Internet DRAFT - draft-jonglez-babel-rtt-extension

draft-jonglez-babel-rtt-extension







Network Working Group                                         B. Jonglez
Internet-Draft                                                  ENS Lyon
Updates: 6126 (if approved)                                J. Chroboczek
Intended status: Experimental          IRIF, University of Paris-Diderot
Expires: September 12, 2019                               March 11, 2019


      Delay-based Metric Extension for the Babel Routing Protocol
                  draft-jonglez-babel-rtt-extension-02

Abstract

   This document defines an extension to the Babel routing protocol that
   uses symmetric delay in metric computation and therefore makes it
   possible to prefer lower latency links to higher latency ones.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Protocol operation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.1.  Delay estimation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.2.  Metric computation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     2.3.  Stability issues  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     2.4.  Backwards and forwards compatibility  . . . . . . . . . .   6
   3.  Packet format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.1.  Timestamp sub-TLV in Hello TLVs . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.2.  Timestamp sub-TLV in IHU TLVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   6.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     6.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     6.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9

1.  Introduction

   The Babel routing protocol [BABEL] does not mandate a specific
   algorithm for computing metrics; existing implementations use a
   packet-loss based metric on wireless links and a simple hop-count
   metric on all other types of links.  While this strategy works
   reasonably well in many networks, it fails to select reasonable
   routes in some topologies involving tunnels or VPNs.

   Consider for example the following topology, with three routers A, B
   and D located in Paris and a fourth router located in Tokyo,
   connected through tunnels in a diamond topology.

                      +------------+
                      | A (Paris)  +---------------+
                      +------------+                \
                     /                               \
                    /                                 \
                   /                                   \
     +------------+                                     +------------+
     | B  (Paris) |                                     | C  (Tokyo) |
     +------------+                                     +------------+
                   \                                   /
                    \                                 /
                     \                               /
                      +------------+                /
                      | D (Paris)  +---------------+
                      +------------+





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   When routing traffic from A to D, it is obviously preferable to use
   the local route through B, as this is likely to provide better
   service quality and lower monetary cost than the distant route
   through C.  However, the existing implementations of Babel consider
   both routes as having the same metric, and will therefore route the
   traffic through C in roughly half the cases.

   In this document, we specify an extension to the Babel routing
   protocol that enables precise measurement of the round-trip time
   (RTT) of a link, and allows its usage in metric computation.  Since
   this causes a negative feedback loop, special care is needed to
   ensure that the resulting network is reasonably stable (Section 2.3).

   We believe that this protocol may be useful in other situations than
   the one described above, such as when running Babel in a congested
   wireless mesh network or over a complex link layer that performs its
   own routing; the high granularity of the timestamps used (1ms) should
   make it easier to experiment with RTT-based metrics on this kind of
   link layers.

2.  Protocol operation

   The protocol estimates the RTT to each neighbour (Section 2.1) which
   it then uses for metric computation (Section 2.2).

2.1.  Delay estimation

   The RTT to a neighbour is estimated using an algorithm due to Mills
   [MILLS], originally developed for the HELLO routing protocol and
   later used in NTP [NTP].

   A Babel speaker periodically sends a multicast Hello message over all
   of its interfaces (Section 3.4.1 of [BABEL]).  This Hello is usually
   accompanied with a set of IHU messages, one per neighbour
   (Section 3.4.2 of [BABEL]).

   In order to enable the computation of RTTs, a node A SHOULD include
   in every Hello that it sends a timestamp t1 (according to A's clock).
   When a node B receives A's Hello, it records in its neighbour table
   the timestamp t1 as well as the time t1' according to its own (B's)
   clock at which it received the packet.

   When B later sends an IHU to A, it SHOULD attach to the IHU the
   timestamps t1 and t1' which it has stored in its neighbour table.
   Additionally, it SHOULD ensure that the packet within which the IHU
   is sent contains a Hello TLV with an associated timestamp t2'
   (according to B's clock).  Symmetrically, A will record in its
   neighbour table the timestamp t2' as well as the time t2 (according



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   to A's clock) at which it has received the Hello.  This is
   illustrated in the following sequence diagram:

    A          B
      |      |
   t1 +      |
      |\     |
      | \    |
      |  \   |  Hello(t1)
      |   \  |
      |    \ |
      |     \|
      |      + t1'
      |      |
      |      |
      |      |
      |      + t2'
      |     /|
      |    / |
      |   /  |
      |  /   |  Hello(t2')
      | /    |  IHU(t1, t1')
      |/     |
   t2 +      |
      |      |
      v      v

   A then estimates the RTT between A and B as (t2 - t1) - (t2' - t1').

   This algorithm has a number of desirable properties.  First, since
   there is no requirement that t1' and t2' be equal, the protocol
   remains asynchronous -- the only change to Babel's message scheduling
   is the requirement that a packet containing an IHU also contains a
   Hello.  Second, since only differences of timestamps according to a
   single clock are computed, it does not require synchronised clocks.
   Third, it requires very little additional state -- a node only needs
   to store the two timestamps associated with the last hello received
   from each neighbour.  Finally, since it only requires piggybacking
   one or two timestamps on each Hello and IHU packet, it makes
   efficient use of network resources.

   In principle, this algorithm is inaccurate in the presence of clock
   drift (i.e. when A's and B's clocks are running at different
   frequencies).  However, t2' - t1' is usually on the order of seconds,
   and significant clock drift is unlikely to happen at that time scale.






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2.2.  Metric computation

   The algorithm described in the previous section allows computing an
   RTT to every neighbour.  How to map this value to a link cost is a
   local implementation matter.

   Obviously, the mapping should be monotonic (larger RTTs imply larger
   costs).  In addition, in order to enhance stability (Section 2.3),
   the mapping should be bounded -- above a certain RTT, all links are
   equally bad.

2.2.1.  Example metric computation

   The current implementation of Babel uses the following function for
   mapping RTTs to link costs, parameterised by three parameters rtt-
   min, rtt-max and max-rtt-penalty:

     cost
       ^
       |
       |
       |                           C + max-rtt-penalty
       |                       +---------------------------
       |                      /.
       |                     / .
       |                    /  .
       |                   /   .
       |                  /    .
       |                 /     .
       |                /      .
       |               /       .
       |              /        .
       |             /         .
     C +------------+          .
       |            .          .
       |            .          .
       |            .          .
       |            .          .
     0 +---------------------------------------------------->
       0         rtt-min    rtt-max                          RTT

   For RTTs below rtt-min, the link cost is just the nominal cost of a
   single hop, C.  Between rtt-min and rtt-max, the cost increases
   linearly; abover rtt-max, the constant value max-rtt-penalty is added
   to the nominal cost.






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2.3.  Stability issues

   Using delay as an input to the routing metric in congested networks
   gives rise to a negative feedback loop: low RTT encourages traffic,
   which in turn causes the RTT to increase.  In a congested network,
   such a feedback loop can cause persistent oscillations.

   The current implementation of Babel uses three techniques that
   collaborate to limit the frequency of oscillations:

   o  the measured RTT is smoothed, which limits Babel's response to
      short-term RTT variations;

   o  the mapping function is bounded, which avoids switching between
      congested routes;

   o  a hysteresis algorithm is applied to the metric before route
      selection, which limits the worst-case frequency of route
      oscillations.

   These techniques are discussed in more detail in [DELAY-BASED].

2.4.  Backwards and forwards compatibility

   This protocol extension stores the data that it requires within sub-
   TLVs of Babel's Hello and IHU TLVs.  As discussed in Section 4 of
   [BABEL-EXT], implementations that do not understand this extension
   will silently ignore the sub-TLVs while parsing the rest of the TLVs
   that they contain.  In effect, this extension supports building
   hybrid networks consisting of extended and unextended routers, and
   while such networks might suffer from sub-optimal routing, they will
   not suffer from blackholes or routing loops.

   If a sub-TLV defined in this extension is longer than expected, the
   additional data is silently ignored.  This provision is made in order
   to allow a future version of this document to extend the packet
   format with additional data.

3.  Packet format

   This extension defines the Timestamp sub-TLV [BABEL-EXT], whose Type
   field has value 3.  This sub-TLV can be contained within a Hello sub-
   TLV, in which case it carries a single timestamp, or within an IHU
   sub-TLV, in which case it carries two timestamps.

   Timestamps are encoded as 32-bit unsigned integers, expressed in
   units of one microsecond, counting from an arbitrary origin.




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   Timestamps wrap around every 4295 seconds, or slightly more than one
   hour.

3.1.  Timestamp sub-TLV in Hello TLVs

   When contained within a Hello TLV, the Timestamp sub-TLV has the
   following format:

    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 = 3    |    Length     |      Transmit timestamp       |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   Fields :

   Type      Set to 3 to indicate a Timestamp sub-TLV.

   Length    The length of the body, exclusive of the Type and Length
             fields.

   Transmit timestamp  The time at which the packet containing this sub-
             TLV was sent, according to the sender's clock.

   If the Length field is larger than the expected 4 octets, the sub-TLV
   MUST be processed normally and any extra data contained in this sub-
   TLV MUST be silently ignored.

3.2.  Timestamp sub-TLV in IHU TLVs

   When contained in an IHU TLV destined for node A, the Timestamp sub-
   TLV has the following format:

    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 = 3    |    Length     |        Origin timestamp       |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                               |        Receive timestamp      |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   Fields :

   Type      Set to 3 to indicate a Timestamp sub-TLV.



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   Length    The length of the body, exclusive of the Type and Length
             fields.

   Origin timestamp  A copy of the transmit timestamp of the last
             Timestamp sub-TLV contained in a Hello TLV received from
             node A.

   Receive timestamp  The time at which the last Hello with a Timestamp
             sub-TLV was received from node A according to the sender's
             clock.

   If the Length field is larger than the expected 8 octets, the sub-TLV
   MUST be processed normally and any extra data contained in this sub-
   TLV MUST be silently ignored.

4.  IANA Considerations

   IANA is instructed to add the following entry to the "Babel Sub-TLV
   Types" registry:

                  +------+-----------+-----------------+
                  | Type | Name      | Reference       |
                  +------+-----------+-----------------+
                  | 3    | Timestamp | (this document) |
                  +------+-----------+-----------------+

5.  Security Considerations

   This extension merely adds additional timestamping data to two of the
   TLVs sent by a Babel router, and does not significantly change the
   security properties of the Babel protocol.

6.  References

6.1.  Normative References

   [BABEL]    Chroboczek, J., "The Babel Routing Protocol", RFC 6126,
              February 2011.

   [BABEL-EXT]
              Chroboczek, J., "Extension Mechanism for the Babel Routing
              Protocol", RFC 7557, May 2015.

6.2.  Informative References

   [DELAY-BASED]
              Jonglez, B. and J. Chroboczek, "A delay-based routing
              metric", March 2014.



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              Available online from http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.3488

   [MILLS]    Mills, D., "DCN Local-Network Protocols", RFC 891,
              December 1983.

   [NTP]      Mills, D., Martin, J., Burbank, J., and W. Kasch, "Network
              Time Protocol Version 4: Protocol and Algorithms
              Specification", RFC 5905, June 2010.

Authors' Addresses

   Baptiste Jonglez
   ENS Lyon
   France

   Email: baptiste.jonglez@ens-lyon.org


   Juliusz Chroboczek
   IRIF, University of Paris-Diderot
   Case 7014
   75205 Paris Cedex 13
   France

   Email: jch@irif.fr


























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