| Internet-Draft | Egress TLV for Nil FEC | January 2024 |
| Rathi, et al. | Expires 11 July 2024 | [Page] |
MPLS ping and traceroute mechanism as described in RFC 8029 and related extensions for SR as defined in RFC 8287 is very useful to validate the control plane and data plane synchronization. In some environments, only some intermediate or transit nodes may have been upgraded to support these validation procedures. A simple MPLS ping and traceroute mechanism allows traversing any path without validating the control plane state. RFC 8029 supports this mechanism with Nil FEC. The procedures described in RFC 8029 mostly apply when the Nil FEC is used as an intermediate FEC in the label stack. When all labels in the label stack are represented using Nil FEC, it poses some challenges.¶
This document introduces the new TLV as an extension to exisiting Nil FEC. It describes MPLS ping and traceroute procedures using Nil FEC with this extension to overcome these challenges.¶
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 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
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Segment routing supports the creation of explicit paths using Adj- SIDs, Node-SIDs, and Anycast-SIDs defined in [RFC8402]. In certain usecases, the TE paths are built using mechanisms described in [RFC9256] by stacking the labels that represent the nodes and links in the explicit path. Controllers are often deployed to construct paths across multi-domain networks. In such deployments, the head-end routers may have the database of its own domain and may not be aware of the FEC associated with labels that are used by the controller to build paths across multiple domains. A very useful Operations And Maintenance (OAM) requirement is to be able to ping and trace these paths.¶
[RFC8029] describes a simple and efficient mechanism to detect data-plane failures in MPLS Label Switched Paths (LSPs). It defines a probe message called an "MPLS echo request" and a response message called an "MPLS echo reply" for returning the result of the probe. Segment Routing related extensions to Echo Request/Echo Reply are specified in [RFC8287]. [RFC8029] provides mechanisms to primarily validate the data plane and secondarily to verify the data plane against the control plane. It also provides the ability to traverse multiple ECMP paths and validate each of the ECMP paths. The use of Target FEC requires all nodes in the network to have implemented the validation procedures. All intermediate nodes may not have been upgraded to support validation procedures. In such cases, it is useful to have the ability to traverse the paths in ping/traceroute mode without having to obtain the Forwarding Equivalence Class (FEC) for each label.A simple MPLS Echo Request/Echo Reply mechanism allows for traversing the SR Policy path without validating the control plane state.[RFC8029] supports this mechanism with FECs like Nil FEC and Generic FEC.¶
Generic IPv4 and IPv6 FEC are used when the protocol that is advertising the label is unknown. The information that is carried in Generic FEC is the IPv4 or IPv6 prefix and prefix length. Thus Generic FEC types perform an additional control plane validation. However, the details of generic FEC and validation procedures are not very detailed in the [RFC8029]. The use-case mostly specifies inter-AS VPNs as the motivation. Certain aspects of Segment Routing such as anycast SIDs require clear guidelines on how the validation procedure should work. Also, Generic FEC may not be widely supported and if transit routers are not upgraded to support validation of generic FEC, traceroute may fail. On other hand, Nil FEC consists of the label and there is no other associated FEC information. Nil FEC is used to traverse the path without validation for cases where the FEC is not defined or routers are not upgraded to support the FECs. Thus, it can be used to check any combination of segments on any data path. The procedures described in [RFC8029] are mostly applicable when the Nil FEC is used where the Nil FEC is an intermediate FEC in the label stack. When all labels in the label-stack are represented using Nil FEC, it poses some challenges.¶
Section 2 discusses the problems associated with using Nil FEC in an MPLS ping/traceroute procedure and Section 3 and Section 4 discusses simple extensions needed to solve the problem.¶
The purpose of Nil FEC as described in [RFC8029] is to ensure hiding of transit tunnel information and in some cases to avoid false negatives when the FEC information is unknown.¶
This draft uses a Nil FEC to represent the complete label stack in MPLS Echo Request message in ping and traceroute mode. A single Nil FEC is used in the MPLS Echo Request message irrespective of number of segments in the label-stack. As described in sec 4.4.1 of [RFC8029], "If the outermost FEC of the Target FEC stack is the Nil FEC, then the node MUST skip the Target FEC validation completely." When a router in the label-stack path receives an MPLS Echo Request message, there is no definite way to decide on whether it is the intended egress router since Nil FEC does not carry any information and no validation is performed by the router. So there is high possibility that the packet may be mis-forwarded to an incorrect destination but the MPLS Echo Reply might still return success.¶
To avoid this problem, there is a need to add additional information in the MPLS Echo Request message in Ping and Treaceroute mode along with Nil FEC to do minimal validation on the egress/destination router and send proper information on success and failure to the ingress router. This additional information should help to report transit router information to the ingress/initiator router that can be used by an offline application to validate the traceroute path.¶
Thus the addition of egress information in the MPLS Echo Request message in Ping and Traceroute mode will help in validating Nil-FEC on each receiving router on the label-stack path to ensure the correct destination. It can be used to check any combination of segments on any path without upgrading transit nodes. The code point used for Egress TLV is from the range 32768-65535 and can can be silently dropped if not recognised as per [RFC8029] and as per clarifications from [RFC9041]¶
The Egress object is a TLV that MAY be included in an MPLS Echo Request message. It is an optional TLV and MUST appear before FEC-stack TLV in the MPLS Echo Request packet. This TLV can only be used in LSP Ping/traceroute requests generated by the head-end node of an LSP or SR policy for which verification is performed. In case multiple Nil FEC is present in Target FEC Stack TLV, Egress TLV MUST be added corresponding to the ultimate egress of the label-stack. It can be used for any kind of path with Egress TLV added corresponding to the endpoint of the path. Explicit Path can be created using Node-SID, Adj-SID, Binding-SID etc, Egress TLV prefix MUST be derived from path egress/destination. The format is as specified below:¶
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 = 32771 (Egress TLV) | Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Prefix (4 or 16 octets) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Type : 32771 (Section 6.1)¶
Length : variable based on IPV4/IPV6 prefix. Length excludes the length of the Type and Length fields. Length will be 4 octets for IPv4 and 16 octets for IPv6.¶
Prefix : This field carries the valid IPv4 prefix of length 4 octets or valid IPv6 Prefix of length 16 octets. It can be obtained from the egress of Nil FEC corresponding to the last label in the label-stack or SR policy endpoint field [I.D-ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy].¶
This section describes aspects of LSP Ping and Traceroute operations that require further considerations beyond [RFC8029].¶
As stated earlier, when the sender node builds an Echo Request with target FEC Stack TLV, Egress TLV MUST appear before Target FEC-stack TLV in the MPLS Echo Request packet.¶
When sender node builds an Echo Request with target FEC Stack TLV that contains a single NiL FEC corresponding to the last segment of the SR Policy path, the sender node MUST add an Egress TLV with the prefix obtained from SR policy endpoint field [I.D-ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy] to indicate the egress for this Nil FEC in the Echo Request packet. The Label value in the Nil FEC MAY be set to zero. In case the endpoint is not specified or is equal to 0, the sender MUST use the prefix corresponding to the last segment of the SR Policy as prefix for Egress TLV. Some specific cases on how to derive the Prefix in Egress TLV are listed below:¶
When sender node builds an Echo Request with target FEC Stack TLV that contains NiL FEC corresponding to last segment of the segment-list of the SR Policy, the sender node MUST add an Egress TLV with the prefix obtained from the SR policy endpoint field [I.D-ietf-idr-segment-routing-te-policy] to indicate the egress for this Nil FEC in the Echo Request packet.¶
Some implementations may send multiple Nil FEC but it is not really required. In case the headend sends multiple Nil FECs the last one MUST correspond to the Egress TLV. The Label value in the Nil FEC MAY be set to zero for the last Nil FEC. In case the endpoint is not specified or is equal to 0 ( as in case of color-only SR Policy),the sender MUST use the the prefix corresponding to the last segment endpoint of the SR Policy path i.e. ultimate egress as the prefix for Egress TLV.¶
----R3----
/ (1003) \
(1001) / \(1005) (1007)
R1----R2(1002) R5----R6----R7(prefix X)
\ / (1006)
\ (1004) /
----R4----
Consider the SR Policy configured with label-stack as 1002, 1004 , 1007 and end point/destination as prefix X on ingress router R1 to reach egress router R7. Segment 1007 belongs to R7, which has the prefix X locally configured on it.¶
In Ping Echo Request, with target FEC Stack TLV that contains a single NiL FEC corresponding to 1007, should add Egress TLV for endpoint/destination prefix X with type as Egress TLV, length depends on if X is IPv4 or IPv6 address and prefix as X.¶
In Traceroute Echo Request, with target FEC Stack TLV that contains a single NiL FEC corresponding to the complete label-stack (1002, 1004, 1007) or multiple Nil-FEC corresponding to each label in the label-stack, should add single Egress TLV for endpoint/destination prefix X with type as Egress TLV, length depends on if X is IPv4 or IPv6 address and prefix as X. In case X is not present or is set to 0 ( as in the case of color-only SR Policy), sender should use the endpoint of segment 1007 as a prefix for Egress TLV.¶
No change in the processing for Nil FEC as defined in [RFC8029] in Target FEC stack TLV Node that receives an MPLS echo request. The presence of Egress TLV does not affect the validation of Target FEC Stack sub-TLV at FEC-stack-depth if it is different than Nil FEC.¶
Additional processing is done for the Egress TLV on the receiver node as follows:¶
1. If the Label-stack-depth is greater than 0 and the Target FEC Stack sub-TLV at FEC-stack-depth is Nil FEC, set Best-return-code to 8 ("Label switched at stack-depth") and Best-return-subcode to Label-stack-depth to report transit switching in MPLS Echo Reply message.¶
2. If the Label-stack-depth is 0 and the Target FEC Stack sub-TLV at FEC-stack-depth is Nil FEC then do the lookup for an exact match of the Egress TLV prefix to any of the locally configured interfaces or loopback addresses.¶
2a. If the Egress TLV prefix lookup succeeds, set Best-return-code to 36 ("Replying router is an egress for the prefix in Egress TLV for the FEC at stack depth RSC") (Section 6.2) egress ok in MPLS Echo Reply message.¶
2b. If the Egress TLV prefix lookup fails, set the Best-return-code to 10, "Mapping for this FEC is not the given label at stack-depth RSC"¶
3.In cases where multiple Nil FECs are sent from ingress, one each corresponding to the labels in the label stack along with Egress TLV,When the packet reaches egress, the number of labels in the received packet (Size of stack-R) becomes zero or a label with Bottom-of-Stack bit set to 1 is processed, all Nil FEC sub-TLVs MUST be removed and the Egress TLV MUST be validated.¶
The extension proposed in this document is backward compatible with procedures described in [RFC8029]. A Router that does not support Egress TLV, will ignore it and use current the Nil-FEC procedures described in [RFC8029].¶
When the egress node in the path does not support the extensions proposed in this draft egress validation will not be done and Best-return-code as 3 ("Replying router is an egress for the FEC at stack-depth") and Best-return- subcode set to stack-depth to will be set in the MPLS Echo Reply message.¶
When the transit node in the path does not support the extensions proposed in this draft Best-return-code as 8 ("Label switched at stack-depth") and Best-return-subcode as Label-stack-depth to report transit switching will be set in the MPLS Echo Reply message.¶
The code points in section Section 6.1 and Section 6.2 have been assigned by [IANA] by early allocation on 2023-10-05 and 2021-11-08 respectively.¶
[IANA] needs to assign new value for Egress TLV in the "Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Label Switched Paths (LSPs) Ping Parameters" in the "TLVs" sub-registry.¶
| Value | Description | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 32771 | Egress TLV | Section 3 of this document |
[IANA] need to assign new Return Code for "Replying router is an egress for the prefix in Egress TLV" in the "Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Label Switched Paths (LSPs) Ping Parameters" in "Return Codes" sub-registry.¶
| Value | Description | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 36 | Replying router is an egress for the prefix in Egress TLV for the FEC at stack depth RSC | Section 4.2 of this document |
This document defines additional MPLS LSP Ping TLVs and follows the mechanisms defined in [RFC8029]. All the security considerations defined in [RFC8287] will be applicable for this document and, in addition, they do not impose any additional security challenges to be considered.¶
Authors would like to thank Stewart Bryant, Greg Mirsky, Alexander Vainshtein and Sanga Mitra Rajgopal for their careful review and comments.¶