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/rfc8669.¶

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2019 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 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.¶

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

The Segment Routing (SR) architecture leverages the source-routing paradigm. A segment represents either a topological instruction, such as "go to prefix P following shortest path", or a service instruction. Other types of segments may be defined in the future.¶

A segment is identified through a Segment Identifier (SID). An "SR domain" is defined as a single administrative domain for global SID assignment. It may be comprised of a single Autonomous System (AS) or multiple ASes under consolidated global SID administration. Typically, the ingress node of the SR domain prepends an SR header containing SIDs to an incoming packet.¶

As described in [RFC8402], when SR is applied to the MPLS data plane ([RFC8660]), the SID consists of a label.¶

[RFC8402] also describes how Segment Routing can be applied to an IPv6 data plane (SRv6) using an IPv6 routing header containing a stack of SR SIDs encoded as IPv6 addresses [IPv6-SRH]. The applicability and support for Segment Routing over IPv6 is beyond the scope of this document.¶

A BGP Prefix Segment is a BGP prefix with a Prefix-SID attached. A BGP Prefix-SID is always a global SID ([RFC8402]) within the SR domain and identifies an instruction to forward the packet over the Equal-Cost Multipath (ECMP) best path computed by BGP to the related prefix. The BGP Prefix-SID is the identifier of the BGP Prefix Segment. In this document, we always refer to the BGP Prefix Segment by the BGP Prefix-SID.¶

This document describes the BGP extensions to signal the BGP Prefix-SID. Specifically, this document defines a BGP attribute known as the "BGP Prefix-SID attribute" and specifies the rules to originate, receive, and handle error conditions for the attribute.¶

The BGP Prefix-SID attribute defined in this document can be attached to prefixes from Multiprotocol BGP IPv4/IPv6 Labeled Unicast ([RFC4760] [RFC8277]). Usage of the BGP Prefix-SID attribute for other Address Family Identifier (AFI) / Subsequent Address Family Identifier (SAFI) combinations is not defined herein but may be specified in future specifications.¶

[RFC8670] describes example use cases where the BGP Prefix-SID is used for the above AFI/SAFI combinations.¶

It should be noted that:¶

• A BGP Prefix-SID will be global across ASes when the interconnected ASes are part of the same SR domain. Alternatively, when interconnecting ASes, the ASBRs of each domain will have to handle the advertisement of unique SIDs. The mechanisms for such interconnection are outside the scope of the protocol extensions defined in this document.¶
• A BGP Prefix-SID MAY be attached to a BGP prefix. This implies that each prefix is advertised individually, reducing the ability to pack BGP advertisements (when sharing common attributes).¶

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶

2. MPLS BGP Prefix-SID

The BGP Prefix-SID is realized on the MPLS data plane ([RFC8660]) in the following way:¶

• The operator assigns a globally unique label index, L_I, to a locally originated prefix of a BGP speaker N, which is advertised to all other BGP speakers in the SR domain.¶
• According to [RFC8402], each BGP speaker is configured with a label block called the Segment Routing Global Block (SRGB). While [RFC8402] recommends using the same SRGB across all the nodes within the SR domain, the SRGB of a node is a local property and could be different on different speakers. The drawbacks of the use case where BGP speakers have different SRGBs are documented in [RFC8402] and [RFC8670].¶
• If traffic engineering within the SR domain is required, each node may also be required to advertise topological information and Peer SIDs for each of its links and peers. This information is required to perform the explicit path computation and to express an explicit path as a list of SIDs. The advertisement of topological information and peer segments (Peer SIDs) is done through [BGPLS-SR-EPE].¶
• If a prefix segment is to be included in an MPLS label stack, e.g., for traffic-engineering purposes, knowledge of the prefix originator's SRGB is required in order to compute the local label used by the originator.¶
• This document assumes that Border Gateway Protocol - Link State (BGP-LS) is the preferred method for a collecting both peer segments (Peer SIDs) and SRGB information through [RFC7752], [BGPLS-SR-EPE], and [BGPLS-SR-EXT]. However, as an optional alternative for the advertisement of the local SRGB without the topology or the peer SIDs and, therefore, without applicability for TE, the Originator SRGB TLV of the BGP Prefix-SID attribute is specified in Section 3.2 of this document.¶
• A BGP speaker will derive its local MPLS label L from the label index L_I and its local SRGB as described in [RFC8660]. The BGP speaker then programs the MPLS label L in its MPLS data plane as its incoming/local label for the prefix. See Section 4.1 for more details.¶
• The outgoing label for the prefix is found in the Network Layer Reachability Information (NLRI) of the Multiprotocol BGP IPv4/IPv6 Labeled Unicast prefix advertisement as defined in [RFC8277]. The label index L_I is only used as a hint to derive the local/incoming label.¶
• Section 3.1 of this document specifies the Label-Index TLV of the BGP Prefix-SID attribute; this TLV can be used to advertise the label index for a given prefix.¶

3. BGP Prefix-SID Attribute

The BGP Prefix-SID attribute is an optional, transitive BGP path attribute. The attribute type code 40 has been assigned by IANA (see Section 7).¶

The BGP Prefix-SID attribute is defined here to be a set of elements encoded as "Type/Length/Value" tuples (i.e., a set of TLVs). All BGP Prefix-SID attribute TLVs will start with a 1-octet type and a 2-octet length. The following TLVs are defined in this document:¶

• Label-Index TLV¶
• Originator SRGB TLV¶

The Label-Index and Originator SRGB TLVs are used only when SR is applied to the MPLS data plane.¶

For future extensibility, unknown TLVs MUST be ignored and propagated unmodified.¶

 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    |             Length            |   RESERVED    |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|            Flags              |       Label Index             |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|          Label Index          |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

  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      |          Length               |    Flags      |
 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
 |     Flags     |
 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
 |         SRGB 1 (6 octets)                                     |
 |                               +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
 |                               |
 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
 |         SRGB n (6 octets)                                     |
 |                               +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
 |                               |
 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

6. Error Handling of BGP Prefix-SID Attribute

When a BGP speaker receives a BGP UPDATE message containing a malformed or invalid BGP Prefix-SID attribute attached to an IPv4/IPv6 Labeled Unicast prefix ([RFC8277]), it MUST ignore the received BGP Prefix-SID attribute and not advertise it to other BGP peers. In this context, a malformed BGP Prefix-SID attribute is one that cannot be parsed due to not meeting the minimum attribute length requirement, containing a TLV length that doesn't conform to the length constraints for the TLV, or containing a TLV length that would extend beyond the end of the attribute (as defined by the attribute length). This is equivalent to the "Attribute discard" action specified in [RFC7606]. When discarding an attribute, a BGP speaker SHOULD log an error for further analysis.¶

As per [RFC7606], if the BGP Prefix-SID attribute appears more than once in an UPDATE message, all the occurrences of the attribute other than the first one SHALL be discarded and the UPDATE message will continue to be processed. Similarly, if a recognized TLV appears more than once in a BGP Prefix-SID attribute while the specification only allows for a single occurrence, then all the occurrences of the TLV other than the first one SHALL be discarded and the Prefix-SID attribute will continue to be processed.¶

For future extensibility, unknown TLVs MUST be ignored and propagated unmodified.¶

7. IANA Considerations

This document defines a BGP path attribute known as the BGP Prefix-SID attribute. IANA has assigned attribute code type 40 to the BGP Prefix-SID attribute from the "BGP Path Attributes" registry.¶

This document defines two TLVs for the BGP Prefix-SID attribute. These TLVs have been registered with IANA. IANA has created a registry for BGP Prefix-SID Attribute TLVs as follows:¶

Under the "Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Parameters" registry, the new registry titled "BGP Prefix-SID TLV Types" has been created and points to this document as the reference.¶

Registration Procedure(s):¶

• Values 1-254, Expert Review as defined in [RFC8126]¶
• Values 0 and 255, Reserved¶

The value 2 previously corresponded to the IPv6 SID TLV, which was specified in previous versions of this document. It was removed, and use of the BGP Prefix-SID for Segment Routing over the IPv6 data plane [RFC8402] has been deferred to future specifications.¶

IANA has also created the "BGP Prefix-SID Label-Index TLV Flags" registry under the "Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Parameters" registry, with a reference to this document. Initially, this 16-bit flags registry is empty. The registration policy for flag bits is Expert Review [RFC8126], consistent with the "BGP Prefix-SID TLV Types" registry.¶

Finally, IANA has created the "BGP Prefix-SID Originator SRGB TLV Flags" registry under the "Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Parameters" registry, with a reference to this document. Initially, this 16-bit flags registry is empty. The registration policy for flag bits is Expert Review [RFC8126] consistent with the BGP Prefix-SID TLV Types registry.¶

The designated experts must be good and faithful stewards of the above registries, ensuring that each request is legitimate and corresponds to a viable use case. Given the limited number of bits in the flags registries and the applicability to a single TLV, additional scrutiny should be afforded to requests for flag-bit allocation. In general, no single use case should require more than one flag bit and, should the use case require more, alternate encodings using new TLVs should be considered.¶

8. Manageability Considerations

This document defines a BGP attribute to address use cases such as the one described in [RFC8670]. It is assumed that advertisement of the BGP Prefix-SID attribute is controlled by the operator in order to:¶

• Prevent undesired origination/advertisement of the BGP Prefix-SID attribute. By default, a BGP Prefix-SID attribute SHOULD NOT be attached to a prefix and advertised. Hence, BGP Prefix-SID Advertisement SHOULD require explicit enablement.¶
• Prevent any undesired propagation of the BGP Prefix-SID attribute. By default, the BGP Prefix-SID is not advertised outside the boundary of a single SR/administrative domain that may include one or more ASes. The propagation to other ASes MUST be explicitly configured.¶

The deployment model described in [RFC8670] assumes multiple ASes under a common administrative domain. For this use case, the BGP Prefix-SID Advertisement is applicable to the inter-AS context, i.e., EBGP, while it is confined to a single administrative domain.¶

9. Security Considerations

This document introduces a BGP attribute (BGP Prefix-SID), which inherits the security considerations expressed in: [RFC4271], [RFC8277], and [RFC8402].¶

When advertised using BGPsec as described in [RFC8205], the BGP Prefix-SID attribute doesn't impose any unique security considerations. It should be noted that the BGP Prefix-SID attribute is not protected by the BGPsec signatures.¶

It should be noted that, as described in Section 8, this document refers to a deployment model where all nodes are under the single administrative domain. In this context, we assume that the operator doesn't want to leak any information related to internal prefixes and topology outside of the administrative domain. The internal information includes the BGP Prefix-SID. In order to prevent such leaking, the common BGP mechanisms (filters) are applied at the boundary of the SR/administrative domain. Local BGP-attribute-filtering policies and mechanisms are not standardized and, consequently, are beyond the scope of this document.¶

To prevent a Denial-of-Service (DoS) or Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack due to excessive BGP updates with an invalid or conflicting BGP Prefix-SID attribute, error log message rate limiting as well as suppression of duplicate error log messages SHOULD be deployed.¶

Since BGP-LS is the preferred method for advertising SRGB information, the BGP speaker SHOULD log an error if a BGP Prefix-SID attribute is received with SRGB information different from that received as an attribute of the same node's BGP-LS Node NLRI.¶

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Satya Mohanty for his contribution to this document.¶

The authors would like to thank Alvaro Retana for substantive comments as part of the Routing AD review.¶

The authors would like to thank Bruno Decraene for substantive comments and suggested text as part of the Routing Directorate review.¶

The authors would like to thank Shyam Sethuram for comments and discussion of TLV processing and validation.¶

The authors would like to thank Robert Raszuk for comments and suggestions regarding the MPLS data-plane behavior.¶

The authors would like to thank Krishna Deevi, Juan Alcaide, Howard Yang, and Jakob Heitz for discussions on conflicting BGP Prefix-SID label indices and BGP add paths.¶

The authors would like to thank Peter Yee, Tony Przygienda, Mirja Kuhlewind, Alexey Melnikov, Eric Rescorla, Suresh Krishnan, Warren Kumari, Ben Campbell Sue Hares, and Martin Vigoureux for IDR Working Group last call, IETF Last Call, directorate, and IESG reviews.¶

Contributors

Keyur Patel
Arrcus, Inc.
United States of America

Email: Keyur@arrcus.com

Saikat Ray
Unaffiliated
United States of America

Email: raysaikat@gmail.com

Authors' Addresses