Network Working Group Dan Li Huiying Xu Huawei Snigdho Bardalai Fujitsu Internet Draft Category: Standards Track Expires: August 2007 February, 2007 Data Channel Status Confirmation Extensions for the Link Management Protocol draft-li-ccamp-confirm-data-channel-status-01.txt Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. 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." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html Abstract Li Expires August 2007 [Page 1] draft-li-ccamp-confirm-data-channel-status-01.txt February 2007 This document defines simple additions to the Link Management Protocol (LMP) to provide a control plane tool that can assist in the location of stranded resources by allowing adjacent LSRs to confirm data channel statuses, and provides triggers for notifying the management plane if any discrepancies are found. Conventions used in this document 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]. Table of Contents 1. Introduction................................................2 2. Problem Explanation.........................................4 2.1. Mismatch Caused by Manual Configuration.................4 2.2. Mismatch Caused by LSP Deletion.........................5 2.3. Manual Change of the Cross-Connection State.............5 3. Extensions to LMP...........................................6 3.1. Confirm Data Channel Status Messages....................6 3.1.1. ConfirmDataChannelStatus Messages..................6 3.1.2. ConfirmDataChannelStatusAck Messages...............7 3.1.3. ConfirmDataChannelStatusNack Messages..............7 3.2. Data Channel Status Subobject...........................8 4. Procedures..................................................9 5. Security Considerations.....................................10 6. IANA Considerations........................................10 6.1. LMP Message Types......................................10 6.2. LMP Data Link Object Subobject.........................10 7. Acknowledgments............................................11 8. References.................................................11 8.1. Normative References...................................11 8.2. Informative References.................................11 9. Author's Addresses.........................................12 10. Full Copyright Statement...................................12 11. Intellectual Property Statement............................13 1. Introduction A data channel status mismatch exists if the Label Switching Router (LSR) at one end of a Traffic Engineering (TE) link believes that the data channel is assigned to carry data, but the LSR at the other end does not. The term "ready to carry data" means cross-connected or bound to an end-point for the receipt or delivery of data. Li Expires August 2007 [Page 2] draft-li-ccamp-confirm-data-channel-status-01.txt February 2007 Data channel mismatches cannot be detected from the TE information advertised by the routing protocols [RFC4203], [RFC4205]. A data channel in this context corresponds to a resource label in a non- packet technology (such as a timeslot or a lambda), and this information is not part of the TE information advertised by the routing protocols. The existence of some problem may be detected by a mismatch in the advertised bandwidths where bidirectional TE links and bidirectional services are in use, but where unidirectional services exist, or where multiple data channel mismatches occur, it is not possible to detect such errors through the routing protocol- advertised TE information. In any case, there is no mechanism to isolate the mismatches. If a data channel mismatch exists, any attempt to use the data channel for a new LSP will fail. One end of the TE link may attempt to assign the TE link for use, but the other end will report the data channel as unavailable when the control plane or management plane attempts to assign it to an LSP. Although such a situation can be resolved through the use of the Acceptable Label Set object in GMPLS signaling [RFC3473], such a procedure is inefficient since it may require an additional signaling exchange for each LSP that is set up. When many LSPs are to be set up, and when there are many data channel mismatches, such inefficiencies become significant. It is desirable to avoid the additional signaling overhead, and to report the problems to the management plane so that they can be resolved to improve the efficiency of LSP setup. Correspondingly, such a mismatch situation may give rise to misconnections in the data plane especially when LSPs are set up using management plane operations. Resources (data channels) that are in a mismatched state are often described as "stranded resources". They are not in use for any LSP, but they cannot be assigned for use by a new LSP because they appear to be in use. Although it is theoretically possible for management plane applications to audit all network resources to locate stranded resources and to release them, this process is rarely performed because of the difficulty of coordinating different Element Management Systems (EMSs), and the associated risks of accidentally releasing in-use resources. It is desirable to have a control plane mechanism that detects and reports stranded resources. This document defines simple additions to the Link Management Protocol (LMP) [RFC4204] to provide a control plane tool that can assist in the location of stranded resources by allowing adjacent Li Expires August 2007 [Page 3] draft-li-ccamp-confirm-data-channel-status-01.txt February 2007 LSRs to confirm data channel statuses, and provides triggers for notifying the management plane if any discrepancies are found. 2. Problem Explanation Examples of data channel mismatches are described in the following three scenarios. In all of the scenarios, the specific channel resource of a data link will be unavailable because of the data channel status mismatch, and this channel resource will be wasted. Furthermore, a data channel status mismatch may reduce the possibility of successful LSP establishment, because a data channel status mismatch may result in failure when establishing an LSP. So it is desirable to confirm the data channel statuses as early as possible. 2.1. Mismatch Caused by Manual Configuration The operator may have configured a cross-connection at only one end of a TE link using an EMS. The resource at one end of the data channel is allocated, but the corresponding resource is still available at the other end of the same data channel. In this case, the data channel may appear to be available for use by the control plane when viewed from one end of the TE link, but will be considered to be unavailable by the other end of the TE link. Alternatively, the available end of the data channel may be cross-connected by the management plane and a misconnection may result from the fact that the other end of the data channel is already cross-connected. Figure 1 shows a data channel between nodes A and B. Only the resource at A end is allocated by manual configuration, while the resource at B end is available, so the data channel status is mismatched. allocated available +-+------------+-+ A |x| | | B +-+------------+-+ data channel Figure 1. Mismatch caused by manual configuration Li Expires August 2007 [Page 4] draft-li-ccamp-confirm-data-channel-status-01.txt February 2007 2.2. Mismatch Caused by LSP Deletion The channel status of a data link may become mismatched during the LSP deletion process. If the LSP deletion process is aborted in the middle of the process (perhaps because of a temporary control plane failure), the cross-connection at the upstream node may be removed while the downstream node still keeps its cross-connection, if the LSP deletion was initiated by the source node. For example, in Figure 2 an LSP traverses nodes A, B, and C. Node B resets abnormally when the LSP is being deleted, which results in the cross-connections of node A and C being removed, but the cross- connection of node B is still in use. So the data channel status between nodes A and B, and between nodes B and C are both mismatched. <---------LSP---------> +-+-------+-+-------+-+ | | |X| | | +-+-------+-+-------+-+ A B C Figure 2. Mismatch caused by LSP deletion RSVP-TE restart processes [RFC3473], [GR-EXT] define mechanisms where adjacent LSRs may resynchronize their control plane state to reinstate information about LSPs that have persisted in the data plane. The mechanisms allow LSRs to detect mismatched data plane state after the expiry of the Recovery Timer. It is a local policy decision how this mismatched state should be handled. Some deployments may decide to automatically clean up the data plane state so it matches the control plane state, but others may choose to raise an alert to the management plane and leave the data plane untouched just in case it is in use. In such cases, data channel mismatches may arise after restart and might not be cleared up by the restart procedures. 2.3. Manual Change of the Cross-Connection State In transport nodes it is possible to perform certain manual operations on a cross-connection such as forced protection switch, red-line etc. These operations will make it impossible to release the cross-connection when an LSP is being deleted. Li Expires August 2007 [Page 5] draft-li-ccamp-confirm-data-channel-status-01.txt February 2007 3. Extensions to LMP A control plane tool to detect and isolate data channel mismatches is provided in this document by simple additions to the Link Management Protocol (LMP) [RFC4204]. It can assist in the location of stranded resources by allowing adjacent LSRs to confirm data channel statuses. Outline procedures are described in this section. More detailed procedures are found in Section 4. 3.1. Confirm Data Channel Status Messages Extensions to LMP to confirm a data channel status are described below. In order to confirm a data channel status, the new LMP messages are sent between adjacent nodes periodically or driven by some event (such as an operator command, a configurable timer, or the rejection of an LSP setup message because of an unavailable resource). Three new messages are defined to check data channel status. Message Type numbers are found in Section 7. 3.1.1. ConfirmDataChannelStatus Messages The ConfirmDataChannelStatus message is used to tell the remote end of the data channel what the status of the local end of the data channel is, and to ask the remote end to report its data channel. The message may report on (and request information about) more than one data channel. ::= [...] When a node receives the ConfirmDataChannelStatus message, and the data channel status confirmation procedure is supported at the node, the node compares its own data channel statuses with all of the data channel statuses sent by the remote end in the ConfirmDataChannelStatus message. If a data channel status mismatch is found, this mismatch result SHOULD be reported to the management plane for further action. Management plane reporting procedures and actions are outside the scope of this document. Li Expires August 2007 [Page 6] draft-li-ccamp-confirm-data-channel-status-01.txt February 2007 3.1.2. ConfirmDataChannelStatusAck Messages The ConfirmDataChannelStatusAck message is sent back to the node which originated the ConfirmDataChannelStatus message to return the requested data channel statuses. When the ConfirmDataChannelStatusAck message is received, the node compares the received data channel statuses at the remote end with those at the local end (the same operation as performed by the receiver of the ConfirmDataChannelStatus message). If a data channel status mismatch is found, the mismatch result SHOULD be reported to the management plane for further action. ::= [...] The contents of the MESSAGE_ID_ACK objects MUST be obtained from the ConfirmDataChannelStatus message being acknowledged. Note that the ConfirmDataChannelStatusAck message is used both when the data channel statuses match and when they do not match. 3.1.3. ConfirmDataChannelStatusNack Messages When a node receives the ConfirmDataChannelStatus message, if the data channel status confirmation procedure is not supported but the message is recognized, a ConfirmDataChannelStatusNack message containing an ERROR_CODE indicating "Channel Status Confirmation Procedure not supported" MUST be sent. If the data channel status confirmation procedure is supported, but the node is unable to begin the procedure, a ConfirmDataChannelStatusNack message containing an ERROR_CODE indicating "Unwilling to Confirm" MUST be sent. If a ConfirmDataChannelStatusNack message is received with such an ERROR_CODE, the node which originated the ConfirmDataChannelStatus message MAY schedule the ConfirmDataChannelStatus message retransmission after a configured time. A default value of 10 minutes is suggested for this timer. Li Expires August 2007 [Page 7] draft-li-ccamp-confirm-data-channel-status-01.txt February 2007 ::= [] The contents of the MESSAGE_ID_ACK objects MUST be obtained from the ConfirmDataChannelStatus message being rejected. 3.2. Data Channel Status Subobject A new Data Channel Status subobject type is introduced to the DATA LINK object to hold the data channel status and Data Channel Identification. See Section 7 for the Subobject Type value. 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 | Data Channel Status | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | // Data Channel ID // | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Data Channel Status: This is a series of bit flags to indicate the status of the data channel. The following values are defined. 0x0000 : The channel is available/free. 0x0001 : The channel is cross-connected/allocated. Data Channel ID This identifies the data channel. The length of this field can be deduced from the Length field in the subobject. Note that all subobjects must be padded to a four byte boundary with trailing zeros. If such padding is required, the Length field MUST indicate the length of the subobject up to, but not including, the first byte of padding. Thus, the amount of padding is deduced and not represented in the Length field. Note that the Data Channel ID is given in the context of the sender of the ConfirmChannelStatus message. Li Expires August 2007 [Page 8] draft-li-ccamp-confirm-data-channel-status-01.txt February 2007 The data-channel ID must be encoded as a label value. Based on the type of signal e.g. SONET/SDH, Lambda etc. the encoding methodology used will be different. For SONET/SDH the label value is encoded as per RFC4606. 4. Procedures The data channel status confirmation related LMP messages are sent between adjacent nodes periodically or driven by some events to confirm the channel status for the data links. The procedure is described below: . The SENDER constructs a ConfirmDataChannelStatus message which contains one or more DATA_LINK objects. Each DATA_LINK object contains one or more Data Channel Status subobject. The Data Channel ID field in the Data Channel Status subobject indicates which data channel needs to be confirmed, and reports the data channel status at the SENDER. The ConfirmDataChannelStatus message is sent to the RECEIVER. . The RECEIVER extracts the data channel statuses from the ConfirmDataChannelStatus message, and compares these with its data channel statuses for the reported data channels. If a data channel status mismatch is found, the mismatch result SHOULD be reported to the management plane for further action. The RECEIVER also sends the ConfirmDataChannelStatusAck message which carries all the local end statuses of the requested data channels to the SENDER. . If the RECEIVER is not able to support or to begin the confirmation procedure, the ConfirmDataChannelStatusNack message MUST be responded with the ERROR_CODE which indicates the reason of rejection. . The SENDER receives the response ConfirmDataChannelStatusAck message, and compares the received data channel statuses at the remote end with the data channel statuses at the local end. If a data channel status mismatch is found, the mismatch result SHOULD be reported to the management plane for further action. . The ConfirmDataChannelStatus message SHOULD be resent, if the ConfirmDataChannelStatusNack message is received or no response message is received in the configured time by the SENDER. The data channel status mismatch results MAY be stored, and this information MAY be queried in the future. Li Expires August 2007 [Page 9] draft-li-ccamp-confirm-data-channel-status-01.txt February 2007 The data channel status mismatch issue warned about by LMP may be automatically resolved by RSVP restart. For example, the restarting node may also have damaged its data plane. This leaves the data channels mismatched. But RSVP restart will re-install the data plane state in the restarting node. 5. Security Considerations [RFC4204] describes how LMP messages between peers can be secured, and these measures are equally applicable to the new messages defined in this document. The operation of the procedures described in this document does not of themselves constitute a security risk since they do not cause any change in network state. It would be possible, if the messages were intercepted or spoofed to cause bogus alerts in the management plane and so the use of the LMP security measures are RECOMMENDED. Note that operating the procedures described in this document may provide a useful additional security measure to verify that data channels have not been illicitly modified. 6. IANA Considerations 6.1. LMP Message Types IANA maintains the "Link Management Protocol (LMP)" registry which has a subregistry called "LMP Message Type". IANA is requested to make three new allocations from this registry as follows. The message type values are suggested and to be confirmed by IANA. Value Description ------- --------------------------------- 21 ConfirmDataChannelStatus 22 ConfirmDataChannelStatusAck 23 ConfirmDataChannelStatusNack 6.2. LMP Data Link Object Subobject IANA maintains the "Link Management Protocol (LMP)" registry which has a subregistry called "LMP Object Class name space and Class type (C-Type)". This subregistry has an entry for the DATA_LINK object, and there is a further embedded registry called "DATA_LINK Sub-object Class name space". IANA is requested to make the following allocation Li Expires August 2007 [Page 10] draft-li-ccamp-confirm-data-channel-status-01.txt February 2007 from this embedded registry. The value shown is suggested and to be confirmed by IANA. Value Description ------- --------------------- 9 Data Channel Status 7. Acknowledgments We would like to thank Adrian Farrel, Dimitri Papadimitriou and Diego Caviglia for their useful comments. 8. References 8.1. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC4204] J. Lang, Ed., "Link Management Protocol (LMP) ", RFC 4204, October 2005. 8.2. Informative References [RFC3473] L. Berger, Ed., "Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS) Signaling Resource ReserVation Protocol-Traffic Engineering (RSVP-TE) Extensions", RFC 3473, January 2003 [GR-EXT] A. Satyanarayana, R. Rahman, "Extensions to GMPLS RSVP Graceful Restart", Internet Draft, work in progress, draft-ietf-ccamp-rsvp-restart-ext-05.txt, October 2005 [RFC4203] K. Kompella, Ed., "OSPF Extensions in Support of Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS)", RFC 4203, October 2005 [RFC4205] K. Kompella, Ed., "Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS) Extensions in Support of Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS)", RFC 4205, October 2005 Li Expires August 2007 [Page 11] draft-li-ccamp-confirm-data-channel-status-01.txt February 2007 9. Author's Addresses Dan Li Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. F3-5-B R&D Center, Huawei Base, Bantian, Longgang District Shenzhen 518129 P.R.China Phone: +86-755-28972910 Email: danli@huawei.com Huiying Xu Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. F3-5-B R&D Center, Huawei Base, Bantian, Longgang District Shenzhen 518129 P.R.China Phone: +86-755-28972909 Email: xuhuiying@huawei.com Fatai Zhang Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. F3-5-B R&D Center, Huawei Base, Bantian, Longgang District Shenzhen 518129 P.R.China Phone: +86-755-28979791 Email: zhangfatai@huawei.com Snigdho C. Bardalai Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc. 2801 Telecom Parkway, Richardson, Texas 75082 United States of America Phone: +1 972 479 2951 Email: snigdho.bardalai@us.fujitsu.com 10. Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007). Li Expires August 2007 [Page 12] draft-li-ccamp-confirm-data-channel-status-01.txt February 2007 This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 11. 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The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. 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". Li Expires August 2007 [Page 13]