| RFC : | rfc9600 |
| Title: | DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) |
| Date: | August 2024 |
| Status: | PROPOSED STANDARD |
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) D. Eastlake 3rd
Request for Comments: 9600 B. Briscoe
Category: Standards Track Independent
ISSN: 2070-1721 August 2024
TRansparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL): Explicit
Congestion Notification (ECN) Support
Abstract
Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) allows a forwarding element to
notify downstream devices, including the destination, of the onset of
congestion without having to drop packets. This can improve network
efficiency through better congestion control without packet drops.
This document extends ECN to TRansparent Interconnection of Lots of
Links (TRILL) switches, including integration with IP ECN, and
provides for ECN marking in the TRILL header extension flags word
(RFC 7179).
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9600.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2024 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
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
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include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the
Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described
in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. Conventions Used in This Document
2. The ECN-Specific Extended Header Flags
3. ECN Support
3.1. Ingress ECN Support
3.2. Transit ECN Support
3.3. Egress ECN Support
3.3.1. Non-ECN Egress RBridges
3.3.2. ECN Egress RBridges
4. TRILL Support for ECN Variants
4.1. Pre-Congestion Notification (PCN)
4.2. Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable Throughput (L4S)
5. IANA Considerations
6. Security Considerations
7. References
7.1. Normative References
7.2. Informative References
Appendix A. TRILL Transit RBridge Behavior to Support L4S
Acknowledgements
Authors' Addresses
1. Introduction
Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) [RFC3168] [RFC8311] allows a
forwarding element (such as a router) to notify downstream devices,
including the destination, of the onset of congestion without having
to drop packets. This can improve network efficiency through better
congestion control without packet drops. The forwarding element can
explicitly mark a proportion of packets in an ECN field instead of
dropping packets. For example, a 2-bit field is available for ECN
marking in IP headers.
.............................
. .
+---------+ .
+------+ | Ingress | .
|Source| +->| RBridge | . +----------+
+---+--+ | | RB1 | . |Forwarding|
| | +------+--+ +----------+ . | Element |
v | . | | Transit | . | Y |
+-------+--+ . +---->| RBridges | . +--------+-+
|Forwarding| . | RBn | . ^ |
| Element | . +-------+--+ +---------+ | v
| X | . | | Egress | | +-----------+
+----------+ . +---->| RBridge +-+ |Destination|
. | RB9 | +-----------+
. TRILL +---------+
. campus .
.............................
Figure 1: Example Path-Forwarding Nodes
In [RFC3168], it was recognized that tunnels and lower-layer
protocols would need to support ECN, and ECN markings would need to
be propagated, as headers were encapsulated and decapsulated.
[RFC9599] gives guidelines on the addition of ECN to protocols like
TRILL that often encapsulate IP packets, including propagation of ECN
from and to IP.
In Figure 1, assuming IP traffic, RB1 is an encapsulator and RB9 is a
decapsulator. Traffic from Source to RB1 might or might not get
marked as having experienced congestion in forwarding elements, such
as X, before being encapsulated at ingress RB1. Any such ECN marking
is encapsulated with a TRILL header [RFC6325].
This document specifies how ECN marking in traffic at the ingress is
copied into the TRILL extension header flags word and requires such
copying for IP traffic. It also enables congestion marking by a
congested RBridge (such as RBn or RB1 above) in the TRILL header
extension flags word [RFC7179].
At RB9, the TRILL egress, it specifies how any ECN markings in the
TRILL header flags word and in the encapsulated traffic are combined
so that subsequent forwarding elements, such as Y and the
Destination, can see if congestion was experienced at any previous
point in the path from the Source.
A large part of the guidelines for adding ECN to lower-layer
protocols [RFC9599] concerns safe propagation of congestion
notifications in scenarios where some of the nodes do not support or
understand ECN. Such ECN ignorance is not a major problem with
RBridges using this specification, because the method specified
assures that, if an egress RBridge is ECN ignorant (so it cannot
further propagate ECN) and congestion has been encountered, the
egress RBridge will at least drop the packet, and this drop will
itself indicate congestion to end stations.
1.1. Conventions Used in This Document
The terminology and acronyms defined in [RFC6325] are used herein
with the same meaning.
In this documents, "IP" refers to both IPv4 and IPv6.
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.
Abbreviations:
AQM: Active Queue Management
CCE: Critical Congestion Experienced
CE: Congestion Experienced
CItE: Critical Ingress-to-Egress
ECN: Explicit Congestion Notification
ECT: ECN-Capable Transport
L4S: Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable throughput
NCHbH: Non-Critical Hop-by-Hop
NCCE: Non-Critical Congestion Experienced
Not-ECT: Not ECN-Capable Transport
PCN: Pre-Congestion Notification
2. The ECN-Specific Extended Header Flags
The extension header fields for ECN in TRILL are defined as a 2-bit
TRILL-ECN field and a one-bit CCE field in the 32-bit TRILL header
extension flags word [RFC7780].
These fields are shown in Figure 2 as "ECN" and "CCE". The TRILL-ECN
field consists of bits 12 and 13, which are in the range reserved for
NCHbH bits. The CCE field consists of bit 26, which is in the range
reserved for CItE bits. The CRItE bit is the critical Ingress-to-
Egress summary bit and will be one if, and only if, any of the bits
in the CItE range (21-26) are one or there is a critical feature
invoked in some further extension of the TRILL header after the
extension flags word. The other bits and fields shown in Figure 2
are not relevant to ECN. See [RFC7780], [RFC7179], and [IANAthFlags]
for the meaning of these other bits and fields.
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|Crit.| CHbH | NCHbH |CRSV | NCRSV | CItE | NCItE |
|.....|.........|...........|.....|.......|...........|.........|
|C|C|C| |C|N| | | | | | | | |
|R|R|R| |R|C| |ECN| Ext | | |C|Ext| |
|H|I|R| |C|C| | | Hop | | |C|Clr| |
|b|t|s| |A|A| | | Cnt | | |E| | |
|H|E|v| |F|F| | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 2: The TRILL-ECN and CCE TRILL Header Extension Flags Word
Fields
Table 1 shows the meaning of the codepoints in the TRILL-ECN field.
The first three have the same meaning as the corresponding ECN field
codepoints in the IP header, as defined in [RFC3168]. However,
codepoint 0b11 is called NCEE to distinguish it from CE in IP.
+========+=========+=====================================+
| Binary | Name | Meaning |
+========+=========+=====================================+
| 00 | Not-ECT | Not ECN-Capable Transport |
+--------+---------+-------------------------------------+
| 01 | ECT(1) | ECN-Capable Transport (1) |
+--------+---------+-------------------------------------+
| 10 | ECT(0) | ECN-Capable Transport (0) |
+--------+---------+-------------------------------------+
| 11 | NCCE | Non-Critical Congestion Experienced |
+--------+---------+-------------------------------------+
Table 1: TRILL-ECN Field Codepoints
3. ECN Support
This section specifies interworking between TRILL and the original
standardized form of ECN in IP [RFC3168].
The subsections below describe the required behavior to support ECN
at TRILL ingress, transit, and egress. The ingress behavior occurs
as a native frame is encapsulated with a TRILL header to produce a
TRILL Data packet. The transit behavior occurs in all RBridges where
TRILL Data packets are queued, usually at the output port (including
the output port of the TRILL ingress). The egress behavior occurs
where a TRILL Data packet is decapsulated and output as a native
frame through an RBridge port.
An RBridge that supports ECN MUST behave as described in the relevant
subsections below, which correspond to the recommended provisions in
Section 3 of this document and Sections 4.2 through 4.4 of [RFC9599].
Nonetheless, the scheme is designed to safely propagate some form of
congestion notification even if some RBridges in the path followed by
a TRILL Data packet support ECN and others do not.
3.1. Ingress ECN Support
The behavior at an ingress RBridge is as follows:
* When encapsulating an IP frame, the ingress RBridge MUST:
- set the F flag in the main TRILL header [RFC7780];
- create a flags word as part of the TRILL header;
- copy the two ECN bits from the IP header into the TRILL-ECN
field (flags word bits 12 and 13); and
- ensure the CCE flag is set to zero (flags word bit 26).
* When encapsulating a frame for a non-IP protocol (where that
protocol has a means of indicating that ECN is understood by the
ingress RBridge), the ingress RBridge MUST follow the guidelines
in Section 4.3 of [RFC9599] to add a flags word to the TRILL
header. For a non-IP protocol with an ECN field similar to IP,
this would be achieved by copying into the TRILL-ECN field from
the encapsulated native frame.
3.2. Transit ECN Support
The transit behavior, shown below, is required at all RBridges where
TRILL Data packets are queued, usually at the output port.
* An RBridge that supports ECN MUST implement some form of AQM
according to the guidelines of [RFC7567]. The RBridge detects
congestion either by monitoring its own queue depth or by
participating in a link-specific protocol.
* If the TRILL header flags word is present, whenever the AQM
algorithm decides to indicate critical congestion on a TRILL Data
packet, it MUST set the CCE flag (flags word bit 26). Note that
Classic ECN marking [RFC3168] only uses critical congestion
indications, but the two variants in Section 4.1 use a combination
of critical and non-critical congestion indications.
* If the TRILL header flags word is not present, the RBridge will
either drop the packet or it MAY do all of the following instead
to indicate congestion:
- set the F flag in the main TRILL header;
- add a flags word to the TRILL header;
- set the TRILL-ECN field to Not-ECT (00); and
- set the CCE flag and the critical Ingress-to-Egress summary bit
(CRItE).
Note that a transit RBridge that supports ECN does not refer to the
TRILL-ECN field before signaling CCE in a packet. It signals CCE
irrespective of whether the packet indicates that the transport is
ECN capable. The egress/decapsulation behavior ensures that a CCE
indication is converted to a drop if the transport is not ECN
capable.
3.3. Egress ECN Support
3.3.1. Non-ECN Egress RBridges
If the egress RBridge does not support ECN, that RBridge will ignore
bits 12 and 13 of any flags word that is present because it does not
contain any special ECN logic. Nonetheless, if a transit RBridge has
set the CCE flag, the egress will drop the packet. This is because
drop is the default behavior for an RBridge decapsulating a CItE flag
when it has no specific logic to understand it. Drop is the intended
behavior for such a packet, as required by Section 4.4 of [RFC9599].
3.3.2. ECN Egress RBridges
If an RBridge supports ECN, for the two cases of an IP and a non-IP
inner packet, the egress behavior is as follows:
Decapsulating an inner IP packet: The RBridge sets the ECN field of
the outgoing native IP packet using Table 3. It MUST set the ECN
field of the outgoing IP packet to the codepoint at the
intersection of the row for the arriving encapsulated IP packet
and the column for 3-bit ECN codepoint in the arriving outer TRILL
Data packet TRILL header. If no TRILL header extension flags word
is present, the 3-bit ECN codepoint is assumed to be all zero
bits.
The name of the TRILL 3-bit ECN codepoint used in Table 3 is
defined using the combination of the TRILL-ECN and CCE fields in
Table 2. Specifically, the TRILL 3-bit ECN codepoint is called CE
if either NCCE or CCE is set in the TRILL header extension flags
word. Otherwise, it has the same name as the 2-bit TRILL-ECN
codepoint.
In the case where the TRILL 3-bit ECN codepoint indicates CE but
the encapsulated native IP frame indicates a Not-ECT, it can be
seen that the RBridge MUST drop the packet. Such packet dropping
is necessary because a transport above the IP layer that is not
ECN capable will have no ECN logic, so it will only understand
dropped packets as an indication of congestion.
Decapsulating a non-IP protocol frame: If the frame has a means of
indicating ECN that is understood by the RBridge, it MUST follow
the guidelines in Section 4.4 of [RFC9599] when setting the ECN
information in the decapsulated native frame. For a non-IP
protocol with an ECN field similar to IP, this would be achieved
by combining the information in the TRILL header flags word with
the encapsulated non-IP native frame, as specified in Table 3.
+================+=====+=========================================+
| TRILL-ECN | CCE | Arriving TRILL 3-Bit ECN Codepoint Name |
+=========+======+ | |
| Name | Bits | | |
+=========+======+=====+=========================================+
| Not-ECT | 00 | 0 | Not-ECT |
+---------+------+-----+-----------------------------------------+
| ECT(1) | 01 | 0 | ECT(1) |
+---------+------+-----+-----------------------------------------+
| ECT(0) | 10 | 0 | ECT(0) |
+---------+------+-----+-----------------------------------------+
| NCCE | 11 | 0 | CE |
+---------+------+-----+-----------------------------------------+
| Not-ECT | 00 | 1 | CE |
+---------+------+-----+-----------------------------------------+
| ECT(1) | 01 | 1 | CE |
+---------+------+-----+-----------------------------------------+
| ECT(0) | 10 | 1 | CE |
+---------+------+-----+-----------------------------------------+
| NCCE | 11 | 1 | CE |
+---------+------+-----+-----------------------------------------+
Table 2: Mapping of TRILL-ECN and CCE Fields to the TRILL
3-Bit ECN Codepoint Name
+=====================+============================================+
| Inner Native Header | Arriving TRILL 3-Bit ECN Codepoint Name |
| +=========+============+============+========+
| | Not-ECT | ECT(0) | ECT(1) | CE |
+=====================+=========+============+============+========+
| Not-ECT | Not-ECT | Not-ECT(*) | Not-ECT(*) | <drop> |
+---------------------+---------+------------+------------+--------+
| ECT(0) | ECT(0) | ECT(0) | ECT(1) | CE |
+---------------------+---------+------------+------------+--------+
| ECT(1) | ECT(1) | ECT(1)(*) | ECT(1) | CE |
+---------------------+---------+------------+------------+--------+
| CE | CE | CE | CE(*) | CE |
+---------------------+---------+------------+------------+--------+
Table 3: Egress ECN Behavior
An asterisk in Table 3 indicates a combination that is currently
unused in all variants of ECN marking (see Section 4) and therefore
SHOULD be logged.
With one exception, the mappings in Table 3 are consistent with those
for IP-in-IP tunnels [RFC6040], which ensures backward compatibility
with all current and past variants of ECN marking (see Section 4).
It also ensures forward compatibility with any future form of ECN
marking that complies with the guidelines in [RFC9599], including
cases where ECT(1) represents a second level of marking severity
below CE.
The one exception is that the drop condition in Table 3 need not be
logged because, with TRILL, it is the result of a valid combination
of events.
4. TRILL Support for ECN Variants
This section is informative, not normative; it discusses interworking
between TRILL and variants of the standardized form of ECN in IP
[RFC3168]. See also [RFC8311].
The ECN wire protocol for TRILL (Section 2) and the ingress
(Section 3.1) and egress (Section 3.3) ECN behaviors have been
designed to support the other known variants of ECN as detailed
below. New variants of ECN will have to comply with the guidelines
for defining alternative ECN semantics [RFC4774]. It is expected
that the TRILL ECN wire protocol is generic enough to support such
potential future variants.
4.1. Pre-Congestion Notification (PCN)
The PCN wire protocol [RFC6660] is recognized by the use of a PCN-
compatible Diffserv codepoint in the IP header and a nonzero IP-ECN
field. For TRILL or any lower-layer protocol, equivalent traffic-
classification codepoints would have to be defined, but that is
outside the scope of this document.
The PCN wire protocol is similar to ECN, except it indicates
congestion with two levels of severity. It uses:
* 11 (CE) as the most severe, termed the Excess-Traffic-Marked (ETM)
codepoint
* 01 ECT(1) as a lesser severity level, termed the Threshold-Marked
(ThM) codepoint. This difference between ECT(1) and ECT(0) only
applies to PCN, not to the classic ECN support specified for TRILL
in this document before Section 4.
To implement PCN on a transit RBridge would require a detailed
specification. In brief:
* the TRILL CCE flag would be used for the Excess-Traffic-Marked
(ETM) codepoint;
* ECT(1) in the TRILL-ECN field would be used for the Threshold-
Marked codepoint.
Then, the ingress and egress behaviors defined in Section 3 would not
need to be altered to ensure support for PCN as well as ECN.
4.2. Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable Throughput (L4S)
L4S is currently on the IETF's experimental track. An outline of how
a transit TRILL RBridge would support L4S [RFC9331] is given in
Appendix A.
5. IANA Considerations
IANA has updated the "TRILL Extended Header Flags" registry by
replacing the lines for bits 9-13 and 21-26 with the following:
+=======+==============================================+===========+
| Bits | Purpose | Reference |
+=======+==============================================+===========+
| 9-11 | available non-critical hop-by-hop flags | [RFC7179] |
+-------+----------------------------------------------+-----------+
| 12-13 | TRILL-ECN (Explicit Congestion Notification) | RFC 9600 |
+-------+----------------------------------------------+-----------+
| 21-25 | available critical ingress-to-egress flags | [RFC7179] |
+-------+----------------------------------------------+-----------+
| 26 | Critical Congestion Experienced (CCE) | RFC 9600 |
+-------+----------------------------------------------+-----------+
Table 4: Updated "TRILL Extended Header Flags" Registry
6. Security Considerations
TRILL support of ECN is a straightforward combination of previously
specified ECN and TRILL with no significant new security
considerations.
For general security considerations regarding adding ECN to lower
layer protocols, see [RFC9599] and [RFC6040].
For general TRILL protocol security considerations, see [RFC6325].
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC3168] Ramakrishnan, K., Floyd, S., and D. Black, "The Addition
of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP",
RFC 3168, DOI 10.17487/RFC3168, September 2001,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3168>.
[RFC4774] Floyd, S., "Specifying Alternate Semantics for the
Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) Field", BCP 124,
RFC 4774, DOI 10.17487/RFC4774, November 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4774>.
[RFC6325] Perlman, R., Eastlake 3rd, D., Dutt, D., Gai, S., and A.
Ghanwani, "Routing Bridges (RBridges): Base Protocol
Specification", RFC 6325, DOI 10.17487/RFC6325, July 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6325>.
[RFC7179] Eastlake 3rd, D., Ghanwani, A., Manral, V., Li, Y., and C.
Bestler, "Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links
(TRILL): Header Extension", RFC 7179,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7179, May 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7179>.
[RFC7567] Baker, F., Ed. and G. Fairhurst, Ed., "IETF
Recommendations Regarding Active Queue Management",
BCP 197, RFC 7567, DOI 10.17487/RFC7567, July 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7567>.
[RFC7780] Eastlake 3rd, D., Zhang, M., Perlman, R., Banerjee, A.,
Ghanwani, A., and S. Gupta, "Transparent Interconnection
of Lots of Links (TRILL): Clarifications, Corrections, and
Updates", RFC 7780, DOI 10.17487/RFC7780, February 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7780>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
[RFC8311] Black, D., "Relaxing Restrictions on Explicit Congestion
Notification (ECN) Experimentation", RFC 8311,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8311, January 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8311>.
[RFC9599] Briscoe, B. and J. Kaippallimalil, "Guidelines for Adding
Congestion Notification to Protocols that Encapsulate IP",
RFC 9599, DOI 10.17487/RFC9599, August 2024,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9599>.
7.2. Informative References
[IANAthFlags]
IANA, "TRILL Extended Header Flags",
<http://www.iana.org/assignments/trill-parameters/>.
[RFC6040] Briscoe, B., "Tunnelling of Explicit Congestion
Notification", RFC 6040, DOI 10.17487/RFC6040, November
2010, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6040>.
[RFC6660] Briscoe, B., Moncaster, T., and M. Menth, "Encoding Three
Pre-Congestion Notification (PCN) States in the IP Header
Using a Single Diffserv Codepoint (DSCP)", RFC 6660,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6660, July 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6660>.
[RFC9331] De Schepper, K. and B. Briscoe, Ed., "The Explicit
Congestion Notification (ECN) Protocol for Low Latency,
Low Loss, and Scalable Throughput (L4S)", RFC 9331,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9331, January 2023,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9331>.
Appendix A. TRILL Transit RBridge Behavior to Support L4S
The specification of the Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable
throughput (L4S) wire protocol for IP is given in [RFC9331]. L4S is
one example of the ways TRILL ECN handling may evolve [RFC8311]. It
is similar to the original ECN wire protocol for IP [RFC3168],
except:
* An AQM that supports L4S classifies packets with ECT(1) or CE in
the IP header into an L4S queue and a "Classic" queue otherwise.
* The meaning of CE markings applied by an L4S queue is not the same
as the meaning of a drop by a "Classic" queue (contrary to the
original requirement for ECN [RFC3168]). Instead, the likelihood
that the Classic queue drops packets is defined as the square of
the likelihood that the L4S queue marks packets -- e.g., when
there is a drop probability of 0.0009 (0.09%), the L4S marking
probability will be 0.03 (3%).
This seems to present a problem for the way that a transit TRILL
RBridge defers the choice between marking and dropping to the egress.
Nonetheless, the following pseudocode outlines how a transit TRILL
RBridge can implement L4S marking in such a way that the egress
behavior already described in Section 3.3 for Classic ECN [RFC3168]
will produce the desired outcome.
/* p is an internal variable calculated by any L4S AQM
* dependent on the delay being experienced in the Classic queue.
* bit13 is the least significant bit of the TRILL-ECN field
*/
% On TRILL transit
if (bit13 == 0 ) {
% Classic Queue
if (p > max(random(), random()) )
mark(CCE) % likelihood: p^2
} else {
% L4S Queue
if (p > random() ) {
if (p > random() )
mark(CCE) % likelihood: p^2
else
mark(NCCE) % likelihood: p - p^2
}
}
With the above transit behavior, an egress that supports ECN
(Section 3.3) will drop packets or propagate their ECN markings
depending on whether the arriving inner header is from an ECN-capable
or not ECN-capable transport.
Even if an egress has no L4S-specific logic of its own, it will drop
packets with the square of the probability that an egress would if it
did support ECN, for the following reasons:
* Egress with ECN support:
- L4S: Propagates both the Critical and Non-Critical CE marks
(CCE and NCCE) as a CE mark.
Likelihood: p^2 + p - p^2 = p
- Classic: Propagates CCE marks as CE or drop, depending on the
inner header.
Likelihood: p^2
* Egress without ECN support:
- L4S: Does not propagate NCCE as a CE mark, but drops CCE marks.
Likelihood: p^2
- Classic: Drops CCE marks.
Likelihood: p^2
Acknowledgements
The helpful comments of Loa Andersson and Adam Roach are hereby
acknowledged.
Authors' Addresses
Donald E. Eastlake, 3rd
Independent
2386 Panoramic Circle
Apopka, FL 32703
United States of America
Phone: +1-508-333-2270
Email: d3e3e3@gmail.com
Bob Briscoe
Independent
United Kingdom
Email: ietf@bobbriscoe.net
URI: http://bobbriscoe.net/
ERRATA