Internet DRAFT - draft-eddy-idr-flowspec-packet-rate

draft-eddy-idr-flowspec-packet-rate







Internet Engineering Task Force                                  W. Eddy
Internet-Draft                                                 J. Dailey
Intended status: Standards Track                                G. Clark
Expires: May 25, 2016                                        MTI Systems
                                                       November 22, 2015


               BGP Flow Specification Packet-Rate Action
                 draft-eddy-idr-flowspec-packet-rate-00

Abstract

   This document defines a new type of traffic filtering action for the
   BGP flow specification.  The new packet-rate action allows specifying
   a rate-limit in number of packets per second.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on May 25, 2016.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Packet Rate Action  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Discussion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4

1.  Introduction

   The existing BGP flow specification [RFC5575] standard supports
   traffic-rate limits conveyed in bytes per second.  In some cases, it
   may be easier, faster, or more relevant to perform accounting and
   decision-making based on quantities of packets per second.  It is
   desirable to specify rate limits in terms of the number of packets
   per second, and not just the number of bytes per second.

1.1.  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 RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

2.  Packet Rate Action

   The traffic filtering actions pertaining to a matched flow
   specification are indicated using BGP extended communities [RFC7153].
   Particular extended community values are defined in RFC 5575 for a
   number of possible actions.  New types of actions can be defined
   using additional extended community values.  The value 0x8006 has
   been defined as the "traffic-rate" action, and specifies a rate-limit
   in a quantity of bytes per second.  The new packet-rate extended
   community described in this draft is similar, except the quantity is
   interpreted as packets per second.

         +------+--------------------+--------------------------+
         | type | extended community | encoding                 |
         +------+--------------------+--------------------------+
         | TBD  | packet-rate        | 2-byte as#, 4-byte float |
         +------+--------------------+--------------------------+

                                  Table 1






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   Packet-rate:  The packet-rate extended community is a transitive
      extended community across the autonomous-system boundary and uses
      following extended community encoding:

         The first two octets carry the 2-octet id, which can be
         assigned from a 2-byte AS number.  When a 4-byte AS number is
         locally present, the 2 least significant bytes of such an AS
         number can be used.  This value is purely informational and
         should not be interpreted by the implementation.

         The remaining 4 octets carry the rate information in IEEE
         floating point [IEEE.754.1985] format, units being packets per
         second.  A packet-rate of 0 should result on all traffic for
         the particular flow to be discarded.

   Note that this is a transitive community type, as explained in RFC
   7153 and not a non-transitive type as mentioned narratively in the
   RFC 5575 description of the traffic-rate action.

3.  Discussion

   Although a floating-point value for packets per second may seem odd
   or unnatural compared to an integer value, the motivations for this
   are:

      The maximum value that a 32-bit unsigned integer could hold would
      limit to specifying under 2.15 Gpps (2.15 billion packets per
      second).  For large or high-performance networks especially in the
      future, this may not be sufficient.  The maximum floating point
      value is much higher (on the order of 10^38) and should be future-
      proof.

      The reduced precision of the floating-point limit that can be
      specified compared to an integer encoding does not seem to be a
      major concern.

      This maintains consistency with the present syntax for bytes per
      second rate limits.

4.  IANA Considerations

   If accepted for publication, IANA will need to allocate a BGP
   extended community value for the "packet-rate" action from the
   "Generic Transitive Experimental Use Extended Community Sub-Types"
   registry.






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5.  Security Considerations

   No security considerations are raised by this document.

6.  Normative References

   [IEEE.754.1985]
              Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
              "Standard for Binary Floating-Point Arithmetic", IEEE
              Standard 754, August 1985.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC5575]  Marques, P., Sheth, N., Raszuk, R., Greene, B., Mauch, J.,
              and D. McPherson, "Dissemination of Flow Specification
              Rules", RFC 5575, DOI 10.17487/RFC5575, August 2009,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5575>.

   [RFC7153]  Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "IANA Registries for BGP
              Extended Communities", RFC 7153, DOI 10.17487/RFC7153,
              March 2014, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7153>.

Authors' Addresses

   Wesley Eddy
   MTI Systems

   Email: wes@mti-systems.com


   Justin Dailey
   MTI Systems

   Email: justin@mti-systems.com


   Gilbert Clark
   MTI Systems

   Email: gclark@mti-systems.com








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