Internet Engineering Task Force                               J. Scudder
Internet-Draft                                          Juniper Networks
Intended status: Standards Track                              C. Appanna
Expires: March 16, 2013                                  Arista Networks
                                                           I. Varlashkin
                                                 Easynet Global Services
                                                      September 12, 2012


                            Multisession BGP
                   draft-ietf-idr-bgp-multisession-07

Abstract

   This specification augments "Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP-4" (MP-
   BGP) by proposing a mechanism to facilitate the use of multiple
   sessions between a given pair of BGP speakers.  Each session is used
   to transport routes related by some session-based attribute such as
   AFI/SAFI.  This provides an alternative to the MP-BGP approach of
   multiplexing all routes onto a single connection.

   Use of this approach is expected to provide finer-grained fault
   management and isolation as the BGP protocol is used to support more
   and more diverse services.

Status of this Memo

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

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on March 16, 2013.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2012 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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   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     1.1.  Requirements Language  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   2.  Definitions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   3.  Overview of operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   4.  Multisession BGP Capability Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   5.  New NOTIFICATION Subcodes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   6.  Modified Connection Collision Handling . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   7.  Connection establishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   8.  Graceful restart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   9.  Error handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   10. Operational considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   11. Backward Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   12. State Machine  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   13. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   14. Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   15. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   16. IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   17. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     17.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     17.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   Appendix A.  Multisession usage scenarios  . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     A.1.  Single session on both sides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     A.2.  Single session on one side, multiple sessions on the
           other  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     A.3.  Multiple sessions based on AFI/SAFI  . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     A.4.  Multiple sessions based on arbitrary BGP Capabilities  . . 17
     A.5.  Process level separation of multiple sessions  . . . . . . 18
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18





















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1.  Introduction

   Most BGP [RFC4271] implementations only permit a single ESTABLISHED
   connection to exist with each peer.  More precisely, they only permit
   a single ESTABLISHED connection for any given pair of IP endpoints.

   BGP Capabilities [RFC5492] extend BGP to allow diverse information
   (encoded as "capabilities") to be associated with a session.  In some
   cases, a capability may relate to the operation of the protocol
   machinery; an example is Route Refresh [RFC2918].  However, in other
   cases a capability may relate specifically to some common
   distinguishing characteristic of the routes carried over the session;
   an example is Multiprotocol BGP [RFC4760].

   Multiprotocol BGP [RFC4760] extends BGP to allow information for
   multiple NLRI families and sub-families to be transported in BGP.
   Routes for different families are distinguished by AFI and SAFI.
   Routes for different families are commonly multiplexed onto a single
   BGP session.

   A common criticism of BGP is the fact that most malformed messages
   cause the session to be terminated.  While this behavior is necessary
   for protocol correctness, one may observe that the protocol machinery
   of a given implementation may only be defective with respect to a
   given AFI/SAFI.  Thus, it would be desirable to allow the session
   related to that family to be terminated while leaving other AFI/SAFI
   unaffected.  As BGP is commonly deployed, this is not possible.

   A second criticism of BGP is that it is difficult or in some cases
   impossible to manage control plane resource contention when BGP is
   used to support diverse services over a single session.  In contrast,
   if a single BGP session carries only information for a single service
   (or related set of services) it may be easier to manage such
   contention.

   In this specification, we propose a mechanism by which multiple
   transport sessions may be established between a pair of peers.  Each
   transport session is identified by a distinct set of BGP
   capabilities, notably the MP-BGP capability.

   Each session is distinct from a BGP protocol point of view; an error
   or other event on one session has no implications for any other
   session.  All protocol modifications proposed by this specification
   take place during the OPEN exchange phase of the session, there are
   no modifications to the operation of the protocol once a session
   reaches ESTABLISHED state.

   Although AFI/SAFI is perhaps the most obvious way to group sets of



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   routes being exchanged between BGP peers, sessions can also be
   distinguished by other BGP capabilities.  In general, any capability
   used in this fashion would be expected to have semantics of
   identifying some common distinguishing characteristic of a set of
   routes, just as AFI/SAFI does; however, specifics are beyond the
   scope of this document.  Most examples in this document are focusing
   on MP-BGP capability (or interchangeably, AFI/SAFI) based grouping
   for simplicity reason.  However actual application of multisessions
   extension .  Such use is illustrative and is not intended to be
   limiting.

   Routers implementing this specification MUST also implement the base
   criteria that is used to define sessions.  For example if AFI/SAFI
   based sessions are desired then routers implementing this
   specification MUST also implement MP-BGP [RFC4760].

1.1.  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].


2.  Definitions

   "MP-BGP capability" refers to the capability [RFC5492] with code 1,
   specified in MP-BGP [RFC4760] section 8.

   A BGP speaker is said to "support" some feature or functionality (for
   example, to support this specification, or to support a particular
   AFI/SAFI) when the BGP implementation supports the feature AND the
   feature has not been disabled by configuration.

   The Session Identifier is a capability or group of capabilities that
   will be used to differentiate individual BGP sessions between two IP
   endpoints.  When the AFI/SAFI is used to distinguish sessions, the
   MP-BGP capability is the session identifier.


3.  Overview of operations

   To allow multiple sessions between same pair of BGP speakers to co-
   exist BGP Multisession extension modifies Connection Collision
   Detection procedure of the base BGP specification (RFC4271).  Rather
   than considering only IP addresses of the peers new procedure also
   takes into account list of certain session attributes, such as AFI/
   SAFI, to determine uniqueness of the sessions.  When sessions are
   deemed to be unique each of them is then handled independently,



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   therefore critical conditions (such as malformed UPDATEs) in one
   session won't affect others.

   BGP Multisession extension introduces new BGP capability code to
   indicate that a BGP speaker supports protocol modification described
   in this document and new error message sub-codes that facilitate
   handling of incompatible configurations between two speakers.

   Following sections provide formal description of the protocol
   enhancement.  Additionally, Appendix contains non-normative examples
   of desired behaviour for Multisession-enabled BGP speakers, which is
   intended only for illustrative purpose.


4.  Multisession BGP Capability Code

   This specification defines the Multisession capability [RFC5492]:

      Capability code (1 octet): 68

      Capability length (1 octet): variable

      Capability value (1 octet): Flags followed by the list of
      capabilities that define a session.


         0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5
        +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
        |G|  Reserved   |  Session Id   ~
        +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   G - the most significant bit was originally intended by earlier draft
   version of Multisession specification to denote capability of a BGP
   speaker to group multiple capability values into one session.  As
   this information can be deduced from Session Id, the use of G bit is
   deprecated - implementations conforming to final version of
   Multisession specification SHOULD NOT rely on value of the G bit.

   Reserved - MUST be set to zero by sender, MUST be ignored by receiver

   Session Id(entifier) - list of zero or more capability codes (1 octet
   each) defined in BGP, whose values will be used to distinguish one
   group from another.  The size of the list is inferred from the length
   of the overall capability; it is the capability length minus one.
   The Multisession capability code itself MUST NOT be listed; if listed
   it MUST be ignored upon receipt.

   Empty Session Id list and Session Id containing 1 (one, Multiprotocol



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   Extensions) as the only value are considered equal and indicate that
   AFI/SAFI list in the OPEN message is used to distinguish the groups.
   However, if BGP speaker wishes to use compound Session Id that
   includes AFI/SAFI list as one of the components, then Capability Code
   1 MUST be explicitly included in the Session Id.  For example, if BGP
   speaker Session Id to 'X' (denoting Capability Foo) then only Foo
   will be used as Session Id, i.e. session where Foo is 1 and AFI/SAFI
   is 1/1 and session where Foo is 1 and AFI/SAFI is 1/2 will be
   considered as conflicting.  On the other hand Session Id set to '1 X'
   or 'X 1' indicates that groups are identified by combination of Foo
   and AFI/SAFI, i.e. above two sessions as well as session where Foo is
   2 and AFI/SAFI is 2/4 will be considered unique.

   For given pair of BGP peers Multisession capability MUST be used
   either on all or none sessions.  This is required due to different
   connection collision handling procedure used by multisession.


5.  New NOTIFICATION Subcodes

   BGP [RFC4271] Section 4.5 provides a number of subcodes to the
   NOTIFICATION message, and Section 6.2 elaborates on the use of those
   subcodes specific to OPEN message.

   This specification introduces three new subcodes for OPEN Message
   Error code:



         7 - Capability Value Mismatch - Session Id mismatch, i.e.
         remote speaker whishes to use different capability codes in
         Session Id compare to local speaker

         8 - Grouping Conflict - values of capability codes used in
         Session Id of the received message cannot be unambiguously
         mapped to a locally configured group

         9 - Grouping Required (from earlier drafts, perhaps should be
         removed if not used)

   BGP implementations conforming to this specification SHOULD use new
   sub-codes as described further down in section "Connection
   establishment" of this document.


6.  Modified Connection Collision Handling

   BGP speaker conforming to and actively using this specification MUST



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   use modified connection collision handling procedure as described in
   this section.

   Two sessions are said to collide if and only if both of following
   conditions are true:

   1:  the IP addresses on of peers are the same on both sessions

   2:  values of capability codes used in session identifier are either
       the same or overlapping (regardless fully or partially) within
       given capability code

   Otherwise two sessions are considered unique and both MAY transition
   to the ESTABLISHED state (subject to rest of BGP specification).

   Before attempting to create new session local system SHOULD evaluate
   existing sessions with the same peer.  If there is already a session
   with the same peer in ESTABLISHED state and new session would collide
   with it, BGP speaker SHOULD NOT attempt creating new session; it's a
   good idea to notify operator of the local system about such potential
   collision.

   Upon receipt of an OPEN messages BGP speaker MUST evaluate existing
   sessions with the same peer.  If there is already a session in
   ESTABLISHED state and multisession distinguisher values of the old
   and the new OPEN messages fully match, the old session remains and
   the new MUST be closed.

   If there is a session in OpenConfirm or OpenSent state and two
   sessions do not collide according to this document, then both
   sessions proceed as normally and section 6.8 of RFC4271 MUST NOT be
   applied.  If on the other hand two sessions collide according to
   definition of this document, then original procedure from section 6.8
   of RFC4271 MUST be applied, except for the NOTIFICATION type.
   Whereas original specification prescribes to use 'Cease' error code,
   multisession enabled BGP speaker SHOULD send NOTIFICATION message as
   described in this document.


7.  Connection establishment

   When BGP Multisession is enabled by configuration for given peer and
   configuration dictates that multiple sessions can potentially be
   established with given peer, BGP speaker MUST advertise Multisession
   Capability code in the OPEN message on every session with given peer.
   In all other cases Multisession capability SHOULD NOT be advertised.
   The value of Session Id MUST be the same on every session.




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   When Multisession-enabled BGP speaker receives an OPEN message
   without BGP Multisession Capability code it MUST assume that peer is
   not capable of multiple sessions and MUST use original Connection
   Collision Detection procedure as described in section 6.8 of RFC4271.

   When Multisession-enabled BGP speaker receives an OPEN message
   containing BGP Multisession Capability Code but with Session Id not
   matching its own Session Id, local BGP speaker MUST send NOTIFICATION
   message with Error Code set to 2 ("OPEN Message Error") and Error
   Sub-code set to 8 ("Grouping Conflict") and drop the session.  If
   received Session Id matches locally configured Session Id then BGP
   speaker MUST verify whether this session would collide with any of
   the existing as described in section "Modified Connection Collision
   Handling".

   If session is allowed to continue by connection collision detection
   procedure, the next step for local speaker is to find matching group
   as follow:

   1.  If BGP capability code values used in Session Id of the received
       message match exactly (i.e. for every value in the received OPEN
       message there is corresponding value in a locally configured
       group) then local BGP speaker proceeds with this session

   2.  If values in the received message do not match any of the locally
       configured groups exactly, but there is one and only one locally
       configured group such that for every capability code the
       intersection between received and local values is non-empty set,
       then this group is selected for continuing the session.  Note,
       such partial match results in behaviour similar to non-
       multisession BGP when capability codes overlap partially.
       Rationale behind allowing only one group for partial matching is
       that it simplifies specification and implementation; from
       operational perspective multiple partially matching groups
       suggest significant descrepancy in configuration between peers
       and therefore unlikely to be required in real-life networks.

   3.  In all other cases local BGP speaker MUST send NOTIFICATION
       message with Error Code set to 2 (OPEN Message Error) and Error
       Sub-code set to 8 (Grouping conflict).

   Once local BGP speaker has identified which locally configured group
   corresponds to received OPEN message it proceeds with the session
   like it would have been regular non-multisession one, particularly -
   the original Finite State Machine applies.  BGP speaker is free to
   handle such session either in the same process/thread as the one that
   received OPEN message, or it can hand over connection to another
   process/thread.  If uses, the connection handover is local-matter of



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   BGP implementation and not part of this specification.  Appendix
   contains an example how such handover could be done.


8.  Graceful restart

   With respect to Section 4.2 of BGP Graceful Restart [RFC4724], when
   determining whether a new connection BGP speaker evaluate values of
   all capability codes used in Session Identifier.


9.  Error handling

   If multisession-enabled BGP speaker detects an error condition that
   warrants session reset, it SHOULD reset only session that was
   affected by the error.  Resetting other sessions with the same peer
   would significantly diminish value of multisession extensions.


10.  Operational considerations

   Multisession feature SHOULD be disabled by default.  BGP
   implementation SHOULD provide configuration-time option to enable
   multisession extension on per-peer basis.  If BGP implementation
   supports non-trivial groups, then it SHOULD provide configuration-
   time option for operator to control how sessions are grouped.  An
   example of such option would be possibility for an operator to
   specify which address families will be carried in one session, and
   which address families will be carried in another session.

   BGP implementation supporting multisession extension SHOULD allow
   operator to view state of each individual group and at least last
   NOTIFICATION message that caused connection reset.

   For the sake of interoperability between BGP speakers supporting
   multisession, an implementation SHOULD NOT impose hard-coded
   restrictions on groups based on particular Session Id are put
   together.  If such restrictions are unavoidable, then BGP
   implementation MUST support at least trivial groups based on that
   attribute.  Let's consider this on an example.  If implementation A
   requires AFI/SAFI 1/1 and 1/4 to be always carried within same
   session, while implementation B requires AFI/SAFI 1/4 to be always
   carried only with 1/128 and not with any other, then it's not
   possible to establish session between such BGP speakers.  However if
   implementations A and B both allow each AFI/SAFI to be carried each
   in its own group, then we can establish three sessions - one for AFI/
   SAFI 1/1, another one for AFI/SAFI 1/4 and third one for AFI/SAFI
   1/128.



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11.  Backward Compatibility

   This subsection discusses a BGP speaker's behavior towards a peer
   that is known or assumed not to support this specification.  In
   short, the BGP speaker's behavior towards such a peer should be as
   otherwise defined for the BGP protocol, according to [RFC4271] and
   any other extension supported by the BGP speaker.

   If a BGP speaker receives OPEN message that doesn't include
   Multisession Capability and local BGP speaker is required to use
   multisession (e.g. through configuration by operator), the local BGP
   speaker MUST drop the session and send appropriate NOTIFICATION
   message as described in Section 5.  If multisession is not required,
   local BGP speaker proceeds with multisession extension disabled, so
   it appears as regular implementation to the peer.

   As previously mentioned, the BGP speaker SHOULD always advertise the
   Multisession capability in its OPEN message, even towards "backward
   compatibility" peers.

   Use of techniques such as dynamic capabilities
   [I-D.ietf-idr-dynamic-cap] for on-the-fly switching of session modes
   is beyond the scope of this document.


12.  State Machine

   This specification does not modify BGP FSM as such, but all
   references to execution of collision handling procedure of original
   BGP specification are replaced with call to collision handling
   procedure described in this document.

   The specific state machine modifications to [RFC4271] Section 8.2.2
   are as follows.


13.  Discussion

   Note that many BGP implementations already permit multiple sessions
   to be used between a given pair of routers, typically by configuring
   multiple IP addresses on each router and configuring each session to
   be bound to a different IP address.  The principal contribution of
   this specification is to allow multiple sessions to be created
   automatically, without additional configuration overhead or address
   consumption.

   The specification supports the simple case of one capability being
   used as the session identifier and one connection per session



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   identifier value.  It also permits connections be established based
   on multiple capabilities as a session identifier with multiple values
   per capability grouped together per connection.

   In the context of MP-BGP based connections, which we believe may be
   the most prevalent use of this specification, it permits supporting
   one AFI/SAFI per connection, and also permits arbitrary grouping of
   AFI/SAFI onto BGP connections.  For such grouping to function
   pleasingly, both peers participating in a connection need to agree on
   what AFI/SAFI groupings will be used.  If conflicting groupings are
   configured, the connections may not establish, or more connections
   may be established than were expected (in the degenerate case, one
   connection per AFI/SAFI could be established despite configured
   groupings).  We observe that the potential for misbehavior in the
   presence of conflicting configuration is not unusual in BGP, and that
   support for, and configuration of grouping is purely optional.


14.  Security Considerations

   This document does not change the BGP security model.


15.  Acknowledgements

   The authors would like to thank Martin Djernaes, Pedro Marques, Keyur
   Patel, Robert Raszuk, Yakov Rekhter, David Ward and Anton Elita for
   their valuable comments.


16.  IANA Considerations

   IANA has allocated BGP Capability Code 68 as the Multisession BGP
   Capability.

   This document requests IANA to allocate three new OPEN Message Error
   subcodes:

      7 - Capability Value Mismatch

      8 - Grouping Conflict

      9 - Grouping Required


17.  References





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17.1.  Normative References

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

   [RFC4271]  Rekhter, Y., Li, T., and S. Hares, "A Border Gateway
              Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271, January 2006.

   [RFC4724]  Sangli, S., Chen, E., Fernando, R., Scudder, J., and Y.
              Rekhter, "Graceful Restart Mechanism for BGP", RFC 4724,
              January 2007.

   [RFC4760]  Bates, T., Chandra, R., Katz, D., and Y. Rekhter,
              "Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP-4", RFC 4760,
              January 2007.

   [RFC5492]  Scudder, J. and R. Chandra, "Capabilities Advertisement
              with BGP-4", RFC 5492, February 2009.

17.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-idr-dynamic-cap]
              Ramachandra, S. and E. Chen, "Dynamic Capability for
              BGP-4", draft-ietf-idr-dynamic-cap-14 (work in progress),
              December 2011.

   [RFC2918]  Chen, E., "Route Refresh Capability for BGP-4", RFC 2918,
              September 2000.


Appendix A.  Multisession usage scenarios

   This section demonstrates usage of Multisession Extension in several
   common scenarios.  All examples presented here for illustrative
   purpose only, they're not part of Multisession specification.

A.1.  Single session on both sides

   BGP Speaker A and BGP Speaker B are both configured to exchange IPv4
   unicast (AFI=1, SAFI=1) and IPv4 L3VPN (AFI=1, SAFI=128) prefixes
   over single session.  If Multisession extension is disabled by
   configuration on both sides, then the session is, from every
   perspective, indistinguishable from ordinary (non-multisession) BGP
   peering.  If only one of the speakers is enabled (through
   configuration) for multisession and yet only with one session to
   multiplex both AFI/SAFI, then again only single session is
   established and it looks like normal session.  Although multisession-
   enabled BGP speaker is capable of processing new NOTIFICATION sub-



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   codes, the other side (non-multisession) won't take advantage of it.
   On the other hand use of new NOTIFICATION sub-codes isn't necessary
   in this situation because both sides keep all AFI/SAFI within same
   session.  Finally, if both speakers are multisession-enabled, they
   still setup single session, but now they can use new NOTIFICATION
   sub-codes for more sophisticated error handling.

   Note that if both speakers configured to use only single session and
   their respective AFI/SAFI lists overlap but do not match exactly,
   then like with ordinary (non-multisession) BGP speakers the session
   will transition to ESTABLISHED state.  It's possible that one of the
   speakers (or both) require exact match of AFI/SAFI lists in order to
   establish session (either by implementation or through
   configuration).  In this case such speaker will send NOTIFICATION
   message with Error Code 2 (OPEN Message Error) and Sub-code 8
   (Grouping conflict) and subsequently close the session.

A.2.  Single session on one side, multiple sessions on the other

   In this setup Speaker A is configured to carry IPv4 unicast (AFI=1,
   SAFI=1) and IPv4 L3VPN (AFI=1, SAFI=128) prefixes within single
   session, while Speaker B is configured with two sessions - one for
   IPv4 unicast and second for IPv4 L3VPN.  Several scenarios are
   possible depending on which speaker sends OPEN message first and
   whether Speaker A is multisession-enabled or not.

   Assuming Speaker A is not multisession-enabled, it sends OPEN message
   first and there is no existing session between these two peers.
   Speaker B determines that OPEN message lists both AFI/SAFI and it
   knows that it wants to split them into different sessions, therefore
   it's obvious that setup cannot function as intended.  Since
   separation of two address families into two groups is performed by
   operator (as per Multisession Extension specification), the most
   appropriate action is to prevent any communication between Speaker A
   and B until operator intervenes and resolves the conflict in
   configuration.  To do this BGP Speaker B sends NOTIFICATION message
   with Error Code 6 (because peer is not expected to understand new
   notification sub-codes).  Would Speaker A be multisession enabled,
   then Speaker B would send NOTIFICATION message with Error Code 1 and
   Error Subcode 9 (Grouping Required).

   Now let's consider reverse situation - the Speaker B sends an OPEN
   message for either AFI/SAFI first.  Assuming Speaker A is not
   multisession-enabled, it will accept OPEN message containing either
   AFI/SAFI and will reply with OPEN message containing both AFI/SAFI.
   Although session might transitions for a brief period to ESTABLISHED
   state, the Speaker B upon receipt of the OPEN message will detect
   misconfiguration and send NOTIFICATION message with Error Code 6 as



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   in previous paragraph.  Would Speaker A be multisession-enabled, it
   could detect misconfiguration on its own and send NOTIFICATION
   message with Error Code 1 and Error Subcode 8 (Grouping conflict).

   There is possibility that Speaker A opens one TCP connection and
   sends its OPEN message, and simultaneously Speaker B opens one or two
   TCP connection(s) and sends OPEN message on each of them.  Since
   Speaker A is not multisession-enabled, it will invoke original
   collision detection procedure and will drop one of the sessions.
   Speaker B seeing NOTIFICATION message with Cease error code concludes
   that Speaker A is not multisession-capable and that setup prescribed
   by Speaker B's configuration cannot be achieved.  Depending on
   implementation of Speaker B a session for one of the AFI/SAFI may
   progress to ESTABLISHED state, but Speaker B will inform operator
   about incompatible configuration.

   It's also possible that initially Speaker B has been configured with
   only one AFI/SAFI, e.g.  IPv4 unicast.  The session between two peers
   would come up as described in previous subsection.  Now suppose
   Speaker B is configured with additional session to carry IPv4 L3VPN
   prefixes.  Since Speaker A does not have multiple sessions
   configured, it won't send another OPEN message as long as first
   session is in ESTABLISHED state.  Therefore it's only possible that
   Speaker B will attempt establishing second connection and send new
   OPEN message containing only IPv4 L3VPN AFI/SAFI.  If Speaker A is
   non-multisession enabled, it will drop second session sending
   NOTIFICATION message.  From this Speaker B can conclude that
   configuration of two sides is incompatible, will stop attempting to
   bring up IPv4 L3VPN session and will notify operator.  Already
   ESTABLISHED session may remain unaffected (subject to Speaker B
   implementation), just like with non-multisession speakers.

A.3.  Multiple sessions based on AFI/SAFI

   This is most common use of multisession extension is to separate
   prefixes based on AFI/SAFI.  Note that use of AFI/SAFI based groups
   is denoted by empty Optional Data field in Multisession Capability,
   which is the same as in previous two sections.  Grouping
   configuration is devised from the list of actually advertised AFI/
   SAFI lists (MP-BGP Capability).  This will be demonstrated in
   following examples.

   Let's consider BGP Speaker A and BGP Speaker B both configured to
   exchange IPv4 unicast, IPv4 labelled-unicast and IPv4 L3VPN prefixes
   each in its own session.  We start with no existing sessions between
   these speakers.  Speaker A (though roles can reverse) sends OPEN
   message in which among other capabilities it announces MP-BGP
   Capability for AFI=1 SAFI=1 and Multisession Capability with empty



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   optional data field.  Speaker B upon receipt of such message finds
   that it expects to exchange IPv4 unicast with Speaker B in a
   dedicated session.  It accepts connection and sends similar OPEN
   message to Speaker A. As there were no existing sessions, collision
   handling procedure is not invoked at this time.  Next Speaker A (but
   again it could be Speaker B) starts new TCP connection to Speaker B
   and sends OPEN message with MP-BGP Capability for AFI=1 SAFI=4 and
   Multisession Capability with empty optional data field.  Speaker B is
   willing to exchange IPv4 labelled-unicast too, but before accepting
   the proposal it executes collision detection procedure.  Since AFI/
   SAFI lists of the old (ESTABLISHED) and of the new sessions are
   different, the sessions don't collide and, sending OPEN message with
   AFI=1 SAFI=4, the Speaker B brings second session to ESTABLISHED
   state.  In the same way third session, for AFI=1 SAFI=128, is brought
   up.

   Note that similar behaviour will be also observed if two speakers
   send OPEN messages simultaneously - modified collision handling
   procedure, introduced by Multisession Extension specification, will
   mark sessions as unique based on the difference in Session Id
   (different AFI/SAFI lists).  If Speaker A opens TCP connection and
   sends an OPEN message for either AFI/SAFI, and simultanously Speaker
   B opens TCP connection and send OPEN message for the same AFI/SAFI,
   then modified collision handling procedure will resolve the conflict
   just like original procedure would do in non-multisession
   environment.  Yet modified collision handling procedure allows
   sessions with distinct Session Id's to coexist without affecting each
   other.  This behaviour applies also to more complex cases where
   groups include more AFI/SAFI or based on different Capability Codes
   all together.  For this reason collision handling is not discussed in
   remaining scenarios.

   Now suppose Speaker A configuration is as above, but Speaker B is
   configured to combine labelled-unicast and L3VPN prefixes into the
   same session.  IPv4 session is brought up as above.  Next there are
   two possible alternatives.  Either Speaker A sends OPEN message for
   one of the remaining sessions, to which Speaker B responds with
   NOTIFICATION message Error Code 2 and Error Subcode 8.  Or Speaker B
   sends OPEN message for combined session including both of the
   remaining address families, to which Speaker A responds either with
   exactly the same NOTIFICATION message.  At the end only IPv4 session
   remains in ESTABLISHED state, while two other address families
   require operator's intervention for configuring either Speaker A with
   combined session for labelled-unicast and L3VPN, or Speaker B for one
   session per AFI/SAFI.  Note that if Speaker B would have used an
   implementation that requires that labelled-unicast and L3VPN address-
   families are combined into single session, then behaviour of each
   side would be exactly as above.



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   If Speaker A wouldn't have L3VPN configuration for Speaker B at all,
   then whether second session would progress to ESTABLISHED or not
   depends on whether configuration of either side requires exact match
   between groups (by default implementations expected to mimim original
   BGP behaviour which will bring overlapping AFI/SAFI up, but won't
   require exact match, but some implementation may provide
   configuration knob to require exact match).

   Finally we look at the case where AFI/SAFI lists of different
   configured sessions overlap.  Suppose Speaker A is configured with
   following groups: group 1 AFI=1 SAFI=1, group 2 AFI=1 SAFI=4 and
   SAFI=128, group 3 AFI=2 SAFI=4; and Speaker B is configured as: group
   1 AFI=1 SAFI=1, group 2 AFI=1 SAFI=4, group 3 AFI=1 SAFI=128 and
   AFI=2 SAFI=4.  For simplicity sake we assume that group 1 is brought
   up first.  Both speakers behave as already described in previous
   case.  Next let Speaker A to be the first to setup second TCP session
   and send OPEN message for group 2.  Applying collision handling
   procedure as defined in Multisession specification Speaker B
   continues processing of received OPEN message.  If Speaker B is
   configured for strict match between the groups, then it will detect
   incompatibility of AFI/SAFI list between the received message and its
   own configuration, therefore it will send NOTIFICATION message with
   Error Code 2 and Error Subcode 8.  If on the other hand Speaker B
   allows partial overlapping of received and its own AFI lists (as
   regular BGP implementation would in absence of multisession), it will
   reply with OPEN message that lists AFI=1 SAFI=4 and session
   potentially progresses to ESTABLISHED state provided that Speaker A
   doesn't require exact match on AFI/SAFI list.  Similar applies to the
   session 3 for the remaining AFI/SAFI.  Note that configuration for
   exact or partial match between AFI/SAFI lists is the same for all
   sessions between given peers.

A.4.  Multiple sessions based on arbitrary BGP Capabilities

   Although grouping based on arbitrary attributes is the most
   comprehensive scenario, the behaviour of the BGP speakers is
   essentially the same as in case of AFI/SAFI based groups.  However
   arbitrary groups do add extra complexity because BGP speakers need to
   consider not only values of single capability, but need to agree upon
   Capability Codes that constitute Session Id.  Following example
   demonstrates behaviour of multisession-enabled BGP speakers in
   situation where Session Id on each side is based on different
   capabilities.

   Let's suppose there is imaginery Capability Code X that denotes
   Experiment Id, and two speakers would like to exchange IPv4 unicast
   and L3VPN prefixes for two experiments.  Speaker A would like to
   group prefixes into separate sessions based solely on Experiment Id



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   (so two sessions with two AFI/SAFI in each), while Speaker B would
   like to have separate session per experiment per AFI/SAFI (so four
   sessions with one AFI/SAFI in each).  Since Session Id involves
   attribute other than AFI/SAFI, the Optional Data field in
   Multisession Capability will be non-empty.  Multisession Capability
   sent by Speaker A will contain only 'Experiment Id Capability Code'
   in the Optional Data, whereas Speaker B will put there both
   "Experiment Id Capability Code" and "MP-BGP (AFI/SAFI)".  When either
   speaker receives OPEN message from the peer, it will notice mismatch
   between content of the Optional Data field and, since sessions cannot
   be established as intended, the speaker will send NOTIFICATION
   message with Error Code 2 and Subcode 7 after which session will be
   dropped.  Both speakers will notify operator and will suppress
   further attempt to bring session up until configuration of either
   side changes.

   Note that despite Multisession Capability does not containing a field
   to denote support for non-AFI/SAFI based groups, even an
   implementation that does not support groups based on arbitrary
   capability codes will be able to recognise configuration mismatch and
   provide sufficient information to the peer as described above.

A.5.  Process level separation of multiple sessions

   As fault isolation is the key motivation for the Multisession
   Extension it's natural to consider process-level separation between
   the sessions.  Although Multisession specification itself does not
   prescribe any particular way of handling each session, BGP
   implementations can leverege IPC facilities provided by host
   operating systems to handover arbitrary session to appropriate
   process.  For example, many systems can pass connection from the
   process that accepted TCP connection to a process dedicated for
   particular group using specially crafted message on Unix socket.
   This is somewhat acking to inetd, but based on content of the OPEN
   message (e.g.  AFI/SAFI list) rather than on transport protocol
   properties (e.g.  TCP/UDP port numbers).  At one extrimity the
   process that initially accepts TCP connection may be very primitive
   and can leave even connection collision handling to a specializing
   process, on the other hand process could handle collision detection
   itself or even handle particular group on its own while passing only
   specific group to another process.  This process level separation is
   local implementation business and does not require specific aid from
   BGP at protocol specification level.  Therefore process level
   separation is not part of multisession specification.







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Authors' Addresses

   John G. Scudder
   Juniper Networks

   Email: jgs@juniper.net


   Chandra Appanna
   Arista Networks

   Email: achandra@aristanetworks.com


   Ilya Varlashkin
   Easynet Global Services

   Email: ilya.varlashkin@easynet.net

































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