backbone routers' priority settings

Wed Feb 4 20:43:50 UTC 1998

> >In my travels I have heard numerous times that it is a popular practice to
> >give ICMP and even UDP traffic a lower priority on backbone routers in
> >times of congestion.

The question was about the priority of ICMP.  Perhaps I erred in mentioning
that ICMP is important for congestion control. "Congestion control" is far
too vague.  Perhaps I should have used the more generic term "network
control" instead.

ICMP is an important protocol, and cannot be blocked blindly.  As a
protocol, it is not obsolete, though some functions are deprecated.  In
certain cases however, ICMP is given a high priority in the TOS field.

		--Dean

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           Plain Aviation, Inc                  dean at av8.com
           LAN/WAN/UNIX/NT/TCPIP          http://www.av8.com
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