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# $XORP: xorp/fea/README,v 1.9 2007/06/04 23:17:31 pavlin Exp $
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Forwarding Engine Abstraction
=============================

The FEA is intended to fulfill several roles:

    1) it manages network interfaces.

    2) it reports changes to network interface configurations.

    3) it manages the forwarding tables of the underlying data plane.

    4) it allows UDP and RAW packets to be sent from network interfaces.

    5) it adds support for multicast routing (see README.mfea for details).

Documentation
=============

The FEA architecture is described in ${XORP}/docs/fea.
For information about the multicast-related MFEA see README.mfea
The MFEA architecture is described in ${XORP}/docs/mfea.

Status
======

Two FEA implementations exist: ``xorp_fea'' and ``xorp_fea_dummy''.
Program ``xorp_fea'' is a generic FEA that contains plug-ins for
various systems.  Currently, it has plug-ins for systems implementing
BSD's routing socket interface, for Linux's netlink socket
interface, and for Windows' IP Helper API (see ${XORP}/BUILD_NOTES for
a complete list of all OS versions that may be supported by the FEA).
Program ``xorp_fea_dummy'' is a functional FEA substitute for other
systems.  Neither FEA version is extensively tested.
