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Long-Lived Graceful Restart for BGP
draft-ietf-idr-long-lived-gr-06

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 9494.
Authors Jim Uttaro , Enke Chen , Bruno Decraene , John Scudder
Last updated 2023-11-29 (Latest revision 2023-07-12)
Replaces draft-uttaro-idr-bgp-persistence
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Intended RFC status Proposed Standard
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Stream WG state Submitted to IESG for Publication
Document shepherd Jeffrey Haas
Shepherd write-up Show Last changed 2022-11-01
IESG IESG state Became RFC 9494 (Proposed Standard)
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Responsible AD Andrew Alston
Send notices to jhaas@juniper.net
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draft-ietf-idr-long-lived-gr-06
Internet Engineering Task Force                                J. Uttaro
Internet-Draft                                   Independent Contributor
Updates: 6368 (if approved)                                      E. Chen
Intended status: Standards Track                      Palo Alto Networks
Expires: 13 January 2024                                     B. Decraene
                                                                  Orange
                                                           J. G. Scudder
                                                        Juniper Networks
                                                            12 July 2023

              Support for Long-lived BGP Graceful Restart
                    draft-ietf-idr-long-lived-gr-06

Abstract

   In this document, we introduce a new BGP capability termed "Long-
   lived Graceful Restart Capability" so that stale routes can be
   retained for a longer time upon session failure than is provided for
   by BGP Graceful Restart (RFC 4724).  A well-known BGP community
   "LLGR_STALE" is introduced for marking stale routes retained for a
   longer time.  A second well-known BGP community, "NO_LLGR", is
   introduced to mark routes for which these procedures should not be
   applied.  We also specify that such long-lived stale routes be
   treated as the least-preferred, and their advertisements be limited
   to BGP speakers that have advertised the new capability.  Use of this
   extension is not advisable in all cases, and we provide guidelines to
   help determine if it is.

   This memo updates RFC 6368 by specifying that the LLGR_STALE
   community must be propagated into, or out of, the path attributes
   exchanged between PE and CE.

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).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   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."

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 13 January 2024.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2023 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 (https://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 to this document.  Code Components
   extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
   described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.1.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   2.  Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Protocol Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.1.  Long-lived Graceful Restart Capability  . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.2.  LLGR_STALE Community  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.3.  NO_LLGR Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   4.  Theory of Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     4.1.  Use of Graceful Restart Capability  . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     4.2.  Session Resets  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     4.3.  Processing LLGR_STALE Routes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     4.4.  Route Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     4.5.  Errors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     4.6.  Optional Partial Deployment Procedure . . . . . . . . . .  11
     4.7.  Procedures when BGP is the PE-CE Protocol in a VPN  . . .  12
       4.7.1.  Procedures when EBGP is the PE-CE Protocol in a
               VPN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
       4.7.2.  Procedures when IBGP is the PE-CE Protocol in a
               VPN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
   5.  Deployment Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     5.1.  When BGP is the PE-CE Protocol in a VPN . . . . . . . . .  15
     5.2.  Risks of Depreferencing Routes  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   7.  Examples of Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   8.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   9.  Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   11. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
     11.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
     11.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  23

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   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24

1.  Introduction

   Historically, routing protocols in general, and BGP in particular,
   have been designed with a focus on correctness, where a key part of
   "correctness" is for each network element's forwarding state to
   converge toward the current state of the network as quickly as
   possible.  For this reason, the protocol was designed to remove state
   advertised by routers that went down (from a BGP perspective) as
   quickly as possible.  Over time, this has been relaxed somewhat,
   notably by BGP Graceful Restart (GR) [RFC4724]; however, the paradigm
   has remained one of attempting to rapidly remove "stale" state from
   the network.

   Over time, two phenomena have arisen that call into question the
   underlying assumptions of this paradigm.  The first is the widespread
   adoption of tunneled forwarding infrastructures, for example, MPLS.
   Such infrastructures eliminate the risk of some types of forwarding
   loops that can arise in hop-by-hop forwarding and thus reduce one of
   the motivations for strong consistency between forwarding elements.
   The second is the increasing use of BGP as a transport for data which
   is less closely associated with packet forwarding than was originally
   the case.  Examples include the use of BGP for autodiscovery (VPLS
   [RFC4761]) and filter programming (FLOWSPEC [RFC8955]).  In these
   cases, BGP data takes on a character more akin to configuration than
   to traditional routing.

   The observations above motivate a desire to offer network operators
   the ability to choose to retain BGP data for a longer period than has
   hitherto been possible when the BGP control plane fails for some
   reason.  Although the semantics of BGP Graceful Restart [RFC4724] are
   close to those desired, several gaps exist, most notably in the
   maximum time for which "stale" information can be retained --
   Graceful Restart imposes a 4095-second upper bound.

   In this document, we introduce a new BGP capability termed "Long-
   lived Graceful Restart Capability" so that stale information can be
   retained for a longer time across a session reset.  We also introduce
   two new BGP well-known communities, "LLGR_STALE", to mark such
   information, and "NO_LLGR", to indicate that these procedures should
   not be applied to the marked route.  Long-lived stale information is
   to be treated as least-preferred, and its advertisement limited to
   BGP speakers that support the new capability.  Where possible, we
   reference the semantics of BGP Graceful Restart [RFC4724] rather than
   specifying similar semantics in this document.

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   The expected deployment model for this extension is that it will only
   be invoked for certain address families.  This is discussed in more
   detail in the Deployment Considerations section (Section 5).  When
   used, its use may be combined with that of traditional Graceful
   Restart, in which case it is invoked only after the traditional
   Graceful Restart interval has elapsed, or it may be invoked
   immediately.  Apart from the potential to greatly extend the timer,
   the most obvious difference between Long-Lived and traditional
   Graceful Restart is that in the Long-Lived version, routes are
   "depreferenced", that is, treated as least-preferred, whereas in the
   traditional version, route preference is not affected.  The design
   choice to treat Long-Lived Stale routes as least-preferred was
   informed by the expectation that they might be retained for a
   (potentially) almost unbounded period of time, whereas in the
   traditional Graceful Restart case, stale routes are retained for only
   a brief interval.  In the Graceful Restart case, the tradeoff between
   advertising new route status (at the cost of routing churn) and not
   advertising it (at the cost of suboptimal or incorrect route
   selection) is resolved in favor of not advertising.  In the LLGR
   case, it is resolved in favor of advertising new state, and using
   stale information only as a last resort.

   Section 7 provides some simple examples illustrating the operation of
   this extension.

1.1.  Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

2.  Definitions

   CE:  A Customer Edge router.  [RFC4364]

   Depreference, Depreferenced:  A route is said to be depreferenced if
     it has its route selection preference reduced in reaction to some
     event.

   EoR:  Marker for End-of-RIB, defined in [RFC4724] Section 2.

   GR:  Abbreviation for "Graceful Restart" [RFC4724], also sometimes
     referred to herein as "conventional Graceful Restart" or
     "conventional GR" to distinguish it from the "Long-lived Graceful
     Restart" defined by this document.

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   Helper:  Or "helper router".  During Graceful Restart or Long-lived
     Graceful Restart, the router that detects a session failure and
     applies the listed procedures.  [RFC4724] refers to this as the
     "receiving speaker".

   LLGR:  Abbreviation for "Long-lived Graceful Restart".

   LLST:  Abbreviation for "Long-lived Stale Time".

   PE:  A Provider Edge router.  [RFC4364]

   Route:  We use "route" to mean any information encoded as a BGP NLRI
     and set of path attributes.  As discussed above, the connection
     between such routes and the installation of forwarding state may be
     quite remote.

   VRF:  VPN Routing and Forwarding table.  [RFC4364]

3.  Protocol Extensions

   A new BGP capability and two new BGP communities are introduced.

3.1.  Long-lived Graceful Restart Capability

   The "Long-lived Graceful Restart Capability", or "LLGR Capability"
   (value: 71) is a BGP capability [RFC5492] that can be used by a BGP
   speaker to indicate its ability to preserve its state according to
   the procedures of this document.  This capability MUST be advertised
   in conjunction with the Graceful Restart capability [RFC4724], see
   the "Use of Graceful Restart Capability" section (Section 4.1).

   The capability value consists of zero or more tuples <AFI, SAFI,
   Flags, Long-lived Stale Time> as follows:

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         +--------------------------------------------------+
         | Address Family Identifier (16 bits)              |
         +--------------------------------------------------+
         | Subsequent Address Family Identifier (8 bits)    |
         +--------------------------------------------------+
         | Flags for Address Family (8 bits)                |
         +--------------------------------------------------+
         | Long-lived Stale Time (24 bits)                  |
         +--------------------------------------------------+
         | ...                                              |
         +--------------------------------------------------+
         | Address Family Identifier (16 bits)              |
         +--------------------------------------------------+
         | Subsequent Address Family Identifier (8 bits)    |
         +--------------------------------------------------+
         | Flags for Address Family (8 bits)                |
         +--------------------------------------------------+
         | Long-lived Stale Time (24 bits)                  |
         +--------------------------------------------------+

   The meaning of the fields are as follows:

      Address Family Identifier (AFI), Subsequent Address Family
      Identifier (SAFI):

         The AFI and SAFI, taken in combination, indicate that the BGP
         speaker has the ability to preserve its forwarding state for
         the address family during a subsequent BGP restart.  Routes may
         be explicitly associated with a particular AFI and SAFI using
         the encoding of [RFC4760] or implicitly associated with
         <AFI=IPv4, SAFI=Unicast> if using the encoding of [RFC4271].

      Flags for Address Family:

         This field contains bit flags relating to routes that were
         advertised with the given AFI and SAFI.

                0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
               +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
               |F|   Reserved  |
               +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

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         The most significant bit is used to indicate whether the state
         for routes that were advertised with the given AFI and SAFI has
         indeed been preserved during the previous BGP restart.  When
         set (value 1), the bit indicates that the state has been
         preserved.  This bit is called the "F bit" since it was
         historically used to indicate the preservation of Forwarding
         State.  Use of the F bit is detailed in the Session Resets
         section (Section 4.2).
         The remaining bits are reserved and MUST be set to zero by the
         sender and ignored by the receiver.
      Long-lived Stale Time:
         This time (in seconds) specifies how long stale information
         (for this AFI/SAFI) may be retained by the receiver (in
         addition with the period specified by the "Restart Time" in the
         Graceful Restart Capability).  Because the potential use cases
         for this extension vary widely, there is no suggested default
         value for the LLST.

3.2.  LLGR_STALE Community

   The well-known BGP community [RFC1997] "LLGR_STALE" (value:
   0xFFFF0006) can be used to mark stale routes retained for a longer
   period of time.  Such long-lived stale routes are to be handled
   according to the procedures specified in the Theory of Operation
   section (Section 4).

   An implementation MAY allow users to configure policies that accept,
   reject, or modify routes based on the presence or absence of this
   community.

3.3.  NO_LLGR Community

   The well-known BGP community "NO_LLGR" (value: 0xFFFF0007) can be
   used to mark routes that a BGP speaker does not want to be treated
   according to these procedures, as detailed in the Operation section
   (Section 4).

   An implementation MAY allow users to configure policies that accept,
   reject, or modify routes based on the presence or absence of this
   community.

4.  Theory of Operation

   If A BGP speaker is configured to support the procedures of this
   document, it MUST use BGP Capabilities Advertisement [RFC5492] to
   advertise the "Long-lived Graceful Restart Capability".  The setting
   of the parameters for an AFI/SAFI depends on the properties of the
   BGP speaker, network scale, and local configuration.

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   In the presence of the "Long-lived Graceful Restart Capability", the
   procedures specified in [RFC4724] and [RFC8538] continue to apply
   unless explicitly revised by this document.

4.1.  Use of Graceful Restart Capability

   The Graceful Restart capability MUST be advertised in conjunction
   with the LLGR capability.  If it is not so advertised, the LLGR
   capability MUST be disregarded.  The purpose for mandating that both
   be used in conjunction is to enable the reuse of certain base
   mechanisms that are common to both "flavors", notably origination,
   collection, and processing of EoR, as well as the finite state
   machine modifications and connection reset logic introduced by GR.

   We observe that if support for conventional Graceful Restart is not
   desired for the session, the conventional GR phase can be skipped by
   omitting all AFI/SAFI from the GR capability, advertising a Restart
   Time of zero, or both.  The Session Resets section (Section 4.2)
   discusses the interaction of conventional and long-lived GR.

4.2.  Session Resets

   BGP Graceful Restart [RFC4724], updated by [RFC8538], defines
   conditions under which a BGP session can reset and have its
   associated routes retained.  If such a reset occurs for a session for
   which the LLGR Capability has also been exchanged, the following
   procedures apply.

   If the Graceful Restart Capability that was received does not list
   all AFI/SAFI supported by the session, then for those non-listed AFI/
   SAFI the GR "Restart Time" shall be deemed zero.  Similarly, if the
   received LLGR Capability does not list all AFI/SAFI supported by the
   session, then for those non-listed AFI/SAFI the "Long-lived Stale
   Time" shall be deemed zero.

   The following text in Section 4.2 of the GR specification [RFC4724]
   no longer applies:

      If the session does not get re-established within the "Restart
      Time" that the peer advertised previously, the Receiving Speaker
      MUST delete all the stale routes from the peer that it is
      retaining.

   and the following procedures are specified instead:

   After the session goes down, and before the session is re-
   established, the stale routes for an AFI/SAFI MUST be retained.  The
   interval for which they are retained is limited by the sum of the

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   "Restart Time" in the received Graceful Restart Capability and the
   "Long-lived Stale Time" in the received Long-lived Graceful Restart
   Capability.  The timers received in the Long-lived Graceful Restart
   Capability SHOULD be modifiable by local configuration, which may
   impose either an upper or a lower bound, or both, on their respective
   values.

   If the value of the "Restart Time" or the "Long-lived Stale Time" is
   zero, the duration of the corresponding period would be zero seconds.
   For example, if the "Restart Time" is zero and the "Long-lived Stale
   Time" is nonzero, only the procedures particular to LLGR would apply.
   Conversely, if the "Long-lived Stale Time" is zero and the "Restart
   Time" is nonzero, only the procedures of GR would apply.  If both are
   zero, none of these procedures would apply, only those of the base
   BGP specification (although EoR would still be used as detailed in
   [RFC4724]).  And finally, if both are nonzero, then the procedures
   would be applied serially -- first those of GR, then those of LLGR.
   We observe that during the first interval, while the procedures of GR
   are in effect, route preference would not be affected.  During the
   second interval, while LLGR procedures are in effect, routes would be
   treated as least-preferred as specified elsewhere in this document.

   Once the "Restart Time" period ends (including the case that the
   "Restart Time" is zero), the LLGR period is said to have begun and
   the following procedures MUST be performed:

   *  For each AFI/SAFI for which it has received a nonzero "Long-lived
      Stale Time", the helper router MUST start a timer for that "Long-
      lived Stale Time".  If the timer for the "Long-lived Stale Time"
      for a given AFI/SAFI expires before the session is re-established,
      the helper MUST delete all stale routes of that AFI/SAFI from the
      neighbor that it is retaining.

   *  The helper router MUST attach the LLGR_STALE community to the
      stale routes being retained.  Note that this requirement implies
      that the routes would need to be readvertised, to disseminate the
      modified community.

   *  If any of the routes from the peer have been marked with the
      NO_LLGR community, either as sent by the peer, or as the result of
      a configured policy, they MUST NOT be retained, but MUST be
      removed as per the normal operation of [RFC4271].

   *  The helper router MUST perform the procedures listed under
      Section 4.3.

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   Once the session is re-established, the procedures specified in
   [RFC4724] apply for the stale routes irrespective of whether the
   stale routes are retained during the "Restart Time" period or the
   "Long-lived Stale Time" period.  However, in the case of consecutive
   restarts, the previously marked stale routes MUST NOT be deleted
   before the timer for the "Long-lived Stale Time" expires.

   Similarly to [RFC4724], once the session is re-established, if the F
   bit for a specific address family is not set in the newly received
   LLGR Capability, or if a specific address family is not included in
   the newly received LLGR Capability, or if the LLGR and accompanying
   GR Capability are not received in the re-established session at all,
   then the Helper MUST immediately remove all the stale routes from the
   peer that it is retaining for that address family.

   If a "Long-lived Stale Time" timer is running for routes with a given
   AFI/SAFI received from a peer, it MUST NOT be updated (other than by
   manual operator intervention) until the peer has established and
   synchronized a new session.  The session is termed "synchronized" for
   a given AFI/SAFI once the EoR for that AFI/SAFI has been received
   from the peer, or once the Selection_Deferral_Timer discussed in
   [RFC4724] expires.

   The value of a "Long-lived Stale Time" in the capability received
   from a neighbor MAY be reduced by local configuration.

   While the session is down, the expiration of a "Long-lived Stale
   Time" timer is treated analogously to the expiration of the "Restart
   Time" timer in Graceful Restart, other than applying only to the AFI/
   SAFI it accompanies.  However, the timer continues to run once the
   session has re-established.  The timer is neither stopped nor updated
   until EoR is received for the relevant AFI/SAFI from the peer.  If
   the timer expires during synchronization with the peer, any stale
   routes that the peer has not refreshed, are removed.  If the session
   subsequently resets prior to becoming synchronized, any remaining
   routes (for the AFI/SAFI whose LLST timer expired) MUST be removed
   immediately.

4.3.  Processing LLGR_STALE Routes

   A BGP speaker that has advertised the "Long-lived Graceful Restart
   Capability" to a neighbor MUST perform the following upon receiving a
   route from that neighbor with the "LLGR_STALE" community, or upon
   attaching the "LLGR_STALE" community itself per Section 4.2:

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   *  Treat the route as the least-preferred in route selection (see
      below).  See the Risks of Depreferencing Routes section
      (Section 5.2) for a discussion of potential risks inherent in
      doing this.

   *  The route SHOULD NOT be advertised to any neighbor from which the
      Long-lived Graceful Restart Capability has not been received.  The
      exception is described in the Optional Partial Deployment
      Procedure section (Section 4.6).  Note that this requirement
      implies that such routes should be withdrawn from any such
      neighbor.

   *  The "LLGR_STALE" community MUST NOT be removed when the route is
      further advertised.

4.4.  Route Selection

   A "least-preferred" route MUST be treated as less preferred than any
   other route that is not also least-preferred.  When performing route
   selection between two routes both of which are least-preferred,
   normal tie-breaking applies.  Note that this would only be expected
   to happen if the only routes available for selection were least-
   preferred -- in all other cases, such routes would have been
   eliminated from consideration.

4.5.  Errors

   If the LLGR capability is received without an accompanying GR
   capability, the LLGR capability MUST be ignored, that is, the
   implementation MUST behave as though no LLGR capability had been
   received.

4.6.  Optional Partial Deployment Procedure

   Ideally, all routers in an Autonomous System would support this
   specification before it was enabled.  However, to facilitate
   incremental deployment, stale routes MAY be advertised to neighbors
   that have not advertised the Long-lived Graceful Restart Capability
   under the following conditions:

   *  The neighbors MUST be internal (IBGP or Confederation) neighbors.

   *  The NO_EXPORT community [RFC1997] MUST be attached to the stale
      routes.

   *  The stale routes MUST have their LOCAL_PREF set to zero.  See the
      Risks of Depreferencing Routes section (Section 5.2) for a
      discussion of potential risks inherent in doing this.

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   If this strategy for partial deployment is used, the network operator
   should set LOCAL_PREF to zero for all long-lived stale routes
   throughout the Autonomous System.  This trades off a small reduction
   in flexibility (ordering may not be preserved between competing long-
   lived stale routes) for consistency between routers that do, and do
   not, support this specification.  Since the consistency of route
   selection can be important for preventing forwarding loops, the
   latter consideration dominates.

4.7.  Procedures when BGP is the PE-CE Protocol in a VPN

4.7.1.  Procedures when EBGP is the PE-CE Protocol in a VPN

   In VPN deployments, for example [RFC4364], EBGP is often used as a
   PE-CE protocol.  It may be a practical necessity in such deployments
   to accommodate interoperation with peer routers that cannot easily be
   upgraded to support specifications such as this one.  This leads to a
   problem: in this specification, we take pains to ensure that "stale"
   routing information will not leak beyond the perimeter of routers
   that support these procedures so that it can be depreferenced as
   expected, and we provide a workaround (Section 4.6) for the case
   where one or more IBGP routers are not upgraded.  However, in the VPN
   PE-CE case, the protocol in use is EBGP, and our workaround does not
   work since it relies on the use of LOCAL_PREF, an IBGP-only path
   attribute.

   We observe that the principal motivation for restricting the
   propagation of "stale" routing information is the desire to prevent
   it from spreading without limit once it exits the "safe" perimeter.
   We further observe that VPN deployments are typically topologically
   constrained, making this concern moot.  For this reason, an
   implementation MAY advertise stale routes over a PE-CE session, when
   explicitly configured to do so.  That is, the second rule listed in
   Section 4.3 MAY be disregarded in such cases.  All other rules
   continue to apply.  Finally, if this exception is used, the
   implementation SHOULD by default attach the NO_EXPORT community to
   the routes in question, as an additional protection against stale
   routes spreading without limit.  Attachment of the NO_EXPORT
   community MAY be disabled by explicit configuration, to accommodate
   exceptional cases.

   See further discussion of using explicitly configured policy to
   mitigate this issue in Section 5.1.

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4.7.2.  Procedures when IBGP is the PE-CE Protocol in a VPN

   If IBGP is used as the PE-CE protocol, following the procedures of
   [RFC6368], then when a PE router imports a VPN route that contains
   the ATTR_SET attribute into a destination VRF and subsequently
   advertises that route to a CE router,

   *  If the CE router does support the procedures of this document (in
      other words, if the CE router has advertised the LLGR Capability):
      In addition to including in the advertised route the path
      attributes derived from the ATTR_SET as per [RFC6368], the PE
      router MUST also include the LLGR_STALE community if it is present
      in the path attributes of the imported route, even if it is not
      present in the ATTR_SET attribute.

   *  If the CE router does not support the procedures of this document,
      then the optional procedures of Section 4.6 MAY be followed,
      attaching the NO_EXPORT community and setting the value of
      LOCAL_PREF to zero, overriding the value found in the ATTR_SET.

   Similarly, when a PE router receives a route from a CE into its VRF
   and subsequently exports that route to a VPN address family,

   *  If the PE router does support the procedures of this document (in
      other words, if the PE router has advertised the LLGR Capability):
      In addition to including in the VPN route the ATTR_SET derived
      from the path attributes as per [RFC6368], the PE router MUST also
      include the LLGR_STALE community in the VPN route if it is present
      in the path attributes of the route as received from the CE.

   *  If the PE router does not support the procedures of this document,
      there exists no ideal solution.  The CE could advertise a route
      with LLGR_STALE, with the understanding that the LLGR_STALE
      marking will only be honored by the provider network if
      appropriate policy configuration exists on the PE (see
      Section 5.1).  It is at least guaranteed that LLGR_STALE will be
      propagated when the route is propagated beyond the provider
      network.  Or, the CE could refrain from advertising the LLGR_STALE
      route to the incapable PE.

5.  Deployment Considerations

   The deployment considerations discussed in [RFC4724] apply to this
   document.  In addition, network operators are cautioned to carefully
   consider the potential disadvantages of deploying these procedures
   for a given AFI/SAFI.  Most notably, if used for an AFI/SAFI that
   conveys traditional reachability information, the use of a long-lived
   stale route could result in a loss of connectivity for the covered

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   prefix.  This specification takes pains to mitigate this risk where
   possible, by making such routes least-preferred and by restricting
   the scope of such routes to routers that support these procedures
   (or, optionally, a single Autonomous System, see "Optional Partial
   Deployment Procedure" (Section 4.6)).  However, according to the
   normal rules of IP forwarding a stale more-specific route, that has
   no non-stale alternate paths available, will still be used instead of
   a non-stale less-specific route.  Networks in which the deployment of
   these procedures would be especially concerning include those which
   do not use "tunneled" forwarding (in other words, those using
   traditional hop-by-hop forwarding).

   Implementations MUST NOT enable these procedures by default.  They
   MUST require affirmative configuration per AFI/SAFI in order to
   enable them.

   The procedures of this document do not alter the route resolvability
   requirement of Section 9.1.2.1 of [RFC4271].  Because of this, it
   will commonly be the case that "stale" IBGP routes will only continue
   to be used if the router depicted in the next hop remains resolvable,
   even if its BGP component is down.  Details of IGP fault-tolerance
   strategies are beyond the scope of this document.  In addition to the
   foregoing, it may be advisable to check the viability of the next hop
   through other means, for example, BFD [RFC5880].  This may be
   especially useful in cases where the next hop is known directly at
   the network layer, notably EBGP.

   As discussed in this document, after a BGP session goes down and
   before the session is re-established, stale routes may be retained
   for up to two consecutive periods, controlled by the "Restart Time"
   and the "Long-lived Stale Time", respectively.  During the first
   period routing churn would be prevented but with potential
   blackholing of traffic.  During the second period potential
   blackholing of traffic may be reduced but routing churn would be
   visible throughout the network.  The setting of the relevant
   parameters for a particular application should take into account the
   tradeoffs, the network dynamics, and potential failure scenarios.  If
   needed, the first period can be bypassed either by local
   configuration or by setting the "Restart Time" in the Graceful
   Restart Capability to zero and/or not listing the AFI/SAFI in that
   Capability.

   The setting of the F bit (and the "Forwarding State" bit of the
   accompanying GR capability) depends in part on deployment
   considerations.  The F bit can be understood as an indication that
   the Helper should flush associated routes (if the bit is left clear).
   As discussed in the Introduction (Section 1), an important use case
   for LLGR is for routes that are more akin to configuration than to

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   traditional routing.  For such routes, it may make sense to always
   set the F bit, regardless of other considerations.  Likewise, for
   control-plane-only entities such as dedicated route reflectors, that
   do not participate in the forwarding plane, it makes sense to always
   set the F bit.  Overall, the rule of thumb is that if loss of state
   on the restarting router can reasonably be expected to cause a
   forwarding loop or black hole, the F bit should be set scrupulously
   according to whether state has been retained.  Specifics of when the
   F bit is, and is not, set are implementation-dependent and may also
   be controlled by configuration.  Also, for every AFI/SAFI represented
   in the LLGR capability that is also represented in the GR capability,
   there will be two corresponding F bits -- the LLGR F bit and the GR F
   bit.  If the LLGR F bit is set, the corresponding GR F bit should
   also be set, since to do otherwise would cause the state to be
   cleared on the Receiving Router per the normal rules of GR, violating
   the intent of the set LLGR bit.

5.1.  When BGP is the PE-CE Protocol in a VPN

   As discussed in Section 4.7, it may be necessary for a PE to
   advertise stale routes to a CE in some VPN deployments, even if the
   CE does not support this specification.  In that case, the operator
   configuring their PE to advertise such routes should notify the
   operator of the CE receiving the routes, and the CE should be
   configured to depreference the routes.

   Similarly, it may be necessary for a CE to advertise stale routes to
   a PE, even if the PE does not support this specification.  In that
   case, the operator configuring their CE to advertise such routes
   should notify the operator of the PE receiving the routes, and the PE
   should be configured to depreference the routes.

   Typical BGP implementations will be able to be configured to
   depreference routes by matching on the LLGR_STALE community and
   setting the LOCAL_PREF for matching routes to zero, similar to the
   procedure described in Section 4.6.

5.2.  Risks of Depreferencing Routes

   Depreferencing EBGP routes is considered safe, no different from the
   common practice of applying a routing policy to an EBGP session.
   However, the same is not always true of IBGP.

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   Consistent route selection is a fundamental tenet of IBGP correctness
   and safe operation in hop-by-hop routed networks.  When routers
   within an AS apply different criteria in selecting routes, they can
   arrive at inconsistent route selections.  This can lead to the
   formation of forwarding loops unless some form of tunneled forwarding
   is used to prevent "core" routers from making a (potentially
   inconsistent) forwarding decision based on the IP header.

   This specification uses the state of a peering session as an input to
   the selection criteria, depreferencing routes that are associated
   with a session that has gone down but have not yet aged out.  Since
   different routers within an AS might have different notions as to
   whether their respective sessions with a given peer are up or down,
   they might apply different selection criteria to routes from that
   peer.  This could result in a forwarding loop forming between such
   routers.

   For an example of such a forwarding loop, consider the following
   simple topology:

        A ---- B ---- C ------------------------- D
        ^                                         ^
        |                                         |
        R1                                        R2

   In this example, A - D are routers with a full mesh of IBGP sessions
   between them (the sessions are not shown).  The short links have unit
   cost, the long link has cost 5.  Routers A and D are AS border
   routers, each advertising some route, R, into the AS -- these are
   denoted R1 and R2 in the diagram.  In ordinary operation, it can be
   seen that routers B and C will select R1 for forwarding, and will
   forward toward A.

   Suppose that the session between A and B goes down for some reason,
   and stays down long enough for LLGR processing to be invoked on B.
   Then on B, route R1 will be depreferenced, leading to the selection
   of R2 by B.  However, C will continue to prefer R1.  It can be seen
   that in this case, a forwarding loop for packets destined to R would
   form between B and C.  (We note that other forwarding loop scenarios
   can be constructed for traditional GR, but are generally considered
   less severe since GR can remain in effect for a much more limited
   interval.)

   The potential benefits of this specification can outweigh the risks
   discussed above, as long as care is exercised in deployment.  The
   cardinal rule to be followed is, if a given set of routes are being
   used within an AS for hop-by-hop forwarding, it is not recommended to
   enable LLGR procedures.  If tunneled forwarding (such as MPLS) is

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   used within the AS, or if routes are being used for purposes other
   than hop-by-hop forwarding, less caution is needed, though the
   operator should still carefully consider the consequences of enabling
   LLGR.

6.  Security Considerations

   The security implications of the LLGR mechanism defined in this
   document are akin to those incurred by the maintenance of stale
   routing information within a network.  However, since the retention
   time may potentially be much longer, the window during which certain
   attacks are feasible may be substantially increased.  This is
   particularly relevant when considering the maintenance of routing
   information that is used for service segregation - such as MPLS label
   entries.

   For MPLS VPN services, the effectiveness of the traffic isolation
   between VPNs relies on the correctness of the MPLS labels between
   ingress and egress PEs.  In particular, when an egress PE withdraws a
   label L1 allocated to a VPN1 route, this label must not be assigned
   to a VPN route of a different VPN until all ingress PEs stop using
   the old VPN1 route using L1.

   Such a corner case may happen today if the propagation of VPN routes
   by BGP messages between PEs takes more time than the label re-
   allocation delay on a PE.  Given that we can generally bound the
   worst-case BGP propagation time to a few minutes (for example 2-5),
   the security breach will not occur if PEs are designed to not
   reallocate a previously used and withdrawn label before a few
   minutes.

   The problem is made worse with BGP GR between PEs as VPN routes can
   be stalled for a longer period of time (for example 20 minutes).

   This is further aggravated by the BGP LLGR extension proposed in this
   document as VPN routes can be stalled for a much longer period of
   time (for example 2 hours, 1 day).

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   In order to exploit the vulnerability described above, there is a
   requirement to engineer a specific LLGR state between two PE devices,
   whilst engineering label reallocation to occur in a manner that
   results in the two topologies overlapping.  Therefore, to avoid the
   potential for a VPN breach, before enabling BGP LLGR for a VPN
   address family, the operator should endeavor to ensure that the lower
   bound on when a label might be reused is greater than the upper bound
   on LLST.  Section 4.2 discusses the provision of an upper bound on
   LLST.  Details of features for setting a lower bound on label reuse
   time are beyond the scope of this document; however, factors that
   might need to be taken into account when setting this value include:

   *  The load of the BGP route churn on a PE (in terms of the number of
      VPN labels advertised and the churn rate).

   *  The label allocation policy on the PE (possibly depending upon the
      size of the pool of the VPN labels (which can be restricted by
      hardware considerations or other MPLS usages), the label
      allocation scheme (for example per route or per VRF/CE), the re-
      allocation policy (for example least recently used label).

   Note that [RFC4781] which defines Graceful Restart Mechanism for BGP
   with MPLS is also applicable to BGP LLGR.

7.  Examples of Operation

   For illustrative purposes, we present a few examples of how this
   specification might be used in practice.  These examples are neither
   exhaustive nor normative.

   Consider the following scenario: A border router, ASBR1, has an IBGP
   peering with a route reflector, RR1, from which it learns routes.  It
   has an EBGP peering with an external peer, EXT, to which it
   advertises those routes.  The external peer has advertised the GR and
   LLGR Capabilities to ASBR1.  ASBR1 is configured to support GR and
   LLGR on its sessions with RR1 and EXT.  RR1 advertises a GR Restart
   Time of 1 (second) and an LLST of 3600 (seconds):

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    +==========+=====================================================+
    | Time     | Event                                               |
    +==========+=====================================================+
    | t        | ASBR1's IBGP session with RR fails.  ASBR1 retains  |
    |          | RR's routes according to the rules of GR [RFC4724]  |
    +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+
    | t+1      | GR Restart Time expires.  ASBR1 transitions RR's    |
    |          | routes to long-lived stale by attaching the         |
    |          | LLGR_STALE community and depreferencing them.       |
    |          | However, since it has no backup routes, it          |
    |          | continues to make use of them.  It re-announces     |
    |          | them to EXT with the LLGR_STALE community attached. |
    +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+
    | t+1+3600 | LLST expires.  ASBR1 removes RR's stale routes from |
    |          | its own RIB and sends BGP updates to withdraw them  |
    |          | from EXT.                                           |
    +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+

                                 Table 1

   Next, imagine the same scenario but suppose RR1 advertised a GR
   Restart Time of zero, effectively disabling GR.  Equally, ASBR1 could
   have used local configuration to override RR1's offered Restart Time,
   setting it to a locally-configured value of zero:

   +==========+=======================================================+
   | Time     | Event                                                 |
   +==========+=======================================================+
   | t        | ASBR1's IBGP session with RR fails.  ASBR1            |
   |          | transitions RR's routes to long-lived stale by        |
   |          | attaching the LLGR_STALE community and depreferencing |
   |          | them.  However, since it has no backup routes, it     |
   |          | continues to make use of them.  It re-announces them  |
   |          | to EXT with the LLGR_STALE community attached.        |
   +----------+-------------------------------------------------------+
   | t+0+3600 | LLST expires.  ASBR1 removes RR's stale routes from   |
   |          | its own RIB and sends BGP updates to withdraw them    |
   |          | from EXT.                                             |
   +----------+-------------------------------------------------------+

                                 Table 2

   Next, imagine the original scenario, but consider that the ASBR1-RR1
   session comes back up and becomes synchronized 180 seconds after the
   failure was detected:

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     +=========+=====================================================+
     | Time    | Event                                               |
     +=========+=====================================================+
     | t       | ASBR1's IBGP session with RR fails.  ASBR1 retains  |
     |         | RR's routes according to the rules of GR [RFC4724]  |
     +---------+-----------------------------------------------------+
     | t+1     | GR Restart Time expires.  ASBR1 transitions RR's    |
     |         | routes to long-lived stale by attaching the         |
     |         | LLGR_STALE community and depreferencing them.       |
     |         | However, since it has no backup routes, it          |
     |         | continues to make use of them.  It re-announces     |
     |         | them to EXT with the LLGR_STALE community attached. |
     +---------+-----------------------------------------------------+
     | t+1+179 | Session is reestablished and resynchronized.  ASBR1 |
     |         | removes the LLGR_STALE community from RR1's routes  |
     |         | and re-announces them to EXT with the LLGR_STALE    |
     |         | community removed.                                  |
     +---------+-----------------------------------------------------+

                                  Table 3

   Finally, imagine the original scenario, but consider that EXT has not
   advertised the LLGR Capability to ASBR1:

    +==========+======================================================+
    | Time     | Event                                                |
    +==========+======================================================+
    | t        | ASBR1's IBGP session with RR fails.  ASBR1 retains   |
    |          | RR's routes according to the rules of GR [RFC4724]   |
    +----------+------------------------------------------------------+
    | t+1      | GR Restart Time expires.  ASBR1 transitions RR's     |
    |          | routes to long-lived stale by attaching the          |
    |          | LLGR_STALE community and depreferencing them.        |
    |          | However, since it has no backup routes, it continues |
    |          | to make use of them.  It withdraws them from EXT.    |
    +----------+------------------------------------------------------+
    | t+1+3600 | LLST expires.  ASBR1 removes RR's stale routes from  |
    |          | its own RIB.                                         |
    +----------+------------------------------------------------------+

                                  Table 4

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8.  Acknowledgements

   We would like to thank Nabil Bitar, Martin Djernaes, Roberto
   Fragassi, Jeffrey Haas, Jakob Heitz, Daniam Henriques, Nicolai
   Leymann, Mike McBride, Paul Mattes, John Medamana, Pranav Mehta, Han
   Nguyen, Saikat Ray, Valery Smyslov, and Bo Wu for their valuable
   input and contributions to the discussion and solution.

9.  Contributors

    Clarence Filsfils
    Cisco Systems
    Brussels  1150
    Belgium

    Email: cf@cisco.com

    Pradosh Mohapatra
    Sproute Networks

    Email: mpradosh@yahoo.com

    Yakov Rekhter

    Eric Rosen

    Email: erosen52@gmail.com

     Rob Shakir
     Google, Inc.
     1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
     Mountain View, CA 94043
     United States of America

     Email: robjs@google.com

     Adam Simpson
     Nokia

     Email: adam.1.simpson@nokia.com

10.  IANA Considerations

   This document defines a new BGP capability - Long-lived Graceful
   Restart Capability.  IANA has assigned a Capability Code of 71, from
   the "Capability Codes" registry.

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   This document introduces a new BGP well-known community "LLGR_STALE"
   for marking long-lived stale routes, and another well-known community
   "NO_LLGR" to mark routes that should not be retained if stale.  IANA
   has assigned these well-known community values 0xFFFF0006 and
   0xFFFF0007, respectively, from the "BGP Well-known Communities"
   registry.

   For each of these three registrations, IANA is requested to update
   the reference to refer to this document.

   IANA is requested to establish a new registry called "Long-lived
   Graceful Restart Flags for Address Family" under the Border Gateway
   Protocol (BGP) Parameters group.  The registration procedures are
   Standards Action.  The registry should initially be populated as
   follows:

   +==============+=======================+============+===============+
   | Bit Position | Name                  | Short Name | Reference     |
   +==============+=======================+============+===============+
   | 0            | Preservation of state | F          | This          |
   |              |                       |            | document      |
   +--------------+-----------------------+------------+---------------+
   | 1-7          | Unassigned            |            |               |
   +--------------+-----------------------+------------+---------------+

                                  Table 5

11.  References

11.1.  Normative References

   [RFC1997]  Chandra, R., Traina, P., and T. Li, "BGP Communities
              Attribute", RFC 1997, DOI 10.17487/RFC1997, August 1996,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1997>.

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

   [RFC4271]  Rekhter, Y., Ed., Li, T., Ed., and S. Hares, Ed., "A
              Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4271, January 2006,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4271>.

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   [RFC4724]  Sangli, S., Chen, E., Fernando, R., Scudder, J., and Y.
              Rekhter, "Graceful Restart Mechanism for BGP", RFC 4724,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4724, January 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4724>.

   [RFC4760]  Bates, T., Chandra, R., Katz, D., and Y. Rekhter,
              "Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP-4", RFC 4760,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4760, January 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4760>.

   [RFC5492]  Scudder, J. and R. Chandra, "Capabilities Advertisement
              with BGP-4", RFC 5492, DOI 10.17487/RFC5492, February
              2009, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5492>.

   [RFC6368]  Marques, P., Raszuk, R., Patel, K., Kumaki, K., and T.
              Yamagata, "Internal BGP as the Provider/Customer Edge
              Protocol for BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)",
              RFC 6368, DOI 10.17487/RFC6368, September 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6368>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

   [RFC8538]  Patel, K., Fernando, R., Scudder, J., and J. Haas,
              "Notification Message Support for BGP Graceful Restart",
              RFC 8538, DOI 10.17487/RFC8538, March 2019,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8538>.

11.2.  Informative References

   [RFC4364]  Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private
              Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4364, DOI 10.17487/RFC4364, February
              2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4364>.

   [RFC4761]  Kompella, K., Ed. and Y. Rekhter, Ed., "Virtual Private
              LAN Service (VPLS) Using BGP for Auto-Discovery and
              Signaling", RFC 4761, DOI 10.17487/RFC4761, January 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4761>.

   [RFC4781]  Rekhter, Y. and R. Aggarwal, "Graceful Restart Mechanism
              for BGP with MPLS", RFC 4781, DOI 10.17487/RFC4781,
              January 2007, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4781>.

   [RFC5880]  Katz, D. and D. Ward, "Bidirectional Forwarding Detection
              (BFD)", RFC 5880, DOI 10.17487/RFC5880, June 2010,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5880>.

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   [RFC8955]  Loibl, C., Hares, S., Raszuk, R., McPherson, D., and M.
              Bacher, "Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules",
              RFC 8955, DOI 10.17487/RFC8955, December 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8955>.

Authors' Addresses

   James Uttaro
   Independent Contributor
   Email: juttaro@ieee.org

   Enke Chen
   Palo Alto Networks
   Email: enchen@paloaltonetworks.com

   Bruno Decraene
   Orange
   Email: bruno.decraene@orange.com

   John G. Scudder
   Juniper Networks
   Email: jgs@juniper.net

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