Large BGP Community
draft-heitz-idr-large-community-03

Abstract

A new type of BGP community attribute that contains communities that each hold a 4-octet AS number and a 8-octet opaque field is defined.

Requirements Language

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

Status of This Memo

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Copyright Notice

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Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Large BGP Community Attribute
• 3. Textual Representation
• 4. Security Considerations
• 5. IANA Considerations
• 6. Acknowledgements
• 7. Normative References
• Authors' Addresses

1. Introduction

A BGP Community attribute is defined that encodes 12 byte communities, suitable for 4-Octet Autonomous System Numbers that require 8 octets of locally significant opaque data.

To ensure rapid and smooth adoption of the new community attribute, it must be as similar to the [RFC1997] community as possible, only bigger.

2. Large BGP Community Attribute

The Large Community Attribute is a transitive optional BGP attribute, with the Type Code (suggested 41) to be assigned by IANA. The attribute consists of a set of "Large Communities". All routes with the Large Community attribute belong to the communities listed in the attribute.

 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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|                      Autonomous System number                 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|                          Local Data Part 1                    |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|                          Local Data Part 2                    |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Each Large Community is encoded as a 12-octet quantity, as follows:

3. Textual Representation

The textual representation of the Large BGP Community is A:B:C, where A is the Autonomous System number, B is the Local Data part 1 and C is the Local Data part 2. A ranges from 0 to 4294967295. B ranges from 0 to 4294967295. C ranges from 0 to 4294967295. A, B and C are plain decimal non-negative integers without leading zeroes. Each number must appear, even if it is 0. For example, "0:1:2" cannot be written as ":1:2". The string is expected to match the following regular expression: ^[0-9]+:[0-9]+:[0-9]+$

4. Security Considerations

TBD

5. IANA Considerations

IANA is requested to assign a BGP path attribute value for the Large community attribute.

6. Acknowledgements

Thanks to Russ White, Acee Lindem, Shyam Sethuram and Jared Mauch for insightful review and comments.

7. Normative References

Authors' Addresses