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Fast failure detection in VRRP with BFD
draft-nitish-vrrp-bfd-03

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Expired".
Authors Nitish Gupta , Aditya Dogra , Colin Docherty , Greg Mirsky , Jeff Tantsura
Last updated 2016-04-13
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draft-nitish-vrrp-bfd-03
Network Working Group                                           N. Gupta
Internet-Draft                                                  A. Dogra
Intended status: Standards Track                     Cisco Systems, Inc.
Expires: October 15, 2016                                    C. Docherty

                                                               G. Mirsky
                                                             J. Tantsura
                                                                Ericsson
                                                          April 13, 2016

                Fast failure detection in VRRP with BFD
                        draft-nitish-vrrp-bfd-03

Abstract

   This document describes how Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD)
   can be used to support sub-second detection of a Master Router
   failure in the Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP).

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
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   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on October 15, 2016.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2016 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
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   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must

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   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Applicability of Single-hop BFD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.1.  Extension to VRRP protocol  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.2.  VRRP Peer Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.3.  VRRP BACKUP ADVERTISEMENT Packet Type . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.4.  Sample configuration  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.5.  Critical BFD session  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   4.  Applicability of p2mp BFD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   5.  Scalability Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   6.  Operational Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   8.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   9.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   10. Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10

1.  Introduction

   The Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) provides redundant
   Virtual gateways in the Local Area Network (LAN), which is typically
   the first point of failure for end-hosts sending traffic out of the
   LAN.  Fast failure detection of VRRP Master is critical in supporting
   high availability of services and improved Quality of Experience to
   users.  In VRRP [RFC5798] specification, Backup routers depend on
   VRRP packets generated at a regular interval by the Master router, to
   detect the health of the VRRP Master.  Faster failure detection can
   be achieved within VRRP protocol by reducing the Advertisement
   Interval and hold down timers.  However, aggressive timers can put
   extra load on CPU and the network bandwidth which may not be
   desirable.

   Since the VRRP protocol depends on the availability of Layer 3 IPv4
   or IPv6 connectivity between redundant peers, the VRRP protocol can
   interact with the Layer 3 variant of BFD as described in [RFC5881]
   or [I-D.draft-ietf-bfd-multipoint] to achieve a much faster failure
   detection of the VRRP Master on the LAN.  BFD, as specified by the
   [RFC5880] or [I-D.draft-ietf-bfd-multipoint] can provide a much
   faster failure detection in the range of 150ms, if implemented in the
   part of a Network device which scales better than VRRP when
   aggressive timers are used.

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2.  Requirements Language

   In this document, several words are used to signify the requirements
   of the specification.  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
   RFC 2119.  [RFC2119]

3.  Applicability of Single-hop BFD

   BFD for IPv4 or IPv6 (Single Hop) [RFC5881] requires that in order
   for a BFD session to be formed both peers participating in a BFD
   session need to know to its peer IPv4 or IPV6 address.  This poses a
   unique problem with the definition of the VRRP protocol, that makes
   the use of BFD for IPv4 or IPv6 [RFC5881] more challenging.  In VRRP
   it is only the Master router that sends Advert packets.  This means
   that a Master router is not aware of any Backup routers, and Backup
   routers are only aware of the Master router.  This also means that a
   Backup router is not aware of any other Backup routers in the
   Network.

   Since BFD for IPv4 or IPv6 [RFC5881] requires that a session be
   formed by both peers using a full destination and source address,
   there needs to be some external means to provide this information to
   BFD on behalf of VRRP.  Once the peer information is made available,
   VRRP can form BFD sessions with each of the peers that exist in the
   Virtual Router.  The most important BFD session for a given Virtual
   Router is identified as the Critical Path BFD Session, which is the
   session that forms between the current VRRP Master router, and the
   highest priority Backup router.  When the Critical Path BFD Session
   identified by VRRP as having changed state from Up to Down, then this
   will be interpreted by the VRRP state machine on the highest priority
   Backup router as a Master Down event.  A Master Down event means that
   the highest priority Backup peer will immediately become the new
   Master for the Virtual Router.

   NOTE: At all times, the normal fail-over mechanism defined in the
   VRRP [RFC5798] will be unaffected, and the BFD fail-over mechanism
   will always resort to normal VRRP fail-over.

   This draft defines the mechanism used by the VRRP protocol to build a
   peer table that will help in forming a mesh of BFD sessions and the
   detection of Critical Path BFD session.  If the Critical Path BFD
   session were to go down, it will signal a Master Down event and make
   the most preferred Backup router as the VRRP Master router.  This
   requires an extension to the VRRP protocol.

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   This can be achieved by defining a new type in the VRRP Advert
   packet, and allowing VRRP peers to build a peer table in any of the
   operational state, Master or Backup.

3.1.  Extension to VRRP protocol

   In this mode of operation VRRP peers learn the adjacent routers, and
   form BFD sessions between the learnt routers.  In order to build the
   peer table, all routers send VRRP Advert packets whilst in any of the
   operational states (Master or Backup).  Normally VRRP peers only send
   Advert packets whilst in the Master state, however in this mode VRRP
   Backup peers will also send Advert packets with the type field set to
   BACKUP ADVERTISEMENT type defined in Section 3.3 of this document.
   The VRRP Master router will still continue to send packets with the
   Advert type as ADVERTISEMENT as defined in the VRRP protocol.  This
   is to maintain inter-operability with peers complying to VRRP
   protocol.

   Additionally Advert packets sent from Backup Peers must not use the
   Virtual router MAC address as the source address.  Instead it must
   use the Interface MAC address as the source address from which the
   packet is sent from.  This is because the source MAC override feature
   is used by the Master to send Advert packets from the Virtual Router
   MAC address, which is used to keep the bridging cache on LAN switches
   and bridging devices refreshed with the destination port for the
   Virtual Router MAC.

3.2.  VRRP Peer Table

   VRRP peers can now form the peer table by learning the source address
   in the ADVERTISEMENT or BACKUP ADVERTISEMENT packet sent by VRRP
   Master or Backup peers.  This allows all peers to create a mesh of
   BFD sessions with all other operational peers.

   A peer entry should be removed from the peer table if Advert is not
   received from a peer for a period of (3 * the Advert interval).

3.3.  VRRP BACKUP ADVERTISEMENT Packet Type

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   The following figure shows the VRRP packet as defined in VRRP
   [RFC5798] RFC.

     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
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |             IPv4 Fields or IPv6 Fields                        |
   ...                                                             ...
    |                                                               |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |Version| Type  | Virtual Rtr ID|    Priority   |Count IPvX Addr|
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |(rsvd) |    Max Advert Int     |        Checksum               |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |                                                               |
    +                                                               +
    |                   IPvX Address(es)                            |
    +                                                               +
    +                                                               +
    +                                                               +
    +                                                               +
    |                                                               |
    +                                                               +
    |                                                               |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   The type field specifies the type of this VRRP packet.  The type
   field can have two values.  Type 1 (ADVERTISEMENT) is used by the
   VRRP Master Router.  Type 2 (BACKUP ADVERTISEMENT) is used by the
   VRRP Backup router.  This is to distinguish the packets sent by the
   VRRP backup Router.  Rest of the fields in Advert packet remain the
   same.

      1 ADVERTISEMENT
      2 BACKUP ADVERTISEMENT

   A packet with unknown type MUST be discarded.

3.4.  Sample configuration

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   The following figure shows a simple network with three VRRP routers
   implementing one virtual router.

       +-----------+     +-----------+      +-----------+
       |   Rtr1    |     |   Rtr2    |      |   Rtr3    |
       |(MR VRID=1)|     |(BR VRID=1)|      |(BR VRID=1)|
       | (PR=200)  |     | (PR=150)  |      | (PR=100)  |
       | VRIPVX= A |     | VRIPVX= A |      | VRIPVX= A |
       +-----------+     +-----------+      +-----------+
            B                 C                  D
            |                 |                  |
            |                 |                  |
            |                 |                  |
   ---------+--------+--------+---------+--------+---------
   Legend:
           ---+---+---+--    =  Ethernet, Token Ring, or FDDI
                       MR    =  Master Router
                       BR    =  Backup Router
                       PR    =  VRRP Router priority
                       VRID  =  VRRP Router ID
                       VRIPVX=  IPv4 or IPv6 address protected by
                                the VRRP Router
                       B,C,D =  Interface IPv4 or IPv6 address of
                                the Virtual Router

   In the above configuration there are three routers on the LAN
   protecting an IPv4 or IPv6 address associated to a Virtual Router ID
   1.  Rtr1 is the Master router since it has the highest priority
   compared to Rtr2 and Rtr3.  Now if peer learning extension is enabled
   on all the peers.  Rtr1 will send the Advert packet with type field
   set to 1.  While Rtr2 and Rtr3 will send the Advert packet with type
   field set to 2.  In the above configuration the peer table built at
   each router is shown below:

   Rtr1 Peer table

   +------------------------------------+
   |  Peer Address  |     Priority      |
   +------------------------------------+
   |     C          |       150         |
   +------------------------------------+
   |     D          |       100         |
   +------------------------------------+

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   Rtr2 Peer table

   +------------------------------------+
   |  Peer Address  |     Priority      |
   +------------------------------------+
   |     B          |       200         |
   +------------------------------------+
   |     D          |       100         |
   +------------------------------------+

   Rtr3 Peer table

   +------------------------------------+
   |  Peer Address  |     Priority      |
   +------------------------------------+
   |     B          |       200         |
   +------------------------------------+
   |     C          |       150         |
   +------------------------------------+

   Once the peer tables are formed, VRRP on each router can form a mesh
   of BFD sessions with all the learnt peers.

3.5.  Critical BFD session

   The Critical BFD Session is determined to be the session between the
   VRRP Master and the next best VRRP Backup.  Failure of the Critical
   BFD session indicates that the Master is no longer available and the
   most preferred Backup will now become Master.

   In the above example the Critical BFD session is shared between Rtr1
   and Rtr2.  If the BFD Session goes from Up to Down state, Rtr2 can
   treat it as a Master down event and immediately assume the role of
   VRRP Master router for VRID 1 and Rtr3 will become the critical
   Backup.

4.  Applicability of p2mp BFD

   [I-D.draft-ietf-bfd-multipoint] provides an alternative solution that
   uses default route rather than dynamic routing.  This approach can be
   an efficient in some network deployments.  Each redundancy group
   presents itself as p2mp BFD session with its Master being the root
   and Backup routers being tails of the p2mp BFD session.  The Master
   router starts transmitting BFD control packets with VRID as source IP
   address.  Backup router demultiplexes p2mp BFD test sessions based on
   VRID that it been configured with.  Once Backup router accepts p2mp
   session from the new Master router backup router the Backup router
   MAY use My Discriminator from received p2mp BFD control packet to

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   demultiplex p2mp BFD sessions.  When a Backup router detects failure
   of the Master router it re-evaluates its role in the VRID.  As
   result, the Backup router may become the Master router of the given
   VRID or continue as a Backup router.  If the former is the case, then
   the new Master router MUST select My Discriminator and start
   transmitting p2mp BFD control packets using Master IP address as
   source IP address for p2mp BFD control packets.  If the latter is the
   case, then the Backup router MUST wait for p2mp BFD control packet
   with source IP address set to VRID.

5.  Scalability Considerations

   When forming mesh of BFD sessions one possible scenario can occur if
   the system is not able to scale well with the increased load of
   multiple BFD sessions.  To mitigate this problem sharing of BFD
   sessions with other protocols and opening less number of BFD sessions
   should be considered, i.e. between Master and the most preferred
   Backup router of the VRRP instance.

   To reduce the number of packets generated at a regular interval,
   Backup Advert packets may be sent at a reduced rate as compared to
   Advert packets sent by the VRRP Master.

   In a Data Centre with VXLAN extending the Layer 2 network, when
   implementing Section 4 of this document, inherently multicast traffic
   is flooded or replicated to all the Virtual Tunneling End Points by
   means of multicast traffic in the underlay network.  The amount of
   replication or flooding depends on the number of Virtual Tunnelling
   End Points connected to the VXLAN network.  VRRP is typically
   deployed on the Virtual Tunneling End Points.  If Multipoint BFD is
   used for tracking the state of VRRP Master Router the Multipoint BFD
   packets will get carried over the Layer 2 Overlay, this can lead to a
   lot of traffic getting flooded on the overlay as the rate at which
   BFD packets are generated will be typically in sub second range.
   Which is the problem if VRRP is configured with sub second timers.
   So in such scenarios where flooding of Multicast traffic is a
   concern, it is recommended to use Point to Point BFD sessions to
   avoid inherent flooding of Multicast traffic and configure VRRP to
   default or slow timers.

6.  Operational Considerations

   A VRRP peer that forms a member of this Virtual Router, but does not
   support this feature or extension must be configured with the lowest
   priority, and will only operate as the Router of last resort on
   failure of all other VRRP routers supporting this functionality.

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   It is recommended that mechanism defined by this draft, to interface
   VRRP with BFD should be used when BFD can support more aggressive
   monitoring timers than VRRP.  Otherwise it is desirable not to
   interface VRRP with BFD for determining the health of VRRP Master.

   This Draft does not preclude the possibility of the peer table being
   populated by means of manual configuration, instead of using the
   BACKUP ADVERTISEMENT as defined by the Draft.

7.  IANA Considerations

   This draft includes no request to IANA.

8.  Security Considerations

   Security considerations discussed in [RFC5798], [RFC5880] and
   [I-D.draft-ietf-bfd-multipoint], apply to this document.  There are
   no additional security considerations identified by this draft.

9.  Acknowledgements

   The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Gerry Meyer,
   and Mouli Chandramouli, for their contributions to the draft.  The
   authors will also like to thank Jeffrey Haas, Maik Pfeil and Vengada
   Prasad Govindan for their comments and suggestions.

10.  Normative References

   [RFC5880]  Katz, D. and D. Ward, "Bidirectional Forwarding Detection
              (BFD)", RFC 5880, 2010.

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

   [RFC5881]  Katz, D. and D. Ward, "Bidirectional Forwarding Detection
              (BFD) for IPv4 and IPv6 (Single Hop)", RFC 5881, 2010.

   [RFC5798]  Nadas, S., "Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP)
              Version 3 for IPv4 and IPv6", RFC 5798, 2010.

   [I-D.draft-ietf-bfd-multipoint]
              Katz, D., Ward, D., and S. Pallagatti, "BFD for Multipoint
              Networks", Work in Progress draft-ietf-bfd-multipoint-07,
              2015.

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Authors' Addresses

   Nitish Gupta
   Cisco Systems, Inc.
   Sarjapur Outer Ring Road
   Bangalore  560103
   India

   Phone: +91 80 4429 2530
   Email: nitisgup@cisco.com
   URI:   http://www.cisco.com/

   Aditya Dogra
   Cisco Systems, Inc.
   Sarjapur Outer Ring Road
   Bangalore  560103
   India

   Phone: +91 80 4429 2166
   Email: addogra@cisco.com
   URI:   http://www.cisco.com/

   Colin Docherty
   25 George Grieve Way
   Tranent
   East Lothian, Scotland  EH332QT
   United Kingdom

   Email: colin@doch.org.uk

   Greg Mirsky
   Ericsson

   Email: gregory.mirsky@ericsson.com

   Jeff Tantsura
   Ericsson

   Email: jeff.tantsura@ericsson.com

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