Fail Over Extensions for Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) "failover"
draft-ietf-l2tpext-failover-12
The information below is for an old version of the document that is already published as an RFC.
| Document | Type |
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 4951.
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Vipin Jain | ||
| Last updated | 2015-10-14 (Latest revision 2007-02-21) | ||
| Replaces | draft-vipin-l2tpext-failover | ||
| RFC stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
| Intended RFC status | Proposed Standard | ||
| Formats | |||
| Additional resources | Mailing list discussion | ||
| Stream | WG state | (None) | |
| Document shepherd | (None) | ||
| IESG | IESG state | Became RFC 4951 (Proposed Standard) | |
| Action Holders |
(None)
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||
| Consensus boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| Telechat date | (None) | ||
| Responsible AD | Mark Townsley | ||
| Send notices to | (None) |
draft-ietf-l2tpext-failover-12
Network Working Group Vipin Jain
Internet-Draft Riverstone Networks
Category: Standards Track Editor
Expires August 2007 February 2007
Fail Over extensions for L2TP "failover"
draft-ietf-l2tpext-failover-12.txt
Status of this Memo
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).
Abstract
L2TP is a connection-oriented protocol that has shared state between
active endpoints. Some of this shared state is vital for operation
but may be rather volatile in nature, such as packet sequence numbers
used on the L2TP Control Connection. When failure of one side of a
control connection occurs, a new control connection is created and
associated with the old connection by exchanging information about
the old connection. Such a mechanism is not intended as a replacement
for an active fail over with some mirrored connection states, but as
an aid just for those parameters that are particularly difficult to
have immediately available. Protocol extensions to L2TP defined in
this document are intended to facilitate state recovery, providing
additional resiliency in an L2TP network and improving a remote
system's layer 2 connectivity.
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Table of Contents
Status of this Memo.......................................... 1
1.0 Introduction............................................. 3
1.2 Specification of Requirements............................ 4
2.0 Overview................................................. 4
3.0 Failover Protocol........................................ 6
3.1 Failover Capability Negotiation.......................... 6
3.2 Failover Recovery Procedure.............................. 6
3.2.1 Recovery tunnel establishment.......................... 6
3.2.2 Control Channel Reset.................................. 8
3.2.3 Data Channel Reset..................................... 8
3.3 Session State Synchronization............................ 9
4.0 New Control Messages..................................... 10
4.1 Failover Session Query................................... 11
4.2 Failover Session Response................................ 11
5.0 New Attribute Value Pairs................................ 12
5.1 Failover Capability AVP.................................. 12
5.2 Tunnel Recovery AVP...................................... 13
5.3 Suggested Control Sequence AVP........................... 14
5.4 Failover Session State AVP............................... 15
6.0 Configuration Parameters................................ 16
7.0 IANA Considerations...................................... 16
8.0 Security Considerations.................................. 16
9.0 Acknowledgements......................................... 17
10.0 Author Information...................................... 17
11.0 References.............................................. 17
11.1 Normative References.................................... 17
11.2 Informative References.................................. 18
12.0 Intellectual Property Statement......................... 18
13.0 Disclaimer of Validity.................................. 19
14.0 Copyright Statement..................................... 19
Appendix A................................................... 19
Appendix B................................................... 20
Appendix C................................................... 21
Contributors
Paul Howard Juniper Networks
Vipin Jain Riverstone Networks
Sam Henderson Cisco Systems
Keyur Parikh Harris Communications
Terminology
Endpoint: L2TP control connection endpoint i.e. either LAC or LNS.
Also known as LCCE in [L2TPv3]
Active Endpoint: An endpoint that is currently providing service.
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Backup Endpoint: A redundant endpoint standing by for the active
endpoint which has its database of active tunnels and sessions in
sync with its active endpoint.
Failed Endpoint: The endpoint that was the active endpoint at the
time of the failure.
Recovery endpoint: The endpoint that initiates the failover protocol
to recover from the failure of an active endpoint.
Remote endpoint: The endpoint that peers with active endpoint before
failure and with recovery endpoint after failure.
Failover: The action of a backup endpoint taking over the service of
an active endpoint. This could be due to administrative action or
failure of the active endpoint.
Old Tunnel: A control connection that existed before failure and is
subjected to recovery upon failover.
Recovery Tunnel: A new control connection established only to recover
an old tunnel.
Recovered tunnel: After old tunnel's control connection and sessions
are restored using the mechanism described in this document, it is
referred as Recovered Tunnel.
Control Channel Failure: Failure of the component responsible for
establishing/maintaining tunnels and sessions at an endpoint.
Data Channel Failure: Failure of the component responsible for
forwarding the L2TP encapsulated data.
1.0 Introduction
The goal of this draft is to aid the overall resiliency of an L2TP
endpoint by introducing extensions to RFC 2661 [L2TPv2] and RFC 3931
[L2TPv3] that will minimize the recovery time of the L2TP layer after
a failover, while minimizing the impact on its performance. Therefore
it is assumed that the endpoint's overall architecture is also
supportive in the resiliency effort.
To ensure proper operation of an L2TP endpoint after a failover, the
associated information of the control connection and sessions between
them must be correct and consistent. This includes both the
configured and dynamic information. The configured information is
assumed to be correct and consistent after a failover, otherwise the
tunnels and sessions would not have been setup in the first place.
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The dynamic information, which is also referred to as stateful
information, changes with the processing of the tunnel's control and
data packets. Currently, the only such information that is essential
to the tunnel's operation is its sequence numbers. For the tunnel
control channel, the inconsistencies in its sequence numbers can
result in the termination of the entire tunnel. For tunnel sessions,
the inconsistency in its sequence numbers, when used, can cause
significant data loss thus giving the perception of "service loss" to
the end user.
Thus, an optimal resilient architecture that aims to minimize
"service loss" after a failover must make provision for the tunnel's
essential stateful information - i.e. its sequence numbers.
Currently, there are two options available: the first option is to
ensure that the backup endpoint is completely synchronized with the
active with respect to the control and data sessions sequence
numbers. The other option is to re-establish all the tunnels and its
sessions after a failover. The drawback of the first option is that
it adds significant performance and complexity impact to the
endpoint's architecture, especially as tunnel and session aggregation
increases. The drawback of the second option is that it increases the
"service loss" time, especially as the architecture scales.
To alleviate the above-mentioned drawbacks of the current options,
this draft introduces a mechanism to bring the dynamic stateful
information of a tunnel to correct and consistent state after a
failure. The proposed mechanism, defines the recovery of tunnels and
sessions that were in established state prior to the failure.
1.2 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].
2.0 Overview
Following diagram depicts the redundancy architecture and pertaining
entities used to describe the failover protocol:
+--------------+
| L2TP active |
+----------+ ----| endpoint (A) |
| L2TP | / +--------------+
| endpoint |----------------------/
| (R) | \ +--------------+
+----------+ \ | L2TP backup |
----| endpoint (B) |
+--------------+
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Active and backup endpoints may reside on the same device, however
they are not required to be that way. On other hand, some devices may
not have a standby module altogether, in which case the failed
endpoint, after reset, can become the recovery endpoint to recover
from its prior failure.
Therefore in the above diagram, upon A's (active endpoint's) failure:
- Endpoint A would be called the failed endpoint.
- If B is present then it would become the recovery endpoint and
also an active endpoint.
- If B is not present then, after A resets, it could become the
recovery endpoint provided it saved the information about active
tunnels/sessions in some persistent storage.
- R does not initiate the failover protocol; rather it waits for a
failure indication from recovery endpoint.
A device could have three kind of failures:
i) Control Channel Failure
ii) Data Channel Failure
iii) Control and Data Channel Failure
The protocol described in this document specifies the recovery in
conditions i) and iii). It is perceived that not much (stateful
information) could be recovered via a control protocol exchange in
case of ii).
The failover protocol consists of three phases:
1) Failover Capability Negotiation: Active endpoint and remote
endpoint exchange failover capabilities and attributes to be used
during the recovery process.
2) Failover Recovery: Recovery endpoint establishes a new L2TP
control connection (called recovery tunnel), for every old tunnel
that it wishes to recover. The recovery tunnel serves three purposes:
- It identifies the old tunnel that is being recovered.
- It provides a means of authentication and a three-way handshake
to ensure both ends agree on the failover for the specified old
tunnel.
- It could exchange the Ns and Nr values to be used in the
recovered tunnel.
Upon establishing the recovery tunnel, two endpoints reset the
control and data channel(s) on the recovered tunnel using the
procedures described in section 3.2.2 and 3.2.3 respectively.
Recovery tunnel could be torn down after that, and sessions that were
established resume traffic.
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3) Session State Synchronization: The session state synchronization
process occurs on the recovered or the old tunnel and allows the two
endpoints to agree on the state of the various sessions in the tunnel
after failover. The inconsistency, which could arise due to the
failure, is handled in following manner: First, the two endpoints
silently clear the sessions that were not in the established state.
Then, they utilize Failover Session Query (FSQ) and Failover Session
Response (FSR) on the recovered tunnel to obtain the state of
sessions as known to the peer endpoint and clear the sessions
accordingly.
3.0 Failover Protocol
The protocol consists of three steps describing specifications during
the life of a control connection - before and after failover.
3.1 Failover Capability Negotiation
Active and Remote endpoints exchange the Failover Capability AVP in
SCCRQ and SCCRP during control connection establishment as a part of
the normal (before failover) operation. Failover Capability AVP,
defined section 5.1, allows an endpoint to specify if it is control
and/or data channel failover capable and the time allowed for the
recovery for the tunnel.
3.2 Failover Recovery Procedure
Failover Recovery Procedure described in this section is performed
only if there was a control channel failure. The selection of the
tunnels to be recovered is implementation specific.
Failover Recovery Procedure consists of following three steps, which
are described in detail in the subsections below:
- Recovery tunnel establishment
- Control channel reset
- Data channel reset
3.2.1 Recovery tunnel establishment
The recovery endpoint establishes a new control connection, called
recovery tunnel, for every old tunnel it wishes to recover. The
purpose of the recovery tunnel is solely to recover the corresponding
old tunnel. There is a one to one relationship between recovery
tunnel and recovered/old tunnel
Recovery tunnel establishment considerations:
- It MUST follow the procedures described in [L2TPv2] or [L2TPv3]
to establish the recovery tunnel.
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- Recovery tunnel MUST use the same L2TP version (and
establishment procedures) that was used for the old tunnel.
- SCCRQ for Recovery tunnel MUST include Tunnel Recovery AVP,
which is defined in section 5.2, to identify the old tunnel that
is being recovered.
- Recovery tunnel MUST NOT include Failover Capability AVP in its
SCCRQ or SCCRP messages.
- An endpoint SHOULD NOT send any message other than following
messages on the recovery tunnel: SCCRQ, SCCRP, SCCCN, StopCCN,
HELLO, ZLB, and ACK([L2TPv3] only).
- An endpoint MUST NOT use any old tunnel-id for recovery tunnel.
The old tunnels MUST be valid till (and if) recovery process
concludes a failure.
- An endpoint MUST use Tie Breaker AVP (section 4.4.3 [L2TPv2]) or
Control Connection Tie Breaker AVP (section 5.4.3 [L2TPv3]) in the
setup of the recovery tunnel to ensure that only a single recovery
tunnel (when both endpoints failover) is established to recover an
old tunnel. The tunnel that wins the tie is used to decide the
suggested Ns, Nr values on the recovered tunnel. Therefore, the
endpoint that looses the tie, should reset the Ns and Nr values
(section 3.2.2) as if it were a remote endpoint. Appendix B
illustrates double failover scenario.
- Tie Breaker AVP processing: Scope of a tiebreaker AVP's action
for recovery and non recovery tunnels must be disjoint, and is
defined as follows:
. When tie breaker AVP is used in non recovery tunnel, the scope
of tie breaker AVP's action MUST only be within non recovery
tunnels. Therefore, losing a tie against a non recovery tunnel
MUST NOT result in termination of any recovery tunnel.
. When a tie breaker AVP is used in a recovery tunnel, the scope
of tie breaker AVP's action is further restricted to the recovery
tunnel(s) for a single tunnel to be recovered. Thus an
implementation MUST apply the tiebreaker received in a recovery
tunnel only to those tunnels that are a) recovery tunnels, and b)
associated with the same tunnel to be recovered. It MUST NOT
impact the operation of non-recovery tunnels and recovery tunnels
associated with other old tunnels to be recovered.
Upon getting an SCCRQ with a Tunnel Recovery AVP, an endpoint
validates Recover Tunnel Id and Recover Remote Tunnel Id and responds
with an SCCRP. It MUST terminate the recovery tunnel if:
- Recover Tunnel Id or Remote Recover Tunnel Id is unknown.
- Active or remote endpoint (prior to failover) had not indicated
that it was failover capable.
- The L2TP version of recovery tunnel is different from the
version used in the old tunnel.
If remote endpoint accepts the SCCRQ, it SHOULD include Suggested
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Control Sequence AVP, defined in section 5.3, in the SCCRP message.
Authentication considerations:
- To authenticate peer endpoint during recovery tunnel
establishment, an endpoint MUST follow the procedure described in
either [L2TPv2] section 5.1.1 or [L2TPv3] section 4.3. It MUST use
the same secret that was used to authenticate the old tunnel.
- Not being able to authenticate could be a reason to terminate
the recovery tunnel.
- For L2TPv3 tunnels, recovery tunnel MUST use the Control Message
authentication (i.e. exchange the nonce values), as described in
[L2TPv3] section 4.3, if the old tunnel was configured to do
control message authentication. An L2TPv3 recovered tunnel MUST
reset its nonce values (both endpoints) to the nonce values
exchanged in the recovery tunnel.
For any reason, if the recovery endpoint could not establish the
recovery tunnel, then it MUST silently clear the old tunnel and
sessions within, concluding that the recovery process has failed.
Any control packet received on the recovered tunnel before control
channel reset (section 3.2.2) MUST be silently discarded.
3.2.2 Control Channel Reset
Control channel reset allows new control messages to be sent and
received over the recovered tunnel.
Control channel reset procedure:
- An endpoint SHOULD flush the transmit/receive windows and reset
the control channel sequence numbers (i.e. Ns and Nr values) on
the recovered tunnel. The control channel on recovery endpoint is
reset upon getting a valid SCCRP on the recovery tunnel. Whereas
the control channel on remote endpoint is reset upon getting a
valid SCCCN on the recovery tunnel. If recovery endpoint did not
receive Suggested Control Sequence(SCS) AVP in SCCRP then it MUST
reset Ns and Nr values to zero. Similarly, if remote endpoint
opted to not send SCS AVP then it MUST reset Ns and Nr values to
zero. Either endpoint can tear down the recovery tunnel after
control channel reset.
- An endpoint MUST prevent establishment of new sessions until it
has cleared (or marked for clearance) the sessions that were not
in established state i.e. until after Step I, section 3.3 is
complete.
3.2.3 Data Channel Reset
Data channel reset procedure is applicable only for the sessions
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using sequence numbers. For L2TPv3 data channel, terms Nr and Ns in
this document are used to mean 'expected sequence number' and
'sequence number' respectively.
Data channel reset procedure:
- Recovery endpoint sets the Ns value to zero
- Remote endpoint (recovery endpoint's peer) continues to use the
Ns values it was using previously.
- To reset Nr values during failover, if an endpoint receives 'n'
out of order but in sequence packets then it MUST set the Nr value
based on the Ns value of the incoming packets, as suggested in
Appendix C of [L2TPv3]. The value of 'n' SHOULD be configurable.
- If one of the endpoints doesn't exhibit the capability
(indicated in 'D' bit in Failover Capability AVP) to reset the Nr
value, then data channels using sequence numbers are considered
non recoverable. Those sessions SHOULD be torn down by the
recovery endpoint by sending a CDN.
- For data-channel-only failure, two endpoints MAY use session
state query/response mechanism on the control channel to
synchronize the state of sessions as described in section 3.3
below.
3.3 Session State Synchronization
If control channel failure happens when a session was being
established or torn down, then it is possible for an endpoint to
consider a session in established state while its peer considers the
same session non existent. Two such situations occur when failure on
an endpoint occurs immediately after sending:
- A CDN message that never made it to the peer.
- An ICCN message that never made it to the peer.
Following mechanism MUST be used to identify and clear the sessions
that exists on an endpoint but not on its peer:
Step I: For control channel failure, after the recovery tunnel is
established, the sessions that were not in established state MUST be
silently cleared (i.e. without sending a CDN message) by each
endpoint.
Step II: Both endpoints MAY identify the sessions that might have
been in inconsistent states, perhaps based on data channel
inactivity. FSQ and FSR messages have been introduced to synchronize
session state at any given point during the life of a session between
two endpoints. These messages are used when one endpoint determines
or suspects in an implementation specific manner that its session
state could be inconsistent with that of its peer's.
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Step III: An endpoint sends Failover Session Query (FSQ) message to
query the state of sessions as known to its peer. FSQ message
contains one Failover Session State (FSS) AVP, defined in section
5.4, for each session it wishes to query. Multiple FSS AVPs could be
included in one FSQ message, however an FSQ message MUST include at
least one FSS AVP. An endpoint MAY send another FSQ message before
getting response for its previous FSQs.
An inconsistency about session's existence during failover could
result into an endpoint selecting the same session id for a new
session. In such situation it would send an ICRQ for an already
established session. Therefore before all sessions are synchronized
using FSQ/FSR mechanism, if endpoint receives an ICRQ for a session
in established state, then it MUST respond to such ICRQ with a CDN.
The CDN message must set Assigned/Local Session ID AVP ([L2TPv2]
section 4.4.4, [L2TPv3] section 5.4.4) to its local session id and
clear the session that it considered established. Use of least
recently used session id for the new sessions could help reduce this
symptom during failover.
When an endpoint receives an FSQ message, it MUST ensure that for
each FSS AVP in FSQ message it includes an FSS AVP in Failover
Session Response (FSR) message. An endpoint could respond to multiple
FSQs using one FSR message, or it could respond one FSQ with multiple
FSRs. FSSs aren't required to be responded in the same order in which
they were received. For each FSS AVP received in FSQ, an endpoint
MUST validate the Remote Session Id and determine if it is paired
with the Session Id specified in the message. If FSS AVP is not valid
(i.e. session is non-existing or it is paired with different remote
session id), then the Session Id field in the FSS AVP in the FSR MUST
be set to zero. When session is discovered to be pairing with
mismatching session id, the local session MUST not be cleared, but
rather marked stale, to be queried later using an FSQ message.
Appendix C presents an example dialogue between two endpoints on
mismatching session ids.
When responding to FSQ with an FSR message, Remote Session Id in FSS
AVP of FSR message is always set to the received value of Session ID
in the FSS AVP of FSQ message.
When an endpoint receives an FSR message, for each FSS AVP it MUST
use the Remote Session Id field to identify the local session and
silently (without sending a CDN) clear the session if Session Id in
the AVP was zero. Otherwise it MUST consider the session to be in
established state and recovered.
4.0 New Control Messages
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This draft introduces two new messages that could be sent over an
established/recovered control connection.
4.1 Failover Session Query
Failover Session Query (FSQ) control message is used by an endpoint
during recovery process to query the state of various sessions. It
triggers a response from the peer which contains the requested state
of various sessions.
This control message is encoded as follows:
Vendor ID = 0 (IETF)
Attribute Type = 21
The following AVPs MUST be present in the FSQ control message:
Message Type
Failover Session State
The following AVPs MAY be present in the FSQ control message:
Random Vector
Message digest ([L2TPv3] tunnels only)
Other AVPs MUST NOT be sent in this control message and SHOULD be
ignored on receipt.
The M-bit on the Message Type AVP for this control message MUST be
set to 0.
4.2 Failover Session Response
Failover Session Response (FSR) control message is used by an
endpoint during recovery process to respond with the local state of
various sessions. It is sent as a response to an FSQ message. An
endpoint MAY choose to respond to an FSQ message with multiple FSR
messages.
This control message is encoded as follows:
Vendor ID = 0 (IETF)
Attribute Type = 22
The following AVPs MUST be present in the FSQ control message:
Message Type
Failover Session State
The following AVPs MAY be present in the FSQ control message:
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Random Vector
Message digest ([L2TPv3] tunnels only)
Other AVPs MUST NOT be sent in this control message and SHOULD be
ignored on receipt.
The M-bit on the Message Type AVP for this control message MUST be
set to 0.
5.0 New Attribute Value Pairs
The following sections contain a list of new L2TP AVPs defined in
this document.
5.1 Failover Capability AVP
The Failover Capability AVP, Attribute Type 76, indicates the
capabilities of an endpoint required for the recovery process. The
AVP format is defined as follows:
Failover Capability AVP
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|M|H| rsvd | Length | 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Attribute Type 76 | Reserved |D|C|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Recovery Time (in milliseconds) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
The AVP MAY be hidden (the H-bit set to 0 or 1). The AVP is not
mandatory (the M-bit MUST be set to 0).
The C bit governs the failover capability for control channel. When
the C bit is set, it indicates that the endpoint can recover from a
control channel failure using the procedure described in section
3.2.2.
When the C bit is not set, it indicates that the endpoint cannot
recover from a control channel failover. In this case, the D bit MUST
be set. Note that a control channel failover in this case would be
fatal for the tunnel and all associated data channels.
The D bit governs the failover capability for data channels that use
sequence numbers. Data channels that do not use sequence numbers do
not need help to recover from a data channel failure.
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When the D bit is set, it indicates that the endpoint is capable of
resetting Nr value of data channels using the procedure described in
section 3.2.3 Data Channel reset procedure.
When the D bit is not set, it indicates that the endpoint cannot
recover data channels that use sequence numbers. In case of a failure
such data channels would be lost.
The Failover Capability AVP MUST NOT be sent with C bit and D bit
cleared.
Recovery Time, applicable only when C bit is set, is the time in
milliseconds an endpoint asks its peer to wait before assuming the
recovery process has failed. This timer starts when an endpoint's
control channel timeout ([L2TPv2] section 5.8, [L2TPv3] section 4.2)
is started, and is not stopped (before expiry) until an endpoint
successfully authenticate its peer during recovery. A value of zero
doesn't mean that no failover will occur, it means no additional time
is requested from the peer. The timer is also stopped if a control
channel message is acknowledged by the peer in the situation when
there was no failover but loss of control channel message was a
temporary phenomenon.
This AVP MUST NOT be included in any control message other than SCCRQ
and SCCRP messages.
5.2 Tunnel Recovery AVP
The Tunnel Recovery AVP, Attribute Type 77, indicates that sender
would like to recover the tunnel identified in this AVP due to a
failure. The AVP format is defined as follows:
Tunnel Recovery AVP for L2TPv3 tunnels:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|M|H| rsvd | Length | 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Attribute Type 77 | Reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Recover Tunnel Id |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Recover Remote Tunnel Id |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Tunnel Recovery AVP for L2TPv2 tunnels:
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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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|M|H| rsvd | Length | 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Attribute Type 77 | Reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Reserved | Recover Tunnel Id |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Reserved | Recover Remote Tunnel Id |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
This AVP MUST not be hidden (the H-bit is set to 0). The AVP is
mandatory (the M-bit is set to 1).
Recover Tunnel Id encodes the local tunnel id that an endpoint wants
recovered. Recover Remote Tunnel Id encodes the remote tunnel id
corresponding to the old tunnel.
This AVP MUST NOT be included in any control message other than SCCRQ
message when establishing recovery tunnel.
5.3 Suggested Control Sequence AVP
The Suggested Control Sequence (SCS) AVP, Attribute Type 78,
specifies the Ns and Nr values to for the recovered tunnel. This AVP
is included in SCCRP message of a recovery tunnel by remote endpoint.
The AVP format is defined as follows:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|M|H| rsvd | Length | 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Attribute Type 78 | Reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Suggested Ns | Suggested Nr |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
This AVP MAY be hidden (the H-bit set to 0 or 1). The AVP is not
mandatory (the M-bit is set to 0).
This is an optional AVP, suggesting Ns and Nr values to be used by
the recovery endpoint. If this AVP is present in an SCCRP message
during recovery tunnel establishment, the recovery endpoint MUST set
the Ns and Nr values of the recovered tunnel to the respective
suggested values. When this AVP is not sent in SCCRP or not present
in an incoming SCCRP, the Ns and Nr values for the recovered tunnel
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are set to zero. Use of this AVP helps avoid the interference in
recovered tunnel's control channel with old control packets.
This AVP MUST NOT be included in any control message other than SCCRP
message when establishing recovery tunnel.
5.4 Failover Session State AVP
The Failover Session State (FSS) AVP, Attribute Type 79, is used to
query the state of a session from the peer end to clear the sessions
that otherwise would remain in an undefined state after failover. The
AVP format is defined as follows:
FSS AVP format for L2TPv3 sessions:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|M|H| rsvd | Length | 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Attribute Type 79 | Reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Session Id |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Remote Session Id |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
FSS AVP format for L2TPv2 sessions:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|M|H| rsvd | Length | 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Attribute Type 79 | Reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Reserved | Session Id |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Reserved | Remote Session Id |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
This AVP MAY be hidden (the H-bit set to 0 or 1). The AVP is
mandatory (the M-bit is set to 1).
Session Id identifies the local session id sender had assigned, for
which it would like to query the state on its peer. Remote Session
Id is the remote session id for the same session.
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FSS AVP MUST NOT be used in any message other than FSQ and FSR
messages.
6.0 Configuration Parameters
An L2TP endpoint MAY expose following configuration parameters to be
specified for control connections:
- Control Channel Failover Capability: Failover Capability AVP
(section 5.1), C bit
- Data Channel Failover Capability: Failover Capability AVP
(section 5.1), D bit
- Recovery Time: Failover Capability AVP (Section 5.1)
The L2TP MIB defined in [L2TPv2-MIB] and [L2TPv3-MIB], defines a
number of objects that may be used for monitoring the status L2TP
nodes, but is seldom used for configuration purposes. It is expected
that the above mentioned parameters will be configured by using
Command Line Interface (CLI) or other proprietary mechanism.
7.0 IANA Considerations
This document defines following values assigned by IANA.
- Four Control Message Attribute Value Pairs (Section 10.1 [L2TPv3]):
Failover Capability : 76
Tunnel Recovery : 77
Suggested Control Sequence : 78
Failover Session State : 79
- Two Message Type (Attribute Type 0) Values (Section 10.2 [L2TPv3]):
Failover Session Query : 21
Failover Session Response : 22
8.0 Security Considerations
A spoofed failover request (SCCRQ with Tunnel Recovery AVP) on behalf
of an endpoint might cause a control channel termination if
authentication measures mentioned in section 3.2.1 are not used.
If an endpoint is not explicitly configured with the possible set of
recovery endpoints for a given tunnel, it would end up responding to
the spoofed failover requests even if the tunnel authentication would
not have succeeded assuming authentication measures (section 3.2.1)
were used. Therefore, in such situation even if it would not result
into a tunnel failure, it could result in the discovery of an
operational tunnel-id on the endpoint with the probability of 1 in
(2^16 - 1) for [L2TPv2] and 1 in (2^32 - 1) for [L2TPv3], for every
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spoofed request. The discovered operational tunnel id could then be
misused to send control messages for a possible hindrance to the
control connection. Typically, control messages that are outside the
endpoint's receive window are discarded. However, if Suggested
Control Sequence AVP (section 5.3) is not used during the actual
failover process, the sequence numbers might be reset to zero thereby
making the receive window predictable. To improve security under
such circumstances, an endpoint may be configured with the possible
set of recovery endpoints that could recover a tunnel, and use of
Suggested Control Sequence AVP when recovering a tunnel.
9.0 Acknowledgements
Leo Huber provided suggestions to help define the failover concept.
Mark Townsley, Carlos Pignataro, and Ignacio Goyret reviewed the
document and provided valuable suggestions.
10.0 Author Information
Vipin Jain
Riverstone Networks
5200 Great America Parkway
Santa Clara, CA 95054
Email: vipinietf@yahoo.com
Paul W. Howard
Juniper Networks
10 Technology Park Drive
Westford, MA 01886
Email: phoward@juniper.net
Sam Henderson
Cisco Systems
7025 Kit Creek Rd.
PO Box 14987
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
Email: samh@cisco.com
Keyur Parikh
Harris Broadcast Communication
4393 Digitalway
Mason, OH 45040
Email: kparikh@harris.com
11.0 References
11.1 Normative References
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[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[L2TPv2] Townsley, W., Valencia, A., Rubens, A., Pall, G., Zorn,
G., and B. Palter, "Layer Two Tunneling Protocol
"L2TP"", RFC 2661, August 1999.
[L2TPv3] Lau, J., Townsley, M., and I. Goyret, "Layer Two
Tunneling Protocol - Version 3 (L2TPv3)", RFC 3931,
March 2005.
11.2 Informative References
[L2TPv2-MIB] Caves, E., Calhoun, P., and Wheeler, R., "Layer Two
Tunneling Protocol Management Information Base",
RFC 3371, August 2002.
[L2TPv3-MIB] Nadeau, Thomas D. and Koushik, Kiran A S., "Layer Two
Tunneling Protocol (version 3) Management Information
Base", draft-ietf-l2tpext-l2tpmib-base-02.txt,
August 2006.
12.0 Intellectual Property Statement
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information
on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
http://www.ietf.org/ipr.
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.
Jain, et al. Standards Track [Page 18]
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13.0 Disclaimer of Validity
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.
14.0 Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (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.
Appendix A
Description below outlines the failover protocol operation for an
example tunnel. The failover protocol does not preclude an endpoint
from recovering multiple tunnels in parallel. It also allows an
endpoint to send multiple FSQs, each including multiple FSS AVPs, to
recover quickly.
Failover Capability Negotiation (section 3.1):
Endpoint Peer
(assigned tid = x, failover capable)
SCCRQ --------------------------------------> validate SCCRQ
(assigned tid = y, failover capable)
validate <-------------------------------------- send SCCRP
SCCRP, etc.
.... <after tunnel gets created, sessions are established> ....
< This Node fails >
Recovery endpoint establishes recovery tunnel (section 3.2.1).
Initiate recovery tunnel establishment for the old tunnel 'x':
Recovery Endpoint Peer
(assigned tid = z, Recovery AVP)
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SCCRQ -----------------------------------> Detects failover
(recover tid = x, recover remote tid = y) validate SCCRQ
(Suggested Control Sequence AVP, Suggested Ns/Nr = 3/100)
validate <----------------------------------- send SCCRP
SCCRP (recover tid = y, recover remote tid = x)
reset Ns = 3, Nr = 100
on the recovered tunnel
SCCCN -----------------------------------> validate and reset
Ns = 100, Nr = 3 on
the recovered tunnel
Terminate the recovery tunnel
tid = 'z'
StopCCN --------------------------------------> Cleanup 'w'
Session states are synchronized both endpoints may send FSQs and
cleanup stale sessions (section 3.3)
(FSS AVP for sessions s1, s2, s3..)
send FSQ -------------------------------------> compute the state
of sessions in FSQ
(FSS AVP for sessions s1, s2, s3...)
deletes <-------------------------------------- send FSR
stale sessions, if any
(FSS AVP for sessions s7, s8, s9...)
compute <-------------------------------------- send FSQ
the sate of
sessions in FSQ
(FSS AVP for sessions s7, s8, s9...)
send FSR --------------------------------------> delete stale
sessions, if any
Appendix B
This section shows an example dialogue to illustrate double failure
recovery. The notable difference, as described in section 3.2.1, in
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the procedure from single failover scenario is the use of tie breaker
by one of the recovery endpoints to use the recovery tunnel
established by its peer (also a recovery endpoint) as recovery
tunnel.
Recovery endpoint Recovery endpoint
(assume old tid = A) (assume old tid = B)
Recovery AVP = (A, B)
SCCRQ -----------------------+
(with tie (recovery tunnel 'C') |
breaker |
AVP) |
Recovery AVP = (B, A) |
+- valid <--------------------------- Send SCCRQ
| SCCRQ (recovery tunnel 'D') | (with tie breaker AVP)
| This endpoint |
| loses tie; |
| Discards tunnel 'C' +--> Valid SCCRQ
| This endpoint wins tie;
| Discards SCCRQ
|
| (may include SCS AVP)
+->Send SCCRP -------------------------> Validate SCCRP
Reset 'B';
Set Ns, Nr values --+
|
|
|
Validate SCCN <---------------------- Send SCCN -------+
Reset 'A';
Set Ns, Nr values
FSQs and FSRs for the old tunnel (A, B) are exchanged on
the recovered tunnel by both endpoints.
Appendix C
Session id mismatch could not be a result of failure on one of the
endpoints. However, failover session recovery procedure could
exacerbate the situation, resulting into a permanent mismatch in
session ids between two endpoints. Dialogue below outlines the
behavior described in section 3.3 Step III to handle such situations
gracefully.
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Recovery endpoint Remote endpoint
(assume a mismatch) (assume a mismatch)
Sid = A, Remote Sid = B Sid = B, Remote Sid = C
Sid = C, Remote Sid = D
FSS AVP (A, B)
send FSQ -------------------------> No (B, A) pair exist;
rather (B, C) exist.
If it clears B then peer doesn't
know if C is stale on other end.
Instead if it marks B stale
and queries the session state
via FSQ, C would be cleared on
the other end.
FSS AVP (0, A)
Clears A <-------------------------- send FSR
... some time later ...
FSS AVP (B, C)
No (C,B) <-------------------------- send FSQ
Mark C Stale
FSS AVP (0, B)
Send FSR --------------------------> Clears B
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