Internet DRAFT - draft-crabbe-pce-stateful-pce
draft-crabbe-pce-stateful-pce
Network Working Group E. Crabbe
Internet-Draft Google, Inc.
Intended status: Standards Track J. Medved
Expires: July 25, 2012 Cisco Systems, Inc.
R. Varga
Pantheon Technologies LLC
I. Minei
Juniper Networks, Inc.
January 22, 2012
PCEP Extensions for Stateful PCE
draft-crabbe-pce-stateful-pce-02
Abstract
The Path Computation Element Communication Protocol (PCEP) provides
mechanisms for Path Computation Elements (PCEs) to perform path
computations in response to Path Computation Clients (PCCs) requests.
Although PCEP explicitly makes no assumptions regarding the
information available to the PCE, it also makes no provisions for
synchronization or PCE control of timing and sequence of path
computations within and across PCEP sessions. This document
describes a set of extensions to PCEP to enable this functionality,
providing stateful control of Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
Traffic Engineering Label Switched Paths (TE LSP) via PCEP.
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
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 http://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."
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This Internet-Draft will expire on July 25, 2012.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 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
(http://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 Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Motivation and Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1. Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.1. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.2. Why a Stateful PCE? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1.3. Protocol vs. Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2. Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4. New Functions to Support Stateful PCEs . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5. Architectural Overview of Protocol Extensions . . . . . . . . 16
5.1. LSP State Ownership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.2. New Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.3. Capability Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.4. State Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5.4.1. State Synchronization Avoidance . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.5. LSP Delegation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.5.1. Delegating an LSP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.5.2. Revoking a Delegation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.5.3. Returning a Delegation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.5.4. Redundant Stateful PCEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.6. LSP Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.6.1. Passive Stateful PCE Path Computation
Request/Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.6.2. Active Stateful PCE LSP Update . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.7. LSP Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.8. Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
6. PCEP Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
6.1. The PCRpt Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
6.2. The PCUpd Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
7. Object Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
7.1. OPEN Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
7.1.1. Stateful PCE Capability TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
7.1.2. LSP State Database Version TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
7.2. LSP Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
7.2.1. The LSP Symbolic Name TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
7.2.2. LSP Identifiers TLVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
7.2.3. LSP Update Error Code TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
7.2.4. RSVP ERROR_SPEC TLVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
7.2.5. LSP State Database Version TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
7.2.6. Delegation Parameters TLVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
8.1. PCEP Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
8.2. PCEP Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
8.3. LSP Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
8.4. PCEP-Error Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
8.5. PCEP TLV Type Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
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8.6. STATEFUL-PCE-CAPABILITY TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
8.7. LSP-UPDATE-ERROR-CODE TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
9. Manageability Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
9.1. Control Function and Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
9.2. Information and Data Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
9.3. Liveness Detection and Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
9.4. Verifying Correct Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
9.5. Requirements on Other Protocols and Functional
Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
9.6. Impact on Network Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
10. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
10.1. Vulnerability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
10.2. LSP State Snooping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
10.3. Malicious PCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
10.4. Malicious PCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
11. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
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1. Introduction
[RFC5440] describes the Path Computation Element Protocol (PCEP.
PCEP defines the communication between a Path Computation Client
(PCC) and a Path Control Element (PCE), or between PCE and PCE,
enabling computation of Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) for
Traffic Engineering Label Switched Path (TE LSP) characteristics
This document specifies a set of extensions to PCEP to enable
stateful control of TE LSPs between and across PCEP sessions in
compliance with [RFC4657]. It includes mechanisms to effect LSP
state synchronization between PCCs and PCEs, delegation of control of
LSPs to PCEs, and PCE control of timing and sequence of path
computations within and across PCEP sessions.
2. Terminology
This document uses the following terms defined in [RFC5440]: PCC,
PCE, PCEP Peer.
This document uses the following terms defined in [RFC4090]: MPLS TE
Fast Reroute (FRR), FRR One-to-One Backup, FRR Facility Backup.
The following terms are defined in this document:
Passive Stateful PCE: uses LSP state information learned from PCCs
to optimize path computations. It does not actively update LSP
state. A PCC maintains synchronization with the PCE.
Active Stateful PCE: uses LSP state information learned from PCCs to
optimize path computations. Additionally, it actively updates LSP
parameters in those PCCs that delegated control over their LSPs to
the PCE.
Delegation: An operation to grant a PCE temporary rights to modify a
subset of LSPs parameters on one or more PCC's LSPs. LSPs are
delegated from a PCC to a PCE.
Delegation Timeout Interval: when a PCEP session is terminated, a
PCC waits for this time period before revoking LSP delegation to a
PCE.
LSP State Report: an operation to send LSP state (Operational /
Admin Status, LSP attributes configured and set by a PCE, etc.)
from a PCC to a PCE.
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LSP Update Request: an operation where a PCE requests a PCC to
update one or more attributes of an LSP and to re-signal the LSP
with updated attributes.
LSP Priority: a specific pair of MPLS setup and hold priority
values.
LSP State Database: information about and attributes of all LSPs
that are being reported to one or more PCEs via LSP State Reports.
Minimum Cut Set: the minimum set of links for a specific source
destination pair which, when removed from the network, result in a
specific source being completely isolated from specific
destination. The summed capacity of these links is equivalent to
the maximum capacity from the source to the destination by the
max-flow min-cut theorem.
MPLS TE Global Default Restoration: once an LSP failure is detected
by some downstream mode, the head-end LSP is notified by means of
RSVP. Upon receiving the notification, the headend Label
Switching Router (LSR) recomputes the path and signals the LSP
along an alternate path. [NET-REC]
MPLS TE Global Path Protection: once an LSP failure is detected by
some downstream mode, the head-end LSP is notified by means of
RSVP. Upon receiving the notification, the headend LSR reroutes
traffic using a pre-signaled backup (secondary) LSP. [NET-REC].
Within this document, when describing PCE-PCE communications, the
requesting PCE fills the role of a PCC. This provides a saving in
documentation without loss of function.
The message formats in this document are specified using Routing
Backus-Naur Format (RBNF) encoding as specified in [RFC5511].
3. Motivation and Objectives
3.1. Motivation
3.1.1. Background
Traffic engineering has been a goal of the MPLS architecture since
its inception ([RFC3031], [RFC2702], [RFC3346]). In the traffic
engineering system provided by [RFC3630], [RFC5305], and [RFC3209]
information about network resources utilization is only available as
total reserved capacity by traffic class on a per interface basis;
individual LSP state is available only locally on each LER for it's
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own LSPs. In most cases, this makes good sense, as distribution and
retention of total LSP state for all LERs within in the network would
be prohibitively costly.
Unfortunately, this visibility in terms of global LSP state may
result in a number of issues for some demand patterns, particularly
within a common setup and hold priority. This issue affects online
traffic engineering systems, and in particular, the widely
implemented but seldom deployed auto-bandwidth system.
A sufficiently over-provisioned system will by definition have no
issues routing its demand on the shortest path. However, lowering
the degree to which network over-provisioning is required in order to
run a healthy, functioning network is a clear and explicit promise of
MPLS architecture. In particular, it has been a goal of MPLS to
provide mechanisms to alleviate congestion scenarios in which
"traffic streams are inefficiently mapped onto available resources;
causing subsets of network resources to become over-utilized while
others remain underutilized" ([RFC2702]).
3.1.2. Why a Stateful PCE?
[RFC4655] defines a stateful PCE to be one in which the PCE maintains
"strict synchronization between the PCE and not only the network
states (in term of topology and resource information), but also the
set of computed paths and reserved resources in use in the network."
[RFC4655] also expressed a number of concerns with regard to a
stateful PCE, specifically:
o Any reliable synchronization mechanism would result in significant
control plane overhead
o Out-of-band ted synchronization would be complex and prone to race
conditions
o Path calculations incorporating total network state would be
highly complex
In general, stress on the MPLS TE control plane will be directly
proportional to the size of the system being controlled and the and
the tightness of the control loop, and indirectly proportional to the
amount of over-provisioning in terms of both network capacity and
reservation overhead.
Despite these concerns in terms of implementation complexity and
scalability, several TE algorithms exist today that have been
demonstrated to be extremely effective in large TE systems, providing
both rapid convergence and significant benefits in terms of
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optimality of resource usage [MXMN-TE]. All of these systems share
at least two common characteristics: the requirement for both global
visibility of a flow (or in this case, a TE LSP) state and for
ordered control of path reservations across devices within the system
being controlled. While some approaches have been suggested in order
to remove the requirements for ordered control (See [MPLS-PC]), these
approaches are highly dependent on traffic distribution, and do not
allow for multiple simultaneous LSP priorities representing diffserv
classes.
The following use cases demonstrate a need for visibility into global
inter-PCC LSP state in PCE path computations, and for a PCE control
of sequence and timing in altering LSP path characteristics within
and across PCEP sessions. Reference topologies for the use cases
described later in this section are shown in Figures 1 and 2.
Unless otherwise cited, use cases assume that all LSPs listed exist
at the same LSP priority.
+-------+
| A |
| |
+-------+
\
+-------+ +-------+
| C |-------------------------| E |
| | | |
+-------+ +-------+ +-------+
/ \ | D | /
+-------+ ------| |------
| B | +-------+
| |
+-------+
Figure 1: Reference topology 1
+-------+ +-------+ +-------+
| A | | B | | C |
| | | | | |
+---+---+ +---+---+ +---+---+
| | |
| | |
+---+---+ +---+---+ +---+---+
| E | | F | | G |
| +--------+ +--------+ |
+-------+ +-------+ +-------+
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Figure 2: Reference topology 2
3.1.2.1. Throughput Maximization and Bin Packing
Because LSP attribute changes in [RFC5440] are driven by PCReq
messages under control of a PCC's local timers, the sequence of RSVP
reservation arrivals occurring in the network will be randomized.
This, coupled with a lack of global LSP state visibility on the part
of a stateless PCE may result in suboptimal throughput in a given
network topology.
Reference topology 2 in Figure 2 and Tables 1 and 2 show an example
in which throughput is at 50% of optimal as a result of lack of
visibility and synchronized control across PCC's. In this scenario,
the decision must be made as to whether to route any portion of the
E-G demand, as any demand routed for this source and destination will
decrease system throughput.
+------+--------+----------+
| Link | Metric | Capacity |
+------+--------+----------+
| A-E | 1 | 10 |
| B-F | 1 | 10 |
| C-G | 1 | 10 |
| E-F | 1 | 10 |
| F-G | 1 | 10 |
+------+--------+----------+
Table 1: Link parameters for Throughput use case
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+-------+
| Time | LSP | Src | Dst | Demand | Routable | Path |
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+-------+
| 1 | 1 | E | G | 10 | Yes | E-F-G |
| 2 | 2 | A | B | 10 | No | --- |
| 3 | 1 | F | C | 10 | No | --- |
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+-------+
Table 2: Throughput use case demand time series
In many cases throughput maximization becomes a bin packing problem.
While bin packing itself is an NP-hard problem, a number of common
heuristics which run in polynomial time can provide significant
improvements in throughput over random reservation event
distribution, especially when traversing links which are members of
the minimum cut set for a large subset of source destination pairs.
Tables 3 and 4 show a simple use case using Reference Topology 1 in
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Figure 1, where LSP state visibility and control of reservation order
across PCCs would result in significant improvement in total
throughput.
+------+--------+----------+
| Link | Metric | Capacity |
+------+--------+----------+
| A-C | 1 | 10 |
| B-C | 1 | 10 |
| C-E | 10 | 5 |
| C-D | 1 | 10 |
| D-E | 1 | 10 |
+------+--------+----------+
Table 3: Link parameters for Bin Packing use case
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+---------+
| Time | LSP | Src | Dst | Demand | Routable | Path |
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+---------+
| 1 | 1 | A | E | 5 | Yes | A-C-D-E |
| 2 | 2 | B | E | 10 | No | --- |
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+---------+
Table 4: Bin Packing use case demand time series
3.1.2.2. Deadlock
Most existing RSVP-TE implementations will not tear down established
LSPs in the event of the failure of the bandwidth increase procedure
detailed in [RFC3209]. This behavior is directly implied to be
correct in [RFC3209] and is often desirable from an operator's
perspective, because either a) the destination prefixes are not
reachable via any means other than MPLS or b) this would result in
significant packet loss as demand is shifted to other LSPs in the
overlay mesh.
In addition, there are currently few implementations offering ingress
admission control at the LSP level. Again, having ingress admission
control on a per LSP basis is not necessarily desirable from an
operational perspective, as a) one must over-provision tunnels
significantly in order to avoid deleterious effects resulting from
stacked transport and flow control systems and b) there is currently
no efficient commonly available northbound interface for dynamic
configuration of per LSP ingress admission control (such an interface
could easily be defined using the extensions present in this spec,
but it beyond the scope of the current document).
Lack of ingress admission control coupled with the behavior in
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[RFC3209] effectively results in mis-signaled LSPs during periods of
contention for network capacity between LSPs in a given LSP priority.
This in turn causes information loss in the TED with regard to actual
network state, resulting in LSPs sharing common network interfaces
with mis-signaled LSPs operating in a degraded state for significant
periods of time, even when unused network capacity may potentially be
available.
Reference Topology 1 in Figure 1 and Tables 5 and 6 show a use case
that demonstrates this behavior. Two LSPs, LSP 1 and LSP 2 are
signaled with demand 2 and routed along paths A-C-D-E and B-C-D-E
respectively. At a later time, the demand of LSP 1 increases to 20.
Under such a demand, the LSP cannot be resignaled. However, the
existing LSP will not be torn down. In the absence of ingress
policing, traffic on LSP 1 will cause degradation for traffic of LSP
2 (due to oversubscription on the links C-D and D-E), as well as
information loss in the TED with regard to the actual network state.
The problem could be easily ameliorated by global visibility of LSP
state coupled with PCC- external demand measurements and placement of
two LSPs on disjoint links. Note that while the demand of 20 for LSP
1 could never be satisfied in the given topology, what could be
achieved would be isolation from the ill-effects of the
(unsatisfiable) increased demand.
+------+--------+----------+
| Link | Metric | Capacity |
+------+--------+----------+
| A-C | 1 | 10 |
| B-C | 1 | 10 |
| C-E | 10 | 5 |
| C-D | 1 | 10 |
| D-E | 1 | 10 |
+------+--------+----------+
Table 5: Link parameters for the 'Deadlock' example
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+---------+
| Time | LSP | Src | Dst | Demand | Routable | Path |
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+---------+
| 1 | 1 | A | E | 2 | Yes | A-C-D-E |
| 2 | 2 | B | E | 2 | Yes | B-C-D-E |
| 3 | 1 | A | E | 20 | No | --- |
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+---------+
Table 6: Deadlock LSP and demand time series
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3.1.2.3. Minimum Perturbation
As a result of both the lack of visibility into global LSP state and
the lack of control over event ordering across PCE sessions,
unnecessary perturbations may be introduced into the network by a
stateless PCE. Tables 7 and 8 show an example of an unnecessary
network perturbation using Reference Topology 1 in Figure 1. In this
case an unimportant (high LSP priority value) LSP (LSP1) is first set
up along the shortest path. At time 2, which is assumed to be
relatively close to time 1, a second more important (lower LSP-
priority value) LSP is established, preempting LSP 1 and shifting it
to the longer A-C-E path.
+------+--------+----------+
| Link | Metric | Capacity |
+------+--------+----------+
| A-C | 1 | 10 |
| B-C | 1 | 10 |
| C-E | 10 | 10 |
| C-D | 1 | 10 |
| D-E | 1 | 10 |
+------+--------+----------+
Table 7: Link parameters for the 'Minimum-Perturbation' example
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+----------+---------+
| Time | LSP | Src | Dst | Demand | LSP Prio | Routable | Path |
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+----------+---------+
| 1 | 1 | A | E | 7 | 7 | Yes | A-C-D-E |
| 2 | 2 | B | E | 7 | 0 | Yes | B-C-D-E |
| 3 | 1 | A | E | 7 | 7 | Yes | A-C-E |
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+----------+---------+
Table 8: Minimum-Perturbation LSP and demand time series
3.1.2.4. Predictability
Randomization of reservation events caused by lack of control over
event ordering across PCE sessions results in poor predictability in
LSP routing. An offline system applying a consistent optimization
method will produce predictable results to within either the boundary
of forecast error when reservations are over-provisioned by
reasonable margins or to the variability of the signal and the
forecast error when applying some hysteresis in order to minimize
churn.
Reference Topology 1 and Tables 9, 10 and 11 show the impact of event
ordering and predictability of LSP routing.
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+------+--------+----------+
| Link | Metric | Capacity |
+------+--------+----------+
| A-C | 1 | 10 |
| B-C | 1 | 10 |
| C-E | 1 | 10 |
| C-D | 1 | 10 |
| D-E | 1 | 10 |
+------+--------+----------+
Table 9: Link parameters for the 'Predictability' example
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+---------+
| Time | LSP | Src | Dst | Demand | Routable | Path |
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+---------+
| 1 | 1 | A | E | 7 | Yes | A-C-E |
| 2 | 2 | B | E | 7 | Yes | B-C-D-E |
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+---------+
Table 10: Predictability LSP and demand time series 1
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+---------+
| Time | LSP | Src | Dst | Demand | Routable | Path |
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+---------+
| 1 | 2 | B | E | 7 | Yes | B-C-E |
| 2 | 1 | A | E | 7 | Yes | A-C-D-E |
+------+-----+-----+-----+--------+----------+---------+
Table 11: Predictability LSP and demand time series 2
3.1.2.5. Global Concurrent Optimization
Global Concurrent Optimization (GCO) defined in [RFC5557] is a
network optimization mechanism that is able to simultaneously
consider the entire topology of the network and the complete set of
existing TE LSPs and their existing constraints, and look to optimize
or reoptimize the entire network to satisfy all constraints for all
TE LSPs. It allows for bulk path computations in order to avoid
blocking problems and to achieve more optimal network-wide solutions.
Global control of LSP operation sequence in [RFC5557] is predicated
on the use of what is effectively a stateful (or semi-stateful) NMS.
The NMS can be either not local to the switch, in which case another
northbound interface is required for LSP attribute changes, or local/
collocated, in which case there are significant issues with
efficiency in resource usage. Stateful PCE adds a few features that:
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o Roll the NMS visibility into the PCE and remove the requirement
for an additional northbound interface
o Allow the PCE to determine when re-optimization is needed
o Allow the PCE to determine which LSPs should be re-optimized
o Allow a PCE to control the sequence of events across multiple
PCCs, allowing for bulk (and truly global) optimization, LSP
shuffling etc.
3.1.3. Protocol vs. Configuration
Note that existing configuration tools and protocols can be used to
set LSP state. However, this solution has several shortcomings:
o Scale & Performance: configuration operations often require
processing of additional configuration portions beyond the state
being directly acted upon, with corresponding cost in CPU cycles,
negatively impacting both PCC stability LSP update rate capacity.
o Scale & Performance: configuration operations often have
transactional semantics which are typically heavyweight and
require additional CPU cycles, negatively impacting PCC update
rate capacity.
o Security: opening up a configuration channel to a PCE would allow
a malicious PCE to take over a PCC. The PCEP extensions described
in this document only allow a PCE control over a very limited set
of LSP attributes.
o Interoperability: each vendor has a proprietary information model
for configuring LSP state, which prevents interoperability of a
PCE with PCCs from different vendors. The PCEP extensions
described in this document allow for a common information model
for LSP state for all vendors.
o Efficient State Synchronization: configuration channels may be
heavyweight and unidirectional, therefore efficient state
synchronization between a PCE and a PCE may be a problem.
3.2. Objectives
The objectives for the protocol extensions to support stateful PCE
described in this document are as follows:
o Allow a single PCC to interact with a mix of stateless and
stateful PCEs simultaneously using the same PCEP.
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o Support efficient LSP state synchronization between the PCC and
one or more active or passive stateful PCEs.
o Allow a PCC to delegate control of its LSPs to an active stateful
PCE such that a single LSP is under the control a single PCE at
any given time. A PCC may revoke this delegation at any point
during the lifetime of the PCEP session. A PCE may return this
delegation at any point during the lifetime of the PCEP session.
o Allow a PCE to control computation timing and update timing across
all LSPs that have been delegated to it.
o Allow a PCE to specify protection / restoration settings for all
LSPs that have been delegated to it.
o Enable uninterrupted operation of PCC's LSPs in the event PCE
failure or while control of LSPs is being transferred between
PCEs.
4. New Functions to Support Stateful PCEs
Several new functions will be required in PCEP to support stateful
PCEs. A function can be initiated either from a PCC towards a PCE
(C-E) or from a PCE towards a PCC (E-C). The new functions are:
Capability negotiation (E-C,C-E): both the PCC and the PCE must
announce during PCEP session establishment that they support PCEP
Stateful PCE extensions defined in this document.
LSP state synchronization (C-E): after the session between the PCC
and a stateful PCE is initialized, the PCE must learn the state of
a PCC's LSPs before it can perform path computations or update LSP
attributes in a PCC.
LSP Update Request (E-C): A PCE requests modification of attributes
on a PCC's LSP.
LSP State Report (C-E): a PCC sends an LSP state report to a PCE
whenever the state of an LSP changes.
LSP control delegation (C-E,E-C): a PCC grants to a PCE the right to
update LSP attributes on one or more LSPs; the PCE becomes the
authoritative source of the LSP's attributes as long as the
delegation is in effect (See Section 5.5); the PCC may withdraw
the delegation or the PCE may give up the delegation
In addition to new PCEP functions, stateful capabilities discovery
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will be required in OSPF ([RFC5088]) and IS-IS ([RFC5089]). Stateful
capabilities discovery is not in scope of this document.
5. Architectural Overview of Protocol Extensions
5.1. LSP State Ownership
In the PCEP protocol (defined in [RFC5440]), LSP state and operation
are under the control of a PCC (a PCC may be an LSR or a management
station). Attributes received from a PCE are subject to PCC's local
policy. The PCEP protocol extensions described in this document do
not change this behavior.
An active stateful PCE may have control of a PCC's LSPs be delegated
to it, but the LSP state ownership is retained by the PCC. In
particular, in addition to specifying values for LSP's attributes, an
active stateful PCE also decides when to make LSP modifications.
Retaining LSP state ownership on the PCC allows for:
o a PCC to interact with both stateless and stateful PCEs at the
same time
o a stateful PCE to only modify a small subset of LSP parameters,
i.e. to set only a small subset of the overall LSP state; other
parameters may be set by the operator through CLI commands
o a PCC to revert delegated LSP to an operator-defined default or to
delegate the LSPs to a different PCE, if the PCC get disconnected
from a PCE with currently delegated LSPs
5.2. New Messages
In this document, we define the following new PCEP messages:
Path Computation State Report (PCRpt): a PCEP message sent by a PCC
to a PCE to report the status of one or more LSPs. Each LSP
Status Report in a PCRpt message can contain the actual LSP's
path,bandwidth, operational and administrative status, etc. An
LSP Status Report carried on a PCRpt message is also used in
delegation or revocation of control of an LSP to/from a PCE. The
PCRep message is described in Section 6.1.
Path Computation Update Request (PCUpd): a PCEP message sent by a
PCE to a PCC to update LSP parameters, on one or more LSPs. Each
LSP Update Request on a PCUpd message MUST contain all LSP
parameters that a PCE wishes to set for a given LSP. An LSP
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Update Request carried on a PCUpd message is also used to return
LSP delegations if at any point PCE no longer desires control of
an LSP. The PCUpd message is described in Section 6.2.
The new functions defined in Section 4 are mapped onto the new
messages as shown in the following table.
+----------------------------------------+--------------------------+
| Function | Message |
+----------------------------------------+--------------------------+
| Capability Negotiation (E-C,C-E) | Open |
| State Synchronization (C-E) | PCRpt |
| LSP State Report (C-E) | PCRpt |
| LSP Control Delegation (C-E,E-C) | PCRpt, PCUpd |
| LSP Update Request (E-C) | PCUpd |
| ISIS stateful capability advertisement | ISIS PCE-CAP-FLAGS |
| | sub-TLV |
| OSPF stateful capability advertisement | OSPF RI LSA, PCE TLV, |
| | PCE-CAP-FLAGS sub-TLV |
+----------------------------------------+--------------------------+
Table 12: New Function to Message Mapping
5.3. Capability Negotiation
During PCEP Initialization Phase, PCEP Speakers (PCE pr PCC)
negotiate the use of stateful PCEP extensions. A PCEP Speaker
includes the "Stateful PCE Capability" TLV, described in
Section 7.1.1, in the OPEN Object to advertise its support for PCEP
stateful extensions. The Stateful Capability TLV includes the 'LSP
Update' Flag that indicates whether the PCEP Speaker supports LSP
parameter updates.
The presence of the Stateful PCE Capability TLV in PCC's OPEN Object
indicates that the PCC is willing to send LSP State Reports whenever
LSP parameters or operational status changes.
The presence of the Stateful PCE Capability TLV in PCE's OPEN message
indicates that the PCE is interested in receiving LSP State Reports
whenever LSP parameters or operational status changes.
The PCEP protocol extensions for stateful PCEs MAY only be used if
both sides have included the Stateful PCE Capability TLV in their
respective OPEN messages, otherwise a PCErr with code "Stateful PCE
capability not negotiated" (see Section 8.4) will be generated and
the PCEP session will be terminated.
LSP delegation and LSP update operations defined in this document MAY
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only be used if both PCEP Speakers set the LSP-UPDATE Flag in the
"Stateful Capability" TLV to 'Updates Allowed (U Flag = 1)',
otherwise a PCErr with code "Delegation not negotiated" (see
Section 8.4) will be generated. Note that even if the update
capability has not been negotiated, a PCE can still receive LSP
Status Reports from a PCC and build and maintain an up to date view
of the state of the PCC's LSPs.
5.4. State Synchronization
The purpose of State Synchronization is to provide a checkpoint-in-
time state replica of a PCC's LSP state in a PCE. State
Synchronization is performed immediately after the Initialization
phase ([RFC5440]).
During State Synchronization, a PCC first takes a snapshot of the
state of its LSPs state, then sends the snapshot to a PCE in a
sequence of LSP State Reports. Each LSP State Report sent during
State Synchronization has the SYNC Flag in the LSP Object set to 1.
The set of LSPs for which state is synchronized with a PCE is
determined by negotiated stateful PCEP capabilities and PCC's local
configuration (see more details in Section 9.1).
A PCE SHOULD NOT send PCUpd messages to a PCC before State
Synchronization is complete. A PCC SHOULD NOT send PCReq messages to
a PCE before State Synchronization is complete. This is to allow the
PCE to get the best possible view of the network before it starts
computing new paths.
If the PCC encounters a problem which prevents it from completing the
state transfer, it MUST send a PCErr message to the PCE and terminate
the session using the PCEP session termination procedure.
The PCE does not send positive acknowledgements for properly received
synchronization messages. It MUST respond with a PCErr message
indicating "PCRpt error" (see ) if it encounters a problem with the
LSP State Report it received from the PCC. Either the PCE or the PCC
MAY terminate the session if the PCE encounters a problem during the
synchronization.
The successful State Synchronization sequence is shown in Figure 3.
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+-+-+ +-+-+
|PCC| |PCE|
+-+-+ +-+-+
| |
|-----PCRpt, SYNC=1----->| (Sync start)
| |
|-----PCRpt, SYNC=1----->|
| . |
| . |
| . |
|-----PCRpt, SYNC=1----->| (Sync done)
| . |
| . |
| . |
| |
|-----PCRpt, SYNC=0----->| (Regular
| | LSP State Report)
Figure 3: Successful state synchronization
The sequence where the PCE fails during the State Synchronization
phase is shown in Figure 4.
+-+-+ +-+-+
|PCC| |PCE|
+-+-+ +-+-+
| |
|-----PCRpt, SYNC=1----->|
| |
|-----PCRpt, SYNC=1----->|
| . |
| . |
| . |
|-----PCRpt, SYNC=1----->|
| |
|-PCRpt, SYNC=1 |
| \ ,-PCErr=?-|
| \ / |
| \/ |
| /\ |
| / `-------->| (Ignored)
|<--------` |
Figure 4: Failed state synchronization (PCE failure)
The sequence where the PCC fails during the State Synchronization
phase is shown in Figure 5.
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+-+-+ +-+-+
|PCC| |PCE|
+-+-+ +-+-+
| |
|-----PCRpt, SYNC=1----->|
| |
|-----PCRpt, SYNC=1----->|
| . |
| . |
| . |
|-------- PCErr=? ------>|
| |
Figure 5: Failed state synchronization (PCC failure)
5.4.1. State Synchronization Avoidance
State Synchronization MAY be skipped following a PCEP session restart
if the state of both PCEP peers did not change during the period
prior to session re-initialization. To be able to make this
determination, state must be exchanged and maintained by both PCE and
PCC during normal operation. This is accomplished by keeping track
of the changes to the LSP State Database. When State Synchronization
avoidance is enabled on a PCEP session, a PCC includes the LSP-DB-
VERSION TLV as an optional TLV in the LSP Object on each LSP State
Report. The LSP-DB-VERSION TLV contains a PCC's LSP State Database
version, which is incremented each time a change is made to the PCC's
local LSP State Database. The LSP State Database version is an
unsigned 64-bit value that MUST be incremented by 1 for each
successive change in the LSP state database. The LSP State Database
version MUST start at 1 and may wrap around. Values 0 and
0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF are reserved.
State Synchronization Avoidance is negotiated on a PCEP session
during session startup.
If both PCEP speakers set the INCLUDE-DB-VERSION Flag in the OPEN
object's STATEFUL-PCE-CAPABILITY TLV to 1, the PCC will include the
LSP-DB-VERSION TLV in each LSP Object. The TLV will contain the
PCC's latest LSP State Database version.
If a PCE's LSP State Database survived the restart of a PCEP session,
the PCE will include the LSP-DB-VERSION TLV in its OPEN object, and
the TLV will contain the last LSP State Database version received on
an LSP State Update from the PCC in a previous PCEP session. If a
PCC's LSP State Database survived the restart, the PCC will include
the LSP-DB-VERSION TLV in its OPEN object and the TLV will contain
the last LSP State Database version sent on an LSP State Update from
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the PCC in the previous PCEP session. If a PCEP Speaker's LSP State
Database did not survive the restart of a PCEP session, the PCEP
Speaker MUST NOT include the LSP-DB-VERSION TLV in the OPEN Object.
If both PCEP Speakers include the LSP-DB-VERSION TLV in the OPEN
Object and the TLV values match, the PCC MAY skip State
Synchronization. Otherwise, the PCE MUST purge any remaining LSP
state and expect the PCC to perform State Synchronization; if the PCC
attempts to skip State Synchronization (i.e. the SYNC Flag = 0 on the
first LSP State Report from the PCC), the PCE MUST send back a
PCError with Error-type 20 Error-value 2 'LSP Database version
mismatch', and close the PCEP session.
Note that a PCE MAY force State Synchronization by not including the
LSP-DB-VERSION TLV in its OPEN object.
Figure 6 shows an example sequence where State Synchronization is
skipped.
+-+-+ +-+-+
|PCC| |PCE|
+-+-+ +-+-+
| |
|-PCOpen-, |
| DBv=42 \ ,--PCOpen-|
| IDB=1 \ / DBv=42 |
| \/ IDB=1 |
| /\ |
| / `-------->| (OK to skip sync)
(Skip sync) |<--------` |
| . |
| . |
| . |
| |
|--PCRpt,DBv=43,SYNC=0-->| (Regular
| | LSP State Update)
|--PCRpt,DBv=44,SYNC=0-->| (Regular
| | LSP State Update)
|--PCRpt,DBv=45,SYNC=0-->|
| |
Figure 6: State Synchronization skipped
Figure 7 shows an example sequence where State Synchronization is
performed due to LSP State Database version mismatch during the PCEP
session setup. Note that the same State Synchronization sequence
would happen if either the PCE or the PCE would not include the LSP-
DB-VERSION TLV in their respective Open messages.
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+-+-+ +-+-+
|PCC| |PCE|
+-+-+ +-+-+
| |
|-PCOpen-, |
| DBv=46 \ ,--PCOpen-|
| IDB=1 \ / DBv=42 |
| \/ IDB=1 |
| /\ |
| / `-------->| (Expect sync)
(Do sync) |<--------` | (Purge LSP State)
| |
|--PCRpt,DBv=46,SYNC=1-->| (Sync start)
| . |
| . |
| . |
|--PCRpt,DBv=46,SYNC=1-->| (Sync done)
| . |
| . |
| . |
|--PCRpt,DBv=47,SYNC=0-->| (Regular
| | LSP State Update)
|--PCRpt,DBv=48,SYNC=0-->| (Regular
| | LSP State Update)
|--PCRpt,DBv=49,SYNC=0-->|
| |
Figure 7: State Synchronization performed
Figure 8 shows an example sequence where State Synchronization is
skipped, but because one or both PCEP Speakers set the INCLUDE-DB-
VERSION Flag to 0, the PCC does not send LSP-DB-VERSION TLVs to the
PCE. If the current PCEP session restarts, the PCEP Speakers will
have to perform State Synchronization, since the PCE will not know
the PCC's latest LSP State Database version.
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+-+-+ +-+-+
|PCC| |PCE|
+-+-+ +-+-+
| |
|-PCOpen-, |
| DBv=42 \ ,--PCOpen-|
| IDB=0 \ / DBv=42 |
| \/ IDB=0 |
| /\ |
| / `-------->| (OK to skip sync)
(Skip sync) |<--------` |
| . |
| . |
| . |
|------PCRpt,SYNC=0----->| (Regular
| | LSP State Update)
|------PCRpt,SYNC=0----->| (Regular
| | LSP State Update)
|------PCRpt,SYNC=0----->|
| |
Figure 8: State Synchronization skipped, no LSP-DB-VERSION TLVs sent
from PCC
5.5. LSP Delegation
If during Capability negotiation both the PCE and the PCC have
indicated that they support LSP Update, then the PCC may choose to
grant the PCE a temporary right to update (a subset of) LSP
attributes on one or more LSPs. This is called "LSP Delegation", and
it MAY be performed at any time after the Initialization phase.
LSP Delegation is controlled by operator-defined policies on a PCC.
LSPs are delegated individually - different LSPs may be delegated to
different PCEs, and an LSP may be delegated to one or more PCEs. The
delegation policy, when all PCC's LSPs are delegated to a single PCE
at any given time, SHOULD be supported by all delegation-capable
PCCs. Conversely, the policy revoking the delegation for all PCC's
LSPs SHOULD also be supported
A PCE may return LSP delegation at any time if it no longer wishes to
update the LSP's state. A PCC may revoke LSP delegation at any time.
Delegation, Revocation, and Return are done individually for each
LSP.
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5.5.1. Delegating an LSP
A PCC delegates an LSP to a PCE by setting the Delegate flag in LSP
State Report to 1. A PCE confirms the delegation when it sends the
first LSP Update Request for the delegated LSP to the PCC by setting
the Delegate flag to 1. Note that a PCE does not immediately confirm
to the PCC the acceptance of LSP Delegation; Delegation acceptance is
confirmed when the PCC wishes to update the LSP via the LSP Update
Request. If a PCE does not accept the LSP Delegation, it MUST
immediately respond with an empty LSP Update Request which has the
Delegate flag set to 0.
The delegation sequence is shown in Figure 9.
+-+-+ +-+-+
|PCC| |PCE|
+-+-+ +-+-+
| |
|---PCRpt, Delegate=1--->| LSP Delegated
| |
|---PCRpt, Delegate=1--->|
| . |
| . |
| . |
|<--(PCUpd,Delegate=1)---| Delegation confirmed
| |
|---PCRpt, Delegate=1--->|
| |
Figure 9: Delegating an LSP
Note that for an LSP to remain delegated to a PCE, the PCC MUST set
the Delegate flag to 1 on each LSP Status Report sent to the PCE.
5.5.2. Revoking a Delegation
A PCC revokes an LSP delegation by sending an LSP State Report with
the Delegate flag set to 0. A PCC MAY revoke an LSP delegation at
any time during the PCEP session life time. When a PCC's PCEP
session with the PCE terminates, the PCC SHALL wait a time interval
specified in 'Delegation Timeout Interval' and then revoke all LSP
delegations to the PCE .
After an LSP delegation has been revoked, a PCE can no longer update
LSP's parameters; an attempt to update parameters of a non-delegated
LSP will result in the PCC sending a PCErr message indicating "LSP is
not delegated" (see Section 8.4).
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The revocation sequence is shown in Figure 10.
+-+-+ +-+-+
|PCC| |PCE|
+-+-+ +-+-+
| |
|---PCRpt, Delegate=1--->|
| |
|<--(PCUpd,Delegate=1)---| Delegation confirmed
| . |
| . |
| . |
|---PCRpt, Delegate=0--->| Delegation revoked
| |
Figure 10: Revoking a Delegation
If a PCC can not delegate an LSP to a PCE (for example, if a PCC is
not connected to any active stateful PCE or if no connected active
stateful PCE accepts the delegation), the LSP delegation on the PCC
will time out within a configurable Delegation Timeout Interval and
the PCC SHALL flush any LSP state set by a PCE.
5.5.3. Returning a Delegation
A PCE that no longer wishes to update an LSP's parameters SHOULD
return the LSP delegation back to the PCC by sending an empty LSP
Update Request which has the Delegate flag set to 0. Note that in
order to keep a delegation, the PCE MUST set the Delegate flag to 1
on each LSP Update Request sent to the PCC.
+-+-+ +-+-+
|PCC| |PCE|
+-+-+ +-+-+
| |
|---PCRpt, Delegate=1--->| LSP delegated
| . |
| . |
| . |
|<--PCUpd, Delegate=0----| Delegation returned
| |
|---PCRpt, Delegate=0--->| No delegation for LSP
| |
Figure 11: Returning a Delegation
If a PCC can not delegate an LSP to a PCE (for example, if a PCC is
not connected to any active stateful PCE or if no connected active
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stateful PCE accepts the delegation), the LSP delegation on the PCC
will time out within a configurable Delegation Timeout Interval and
the PCC MUST flush any LSP state set by a PCE.
5.5.4. Redundant Stateful PCEs
Note that a PCE may not have any delegated LSPs: in a redundant
configuration where one PCE is backing up another PCE, the backup PCE
will not have any delegated LSPs. The backup PCE does not update any
LSPs, but it receives all LSP State Reports from a PCC. When the
primary PCE fails, a PCC will delegate to the secondary PCE all LSPs
that had been previously delegated to the failed PCE.
5.6. LSP Operations
5.6.1. Passive Stateful PCE Path Computation Request/Response
+-+-+ +-+-+
|PCC| |PCE|
+-+-+ +-+-+
| |
1) Path computation |----- PCReq message --->|
request sent to | |2) Path computation
PCE | | request received,
| | path computed
| |
|<---- PCRep message ----|3) Computed paths
| (Positive reply) | sent to the PCC
| (Negative reply) |
4) LSP Status change| |
event | |
| |
5) LSP Status Report|----- PCRpt message --->|
sent to all | . |
stateful PCEs | . |
| . |
6) Repeat for each |----- PCRpt message --->|
LSP status change| |
| |
Figure 12: Passive Stateful PCE Path Computation Request/Response
Once a PCC has successfully established a PCEP session with a passive
stateful PCE and the PCC's LSP state is synchronized with the PCE
(i.e. the PCE knows about all PCC's existing LSPs), if an event is
triggered that requires the computation of a set of paths, the PCC
sends a path computation request to the PCE ([RFC5440], Section
4.2.3). The PCReq message MAY contain the LSP Object to identify the
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LSP for which the path computation is requested.
Upon receiving a path computation request from a PCC, the PCE
triggers a path computation and returns either a positive or a
negative reply to the PCC ([RFC5440], Section 4.2.4).
Upon receiving a positive path computation reply, the PCC receives a
set of computed paths and starts to setup the LSPs. For each LSP, it
sends an LSP State Report carried on a PCRpt message to the PCE,
indicating that the LSP's status is 'Pending'.
Once an LSP is up, the PCC sends an LSP State Report carried on a
PCRpt message to the PCE, indicating that the LSP's status is 'Up'.
If the LSP could not be set up, the PCC sends an LSP State Report
indicating that the LSP is "Down' and stating the cause of the
failure. Note that due to timing constraints, the LSP status may
change from 'Pending' to 'Up' (or 'Down') before the PCC has had a
chance to send an LSP State Report indicating that the status is
'Pending'. In such cases, the PCC may choose to only send the PCRpt
indicating the latest status ('Up' or 'Down').
Upon receiving a negative reply from a PCE, a PCC may decide to
resend a modified request or take any other appropriate action. For
each requested LSP, it also sends an LSP State Report carried on a
PCRpt message to the PCE, indicating that the LSP's status is 'Down'.
There is no direct correlation between PCRep and PCRpt messages. For
a given LSP, multiple LSP State Reports will follow a single PC
Reply, as a PCC notifies a PCE of the LSP's state changes.
A PCC sends each LSP State Report to each stateful PCE that is
connected to the PCC.
Note that a single PCRpt message MAY contain multiple LSP State
Reports.
The passive stateful PCE is the model for stateful PCEs is described
in [RFC4655], Section 6.8.
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5.6.2. Active Stateful PCE LSP Update
+-+-+ +-+-+
|PCC| |PCE|
+-+-+ +-+-+
| |
1) LSP State |-- PCRpt, Delegate=1 -->|
Synchronization | . |
or add new LSP | . |2) PCE decides to
| . | update the LSP
| |
|<---- PCUpd message ----|3) PCUpd message sent
| | to PCC
| |
| |
4) LSP Status Report|---- PCRpt message ---->|
sent(->Pending) | . |
| . |
| . |
5) LSP Status Report|---- PCRpt message ---->|
sent (->Up|Down) | |
| |
Figure 13: Active Stateful PCE
Once a PCC has successfully established a PCEP session with an active
stateful PCE, the PCC's LSP state is synchronized with the PCE (i.e.
the PCE knows about all PCC's existing LSPs) and LSPs have been
delegated to the PCE, the PCE can modify LSP parameters of delegated
LSPs.
A PCE sends an LSP Update Request carried on a PCUpd message to the
PCC. The LSP Update Request contains a variety of objects that
specify the set of constraints and attributes for the LSP's path.
Additionally, the PCC may specify the urgency of such request by
assigning a request priority. A single PCUpd message MAY contain
multiple LSP Update Requests.
Upon receiving a PCUpd message the PCC starts to setup LSPs specified
in LSP Update Requests carried in the message. For each LSP, it
sends an LSP State Report carried on a PCRpt message to the PCE,
indicating that the LSP's status is 'Pending'.
Once an LSP is up, the PCC sends an LSP State Report (PCRpt message)
to the PCE, indicating that the LSP's status is 'Up'. If the LSP
could not be set up, the PCC sends an LSP State Report indicating
that the LSP is 'Down' and stating the cause of the failure. A PCC
may choose to compress LSP State Updates to only reflect the most up
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to date state, as discussed in the previous section.
A PCC sends each LSP State Report to each stateful PCE that is
connected to the PCC.
A PCC MUST NOT send to any PCE a Path Computation Request for a
delegated LSP.
5.7. LSP Protection
With a stateless PCE or a passive stateful PCE, LSP protection and
restoration settings may be operator-configured locally at a PCC. A
PCE may be merely asked to compute the protected (primary) and backup
(secondary) paths for the LSP.
An active stateful PCE controls the LSPs that are delegated to it,
and must therefore be able to set via PCEP the desired protection /
restoration mechanism for each delegated LSP. PCEP extensions for
stateful PCEs SHOULD support, at a minimum, the following protection
mechanisms:
o MPLS TE Global Default Restoration
o MPLS TE Global Path Protection
o FRR One-to-One Backup
o FRR Facility Backup - link protection, node protection, or both
5.8. Transport
A Permanent PCEP session MUST be established between a stateful PCEs
and the PCC.
State cleanup after session termination, as well as session setup
failures will be described in a later version of this document.
6. PCEP Messages
As defined in [RFC5440], a PCEP message consists of a common header
followed by a variable-length body made of a set of objects that can
be either mandatory or optional. An object is said to be mandatory
in a PCEP message when the object must be included for the message to
be considered valid. For each PCEP message type, a set of rules is
defined that specify the set of objects that the message can carry.
An implementation MUST form the PCEP messages using the object
ordering specified in this document.
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6.1. The PCRpt Message
A Path Computation LSP State Report message (also referred to as
PCRpt message) is a PCEP message sent by a PCC to a PCE to report the
current state of an LSP. A PCRpt message can carry more than one LSP
State Reports. A PCC can send an LSP State Report either in response
to an LSP Update Request from a PCE, or asynchronously when the state
of an LSP changes. The Message-Type field of the PCEP common header
for the PCRpt message is set to [TBD].
The format of the PCRpt message is as follows:
<PCRpt Message> ::= <Common Header>
<state-report-list>
Where:
<state-report-list> ::= <state-report>[<state-report-list>]
<state-report> ::= <LSP>
[<path-list>]
Where:
<path-list>::=<path>[<path-list>]
<path>::=<ERO><attribute-list>
Where:
<attribute-list> ::= [<LSPA>]
[<BANDWIDTH>]
[<RRO>]
[<metric-list>]
<metric-list> ::= <METRIC>[<metric-list>]
The LSP object (see Section 7.2) is mandatory, and it MUST be
included in each LSP State Report on the PCRpt message. If the LSP
object is missing, the receiving PCE MUST send a PCErr message with
Error-type=6 (Mandatory Object missing) and Error-value=[TBD] (LSP
object missing).
The LSP State Report MAY contain a path descriptor for the primary
path and one or more path descriptors for backup paths. A path
descriptor MUST contain an ERO object as it was specified by a PCE or
an operator. A path descriptor MUST contain the RRO object if a
primary or secondary LSP is set up along the path in the network. A
path descriptor MAY contain the LSPA, BANDWIDTH, and METRIC objects.
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The ERO,LSPA, BANDWIDTH, METRIC, and RRO objects are defined
in[RFC5440].
6.2. The PCUpd Message
A Path Computation LSP Update Request message (also referred to as
PCUpd message) is a PCEP message sent by a PCE to a PCC to update
attributes of an LSP. A PCUpd message can carry more than one LSP
Update Request. The Message-Type field of the PCEP common header for
the PCRpt message is set to [TBD].
The format of a PCUpd message is as follows:
<PCUpd Message> ::= <Common Header>
<udpate-request-list>
Where:
<update-request-list> ::= <update-request>[<update-request-list>]
<update-request> ::= <LSP>
[<path-list>]
Where:
<path-list>::=<path>[<path-list>]
<path>::=<ERO><attribute-list>
Where:
<attribute-list> ::= [<LSPA>]
[<BANDWIDTH>]
[<metric-list>]
[<IRO>]
<metric-list> ::= <METRIC>[<metric-list>]
There is one mandatory object that MUST be included within each LSP
Update Request in the PCUpd message: the LSP object (see
Section 7.2). If the LSP object is missing, the receiving PCE MUST
send a PCErr message with Error-type=6 (Mandatory Object missing) and
Error-value=[TBD] (LSP object missing).
The LSP Update Request MUST contain a path descriptor for the primary
path, and MAY contain one or more path descriptors for backup paths.
A path descriptor MUST contain an ERO object. A path descriptor MAY
further contain the BANDWIDTH, IRO, and METRIC objects. The ERO,
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LSPA, BANDWIDTH, METRIC, and IRO objects are defined in [RFC5440].
Each LSP Update Request results in a separate LSP setup operation at
a PCC. An LSP Update Request MUST contain all LSP parameters that a
PCC wishes to set for the LSP. A PCC MAY set missing parameters from
locally configured defaults. If the LSP specified the Update Request
is already up, it will be re-signaled. The PCC will use make-before-
break whenever possible in the re-signaling operation.
A PCC MUST respond with an LSP State Report to each LSP Update
Request to indicate the resulting state of the LSP in the network. A
PCC MAY respond with multiple LSP State Reports to report LSP setup
progress of a single LSP.
If the rate of PCUpd messages sent to a PCC for the same target LSP
exceeds the rate at which the PCC can signal LSPs into the network,
the PCC MAY perform state compression and only re-signal the last
modification in its queue.
Note that a PCC MUST process all LSP Update Requests - for example,
an LSP Update Request is sent when a PCE returns delegation or puts
an LSP into non-operational state. The protocol relies on TCP for
message-level flow control.
Note also that it's up to the PCE to handle inter-LSP dependencies;
for example, if ordering of LSP set-ups is required, the PCE has to
wait for an LSP State Report for a previous LSP before triggering the
LSP setup of a next LSP.
7. Object Formats
The PCEP objects defined in this document are compliant with the PCEP
object format defined in [RFC5440]. The P flag and the I flag of the
PCEP objects defined in this document MUST always be set to 0 on
transmission and MUST be ignored on receipt since these flags are
exclusively related to path computation requests.
7.1. OPEN Object
This document defines a new optional TLV for the OPEN Object to
support stateful PCE capability negotiation.
7.1.1. Stateful PCE Capability TLV
The format of the STATEFUL-PCE-CAPABILITY TLV is shown in the
following figure:
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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=[TBD] | Length=2 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Flags |S|U|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 14: STATEFUL-PCE-CAPABILITY TLV format
The type of the TLV is [TBD] and it has a fixed length of 2 octets.
The value comprises a single field - Flags (16 bits):
U (LSP-UPDATE-CAPABILITY - 1 bit): if set to 1 by a PCC, the U Flag
indicates that the PCC allows modification of LSP parameters; if
set to 1 by a PCE, the U Flag indicates that the PCE wishes to
update LSP parameters. The LSP-UPDATE-CAPABILITY Flag must be
advertised by both a PCC and a PCE for PCUpd messages to be
allowed on a PCEP session.
S (INCLUDE-DB-VERSION - 1 bit): if set to 1 by both PCEP Speakers,
the PCC will include the LSP-DB-VERSION TLV in each LSP Object.
Unassigned bits are considered reserved. They MUST be set to 0 on
transmission and MUST be ignored on receipt.
7.1.2. LSP State Database Version TLV
LSP-DB-VERSION is an optional TLV that MAY be included in the OPEN
Object when a PCEP Speaker wishes to determine if State
Synchronization can be skipped when a PCEP session is restarted. If
sent from a PCE, the TLV contains the local LSP State Database
version from the last valid LSP State Report received from a PCC. If
sent from a PCC, the TLV contains the PCC's local LSP State Database
version, which is incremented each time the LSP State Database is
updated.
The format of the LSP-DB-VERSION TLV is shown in the following
figure:
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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=[TBD] | Length=8 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| LSP State DB Version |
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 15: LSP-DB-VERSION TLV format
The type of the TLV is [TBD] and it has a fixed length of 8 octets.
The value contains a 64-bit unsigned integer.
7.2. LSP Object
The LSP object MUST be present within PCRpt and PCUpd messages. The
LSP object MAY be carried within PCReq and PCRep messages if the
stateful PCE capability has been negotiated on the session. The LSP
object contains a set of fields used to specify the target LSP, the
operation to be performed on the LSP, and LSP Delegation. It is also
contains a flag to indicate to a PCE that the initial LSP state
synchronization has been done.
LSP Object-Class is [TBD].
LSP Object-Type is 1.
The format of the LSP object body is shown in Figure 16:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Session-internal LSP-ID | Flags |R|O|S|D|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
// Optional TLVs //
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 16: The LSP Object format
The LSP object body has a variable length and may contain additional
TLVs.
Session-internal LSP-ID (20 bits): Per-PCEP session identifier for an
LSP. In each PCEP session the PCC creates a unique LSP-ID for each
LSP that will remain constant for the duration of the session. The
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mapping of the LSP Symbolic Name to LSP-ID is communicated to the PCE
by sending a PCRpt message containing the 'LSP Symbolic Name' TLV.
All subsequent PCEP messages then address the LSP by its Session-
internal LSP-ID.
Flags (12 bits):
D (Delegate - 1 bit): on a PCRpt message, the D Flag set to 1
indicates that the PCC is delegating the LSP the PCE. On a PCUpd
message, the D flag set to 1 indicates that the PCE is confirming
the LSP Delegation. To keep an LSP delegated to the PCE, the PCC
must set the D flag to 1 on each PCRpt message for the duration of
the delegation - the first PCRpt with the D flag set to 0 revokes
the delegation. To keep the delegation, the PCE must set the D
flag to 1 on each PCUpd message for the duration of the delegation
- the first PCUpd with the D flag set to 0 returns the delegation.
S (SYNC - 1 bit): the S Flag MUST be set to 1 on each LSP State
Report sent from a PCC during State Synchronization. The S Flag
MUST be set to 0 otherwise.
O (Operational - 1 bit): On PCRpt messages the O Flag indicates the
LSP status. Value of '1' means that the LSP is operational, i.e.
it is either being signaled or it is active. Value of '0' means
that the LSP is not operational, i.e it is de-routed and the PCC
is not attempting to set it up. On PCUpd messages the flag
indicates the desired status for the LSP. Value of '1' means that
the desired LSP state is operational, value of '0' means that the
target LSP should be non-operational. Setting the LSP status from
the PCE SHALL NOT override the operator: if a pce-controlled LSP
has been configured to be non-operational, setting the LSP's
status to '1' from an PCE will not make it operational.
R (Remove - 1 bit): On PCRpt messages the R Flag indicates that the
LSP has been removed from the PCC. Upon receiving an LSP State
Update with the R Flag set to 1, the PCE SHOULD remove all state
related to the LSP from its database.
Unassigned bits are considered reserved. They MUST be set to 0 on
transmission and MUST be ignored on receipt.
TLVs that are currently defined for the LSP Object are described in
the following sections.
7.2.1. The LSP Symbolic Name TLV
Each LSP MUST have a symbolic name that is unique in the PCC. The
LSP Symbolic Name MUST remain constant throughout an LSP's lifetime,
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which may span across multiple consecutive PCEP sessions and/or PCC
restarts. The LSP Symbolic Name MAY be specified by an operator in a
PCC's CLI configuration. If the operator does not specify a Symbolic
Name for an LSP, the PCC MUST auto-generate one.
The LSP-SYMBOLIC-NAME TLV MUST be included in the LSP State Report
when during a given PCEP session an LSP is first reported to a PCE.
A PCC sends to a PCE the first LSP State Report either during State
Synchronization, or when a new LSP is configured at the PCC. LSP
State Report MAY be included in subsequent LSP State Reports for the
LSP.
The format of the LSP-SYMBOLIC-NAME TLV is shown in the following
figure:
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=[TBD] | Length (variable) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
// Symbolic LSP Name //
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 17: LSP-SYMBOLIC-NAME TLV format
The type of the TLV is [TBD] and it has a variable length, which MUST
be greater than 0.
7.2.2. LSP Identifiers TLVs
Whenever the value of an LSP identifier changes, a PCC MUST send out
an LSP State Report, where the LSP Object carries the LSP Identifiers
TLV that contains the new value. The LSP Identifiers TLV MUST also
be included in the LSP object during state synchronization. There
are two LSP Identifiers TLVs, one for IPv4 and one for IPv6.
The format of the IPV4-LSP-IDENTIFIERS TLV is shown in the following
figure:
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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=[TBD] | Length=12 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| IPv4 Tunnel Sender Address |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| LSP ID | Tunnel ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Extended Tunnel ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 18: IPV4-LSP-IDENTIFIERS TLV format
The type of the TLV is [TBD] and it has a fixed length of 8 octets.
The value contains two fields:
IPv4 Tunnel Sender Address: contains the sender node's IPv4 address,
as defined in [RFC3209], Section 4.6.2.1 for the LSP_TUNNEL_IPv4
Sender Template Object.
LSP ID: contains the 16-bit 'LSP ID' identifier defined in
[RFC3209], Section 4.6.2.1 for the LSP_TUNNEL_IPv4 Sender Template
Object.
Tunnel ID: contains the 16-bit 'Tunnel ID' identifier defined in
[RFC3209], Section 4.6.1.1 for the LSP_TUNNEL_IPv4 Session Object.
Tunnel ID remains constant over the life time of a tunnel.
However, when Global Path Protection or Global Default Restoration
is used, both the primary and secondary LSPs have their own Tunnel
IDs. A PCC will report a change in Tunnel ID when traffic
switches over from primary LSP to secondary LSP (or vice versa).
Extended Tunnel ID: contains the 128-bit 'Extended Tunnel ID'
identifier defined in [RFC3209], Section 4.6.1.1 for the
LSP_TUNNEL_IPv4 Session Object.
The format of the IPV6-LSP-IDENTIFIERS TLV is shown in the following
figure:
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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=[TBD] | Length=36 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
+ +
| IPv6 tunnel sender address |
+ (16 octets) +
| |
+ +
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| LSP ID | Tunnel ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
+ +
| Extended Tunnel ID |
+ (16 octets) +
| |
+ +
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 19: IPV6-LSP-IDENTIFIERS TLV format
The type of the TLV is [TBD] and it has a fixed length of 20 octets.
The value contains two fields:
IPv6 Tunnel Sender Address: contains the sender node's IPv6 address,
as defined in [RFC3209], Section 4.6.2.2 for the LSP_TUNNEL_IPv6
Sender Template Object.
LSP ID: contains the 16-bit 'LSP ID' identifier defined in
[RFC3209], Section 4.6.2.2 for the LSP_TUNNEL_IPv6 Sender Template
Object.
Tunnel ID: contains the 16-bit 'Tunnel ID' identifier defined in
[RFC3209], Section 4.6.1.2 for the LSP_TUNNEL_IPv6 Session Object.
Tunnel ID remains constant over the life time of a tunnel.
However, when Global Path Protection or Global Default Restoration
is used, both the primary and secondary LSPs have their own Tunnel
IDs. A PCC will report a change in Tunnel ID when traffic
switches over from primary LSP to secondary LSP (or vice versa).
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Extended Tunnel ID: contains the 32-bit 'Extended Tunnel ID'
identifier defined in [RFC3209], Section 4.6.1.2 for the
LSP_TUNNEL_IPv6 Session Object.
7.2.3. LSP Update Error Code TLV
If an LSP Update Request failed, an LSP State Report MUST be sent to
all connected stateful PCEs. LSP State Report MUST contain the LSP
Update Error Code TLV, indicating the cause of the failure.
The format of the LSP-UPDATE-ERROR-CODE TLV is shown in the following
figure:
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=[TBD] | Length=4 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Error Code |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 20: LSP-UPDATE-ERROR-CODE TLV format
The type of the TLV is [TBD] and it has a fixed length of 4 octets.
The value contains the error code that indicates the cause of the LSP
setup failure. Error codes will be defined in a later revision of
this document.
7.2.4. RSVP ERROR_SPEC TLVs
If the set up of an LSP failed at a downstream node which returned an
ERROR_SPEC to the PCC, the ERROR_SPEC MUST be included in the LSP
State Report. Depending on whether RSVP signaling was performed over
IPv4 or IPv6, the LSP Object will contain an IPV4-ERROR_SPEC TLV or
an IPV6-ERROR_SPEC TLV.
The format of the IPV4-RSVP-ERROR-SPEC TLV is shown in the following
figure:
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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=[TBD] | Length=8 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
+ IPv4 ERROR_SPEC object (rfc2205) +
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 21: IPV4-RSVP-ERROR-SPEC TLV format
The type of the TLV is [TBD] and it has a fixed length of 8 octets.
The value contains the RSVP IPv4 ERROR_SPEC object defined in
[RFC2205]. Error codes allowed in the ERROR_SPEC object are defined
in [RFC2205] and [RFC3209].
The format of the IPV6-RSVP-ERROR-SPEC TLV is shown in the following
figure:
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=[TBD] | Length=20 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
// IPv6 ERROR_SPEC object (rfc2205) //
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 22: IPV6-RSVP-ERROR-SPEC TLV format
The type of the TLV is [TBD] and it has a fixed length of 20 octets.
The value contains the RSVP IPv6 ERROR_SPEC object defined in
[RFC2205]. Error codes allowed in the ERROR_SPEC object are defined
in [RFC2205] and [RFC3209].
7.2.5. LSP State Database Version TLV
The LSP-DB-VERSION TLV can be included as an optional TLV in the LSP
object. The LSP-DB-VERSION TLV is discussed in Section 5.4.1 which
covers state synchronization avoidance. The format of the TLV is
described in Section 7.1.2, where the details of its use in the OPEN
message are listed.
If State Synchronization Avoidance has been enabled on a PCEP session
(as described in Section 5.4.1) , a PCC MUST include the LSP-DB-
VERSION TLV in each LSP Object sent out on the session. If the TLV
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is missing, the PCE will generate an error with error-type 6
(mandatory object missing) and Error Value 12 (LSP-DB-VERSION TLV
missing) and close the session. If State Synchronization Avoidance
has not been enabled on a PCEP session, the PCC SHOULD NOT include
the LSP-DB-VERSION TLV in the LSP Object and the PCE SHOULD ignore it
were it to receive one.
Since a PCE does not send LSP updates to a PCC, a PCC should never
encounter this TLV. A PCC SHOULD ignore the LSP-DB-VERSION TLV, were
it to receive one from a PCE.
7.2.6. Delegation Parameters TLVs
Multiple delegation parameters, such as sub-delegation permissions,
authentication parameters, etc. need to be communicated from a PCC to
a PCE during the delegation operation. Delegation parameters will be
carried in multiple delegation parameter TLVs, which will be defined
in future revisions of this document.
8. IANA Considerations
This document requests IANA actions to allocate code points for the
protocol elements defined in this document. Values shown here are
suggested for use by IANA.
8.1. PCEP Messages
This document defines the following new PCEP messages:
Value Meaning Reference
10 Report This document
11 Update This document
8.2. PCEP Objects
This document defines the following new PCEP Object-classes and
Object-values:
Object-Class Value Name Reference
32 LSP This document
Object-Type
1
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8.3. LSP Object
This document requests that a registry is created to manage the Flags
field of the LSP object. New values are to be assigned by Standards
Action [RFC5226]. Each bit should be tracked with the following
qualities:
o Bit number (counting from bit 0 as the most significant bit)
o Capability description
o Defining RFC
The following values are defined in this document:
Bit Description Reference
28 Remove This document
29 Operational This document
30 SYNC This document
31 Delegate This document
8.4. PCEP-Error Object
This document defines new Error-Type and Error-Value for the
following new error conditions:
Error-Type Meaning
6 Mandatory Object missing
Error-value=8: LSP Object missing
Error-value=9: ERO Object missing for a path in an LSP
Update Request where TE-LSP setup is
requested
Error-value=10: BANDWIDTH Object missing for a path in
an LSP Update Request where TE-LSP
setup is requested
Error-value=11: LSPA Object missing for a path in an
LSP Update Request where TE-LSP setup
is requested
Error-value=12: LSP-DB-VERSION TLV missing
19 Invalid Operation
Error-value=1: Attempted LSP Update Request for a non-
delegated LSP. The PCEP-ERROR Object
is followed by the LSP Object that
identifies the LSP.
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Error-value=2: Attempted LSP Update Request if active
stateful PCE capability was not
negotiated active PCE.
20 LSP State synchronization error.
Error-value=1: A PCE indicates to a PCC that it can
not process (an otherwise valid) LSP
State Report. The PCEP-ERROR Object is
followed by the LSP Object that
identifies the LSP.
Error-value=2: LSP Database version mismatch.
Error-value=3: The LSP-DB-VERSION TLV Missing when
State Synchronization Avoidance
enabled.
8.5. PCEP TLV Type Indicators
This document defines the following new PCEP TLVs:
Value Meaning Reference
16 STATEFUL-PCE-CAPABILITY This document
17 LSP-SYMBOLIC-NAME This document
18 IPV4-LSP-IDENTIFIERS This document
19 IPV6-LSP-IDENTIFIERS This document
20 LSP-UPDATE-ERROR-CODE This document
21 IPV4-RSVP-ERROR-SPEC This document
22 IPV6-RSVP-ERROR-SPEC This document
23 LSP-DB-VERSION This document
8.6. STATEFUL-PCE-CAPABILITY TLV
This document requests that a registry is created to manage the Flags
field in the STATEFUL-PCE-CAPABILITY TLV in the OPEN object. New
values are to be assigned by Standards Action [RFC5226]. Each bit
should be tracked with the following qualities:
o Bit number (counting from bit 0 as the most significant bit)
o Capability description
o Defining RFC
The following values are defined in this document:
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Bit Description Reference
30 INCLUDE-DB-VERSION This document
31 LSP-UPDATE-CAPABILITY This document
8.7. LSP-UPDATE-ERROR-CODE TLV
This document requests that a registry is created to manage the Error
Codes in the LSP-UPDATE-ERROR-CODE TLV. New values are to be
assigned by Standards Action [RFC5226].
The following Error Codes are defined in this document:
Value Meaning Reference
1 LSP Setup failed outside of the node. Must This document
be followed by the RSVP-ERROR-SPEC TLV,
which indicates the failure cause.
2 LSP not operational This document
9. Manageability Considerations
All manageability requirements and considerations listed in [RFC5440]
apply to PCEP protocol extensions defined in this document. In
addition, requirements and considerations listed in this section
apply.
9.1. Control Function and Policy
In addition to configuring specific PCEP session parameters, as
specified in [RFC5440], Section 8.1, a PCE or PCC implementation MUST
allow configuring the stateful PCEP capability and the LSP Update
capability. A PCC implementation SHOULD allow the operator to
specify multiple candidate PCEs for and a delegation preference for
each candidate PCE. A PCC SHOULD allow the operator to specify an
LSP delegation policy where LSPs are delegated to the most-preferred
online PCE. A PCC MAY allow the operator to specify different LSP
delegation policies.
A PCC implementation which allows concurrent connections to multiple
PCEs SHOULD allow the operator to group the PCEs by administrative
domains and it MUST NOT advertise LSP existence and state to a PCE if
the LSP is delegated to a PCE in a different group.
A PCC implementation SHOULD allow the operator to specify whether the
PCC will advertise LSP existence and state for LSPs that are not
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controlled by any PCE (for example, LSPs that are statically
configured at the PCC).
A PCC implementation SHOULD allow the operator to specify the
Delegation Timeout Interval. The default value of the Delegation
Timeout Interval SHOULD be set to 30 seconds.
When an LSP can no longer be delegated to a PCE, after the expiration
of the Delegation Timeout Interval, the LSP MAY either: 1) retain its
current parameters or 2) revert to operator-defined default LSP
parameters. This behavior SHOULD be configurable and in the case
when (2) is supported, a PCC implementation MUST allow the operator
to specify the default LSP parameters.
A PCC implementation SHOULD allow the operator to specify delegation
priority for PCEs. This effectively defines the primary PCE and one
or more backup PCEs to which primary PCE's LSPs can be delegated when
the primary PCE fails.
Policies defined for stateful PCEs and PCCs should eventually fit in
the Policy-Enabled Path Computation Framework defined in [RFC5394],
and the framework should be extended to support Stateful PCEs.
9.2. Information and Data Models
PCEP session configuration and information in the PCEP MIB module
SHOULD be extended to include negotiated stateful capabilities,
synchronization status, and delegation status (at the PCC list PCEs
with delegated LSPs).
9.3. Liveness Detection and Monitoring
PCEP protocol extensions defined in this document do not require any
new mechanisms beyond those already defined in [RFC5440], Section
8.3.
9.4. Verifying Correct Operation
Mechanisms defined in [RFC5440], Section 8.4 also apply to PCEP
protocol extensions defined in this document. In addition to
monitoring parameters defined in [RFC5440], a stateful PCC-side PCEP
implementation SHOULD provide the following parameters:
o Total number of LSP updates
o Number of successful LSP updates
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o Number of dropped LSP updates
o Number of LSP updates where LSP setup failed
A PCC implementation SHOULD provide a command to show to which PCEs
LSPs are delegated.
A PCC implementation SHOULD allow the operator to manually revoke LSP
delegation.
9.5. Requirements on Other Protocols and Functional Components
PCEP protocol extensions defined in this document do not put new
requirements on other protocols.
9.6. Impact on Network Operation
Mechanisms defined in [RFC5440], Section 8.6 also apply to PCEP
protocol extensions defined in this document.
Additionally, a PCEP implementation SHOULD allow a limit to be placed
on the rate PCUpd and PCRpt messages sent by a PCEP speaker and
processed from a peer. It SHOULD also allow sending a notification
when a rate threshold is reached.
A PCC implementation SHOULD allow a limit to be placed on the rate of
LSP Updates to the same LSP to avoid signaling overload discussed in
Section 10.3.
10. Security Considerations
10.1. Vulnerability
This document defines extensions to PCEP to enable stateful PCEs.
The nature of these extensions and the delegation of path control to
PCEs results in more information being available for a hypothetical
adversary and a number of additional attack surfaces which must be
protected.
The security provisions described in [RFC5440] remain applicable to
these extensions. However, because the protocol modifications
outlined in this document allow the PCE to control path computation
timing and sequence, the PCE defense mechanisms described in
[RFC5440] section 7.2 are also now applicable to PCC security.
As a general precaution, it is RECOMMENDED that these PCEP extensions
only be activated on authenticated and encrypted sessions across PCEs
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and PCCs belonging to the same administrative authority.
The following sections identify specific security concerns that may
result from the PCEP extensions outlined in this document along with
recommended mechanisms to protect PCEP infrastructure against related
attacks.
10.2. LSP State Snooping
The stateful nature of this extension explicitly requires LSP status
updates to be sent from PCC to PCE. While this gives the PCE the
ability to provide more optimal computations to the PCC, it also
provides an adversary with the opportunity to eavesdrop on decisions
made by network systems external to PCE. This is especially true if
the PCC delegates LSPs to multiple PCEs simultaneously.
Adversaries may gain access to this information by eavesdropping on
unsecured PCEP sessions, and might then use this information in
various ways to target or optimize attacks on network infrastructure.
For example by flexibly countering anti-DDoS measures being taken to
protect the network, or by determining choke points in the network
where the greatest harm might be caused.
PCC implementations which allow concurrent connections to multiple
PCEs SHOULD allow the operator to group the PCEs by administrative
domains and they MUST NOT advertise LSP existence and state to a PCE
if the LSP is delegated to a PCE in a different group.
10.3. Malicious PCE
The LSP delegation mechanism described in this document allows a PCC
to grant effective control of an LSP to the PCE for the duration of a
PCEP session. While this enables PCE control of the timing and
sequence of path computations within and across PCEP sessions, it
also introduces a new attack vector: an attacker may flood the PCC
with PCUpd messages at a rate which exceeds either the PCC's ability
to process them or the network's ability to signal the changes,
either by spoofing messages or by compromising the PCE itself.
A PCC is free to revoke an LSP delegation at any time without needing
any justification. A defending PCC can do this by enqueueing the
appropriate PCRpt message. As soon as that message is enqueued in
the session, the PCC is free to drop any incoming PCUpd messages
without additional processing.
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10.4. Malicious PCC
A stateful session also result in increased attack surface by placing
a requirement for the PCE to keep an LSP state replica for each PCC.
It is RECOMMENDED that PCE implementations provide a limit on
resources a single PCC can occupy.
Delegation of LSPs can create further strain on PCE resources and a
PCE implementation MAY preemptively give back delegations if it finds
itself lacking the resources needed to effectively manage the
delegation. Since the delegation state is ultimately controlled by
the PCC, PCE implementations SHOULD provide throttling mechanisms to
prevent strain created by flaps of either a PCEP session or an LSP
delegation.
11. Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Adrian Farrel and Cyril Margaria for their
contributions to this document.
We would like to thank Shane Amante, Julien Meuric, Kohei Shiomoto,
Paul Schultz and Raveendra Torvi for their comments and suggestions.
Thanks also to Dhruv Dhoddy, Oscar Gonzales de Dios, Tomas Janciga,
Stefan Kobza and Kexin Tang for helpful discussions.
12. References
12.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2205] Braden, B., Zhang, L., Berson, S., Herzog, S., and S.
Jamin, "Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP) -- Version 1
Functional Specification", RFC 2205, September 1997.
[RFC3209] Awduche, D., Berger, L., Gan, D., Li, T., Srinivasan, V.,
and G. Swallow, "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP
Tunnels", RFC 3209, December 2001.
[RFC4090] Pan, P., Swallow, G., and A. Atlas, "Fast Reroute
Extensions to RSVP-TE for LSP Tunnels", RFC 4090,
May 2005.
[RFC5088] Le Roux, JL., Vasseur, JP., Ikejiri, Y., and R. Zhang,
"OSPF Protocol Extensions for Path Computation Element
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(PCE) Discovery", RFC 5088, January 2008.
[RFC5089] Le Roux, JL., Vasseur, JP., Ikejiri, Y., and R. Zhang,
"IS-IS Protocol Extensions for Path Computation Element
(PCE) Discovery", RFC 5089, January 2008.
[RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
May 2008.
[RFC5440] Vasseur, JP. and JL. Le Roux, "Path Computation Element
(PCE) Communication Protocol (PCEP)", RFC 5440,
March 2009.
[RFC5511] Farrel, A., "Routing Backus-Naur Form (RBNF): A Syntax
Used to Form Encoding Rules in Various Routing Protocol
Specifications", RFC 5511, April 2009.
12.2. Informative References
[MPLS-PC] Chaieb, I., Le Roux, JL., and B. Cousin, "Improved MPLS-TE
LSP Path Computation using Preemption", Global
Information Infrastructure Symposium, July 2007.
[MXMN-TE] Danna, E., Mandal, S., and A. Singh, "Practical linear
programming algorithm for balancing the max-min fairness
and throughput objectives in traffic engineering", pre-
print, 2011.
[NET-REC] Vasseur, JP., Pickavet, M., and P. Demeester, "Network
Recovery: Protection and Restoration of Optical, SONET-
SDH, IP, and MPLS", The Morgan Kaufmann Series in
Networking, June 2004.
[RFC2702] Awduche, D., Malcolm, J., Agogbua, J., O'Dell, M., and J.
McManus, "Requirements for Traffic Engineering Over MPLS",
RFC 2702, September 1999.
[RFC3031] Rosen, E., Viswanathan, A., and R. Callon, "Multiprotocol
Label Switching Architecture", RFC 3031, January 2001.
[RFC3346] Boyle, J., Gill, V., Hannan, A., Cooper, D., Awduche, D.,
Christian, B., and W. Lai, "Applicability Statement for
Traffic Engineering with MPLS", RFC 3346, August 2002.
[RFC3630] Katz, D., Kompella, K., and D. Yeung, "Traffic Engineering
(TE) Extensions to OSPF Version 2", RFC 3630,
September 2003.
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[RFC4655] Farrel, A., Vasseur, J., and J. Ash, "A Path Computation
Element (PCE)-Based Architecture", RFC 4655, August 2006.
[RFC4657] Ash, J. and J. Le Roux, "Path Computation Element (PCE)
Communication Protocol Generic Requirements", RFC 4657,
September 2006.
[RFC5305] Li, T. and H. Smit, "IS-IS Extensions for Traffic
Engineering", RFC 5305, October 2008.
[RFC5394] Bryskin, I., Papadimitriou, D., Berger, L., and J. Ash,
"Policy-Enabled Path Computation Framework", RFC 5394,
December 2008.
[RFC5557] Lee, Y., Le Roux, JL., King, D., and E. Oki, "Path
Computation Element Communication Protocol (PCEP)
Requirements and Protocol Extensions in Support of Global
Concurrent Optimization", RFC 5557, July 2009.
Authors' Addresses
Edward Crabbe
Google, Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
US
Email: edc@google.com
Jan Medved
Cisco Systems, Inc.
170 West Tasman Dr.
San Jose, CA 95134
US
Email: jmedved@cisco.com
Robert Varga
Pantheon Technologies LLC
Mlynske Nivy 56
Bratislava 821 05
Slovakia
Email: robert.varga@pantheon.sk
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Ina Minei
Juniper Networks, Inc.
1194 N. Mathilda Ave.
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
US
Email: ina@juniper.net
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