Routing Tables in the Trusted Solaris Environment

The main objective for routing is to find the shortest secure route between two hosts. Trusted Solaris routing tables are based on extended metrics (called emetrics). An emetric is a combination of a routing metric and Security Routing Information (SRI), for measuring security. The SRI can incorporate these security attributes:

• Minimum SL

• Maximum SL

• DOI

• RIPSO label

• RIPSO error

• CIPSO only

• RIPSO only

This information is propagated by the routing daemon in.routed using the Trusted Solaris-extended Routing Information Protocol if dynamic routing is used, or if static routing is used, by manual entry using the route command or through the /etc/tsolgateways or /etc/defaultrouter files. The emetric for a particular route is used for accreditation checks when this route is being considered.

Not every route in the routing table must have an emetric. If a route does not have an emetric, the remote host template of its first hop gateway is used for the accreditation check instead.