Internet Engineering Task Force T. Przygienda
INTERNET DRAFT Redback
1 Jul 2000
Optional Checksums in ISIS
<draft-ietf-isis-wg-snp-checksum-02.txt>
Status of This Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
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Abstract
This draft describes an optional extension to IS-IS [ISO90 , Cal90a ,
Cal90b], used today by several ISPs for routing within their clouds.
IS-IS is an interior gateway routing protocol developed originally
by OSI and used with IP extensions as IGP. IS-IS originally doesn't
provide CSNP adn PSNP checksums, relying on the underlying layers
to verify the integrity of information provided. Experience with
the protocol shows that this precondition does not always hold and
scenarios can be imagined that impact protocol functionality. This
document introduces a new optional TLV providing checksums.
1. Introduction
IS-IS CSNPs and PSNPs and IIHs can be corrupted in case of faulty
implementations of L2 hardware or lack of checksuming on a specific
network technology. As a particularly ugly case, corruption of
length and/or TLV length fields may lead to generation of extensive
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numbers of "empty" LSPs in the receiving node. Since we cannot rely
on authentication as checksum mechanism, this document proposes an
optional TLV to add checksums to the elements.
2. TLV Description
The optional TLV MAY BE included in all CSNP, PSNP and IIH packets
and an implementation that implements optional checksums MUST accept
PDUs if they do NOT contain the optional checksum. Implementations
that receive optional checksum TLV and support it MUST discard the
PDU if the checksum is incorrect. An implementation that does NOT
implement optional checksums MAY accept a PDU that contains the
checksum TLV. An implementation that supports optional checksums
and receives it within any other PDU than CSNP, PSNP or IIH MUST
discard the PDU. Such an implementation MUST discard the PDU as well
if more than one optional checksum TLVs are included within it.
Additionally, any implementation supporting optional checksums MUST
accept PDUs with an optional checksum with the value 0 and consider
such a checksum as correct.
3. Checksum Computation
The checksum is a fletcher checksum computed according to iso 8473
Annex C over the complete PDU.
4. Interaction with TLVs using PDU Data to Compute Signatures
The implementation MUST either omit the optional checksum on an
interface or send a 0 checksum value if it includes in the PDU
signatures that provide equivalent or stronger functionality, such as
HMAC or MD5, otherwise an implementation that handles such signatures
but not the optional checksums, may fail to compute the MD5 signature
on the packet due to the fact that MD5 is computed with checksum
value set to 0 and only as final step the checksum value is being
filled in.
5. TLV Format
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
+-----------------+-----------------+
| TLV Type = 12 | TLV Length = 2 |
+-----------------+-----------------+
| TLV Checksum (16 bits) |
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+-----------------------------------+
6. Acknowledgments
Tony Li mentioned the original problem. Mike Shand provided
comments. Somehow related problems with purging on LSP checksum
errors have been observed by others before. Nischal Sheth spelled
out the issues of interaction between MD5 and the optional checksums.
7. Security Consideration
ISIS security applies to the work presented. No specific security
issues as to the new element are known.
References
[Cal90a] R. Callon. OSI ISIS Intradomain Routing Protocol.
INTERNET-RFC, Internet Engineering Task Force, February
1990.
[Cal90b] R. Callon. Use of OSI ISIS for Routing in TCP/IP and Dual
Environments. INTERNET-RFC, Internet Engineering Task
Force, December 1990.
[ISO90] ISO. Information Technology - Telecommunications and
Information Exchange between Systems - Intermediate System
to Intermediate System Routing Exchange Protocol for
Use in Conjunction with the Protocol for Providing the
Connectionless-Mode Network Service. ISO, 1990.
Authors' Addresses
Tony Przygienda
Redback
350 Holger Way
San Jose, CA 95134-1362
(408) 548 9416
prz@redback.com
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