Segment Routing Path MTU in BGP

Abstract

Segment Routing is a source routing paradigm that explicitly indicates the forwarding path for packets at the ingress node. An SR policy is a set of candidate SR paths consisting of one or more segment lists with necessary path attributes. However, the path maximum transmission unit (MTU) information for SR path is not available in the SR policy since the SR does not require signaling. This document defines extensions to BGP to distribute path MTU information within SR policies.¶

1. Introduction

Segment routing (SR) [RFC8402] is a source routing paradigm that explicitly indicates the forwarding path for packets at the ingress node. The ingress node steers packets into a specific path according to the Segment Routing Policy ( SR Policy) as defined in [I-D.ietf-spring-segment-routing-policy]. In order to distribute SR policies to the headend, [I-D.ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy] specifies a mechanism by using BGP.¶

The maximum transmission unit (MTU) is the largest size packet or frame, in bytes, that can be sent in a network. An MTU that is too large might cause retransmissions. Too small an MTU might cause the router to send and handle relatively more header overhead and acknowledgments.¶

When an LSP is created across a set of links with different MTU sizes, the ingress router needs to know what the smallest MTU is on the LSP path. If this MTU is larger than the MTU of one of the intermediate links, traffic might be dropped, because MPLS packets cannot be fragmented. Also, the ingress router may not be aware of this type of traffic loss, because the control plane for the LSP would still function normally. [RFC3209] specify the mechanism of MTU signaling in RSVP. Likewise, SRv6 pakcets will be dropped if the packet size is larger than path MTU, since IPv6 packet can not be fragmented on transmission [RFC8200] .¶

The host may discover the PMTU by Path MTU Discovery (PMTUD) [RFC8201] or other mechanisms. But the ingress still needs to examine the packet size for dropping too large packets to avoid malicious traffic or error traffic. Also, the packet size may exceeds the PMTU because of the new encapsulation of SR-MPLS or SRv6 packet at the ingress.¶

In order to check whether the Packet size exceeds the PMTU or not, the ingress node needs to know the Path MTU associated to the forwarding path. However, the path maximum transmission unit (MTU) information for SR path is not available since the SR does not require signaling.¶

This document defines extensions to BGP to distribute path MTU information within SR policies. The Link MTU information can be obtained via BGP-LS [I-D.zhu-idr-bgp-ls-path-mtu] or some other means. With the Link MTU, the controller can compute the PMTU and convey the information via the BGP SR policy.¶

2. Terminology

This memo makes use of the terms defined in [RFC8402] and [RFC3209].¶

   MTU:  Maximum Transmission Unit, the size in bytes of the largest IP
      packet, including the IP header and payload, that can be
      transmitted on a link or path. Note that this could more properly
      be called the IP MTU, to be consistent with how other standards
      organizations use the acronym MTU.

   Link MTU:  The Maximum Transmission Unit, i.e., maximum IP packet
      size in bytes, that can be conveyed in one piece over a link.  Be
      aware that this definition is different from the definition used
      by other standards organizations.

      For IETF documents, link MTU is uniformly defined as the IP MTU
      over the link.  This includes the IP header, but excludes link
      layer headers and other framing that is not part of IP or the IP
      payload.

      Be aware that other standards organizations generally define link
      MTU to include the link layer headers.

      For the MPLS data plane, this size includes the IP header and data (or
      other payload) and the label stack but does not include any lower-layer
      headers.  A link may be an interface (such as Ethernet or Packet-over-
      SONET), a tunnel (such as GRE or IPsec), or an LSP.

   Path:  The set of links traversed by a packet between a source node
      and a destination node.

   Path MTU, or PMTU:  The minimum link MTU of all the links in a path
      between a source node and a destination node.

      For the MPLS data plane, it is the MTU of an LSP from a given LSR to
      the egress(es), over each valid (forwarding) path. This size includes
      the IP header and data (or other payload) and any part of the label
      stack that was received by the ingress LSR before it placed the packet
      into the LSP (this part of the label stack is considered part of the
      payload for this LSP). The size does not include any lower-level
      headers.

      Note that: The PMTU value may be modified by subtracting some overhead
      introduced by protection mechanism, like TI-LFA. Therefore, the value
      of PMTU dilivered to the ingress node MAY be smaller than the minimum
      link MTU of all the links in a path between a source node and a
      destination node.

3. SR Policy for Path MTU

As defined in [I-D.ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy] , the SR policy encoding structure is as follows:¶

   SR Policy SAFI NLRI: <Distinguisher, Policy-Color, Endpoint>
   Attributes:
      Tunnel Encaps Attribute (23)
         Tunnel Type: SR Policy
             Binding SID
             Preference
             Priority
             Policy Name
             Explicit NULL Label Policy (ENLP)
             Segment List
                 Weight
                 Segment
                 Segment
                 ...
             ...

As introduced in Section 1, each SR path has it's path MTU. SR policy with SR path MTU information is expressed as below:¶

   SR Policy SAFI NLRI: <Distinguisher, Policy-Color, Endpoint>
   Attributes:
      Tunnel Encaps Attribute (23)
         Tunnel Type: SR Policy
             Binding SID
             Preference
             Priority
             Policy Name
             Explicit NULL Label Policy (ENLP)
             Segment List
                 Weight
                 Path MTU
                 Segment
                 Segment
                 ...
             ...

 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
 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
 |      Type     |    Length     |               RESERVED        |
 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
 |                            Path MTU                           |
 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
                     Figure 1. Path MTU sub-TLV

4. Operations

The document does not bring new operation beyond the description of operations defined in [I-D.ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy]. The existing operations defined in [I-D.ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy] can apply to this document directly.¶

Typically but not limit to, the SR policies carrying path MTU infomation are configured by a controller.¶

After configuration, the SR policies carrying path MTU infomation will be advertised by BGP update messages. The operation of advertisement is the same as defined in [I-D.ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy], as well as the receiption.¶

The consumer of the SR policies is not the BGP process. The operation of sending information to consumers is out of scope of this document.¶

5. Implementation Status

[Note to the RFC Editor - remove this section before publication, as well as remove the reference to [RFC7942].¶

This section records the status of known implementations of the protocol defined by this specification at the time of posting of this Internet-Draft, and is based on a proposal described in [RFC7942]. The description of implementations in this section is intended to assist the IETF in its decision processes in progressing drafts to RFCs. Please note that the listing of any individual implementation here does not imply endorsement by the IETF. Furthermore, no effort has been spent to verify the information presented here that was supplied by IETF contributors. This is not intended as, and must not be construed to be, a catalog of available implementations or their features. Readers are advised to note that other implementations may exist.¶

According to [RFC7942], "this will allow reviewers and working groups to assign due consideration to documents that have the benefit of running code, which may serve as evidence of valuable experimentation and feedback that have made the implemented protocols more mature. It is up to the individual working groups to use this information as they see fit".¶

10. References