Patent ID: 9749220
Date: 2017-08-29
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method in a first network device that is communicatively coupled to a plurality of other network devices in a network, wherein the first network device and each of the other network devices are bit forwarding routers (BFRs) that support Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER) protocol, and wherein the first network device is elected to be a designated BFR (D-BFR), the method comprising: receiving a trigger to elect a bitmask (BM) length; determining the elected BM length of a BM based on maximum local BM lengths advertised by other BFRs in the network, wherein the BM comprises a plurality of bits and each bit of the BM will correspond to a bit forwarding egress router (BFER); and advertising the determined elected BM length to the other BFRs.