Re: RFC3697 question,can anybody explain it ?

[Brian E Carpenter <brc@zurich.ibm.com>]

Lawrence,

Lawrence Zou wrote:
> what the definition of the "flow state" is? I am not very clear about
> the content of "flow state" and there is no definition  in the RFC3697.

I assume you have read the definition of "flow" at the beginning
of section 1.

"State" or "state information" in the IETF usually means the set of
data held by a node to describe a communications session. So in this case,
a possible definition of flow state would be:

  The set of data held by a node to describe a flow as defined in section 1.

I'm sorry we didn't include a definition in the RFC.

As the RFC says, it doesn't describe any mechanisms for establishing
flow state, and therefore it doesn't need to describe the data either.
But I would assume that the flow state will always include at least
  Flow label value
  Source address
  Destination address
with the rest depending on the way the flow label is being used.

Hope this helps.

    Brian