spring R. Geib, Ed.
Internet-Draft Deutsche Telekom
Intended status: Informational C. Filsfils
Expires: January 4, 2016 C. Pignataro
N. Kumar
Cisco Systems, Inc.
July 3, 2015
Use case for a scalable and topology aware MPLS data plane monitoring
system
draft-geib-spring-oam-usecase-06
Abstract
This document describes features and a use case of a path monitoring
system. Segment based routing enables a scalable and simple method
to monitor data plane liveliness of the complete set of paths
belonging to a single domain. Compared with legacy MPLS ping and
path trace, MPLS topology awareness reduces management and control
plane involvement of OAM measurements while enabling new OAM
features.
Status of This Memo
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. An MPLS topology aware path monitoring system . . . . . . . . 4
3. SR based path monitoring use case illustration . . . . . . . 5
3.1. Use-case 1 - LSP dataplane monitoring . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2. Use-case 2 - Monitoring a remote bundle . . . . . . . . . 7
3.3. Use-Case 3 - Fault localization . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4. Failure Notification from PMS to LERi . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. Applying SR to monitor LDP paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6. PMS monitoring of different Segment ID types . . . . . . . . 9
7. Connectivity Verification using PMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8. Extensions of related standards helpful for this use case . . 10
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
10. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
11. Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Introduction
It is essential for a network operator to monitor all the forwarding
paths observed by the transported user packets. The monitoring flow
is expected to be forwarded in dataplane in a similar way as user
packets. Segment Routing enables forwarding of packets along pre-
defined paths and segments and thus a Segment Routed monitoring
packet can stay in dataplane while passing along one or more segments
to be monitored.
This document describes illustrates use-cases based on data plane
path monitoring capabilities. The use case is limited to a single
IGP MPLS domain.
The use case applies to monitoring of LDP LSP's as well as to
monitoring of Segment Routed LSP's. As compared to LDP, Segment
Routing is expected to simplify the use case by enabling MPLS
topology detection based on IGP signaled segments as specified by
[ID.sr-isis]. Thus a centralised and MPLS topology aware monitoring
unit can be realized in a Segment Routed domain. This topology
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awareness can be used for OAM purposes as described by this use case.
The MPLS path monitoring system described by this document can be
realised with pre-Segment based Routing (SR) technology. Making such
a pre-SR MPLS monitoring system aware of a domains complete MPLS
topology requires e.g. management plane access. To avoid the use of
stale MPLS label information, IGP must be monitored and MPLS topology
must be timely aligned with IGP topology. Obviously, enhancing IGPs
to exchange of MPLS topology information as done by SR significantly
simplifies and stabilises such an MPLS path monitoring system.
This document adopts the terminology and framework described in
[ID.sr-archi]. It further adopts the editorial simplification
explained in section 1.2 of the segment routing use-cases
[ID.sr-use].
The use case offers several benefits for network monitoring. A
single centralized monitoring device is able to monitor the complete
set of a domains forwarding paths. Monitoring packets never leave
data plane. MPLS path trace function (whose specification and
features are not part of this use case) is required, if the actual
data plane of a router should be checked against its control plane.
SR capabilities allow to direct MPLS OAM packets from a centralized
monitoring system to any router within a domain whose path should be
traced.
In addition to monitoring paths, problem localization is required.
Faults can be localized:
o by IGP LSA analysis.
o correlation between different SR based monitoring probes.
o by any MPLS traceroute method (possibly in combination with SR
based path stacks).
Topology awareness is an essential part of link state IGPs. Adding
MPLS topology awareness to an IGP speaking device hence enables a
simple and scalable data plane based monitoring mechanism.
MPLS OAM offers flexible features to recognise an execute data paths
of an MPLS domain. By utilising the ECMP related tool set offered
e.g. by RFC 4379 [RFC4379], a segment based routing LSP monitoring
system may:
o easily detect ECMP functionality and properties of paths at data
level.
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o construct monitoring packets executing desired paths also if ECMP
is present.
o limit the MPLS label stack of an OAM packet to a minmum of 3
labels.
Alternatively, any path may be executed by building suitable label
stacks. This allows path execution without ECMP awareness.
The MPLS path monitoring system may be a any server residing at a
single interface of the domain to be monitored. It doesn't have to
support any specialised protocol stack, it just should be capable of
understanding the topology and building the probe packet with the
right segment stack. As long as measurement packets return to this
or another interface connecting such a server, the MPLS monitoring
servers are the single entities pushing monitoring packet label
stacks. If the depth of label stacks to be pushed by a path
monitoring system (PMS) are of concern for a domain, a dedicated
server based path monitoring architecture allows limiting monitoring
related label stack pushes to these servers.
First drafts discussing SR OAM requirements and possible solutions to
allow SR usage as described by this document have been submitted
already, see [ID.sr-4379ext] and [ID.sr-oam_detect].
2. An MPLS topology aware path monitoring system
An MPLS PMS which is able to learn the IGP LSDB (including the SID's)
is able to execute arbitrary chains of label switched paths. It can
send pure monitoring packets along such a path chain or it can direct
suitable MPLS OAM packets to any node along a path segment. Segment
Routing here is used as a means of adding label stacks and hence
transport to standard MPLS OAM packets, which then detect
correspondence of control and data plane of this (or any other
addressed) path. Any node connected to an SR domain is MPLS topology
aware (the node knows all related IP addresses, SR SIDs and MPLS
labels). Thus a PMS connected to an MPLS SR domain just needs to set
up a topology data base for monitoring purposes.
Let us describe how the PMS constructs a labels stack to transport a
packet to LER i, monitor the path of it to LER j and then receive the
packet back.
The PMS may do so by sending packets carrying the following MPLS
label stack infomation:
o Top Label: a path from PMS to LER i, which is expressed as Node
SID of LER i.
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o Next Label: the path that needs to be monitored from LER i to LER
j. If this path is a single physical interface (or a bundle of
connected interfaces), it can be expressed by the related AdjSID.
If the shortest path from LER i to LER j is supposed to be
monitored, the Node-SID (LER j) can be used. Another option is to
insert a list of segments expressing the desired path (hop by hop
as an extreme case). If LER i pushes a stack of Labels based on a
SR policy decision and this stack of LSPs is to be monitored, the
PMS needs an interface to collect the information enabling it to
address this SR created path.
o Next Label or address: the path back to the PMS. Likely, no
further segment/label is required here. Indeed, once the packet
reaches LER j, the 'steering' part of the solution is done and the
probe just needs to return to the PMS. This is best achieved by
popping the MPLS stack and revealing a probe packet with PMS as
destination address (note that in this case, the source and
destination addresses could be the same). If an IP address is
applied, no SID/label has to be assigned to the PMS (if it is a
host/server residing in an IP subnet outside the MPLS domain).
Note: if the PMS is an IP host not connected to the MPLS domain, the
PMS can send its probe with the list of SIDs/Labels onto a suitable
tunnel providing an MPLS access to a router which is part of the
monitored MPLS domain.
3. SR based path monitoring use case illustration
3.1. Use-case 1 - LSP dataplane monitoring
+---+ +----+ +-----+
|PMS| |LSR1|-----|LER i|
+---+ +----+ +-----+
| / \ /
| / \__/
+-----+/ /|
|LER m| / |
+-----+\ / \
\ / \
\+----+ +-----+
|LSR2|-----|LER j|
+----+ +-----+
Example of a PMS based LSP dataplane monitoring
Figure 1
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For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that all the nodes are
configured with the same SRGB [ID.sr-archi], as described by section
1.2 of [ID.sr-use].
Let's assign the following Node SIDs to the nodes of the figure: PMS
= 10, LER i = 20, LER j = 30.
To be able to work with the smallest possible SR label stack, first a
suitable MPLS OAM method is used to detect the ECMP routed path
between LER i to LER j which is to be monitored (and the required
address information to direct a packet along it). Afterwards the PMS
sets up and sends packets to monitor availability of the detected
path. The PMS does this by creating a measurement packet with the
following label stack (top to bottom): 20 - 30 - 10. The packet will
only reliably use the monitored path, if the label and address
information used in combination with the MPLS OAM method of choice is
identical to that of the monitoring packet.
LER m forwards the packet received from the PMS to LSR1. Assuming
Pen-ultimate Hop Popping to be deployed, LSR1 pops the top label and
forwards the packet to LER i. There the top label has a value 30 and
LER i forwards it to LER j. This will be done transmitting the
packet via LSR1 or LSR2. The LSR will again pop the top label. LER
j will forward the packet now carrying the top label 10 to the PMS
(and it will pass a LSR and LER m).
A few observations on the example given in figure 1:
o The path PMS to LER i must be available. This path must be
detectable, but it is usually sufficient to apply a Shortest Path
First algorithm based path.
o If ECMP is deployed, it may be desired to measure along both
possible paths which a packet may use between LER i and LER j. To
do so, the MPLS OAM mechanism chosen to detect ECMP must reveal
the required information (an example is a so called tree trace)
between LER i and LER j. This method of dealing with ECMP based
load balancing paths requires the smallest SR label stacks if
monitoring of paths is applied after the tree trace completion.
o The path LER j to PMS to must be available. This path must be
detectable, but it is usually sufficient to apply an SPF based
path.
Once the MPLS paths (Node SIDs) and the required information to deal
with ECMP has been detected, the paths of LER i to LER j can be
monitored by the PMS. Monitoring itself does not require MPLS OAM
functionality. All monitoring packets stay on dataplane, hence path
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monitoring does no longer require control plane interaction in any
LER or LSR of the domain. To ensure reliable results, the PMS should
be aware of any changes in IGP or MPLS topology. Further changes in
ECMP functionality at LER i will impact results. Either the PMS
should be notified of such changes or they should be limited to
planned maintenance. After a topology change, a suitable MPLS OAM
mechanism may be useful to detect the impact of the change.
Determining a path to be executed prior to a measurement may also be
done by setting up a label stack including all Node SIDs along that
path (if LSR1 has Node SID 40 in the example and it should be passed
between LER i and LER j, the label stack is 20 - 40 - 30 - 10). The
advantage of this method is, that it does not involve MPLS OAM
functionality and it is independent of ECMP functionalities. The
method still is able to monitor all link combinations of all paths of
an MPLS domain. If correct forwarding along the desired paths has to
be checked, some suitable MPLS OAM mechanism may be applied also in
this case.
In theory at least, a single PMS is able to monitor data plane
availability of all LSPs in the domain. The PMS may be a router, but
could also be dedicated monitoring system. If measurement system
reliability is an issue, more than a single PMS may be connected to
the MPLS domain.
Monitoring an MPLS domain by a PMS based on SR offers the option of
monitoring complete MPLS domains with little effort and very
excellent scalability. Data plane failure detection by circulating
monitoring packets can be executed at any time. The PMS further
could be enabled to send MPLS OAM packets with the label stacks and
address information identical to those of the monitoring packets to
any node of the MPLS domain. It does not require access to LSR/LER
management interfaces or their control plane to do so.
3.2. Use-case 2 - Monitoring a remote bundle
+---+ _ +--+ +-------+
| | { } | |---991---L1---662---| |
|PMS|--{ }-|R1|---992---L2---663---|R2 (72)|
| | {_} | |---993---L3---664---| |
+---+ +--+ +-------+
SR based probing of all the links of a remote bundle
Figure 2
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R1 addresses Lx by the Adjacency SID 99x, while R2 addresses Lx by
the Adjacency SID 66(x+1).
In the above figure, the PMS needs to assess the dataplane
availability of all the links within a remote bundle connected to
routers R1 and R2.
The monitoring system retrieves the SID/Label information from the
IGP LSDB and appends the following segment list/label stack: {72,
662, 992, 664} on its IP probe (whose source and destination
addresses are the address of the PMS).
PMS sends the probe to its connected router. If the connected router
is not SR compliant, a tunneling technique can be used to tunnel the
probe and its MPLS stack to the first SR router. The MPLS/SR domain
then forwards the probe to R2 (72 is the Node SID of R2). R2
forwards the probe to R1 over link L1 (Adjacency SID 662). R1
forwards the probe to R2 over link L2 (Adjacency SID 992). R2
forwards the probe to R1 over link L3 (Adjacency SID 664). R1 then
forwards the IP probe to PMS as per classic IP forwarding.
3.3. Use-Case 3 - Fault localization
In the previous example, a uni-directional fault on the middle link
in direction of R2 to R1 would be localized by sending the following
two probes with respective segment lists:
o 72, 662, 992, 664
o 72, 663, 992, 664
The first probe would fail while the second would succeed.
Correlation of the measurements reveals that the only difference is
using the Adjacency SID 662 of the middle link from R1 to R2 in the
non successful measurement. Assuming the second probe has been
routed correctly, the fault must have been occurring in R2 which
didn't forward the packet to the interface identified by its
Adjacency SID 662.
4. Failure Notification from PMS to LERi
PMS on detecting any failure in the path liveliness may use any out-
of-band mechanism to signal the failure to LER i. This document does
not propose any specific mechanism and operators can choose any
existing or new approach.
Alternately, the Operator may log the failure in local monitoring
system and take necessary action by manual intervention.
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5. Applying SR to monitor LDP paths
A SR based PMS connected to a MPLS domain consisting of LER and LSR
supporting SR and LDP in parallel in all nodes may use SR paths to
transmit packets to and from start and end points of LDP paths to be
monitored. In the above example, the label stack top to bottom may
be as follows, when sent by the PMS:
o Top: SR based Node-SID of LER i at LER m.
o Next: LDP label identifying the path to LER j at LER i.
o Bottom: SR based Node-SID identifying the path to the PMS at LER j
While the mixed operation shown here still requires the PMS to be
aware of the LER LDP-MPLS topology, the PMS may learn the SR MPLS
topology by IGP and use this information.
6. PMS monitoring of different Segment ID types
MPLS SR topology awareness should allow the SID to monitor liveliness
of most types of SIDs (this may not be recommendable if a SID
identifies an inter domain interface).
To match control plane information with data plane information, MPLS
OAM functions as defined by e.g. RFC4379 should be enhanced to allow
collection of data relevant to check all relevant types of Segment
IDs.
7. Connectivity Verification using PMS
While the PMS based use cases explained in Section 3 are sufficient
to provide continuity check between LER i and LER j, it may not help
perform connectivity verification. So in some cases like data plane
programming corruption, it is possible that a transit node between
LER i and LER j erroneously removes the top segment ID and forwards a
monitoring packet to the PMS based on the bottom segment ID leading
to a falsified path liveliness indication by the PMS.
There are various method to perform basic connectivity verification
like intermittently setting the TTL to 1 in bottom label so LER j
selectively perform connectivity verification. Other methods are
possible and may be added when requirements and solutions are
specified.
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8. Extensions of related standards helpful for this use case
The following activities are welcome enhancements supporting this use
case, but they are not part of it:
RFC4379 functions should be extended to support Flow- and Entropy
Label based ECMP.
9. IANA Considerations
This memo includes no request to IANA.
10. Security Considerations
As mentioned in the introduction, a PMS monitoring packet should
never leave the domain where it originated. It therefore should
never use stale MPLS or IGP routing information. Further, assigning
different label ranges for different purposes may be useful. A well
known global service level range may be excluded for utilisation
within PMS measurement packets. These ideas shouldn't start a
discussion. They rather should point out, that such a discussion is
required when SR based OAM mechanisms like a SR are standardised.
11. Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Nobo Akiya for his contribution.
Raik Leipnitz kindly provided an editorial review.
12. References
12.1. Normative References
[RFC4379] Kompella, K. and G. Swallow, "Detecting Multi-Protocol
Label Switched (MPLS) Data Plane Failures", RFC 4379,
February 2006.
12.2. Informative References
[ID.sr-4379ext]
IETF, "Label Switched Path (LSP) Ping/Trace for Segment
Routing Networks Using MPLS Dataplane", IETF,
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/
draft-kumar-mpls-spring-lsp-ping/, 2013.
[ID.sr-archi]
IETF, "Segment Routing Architecture", IETF,
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-filsfils-spring-
segment-routing/, 2014.
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[ID.sr-isis]
IETF, "IS-IS Extensions for Segment Routing", IETF,
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/
draft-previdi-isis-segment-routing-extensions/, 2014.
[ID.sr-oam_detect]
IETF, "Detecting Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)
Data Plane Failures in Source Routed LSPs", IETF,
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/
draft-kini-spring-mpls-lsp-ping/, 2013.
[ID.sr-use]
IETF, "Segment Routing Use Cases", IETF,
http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/
draft-filsfils-rtgwg-segment-routing-use-cases/, 2013.
Authors' Addresses
Ruediger Geib (editor)
Deutsche Telekom
Heinrich Hertz Str. 3-7
Darmstadt 64295
Germany
Phone: +49 6151 5812747
Email: Ruediger.Geib@telekom.de
Clarence Filsfils
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Brussels
Belgium
Email: cfilsfil@cisco.com
Carlos Pignataro
Cisco Systems, Inc.
7200 Kit Creek Road
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-4987
US
Email: cpignata@cisco.com
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Nagendra Kumar
Cisco Systems, Inc.
7200 Kit Creek Road
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
US
Email: naikumar@cisco.com
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