Network Working Group                                       B. Carpenter
Internet-Draft                                         Univ. of Auckland
Intended status: BCP                                           S. Amante
Expires: December 22, 2011                                       Level 3
                                                           June 20, 2011


  Using the IPv6 flow label for equal cost multipath routing  and link
                         aggregation in tunnels
                      draft-ietf-6man-flow-ecmp-03

Abstract

   The IPv6 flow label has certain restrictions on its use.  This
   document describes how those restrictions apply when using the flow
   label for load balancing by equal cost multipath routing, and for
   link aggregation, particularly for IP-in-IPv6 tunneled traffic.

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on December 22, 2011.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as



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   described in the Simplified BSD License.


Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
     1.1.  Choice of IP Header Fields for Hash Input . . . . . . . . . 3
     1.2.  Flow label rules  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   2.  Normative Notation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   3.  Guidelines  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   4.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
   6.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
   7.  Change log [RFC Editor: please remove]  . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
   8.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
     8.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
     8.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

































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1.  Introduction

   When several network paths between the same two nodes are known by
   the routing system to be equally good (in terms of capacity and
   latency), it may be desirable to share traffic among them.  Two such
   techniques are known as equal cost multipath routing (ECMP) and link
   aggregation (LAG) [IEEE802.1AX].  There are of course numerous
   possible approaches to this, but certain goals need to be met:
   o  Roughly equal share of traffic on each path.
      (In some cases, the multiple paths might not all have the same
      capacity and the goal might be appropriately weighted traffic
      shares rather than equal shares.  This would affect the load
      sharing algorithm, but would not otherwise change the argument.)
   o  Minimize or avoid out-of-order delivery for individual traffic
      flows.
   o  Minimize idle time on any path when queue is non-empty.

   There is some conflict between these goals: for example, strictly
   avoiding idle time could cause a small packet sent on an idle path to
   overtake a bigger packet from the same flow, causing out-of-order
   delivery.

   One lightweight approach to ECMP or LAG is this: if there are N
   equally good paths to choose from, then form a modulo(N) hash
   [RFC2991] from a defined set of fields in each packet header that are
   certain to have the same values throughout the duration of a flow,
   and use the resulting output hash value to select a particular path.
   If the hash function is chosen so that the output values have a
   uniform statistical distribution, this method will share traffic
   roughly equally between the N paths.  If the header fields included
   in the hash input are consistent, all packets from a given flow will
   generate the same hash output value, so out-of-order delivery will
   not occur.  Assuming a large number of unique flows are involved, it
   is also probable that the method will avoid idle time, since the
   queue for each link will remain non-empty.

1.1.  Choice of IP Header Fields for Hash Input

   In the remainder of this document, we will use the term "flow" to
   represent a sequence of packets that may be identified by either the
   source and destination IP addresses alone {2-tuple} or the source and
   destination IP addresses, protocol and source and destination port
   numbers {5-tuple}.  It should be noted that the latter is more
   specifically referred to as a "microflow" in [RFC2474], but this term
   is not used in connection with the flow label in [RFC3697].

   The question is, then, which header fields are used to identify a
   flow and to serve as input keys to a modulo(N) hash algorithm.  A



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   common choice when routing general traffic is simply to use a hash of
   the source and destination IP addresses, i.e., the 2-tuple.  This is
   necessary and sufficient to avoid out-of-order delivery, and with a
   wide variety of sources and destinations, as one finds in the core of
   the network, often statistically sufficient to distribute load
   evenly.  In practice, many implementations use the 5-tuple {dest
   addr, source addr, protocol, dest port, source port} as input keys to
   the hash function, to maximize the probability of evenly sharing
   traffic over the equal cost paths.  However, including transport
   layer information as input keys to a hash may be a problem for IP
   fragments [RFC2991] or for encrypted traffic.  Including the protocol
   and port numbers, totalling 40 bits, in the hash input makes the hash
   slightly more expensive to compute but does improve the hash
   distribution, due to the variable nature of ephemeral ports.
   Ephemeral port numbers are quite well distributed [Lee10] and will
   typically contribute 16 variable bits.  However, in the case of IPv6,
   transport layer information is inconvenient to extract, due to the
   variable placement of and variable length of next-headers; all
   implementations must be capable of skipping over next-headers, even
   if they are rarely present in actual traffic.  In fact, [RFC2460]
   implies that next-headers, except hop-by-hop options, are not
   normally inspected by intermediate nodes in the network.  This
   situation may be challenging for some hardware implementations,
   raising the potential that network equipment vendors might sacrifice
   the length of the fields extracted from an IPv6 header.

   It is worth noting that the possible presence of a GRE header
   [RFC2784] and the possible presence of a GRE key within that header
   creates a similar challenge to the possible presence of IPv6
   extension headers; anything that complicates header analysis is
   undesirable.

   The situation is different in IP-in-IP tunneled scenarios.
   Identifying a flow inside the tunnel is more complicated,
   particularly because nearly all hardware can only identify flows
   based on information contained in the outermost IP header.  Assume
   that traffic from many sources to many destinations is aggregated in
   a single IP-in-IP tunnel from tunnel end point (TEP) A to TEP B (see
   figure).  Then all the packets forming the tunnel have outer source
   address A and outer destination address B. In all probability they
   also have the same port and protocol numbers.  If there are multiple
   paths between routers R1 and R2, and ECMP or LAG is applied to choose
   a particular path, the 2-tuple or 5-tuple, and its hash, will be
   constant and no load sharing will be achieved.  If there is a high
   proportion of traffic from one or small number of tunnels, traffic
   will not be distributed as intended across the paths between R1 and
   R2.




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      _____           _____               _____           _____
     | TEP |_________| R1  |-------------| R2  |_________| TEP |
     |__A__|         |_____|-------------|_____|         |__B__|
             tunnel          ECMP or LAG         tunnel
                                 here


   As noted above, for IPv6, the 5-tuple is in any case quite
   inconvenient to extract due to the next-header placement.  The
   question therefore arises whether the 20-bit flow label in IPv6
   packets would be suitable for use as input to an ECMP or LAG hash
   algorithm, especially in the case of tunnels where the inner packet
   header is inaccessible.  If the flow label could be used in place of
   the port numbers and protocol number in the 5-tuple, the
   implementation would be simplified.

1.2.  Flow label rules

   The flow label was left experimental by [RFC2460] but was better
   defined by [RFC3697].  We quote three rules from that RFC:
   1.  "The Flow Label value set by the source MUST be delivered
       unchanged to the destination node(s)."
   2.  "IPv6 nodes MUST NOT assume any mathematical or other properties
       of the Flow Label values assigned by source nodes."
   3.  "Router performance SHOULD NOT be dependent on the distribution
       of the Flow Label values.  Especially, the Flow Label bits alone
       make poor material for a hash key."

   These rules, especially the last one, have caused designers to
   hesitate about using the flow label in support of ECMP or LAG.  The
   fact is today that most nodes set a zero value in the flow label, and
   the first rule definitely forbids the routing system from changing
   the flow label once a packet has left the source node.  Considering
   normal IPv6 traffic, the fact that the flow label is typically zero
   means that it would add no value to an ECMP or LAG hash.  But neither
   would it do any harm to the distribution of the hash values.

   However, in the case of an IP-in-IPv6 tunnel, the TEP is itself the
   source node of the outer packets.  Therefore, a TEP may freely set a
   flow label in the outer IPv6 header of the packets it sends into the
   tunnel.

   The second two rules quoted above need to be seen in the context of
   [RFC3697], which assumes that routers using the flow label in some
   way will be involved in some sort of method of establishing flow
   state: "To enable flow-specific treatment, flow state needs to be
   established on all or a subset of the IPv6 nodes on the path from the
   source to the destination(s)."  The RFC should perhaps have made



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   clear that a router that has participated in flow state establishment
   can rely on properties of the resulting flow label values without
   further signaling.  If a router knows these properties, rule 2 is
   irrelevant, and it can choose to deviate from rule 3.

   In the tunneling situation sketched above, routers R1 and R2 can rely
   on the flow labels set by TEP A and TEP B being assigned by a known
   method.  This allows an ECMP or LAG method to be based on the flow
   label consistently with [RFC3697], regardless of whether the non-
   tunnel traffic carries non-zero flow label values.

   At the time of this writing, the IETF is preparing a revision of RFC
   3697 [I-D.ietf-6man-flow-3697bis].  That revision is fully compatible
   with the present document and obviates the concerns resulting from
   the above three rules.  Therefore, the present specification applies
   both to RFC 3697 and to its successor.


2.  Normative Notation

   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 [RFC2119].


3.  Guidelines

   We assume that the routers supporting ECMP or LAG (R1 and R2 in the
   above figure) are unaware that they are handling tunneled traffic.
   If it is desired to include the IPv6 flow label in an ECMP or LAG
   hash in the tunneled scenario shown above, the following guidelines
   apply:
   o  Inner packets MUST be encapsulated in an outer IPv6 packet whose
      source and destination addresses are those of the tunnel end
      points (TEPs).
   o  The flow label in the outer packet SHOULD be set by the sending
      TEP to a 20-bit value in accordance with
      [I-D.ietf-6man-flow-3697bis].  The same flow label value MUST be
      used for all packets in a single user flow, as determined by the
      IP header fields of the inner packet.
   o  To achieve this, the sending TEP MUST classify all packets into
      flows, once it has determined that they should enter a given
      tunnel, and then write the relevant flow label into the outer IPv6
      header.  A user flow could be identified by the sending TEP most
      simply by its {destination, source} address 2-tuple or by its
      5-tuple {dest addr, source addr, protocol, dest port, source
      port}.  At present, there would be little point in using the {dest
      addr, source addr, flow label} 3-tuple of the inner packet, but



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      doing so would be a future-proof option.  The choice of n-tuple is
      an implementation choice in the sending TEP.
      *  As specified in [I-D.ietf-6man-flow-3697bis], the flow label
         values should be chosen from a uniform distribution.  Such
         values will be suitable as input to a load balancing hash
         function and will be hard for a malicious third party to
         predict.
      *  The sending TEP MAY perform stateless flow label assignment, by
         using a suitable 20 bit hash of the inner IP header's 2-tuple
         or 5-tuple as the flow label value.
      *  If the inner packet is an IPv6 packet, its flow label value
         could also be included in this hash.
      *  This stateless method creates a small probability of two
         different user flows hashing to the same flow label.  Since
         [I-D.ietf-6man-flow-3697bis] allows a source (the TEP in this
         case) to define any set of packets that it wishes as a single
         flow, occasionally labeling two user flows as a single flow
         through the tunnel is acceptable.
   o  At intermediate router(s) that perform load distribution, the hash
      algorithm used to determine the outgoing component-link in an ECMP
      and/or LAG toward the next-hop MUST minimally include the 3-tuple
      {dest addr, source addr, flow label} and MAY also include the
      remaining components of the 5-tuple.  This applies whether the
      traffic is tunneled traffic only, or a mixture of normal traffic
      and tunneled traffic.
      *  Intermediate IPv6 router(s) will presumably encounter a mixture
         of tunneled traffic and normal IPv6 traffic.  Because of this,
         the design should also include {protocol, dest port, source
         port} as input keys to the ECMP and/or LAG hash algorithms, to
         provide additional entropy for flows whose flow label is set to
         zero, including non-tunneled traffic flows.


4.  Security Considerations

   The flow label is not protected in any way and can be forged by an
   on-path attacker.  However, it is expected that tunnel end-points and
   the ECMP or LAG paths will be part of managed infrastructure that is
   well protected against on-path attacks.  Off-path attackers are
   unlikely to guess a valid flow label if an apparently pseudo-random
   value is used.  In either case, the worst an attacker could do
   against ECMP or LAG is to attempt to selectively overload a
   particular path.  For further discussion, see
   [I-D.ietf-6man-flow-3697bis].







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5.  IANA Considerations

   This document requests no action by IANA.


6.  Acknowledgements

   This document was suggested by corridor discussions at IETF76.  Joel
   Halpern made crucial comments on an early version.  We are grateful
   to Qinwen Hu for general discussion about the flow label.  Valuable
   comments and contributions were made by Jarno Rajahalme, Brian
   Haberman, Sheng Jiang, Thomas Narten, and others.

   This document was produced using the xml2rfc tool [RFC2629].


7.  Change log [RFC Editor: please remove]

   draft-ietf-6man-flow-ecmp-03: minor editorial fixes, AD comments, 2011-06-20.

   draft-ietf-6man-flow-ecmp-02: updated after further comments, 2011-
   05-02.  Note that RFC3697bis becomes a normative reference.

   draft-ietf-6man-flow-ecmp-01: updated after WG Last Call, 2011-02-10

   draft-ietf-6man-flow-ecmp-00: after WG adoption at IETF 79,
   2010-12-02

   draft-carpenter-flow-ecmp-03: clarifications after further comments,
   2010-10-07

   draft-carpenter-flow-ecmp-02: updated after IETF77 discussion,
   especially adding LAG, changed to BCP language, added second author,
   2010-04-14

   draft-carpenter-flow-ecmp-01: updated after comments, 2010-02-18

   draft-carpenter-flow-ecmp-00: original version, 2010-01-19


8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.ietf-6man-flow-3697bis]
              Amante, S., Carpenter, B., Jiang, S., and J. Rajahalme,
              "IPv6 Flow Label Specification",
              draft-ietf-6man-flow-3697bis-04 (work in progress),



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              May 2011.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2460]  Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
              (IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998.

   [RFC3697]  Rajahalme, J., Conta, A., Carpenter, B., and S. Deering,
              "IPv6 Flow Label Specification", RFC 3697, March 2004.

8.2.  Informative References

   [IEEE802.1AX]
              Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, "Link
              Aggregation", IEEE Standard 802.1AX-2008, 2008.

   [Lee10]    Lee, D., Carpenter, B., and N. Brownlee, "Observations of
              UDP to TCP Ratio and Port Numbers", Fifth International
              Conference on Internet Monitoring and Protection ICIMP
              2010, May 2010, <http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~brian/
              udptcp-paper-cam-submit.pdf>.

   [RFC2474]  Nichols, K., Blake, S., Baker, F., and D. Black,
              "Definition of the Differentiated Services Field (DS
              Field) in the IPv4 and IPv6 Headers", RFC 2474,
              December 1998.

   [RFC2629]  Rose, M., "Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML", RFC 2629,
              June 1999.

   [RFC2784]  Farinacci, D., Li, T., Hanks, S., Meyer, D., and P.
              Traina, "Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)", RFC 2784,
              March 2000.

   [RFC2991]  Thaler, D. and C. Hopps, "Multipath Issues in Unicast and
              Multicast Next-Hop Selection", RFC 2991, November 2000.














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Authors' Addresses

   Brian Carpenter
   Department of Computer Science
   University of Auckland
   PB 92019
   Auckland,   1142
   New Zealand

   Email: brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com


   Shane Amante
   Level 3 Communications, LLC
   1025 Eldorado Blvd
   Broomfield, CO  80021
   USA

   Email: shane@level3.net
































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