RIFT in Dragonfly Topologies
draft-przygienda-rift-dragonfly-02
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| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (individual) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Tony Przygienda | ||
| Last updated | 2026-04-06 | ||
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draft-przygienda-rift-dragonfly-02
Network Working Group A. Przygienda, Ed.
Internet-Draft HPE Juniper Networking
Intended status: Experimental 6 April 2026
Expires: 8 October 2026
RIFT in Dragonfly Topologies
draft-przygienda-rift-dragonfly-02
Abstract
RIFT extensions for dragonfly topologies.
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.
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
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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 8 October 2026.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2026 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
2. Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Horizontal Link Behavior at ToF Level . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. First Route Computation Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1. Additional Bi-Sectional Bandwidth Route Computation
Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. Dragonfly with Multi-Plane CLOS Fabrics . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Forwarding Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6. Partitioning of inter Fabric Planes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7. Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8. Summary Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
10. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
11. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
12.1. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
12.2. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Introduction
RIFT today is standardized to deal with CLOS variant fabrics with
some horizontal link exceptions. Given that interconnecting multiple
CLOS via a dragonfly and its variants is an interesting topology
(whether it's a full mesh or some kind of non-completely meshed
regular lattice) this document addresses the resulting changes
necessary to base RIFT specification to support dragonfly
interconnected CLOS fabrics. The reader is advised that due to
complexity of figures involved the ASCII version of the document may
present those in simplified fashion.
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+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+
| LA1 | | | | | | |
+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+
| \ / | | \ / |
| X | | X |
| / \ | | / \ |
+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+
| SA1 | | SA2 | | SC1 | | SC2 |
+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+
| | | | | | | |
| +-------|-|----------------------+ | | | |
+---------|-|----------------------+----------+ | | |
| | | +----------+ | |
| +----------------------|-|-------------------+ |
+--------------+ +-------|-|---------------------+
| | | |
+-----+ +-----+
| SB2 | | SB1 |
+-----+ +-----+
\ /
X
/ \
+-----+ +-----+
| | | LB1 |
+-----+ +-----+
Figure 1: Sparse Dragonfly of CLOS Fabrics
To start with, Figure 1 visualizes three simple single plane fabrics
interconnected via a DragonFly+ backbone. The behavior of standard
RIFT is better understood if we look at the homomorphic version of
the same topology in Figure 2. We can see that it is nothing else
but a multi-plane CLOS with a lot of broken links for standard RIFT.
The planes consist of S_x_1 and S_x_2 ToFs in each CLOS. Given this,
leaf LB1 should be connected to SA1 to be in the plane and since it
is not, SA1 will deduct that leaf LB1 fell off the plane 1 and
negatively disaggregate it. Unfortunately the same is true for leaf
LB1 from the view the SA2 in 2nd plane and it will negatively
disaggregate it as well. Hence, leaf LA1 will not have any
possibility to forward to LB1 using standard RIFT computed
forwarding. This points us already to the first modification needed;
we have to relax RIFT to forward through the horizontal links on ToFs
and this will be the starting point of the next section.
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Fabric A Fabric B
********************* *********************
* * * *
* +-*--*-----------+ +-*--------------+
* +---------|-*--*-+ +---|-----|-*----------| |
* | | * * | | | | * | |
* +-----+ +-----+ * * +-----+ +-----+ * +-----+ +-----+
* | SA2 | | SA1 | * * | SB2 | | SB1 | * | | | |
* +-----+ +-----+ * * +-----+ +-----+ * +-----+ +-----+
* | | \ / | | * * | \ / | * | | \ / | |
* +--|---\-/---|--|-*--*----|---\-/---|----*----+ | \ / | |
* | X | +-*--*----|----X----|----*-------|----X----|--+
* | / \ | * * | / \ | * | / \ |
* +-----+ +-----+ * * +-----+ +-----+ * +-----+ +-----+
* | | | LA1 | * * | | | LB1 | * | | | |
* +-----+ +-----+ * * +-----+ +-----+ * +-----+ +-----+
* * * *
* * * *
********************* *********************
Figure 2: Homomorphic View of Sparse Dragonfly as a Multi-Plane CLOS
2. Glossary
The following terms are used in this document.
DF+ capable ToF:
ToF that provides DF+ extensions, both in recognizing the inter
fabric links and computation procedures necessary to support
those. The resulting combination allows the use of RIFT with
dragonfly topologies overall.
Horizon:
We define horizon as a concept differentiating between inter
fabric links and southbound pointing standard RIFT intra fabric
links on a ToF. Both type of links need a different FIB to
support alternate next hop when routing between fabrics. A link
can only be on one side of the horizon but not both sides.
Inter Fabric Planes or IFL-planes:
Multi-Plane that spans multiple fabrics.
Inter Fabric link or IFL links:
A horizontal ToF link between two fabrics.
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K-Alternate Next Hops or KNHs:
Next hop used by the originating fabric on a k-shortest path
[EPPSTEIN] to the destination fabric. The receiver on the other
side must subsequently use as next hop shortest path next hop to
the destination fabric.
3. Horizontal Link Behavior at ToF Level
Dragonfly+, being basically, when seen a single fabric, a multi-plane
CLOS with many broken links (which we will call inter fabric planes
or IFL planes to distinguish them from multi-plane within a fabric
later) will somehow need to change the behavior of RIFT to allow
forwarding via horizontal links at ToF level lest we end up inverting
the fabric and force leaves to deal with transit traffic. Moreover,
the necessity to deal with new mis-cabling concepts leads us to
change the solution framework and consider this configuration not as
a single fabric but as a multi-fabric setup with dragonfly links
building inter fabric planes now. Additionally we will have to allow
adjacencies on ToF horizontal links to another fabric and permit
those to forward through such inter fabric planes while
distinguishing such inter fabric (or IF) links from normal horizontal
ToF "multi-plane ringing". Hence in Figure 2 instead of the first
assumption of a single fabric we break out fabric A and fabric B and
consider the links SA2-SB2 and SA1-SB1 as two "inter fabric DF+"
links, or in short, as already introduced, IFL links. And
fortunately enough, IFL links, just like all other horizontal ToF
links, are considered northbound from both sides and northbound
flooding rules apply, an ideal thing since with that ToFs will see
full topology of their inter fabric plane.
RIFT used in such DF+ configuration will require on ToF not only a
DF+ capability flag but a fabric ID now which has to be distinct in
each of the CLOS or dragonfly cliques. In case of non-DF+ mode a ToF
will declare such links miscabled, once enabled to operate in DF+ it
will mark those links as IFL links. Given `fabric_id` is an optional
schema element a ToF operating in DF+ mode will reject all links to
other ToFs without `fabric_id` value set or not indicating DF+ mode
as mis-cabled to prevent a mixture of non-DF+ and DF+ ToFs in a
setup. On the other hand, a ToF indicating DF+ capability and
showing matching fabric id is clearly a normal horizontal multi plane
ring in the same fabric.
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4. First Route Computation Change
Now that we can detect IFL links reliably we can also remove those
from the computations used in negative disaggregation as first step.
This will prevent ToFs in fabric A negatively disaggregating Fabric B
prefixes, a desirable behavior. Not being able to forward from
Fabric A to fabric B is obviously a far less desirable behavior and
hence a ToF in DF+ mode needs to extend its route computation by a
special southbound DF+ computation where we use SPF taking in first
step all IFL links and the nodes behind them as candidates. This
computation will result in a "direct inter fabric forwarding
database" containing amongst others shortest path to prefixes in
fabric B or in other words, direct inter fabric next hops.
4.1. Additional Bi-Sectional Bandwidth Route Computation Change
One of the DF+ properties is that it not only provides a direct path
to a destination but guarantees that destinations are reachable via
KNHs to increase the bi-sectional bandwidth. In our first simple
example SB1 forwarding to LA1 can take instead of SA1 directly a path
through SC1 relying on it forwarding to SA1. And in less dense DF+
backbones we can even encounter longer indirect paths. To support
this we introduce an additional SPF computation which computes for
each IFL interface k-shortest-paths whereas K should be obviously
reasonably constrained. To illustrate this by an example Figure 3
introduces a 17 fabrics rather sparse dragonfly mesh where a 3 hops
alternate paths are viable (if so chosen). FID 0 forwarding to FID 2
has obviously the shortest path via FID1 but a k-shortest path
computation will yield FID 13 and FID 16 as viable 3 hops k-shortest-
paths. However, only the originating fabric can choose a k-shortest
path and every subsequent non originator MUST follow equal cost
shortest paths to prevent looping or excessive bow-tying through the
fabric. Not only MUST it follow the shortest path to the destination
fabric, the shortest path MUST be actually computed on a topology
where the sender node is excluded to prevent looping.
For the sake of clarity Figure 3 does not visualize the full path
diversity since, e.g. FID 13 can viably choose FIDs 3, 6, 9 beside
FID 12 as shortest path next hops providing very significant path
diversity on a 3 hops path. Further "steering" of chosen nexthops
can be achieved by e.g. DSCP marking or congestion notification
schemes but such approaches are outside the scope of this document.
Computing such alternate next hops will have the other beneficial
effect of actually providing a backup path in case the direct IFL
plane link to another fabric becomes unavailable.
missing TDB
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Figure 3: Multi-Plane CLOS Fabrics Connected in Sparse Dragonfly
4.2. Dragonfly with Multi-Plane CLOS Fabrics
Most complex case of RIFT deployment would be a dragonfly topology of
CLOS fabrics which are in themselves already multi-plane fabrics. To
present it as homomorphic graph Figure 4 is included. The symmetry
is obvious, we end up with the normal RIFT ringing within the fabric,
e.g. r_A for fabric A and then for the inter fabric planes dragonfly
is basically the according ringing itself, here IR_1 and IR_2.
Observe that the northbound flooding occurring on all those links
will present each ToF with the full topology of the dragonfly, a
necessary condition for proper disaggregation and further
reachability computations. If the intra fabric ToF ringing should be
avoided a tunnel between the ToFs within a fabric are necessary and
may go all the way down to the leaves. How such tunnels are
provisioned is outside the specification here but it will necessitate
basically flat distribution of the loopbacks of the ToFs across whole
fabric via e.g. redistribution of some RIFT routes in northbound and
southbound direction or an equivalent scheme.
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Fabric A
*******************************************
* *
* +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ *
* | | | | | | | | *
* +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ *
* | \ / | | \ / | *
* | X | | X | *
* | / \ | | / \ | *
* +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ *
* | | | | | | | | *
* +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ *
* \ \ / / *
* \ X / *
* +-------\---+ / \ +---/---------+ *
* | +-----+ +-----+ | *
* | +---| SA2 | | SA1 |---+ | *
* | | +-----+ +-----+ | | *
* | | | | | r_A | *
* | +------|---------|------+ | *
* | | | | *
****|***********|*********|*************|**
| | | |
IR_2 | | | | IR_1
| | | |
****|***********|*********|*************|**
* | | | | *
* | +------|---------|------+ | *
* | | | | | r_B | *
* | | +-----+ +-----+ | | *
* | +---| SB2 | | SB1 |---+ | *
* | +-----+ +-----+ | *
* +-------/---+ \ / +---\---------+ *
* / X \ *
* / / \ \ *
* +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ *
* | | | | | | | | *
* +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ *
* | \ / | | \ / | *
* | X | | X | *
* | / \ | | / \ | *
* +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ *
* | | | | | | | | *
* +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+ *
* *
*******************************************
Fabric B
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Figure 4: Multi-Plane CLOS Fabrics Connected in Sparse Dragonfly
5. Forwarding Considerations
Since RIFT is being extended with the concept of KNH and IP packets
do not carry any marking as the path they have taken indiscriminate
forwarding using non-shortest paths at ToF level may loop in inter
fabric case. To prevent this the ToFs have to maintain the concept
of a "split horizon" on the arriving traffic. Any traffic arriving
at the ToF that is targeted at the prefix within its fabric can be
forwarded without any further considerations. On the other hand,
traffic not targeted at the fabric of the ToF arriving at a inter
fabric link MUST use a FIB generated by Section 4.1. The solution
will naturally limit any non-shortest inter fabric path in ToF case
to shortest paths computed without including the sender. As last
case, traffic arriving from within its own fabric but targeted at
another fabric can use any of the k-shortest paths as next hop as
described in Section 4.1. Observe that per interface specific FIB is
nothing particularly special, any technology supporting VPN or
trunking today is already capable of provisioning interface specific
forwarding behavior.
6. Partitioning of inter Fabric Planes
A special case where a plane within a remote fabric breaks down is
not noticeable in another fabric and hence the traffic can black hole
since we do suppress the IFL links during negative disaggregation
normally. To detect the condition reliably a ToF has to compute the
inter fabric view of all the other ToFs in its own fabric while
including IFL links and consider the resulting difference as "inter
fabric negative disaggregation". This is possible but at scale can
present significant computational load and is left therefore as
optional behavior. Additionally, even when the fabric is a single
plane fabric it must be then ringed at ToF level since otherwise the
ToFs do not see the inter fabric planes they are not part of as an
IFL ring.
The same computation will deal with an even stranger case of a double
failure on the IF links where a ToF becomes completely separated from
the other fabrics. It will detect this and initiate negative
disaggregation for the according prefixes.
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7. Specification
Precise schema changes and computation algorithms are to be provided
in future version of the draft in detail. Basically the LIEs and
Node TIEs need to be extended by fabric_id and DF+ mode indication
and computations described conceptually in former chapters tightly
specified.
8. Summary Overview
A final Figure 5 is provided to map things back to the usual
dragonfly sparse topology and show the concepts in action.
We see three fabrics, each of them multi-plane (though mixes are
absolutely possible as long the number of ToFs connected to dragonfly
are kept the same). The fat links represent the "IFL horizon", i.e.
any traffic coming from those links cannot use alternate next hops to
the destination. In this example traffic from LA11 going through
PA11 and SA2 towards LC11 is given two choices of next hops, either
SC2 or SB2. Now that it entered the IFL horizon in case SB2 receives
it no further alternate next hops will be used but traffic will be
handed off to SC2 which applies the same rule and in this case
actually forwards the traffic into the fabric.
[[ Overview of the solution,
Refer to PDF for Picture ]]
Figure 5: Multi-Plane CLOS Fabrics Connected in Sparse Dragonfly
For the more complex case of alternate paths longer than 2 hops and
the resulting forwarding behavior and path diversity Figure 3 has
been described in the document.
9. IANA Considerations
This document requests allocation for the following RIFT codepoints.
TBD
10. Security Considerations
TBD
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11. Acknowledgements
Dmitry Afanasiev's ideas around his work with BGP and dragonfly
started interesting discussions, and he provided the crucial split
horizon forwarding idea. Jeff Tantsura encouraged the work from its
initial conception. Many thanks to Benson Muite for ASCII figures.
12. References
12.1. Informative References
[EPPSTEIN] Eppstein, D., "Finding the k-Shortest Paths", 1997.
12.2. Normative References
[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>.
[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>.
Author's Address
Tony Przygienda (editor)
HPE Juniper Networking
1137 Innovation Way
Sunnyvale, CA
United States of America
Email: prz@juniper.net
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