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Revised Validation Procedure for BGP Flow Specifications
draft-ietf-idr-bgp-flowspec-oid-01

The information below is for an old version of the document.
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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 9117.
Expired & archived
Authors Jim Uttaro , Clarence Filsfils , Prodosh Mohapatra , David Smith
Last updated 2013-07-29 (Latest revision 2013-01-22)
Replaces draft-djsmith-bgp-flowspec-oid
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draft-ietf-idr-bgp-flowspec-oid-01
Network Working Group                                       James Uttaro
Internet Draft                                                      AT&T
Updates: 5575                                          Clarence Filsfils
Intended Status: Proposed Standard                     Pradosh Mohapatra
Expiration Date: July 2013                                   David Smith
                                                                   Cisco
                                                        January 22, 2013

        Revised Validation Procedure for BGP Flow Specifications
                   draft-ietf-idr-bgp-flowspec-oid-01

Abstract

   This document describes a modification to the validation procedure
   defined in RFC 5575 for the dissemination of BGP flow specifications.
   RFC 5575 requires that the originator of the flow specification
   matches the originator of the best-match unicast route for the
   destination prefix embedded in the flow specification. This allows
   only BGP speakers within the data forwarding path (such as autonomous
   system border routers) to originate BGP flow specifications.  Though
   it is possible to disseminate such flow specifications directly from
   border routers, it may be operationally cumbersome in an autonomous
   system with a large number of border routers having complex BGP
   policies. The modification proposed herein enables flow
   specifications to be originated from a centralized BGP route
   controller.

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that
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   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.

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Internet Draft   Revised Flowspec Validation Procedure         June 2012

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.

   This Internet-Draft will expire on July 1, 2013.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2013 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
   (http://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
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   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          Specification of Requirements  ......................   2
    2          Motivation  .........................................   3
    3          Introduction  .......................................   5
    4          Revised Validation Procedure  .......................   6
    5          Security Considerations  ............................   7
    6          IANA Considerations  ................................   7
    7          Normative References  ...............................   7
    8          Acknowledgements  ...................................   8
    9          Authors' Addresses  .................................   8

1. Specification of Requirements

   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].

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2. Motivation

   Step (a) of the validation procedure in [RFC5575], section 6 is
   defined with the underlying assumption that the flow specification
   NLRI traverses the same path, in the inter-domain and intra-domain
   route distribution graph, as that of the longest-match unicast route
   for the destination prefix embedded in the flow specification.

   In the case of inter-domain traffic filtering, for example, the flow
   specification originator at the egress border routers of ASN1 (RTR-D
   and RTR-E in figure 1) matches the EBGP neighbor that advertised the
   longest match destination prefix (RTR-F and RTR-G respectively).
   Similarly, at the ingress border routers of ASN1 (RTR-A and RTR-B in
   figure 1), the flow specification originator matches the egress IBGP
   border routers that had advertised the unicast route for the best-
   match destination prefix (RTR-D and RTR-E respectively). This is true
   even when ingress border routers select paths from different egress
   border routers as best path based upon IGP distance (as an example,
   RTR-A chooses RTR-D's path as best; RTR-B chooses RTR-E as the best
   path).

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                        / - - - - - - - - - - - - -  -
                        |           ASN1              |
                          +-------+        +-------+
                        | |       |        |       |  |
                          | RTR-A |        | RTR-B |
                        | |       |        |       |  |
                          +-------+        +-------+
                        |       \           /         |
                           IBGP  \         / IBGP
                        |         \       /           |
                                  +-------+
                        |         |       |           |
                                  | RTR-C |
                        |         |  RC   |           |
                                  +-------+
                        |           /   \             |
                                   /     \
                        |   IBGP  /       \ IBGP      |
                          +-------+        +-------+
                        | | RTR-D |        | RTR-E |  |
                          |       |        |       |
                        | |       |        |       |  |
                          +-------+        +-------+
                        |     |                 |     |
                         - - -|- - - - - - - - -|- - -/
                              | EBGP       EBGP |
                         - - -|- - - - - - - - -|- - -/
                        |     |                 |     |
                          +-------+        +-------+
                        | |       |        |       |  |
                          | RTR-F |        | RTR-G |
                        | |       |        |       |  |
                          +-------+        +-------+
                        |           ASN2              |
                        / - - - - - - - - - - - - -  -

                                  Figure 1

   It is highly desirable that each ASN is able to protect itself
   independently from network security attacks using the BGP flow
   specification NLRI for intra-domain purposes only. Network operators
   often deploy a dedicated Security Operations Center (SOC) within
   their ASN to monitor and detect such security attacks. To mitigate
   attacks in a scalable intra-domain manner, operators require the
   ability to originate intra-domain flow specification NLRIs from a
   central BGP route controller (or router reflector per [RFC4456]) that
   is not within the data forwarding plane. In this way, operators can
   direct border routers within their ASN with specific attack

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   mitigation actions (drop the traffic, forward to a clean-pipe center,
   etc.).  To originate a flow specification NLRI, a central BGP route
   controller (or route reflector) must set itself as the originator in
   the flowspec NLRI. This is necessary given the route controller is
   originating the flow specification not reflecting it, and to avoid
   the complexity of having to determine the egress border router whose
   path was chosen as the best in each of the ingress border routers. It
   thus becomes necessary to modify step (a) of the RFC 5575 validation
   procedure such that an IBGP peer that is not within the data
   forwarding plane may originate flow specification NLRIs.

3. Introduction

   RFC 5575 defined a new BGP capability that can be used to distribute
   traffic flow specifications amongst BGP speakers in support of
   traffic filtering. The primary intention of RFC 5575 is to enable
   downstream autonomous systems to signal traffic filtering policies to
   upstream autonomous systems. In this way, traffic is filtered closer
   to the source and the upstream autonomous system(s) avoid carrying
   the traffic to the downstream autonomous system only to be discarded.
   RFC 5575 also enables more granular traffic filtering based upon
   upper layer protocol information (e.g., protocol port numbers) as
   opposed to coarse IP destination prefix-based filtering. Flow
   specification NLRIs received from a BGP peer are subject to validity
   checks before being considered feasible and subsequently installed
   within the respective Adj-RIB-In. The validation procedure defined
   within RFC 5575 requires that the originator of the flow
   specification NLRI matches the originator of the best-match unicast
   route for the destination prefix embedded in the flow specification.
   This allows only BGP speakers [RFC4271] within the data forwarding
   path (such as autonomous system border routers) to originate BGP flow
   specification NLRIs. Though it is possible to disseminate such flow
   specification NLRIs directly from border routers, it may be
   operationally cumbersome in an autonomous system with a large number
   of border routers having complex BGP policies.  This document
   describes a modification to the RFC 5575 validation procedure
   allowing flow specification NLRIs to be originated from a centralized
   BGP route controller within the local autonomous system that is
   neither in the data forwarding path nor serving as a BGP route
   reflector [RFC4456]. While the proposed modification cannot be used
   for inter-domain coordination of traffic filtering, it greatly
   simplifies distribution of intra-domain traffic filtering policies in
   an autonomous system with a large number of border routers having
   complex BGP policies. By relaxing the validation procedure for IBGP,
   the proposed modification allows flow specifications to be
   distributed in a standard and scalable manner throughout an
   autonomous system.

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4. Revised Validation Procedure

   Step (a) of the validation procedure specified in RFC 5575, section 6
   is redefined as follows:

         a) One of the following conditions MUST hold true:
            o The originator of the flow specification matches the
              originator of the best-match unicast route for the 
              destination prefix embedded in the flow specification.
            o The AS_PATH and AS4_PATH attribute of the flow
              specification are empty.
            o The AS_PATH and AS4_PATH attribute of the flow
              specification does not contain AS_SET and AS_SEQUENCE
              segments.

   An empty AS_PATH and AS4_PATH attribute indicates per [RFC4271] that
   the flow specification NLRI originated in the same autonomous system
   as the local BGP speaker. Similarly, lack of AS_SET and AS_SEQUENCE
   segments within an AS_PATH and AS4_PATH attribute that is not empty
   indicates that the flow specification NLRI originated in the same
   autonomous system as the local BGP speaker but that the autonomous
   system includes a BGP confederation [RFC5065]. With this proposed
   modification to the RFC 5575 validation procedure, it is now possible
   for an IBGP peer that is not within the data forwarding path to
   originate flow specification NLRIs. This applies with and without the
   presence of a BGP confederation within the autonomous system.

   Further, RFC 5575 states that "BGP (flow specification)
   implementations MUST also enforce that AS_PATH attribute of a route
   received via the External Border Gateway Protocol (eBGP) contains the
   neighboring AS in the left-most position of the AS_PATH attribute".
   This rule is not valid for all topologies. For example, it prevents
   exchange of BGP flow specification NLRIs at Internet exchanges with
   BGP route servers. Therefore, this document also redefines the RFC
   5575 AS_PATH and AS4_PATH validation procedure referenced above as
   follows.

   BGP flow specification implementations MUST enforce that the last AS
   added within the AS_PATH and AS4_PATH attribute of a EBGP learned
   flow specification NLRI MUST match the last AS added within the
   AS_PATH and AS4_PATH attribute of the best-match unicast route for
   the destination prefix embedded in the flow specification. This
   proposed modification enables the exchange of BGP flow specification
   NLRIs at Internet exchanges with BGP route servers while at the same
   time, for security reasons, prevents an EBGP peer from advertising an
   inter-domain flow specification for a destination prefix that it does
   not provide reachability information for. Note, comparing only the

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   last ASNs is sufficient for EBGP learned flow specification NLRIs.
   Requiring a full AS_PATH and AS4_PATH match would limit origination
   of inter-domain flow specifications to the origin (or first) AS of
   the best-match unicast route for the destination prefix embedded in
   the flow specification only. As such, a full AS_PATH and AS4_PATH
   validity check may prevent transit ASNs from originating inter-domain
   flow specifications which is not desirable.

5. Security Considerations

   No new security issues are introduced by relaxing the validation
   procedure for IBGP learned flow specifications. With this proposal,
   the security characteristics of BGP flow specifications remain
   equivalent to the existing security properties of BGP unicast
   routing.  Traffic flow specifications learned from IBGP peers are
   trusted, hence, its not required to validate that the originator of
   an intra-domain traffic flow specification matches the originator of
   the best-match unicast route for the flow destination prefix.
   Conversely, this proposal continues to enforce the validation
   procedure for EBGP learned traffic flow specifications. In this way,
   the security properties of RFC 5575 are maintained such that an EBGP
   peer cannot cause a denial-of-service attack by advertising an
   inter-domain flow specification for a destination prefix that it does
   not provide reachability information for.

6. IANA Considerations

   This document has no actions for IANA.

7. Normative References

   [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
   Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC4271] Rekhter, Y., Li, T., and Hares, S., "A Border Gateway
   Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271, January 2006.

   [RFC4456] Bates, T., Chen, E., and Chandra, R., "BGP Route
   Reflection: An Alternative to Full Mesh Internal BGP (IBGP)", RFC
   4456, April 2006.

   [RFC5065] Traina, P., McPherson, D., and Scudder, J., "Autonomous
   System Confederations for BGP", August 2007.

   [RFC5575] Marques, P., Sheth, N., Raszuk, R., Greene, B., Mauch, J.,

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   and McPherson, D., "Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules", RFC
   5575, August 2009.

8. Acknowledgements

   The authors would like to thank Han Nguyen for his direction on this
   work as well as Waqas Alam, Keyur Patel, Robert Raszuk, Eric Rosen
   and Shyam Sethuram for their review comments.

9. Authors' Addresses

      James Uttaro
      AT&T
      200 S. Laurel Avenue
      Middletown, NJ  07748
      USA

      Email: ju1738@att.com

      Clarence Filsfils
      Cisco
      Brussels  1000
      BE

      Email: cf@cisco.com

      Pradosh Mohapatra
      Cisco
      170 W. Tasman Drive
      San Jose, CA  95134
      USA

      Email: pmohapat@cisco.com

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      David J. Smith
      Cisco
      111 Wood Avenue South
      Iselin, NJ  08830
      USA

      E-mail: djsmith@cisco.com

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