| Internet-Draft | BFD Stability | June 2024 |
| Mishra, et al. | Expires 12 December 2024 | [Page] |
This document describes extensions to the Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) protocol to measure BFD stability. Specifically, it describes a mechanism for detection of BFD packet loss.¶
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.¶
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.¶
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."¶
This Internet-Draft will expire on 12 December 2024.¶
Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.¶
The Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) [RFC5880] protocol operates by transmitting and receiving BFD control packets, generally at high frequency, over the datapath being monitored. In order to prevent significant data loss due to a datapath failure, BFD session detection time as defined in BFD [RFC5880] is set to the smallest feasible value.¶
This document proposes a mechanism to detect lost packets in a BFD session in addition to the datapath fault detection mechanisms of BFD. Such a mechanism presents significant value to measure the stability of BFD sessions and provides data to the operators for the cause of a BFD failure.¶
This document does not propose any BFD extension to measure data traffic loss or delay on a link or tunnel and the scope is limited to BFD packets.¶
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119] and RFC 8174 [RFC8174].¶
The reader is expected to be familiar with the BFD [RFC5880], Optimizing BFD Authentication [I-D.ietf-bfd-optimizing-authentication] and Meticulous Keyed ISAAC for BFD Authentication [I-D.ietf-bfd-secure-sequence-numbers].¶
Bidirectional Forwarding Detection as defined in BFD [RFC5880] cannot detect any BFD packet loss if the loss does not last for detection time. This document proposes a method to detect a dropped packet on the receiver. For example, if the receiver receives BFD control packet k at time t but receives packet k+3 at time t+10ms, and never receives packet k+1 and/or k+2, then it has experienced a drop.¶
This proposal enables BFD implementations to generate diagnostic information on the health of each BFD session that could be used to preempt a failure on a datapath that BFD was monitoring by allowing time for a corrective action to be taken.¶
In a faulty datapath scenario, an operator can use BFD health information to trigger delay and loss measurement OAM protocol (Connectivity Fault Management (CFM) or Loss Measurement (LM)-Delay Measurement (DM)) to further isolate the issue.¶
The functionality proposed for BFD stability measurement is achieved by configuring the 'stability' flag in the attached YANG model in conjunction with any BFD Meticulous Authentication.¶
The NULL Authentication Type, defined here, can be used to provide a meticulously increasing sequence number for stability measurement. It provides none of the protections desired for authentication and is used only to provide BFD stability services to BFD sessions that otherwise have no authentication in use.¶
If the Authentication Present (A) bit is set in the header, and the Authentication Type field contains TBD, the Authentication section has the following format:¶
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Auth Type | Auth Len | Auth Key ID | Reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Sequence Number |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
where:¶
Auth Type: The Authentication Type, which in this case is TBD (NULL, to be assigned by IANA, with a suggested value of 6).¶
Auth Len: The length of the NULL Auth Type, in bytes; i.e. 8 bytes¶
Auth Key ID: The authentication key ID in use for this packet. Must be set to zero and ignored on receipt.¶
Reserved: This byte MUST be set to zero on transmit and ignored on receipt.¶
Sequence Number: The sequence number for this packet. This value is incremented for each successive packet transmitted for a session. Implementations will use sequence numbers (bfd.XmitAuthSeq) as defined in BFD [RFC5880].¶
If bfd.AuthSeqKnown is 0, bfd.AuthSeqKnown is set to 1, and bfd.RcvAuthSeq is set to the value of the received Sequence Number field.¶
If bfd.AuthSeqKnown is 1, and the received Sequence Number field is not equal to bfd.RcvAuthSeq + 1 (in a circular number space), then the loss count is incremented by one and bfd.RcvAuthSeq is set to the received Sequence Number.¶
Unlike other authentication mechanisms defined for BFD that provide an Auth Key/Digest field, when bfd.AuthSeqKnown is 1, the received Sequence Number MUST NOT be compared vs. bfd.RcvAuthSeq for purposes of discarding the BFD packets.¶
This mechanism allows operators to measure the loss of BFD control packets.¶
When using MD5 or SHA authentication, BFD MUST use an authentication type (bfd.AuthType) that is of type meticulous. Other authentication types that provide for meticulously increasing sequence numbers can also be used. This includes the NULL authentication mechanism defined in this document or Meticulous Keyed ISAAC for BFD Authentication [I-D.ietf-bfd-secure-sequence-numbers].¶
Loss measurement counts the number of BFD control packets missed at the receiver during any Detection Time period. The loss is detected by comparing the Sequence Number field in successive BFD control packets. The Sequence Number in each successive control packet generated on a BFD session by the transmitter is incremented by one. This loss count can then be exposed using the YANG module defined in the subsequent section.¶
The first BFD authentication section with a non-zero sequence number, in a valid BFD control packet, processed by the receiver is used for bootstrapping the logic.¶
Some transmission mechanisms - for example, Link Aggregate Groups (LAG), or Equal Cost Multipath (ECMP) - can result in out of order packet delivery. In circumstances where BFD packets are not lost, but are delivered out of order, strict comparison of increasing sequence numbers may result in classifying the out of order packets as packet loss.¶
Implementations MAY provide mechanisms wherein all expected packets received across an expected interval but delivered out of order are not considered lost packets.¶
This YANG module augments the "ietf-bfd" module to add a flag 'stability' to enable this feature. The feature statement 'stability' needs to be enabled to indicate that BFD Stability is supported by the implementation. In addition, a loss count per-session or lsp for BFD packets that are lost has also been added in this model.¶
module: ietf-bfd-stability
augment /rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols
/rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-ip-sh:ip-sh
/bfd-ip-sh:sessions/bfd-ip-sh:session:
+--rw stability? boolean {stability}?
augment /rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols
/rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-ip-mh:ip-mh
/bfd-ip-mh:session-groups/bfd-ip-mh:session-group:
+--rw stability? boolean {stability}?
augment /rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols
/rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-lag:lag
/bfd-lag:sessions/bfd-lag:session:
+--rw stability? boolean {stability}?
augment /rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols
/rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-mpls:mpls
/bfd-mpls:session-groups/bfd-mpls:session-group:
+--rw stability? boolean {stability}?
augment /rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols
/rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-ip-sh:ip-sh
/bfd-ip-sh:sessions/bfd-ip-sh:session
/bfd-ip-sh:session-statistics:
+--ro lost-packet-count? yang:counter32
augment /rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols
/rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-ip-mh:ip-mh
/bfd-ip-mh:session-groups/bfd-ip-mh:session-group
/bfd-ip-mh:sessions/bfd-ip-mh:session-statistics:
+--ro lost-packet-count? yang:counter32
augment /rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols
/rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-lag:lag
/bfd-lag:sessions/bfd-lag:session/bfd-lag:member-links
/bfd-lag:micro-bfd-ipv4/bfd-lag:session-statistics:
+--ro lost-packet-count? yang:counter32
augment /rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols
/rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-lag:lag
/bfd-lag:sessions/bfd-lag:session/bfd-lag:member-links
/bfd-lag:micro-bfd-ipv6/bfd-lag:session-statistics:
+--ro lost-packet-count? yang:counter32
augment /rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols
/rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-mpls:mpls
/bfd-mpls:session-groups/bfd-mpls:session-group
/bfd-mpls:sessions/bfd-mpls:session-statistics:
+--ro lost-packet-count? yang:counter32
¶
This YANG module imports Common YANG Types [RFC6991], A YANG Data Model for Routing [RFC8349], and YANG Data Model for Bidirectional Forwading Detection (BFD) [RFC9314].¶
<CODE BEGINS> file "ietf-bfd-stability@2024-06-10.yang"
module ietf-bfd-stability {
yang-version 1.1;
namespace "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-bfd-stability";
prefix "bfds";
import ietf-yang-types {
prefix "yang";
reference
"RFC 6991: Common YANG Data Types";
}
import ietf-routing {
prefix "rt";
reference
"RFC 8349: A YANG Data Model for Routing Management
(NMDA version)";
}
import ietf-bfd {
prefix bfd;
reference
"RFC 9314: YANG Data Model for Bidirectional
Forwarding Detection.";
}
import ietf-bfd-ip-sh {
prefix bfd-ip-sh;
reference
"RFC 9314: YANG Data Model for Bidirectional
Forwarding Detection.";
}
import ietf-bfd-ip-mh {
prefix bfd-ip-mh;
reference
"RFC 9314: YANG Data Model for Bidirectional
Forwarding Detection.";
}
import ietf-bfd-lag {
prefix bfd-lag;
reference
"RFC 9314: YANG Data Model for Bidirectional
Forwarding Detection.";
}
import ietf-bfd-mpls {
prefix bfd-mpls;
reference
"RFC 9314: YANG Data Model for Bidirectional
Forwarding Detection.";
}
organization
"IETF BFD Working Group";
contact
"WG Web: <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/bfd>
WG List: <rtg-bfd@ietf.org>
Authors: Mahesh Jethanandani (mjethanandani@gmail.com)
Ashesh Mishra (mishra.ashesh@gmail.com)
Ankur Saxena (ankurpsaxena@gmail.com)
Santosh Pallagatti (santosh.pallagati@gmail.com)
Mach Chen (mach.chen@huawei.com)
Peng Fan (fanp08@gmail.com).";
description
"This YANG module augments the base BFD YANG model to add
attributes related to BFD Stability. In particular it adds a
a per session count for BFD packets that are lost.
Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as
authors of the code. All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or
without modification, is permitted pursuant to, and subject to
the license terms contained in, the Revised BSD License set
forth in Section 4.c of the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions
Relating to IETF Documents
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info).
This version of this YANG module is part of RFC XXXX
(https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfcXXXX); see the RFC itself
for full legal notices.
The key words 'MUST', 'MUST NOT', 'REQUIRED', 'SHALL', 'SHALL
NOT', 'SHOULD', 'SHOULD NOT', 'RECOMMENDED', 'NOT RECOMMENDED',
'MAY', and 'OPTIONAL' in this document are to be interpreted as
described in BCP 14 (RFC 2119) (RFC 8174) when, and only when,
they appear in all capitals, as shown here.";
revision "2024-06-10" {
description
"Initial Version.";
reference
"RFC XXXX, BFD Stability.";
}
feature stability {
description
"If supported, the feature allows for BFD sessions to be
monitored for frames lost.";
}
grouping lost-packet-count {
leaf lost-packet-count {
type yang:counter32;
description
"Number of BFD packets that were lost without bringing the
session down. This counter should be present only if
stability is configured.";
}
description
"Grouping of statistics related to BFD stability.";
}
augment "/rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols/" +
"rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-ip-sh:ip-sh/" +
"bfd-ip-sh:sessions/bfd-ip-sh:session" {
leaf stability {
if-feature "stability";
type boolean;
must "../bfd-ip-sh:authentication/bfd-ip-sh:meticulous = " +
"'true'";
default false;
description
"If set to true, this enables the BFD session to monitor
for stability; i.e., to watch how many frames are getting
dropped.";
}
description
"Augment the 'bfd' container to add attributes related to BFD
stability for IP Single Hop Sessions.";
}
augment "/rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols/" +
"rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-ip-mh:ip-mh/" +
"bfd-ip-mh:session-groups/bfd-ip-mh:session-group" {
leaf stability {
if-feature "stability";
type boolean;
must "../bfd-ip-mh:authentication/bfd-ip-mh:meticulous = " +
"'true'";
default false;
description
"If set to true, this enables the BFD session to monitor
for stability; i.e., to watch how many frames are getting
dropped.";
}
description
"Augment the 'bfd' container to add attributes related to BFD
stability for Multi Hop Sessions.";
}
augment "/rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols/" +
"rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-lag:lag/" +
"bfd-lag:sessions/bfd-lag:session" {
leaf stability {
if-feature "stability";
type boolean;
must "../bfd-lag:authentication/bfd-lag:meticulous = " +
"'true'";
default false;
description
"If set to true, this enables the BFD session to monitor
for stability; i.e., to watch how many frames are getting
dropped.";
}
description
"Augment the 'bfd' container to add attributes related to BFD
stability for LAG session.";
}
augment "/rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols/" +
"rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-mpls:mpls/" +
"bfd-mpls:session-groups/bfd-mpls:session-group" {
leaf stability {
if-feature "stability";
type boolean;
must "../bfd-mpls:authentication/bfd-mpls:meticulous = " +
"'true'";
default false;
description
"If set to true, this enables the BFD session to monitor
for stability; i.e., to watch how many frames are getting
dropped.";
}
description
"Augment the 'bfd' container to add attributes related to BFD
stability for MPLS.";
}
augment "/rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols/" +
"rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-ip-sh:ip-sh/" +
"bfd-ip-sh:sessions/bfd-ip-sh:session/" +
"bfd-ip-sh:session-statistics" {
uses lost-packet-count;
description
"Augment the 'bfd' container to add statistics related to BFD
stability for IP Single Hop Sessions.";
}
augment "/rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols/" +
"rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-ip-mh:ip-mh/" +
"bfd-ip-mh:session-groups/bfd-ip-mh:session-group/" +
"bfd-ip-mh:sessions/bfd-ip-mh:session-statistics" {
uses lost-packet-count;
description
"Augment the 'bfd' container to add statistics related to BFD
stability for IP Multi Hop Sessions.";
}
augment "/rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols/" +
"rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-lag:lag/" +
"bfd-lag:sessions/bfd-lag:session/bfd-lag:member-links/" +
"bfd-lag:micro-bfd-ipv4/bfd-lag:session-statistics" {
uses lost-packet-count;
description
"Augment the 'bfd' container to add statistics related to BFD
stability for Micro BFD sessions for IPv4.";
}
augment "/rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols/" +
"rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-lag:lag/" +
"bfd-lag:sessions/bfd-lag:session/bfd-lag:member-links/" +
"bfd-lag:micro-bfd-ipv6/bfd-lag:session-statistics" {
uses lost-packet-count;
description
"Augment the 'bfd' container to add statistics related to BFD
stability for Micro BFD sessions for IPv6.";
}
augment "/rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols/" +
"rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-mpls:mpls/" +
"bfd-mpls:session-groups/bfd-mpls:session-group/" +
"bfd-mpls:sessions/bfd-mpls:session-statistics" {
uses lost-packet-count;
description
"Augment the 'bfd' container to add statistics related to BFD
stability for MPLS sessions.";
}
}
<CODE ENDS>¶
This document requests one new authentication type and registers one URIs in the "ns" subregistry of the "IETF XML" registry [RFC3688].¶
This document requests an update to the registry titled "BFD Authentication Types". IANA is requested to assign a new BFD AuthType:¶
Following the format in [RFC3688], the following registrations are requested:¶
URI: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-bfd-stability Registrant Contact: The IESG XML: N/A, the requested URI is an XML namespace.¶
This document registers one YANG modules in the "YANG Module Names" registry [RFC6020]. Following the format in [RFC6020], the following registrations are requested:¶
name: ietf-bfd-stability namespace: urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-bfd-stability prefix: bfds reference: RFC XXXX¶
The YANG module specified in this document defines a schema for data that is designed to be accessed via network management protocols such as NETCONF [RFC6241] or RESTCONF [RFC8040]. The lowest NETCONF layer is the secure transport layer, and the mandatory-to-implement secure transport is Secure Shell (SSH) [RFC6242]. The lowest RESTCONF layer is HTTPS, and the mandatory-to-implement secure transport is TLS [RFC8446]. The NETCONF Access Control Model (NACM) [RFC8341] provides the means to restrict access for particular NETCONF or RESTCONF users to a preconfigured subset of all available NETCONF or RESTCONF protocol operations and content.¶
The YANG module does not define any writeable/creatable/deletable data nodes that can have an adverse impact on a BFD session.¶
The only readable data nodes in YANG module may be considered sensitive or vulnerable in some network environments. It is thus important to control read access (e.g., via get, get-config, or notification) to these data nodes.¶
The model defines a read-only variables to indicate the number of packets that were lost. Access to this information may allow a malicious user information on which links are experiencing issues.¶
The YANG module does not define any RPC operations.¶
Use of a BFD authentication mechanism that protects the BFD packets is RECOMMENDED.¶
The Security Considerations of [RFC5880] for unauthenticated BFD all apply to the new NULL authentication type. The NULL Authentication type, defined in this document, provides none of the properties desired for authenticating BFD packets. It is intended to provide BFD sessions that otherwise would not use authentication a sequence number that can be used for purposes of detecting lost packets.¶
The lack of a computed AuthKey/Digest over the BFD packet but the presence of a Sequence Number makes this authentication type susceptible to injection attacks. BFD without authentication is vulnerable to session resets; the NULL Auth type does not change this.¶
When the NULL Authentication type is used for BFD Stability purposes, maliciously injected packets that do not reset the BFD session can resemble high packet loss.¶
The authors of this document would like to acknowledge Jeff Haas as a contributor to this document. Jeff played a role not only as a shepherd but also actively contributed to the improvement of the document. In addition, Manav Bhatia also contributed to this document.¶
Authors would like to thank Nobo Akiya, Jeffery Haas, Dileep Singh, Basil Saji, Sagar Soni, Albert Fu and Mallik Mudigonda who also contributed to this document.¶
This section tries to show some examples in how the model can be configured for stability.¶
This example demonstrates how a Single Hop BFD session can be configured to enable monitoring of a session for stability.¶
=============== NOTE: '\' line wrapping per RFC 8792 ===============
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<key-chains
xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-key-chain"
xmlns:kc="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-key-chain">
<key-chain>
<name>bfd-stability-config</name>
<description>"An example for BFD Stabalized configuration."</de\
scription>
<key>
<key-id>55</key-id>
<lifetime>
<send-lifetime>
<start-date-time>2017-01-01T00:00:00Z</start-date-time>
<end-date-time>2017-02-01T00:00:00Z</end-date-time>
</send-lifetime>
<accept-lifetime>
<start-date-time>2016-12-31T23:59:55Z</start-date-time>
<end-date-time>2017-02-01T00:00:05Z</end-date-time>
</accept-lifetime>
</lifetime>
<crypto-algorithm>kc:sha-1</crypto-algorithm>
</key>
</key-chain>
</key-chains>
<interfaces
xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-interfaces"
xmlns:if-type="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:iana-if-type">
<interface>
<name>eth0</name>
<type>if-type:ethernetCsmacd</type>
</interface>
</interfaces>
<routing
xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-routing"
xmlns:bfd-types="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-bfd-types"
xmlns:stability="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-bfd-stability\
">
<control-plane-protocols>
<control-plane-protocol>
<type>bfd-types:bfdv1</type>
<name>name:BFD</name>
<bfd xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-bfd">
<ip-sh xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-bfd-ip-sh">
<sessions>
<session>
<interface>eth0</interface>
<dest-addr>2001:db8:0:113::101</dest-addr>
<desired-min-tx-interval>10000</desired-min-tx-interv\
al>
<required-min-rx-interval>
10000
</required-min-rx-interval>
<stability:stability>true</stability:stability>
<authentication>
<key-chain>bfd-stability-config</key-chain>
<meticulous>true</meticulous>
</authentication>
</session>
</sessions>
</ip-sh>
</bfd>
</control-plane-protocol>
</control-plane-protocols>
</routing>
¶