1998

This presentation is also available in its original (slide) form:

Source (Tex): Part 1 2 3 4 5

PostScript (compressed): Part 1 2 3 4 5

Abstract

This presentation includes sections on: Nimrod Design Goals And Principles (something which is not covered well in any other document; this section also includes a more detailed list of Technical Goals For Nimrod); a Nimrod Architecture Overview (which looks at the two basic underlying technical principles of Nimrod, and examines the implications of that choice); and an Overview Of Nimrod Mechanisms (which includes more detail on some, but not all, of the mechanisms and capabilities of Nimrod).

This presentation also includes brief introductions to the topics of Routing and Addressing Architectures (including discussion of the various main classes of routing architectures, and the inherent problems of routing in very large networks), and Architectural Fundamentals (including discussion of names and objects).

Rough Notes

Here are some rough introductory notes on various subjects.

Paperman for Nimrod, November 1993

Abstract

This is an attempt to come up with the most basic---read primitive---version of Nimrod I can think of. I wanted to have something we can criticize and use as initial point of reference. I am explicitly not claiming that the design decisions taken here would be part of any instantiation of Nimrod. That is, this is not supposed to be a minimal design, only a simple one.

Representation, Configuration, and Route Information Distribution, December 1993

Abstract

In this write-up, I have put down my thoughts on representation, configuration and route information distribution. Representation is discussed in section 1, mainly as a basis for discussing section 2 on configuration and route information distribution. Each section has a "theme" that summarizes ideas of the section.

Book Sections

These are some chapters from a book which are relevant to Nimrod. The first advances a new view of state and state management in the network. The second gives a brief description of Nimrod, and talks about what data it would like to see in an internetwork packet header.

Evolutionary Possibilities for the Internetwork Layer, July 1995

Abstract

A project called Nimrod, which aims to produce a next-generation routing architecture for the Internet, has produced, as part of its work, a somewhat different perspective on the potential future evolutionary path of the internetwork layer. This perspective is based on an established school of thought about how to design large-scale systems. This section both explains that thinking to some degree, and uses it to describe what the future evolution of the internetwork layer might look like.

The Internetwork Layer and the Nimrod Routing Architecture, July 1995

Abstract

Nimrod is a project which aims, in part, to produce a next-generation routing architecture for the Internet; but also, more generally, to try and produce a basic design for routing in a single global-scale communication substrate, a design which will prove sufficiently flexible and powerful to serve into a future as yet unforseeable.

Nimrod does this through the conjunction of two powerful basic mechanisms:

Distribution of maps, as opposed to distribution of routing tables; and
Selection of routes by clients of the network, not by the switches in the network.

The actual operation is fairly simple, in principle. Maps of the network's actual connectivity (maps which will usually include high-level abstractions for large parts of that connectivity, in the same way road maps of an area may not show all the roads, just the 'important' ones) are made available to all the entities which need to select paths. Those entities use these maps to compute paths, and those paths are passed to the actual switches, along with the data, as directions on how to forward the data.

The rest of this [segment] discusses how the Nimrod routing and addressing architecture interacts with the rest of the internetwork layer, and what requirements it has upon the internetwork layer protocol's packet format.

Useful Messages

Here are a couple of long messages which describe topics which aren't covered in detail elsewhere.

New Datagram Mode, December 1993

Abstract

After a fair amount of time had been put into the project, we came up with a much better way to handle what we call "datagrams" (which is our term for packets which aren't part of a long-term flow, but rather belong to short transactions - perhaps only one packet - for which it is extremely inefficient to do a full flow setup). This message introduces and describes it.

Flows Needed for NDM, January 1994

Abstract

This message discusses how many DMF's (flows used to support New Datagram Mode) an average router needs.

Spacing: A new attribute of graphs, August 1995

Abstract

This message discusses a new attribute of graphs, one important to routing (which I called 'spacing' - it has since been rediscovered, and given another name).

Eureka! F=ma for Access Control routing, August 1987

Abstract

This is the message which started the whole ball rolling: while typing it (in the second section, to be exact), the light bulb for the key idea in the path which led to Nimrod went off in my head (about how when you distribute maps, one can delay computing a path until it's needed). It's so nice to have a key moment in the history documented so clearly for posterity! The second part of the architecture, source routing, was added very soon afterward (to prevent loops, when new attributes are added, but not all nodes understand them).

Back to JNC's home page

Last updated: 29/September/2011