Internet-Draft Network Anomaly Semantics October 2024
Graf, et al. Expires 23 April 2025 [Page]
Workgroup:
NMOP
Internet-Draft:
draft-netana-nmop-network-anomaly-semantics-03
Published:
Intended Status:
Experimental
Expires:
Authors:
T. Graf
Swisscom
W. Du
Swisscom
A. Huang Feng
INSA-Lyon
V. Riccobene
Huawei
A. Roberto
Huawei

Semantic Metadata Annotation for Network Anomaly Detection

Abstract

This document explains why and how semantic metadata annotation helps to test, validate and compare Outlier and Symptom detection, supports supervised and semi-supervised machine learning development, enables data exchange among network operators, vendors and academia and make anomalies for humans apprehensible. The proposed semantics uniforms the network anomaly data exchange between and among operators and vendors to improve their Service Disruption Detection Systems.

Discussion Venues

This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

Discussion of this document takes place on the Operations and Management Area Working Group Working Group mailing list (nmop@ietf.org), which is archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/nmop/.

Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at https://github.com/network-analytics/draft-netana-nmop-network-anomaly-semantics/.

Status of This Memo

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 23 April 2025.

▲

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

[I-D.netana-nmop-network-anomaly-architecture] provides an overall introduction into how anomaly detection is being applied into the IP network domain and which operational data is needed. It approaches the problem space by automating what a Network Engineer would normally do when verifying a network connectivity service. Monitor from different network plane perspectives to understand wherever one network plane affects another negatively.

In order to fine tune Service Disruption Detection as described in [I-D.netana-nmop-network-anomaly-lifecycle], the results provided as analytical data need to be reviewed by a Network Engineer. Keeping the human out of the monitoring but still involving him in the alarm verification loop.

This document describes what information is needed to understand the output of the Service Disruption Detection for a Network Engineer, but also at the same time is semantically structured that it can be used for Service Disruption Detection System testing by comparing the results systematically and set a baseline for supervised machine learning which requires labeled operational data.

2. Conventions and Definitions

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.

2.1. Terminology

This document makes use of the terms defined in [I-D.netana-nmop-network-anomaly-architecture] and [I-D.ietf-nmop-terminology].

The following terms are used as defined in [I-D.netana-nmop-network-anomaly-architecture]:

  • Outlier Detection

  • Service Disruption Detection

  • Service Disruption Detection System

The following terms are used as defined in [I-D.ietf-nmop-terminology]:

3. Observed Symptoms

In this section observed network Symptoms are specified and categorized according to the following scheme:

Action:

Which action the network node performed for a packet in the Forwarding Plane, a path or adjacency in the Control Plane or state or statistical changes in the Management Plane. For Forwarding Plane we distinguish between missing, where the drop occurred outside the measured network node, drop and on-path delay, which was measured on the network node. For Control Plane we distinguish between reachability, which refers to a change in the routing or forwarding information base (RIB/FIB) and adjacency which refers to a change in peering or link-layer resolution. For Management Plane we refer to state or statistical changes on interfaces.

Reason:

For each action, one or more reasons describe why this action was used. For Drops in Forwarding Plane we distinguish between Unreachable because network layer reachability information was missing, Administered because an administrator configured a rule preventing the forwarding for this packet and Corrupt where the network node was unable to determine where to forward to due to packet, software or hardware error. For on-path delay we distinguish between Minimum, Average and Maximum Delay for a given flow. For Control Plane wherever a the reachability was updated or withdrawn or the adjacency was established or teared down. For Management Plane we distinguish between interfaces states up and down, and statistical errors, discards or unknown protocol counters.

Cause:

For each reason one or more cause describe the cause why the network node has chosen that action.

Table 1 consolidates for the forwarding plane a list of common Symptoms with their Actions, Reasons and Causes.

Table 1: Describing Symptoms and their Actions, Reason and Cause for Forwarding Plane
Action Reason Cause
Missing Previous Time
Drop Unreachable next-hop
Drop Unreachable link-layer
Drop Unreachable Time To Life expired
Drop Unreachable Fragmentation needed and Don't Fragment set
Drop Administered Access-List
Drop Administered Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding
Drop Administered Discard Route
Drop Administered Policed
Drop Administered Shaped
Drop Corrupt Bad Packet
Drop Corrupt Bad Egress Interface
Delay Min -
Delay Mean -
Delay Max -

Table 2 consolidates for the control plane a list of common symptoms with their actions, reasons and causes.

Table 2: Describing Symptoms and their Actions, Reason and Cause for Control Plane
Action Reason Cause
Reachability Update Imported
Reachability Update Received
Reachability Withdraw Received
Reachability Withdraw Peer Down
Reachability Withdraw Suppressed
Reachability Withdraw Stale
Reachability Withdraw Route Policy Filtered
Reachability Withdraw Maximum Number of Prefixes Reached
Adjacency Established Peer
Adjacency Established Link-Layer
Adjacency Locally Teared Down Peer
Adjacency Remotely Teared Down Peer
Adjacency Locally Teared Down Link-Layer
Adjacency Remotely Teared Down Link-Layer
Adjacency Locally Teared Down Administrative
Adjacency Remotely Teared Down Administrative
Adjacency Locally Teared Down Maximum Number of Prefixes Reached
Adjacency Remotely Teared Down Maximum Number of Prefixes Reached
Adjacency Locally Teared Down Transport Connection Failed
Adjacency Remotely Teared Down Transport Connection Failed

Table 3 consolidates for the management plane a list of common Symptoms with their Actions, Reasons and Causes.

Table 3: Describing Symptoms and their Actions, Reason and Cause for Management Plane
Action Reason Cause
Interface Up Link-Layer
Interface Down Link-Layer
Interface Errors -
Interface Discards -
Interface Unknown Protocol -

4. Semantic Metadata

Metadata adds additional context to data. For instance, in networks the software version of a network node where Management Plane metrics are obtained from as described in[I-D.claise-opsawg-collected-data-manifest]. Where in Semantic Metadata the meaning or ontology of the annotated data is being described. In this section a YANG model is defined in order to provide a structure for the metadata related to anomalies happening in the network. The module is intended to describe the metadata used to "annotate" the operational data collected from the network nodes, which can include time series data and logs, as well as other forms of data that is "time-bounded". The aspects discussed so far in this document are grouped under the concept of "anomaly" which represents a collection of Symptoms. The anomaly overall has a set of parameters that describe the overall behavior of the network in a given time-window including all the observed Symptoms and Outliers.

4.1. Overview of the Model for the Symptom Semantic Metadata

Figure 1 contains the YANG tree diagram [RFC8340] of the Figure 2 which augments the [I-D.netana-nmop-network-anomaly-lifecycle] defined ietf-relevant-state.

For each Symptom, the following parameters have been assigned: Action, Reason and Cause to describe the Symptom, a concern score indicating how critical the Symptom is and with Forwarding, Control and Management to which network plane the Symptom can be attributed to.

module: ietf-network-anomaly-symptom-cbl

  augment /rsn:relevant-state/rsn:anomalies/rsn:symptom:
    +--rw action?             string
    +--rw reason?             string
    +--rw cause?              string
    +--rw (plane)?
       +--:(forwarding)
       |  +--rw forwarding?   empty
       +--:(control)
       |  +--rw control?      empty
       +--:(management)
          +--rw management?   empty
  augment /rsn:relevant-state-notification/rsn:anomalies/rsn:symptom:
    +-- action?             string
    +-- reason?             string
    +-- cause?              string
    +-- (plane)?
       +--:(forwarding)
       |  +-- forwarding?   empty
       +--:(control)
       |  +-- control?      empty
       +--:(management)
          +-- management?   empty
Figure 1: YANG tree diagram for ietf-network-anomaly-symptom-cbl

The module augments the anomaly-grouping of the relevant-state container and the relevant-state-notification notification of ietf-relevant-state. The relevant-state container is used for modifying the Symptom data in the Postmortem system. Where the relevant-state-notification notification is used for messaging from the Alarm Aggregation to the Postmortem and the Alarm and Problem Management system.

module: ietf-relevant-state
  +--rw relevant-state
     +--rw id             yang:uuid
     +--rw description?   string
     +--rw start-time     yang:date-and-time
     +--rw end-time?      yang:date-and-time
     +--rw anomalies* [id version]
        +--rw id                         yang:uuid
        +--rw version                    yang:counter32
        +--rw state                      identityref
        +--rw description?               string
        +--rw start-time                 yang:date-and-time
        +--rw end-time?                  yang:date-and-time
        +--rw confidence-score           score
        +--rw (pattern)?
        |  +--:(drop)
        |  |  +--rw drop?                empty
        |  +--:(spike)
        |  |  +--rw spike?               empty
        |  +--:(mean-shift)
        |  |  +--rw mean-shift?          empty
        |  +--:(seasonality-shift)
        |  |  +--rw seasonality-shift?   empty
        |  +--:(trend)
        |  |  +--rw trend?               empty
        |  +--:(other)
        |     +--rw other?               string
        +--rw annotator!
        |  +--rw name               string
        |  +--rw (annotator-type)?
        |     +--:(human)
        |     |  +--rw human?       empty
        |     +--:(algorithm)
        |        +--rw algorithm?   empty
        +--rw symptom!
        |  +--rw id                               yang:uuid
        |  +--rw concern-score                    score
        |  +--rw smcblsymptom:action?             string
        |  +--rw smcblsymptom:reason?             string
        |  +--rw smcblsymptom:cause?              string
        |  +--rw (smcblsymptom:plane)?
        |     +--:(smcblsymptom:forwarding)
        |     |  +--rw smcblsymptom:forwarding?   empty
        |     +--:(smcblsymptom:control)
        |     |  +--rw smcblsymptom:control?      empty
        |     +--:(smcblsymptom:management)
        |        +--rw smcblsymptom:management?   empty
        +--rw service!
           +--rw id
           |       yang:uuid
           +--rw smtopology:vpn-service-container
           |  +--rw smtopology:vpn-service* [vpn-id]
           |     +--rw smtopology:vpn-id      string
           |     +--rw smtopology:vpn-name?   string
           |     +--rw smtopology:site-ids*   string
           +--rw smtopology:vpn-node-termination-container
              +--rw smtopology:vpn-node-termination*
                      [hostname route-distinguisher]
                 +--rw smtopology:hostname               inet:host
                 +--rw smtopology:route-distinguisher    string
                 +--rw smtopology:peer-ip*
                 |       inet:ip-address
                 +--rw smtopology:next-hop*
                 |       inet:ip-address
                 +--rw smtopology:interface-id*          int32

  notifications:
    +---n relevant-state-notification
       +--ro id             yang:uuid
       +--ro description?   string
       +--ro start-time     yang:date-and-time
       +--ro end-time?      yang:date-and-time
       +--ro anomalies* [id version]
          +--ro id                         yang:uuid
          +--ro version                    yang:counter32
          +--ro state                      identityref
          +--ro description?               string
          +--ro start-time                 yang:date-and-time
          +--ro end-time?                  yang:date-and-time
          +--ro confidence-score           score
          +--ro (pattern)?
          |  +--:(drop)
          |  |  +--ro drop?                empty
          |  +--:(spike)
          |  |  +--ro spike?               empty
          |  +--:(mean-shift)
          |  |  +--ro mean-shift?          empty
          |  +--:(seasonality-shift)
          |  |  +--ro seasonality-shift?   empty
          |  +--:(trend)
          |  |  +--ro trend?               empty
          |  +--:(other)
          |     +--ro other?               string
          +--ro annotator!
          |  +--ro name               string
          |  +--ro (annotator-type)?
          |     +--:(human)
          |     |  +--ro human?       empty
          |     +--:(algorithm)
          |        +--ro algorithm?   empty
          +--ro symptom!
          |  +--ro id                               yang:uuid
          |  +--ro concern-score                    score
          |  +--ro smcblsymptom:action?             string
          |  +--ro smcblsymptom:reason?             string
          |  +--ro smcblsymptom:cause?              string
          |  +--ro (smcblsymptom:plane)?
          |     +--:(smcblsymptom:forwarding)
          |     |  +--ro smcblsymptom:forwarding?   empty
          |     +--:(smcblsymptom:control)
          |     |  +--ro smcblsymptom:control?      empty
          |     +--:(smcblsymptom:management)
          |        +--ro smcblsymptom:management?   empty
          +--ro service!
             +--ro id
             |       yang:uuid
             +--ro smtopology:vpn-service-container
             |  +--ro smtopology:vpn-service* [vpn-id]
             |     +--ro smtopology:vpn-id      string
             |     +--ro smtopology:vpn-name?   string
             |     +--ro smtopology:site-ids*   string
             +--ro smtopology:vpn-node-termination-container
                +--ro smtopology:vpn-node-termination*
                        [hostname route-distinguisher]
                   +--ro smtopology:hostname               inet:host
                   +--ro smtopology:route-distinguisher    string
                   +--ro smtopology:peer-ip*
                   |       inet:ip-address
                   +--ro smtopology:next-hop*
                   |       inet:ip-address
                   +--ro smtopology:interface-id*          int32
Figure 2: YANG tree diagram for ietf-relevant-state

4.2. YANG Module

The YANG module has one typdef defining the score and a grouping defining Action, Reason and Cause and how it attributes to the network planes.

<CODE BEGINS> file "ietf-network-anomaly-symptom-cbl@2024-10-18.yang"

module ietf-network-anomaly-symptom-cbl {
    yang-version 1.1;
    namespace "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-network-anomaly-symptom-cbl";
    prefix smcblsymptom;

    import ietf-relevant-state {
        prefix rsn;
        reference
          "RFC XXX: Relevant State and Relevant State Notification";
    }

  organization "IETF NMOP (Network Management Operations) Working Group";
  contact
    "WG Web:   <http:/tools.ietf.org/wg/netconf/>
     WG List:  <mailto:nmop@ietf.org>

     Authors:  Thomas Graf
               <mailto:thomas.graf@swisscom.com>
               Wanting Du
               <mailto:wanting.du@swisscom.com>
               Alex Huang Feng
               <mailto:alex.huang-feng@insa-lyon.fr>
               Vincenzo Riccobene
               <mailto:vincenzo.riccobene@huawei-partners.com>
               Antonio Roberto
               <mailto:antonio.roberto@huawei.com>";
    description
        "This module defines the semantic grouping to be used by a
                 Service Disruption Detection Systems. The defined objects is
                 used to augment the anomaly container. Describing the
                 symptoms action, reason and and oncern-score.

         Copyright (c) 2023 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; see the RFC
         itself for full legal notices.";

    revision 2024-10-18 {
        description
          "Initial version";
        reference
          "RFC XXX: Semantic Metadata Annotation for Network Anomaly Detection";
    }
    typedef score {
      type uint8 {
        range "0 .. 100";
      }
    }

    grouping cbl-symptom {
        leaf action {
            type string;
            description "action";
        }
        leaf reason {
            type string;
            description
                "reason";
        }
        leaf cause {
            type string;
            description
                "cause";
        }
        choice plane {
            description
                "Network Plane affected by the symptom";
            case forwarding {
                leaf forwarding {
                    type empty;
                }
            }
            case control {
                leaf control {
                    type empty;
                }
            }
            case management {
                leaf management {
                    type empty;
                }
            }
        }
    }

    augment /rsn:relevant-state/rsn:anomalies/rsn:symptom {
        uses cbl-symptom;
    }

    augment /rsn:relevant-state-notification/rsn:anomalies/rsn:symptom {
        uses cbl-symptom;
    }

}

<CODE ENDS>
Figure 3: ietf-symptom-semantic-metadata YANG Module

5. Security Considerations

The security considerations.

6. Implementation status

This section provides pointers to existing open source implementations of this draft. Note to the RFC-editor: Please remove this before publishing.

6.1. Antagonist

A tool called Antagonist has been implemented and refined during the IETF 119 and 120 hackathons, in order to validate the application of the YANG models defined in this draft. Antagonist provides visual support for two important use cases in the scope of this document:

  • the generation of a ground truth in relation to Symptoms and Problems in timeseries data
  • the visual validation of results produced by automated network anomaly detection tools.

The open source code can be found here: [Antagonist]

7. Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Reshad Rahman for his review and valuable comment.

8. References

8.1. Normative References

[Antagonist]
Riccobene, V., Roberto, A., Du, W., Graf, T., and H. Huang Feng, "Antagonist: Anomaly tagging on historical data", <https://github.com/vriccobene/antagonist>.
[I-D.ietf-nmop-terminology]
Davis, N., Farrel, A., Graf, T., Wu, Q., and C. Yu, "Some Key Terms for Network Fault and Problem Management", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-nmop-terminology-06, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-nmop-terminology-06>.
[I-D.netana-nmop-network-anomaly-architecture]
Graf, T., Du, W., and P. Francois, "An Architecture for a Network Anomaly Detection Framework", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-netana-nmop-network-anomaly-architecture-00, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-netana-nmop-network-anomaly-architecture-00>.
[I-D.netana-nmop-network-anomaly-lifecycle]
Riccobene, V., Roberto, A., Graf, T., Du, W., and A. H. Feng, "Experiment: Network Anomaly Lifecycle", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-netana-nmop-network-anomaly-lifecycle-03, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-netana-nmop-network-anomaly-lifecycle-03>.
[RFC2119]
Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC8174]
Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
[RFC8340]
Bjorklund, M. and L. Berger, Ed., "YANG Tree Diagrams", BCP 215, RFC 8340, DOI 10.17487/RFC8340, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8340>.

8.2. Informative References

[I-D.claise-opsawg-collected-data-manifest]
Claise, B., Quilbeuf, J., Lopez, D., Martinez-Casanueva, I. D., and T. Graf, "A Data Manifest for Contextualized Telemetry Data", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-claise-opsawg-collected-data-manifest-06, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-claise-opsawg-collected-data-manifest-06>.

Authors' Addresses

Thomas Graf
Swisscom
Binzring 17
CH-8045 Zurich
Switzerland
Wanting Du
Swisscom
Binzring 17
CH-8045 Zurich
Switzerland
Alex Huang Feng
INSA-Lyon
Lyon
France
Vincenzo Riccobene
Huawei
Dublin
Ireland
Antonio Roberto
Huawei
Dublin
Ireland