Networking Working Group T. Winter, Ed.
Internet-Draft
Intended status: Standards Track ROLL Design Team
Expires: January 13, 2010 IETF ROLL WG
July 12, 2009
RPL: Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks
draft-dt-roll-rpl-01
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Abstract
This document specifies the Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy
Networks (RPL), in accordance with the requirements described in
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[I-D.ietf-roll-building-routing-reqs],
[I-D.ietf-roll-home-routing-reqs],
[I-D.ietf-roll-indus-routing-reqs], and [RFC5548].
Requirements Language
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].
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1. Design Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Protocol Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1. Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2. Protocol Properties Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2.1. IPv6 Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2.2. Path Properties for LLN Traffic Flows . . . . . . . . 7
3.2.3. Constraint Based Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2.4. Autonomous Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.3. Protocol Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.3.1. DAG Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3.2. Source Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.3.3. Destination Advertisement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.4. Other Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.4.1. DAG Depth and Loop Avoidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.4.2. DAG Parent Selection, Stability, and Greediness . . . 21
3.4.3. Merging DAGs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.4.4. Local and Temporary Routing Decision . . . . . . . . . 25
3.4.5. Scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.4.6. Maintenance of Routing Adjacency . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4. Constraint Based Routing in LLNs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.1. Routing Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.2. Routing Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.3. Constraint Based Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5. Specification of Core Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.1. DAG Information Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.1.1. DIO base option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.2. Neighbor Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.2.1. RA-DIO Reception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.2.2. RA-DIO Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5.2.3. Trickle Timer for RA Transmission . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.3. DAG Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.3.1. DAG Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.3.2. Administrative depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
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5.3.3. DRL entries states and stability . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.4. Establishing Routing State Outward Along the DAG . . . . . 45
5.4.1. Destination Advertisement Message Formats . . . . . . 46
5.4.2. Destination Advertisement Operation . . . . . . . . . 48
5.5. Maintenance of Routing Adjacency . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
5.6. Expectations of Link Layer Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . 55
6. Protocol Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
7. Manageability Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
9.1. DAG Information Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
9.2. Destination Advertisement Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
10. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
11. Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Appendix A. Deferred Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Appendix B. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
B.1. Moving Down a DAG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
B.2. Link Removed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
B.3. Link Added . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
B.4. Node Removed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
B.5. New LBR Added . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
B.6. Destination Advertisement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Appendix C. Additional Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
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1. Introduction
The defining characteristics of Low Power and Lossy Networks (LLNs)
offer unique challenges to a routing solution. The IETF ROLL Working
Group has defined application-specific routing requirements for a Low
Power and Lossy Network (LLN) routing protocol
[I-D.ietf-roll-building-routing-reqs]
[I-D.ietf-roll-home-routing-reqs] [I-D.ietf-roll-indus-routing-reqs]
[RFC5548]. RPL is a new routing protocol designed to meet these
requirements.
1.1. Design Principles
RPL was designed with the objective to meet the requirements spelled
out in [I-D.ietf-roll-building-routing-reqs],
[I-D.ietf-roll-home-routing-reqs],
[I-D.ietf-roll-indus-routing-reqs], and [RFC5548]. Because those
requirements are heterogeneous and sometimes incompatible in nature,
the approach is first taken to design a protocol capable of
supporting a core set of functionalities corresponding to the
intersection of the requirements. (Note: it is intended that as this
design evolves optional features may be added to address some
application specific requirements). All "MUST" application
requirements that cannot be satisfied by RPL will be specifically
listed in the Appendix A, accompanied by a justification.
The core set of functionalities is to be capable of operating in the
most severely constrained environments, with minimal requirements for
memory, energy, processing, communication, and other consumption of
limited resources from nodes. Trade-offs inherent in the
provisioning of protocol features will be exposed to the implementer
in the form of configurable parameters, such that the implementer can
further tweak and optimize the operation of RPL as appropriate to a
specific application and implementation. Finally, RPL is designed to
consult implementation specific policies to determine, for example,
the evaluation of routing metrics.
A set of companion documents to this specification will provide
further guidance in the form of applicability statements specifying a
set of operating points appropriate to the Building Automation, Home
Automation, Industrial, and Urban application scenarios.
2. Terminology
The terminology used in this document is consistent with and
incorporates that described in `Terminology in Low power And Lossy
Networks' [I-D.ietf-roll-terminology]. The terminology is extended
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in this document as follows:
Autonomous: Refers to the ability of a routing protocol to
independently function without requiring any external influence
or guidance. Includes self-organization capabilities.
DAG: Directed Acyclic Graph- A directed graph having the property
that all edges are oriented in such a way that no cycles exist.
In the RPL context, all edges are contained in paths oriented
toward and terminating at a root node (a DAG root, or sink-
typically a LBR).
DAGID: DAG Identifier- A globally unique identifier for a DAG. All
nodes who are members of a DAG have knowledge of the DAGID.
This knowledge is used to identify peer nodes within the DAG in
order to coordinate DAG Maintenance while avoiding loops.
DAG Parent: A parent of a node within a DAG is one of the immediate
successors of the node on a path towards the DAG root. For
each DAGID that a node is a member of, the node will maintain a
set containing one or more DAG Parents. If a node is a member
of multiple DAGs then it must conceptually maintain a set of
DAG Parents for each DAGID.
DAG Sibling: A sibling of a node within a DAG is defined to be any
neighboring node which is located at the same depth, or rank,
within a DAG. Note that siblings defined in this manner do not
necessarily share a common parent. For each DAGID that a node
is a member of, the node will maintain a set of DAG Siblings.
If a node is a member of multiple DAGs then it must
conceptually maintain a set of DAG Siblings for each DAGID.
DAG Root: A DAG root is a sink within the DAG graph. All paths in
the DAG terminate at a DAG root, and all DAG edges contained in
the paths terminating at a DAG root are oriented toward the DAG
root. There must be at least one DAG Root per DAGID, and in
some cases there may be more than one. In many use cases,
source-sink represents a dominant traffic flow, where the sink
is a DAG root. Maintaining default routing towards DAG roots
is therefore a prominent functionality for RPL.
Grounded: A DAG is grounded if it contains a DAG Root offering a
default route.
Floating: A DAG is floating if it contains a DAG root that does not
offer a default route.
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Inward: In the context of RPL, inward refers to the direction from
leaf nodes towards DAG roots, following the orientation of the
edges within the DAG.
Outward: In the context of RPL, outward refers to the direction from
DAG roots towards leaf nodes, going against the orientation of
the edges within the DAG.
P2P: Point-to-point. This refers to traffic exchanged between two
nodes.
P2MP: Point-to-Multipoint. This refers to traffic between one node
and a set of nodes. This is similar to the P2MP concept in
Multicast or MPLS Traffic Engineering ([RFC4461] and
[RFC4875]).
MP2P: Multipoint-to-Point; used to describe a particular traffic
pattern. A common RPL use case involves MP2P flows collecting
information from many nodes in the DAG, flowing inwards towards
DAG roots. Note that a DAG root may not be the ultimate
destination of the information, but it is a common transit
node.
OCP: Objective Code Point. In RPL, the Objective Code Point (OCP)
indicates which routing metrics, optimization objectives, and
related functions are in use in a DAG. It is recommended that
a companion document define instances of the Objective Code
Point and request the creation of a registry to manage them.
Note that in this document, the terms `node' and `LLN router' are
used interchangeably.
3. Protocol Model
The aim of this section is to describe RPL in the spirit of
[RFC4101]. An architectural protocol overview (the big picture of
the protocol) is provided in this section. Protocol details can be
found in further sections.
3.1. Problem
Some well-defined LLN application-specific scenarios are Building
Automation, Home Automation, Industrial, and Urban; for which the
unique routing requirements have been detailed respectively in
[I-D.ietf-roll-building-routing-reqs],
[I-D.ietf-roll-home-routing-reqs],
[I-D.ietf-roll-indus-routing-reqs], and [RFC5548]. Within these
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application-specific scenarios there are some common elements
required of routing. RPL intends to address the requirements of
these application-specific scenarios, and it is further intended to
be flexible enough to extend to other application scenarios.
3.2. Protocol Properties Overview
RPL demonstrates the following properties, consistent with the
requirements specified by the requirements documents.
3.2.1. IPv6 Architecture
RPL is strictly compliant with layered IPv6 architecture.
Further, RPL is designed with consideration to the practical support
and implementation of IPv6 architecture on devices which may operate
under severe resource constraints, including but not limited to
memory, processing power, energy, and communication. The RPL design
does not presume high quality reliable links, and should be able to
operate over lossy links (usually low bandwidth with low packet
delivery success rate).
3.2.2. Path Properties for LLN Traffic Flows
Multipoint-to-point (MP2P) and Point-to-multipoint (P2MP) traffic
flows from nodes within the LLN from and to egress points are very
common in LLNs. Low power and lossy network Border Router (LBR)
nodes may typically be at the root of such flows, although such flows
are not exclusively rooted at LBRs as determined on an application-
specific basis.
As required by the aforementioned routing requirements documents, RPL
supports the installation of multiple paths. The use of multiple
paths include sending duplicated traffic along diverse paths, as well
as to support advanced features such as Class of Service (CoS) based
routing, or simple load balancing among a set of paths (which could
be useful for the LLN to spread traffic load and avoid fast energy
depletion on some nodes).
3.2.3. Constraint Based Routing
The RPL design supports constraint based routing, based on a set of
routing metrics. The routing metrics supported by RPL are specified
in a companion document to this specification,
[I-D.ietf-roll-routing-metrics]. RPL signals the metrics and related
objective functions in use in a particular implementation by means of
an Objective Code Point (OCP).
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RPL supports the computation and installation of different paths in
support of and optimized for a set of application and implementation
specific constraints, as guided by an OCP. Traffic may subsequently
be directed along the appropriate constrained path based on traffic
marking within the IPv6 header. For more details on the approach
towards constraint-based routing, see Section 4.
3.2.4. Autonomous Operation
Nodes running RPL are able to independently and autonomously discover
a network topology and compute and install routes, without requiring
further administrative interaction.
3.3. Protocol Operation
LLN nodes running RPL will construct Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs)
rooted at designated nodes that generally provide default routes.
The DAG is sufficient to support inward MP2P traffic flows, flowing
inward along the LLN towards a sink (DAG Root), which is one of the
dominant traffic flows described in the requirements documents
([I-D.ietf-roll-building-routing-reqs],
[I-D.ietf-roll-home-routing-reqs],
[I-D.ietf-roll-indus-routing-reqs], and [RFC5548]).
By utilizing a DAG for dominant MP2P flows, RPL allows each node to
select and maintain potentially multiple successors capable of
forwarding traffic inwards towards the root. The DAG does not
present as many single points of failure as a tree, and in addition
can offer a node a set of pre-computed successors in support of, e.g.
local route repair in case of a temporary failure, load balancing, or
short term fluctuations in link characteristics.
A DAG also serves to restrict the routing problem on the nodes when
it is used as a reference topology. This allows nodes to determine
their positions in a DAG relative to each other and provides a means
to coordinate route repair in a way that endeavors to avoid loops.
These mechanisms will be described in more detail later in this
specification.
As DAGs are organized, RPL will use a Destination Advertisement
mechanism to build up routing state in support of outward P2MP
traffic flows. This mechanism, using the DAG as a reference,
`paints' the underlying LLN graph, guided along the DAG, such that
the routes toward destination prefixes in the outward direction may
be set up. As the DAG undergoes modification during DAG maintenance,
the Destination Advertisement mechanism can be triggered to update
the outward routing state.
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Arbitrary P2P traffic MAY flow inward along the DAG until a common
parent is reached who has stored routing state and is capable of
directing the traffic outward along the correct outward path. In the
present specification RPL does not specify nor preclude any
additional mechanisms that may be capable to compute and install more
optimal routes into LLN nodes in support of arbitrary P2P traffic.
(Note that in some application scenarios it may be important to
support arbitrary P2P traffic along more optimal paths `across' the
DAG). This functionality is to be investigated further in a future
revision.
This section further describes the high level operation of RPL.
3.3.1. DAG Construction
3.3.1.1. Overview of a Typical Case
RPL constructs one or more base routing topologies, in the form of
DAGs, over gradients defined by optimizing cost metrics along paths
rooted at designated nodes.
DAGs may be grounded, in which case the DAG Root is offering a
default route. A typical goal for a node participating in DAG
Construction will be to find and join a grounded DAG.
In the context of a particular LLN application one or more nodes will
be capable of offering a default route and thus be provisioned to act
as DAG roots. These nodes will begin the process of constructing a
grounded DAG by occasionally emitting Router Advertisements
containing the necessary information for neighboring nodes to
evaluate the DAG Root as a potential DAG parent. This information
will include a DAGID and an Objective Code Point (OCP). The OCP
provides information as to which metrics and optimization goals are
being employed across the DAG. Note that a single DAG Root may
conceptually root different DAGs with different OCPs as required to
support different sets of routing constraints. Note that if multiple
DAG roots are rooting the same DAG, i.e. presenting the same DAGID,
then they must have some means of coordinating with each other when
emitting Router Advertisements. This is described further below.
Nodes who hear Router Advertisements, advertising a specific DAGID
and OCP, will take into consideration several criteria when
processing the extracted DAG information. A node may seek a DAG
advertising a specific OCP, reflecting the implementation specific
routing constraints understood by the node. In particular, a node
will be seeking to find a least cost path satisfying some objective
function as indicated by the OCP according to some routing metrics
defined in [I-D.ietf-roll-routing-metrics]. For example, the least
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cost path may be determined in part by minimizing energy along a
path, or latency, or avoiding the use of battery powered nodes.
Based on the evaluation of such criteria, a node may determine if the
node who emitted the Router Advertisement should be considered as a
potential DAG parent. If so, then the node may add the advertising
node to its set of DAG parents for the advertised DAGID, and can be
considered to have joined the DAG designated by DAGID.
When a node adds the first DAG parent to the set of DAG parents for a
particular DAGID, the node is said to have joined, or attached to,
the DAG designated by DAGID. Adding additional DAG parents beyond
the first simply increases path diversity inwards toward the DAG
root. When a node removes the last DAG Parent from the set of DAG
parents for a particular DAGID, the node is said to have left, or
detached from, the DAG designated by DAGID. RPL will coordinate the
joining, leaving, and movement of nodes within a DAGID in such a way
so as to avoid the formation of loops, as described further below.
As nodes join the DAG they are able advertise the fact by beginning
to multicast the DAG information in Router Advertisements. In this
way, nodes are able to join the DAG at ever-increasing depths outward
from the DAG root. As nodes continue to receive DAG multicasts they
may continue to expand their set of DAG parents, while employing loop
avoidance strategies as describe below, in order to build path
diversity inwards toward the DAG root.
Using the information conveyed in the metrics of its most preferred
DAG parent, its own metrics, and the conventions and functions
indicated by the OCP, a node is able to compute a depth value within
the DAG which it will use to coordinate its DAG maintenance.
In addition to identifying DAG parents, a node also may hear the
Router Advertisements of other neighboring nodes at the same depth
within the DAG. In this way a node can discover DAG Siblings.
A node may order its set of DAG parents according to some
implementation specific preference. To this list the node may also
append a similarly ordered set of DAG siblings. By forwarding
traffic intended for the default destination towards the DAG parents,
the node is able to support the main Multipoint-to-point (MP2P)
traffic flows required by a typical LLN application. By using the
ordered set of DAG parents and DAG siblings the node is able to take
advantage of path diversity. For example, preferring to forward
traffic towards parents guarantees to get the traffic inwards, closer
to the DAG root, by definition, regardless of which parent is
selected. In this example, if forwarding towards parents is not
possible, perhaps due to a transient phenomena, then a node may then
choose to forward traffic towards siblings, moving across the DAG at
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the same level (neither inwards or outwards). When receiving traffic
forwarded from a sibling, the traffic should not be forwarded back to
the same sibling in order to avoid a 2-node loop. In a further
example, a forwarding implementation may choose to decrease the hop
limit more quickly when forwarding along sibling paths than along
parent paths. A forwarding engine may behave in a manner similar to
these examples, however the specific implementation of a forwarding
engine and related path diversity strategies is beyond the scope of
this specification.
Note that the further interaction of the routing solution and the
forwarding engine, in particular how they utilize and react to
changes in metrics, and how the forwarding engine may use the
constrained set of successors provided by the routing engine based on
L2 triggers and metrics, is under investigation.
By employing this procedure, the LLN is able to set up a path-
constrained DAG, rooted at designated nodes, with other nodes
organized along paths leading inward toward the DAG root. MP2P
traffic intended for the default destination flows inward along the
DAG towards the root, and nodes forwarding traffic are able to
leverage the path diversity of the DAG as necessary.
The DAG is then used by RPL as a reference topology, constraining the
LLN routing problem, on which to build additional routing mechanisms.
3.3.1.2. Further Operation
The sub-DAG of a node is the set of other nodes of greater depth in
the DAG that might use a path towards the DAG root that contains this
node. Depth in the DAG is defined such that nodes contained in the
sub-DAG of a specific node should tend to have a greater depth than
the node. Paths through siblings are not contained in this set.
As a further illustration, consider the DAG examples in Appendix B.
Consider Node (24) in the DAG Example depicted in Figure 12. In this
example, the sub-DAG of Node (24) is comprised of Nodes (34), (44),
and (45).
A DAG may also be floating, in which case the node rooting the DAG is
not offering a default route. Floating DAGs may be encountered, for
example, during coordinated reconfigurations of the network topology
wherein a node and its sub-DAG breaks off the DAG, temporarily
becomes a floating DAG, and reattaches to a grounded DAG at a
different (more optimal) location. (Such coordination endeavors to
avoid the construction of transient loops in the LLN). A DAG, or a
sub-DAG, may also become floating because of a network element
failure.
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A node will generally join at least one DAG, typically (but not
necessarily) to or through a LBR. This specification does not
preclude a node from joining multiple DAGs. In one such case, a
particular application may require the node to maintain membership in
multiple DAGs in order to satisfy competing constraints, for example
to support different types of traffic, similar to the concept of MTR
(Multi-topology routing) as supported by other routing protocols such
as IS-IS [RFC5120] or OSPF [RFC4915], although the RPL mechanisms
will significantly differ from the ones specified for these
protocols. (Note that not all constrained traffic cases may require
multiple DAGs). In support of such cases the RPL implementation must
independently maintain requisite information and state for each DAG
in parallel. In cases where a competing constraints must be
satisfied toward the same DAG root, the OCP should differ by
definition and may serve to coordinate the maintenance of the
multiple DAGs.
3.3.1.3. Router Advertisement - DAG Information Option (RA-DIO)
The IPv6 Router Advertisement mechanism (as specified in [RFC4861])
is used by RPL in order to build and maintain a DAG.
The IPv6 Router Advertisement message is augmented with a DAG
Information Option (DIO) in order to facilitate the formation and
maintenance of DAGs. The information conveyed in the DIO includes
the following:
o A DAGID used to identify the DAG as sourced from the DAG Root.
Typically the (potentially compressed) IPv6 address of the DAG
Root. May be tested for equality.
o Objective Code Point (OCP) as described below.
o Depth information used by nodes to determine their relationships
in the DAG relative to each other, i.e. parents, siblings, or
children. This is not a metric, although its derivation is
typically closely related to one or more metrics as specified by
the OCP. Used to support loop avoidance strategies and in support
of ordering alternate successors when engaged in path maintenance.
o Sequence number originated from the DAG root, used to aid in
identification of dependent sub-DAGs and coordinate topology
changes in a manner so as to avoid loops.
o Indications for the DAG, e.g. grounded or floating.
o DAG configuration parameters
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o A vector of path metrics. As discussed in
[I-D.ietf-roll-routing-metrics] such metrics may be cumulative,
may report a maximum, minimum, or average scalar value, or a link
property.
o List of additional destinations prefixes reachable via the DAG
root.
The Router Advertisements are issued whenever a change is detected to
the DAG such that a node is able to determine that a region of the
DAG has become inconsistent. As the DAG stabilizes the period at
which Router Advertisements occur is configured to taper off,
reducing the steady-state overhead of DAG maintenance. The periodic
issue of Router Advertisements, along with the triggered Router
Advertisements in response to inconsistency, is one feature that
enables RPL to operate in the presence of unreliable links.
The RA-DIO and related mechanisms are described in more detail in
Section 5.
3.3.1.4. Objective Code Point (OCP)
The OCP is seeded by the DAG Root and serves to convey and control
the optimization functions used within the DAG. The OCP is envisaged
to serve as an reference into a TBA Registry. Each instance of an
allocated OCP MUST indicate:
o The set of metrics used within the DAG
o The objective functions used to determine the least cost
constrained paths in order to optimize the DAG
o The function used to compute DAG Depth
o The functions used to construct derived metrics for propagation
within a DIO
For example, and objective code point might indicate that the DAG is
using ETX, that the optimization goal is to minimize ETX, that DAG
Depth is equivalent to ETX, and that DIO propagation entails adding
the advertised ETX of the most preferred parent to the ETX of the
link to the most preferred parent.
By using defined OCPs that are understood by all nodes in a
particular implementation, and by conveying them in the DIO, RPL
nodes may work to build optimized LLN using a variety of application
and implementation specific metrics and goals.
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NOTE: A NULL OCP MUST be specified with a well-defined default
behavior. The NULL code point will subsequently be used to define
RPL behaviors in the case where a node encounters a DIO containing a
code point that it does not support.
3.3.1.5. Selection of Feasible DAG Parents
The decision for a node to join a DAG may be optimized according to
implementation specific policy functions on the node as indicated by
one or more specific OCP values. For example, a node may be
configured for one goal to optimize a bandwidth metric (OCP-1), and
with a parallel goal to optimize for a reliability metric (OCP-2).
Thus two DAGs in parallel may be constructed and maintained in the
LLN, DAG-1 would be optimized according to OCP-1, whereas DAG-2 would
be optimized according to OCP-2. A node may then maintain two
parallel sets of DAG parents. Note that in such a case traffic may
directed along the appropriate constrained DAG based on traffic
marking within the IPv6 header.
As a node hears RAs from its neighbors it may process their DIOs. At
this time the node may be able to take into consideration, for
example, the following:
o Is the neighboring node heard reliably enough, and are the metrics
stable enough, that a local degree of confidence may be
established with respect to the neighboring node? Should the
neighboring node be considered in the set of candidate neighbors?
o In consultation with implementation specific policy (OCP goal), is
the neighboring node a feasible parent from a constrained-path
perspective?
o According to the implementation specific policy (OCP), does the
neighboring node offer a better optimized position into the DAG?
o Is the neighboring node a peer (sibling) within the DAG?
Based on such considerations, the node may incorporate the
neighboring node into the set of DAG parents.
When the node inserts the first DAG parent into the empty DAG parent
set, it is able to join the DAG. After the DAG parent set is
updated, the node will consult a depth computation function indicated
by the OCP for the DAG in order to determine its depth value, which
it will subsequently advertise when it emits its own DIOs. A general
property of the depth value presented by the node is that it should
be greater than that presented by any of its DAG parents. It is
recommended that a node maintain its DAG Parent set such that its
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most preferred parent from the OCP goals also has the greatest depth
value in the DAG parent set. All reliable neighboring nodes of a
lesser depth then the node may then be considered as potential DAG
parents. All neighboring nodes of equal depth may come to be
considered as siblings within the DAG (even though they may not have
parents in common, they may still provide path diversity towards the
DAG root).
The computation of depth, and related properties, are further
described in Section 3.4.1.
3.3.1.5.1. Example
For example, suppose that a node (N) is not attached to any DAG, and
that it is in range of nodes (A), (B), (C), (D), and (E). Let all
nodes be configured to use an OCP which defines a policy such that
ETX is to be minimized and paths with the attribute `Blue' should be
avoided. Let the depth computation indicated by the OCP simply
reflect the ETX aggregated along the path. Let the links between
node (N) and its neighbors (A-E) all have an ETX of 1 (which is
learned by node (N) through some implementation specific method).
Let node (N) be configured to send Router Solicitations to probe for
nearby DAGs.
o Node (N) transmits a Router Solicitation.
o Node (B) responds. Node (N) investigates the DIO, and learns that
Node (B) is a member of DAGID 1 at depth 4, and not `Blue'. Node
(N) takes note of this, but is not yet confident.
o Similarly, Node (N) hears from Node (A) at depth 9, Node (C) at
depth 5, and Node (E) at depth 4.
o Node (D) responds. Node (D) has a DIO that indicates that it is a
member of DAGID 1 at depth 2, but it carries the attribute `Blue'.
Node (N)'s policy function rejects Node (D), and no further
consideration is given.
o This process continues until Node (N), based on implementation
specific policy, builds up enough confidence to trigger a decision
to join DAGID 1. Let Node (N) determine its most preferred parent
to be Node (E).
o Node (N) adds Node (E) (depth 4) to its set of DAG Parents for
DAGID 1. Following the mechanisms specified by the OCP, and given
that the ETX is 1 for the link between (N) and (E), Node (N) is
now at depth 5 in DAGID. 1.
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o Node (N) adds Node (B) (depth 4) to its set of DAG Parents for
DAGID 1.
o Node (N) is a sibling of Node (C), both are at depth 5.
o Node (N) may now forward traffic intended for the default
destination inward along DAGID 1 via nodes (B) and (E). In some
cases, e.g. if nodes (B) and (E) are tried and fail, node (N) may
also choose to forward traffic to its sibling node (C), without
making inward progress but with the intention that node (C) or a
following successor can make inward progress.
3.3.1.6. DAG Maintenance
When a node moves within a DAG, the move is defined as updating the
set of DAG Parents for a particular DAGID, i.e. adding or deleting
DAG Parents. Not all moves entail changes in depth.
A jump in the context of a DAG is attaching to a new DAGID, in such a
way that an old DAGID is replaced by the new DAGID. In particular,
when an old DAGID is left, all associated parents are no longer
feasible, and a new DAGID is joined.
When a node in a DAG follows a DAG parent, it means that the DAG
parent has changed its DAGID (e.g. by joining a new DAG) and that the
node updates its own DAGID in order to keep the DAG parent.
A frozen sub-DAG is a subset of nodes in the sub-DAG of a node who
have been informed of a change to the node, and choose to follow the
node in a manner consistent with the change, for example in
preparation for a coordinated move. Nodes in the sub-DAG who hear of
a change and have other options than to follow the node do not have
to become part of the frozen sub-DAG, for example such a node may be
able to remain attached to the original DAG through a different DAG
Parent. A further example may be found in Section 3.4.1.1.
When the node encounters new candidate neighbors that offer higher
positions in the DAG, it may incorporate them directly into its set
of DAG parents. In this case the node may update its choice of most
preferred parent, discarding a deeper node and possibly causing its
own advertised depth to decrease. This case is `moving inwards along
the DAG' and does not require any additional coordination for loop
avoidance.
If the DAG parent set of the node becomes completely depleted, the
node will have detached from the DAG, and will become the root of its
own floating DAG (thus establishing the frozen sub-DAG), and then may
reattach to the original DAG at a lower point if it is able.
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When the node encounters candidate parents that are in a different
DAG, and decides to leave the current DAG in order to join the
different DAG, it may do so safely without regard to loop avoidance.
However, it may not return immediately to the current DAG as such
movement may trigger the creation of loops.
When a node, and perhaps a related frozen sub-DAG, jumps to a
different DAG, the move is coordinated by a DAG Hop timer. The DAG
Hop timer allows the nodes who will attach closer to the sink of the
new DAG to `jump' first, and then drag dependent nodes behind them,
thus endeavoring to efficiently coordinate the attachment of the
frozen sub-DAG into the new DAG. A further illustration of this
mechanism may be found in Section 3.4.3.
Section 5 contains more detail on the processes and rules used for
DAG discovery and maintenance.
Appendix B provides additional examples of DAG discovery and
maintenance.
3.3.2. Source Routing
A Source Routing mechanism for RPL is currently under investigation.
3.3.3. Destination Advertisement
As RPL constructs DAGs, nodes are able to learn a set of default
routes in order to send traffic to the sink. However, this mechanism
alone does is not sufficient to support P2MP traffic flowing outward
along the DAG from the DAG root toward nodes. A Destination
Advertisement mechanism is employed by RPL to build up routing state
in support of these outward flows.
3.3.3.1. Destination Advertisement Option (DAO)
A Destination Advertisement Option (DAO) is used to convey the
Destination information inward along the DAG toward the DAG root.
The information conveyed in the DAO includes the following:
o A lifetime and sequence counter to determine the freshness of the
Destination Advertisement.
o Depth information used by nodes to determine how far away the
destination (the source of the Destination Advertisement) is
o Prefix information to identify the destination, which may be a
prefix, an individual host, or multicast listeners
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o Reverse Route information to record the nodes visited (along the
outward path) when the intermediate nodes along the path cannot
support storing state for Hop-By-Hop routing.
3.3.3.2. Destination Advertisement Operation
As the DAG is constructed and maintained, nodes will emit messages
containing Destination Advertisement Options to a subset of their DAG
Parents. The selection of this subset is according to an
implementation specific policy.
Note that further details of the message and its triggers are still
under investigation, including whether or not the DAO should be a
IPv6 Hop-By-Hop option or a Neighbor Discovery option.
When a DAO reaches a node capable of storing routing state, the node
extracts information from the DAO and updates its local database with
a record of the DAO and who it was received from. When the node
later propagates DAOs, it selects the best (least depth) information
for each destination and conveys this information again in the form
of DAOs to a subset of its own DAG parents. At this time the node
may perform route aggregation if it is able, thus reducing the
overall number of DAOs.
When a DAO reaches a node incapable of storing additional state, the
node MUST append its own address to a Reverse Route Stack carried
within the DAO. The node then passes the DAO on to one or more of
its DAG parents without storing any additional state.
When a node that is capable of storing routing state encounters a DAO
with a Reverse Route Stack that has been populated, the node knows
that the DAO has traversed a region of nodes that did not record any
routing state. The node is able to detach and store the Reverse
Route State and associate it with the destination described by the
DAO. Subsequently the node may use this information to construct a
source route in order to bridge the region of nodes that are unable
to support Hop-By-Hop routing to reach the destination.
In this way the Destination Advertisement mechanism is able to
provision routing state in support of P2MP traffic flows outward
along the DAG, and as according to the available resources in the LLN
nodes.
Further aggregations of DAOs by destinations are possible in order to
support additional scalability.
A further example of the operation of the Destination Advertisement
mechanism is available in Appendix B.6
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3.4. Other Considerations
3.4.1. DAG Depth and Loop Avoidance
When nodes select DAG Parents, they should select the most preferred
parent according to their implementation specific objectives, using
the cost metrics conveyed in the DIOs along the DAG in conjunction
with the related objective functions as specified by the OCP.
Based on this selection, the metrics conveyed by the most preferred
DAG parent, the nodes own metrics and configuration, and a related
function defined by the objective code point, a node will be able to
compute a value for its depth as a consequence of selecting a most
preferred DAG parent.
It is important to note that the DAG Depth is not itself a metric,
although its value is derived from and influenced by the use of
metrics to select DAG parents and take up a position in the DAG. The
computation of the DAG Depth MUST be done in such a way so as to
maintain the following properties for any nodes M and N who are
neighbors in the LLN:
For a node N, and its most preferred parent M, DAGDepth(N) >
DAGDepth(M) must hold. Further, all parents in the DAG parent set
must be of a depth less than or equal to DAGDepth(M). (This
mechanism serves to avoid loops in the case where an alternate
parent is used- if no alternate parent is deeper than the
preferred parent then loops are avoided. The risk of loops occurs
when an alternate parent goes deeper, and traffic then makes
backwards progress and comes back to the node again).
If DAGDepth(M) < DAGDepth(N), then M is located in a more optimum
position than N in the DAG with respect to the metrics and
optimizations defined by the objective code point. Node M may
safely be a DAG Parent for Node N without risk of creating a loop.
If DAGDepth(M) == DAGDepth(N), then M and N are located positions
of relatively the same optimality within the DAG. In some cases,
Node M may be used as a successor by Node N, but with related
chance of creating a loop that must be detected and broken by some
other means.
If DAGDepth(M) > DAGDepth(N), then node M is located in a less
optimum position than N in the DAG with respect to the metrics and
optimizations defined by the objective code point. Further, Node
(M) may in fact be in Node (N)'s sub-DAG. There is no advantage
to Node (N) selecting Node (M) as a DAG Parent, and such a
selection may create a loop.
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For example, the DAG Depth could be computed in such a way so as to
closely track ETX when the objective function is to minimize ETX, or
latency when the objective function is to minimize latency, or in a
more complicated way as appropriate to the objective code point being
used within the DAG.
The DAG depth is subsequently used to restrict the options a node has
for movement within the DAG and to coordinate movements in order to
avoid the creation of loops.
A node may safely move `up' in the DAG, causing its DAG depth to
decrease and moving closer to the DAG root without risking the
formation of a loop.
A node may not consider to move `down' the DAG, causing its DAG depth
to increase and moving further from the DAG root. Such a move will
entail moving to a less optimum position in the DAG in all cases, as
defined by the objective code point. In the case where a node looses
connectivity to the DAG, it must first leave the DAG before it may
then rejoin at a deeper point.
Any neighboring nodes of lesser or equal depth are eligible to be
considered as DAG parents.
3.4.1.1. Example
: : :
: : :
(A) (A) (A)
|\ | |
| `-----. | |
| \ | |
(B) (C) (B) (C) (B)
| | \
| | `-----.
| | \
(D) (D) (C)
|
|
|
(D)
[1] [2] [3]
Figure 1: DAG Maintenance
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Consider the example depicted in Figure 1-1. In this example, Node
(A) is attached to a DAG at some depth d. Node (A) is a DAG Parent
of Nodes (B) and (C). Node (C) is a DAG Parent of Node (D). There
is also an undirected sibling link between Nodes (B) and (C).
In this example, Node (C) may safely forward to Node (A) without
creating a loop. Node (C) may not safely forward to Node (D),
contained within it's own sub-DAG, without creating a loop. Node (C)
may forward to Node (B) in some cases, e.g. the link (C)->(A) is
temporarily unavailable, but with some chance of creating a loop and
requiring the intervention of additional mechanisms to detect and
break the loop.
Consider the case where Node (C) hears a DIO from a Node (Z) at a
lesser depth and superior position in the DAG than node (A). Node
(C) may safely undergo the process to evict node (A) from its DAG
Parent set and attach directly to Node (Z) without creating a loop,
because its depth will decrease.
Consider the case where the link (C)->(A) becomes nonviable, and node
(C) must move to a deeper depth within the DAG:
o Node (C) must first detach from the DAG by removing Node (A) from
its DAG Parent set, leaving an empty DAG Parent set. Node (C)
becomes the root of its own floating DAG.
o Node (D), hearing a modified RA-DIO from Node (C), follows Node
(C) into the floating DAG. This is depicted in Figure 1-2. In
general, any node with no other options in the sub-DAG of Node (C)
will follow Node (C) into the floating DAG, maintaining the
structure of the sub-DAG.
o Node (C) hears a RA-DIO from Node (B) and determines it is able to
rejoin the grounded DAG by reattaching at a deeper depth to Node
(B). Node (C) starts a DAG Hop timer to coordinate this move.
o The timer expires and Node (C) adds Node (B) to its DAG Parent
set. Node (C) has now safely moved deeper within the grounded DAG
without creating any loops. Node (D), and any other sub-DAG of
Node (C), will hear the modified RA-DIO sourced from Node (C) and
follow Node (C) in a coordinated manner to reattach to the
grounded DAG. The final DAG is depicted in Figure 1-3
3.4.2. DAG Parent Selection, Stability, and Greediness
If a node is greedy and attempts to move deeper in the DAG, beyond
its most preferred parent, in order to increase the size of the DAG
Parent set, then an instability can result. This is illustrated in
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Figure 2.
Suppose a node is willing to receive and process a RA-DIOs from a
node in its own sub-DAG, and in general a node deeper than it. In
such cases a chance exists to create a feedback loop, wherein two or
more nodes continue to try and move in the DAG in order to optimize
against each other. In some cases this will result in an
instability. It is for this reason that RPL recommends that a node
MUST NOT receive and process RA-DIOs from deeper nodes. This rule
creates an `event horizon', whereby a node cannot be influenced into
an instability by the action of nodes that may be in its own sub-DAG.
3.4.2.1. Example
(A) (A) (A)
|\ |\ |\
| `-----. | `-----. | `-----.
| \ | \ | \
(B) (C) (B) \ | (C)
\ | | /
`-----. | | .-----`
\| |/
(C) (B)
[1] [2] [3]
Figure 2: Greedy DAG Parent Selection
Consider the example depicted in Figure 2. A DAG is depicted in 3
different configurations. A usable link between (B) and (C) exists
in all 3 configurations. In Figure 2-1, Node (A) is a DAG Parent for
Nodes (B) and (C), and (B)--(C) is a sibling link. In Figure 2-2,
Node (A) is a DAG Parent for Nodes (B) and (C), and Node (B) is also
a DAG Parent for Node (C). In Figure 2-3, Node (A) is a DAG Parent
for Nodes (B) and (C), and Node (C) is also a DAG Parent for Node
(B).
If a RPL node is too greedy, in that it attempts to optimize for an
additional number of parents beyond its preferred parent, then an
instability can result. Consider the DAG illustrated in Figure 2-1.
In this example, Nodes (B) and (C) may most prefer Node (A) as a DAG
Parent, but are operating under the greedy condition that will try to
optimize for 2 parents.
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o Let Figure 2-1 be the initial condition.
o Suppose Node (C) first is able to leave the DAG and rejoin at a
lower depth, taking both Nodes (A) and (B) as DAG parents as
depicted in Figure 2-2. Now Node (C) is deeper than both Nodes
(A) and (B), and Node (C) is satisfied to have 2 DAG parents.
o Suppose Node (B), in its greediness, is willing to receive and
process a DIO from Node (C) (against the rules of RPL), and then
Node (B) leaves the DAG and rejoins at a lower depth, taking both
Nodes (A) and (C) as DAG Parents. Now Node (B) is deeper than
both Nodes (A) and (C) and is satisfied with 2 DAG parents.
o Then Node (C) will leave and rejoin deeper, to again get 2 parents
o Then Node (B) will leave and rejoin deeper, to again get 2 parents
o ...
o The process will repeat, and the DAG will oscillate between
Figure 2-2 and Figure 2-3 until the nodes count to infinity and
restart the cycle again.
o This cycle can be averted through mechanisms in RPL:
* Nodes (B) and (C) stick at a depth sufficient to attach to
their most preferred parent (A) and don't go for any deeper
(worse) alternate parents (Nodes are not greedy)
* Nodes (B) and (C) don't process DIOs from nodes deeper than
themselves (possibly in their own sub-DAGs)
3.4.3. Merging DAGs
The merging of DAGs is coordinated in a way such as to try and merge
two DAGs cleanly, preserving as much DAG structure as possible, and
in the process effecting a clean merge with minimal likelihood of
forming transient loops
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3.4.3.1. Example
:
:
(A) (D)
| |
| |
| |
(B) (E)
| |
| |
| |
(C) (F)
Figure 3: Merging DAGs
Consider the example depicted in Figure 3. Nodes (A), (B), and (C)
are part of some larger grounded DAG, where Node (A) is at a depth of
d, Node (B) at d+1, and Node (C) at d+2. The DAG comprised of Nodes
(D), (E), and (F) is a floating DAG, with Node (D) as the DAG root.
This floating DAG may have been formed, for example, in the absence
of a grounded DAG or when Node (D) had to detach from a grounded DAG
and (E) and (F) followed. All nodes are using compatible objective
code points.
Nodes (D), (E), and (F) would rather join the grounded DAG if they
are able than to remain in the floating DAG.
Next, let links (C)--(D) and (A)--(E) become viable. The following
sequence of events may then occur in a typical case:
o Node (D) will receive and process a RA-DIO from Node (C) on link
(C)--(D). Node (D) will consider Node (C) a candidate neighbor,
will note that Node (C) is in a grounded DAG at depth d+2, and
will begin the process to join the grounded DAG at depth d+3.
Node (D) will start a DAG Hop timer, logically associated with the
grounded DAG at Node (C), to coordinate the jump. The DAG Hop
timer will have a duration proportional to d+2.
o Similarly, Node (E) will receive and process a RA-DIO from Node
(A) on link (A)--(E). Node (E) will consider Node (A) a candidate
neighbor, will note that Node (A) is in a grounded DAG at depth d,
and will begin the process to join the grounded DAG at depth d+1.
Node (E) will start a DAG Hop timer, logically associated with the
grounded DAG at Node (A), to coordinate the jump. The DAG Hop
timer will have a duration proportional to d.
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o Node (F) takes no action, for Node (F) has observed nothing new to
act on.
o Node (E)'s DAG Hop timer for the grounded DAG at Node (A) expires
first. Node (E), upon the DAG Hop timer expiry, is removes Node
(D), thus emptying the DAG parent set for the floating DAG and
leaving the floating DAG. Node (E) then jumps to the grounded DAG
by entering Node (A) into the set of DAG Parents for the grounded
DAG. Node (E) is now in the grounded DAG at depth d+1. Node (E),
by jumping into the grounded DAG, has created an inconsistency and
will begin to emit RA-DIOs more frequently.
o Node (F) will receive and process a RA-DIO from Node (E). Node
(F) will observe that Node (E) has changed its DAGID and will
directly follow Node (E) into the grounded DAG. Node (F) is now a
member of the grounded DAG at depth d+2. Note that any additional
sub-DAG of Node (E) would continue to join into the grounded DAG
in this coordinated manner.
o Node (D) will receive a RA-DIO from Node (E). Since Node (E) is
now in a different DAG, Node (D) may process the RA-DIO from Node
(E). Node (D) will observe that, via node (E), it could attach to
the grounded DAG at depth d+2. Node (D) will start another DAG
Hop timer, logically associated with the grounded DAG at Node (E),
with a duration proportional to d+1. Node (D) now is running two
DAG hop timers, one which was started with duration proportional
to d+1 and one proportional to d+2.
o Generally, Node (D) will expire the timer associated with the jump
to the grounded DAG at node (E) first. Node (D) may then jump to
the grounded DAG by entering Node (E) into its DAG Parent set for
the grounded DAG. Node (D) is now in the grounded DAG at depth
d+2.
o In this way RPL has coordinated a merge between the grounded DAG
and the floating DAG, such that the nodes within the two DAGs come
together in a generally ordered manner, avoiding the formation of
loops in the process.
3.4.4. Local and Temporary Routing Decision
Although implementation specific, it is worth noting that a node may
decide to implement some local routing decision based on some
metrics, as observed locally or reported in the DIO. For example,
the routing may reflect a set of successors (next-hop), along with
various aggregated metrics used to load balance the traffic according
to some local policy. Such decisions are local and implementation
specific.
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Routing stability is crucial in a LLN: in the presence of unstable
links, the first option consists of removing the link from the DAG
and triggering a DAG recomputation across all of the nodes affected
by the removed link. Such a naive approach could unavoidably lead to
frequent and undesirable changes of the DAG, routing instability, and
high-energy consumption. The alternative approach adopted by RPL
relies on the ability to temporarily not use a link toward a
successor marked as valid, with no change on the DAG structure. If
the link is perceived as non-usable for some period of time (locally
configurable), this triggers a DAG recomputation, through the DAG
Discovery mechanism further detailed in Section 5.3, after reporting
the link failure. Note that this concept may be extended to take
into account other link characteristics: for the sake of
illustration, a node may decide to send a fixed number of packets to
a particular successor (because of limited buffering capability of
the successor) before starting to send traffic to another successor.
According to the local policy function, it is possible for the node
to order the DAG parent set from `most preferred' to `least
preferred'. By constructing such an ordered set, and by appending
the set with siblings, the node is able to construct an ordered list
of preferred next hops to assist in local and temporary routing
decisions. The use of the ordered list by a forwarding engine is
loosely constrained, and may take into account the dynamics of the
LLN. Further, a forwarding engine implementation may decide to
perform load balancing functions using hash-based mechanisms to avoid
packet re-ordering. Note however, that specific details of a
forwarding engine implementation are beyond the scope of this
document.
These decisions may be local and/or temporary with the objective to
maintain the DAG shape while preserving routing stability.
3.4.5. Scalability
As each node selects DAG Parents according to implementation specific
objectives, RPL is able to dynamically partition an LLN network into
different regions, each anchored by a DAG root. Multiple DAG roots
may be deployed in accordance with an implementation specific policy
designed to limit the size of a partition, e.g. for performance or
other reasons.
A further example is illustrated in Appendix C.
3.4.6. Maintenance of Routing Adjacency
In order to relieve the LLN of the overhead of periodic keepalives,
RPL MAY employ an as-needed mechanism of NS/NA in order to verify
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routing adjacencies just prior to forwarding data. Pending the
outcome of verifying the routing adjacency, the packet may either be
forwarded or an alternate next-hop may be selected.
4. Constraint Based Routing in LLNs
This aim of this section is to make a clear distinction between
routing metrics and constraints and define the term constraint based
routing as used in this document.
4.1. Routing Metrics
Routing metrics are used by the routing protocol to compute the
shortest path according to one of more defined metrics. IGPs such as
IS-IS ([RFC5120]) and OSPF ([RFC4915]) compute the shortest path
according to a Link State Data Base (LSDB) using link metrics
configured by the network administrator. Such metrics can represent
the link bandwidth (in which case the metric is usually inversely
proportional to the bandwidth), delay, etc. Note that in some cases
the metric is a polynomial function of several metrics defining
different link characteristics. The resulting shortest path cost is
equal to the sum (or multiplication) of the link metrics along the
path: such metrics are said to be additive or multiplicative metrics.
Some routing protocols support more than one metric: in the vast
majority of the cases, one metric is used per (sub)topology. Less
often, a second metric may be used as a tie breaker in the presence
of ECMP (Equal Cost Multiple Paths). The optimization of multiple
metrics is known as an NP complete problem and is sometimes supported
by some centralized path computation engine.
In the case of RPL, it is virtually impossible to define *the*
metric, or even a composite, that will fit it all:
o Some information apply to path setup time, other apply to packet
forwarding time.
o Some values are aggregated hop-by-hop, others are triggers from
L2.
o Some properties are very stable, others vary rapidly.
o Some data are useful in a given scenario and useless in another.
o Some arguments are scalar, others statistical.
For that reason, the RPL protocol core is agnostic to the logic that
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handles metrics. A node will be configured with some external logic
to use and prioritize certain metrics for a specific scenario. As
new heterogeneous devices are installed to support the evolution of a
network, or as networks form in a totally ad-hoc fashion, it will
happen that nodes that are programmed with antagonistic logics and
conflicting or orthogonal priorities end up participating in the same
network. It is thus RECOMMENDED to use consistent parent selection
policy, as per Objective Code Points (OCP), to ensure consistent
optimized paths.
RPL is designed to survive and still operate, though in a somewhat
degraded fashion, when confronted to such heterogeneity. The key
design point is that each node is solely responsible for setting the
vector of metrics that it sources in the DAG, derived in part from
the metrics sourced from its preferred parent. As a result, the DAG
is not broken if another node makes its decisions in as antagonistic
fashion, though an end-to-end path might not fully achieve any of the
optimizations that nodes along the way expect. The to-be-defined
NULL OCP and related behaviors will further clarify this point.
4.2. Routing Constraints
A constraint is a link or a node characteristic that must be
satisfied by the computed path (using boolean values or lower/upper
bounds) and is by definition neither additive nor multiplicative.
Examples of links constraints are "available bandwidth",
"administrative values (e.g. link coloring)", "protected versus non-
protected links", "link quality" whereas a node constraint can be the
level of battery power, CPU processing power, etc.
4.3. Constraint Based Routing
The notion of constraint based routing consists of finding the
shortest path according to some metrics satisfying a set of
constraints. A technique consists of first filtering out all links
and nodes that cannot satisfy the constraints (resulting in a sub-
topology) and then computing the shortest path.
Example 1:
Link Metric: Bandwidth
Link Constraint: Blue
Node Constraint: Mains-powered node
Objective function 1:
"Find the shortest path (path with lowest cost where the path
cost is the sum of all link costs (Bandwidth)) along the path
such that all links are colored `Blue' and that only traverses
Mains-powered nodes."
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Example 2:
Link Metric: Delay
Link Constraint: Bandwidth
Objective function 2:
"Find the shortest path (path with lowest cost where the path
cost is the sum of all link costs (Delay)) along the path such
that all links provide at least X Bit/s of reservable
bandwidth."
5. Specification of Core Protocol
5.1. DAG Information Option
The DAG Information Option carries a number of metrics and other
information that allows a node to discover a DAG, select its DAG
parents, and identify its siblings while employing loop avoidance
strategies.
5.1.1. DIO base option
The DAG Information Option is a container option, which might contain
a number of suboptions. The base option regroups the minimum
information set that is mandatory in all cases.
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0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Length |G|D| Reserved | Sequence |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| DAGPreference | BootTimeRandom |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| NodePref. | DAGDepth | DAGDelay |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| DIOIntDoubl. | DIOIntMin. | DAGObjectiveCodePoint |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| PathDigest |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
+ +
| DAGID |
+ +
| |
+ +
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| sub-option(s)...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 4: DIO Base Option
Type: 8-bit unsigned identifying the DIO base option. The value is
to be assigned by the IANA.
Length: 8-bit unsigned integer set to 4 when there is no suboption.
The length of the option (including the type and length fields
and the suboptions) in units of 8 octets.
Grounded (G): The Grounded (G) flag is set when the DAG root is
offering a default route.
Destination Advertisement (D): The Destination Advertisement (D)
flag is set when the DAG root or another node in the successor
chain decides to trigger the sending of Destination
Advertisements in order to update routing state for the outward
direction along the DAG, as further detailed in Section 5.4.
Note that the use and semantics of this flag are still under
investigation.
Reserved: 6-bit unsigned integer set to 0 by the DAG root and left
unchanged by nodes propagating the DIO.
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Sequence Number: 8-bit unsigned integer set by the DAG root,
incremented with each new DIO it sends on a link, and
propagated with no change outwards along the DAG.
DAGPreference: 8-bit unsigned integer set by the DAG root to its
preference and unchanged at propagation. Default is 0 (lowest
preference). The DAG preference provides an administrative
mechanism to engineer the self-organization of the LLN, for
example indicating the most preferred LBR.
BootTimeRandom: A random value computed at boot time and recomputed
in case of a duplication with another node. The concatenation
of the NodePreference and the BootTimeRandom is a 32-bit
extended preference that is used to resolve collisions. It is
set by each node at propagation time.
NodePreference: The administrative preference of that LLN Node.
Default is 0. 255 is the highest possible preference. Set by
each LLN Node at propagation time. Forms a collision
tiebreaker in combination with BootTimeRandom.
DAGDepth: 8-bit unsigned integer. The DAG depth of the DAG root is
0. The DAG Depth of a node attached to the DAG should be
greater than depth of its deepest DAG parent, as computed by an
implementation specific routine. All nodes in the DAG
advertise their DAG depth in the DAG Information Options that
they append to the RA messages over their LLN interfaces as
part of the propagation process.
DAGDelay: 16-bit unsigned integer set by the DAG root indicating the
delay before changing the DAG configuration, in TBD-units. A
default value is TBD. It is expected to be an order of
magnitude smaller than the RA-interval. It is also expected to
be an order of magnitude longer than the typical propagation
delay inside the LLN.
DIOIntervalDoublings: 8-bit unsigned integer. Used to configure the
trickle timer governing when RA-DIO should be sent within the
DAG. DIOIntervalDoublings is the number of times that the
DIOIntervalMin is allowed to be doubled during the trickle
timer operation, i.e. DIOIntervalMax = DIOIntervalMin *
2^(DIOIntervalDoublings).
DIOIntervalMin: 8-bit unsigned integer. Used to configure the
trickle timer governing when RA-DIO should be sent within the
DAG. The minimum configured interval for the RA-DIO trickle
timer in units of ms is 2^DIOIntervalMin. For example, a
DIOIntervalMin value of 16ms is expressed as 4.
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DAGObjectiveCodePoint: The DAG Objective Code Point is used to
indicate the cost metrics, objective functions, and methods of
computation and comparison for DAGDepth in use in the DAG. The
DAG OCP is set by the DAG Root. (Note: this specification
recommends that another document, e.g.
[I-D.ietf-roll-routing-metrics], define Objective Code Points
and recommend a registry to manage them)
PathDigest: 32-bit unsigned integer CRC, updated by each LLN Node.
This is the result of a CRC-32c computation on a bit string
obtained by appending the received value and the ordered set of
DAG parents at the LLN Node. DAG roots use a 'previous value'
of zeroes to initially set the PathDigest. Used to determine
when something in the set of successor paths has changed.
DAGID: 128-bit unsigned integer which uniquely identify a DAG. This
value is set by the DAG root. The global IPv6 address of the
DAG root can be used.
The following values MUST NOT change during the propagation of the
DIO outwards along the DAG: Type, Length, G, DAGPreference, DAGDelay
and DAGID. All other fields of the DIO are updated at each hop of
the propagation.
5.1.1.1. DIO suboptions
In addition to the minimum options presented in the base option, a
number of suboptions are defined for the DIO:
5.1.1.1.1. Format
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Subopt. Type | Subopt Length | Suboption Data...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 5: DIO Suboption Generic Format
Suboption Type: 8-bit identifier of the type of suboption. When
processing a DIO containing a suboption for which the Suboption
Type value is not recognized by the receiver, the receiver MUST
silently ignore and skip over the suboption, correctly handling
any remaining options in the message.
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Suboption Length: 8-bit unsigned integer, representing the length in
octets of the suboption, not including the suboption Type and
Length fields.
Suboption Data: A variable length field that contains data specific
to the option.
The following subsections specify the DIO suboptions which are
currently defined for use in the DAG Information Option.
Implementations MUST silently ignore any DIO suboptions options that
they do not understand.
DIO suboptions may have alignment requirements. Following the
convention in IPv6, these options are aligned in a packet such that
multi-octet values within the Option Data field of each option fall
on natural boundaries (i.e., fields of width n octets are placed at
an integer multiple of n octets from the start of the header, for n =
1, 2, 4, or 8).
5.1.1.1.2. Pad1
The Pad1 suboption does not have any alignment requirements. Its
format is as follows:
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type = 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 6: Pad 1
NOTE! the format of the Pad1 option is a special case - it has
neither Option Length nor Option Data fields.
The Pad1 option is used to insert one octet of padding in the DIO to
enable suboptions alignment. If more than one octet of padding is
required, the PadN option, described next, should be used rather than
multiple Pad1 options.
5.1.1.1.3. PadN
The PadN option does not have any alignment requirements. Its format
is as follows:
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0 1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- - - - - - - - -
| Type = 1 | Subopt Length | Subopt Data
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- - - - - - - - -
Figure 7: Pad N
The PadN option is used to insert two or more octets of padding in
the DIO to enable suboptions alignment. For N (N > 1) octets of
padding, the Option Length field contains the value N-2, and the
Option Data consists of N-2 zero-valued octets. PadN Option data
MUST be ignored by the receiver.
5.1.1.1.4. DAG Metric Container
The DAG Metric Container suboption may be aligned as necessary to
support its contents. Its format is as follows:
0 1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- - - - - - - - -
| Type = 2 | Container Len | DAG Metric Data
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- - - - - - - - -
Figure 8: DAG Metric Container
The DAG Metric Container is used to report aggregated path metrics
along the DAG. The DAG Metric Container may contain a number of
discrete node, link, and aggregate path metrics as chosen by the
implementer. The Container Length field contains the length in
octets of the DAG Metric Data. The order, content, and coding of the
DAG Metric Container data is as specified in
[I-D.ietf-roll-routing-metrics].
The processing and propagation of the DAG Metric Container is
governed by implementation specific policy functions.
5.1.1.1.5. Destination Prefix
The Destination Prefix suboption has an alignment requirement of
4n+1. Its format is as follows:
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0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type = 3 | Length | Prefix Length |Resvd|Prf|Resvd|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Destination Prefix (Variable Length) |
. .
. .
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 9: DAG Destination Prefix
The Destination Prefix suboption is used when the DAG root needs to
indicate that it offers connectivity to destination prefixes other
than the default. This may be useful in cases where more than one
LBR is operating within the LLN and offering connectivity to
different administrative domains, e.g. a home network and a utility
network. (Note that a grounded DIO offers the default route without
any other qualification needed). In such cases, upon observing the
Destination Prefixes offered by a particular DAG root, a node MAY
decide to join multiple DAGs in support of a particular application.
Note that Destination Prefixes specified in this manner inherit the
Router Lifetime of their parent RA.
The Length is coded as the length of the suboption in octets,
excluding the Type and Length fields. The Prefix Length is an 8-bit
unsigned integer that indicates the number of leading bits in the
destination prefix. Prf is the Route Preference as in [RFC4191].
The Destination Prefix contains Prefix Length significant bits of the
destination prefix. The remaining bits of the Destination Prefix, as
required to complete the trailing octet, are set to 0.
In the event that a DAG root may need to specify that it offers
connectivity to more than one destination, the Destination Prefix
suboption may be repeated.
5.2. Neighbor Discovery
5.2.1. RA-DIO Reception
An node will come to discover its link layer neighbors by a
combination of link layer mechanisms and by hearing the multicast RA
messages from the neighbors. Through these mechanisms a node is able
to construct a set of known neighbors.
When receiving and processing the RA-DIO messages from known
neighbors, in addition to link layer states and characteristics, the
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node will come to determine that a neighbor is of particular
interest. As the LLN node periodically observes the neighbor and
determines its behavior to be reliable beyond a certain threshold,
the node may select the neighbor to be part of the candidate neighbor
set and begin to maintain a local confidence value with respect to
the neighbor.
As RA-DIOs are received from candidate neighbors, the DIO information
will be consulted to determine, for example:
1. Does the candidate neighbor offer a position in a different DAG,
or a better position in the current DAG? Is the OCP of the
candidate neighbor compatible with the goals of this node? Do
the related path metrics pass the criteria of a implementation
specific policy function such that the candidate neighbor is
considered feasible? If so then consider the candidate neighbor
as a candidate parent. The decision to move up the DAG is a
policy decision and a node may choose not to move up the DAG if
the path metric is not significantly better than the current one.
2. Does the candidate neighbor exist at the same depth in the
current DAG as this node? Do the related path metrics pass the
criteria of a implementation specific policy function such that
the candidate neighbor is feasible? If so then consider the
candidate neighbor as a DAG sibling.
3. Otherwise, ignore the candidate neighbor. Ignored neighbors may
periodically be re-evaluated to see if their situation has
improved.
The implementation SHOULD provide the ability to bound the size of
the candidate neighbor set, and a scheme SHOULD be applied to add
and/or evict neighbors from the candidate neighbor set as necessary
so as not to exceed the bounds.
As candidate parents are identified, they may subsequently be
promoted to DAG parents by following the rules of DAG Discovery as
described below. When a node adds another node to its set of
candidate parents, the node becomes attached to the DAG through the
parent node.
In the DAG Discovery implementation, the most preferred parent should
be used to restrict which other nodes may become DAG parents. All
nodes in the DAG Parent set should be of a depth less than or equal
to the most preferred DAG parent.
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5.2.2. RA-DIO Transmission
Each node maintains a timer that governs when to multicast RAs. This
timer is implemented as a trickle timer operating over a variable
interval. Trickle timers are further detailed in Section 5.2.3. The
governing parameters for the timer should be configured consistently
across the DAG, and are provided by the DAG root in the DIO. In
addition to periodic RAs, each LLN node will respond to Router
Solicitation messages according to [RFC4861].
o When a node detects an inconsistency, it may reset the interval of
the trickle timer to a minimum value, causing RAs to be emitted
more frequently as part of a strategy to quickly correct the
inconsistency. Such inconsistencies may be, for example, an
update to a key parameter (e.g. sequence number) in the DIO or a
point-to-point loop detected when a node located inwards along the
DAG forwards traffic intended for the default destination.
Inconsistencies are further detailed in Section 5.2.3.2.
o When a node enters a mode of consistent operation within a DAG, it
may begin to open up the interval of the trickle timer towards a
maximum value, causing RAs to be emitted less frequently, thus
reducing network maintenance overhead and saving energy
consumption (which is of utmost importance for battery-operated
nodes).
o When a node is initialized, it may choose to remain silent and not
multicast any RAs until it has encountered and joined a DAG
(perhaps initially probing for a nearby DAG with an RS).
Alternately, it may choose to root its own floating DAG and begin
multicasting RAs using a default trickle configuration. The
second case may be advantageous if it is desired for independent
nodes to begin aggregating into scattered floating DAGs in the
absence of a grounded node, for example in support of LLN
installation and commissioning.
Note that if multiple DAG roots are participating in the same DAG,
i.e. offering DIOs with the same DAGID, then they must coordinate
with each other to ensure that their DIOs are consistent when they
emit RA-DIOs. In particular the Sequence number must be identical
from each DAG root, regardless of which of the multiple DAG roots
issues the DIO, and changes to the Sequence number should be issued
at the same time. The specific mechanism of this coordination is
beyond the scope of this specification.
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5.2.3. Trickle Timer for RA Transmission
RPL treats the construction of a DAG as a consistency problem, and
uses a trickle timer [Levis08] to control the rate of control
broadcasts. The operation of this timer is in support of the
procedures further discussed in Section 5.3
For each DAG that a node is part of, the node must maintain a single
trickle timer. The required state contains the following conceptual
items:
I: The current length of the communication interval
T: A timer with a duration set to a random value in the range
[I/2, I]
C: Redundancy Counter
I_min: The smallest communication interval in milliseconds. This
value is learned from the DIO as (2^DIOIntervalMin)ms. The
default value is DEFAULT_DIO_INTERVAL_MIN.
I_doublings: The number of times I_min should be doubled before
maintaining a constant rate, i.e. I_max = I_min *
2^I_doublings. This value is learned from the DIO as
DIOIntervalDoublings. The default value is
DEFAULT_DIO_INTERVAL_DOUBLINGS.
5.2.3.1. Resetting the Trickle Timer
The trickle timer for a DAGID is reset by:
1. Setting I_min and I_doublings to the values learned from the RA-
DIO.
2. Setting C to zero.
3. Setting I to I_min.
4. Setting T to a random value as described above.
5. Restarting the trickle timer to expire after a duration T
When an LLN learns about a DAG through a RA and makes the decision to
join it, it initializes the state of the trickle timer by resetting
the trickle timer and listening. Each time it hears an RA for this
DAG, it increments C.
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When the timer fires at time T, the node compares C to the redundancy
constant, DEFAULT_DIO_REDUNDANCY_CONSTANT. If C is less than that
value, the node generates a new RA and broadcasts it. When the
communication interval I expires, the node doubles the interval I so
long as it has previously doubled it fewer then I_doubling times,
resets C, and chooses a new T value.
5.2.3.2. Determination of Inconsistency
The trickle timer is reset whenever an inconsistency is detected
within the DAG, for example:
o The node joins a new DAGID
o The node moves within a DAGID
o The node receives a modified DIO from a DAG parent
o A DAG parent forwards a packet intended for the default route,
indicating an inconsistency and possible loop.
o A metric communicated in the DIO is determined to be inconsistent,
as according to a implementation specific path metric selection
engine.
o The depth of a DAG parent has changed.
5.3. DAG Discovery
DAG Discovery is a form of distance vector protocol for use in LLNs.
DAG Discovery locates the nearest sink and forms a Directed Acyclic
Graph towards that sink, by identifying a set of DAG parents. During
this process DAG Discovery also identifies siblings, which may be
used later to provide additional path diversity towards the DAG root.
DAG Discovery enables nodes to implement different policies for
selecting their DAG parents in the DAG by using implementation
specific policy functions. DAG Discovery specifies a set of rules to
be followed by all implementations in order to ensure interoperation.
DAG Discovery also standardizes the format that is used to advertise
the most common information that is used in order to select DAG
parents.
One of these information, the DAG depth, is used by DAG Discovery to
provide loop avoidance even if nodes implement different policies.
The DAG Depth is computed as specified by the Objective Code Point in
use by the DAG, demonstrating the properties described in
Section 3.4.1. The depth should be computed in such a way so as to
provide a comparable basis with other nodes which may not use the
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same metric at all. (The to-be-defined NULL OCP and related
behaviors will clarify this point).
In order to organize and maintain loopless structure, the DAG
Discovery implementation in the nodes MUST obey to the following
rules and definitions:
1. A node that does not have any DAG parents in a DAG is the root
of its own floating DAG. It's depth is 1. A node will end up
in that situation when it looses all of its current feasible
parents, i.e. the set of DAG parents becomes depleted. In that
case, the node SHOULD remember the DAGID and the sequence
counter in the DIO of the lost parents for a period of time
which covers multiple DIO.
2. A LLN Node that is attached to an infrastructure that does not
support DIO, is the DAG root of its own grounded DAG. It's
depth is 1.
3. A router sending a RA without DIO is considered a grounded
infrastructure at depth 0. (For example, a router that is in
communication with an LLN node but not running RPL such as a
backbone router in communication with an LBR)
4. The DAG root exposes the DAG in the Router Advertisement DAG
Information Option and nodes propagate the DIO outwards along
the DAG with the RAs that they forward over their LLN links.
5. A node MAY move at any time, with no delay, within its DAG as
long as such a move does not increase its own DAG depth, as per
the depth calculation indicated by the OCP. If a node is
required to move such that it cannot stay within the DAG without
a depth increase, then it needs to first leave the DAG. In
other words a A node that is already part of a DAG MAY move or
follow a DAG parent at any time and with no delay in order to be
closer, or stay as close, to the DAG root of its current DAG as
it already is. But a node MUST NOT move outwards along the DAG
that it is attached, except in the special case when choosing to
follow the last DAG parent in the set of DAG parents. RAs
received from other routers located higher in the same DAG may
be considered as coming from candidate parents. RAs received
from other routers located at the same depth in the same DAG may
be considered as coming from siblings. Nodes MUST ignore RAs
that are received from other routers located deeper within the
same DAG.
6. A node may jump from its current DAG into any different DAG if
it is preferred for reasons of connectivity, configured
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preference, free medium time, size, security, bandwidth, DAG
depth, or whatever metrics the LLN cares to use. A node may
jump at any time and to whatever depth it reaches in the new
DAG, but it may have to wait for a DAG Hop timer to elapse in
order to do so. This allows the new higher parts (closer to the
sink) of the DAG to move first, thus allowing stepped DAG
reconfigurations and limiting relative movements. A node SHOULD
NOT join a previous DAG (identified by its DAGID) unless the
sequence number in the DIO has incremented since the node left
that DAG. A newer sequence number indicates that the candidate
parents were not attached behind this node, as they kept getting
subsequent DIOs with new sequence numbers from the same DAG. In
the event that old sequence numbers (two or more behind the
present value) are encountered they are considered stale and the
corresponding parent SHOULD be removed from the set.
7. If a node has selected a new set of DAG parents but has not
moved yet (because it is waiting for DAG Hop timer to elapse),
the node is unstable and refrains from sending Router
Advertisement - DAG Information Options.
8. If a node receives a Router Advertisement - DAG Information
Option from one of its DAG parents, and if the parent contains a
different DAGID, indicating that the parent has left the DAG,
and if the node can remain in the current DAG through an
alternate DAG parent, then the node should remove the DAG parent
which has joined the new DAG from its DAG parent set and remain
in the original DAG. If the node was the last DAG parent then
the node SHOULD follow that parent.
9. When a node detects or causes a DAG inconsistency, as described
in Section 5.2.3.2, then the node sends an unsolicited Router
Advertisement message to its one-hop neighbors. The RA contains
a DIO that propagates the new DAG information. Such an event
will also cause the trickle timer governing the periodic RAs to
be reset.
10. If a DAG parent increases its depth such that the node depth
would have to change, and if the node does not wish to follow
(e.g. it has alternate options), then the DAG parent should be
evicted from the DAG parent set. If the DAG parent is the last
in the DAG parent set, then the node may chose to follow it.
5.3.1. DAG Selection
The DAG selection is implementation and algorithm dependent. Nodes
SHOULD prefer to join DAGs advertising OCPs compatible with their
implementation specific objectives. In order to limit erratic
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movements, and all metrics being equal, nodes SHOULD keep their
previous selection. Also, nodes SHOULD provide a means to filter out
a candidate parent whose availability is detected as fluctuating, at
least when more stable choices are available. Nodes MAY place the
failed candidate parent in a Hold Down mode that ensures that the
candidate parent will not be reused for a given period of time.
The known DAGs are associated with the candidate parents that
advertise them and kept in a list by extending the Default Router
List (DRL). DRL entries are extended to store the information
received from the last DIO. The DRL MAY need to be modified in order
to keep track of membership to multiple DAGs simultaneously. The DRL
entries are managed by states and timers described in the next
section.
When connection to a fixed network is not possible or preferable for
security or other reasons, scattered DAGs MAY aggregate as much as
possible into larger DAGs in order to allow connectivity within the
LLN. How to balance these DAGs is implementation dependent, and MAY
use a specific visitor-counter suboption in the DIO.
A node SHOULD verify that bidirectional connectivity and adequate
link quality is available with a candidate neighbor before it
considers that candidate as a DAG parent.
5.3.2. Administrative depth
When the DAG is formed under a common administration, or when a node
performs a certain role within a community, it might be beneficial to
associate a range of acceptable depth with that node. For instance,
a node that has limited battery should be a leaf unless there is no
other choice, and may then augment the depth computation specified by
the OCP in order to expose an exaggerated depth.
5.3.3. DRL entries states and stability
Candidate parents in the DRL may or may not be usable for forwarding
traffic inward along the DAG toward the root depending on runtime
conditions. The following states are defined:
Current This candidate parent is in the set of DAG parents and
may be used for forwarding traffic inward along the DAG.
Held-Up This parent can not be used until the DAG hop timer
elapses.
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Held-Down This candidate parent can not be used till hold down
timer elapses. At the end of the hold-down period, the
candidate is removed from the DRL, and may be reinserted
if it appears again with a RA.
Collision This candidate parent can not be used till its next RA.
5.3.3.1. Held-Up
This state is managed by the DAG Hop timer, it serves 2 purposes:
Delay the reattachment of a sub-DAG that has been forced to
detach. This is not as safe as the use of the sequence, but still
covers that when a sub-DAG has detached, the Router Advertisement
- DAG Information Option that is initiated by the new DAG root has
a chance to spread outward along the sub-DAG so that two different
DAGs have formed.
Limit Router Advertisement - DAG Information Option storms when
two DAGs collide/merge. The idea is that between the nodes from
DAG A that decide to move to DAG B, those that see the highest
place (closer to the DAG root) in DAG B will move first and
advertise their new locations before other nodes from DAG A
actually move.
A new DAG is discovered upon a router advertisement message with or
without a Router Advertisement - DAG Information Option. The node
joins the DAG by selecting the source of the RA message as a DAG
parent (and possible default gateway) and propagating the DIO
accordingly.
When a new DAG is discovered, the candidate parent that advertises
the new DAG is placed in a held up state for the duration of a DAG
Hop timer. If the resulting new set of DAG parents is more
preferable than the current one, or if the node is intending to
maintain a membership in the new DAG in addition to its current DAG,
the node expects to jump and becomes unstable.
A node that is unstable may discover other candidate parents from the
same new DAG during the instability phase. It needs to start a new
DAG Hop timer for all these. The first timer that elapses for a
given new DAG clears them all for that DAG, allowing the node to jump
to the highest position available in the new DAG.
The duration of the DAG Hop timer depends on the DAG Delay of the new
DAG and on the depth of candidate parent that triggers it:
(candidates depth + random) * candidate's DAG_delay (where 0 <=
random < 1). It is randomized in order to limit collisions and
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synchronizations.
5.3.3.2. Held-Down
When a neighboring node is 'removed' from the Default Router List, it
is actually held down for a hold down timer period, in order to
prevent flapping. This happens when a node disappears (upon
expiration timer).
An node that is held down is not considered for the purpose of
forwarding traffic inward along the DAG toward the root. When the
hold down timer elapses, the node is removed from the DRL.
5.3.3.3. Collision
A race condition occurs if 2 nodes send RA-DIO at the same time and
then attempt to join each other. This might happen, for example,
between nodes which act as DAG root of their own DAGs. In order to
detect the situation, LLN Nodes time stamp the sending of RA-DIO.
Any RA-DIO received within a short link-layer-dependent period
introduces a risk. To resolve the collision, a 32bits extended
preference is constructed from the DIO by concatenating the
NodePreference with the BootTimeRandom.
A node that decides to add a candidate to its DAG parents will do so
between (candidate depth) and (candidate depth + 1) times the
candidate DAG Delay. But since a node is unstable as soon as it
receives the RA-DIO from the desired candidate, it will restrain from
sending a RA-DIO between the time it receives the RA and the time it
actually jumps. So the crossing of RA may only happen during the
propagation time between the candidate and the node, plus some
internal queuing and processing time within each machine. It is
expected that one DAG delay normally covers that interval, but
ultimately it is up to the implementation and the configuration of
the candidate parent to define the duration of risk window.
There is risk of a collision when a node receives an RA, for another
candidate that is more preferable than the current candidate, within
the risk window. In the face of a potential collision, the node with
lowest extended preference processes the RA-DIO normally, while the
router with the highest extended preference places the other in
collision state, does not start the DAG hop timer, and does not
become instable. It is expected that next RAs between the two will
not cross anyway.
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5.3.3.4. Instability
A node is instable when it is prepared to shortly replace a set of
DAG parents in order to jump to a different DAGID. This happens
typically when the node has selected a more preferred candidate
parent in a different DAG and has to wait for the DAG hop timer to
elapse before adjusting the DAG parent set. Instability may also
occur when the entire current DAG parent set is lost and the next
best candidates are still held up. Instability is resolved when the
DAG hop timer of all the candidate(s) causing instability elapse.
Such candidates then change state to Current or Held- Down.
Instability is transient (in the order of DAG hop timers). When a
node is unstable, it MUST NOT send RAs with DIO. This avoids loops
when node A decides to attach to node B and node B decides to attach
to node A. Unless RAs cross (see Collision section), a node receives
DIO from stable candidate parents, which do not plan to attach to the
node, so the node can safely attach to them.
5.4. Establishing Routing State Outward Along the DAG
The Destination Advertisement mechanism supports the dissemination of
routing state required to support traffic flows outward along the
DAG, from the DAG root toward nodes.
Note that some aspects of the Destination Advertisement mechanism are
still under investigation.
As a result of Destination Advertisement operation:
o DAG Discovery establishes a DAG oriented toward a DAG root using
extended Neighbor Discovery RS/RA flows, along which inward routes
toward the DAG root are set up.
o Destination Advertisement extends Neighbor Discovery in order to
establish outward routes along the DAG, along paths containing DA
parents. Such paths consist of:
* Hop-By-Hop routing state within islands of `stateful' nodes.
* Source Routing `bridges' across nodes who do not retain state.
Destinations disseminated with the Destination Advertisement
mechanism may be prefixes, individual hosts, or multicast listeners.
The mechanism supports nodes of varying capabilities as follows:
o When nodes are capable of storing routing state, they may inspect
Destination Advertisements and learn hop-by-hop routing state
toward destinations. In this process they may also learn
necessary piecewise source routes to traverse regions of the LLN
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that do not maintain routing state. They may perform route
aggregation on known destinations before emitting Destination
Advertisements.
o When nodes are incapable of storing routing state, they may
forward Destination Advertisements, recording the reverse route as
the go in order to support the construction of piecewise source
routes.
Nodes that are capable of storing routing state, and finally the DAG
roots, are able to learn which destinations are contained in the sub-
DAG below the node, and via which next-hop neighbors. The
dissemination and installation of this routing state into nodes
allows for Hop-By-Hop routing from the DAG root outwards along the
DAG. The mechanism is further enhance by supporting the construction
of source routes across stateless `gaps' in the DAG, where nodes are
incapable of storing additional routing state. An adaptation of this
mechanism allows for the implementation of loose-source or landmark
(waypoint) routing.
The design choice behind this is not to synchronize the parent and
children databases along the DAG, but instead to update them
regularly to cover from the loss of packets. The rationale for that
choice is time variations in connectivity across unreliable links.
If the topology can be expected to change frequently, synchronization
might be an excessive goal in terms of exchanges and protocol
complexity. The approach used here results in a simple protocol with
no real peering. The Destination Advertisement mechanism hence
provides for periodic updates of the derivative routing state, as
cued by occasional RAs and other mechanisms.
5.4.1. Destination Advertisement Message Formats
5.4.1.1. DAO Option
RPL extends Neighbor Discovery [RFC4861] and RFC4191 [RFC4191] to
allow a node to include a Destination Advertisement option, which
includes prefix information, in the Neighbor Advertisements (NAs). A
prefix option is normally present in Router Advertisements (RAs)
only, but the NA is augmented with this option in order to propagate
destination information inwards along the DAG. The option is named
the Destination Advertisement Option (DAO), and an NA containing this
option may be referred to as a Destination Advertisement. The RPL
use of Destination Advertisements allows the nodes in the DAG to
build up routing state for nodes contained in the sub-DAG in support
of traffic flowing outward along the DAG.
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0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Length | Prefix Length | RRCount |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| DAO Lifetime |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Route Tag |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| DAO Depth | Reserved | DAO Sequence |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Prefix (Variable Length) |
. .
. .
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Reverse Route Stack (Variable Length) |
. .
. .
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 10: Destination Advertisement Option (DAO)
Type: 8-bit unsigned identifying the Destination Advertisement
option. The value is to be assigned by the IANA.
Length: 8-bit unsigned integer. The length of the option (including
the Type and Length fields) in units of 8 octets.
Prefix Length: Number of valid leading bits in the IPv6 Prefix.
RRCount: 8-bit unsigned integer. This counter is used to count the
number of entries in the Reverse Route Stack. A value of `0'
indicates that no Reverse Route Stack is present.
DAO Lifetime: 32-bit unsigned integer. The length of time in
seconds (relative to the time the packet is sent) that the
prefix is valid for route determination. A value of all one
bits (0xFFFFFFFF) represents infinity. A value of all zero
bits (0x00000000) indicates a loss of reachability.
Route Tag: 32-bit unsigned integer. The Route Tag may be used to
give a priority to prefixes that should be stored. This may be
useful in cases where intermediate nodes are capable of storing
a limited amount of routing state. The further specification
of this field and its use is under investigation.
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DAO Depth: Set to 0 by the node that owns the prefix and first
issues the DAO. Incremented by all LLN nodes that propagate
the DAO.
Reserved: 8-bit unused field. It MUST be initialized to zero by the
sender and MUST be ignored by the receiver.
DAO Sequence: Incremented by the node that owns the prefix for each
new DAO for that prefix.
Prefix: Variable-length field containing an IPv6 address or a prefix
of an IPv6 address. The Prefix Length field contains the
number of valid leading bits in the prefix. The bits in the
prefix after the prefix length (if any) are reserved and MUST
be initialized to zero by the sender and ignored by the
receiver.
Reverse Route Stack: Variable-length field containing a sequence of
RRCount (possibly compressed) IPv6 addresses. A node who adds
on to the Reverse Route Stack will append to the list and
increment the RRCount.
5.4.2. Destination Advertisement Operation
5.4.2.1. Overview
Note that some aspects of the Destination Advertisement mechanism are
still under investigation
According to implementation specific policy, a subset or all of the
feasible parents in the DAG may be selected to receive prefix
information from the Destination Advertisement mechanism. This
subset of DAG parents shall be designated the set of DA parents.
RPL takes advantage of the DAG structure and allows a node capable of
storing sufficient routing state to autonomously discover the
destinations below itself through the operation of the Destination
Advertisement mechanism. This allows participating nodes to build up
routing state to support traffic flowing outwards along the DAG.
Destination Advertisement messages convey the necessary information
to learn the destinations.
As Destination Advertisements for particular destinations move
inwards along the DAG, a sequence counter is used to guarantee their
freshness. The sequence counter is incremented by the source of the
DAO (the node that owns the prefix), each time it issues a DAO for
its prefix. Nodes who receive the DAO and, if scope allows, will be
forwarding a DAO for the unmodified destination inwards along the
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DAG, will leave the sequence number unchanged. Intermediate nodes
will check the sequence counter before processing a DAO, and if the
DAO is unchanged (the sequence counter has not changed), then the DAO
will be discarded without additional processing. Further, if the DAO
appears to be out of synch (the sequence counter is 2 or more behind
the present value) then the DAO state is considered to be stale and
may be purged, and the DAO is discarded. A depth is also added for
tracking purposes; the depth is incremented at each hop as the DAO is
propagated up the DAG. Nodes who are storing routing state may use
the depth to determine which possible next-hops for the destination
are more optimal.
If Destination Advertisements are activated in the DIO as indicated
by the `D' bit, the node sends unicast Destination Advertisements to
its DA parents, and only accepts unicast Destination Advertisements
from any nodes BUT those contained in the DA parent subset.
Every NA to a DA parent MAY contain one or more DAOs. Receiving a
DAG Discovery RA-DIO with the `D' Destination Advertisement bit set
from a DAG parent stimulates the sending of a delayed Destination
Advertisement back, with the collection of all known prefixes (that
is the prefixes learned via Destination Advertisements for nodes
lower in the DAG, and any connected prefixes). A Destination
Advertisement is also sent to a DAG parent once it has been added to
the DA parent set after a movement, or when the list of advertised
prefixes has changed. Destination Advertisements may also be
scheduled for sending when the PathDigest of the DIO has changed,
indicating that some aspect of the inwards paths along the DAG has
been modified.
Destination Advertisements may advertise positive (prefix is present)
or negative (removed) DAOs. A no-DAO is stimulated by the
disappearance of a prefix below. This is discovered by timing out
after a request (a RA-DIO) or by receiving a no-DAO. A no-DAO is a
conveyed as a DAO with a DAO Lifetime of 0.
A node who is capable of recording the state information conveyed in
a DAO will do so upon receiving and processing the DAO, thus building
up routing state concerning destinations below it in the DAG. If a
node capable of recording state information receives a DAO containing
a Reverse Route Stack, then the node knows that the DAO has traversed
one or more nodes that did not retain any routing state as it
traversed the path from the DAO source to the node. The node may
then extract the Reverse Route Stack and retain the included state in
order to specify Source Routing instructions along the return path
towards the destination. The node MUST set the RRCount back to zero
and clear the Reverse Route Stack prior to passing the DAO
information on.
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A node who is unable to record the state information conveyed in the
DAO will append the next-hop address to the Reverse Route Stack,
increment the RRCount, and then pass the Destination Advertisement on
without recording any additional state. In this way the Reverse
Route Stack will come to contain a vector of next hops that must be
traversed along the reverse path that the DAO has traveled. The
vector will be ordered such that the node closest to the destination
will appear first in the list. In such cases the node may choose to
convey the Destination Advertisement to one or more DAG Parents in
order of preference as guided by an implementation specific policy.
In hybrid cases, some nodes along the path a Destination
Advertisement follows inward along the DAG may store state and some
may not. The Destination Advertisement mechanism allows for the
provisioning of routing state such that when a packet is traversing
outwards along the DAG, some nodes may be able to directly forward to
the next hop, and other nodes may be able to specify a piecewise
source route in order to bridge spans of stateless nodes within the
path on the way to the desired destination.
In the degenerate case, no node is able to store any routing state as
Destination Advertisements pass by, and the DAG sink ends up with
DAOs that contain a completely specified route back to the
originating node in the form of the inverted Reverse Route Stack.
Information learned through Destination Advertisements can be
redistributed in a routing protocol, MANET or IGP. But the MANET or
the IGP SHOULD NOT be redistributed into Destination Advertisements.
This creates a hierarchy of routing protocols where DA routes stand
somewhere between connected and IGP routes.
The Destination Advertisement mechanism requires stateful nodes to
maintain lists of known prefixes. A prefix entry contains the
following abstract information:
o A reference to the ND entry that was created for the advertising
neighbor.
o The IPv6 address and interface for the advertising neighbor.
o The logical equivalent of the full Destination Advertisement
information (including the prefixes, depth, and Reverse Route
Stack, if any).
o A 'reported' Boolean to keep track whether this prefix was
reported already, and to which of the DA parents.
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o A counter of retries to count how many RA-DIOs were sent on the
interface to the advertising neighbor without reachability
confirmation for the prefix.
Note that nodes may receive multiple information from different
neighbors for a specific destination, as different paths through the
DAG may be propagating information inwards along the DAG for the same
destination. A node who is recording routing state will keep track
of the information from each neighbor independently, and when it
comes time to propagate the DAO for a particular prefix to the DA
parents, then the DAO information will be selected from among the
advertising neighbors who offer the least depth to the destination.
The Destination Advertisement mechanism stores the prefix entries in
one of 3 abstract lists; the Connected, the Reachable and the
Unreachable lists.
The Connected list corresponds to the prefixes owned and managed by
the local node.
The Reachable list contains prefixes for which the node keeps
receiving DAOs, and for those prefixes which have not yet timed out.
The Unreachable list keeps track of prefixes which are no longer
valid and in the process of being destroyed, in order to send no-DAOs
to the DA parents.
The Destination Advertisement mechanism requires 2 timers; the
DelayNA timer and the DestroyTimer.
o The DelayNA timer is armed upon a stimulation to send a
Destination Advertisement (such as a DIO from a DA parent). When
the timer is armed, all entries in the Reachable list as well as
all entries for Connected list are set to not reported yet for
that particular DA parent.
o The DelayNA timer has a duration that is DEF_NA_LATENCY divided by
a multiple of the DAG depth. The intention is that nodes located
deeper in the DAG should have a shorter DelayNA timer, allowing
DAOs a chance to be reported from deeper in the DAG and
potentially aggregated by sub-DAGs before propagating further
inwards.
o The DestroyTimer is armed when at least one entry has exhausted
its retries, which means that a number of RA-DIO were sent toward
the reporting neighbor but that the entry was not confirmed with a
DAO. When the destroy timer elapses, for all exhausted entries,
the associated route is removed, and the entry is scheduled to be
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destroyed.
o The Destroy timer has a duration of min (MAX_DESTROY_INTERVAL,
RA_INTERVAL).
5.4.2.2. Unicast Destination Advertisement messages from child to
parent
When sending a Destination Advertisement to a DA parent, a LLN Node
includes the DAOs about not already reported prefix entries in the
Reachable and Connected lists, as well as no-DAOs for all the entries
in the Unreachable list. Depending on its policy and ability to
retain routing state, the receiving node SHOULD keep a record of the
reported DAO. If the DAO offers the best route to the prefix as
determined by policy and other prefix records, the node SHOULD
install a route to the prefix in the DAO via the link local address
of the reporting neighbor and it SHOULD further propagate the
information, either as a DAO or by means of redistribution into a
routing protocol.
The RA-DIO from the DAG root is used to synchronize the whole DAG,
including the periodic reporting of Destination Advertisements back
up the DAG. Its period is expected to vary, depending on the
configuration of the trickle timer that governs the RAs.
When a node receives a RA-DIO over an LLN interface from a DA parent,
the DelayNA is armed to force a full update.
When the node broadcasts a RA-DIO on an LLN interface, for all
entries on that interface:
o If the entry is CONFIRMED, it goes PENDING with the retry count
set to 0.
o If the entry is PENDING, the retry count is incremented. If it
reaches a maximum threshold, the entry goes ELAPSED If at least
one entry is ELAPSED at the end of the process: if the Destroy
timer is not running then it is armed with a jitter.
Since the DelayNA has a duration that decreases with the depth, it is
expected to receive all DAOs from all children before the timer
elapses and the full update is sent to the DA parents.
Once the Destroy timer is elapsed, the prefix entry is scheduled to
be destroyed and moved to the Unreachable list if there are any DA
parents that need to be informed of the change in status for the
prefix, otherwise the prefix entry is cleaned up right away. The
prefix entry is removed from the Unreachable list when no more DA
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parents need to be informed. This condition may be satisfied when a
no-DAO is sent to all current DA parents indicating the loss of the
prefix, and noting that in some cases parents may have been removed
from the set of DA parents.
5.4.2.3. Other events
Finally, the Destination Advertisement mechanism responds to a series
of events, such as:
o Destination Advertisement operation stopped: All entries in the
abstract lists are freed. All the routes learned from DAOs are
destroyed.
o Interface going down: for all entries in the Reachable list on
that interface, the associated route is removed, and the entry is
scheduled to be destroyed.
o Loss of routing adjacency: When the routing adjacency for a
neighbor is lost, as per the procedures described in Section 5.5,
and if the associated entries are in the Reachable list, the
associated routes are removed, and the entries are scheduled to be
destroyed.
o Changes to DA parent set: All entries in the Reachable list are
set to not 'reported' and DelayNA is armed.
5.4.2.4. Aggregation of prefixes by a node
There may be number of cases where a aggregation may be shared within
a platoon of nodes. In such a case, it is possible to use
aggregation techniques with Destination Advertisements and improve
scalability. For example, consider a platoon formed by firefighters
and their commander. Specifically, the commander may be configured
as the Destination Advertisement aggregator for a group prefix. At
run time, the commander absorbs the individual DAO information
received from the platoon members down its sub-DAG and only reports
the aggregation up the DAG. This works fine when the whole platoon
is attached within the commander's sub-DAG.
Other cases might occur for which additional support is required:
1. The commander is attached within the sub-DAG of one of its
platoon members.
2. A platoon member is somewhere else within the DAG.
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3. A platoon member is somewhere else in the LLN.
In all those cases, a node situated above the commander in the DAG
but not above the platoon member will see the advertisements for the
aggregation owned by the commander but not that of the individual
platoon member prefix. So it will route all the packets for the
platoon member towards the commander, but the commander will have no
route to the individual platoon member and will fail to forward.
Additional protocols may be applied beyond the scope of this
specification to dynamically elect/provision a commander and platoon
in order to provide route summarization for a sub-DAG.
5.4.2.5. Default Values
DEF_NA_LATENCY = To Be Determined
MAX_DESTROY_INTERVAL = To Be Determined
5.5. Maintenance of Routing Adjacency
The selection of successors, along the default paths inward along the
DAG, or along the paths learned from Destination Advertisements
outward along the DAG, leads to the formation of routing adjacencies
that require maintenance.
In IGPs such as OSPF [RFC4915] or IS-IS [RFC5120], the maintenance of
a routing adjacency involves the use of Keepalive mechanisms (Hellos)
or other protocols such as BFD ([I-D.ietf-bfd-base]) and MANET
Neighborhood Discovery Protocol (NHDP [I-D.ietf-manet-nhdp]).
Unfortunately, such an approach is not desirable in constrained
environments such as LLN and would lead to excessive control traffic
in light of the data traffic with a negative impact on both link
loads and nodes resources. Overhead to maintain the routing
adjacency should be minimized. Furthermore, it is not always
possible to rely on the link or transport layer to provide
information of the associated link state. The network layer needs to
fall back on its own mechanism.
Thus RPL makes use of a different approach consisting of probing the
neighbor using a Neighbor Solicitation message (see [RFC4861]). The
reception of a Neighbor Advertisement (NA) message with the
"Solicited Flag" set is used to verify the validity of the routing
adjacency. Such mechanism MAY be used prior to sending a data
packet. This allows for detecting whether or not the routing
adjacency is still valid, and should it not be the case, select
another feasible successor to forward the packet.
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5.6. Expectations of Link Layer Behavior
This specification does not rely on any particular features of a
specific link layer technologies. It is anticipated that an
implementer should be able to operate RPL over a variety of different
low power wireless or PLC (Power Line Communication) link layer
technologies.
Implementers may find RFC 3819 [RFC3819] a useful reference when
designing a link layer interface between RPL and a particular link
layer technology.
6. Protocol Extensions
7. Manageability Considerations
8. Security Considerations
9. IANA Considerations
9.1. DAG Information Option
IANA is requested to allocate a new Neighbor Discovery Option Type
from the IPv6 Neighbor Discovery Option Formats Registry in order to
represent the DAG Information Option as described in Section 5.1
9.2. Destination Advertisement Option
IANA is requested to allocate a new Neighbor Discovery Option Type
from the IPv6 Neighbor Discovery Option Formats Registry in order to
represent the Destination Advertisement Option as described in
Section 5.4.1.1
10. Acknowledgements
The ROLL Design Team would like to acknowledge the review, feedback,
and comments from Dominique Barthel, Yusuf Bashir, Mathilde Durvy,
Manhar Goindi, Mukul Goyal, Richard Kelsey, Quentin Lampin, Philip
Levis, Jerry Martocci, Alexandru Petrescu, and Don Sturek.
The ROLL Design Team would like to acknowledge the guidance and input
provided by the ROLL Chairs, David Culler and JP Vasseur.
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The ROLL Design Team would like to acknowledge prior contributions of
Richard Kelsey, Robert Assimiti, Mischa Dohler, Julien Abeille, Ryuji
Wakikawa, Teco Boot, Patrick Wetterwald, Bryan Mclaughlin, Carlos J.
Bernardos, Thomas Watteyne, Zach Shelby, Dominique Barthel, Caroline
Bontoux, Marco Molteni, Billy Moon, and Arsalan Tavakoli, which have
provided useful design considerations to RPL.
11. Contributors
ROLL Design Team in alphabetical order:
Anders Brandt
Zensys, Inc.
Emdrupvej 26
Copenhagen, DK-2100
Denmark
Email: abr@zen-sys.com
Thomas Heide Clausen
LIX, Ecole Polytechnique, France
Phone: +33 6 6058 9349
EMail: T.Clausen@computer.org
URI: http://www.ThomasClausen.org/
Stephen Dawson-Haggerty
UC Berkeley
Soda Hall, UC Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
USA
Email: stevedh@cs.berkeley.edu
Jonathan W. Hui
Arch Rock Corporation
501 2nd St. Ste. 410
San Francisco, CA 94107
USA
Email: jhui@archrock.com
Kris Pister
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Dust Networks
30695 Huntwood Ave.
Hayward, 94544
USA
Email: kpister@dustnetworks.com
Pascal Thubert
Cisco Systems
Village d'Entreprises Green Side
400, Avenue de Roumanille
Batiment T3
Biot - Sophia Antipolis 06410
FRANCE
Phone: +33 497 23 26 34
Email: pthubert@cisco.com
Tim Winter (editor)
wintert@acm.org
12. References
12.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
12.2. Informative References
[I-D.ietf-bfd-base]
Katz, D. and D. Ward, "Bidirectional Forwarding
Detection", draft-ietf-bfd-base-09 (work in progress),
February 2009.
[I-D.ietf-manet-nhdp]
Clausen, T., Dearlove, C., and J. Dean, "MANET
Neighborhood Discovery Protocol (NHDP)",
draft-ietf-manet-nhdp-10 (work in progress), July 2009.
[I-D.ietf-roll-building-routing-reqs]
Martocci, J., Riou, N., Mil, P., and W. Vermeylen,
"Building Automation Routing Requirements in Low Power and
Lossy Networks", draft-ietf-roll-building-routing-reqs-05
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(work in progress), February 2009.
[I-D.ietf-roll-home-routing-reqs]
Porcu, G., "Home Automation Routing Requirements in Low
Power and Lossy Networks",
draft-ietf-roll-home-routing-reqs-06 (work in progress),
November 2008.
[I-D.ietf-roll-indus-routing-reqs]
Networks, D., Thubert, P., Dwars, S., and T. Phinney,
"Industrial Routing Requirements in Low Power and Lossy
Networks", draft-ietf-roll-indus-routing-reqs-06 (work in
progress), June 2009.
[I-D.ietf-roll-routing-metrics]
Vasseur, J. and D. Networks, "Routing Metrics used for
Path Calculation in Low Power and Lossy Networks",
draft-ietf-roll-routing-metrics-00 (work in progress),
April 2009.
[I-D.ietf-roll-terminology]
Vasseur, J., "Terminology in Low power And Lossy
Networks", draft-ietf-roll-terminology-01 (work in
progress), May 2009.
[I-D.tavakoli-hydro]
Tavakoli, A., Dawson-Haggerty, S., Hui, J., and D. Culler,
"HYDRO: A Hybrid Routing Protocol for Lossy and Low Power
Networks", draft-tavakoli-hydro-01 (work in progress),
March 2009.
[I-D.thubert-roll-fundamentals]
Thubert, P., Watteyne, T., Shelby, Z., and D. Barthel,
"LLN Routing Fundamentals",
draft-thubert-roll-fundamentals-01 (work in progress),
April 2009.
[I-D.tsao-roll-security-framework]
Tsao, T., Alexander, R., Dohler, M., Daza, V., and A.
Lozano, "A Security Framework for Routing over Low Power
and Lossy Networks", draft-tsao-roll-security-framework-00
(work in progress), February 2009.
[Levis08] Levis, P., Brewer, E., Culler, D., Gay, D., Madden, S.,
Patel, N., Polastre, J., Shenker, S., Szewczyk, R., and A.
Woo, "The Emergence of a Networking Primitive in Wireless
Sensor Networks", Communications of the ACM, v.51 n.7,
July 2008,
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<http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1364804>.
[RFC3819] Karn, P., Bormann, C., Fairhurst, G., Grossman, D.,
Ludwig, R., Mahdavi, J., Montenegro, G., Touch, J., and L.
Wood, "Advice for Internet Subnetwork Designers", BCP 89,
RFC 3819, July 2004.
[RFC4101] Rescorla, E. and IAB, "Writing Protocol Models", RFC 4101,
June 2005.
[RFC4191] Draves, R. and D. Thaler, "Default Router Preferences and
More-Specific Routes", RFC 4191, November 2005.
[RFC4461] Yasukawa, S., "Signaling Requirements for Point-to-
Multipoint Traffic-Engineered MPLS Label Switched Paths
(LSPs)", RFC 4461, April 2006.
[RFC4861] Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and H. Soliman,
"Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 4861,
September 2007.
[RFC4875] Aggarwal, R., Papadimitriou, D., and S. Yasukawa,
"Extensions to Resource Reservation Protocol - Traffic
Engineering (RSVP-TE) for Point-to-Multipoint TE Label
Switched Paths (LSPs)", RFC 4875, May 2007.
[RFC4915] Psenak, P., Mirtorabi, S., Roy, A., Nguyen, L., and P.
Pillay-Esnault, "Multi-Topology (MT) Routing in OSPF",
RFC 4915, June 2007.
[RFC5120] Przygienda, T., Shen, N., and N. Sheth, "M-ISIS: Multi
Topology (MT) Routing in Intermediate System to
Intermediate Systems (IS-ISs)", RFC 5120, February 2008.
[RFC5548] Dohler, M., Watteyne, T., Winter, T., and D. Barthel,
"Routing Requirements for Urban Low-Power and Lossy
Networks", RFC 5548, May 2009.
Appendix A. Deferred Requirements
NOTE: RPL is still a work in progress. At this time there remain
many unsatisfied application requirements, but these are to be
addressed as RPL is further specified.
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Appendix B. Examples
Consider the example LLN physical topology in Figure 11. In this
example the links depicted are all usable L2 links. Suppose that all
links are equally usable, and that the implementation specific policy
function is simply to minimize hops. This LLN physical topology then
yields the DAG depicted in Figure 12, where the links depicted are
the edges toward DAG parents. This topology includes one DAG, rooted
by an LBR node (LBR) at depth 1. The LBR node will issue RAs
containing DIO, as governed by a trickle timer. Nodes (11), (12),
(13), have selected (LBR) as their only parent, attached to the DAG
at depth 2, and periodically advertise RA-DIO multicasts. Node (22)
has selected (11) and (12) in its DAG parent set, and advertises
itself at depth 3. Node (22) thus has a set of DAG parents {(11),
(12)} and siblings {((21), (23)}.
(LBR)
/ | \
.---` | `----.
/ | \
(11)------(12)------(13)
| \ | \ | \
| `----. | `----. | `----.
| \| \| \
(21)------(22)------(23) (24)
| /| /| |
| .----` | .----` | |
| / | / | |
(31)------(32)------(33)------(34)
| /| \ | \ | \
| .----` | `----. | `----. | `----.
| / | \| \| \
.--------(41) (42) (43)------(44)------(45)
/ / /| \ | \
.----` .----` .----` | `----. | `----.
/ / / | \| \
(51)------(52)------(53)------(54)------(55)------(56)
Note that the links depicted represent the usable L2 connectivity
available in the LLN. For example, Node (31) can communicate
directly with its neighbors, Nodes (21), (22), (32), and (41). Node
(31) cannot communicate directly with any other nodes, e.g. (33),
(23), (42). In this example these links offer bidirectional
communication, and `bad' links are not depicted.
Figure 11: Example LLN Topology
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(LBR)
/ | \
.---` | `----.
/ | \
(11) (12) (13)
| \ | \ | \
| `----. | `----. | `----.
| \| \| \
(21) (22) (23) (24)
| /| /| |
| .----` | .----` | |
| / | / | |
(31) (32) (33) (34)
| /| \ | \ | \
| .----` | `----. | `----. | `----.
| / | \| \| \
.--------(41) (42) (43) (44) (45)
/ / /| \ | \
.----` .----` .----` | `----. | `----.
/ / / | \| \
(51) (52) (53) (54) (55) (56)
Note that the links depicted represent directed links in the DAG
overlaid on top of the physical topology depicted in Figure 11. As
such, the depicted edges represent the relationship between nodes and
their DAG parents, wherein all depicted edges are directed and
oriented `up' on the page toward the DAG root (LBR). The DAG
provides the default routes within the LLN, and serves as the
foundation on which RPL builds further routing structure, e.g.
through the Destination Advertisement mechanism.
Figure 12: Example DAG
B.1. Moving Down a DAG
Consider node (56) in the example of Figure 11. In the unmodified
example, node (56) is at depth 6 with one DAG parent, {(43)}, and one
sibling (55). Suppose, for example, that node (56) wished to expand
its DAG parent set to contain node (55), as {(43), (55)}. Such a
change would require node (56) to detach from the DAG, to defer
reattachment until a loop avoidance algorithm has completed, and to
then reattach to the DAG with {(43), (55)} as it's DAG parents. When
node (56) detaches from the DAG, it is able to act as the root of its
own floating DAG and establish its frozen sub-DAG (which is empty).
Node (56) can then observe that Node (55) is still attached to the
original DAG, that its sequence number is able to increment, and
deduce that Node (55) is safely not behind Node (56). There is then
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little change for a loop, and Node (56) may safely reattach to the
DAG, with parents {(43), (55)}. At reattachment time, node (56)
would present itself with a depth deeper than that of its deepest DAG
parent (node (55) at depth 6), depth 7.
B.2. Link Removed
Consider the example of Figure 11 when link (13)-(24) goes down.
o Node (24) will detach and become the root of its own floating DAG
o Node (34) will learn that its DAG parent is now part of its own
floating DAG, will consider that it can remain a part of the DAG
rooted at node (LBR) via node (33), and will initiate procedures
to detach from DAG (LBR) in order to re-attach at a lower depth.
o Node (45) will similarly make preparations to remain attached to
the DAG rooted at (LBR) by detaching from Node (34) and re-
attaching at a lower depth to node (44).
o Node (34) will complete re-attachment to Node (33) first, since it
is able to attach closer to the root of the DAG.
o Node (45) will cancel plans to detach/reattach, keep node (34) as
a DAG parent, and update its dependent depth accordingly.
o Node (45) may now anyway add node (44) to its set of DAG parents,
as such an addition does not require any modification to its own
depth.
o Node (24) will observe that it may reattach to the DAG rooted at
node (LBR) by selecting node (34) as its DAG parent, thus
reversing the relationship that existed in the initial state.
B.3. Link Added
Consider the example of Figure 11 when link (12)-(42) appears.
o Node (42) will see a chance to get closer to the LBR by adding
(12) to its set of DAG parents, {(32), (12)}
o Node (42) may be content to leave its advertised depth at 5,
reflecting a depth deeper than its deepest parent (32).
o Node (42) may now choose to remain where it is, with two parents
{(12), (32)}. Should there be a reason for Node (42) to evict
Node (32) from its set of DAG parents, Node (42) would then
advertise itself at depth 2, thus moving up the DAG. In this
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case, Node (53), (54), and (55) may similarly follow and advertise
themselves at depth 3.
B.4. Node Removed
Consider the example of Figure 11 when node (41) disappears.
o Node (51) and (52) will now have empty DAG parent sets and be
detached from the DAG rooted by (LBR), advertising themselves as
the root of their own floating DAGs.
o Node (52) would observe a chance to reattach to the DAG rooted at
(LBR) by adding Node (53) to its set of DAG parents, after an
appropriate delay to avoid creating loops. Node (52) will then
advertise itself in the DAG rooted at (LBR) at depth 7.
o Node (51) will then be able to reattach to the DAG rooted at (LBR)
by adding Node (52) to its set of DAG parents and advertising
itself at depth 8.
B.5. New LBR Added
Consider the example of Figure 11 when a new LBR, (LBR2) appears,
with connectivity (LBR2)-(52), (LBR2)-(53).
o Nodes (52) and Node (53) will see a chance to join a new DAG
rooted at (LBR2) with a depth of 2. Node (52) and (53) may take
this chance immediately, as there is no risk of forming loops when
joining a DAG that has never before been encountered. Note that
the nodes may choose to join the new DAG rooted at (LBR2) if and
only if (LBR2) offers more optimum properties in line with the
implementation specific local policy.
o Nodes (52) and (53) begin to send RA-DIO advertising themselves at
depth 2 in the DAGID (LBR2).
o Nodes (51), (41), (42), and (54) may then choose to join the new
DAG at depth 3, possibly to get closer to the DAG root. Note that
in a more advanced case, these nodes also remain members of the
DAG rooted at (LBR), for example in support of different
constraints for different types of traffic.
o Node (55) may then join the new DAG at depth 4, possibly to get
closer to the DAG root.
o The remaining nodes may choose to remain in their current
positions within the DAG rooted at node (LBR), since there is no
clear advantage to be gained by moving to DAG (LBR2).
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B.6. Destination Advertisement
Consider the example DAG depicted in Figure 12. Suppose that Nodes
(22) and (32) are unable to record routing state. Suppose that Node
(42) is able to perform prefix aggregation on behalf of Nodes (53),
(54), and (55).
o Node (53) would send a DAO to Node (42), indicating the
availability of destination (53).
o Node (54) and Node (55) would similarly send DAOs to Node (42)
indicating their own destinations.
o Node (42) would collect and store the routing state for
destinations (53), (54), and (55).
o In this example, Node (42) may then be capable of representing
destinations (42), (53), (54), and (55) in the aggregation (42').
o Node (42) sends a DAO advertising destination (42') to Node 32.
o Node (32) does not want to maintain any routing state, so it adds
onto to the Reverse Route Stack in the DAO and passes it on to
Node (22) as (42'):[(42)]. It may send a separate DAO to indicate
destination (32).
o Node (22) does not want to maintain any routing state, so it adds
on to the Reverse Route Stack in the DAO and passes it on to Node
(12) as (42'):[(42), (32)]. It also relays the DAO containing
destination (32) to Node 12 as (32):[(32)], and finally may send a
DAO for itself indicating destination (22).
o Node (12) is capable to maintain routing state again, and receives
the DAOs from Node (22). Node (12) then learns:
* Destination (22) is available via Node (22)
* Destination (32) is available via Node (22) and the piecewise
source route to (32)
* Destination (42') is available via Node (22) and the piecewise
source route to (32), (42').
o Node (12) sends DAOs to (LBR), allowing (LBR) to learn routes to
the destinations (12), (22), (32), and (42'). (42), (53), (54),
and (55) are available via the aggregation (42'). It is not
necessary for Node (12) to propagate the piecewise source routes
to (LBR).
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Appendix C. Additional Examples
Consider the expanded example LLN physical topology in Figure 13. In
this example an additional LBR is added. Suppose that all nodes are
configured with an implementation specific policy function that aims
to minimize the number of hops, and that both LBRs are configured to
root different DAGIDs. We may now walk through the formation of the
two DAGs.
(LBR) (LBR2)
/ | \ / \
.---` | `----. / \
/ | \ | |
(11)------(12)------(13) (14) (15)
| \ | \ | \ | /|
| `----. | `----. | `----. | .----` |
| \| \| \| / |
(21)------(22)------(23) (24) (25)
| /| /| | / /
| .----` | .----` | .-----]|[------` /
| / | / | / | /
(31)------(32)------(33)------(34)-----`
| /| \ | \ | \
| .----` | `----. | `----. | `----.
| / | \| \| \
.--------(41) (42) (43)------(44)------(45)
/ / /| \ | \
.----` .----` .----` | `----. | `----.
/ / / | \| \
(51)------(52)------(53)------(54)------(55)------(56)
Figure 13: Expanded LLN Topology
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(LBR) (LBR2)
/ | \ / \
.---` | `----. / \
/ | \ | |
(11) (12) (13) (14) (15)
(21) (22) (23) (24) (25)
(31) (32) (33) (34)
(41) (42) (43) (44) (45)
(51) (52) (53) (54) (55) (56)
Figure 14: DAG Construction Step 1
(LBR) (LBR2)
/ | \ / \
.---` | `----. / \
/ | \ | |
(11) (12) (13) (14) (15)
| \ | \ | | /|
| `----. | `----. | | .----` |
| \| \| | / |
(21) (22) (23) (24) (25)
(31) (32) (33) (34)
(41) (42) (43) (44) (45)
(51) (52) (53) (54) (55) (56)
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Figure 15: DAG Construction Step 2
(LBR) (LBR2)
/ | \ / \
.---` | `----. / \
/ | \ | |
(11) (12) (13) (14) (15)
| \ | \ | | /|
| `----. | `----. | | .----` |
| \| \| | / |
(21) (22) (23) (24) (25)
| /| / | / /
| .----` | .----` .-----]|[------` /
| / | / / | /
(31) (32) (33) (34)-----`
(41) (42) (43) (44) (45)
(51) (52) (53) (54) (55) (56)
Figure 16: DAG Construction Step 3
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(LBR) (LBR2)
/ | \ / \
.---` | `----. / \
/ | \ | |
(11) (12) (13) (14) (15)
| \ | \ | | /|
| `----. | `----. | | .----` |
| \| \| | / |
(21) (22) (23) (24) (25)
| /| / | / /
| .----` | .----` .-----]|[------` /
| / | / / | /
(31) (32) (33) (34)-----`
| /| | \ | \
| .----` | | `----. | `----.
| / | | \| \
(41) (42) (43) (44) (45)
(51) (52) (53) (54) (55) (56)
Figure 17: DAG Construction Step 4
(LBR) (LBR2)
/ | \ / \
.---` | `----. / \
/ | \ | |
(11) (12) (13) (14) (15)
| \ | \ | | /|
| `----. | `----. | | .----` |
| \| \| | / |
(21) (22) (23) (24) (25)
| /| / | / /
| .----` | .----` .-----]|[------` /
| / | / / | /
(31) (32) (33) (34)-----`
| /| | \ | \
| .----` | | `----. | `----.
| / | | \| \
.--------(41) (42) (43) (44) (45)
/ / /| | \
.----` .----` .----` | | `----.
/ / / | | \
(51) (52) (53) (54) (55) (56)
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Figure 18: DAG Construction Step 5
Authors' Addresses
Tim Winter (editor)
Email: wintert@acm.org
ROLL Design Team
IETF ROLL WG
Email: dtroll@external.cisco.com
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