Your router or QoS-capable switch must be able to distinguish data streams belonging to customers on a shared link. The Merkato administrator configures the detection scheme you choose based on information you provide about the buyers. Identification options include:
These options are enabled by the use of Access Control List (ACL) filters on the router or a switch that enforces the Merkato appropriations.
Use the IP address plus the subnet mask when customer traffic is distinguished by either the source or destination IP address within the packets, or by a range of source or destination IP addresses.
Use the physical port (or logical sub-interface) to distinguish customers by the router port (or logical sub-port, also called a sub-interface) through which the traffic flows.
In some cases, customer traffic can only be differentiated within a device other than the router doing the bandwidth apportioning. In this case, the device doing the differentiating should label packets from different buyers with unique VLAN tags. The control router uses the tags to identify which data streams belong to each customer.
In some cases, customer traffic can be differentiated by the device sending the data to the control router (or receiving data from it). To accommodate this application, we allow use of the MAC (physical port) address of the next-hop device to distinguish customer traffic. To accommodate device replacement, we configure ARP (address resolution protocol) on the control router. ARP lets the router learn the MAC address of the next hop by asking this adjacent device for the information.