Patent ID: 10103981

Abstract:
In one embodiment, a method, system, and apparatus is for storing an assigned operations, administration and management (OAM) bitstring in a memory in a BIER (Bit Index Explicit Replication) enabled router, the OAM bitstring being assigned to a BIER domain, the semantic of the OAM bitstring being to replicate and forward the OAM bitstring to neighboring bit-forwarding routers (BFRs), generating an OAM probe packet including the OAM bitstring, setting a BFR ID associated with a first BFR as a BIER header bitstring in the OAM probe packet, setting a TTL (time to live) field in the OAM probe packet to be 2, sending the OAM probe packet to a next hop BFR, and performing one of receiving the OAM probe packet back from the first BFR, and taking an alternative action if the OAM probe packet is not received back from the first BFR.