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MPLS Network Action for Entropy
draft-li-mpls-mna-entropy-02

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Expired".
Authors Tony Li , John Drake
Last updated 2024-06-25 (Latest revision 2023-04-25)
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draft-li-mpls-mna-entropy-02
MPLS Working Group                                                 T. Li
Internet-Draft                                          Juniper Networks
Intended status: Informational                                  J. Drake
Expires: 27 December 2024                                   25 June 2024

                    MPLS Network Action for Entropy
                      draft-li-mpls-mna-entropy-02

Abstract

   Load balancing is a powerful tool for engineering traffic across a
   network and has been successfully used in MPLS as described in "The
   Use of Entropy Labels in MPLS Forwarding".  With the emergence of
   MPLS Network Actions (MNA), there is signficant benefit in being able
   to invoke the same load balancing capabilities within the more
   general MNA infrastructure.

   This document describes a network action for entropy to be used in
   conjunction with [I-D.ietf-mpls-mna-hdr].

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."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on 27 December 2024.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2024 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

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   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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  Requirement Language  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  The Entropy Action  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4

1.  Introduction

   Load balancing is a powerful tool for engineering traffic across a
   network.  The use of entropy labels within MPLS was first described
   in [RFC6790] and has been deployed succesfully in multiple MPLS
   networks.

   With the emergence of MPLS Network Actions
   [I-D.ietf-mpls-mna-requirements] [I-D.ietf-mpls-mna-fwk], there is a
   significant benefit to being able to describe entropy as a network
   action.  Without this, a packet that required load balancing and
   network actions would need to deal with the complexity and overhead
   of both the MNA and Entropy Labels in the label stack.  By defining
   an action for Entropy within the MNA infrastructure, overhead and
   complexity can be reduced.

1.1.  Requirement 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
   BCP14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

2.  The Entropy Action

   *  Name: Entropy Action

   *  Network Action Indication: The Entropy Action is opcode TBA1.

   *  Scope: The Entropy Action is valid in Hop-by-Hop (HBH) and Select
      scopes.

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   *  In-Stack Data: The Entropy Action carries 20 bits of ancillary
      data, known as the Entropy Value.

   *  Processing: The semantics of the Entropy Value are identical to
      the semantics of the Entropy Label as found in [RFC6790], but the
      Entropy Value is not found in the Label field of the Label Stack
      Entry (LSE).  While the RFC 6790 Entropy Label has some
      restrictions to avoid collisions with the reserved label space
      (0-15) [RFC3032], those restrictions are not necessary for the
      Entropy Value and do not apply.  A forwarding node should
      incorporate the Entropy Value into its forwarding decision when
      the Entropy Action is evaluated.

   *  LSE Format: C.  There is no additional data.  The Network Action
      Length (NAL) field SHOULD be sent as zero.

   *  Interactions: None

3.  Security Considerations

   The forwarding plane is insecure.  If an adversary can affect the
   forwarding plane, then they can inject data, remove data, corrupt
   data, or modify data.  MNA additionally allows an adversary to make
   packets perform arbitrary network actions.

   Link-level security mechanisms can help mitigate some on-link
   attacks, but does nothing to preclude hostile nodes.

4.  IANA Considerations

   This document requests that IANA allocate a codepoint (TBA1) from the
   "Multiprotocol Label Switching Architecture (MPLS)"/"MPLS Network
   Actions Parameters"/"Network Action Opcodes Registry" registry for
   the Entropy Action.  The allocation should reference this document.

5.  Normative References

   [I-D.ietf-mpls-mna-requirements]
              Bocci, M., Bryant, S., and J. Drake, "Requirements for
              Solutions that Support MPLS Network Actions (MNA)", Work
              in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-mpls-mna-
              requirements-16, 30 May 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-mpls-
              mna-requirements-16>.

   [I-D.ietf-mpls-mna-fwk]
              Andersson, L., Bryant, S., Bocci, M., and T. Li, "MPLS
              Network Actions (MNA) Framework", Work in Progress,

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              Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-mpls-mna-fwk-09, 19 June 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-mpls-
              mna-fwk-09>.

   [I-D.ietf-mpls-mna-hdr]
              Rajamanickam, J., Gandhi, R., Zigler, R., Song, H., and K.
              Kompella, "MPLS Network Action (MNA) Sub-Stack Solution",
              Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-mpls-mna-hdr-
              07, 17 June 2024, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-ietf-mpls-mna-hdr-07>.

   [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>.

   [RFC3032]  Rosen, E., Tappan, D., Fedorkow, G., Rekhter, Y.,
              Farinacci, D., Li, T., and A. Conta, "MPLS Label Stack
              Encoding", RFC 3032, DOI 10.17487/RFC3032, January 2001,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3032>.

   [RFC6790]  Kompella, K., Drake, J., Amante, S., Henderickx, W., and
              L. Yong, "The Use of Entropy Labels in MPLS Forwarding",
              RFC 6790, DOI 10.17487/RFC6790, November 2012,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6790>.

   [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>.

Authors' Addresses

   Tony Li
   Juniper Networks
   Email: tony.li@tony.li

   John Drake
   Email: je_drake@yahoo.com

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