[Xorp-hackers] XORP BGP 4-byte AS number support

[Mark Handley]

I just committed a jumbo patch to CVS adding 4-byte AS number support
to BGP.  It's such a large patch because previously we stored path
attributes  in the form we received them, and didn't need to recode
them on a per-peer basis because all peers used the same coding.
4-byte AS numbers break this, so now we encode only on output, as
needed.  Changing the way we store and process path attributes impacts
a lot of code, but it's the right thing to do.  RIPE will start
allocating 4-byte AS numbers by default in a year, so we want to be
ready!

Anyway, just a heads up that although from the testing I've done I
don't think this broke anything, it's possible BGP will have some
issues until we've had a chance to see what happens on all the
tinderbox platforms and the live test hosts.  If you want to test
this, the version of the user manual in CVS gives the details - let me
know if the manual is unclear on anything.

Cheers,
Mark