[c-nsp] NCS-5501 - EVPN L2VPN BVI mac-address weirdness

[Mark Tinka]

On 12/21/21 09:26, James Bensley wrote:

> Hi Drikus,
>
> Did you ever resolve this?
>
> We saw issues with MAC addresses on NCS55K too, but not related to EVPN.
>
> For example, one can use the commands 'interface foo; mac xxxx.xxxx.xxxx" to set a custom MAC on a physical interface, XR commits the config but on these Broadcom chips it doesn't actually do anything. CLI output shows the custom MAC but a packet capture shows the BIA.
>
> We had another issue with the MAC address of CDP/LLDP frames addresses on bundle interface (I can't remember the exact details right now, but I think the source MAC address of these frames sometimes had the logical bundle MAC and sometimes had the member link MAC, and it was inconsistent).
>
> So it seems these chips have issues with MAC address consistency. I'm wondering if there is some relation to what you are seeing.

The joys of merchant silicon - completely unpredictable; especially on 
platforms that you are used to being so.

Given the rising(?) cost of hardware, and the declining revenue from 
customers, merchant silicon is only going to become more and more 
relevant. We can't still be playing these games at this stage in the game.

I have lowered my guard, a little, and am now willing to test some boxes 
from traditional vendors (Juniper + Nokia) that are shipping on the back 
of Broadcom J2 chips. But I've already had to dump Nokia because they 
say they won't support a chip-restricted feature which Juniper claim 
they will.

I don't know who's lying, or telling the half-truth.

So much confusion, in this space.

Mark.