Network Working Group                                         B. Kothari
Internet-Draft                                                 Gainspeed
Updates: 4761 (if approved)                                  K. Kompella
Intended status: Standards Track                        Juniper Networks
Expires: January 4, 2015                                   W. Henderickx
                                                                F. Balus
                                                          Alcatel-Lucent
                                                               J. Uttaro
                                                                    AT&T
                                                         S. Palislamovic
                                                          Alcatel-Lucent
                                                                  W. Lin
                                                        Juniper Networks
                                                            July 3, 2014


         BGP based Multi-homing in Virtual Private LAN Service
                draft-ietf-l2vpn-vpls-multihoming-07.txt

Abstract

   Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) is a Layer 2 Virtual Private
   Network (VPN) that gives its customers the appearance that their
   sites are connected via a Local Area Network (LAN).  It is often
   required for the Service Provider (SP) to give the customer redundant
   connectivity to some sites, often called "multi-homing".  This memo
   shows how BGP-based multi-homing can be offered in the context of LDP
   and BGP VPLS solutions.

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 January 4, 2015.






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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2014 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
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.1.  General Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.2.  Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   2.  Background  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.1.  Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.2.  VPLS Multi-homing Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   3.  Multi-homing Operation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.1.  Customer Edge (CE) NLRI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.2.  Deployment Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.3.  Designated Forwarder Election . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       3.3.1.  Attributes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       3.3.2.  Variables Used  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       3.3.3.  Election Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     3.4.  DF Election on PEs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   4.  Multi-AS VPLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     4.1.  Route Origin Extended Community . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     4.2.  VPLS Preference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     4.3.  Use of BGP attributes in Inter-AS Methods . . . . . . . .  14
       4.3.1.  Inter-AS Method (b): EBGP Redistribution of VPLS
               Information between ASBRs . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
       4.3.2.  Inter-AS Method (c): Multi-Hop EBGP Redistribution of
               VPLS       Information between ASes . . . . . . . . .  16
   5.  MAC Flush Operations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     5.1.  MAC Flush Indicators  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     5.2.  Minimizing the effects of fast link transitions . . . . .  17
   6.  Backwards Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     6.1.  BGP based VPLS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     6.2.  LDP VPLS with BGP Auto-discovery  . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   9.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18



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   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20

1.  Introduction

   Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) is a Layer 2 Virtual Private
   Network (VPN) that gives its customers the appearance that their
   sites are connected via a Local Area Network (LAN).  It is often
   required for a Service Provider (SP) to give the customer redundant
   connectivity to one or more sites, often called "multi-homing".
   [RFC4761] explains how VPLS can be offered using BGP for auto-
   discovery and signaling; section 3.5 of that document describes how
   multi-homing can be achieved in this context.  [RFC6074] explains how
   VPLS can be offered using BGP for auto-discovery (BGP-AD) and
   [RFC4762] explains how VPLS can be offered using LDP for signaling.
   This document provides a BGP-based multi-homing solution applicable
   to both BGP and LDP VPLS technologies.  Note that BGP MH can be used
   for LDP VPLS without the use of the BGP-AD solution.

   Section 2 lays out some of the scenarios for multi-homing, other ways
   that this can be achieved, and some of the expectations of BGP-based
   multi-homing.  Section 3 defines the components of BGP-based multi-
   homing, and the procedures required to achieve this.  Section 7 may
   someday discuss security considerations.

1.1.  General Terminology

   Some general terminology is defined here; most is from [RFC4761],
   [RFC4762] or [RFC4364].  Terminology specific to this memo is
   introduced as needed in later sections.

   A "Customer Edge" (CE) device, typically located on customer
   premises, connects to a "Provider Edge" (PE) device, which is owned
   and operated by the SP.  A "Provider" (P) device is also owned and
   operated by the SP, but has no direct customer connections.  A "VPLS
   Edge" (VE) device is a PE that offers VPLS services.

   A VPLS domain represents a bridging domain per customer.  A Route
   Target community as described in [RFC4360] is typically used to
   identify all the PE routers participating in a particular VPLS
   domain.  A VPLS site is a grouping of ports on a PE that belong to
   the same VPLS domain.  The terms "VPLS instance" and "VPLS domain"
   are used interchangeably in this document.






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   A VPLS site connected to only one PE is called as single-homed VPLS
   site.  The terms "VPLS site" and "CE site" are used interchangeably
   in this document.

   A VPLS site connected to multiple PEs is called as multi-homed site.

   A BGP VPLS NLRI for the base VPLS instance that has non-zero VE block
   offset, VE block size and label base is called as VE NLRI in this
   document.  Each VPLS instance is uniquely identified by a VE-ID.  VE-
   ID is carried in the BGP VPLS NLRI as specified in section 3.2.2 in
   [RFC4761].

   A VPLS NLRI with value zero for the VE block offset, VE block size
   and label base is called as CE NLRI in this document.
   Section Section 3.1 defines CE NLRI and provides more detail.

   A Multi-homed (MH) site is uniquely identified by a CE-ID.  Sites are
   referred to as local or remote depending on whether they are
   configured on the PE router in context or on one of the remote PE
   routers (network peers).  A single-homed site can also be assigned a
   CE-ID, but it is not mandatory to configure a CE-ID for single-homed
   sites.  Section Section 3.1 provides detail on CE-ID.

1.2.  Conventions

   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].

2.  Background

   This section describes various scenarios where multi-homing may be
   required, and the implications thereof.  It also describes some of
   the singular properties of VPLS multi-homing, and what that means
   from both an operational point of view and an implementation point of
   view.  There are other approaches for providing multi-homing such as
   Spanning Tree Protocol, and this document specifies use of BGP for
   multi-homing.  Comprehensive comparison among the approaches is
   outside the scope of this document.

2.1.  Scenarios










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   CE1 is a VPLS CE that is dual-homed to both PE1 and PE2 for redundant
   connectivity.

                             ...............
                            .               .    ___ CE2
                      ___ PE1                .  /
                     /    :                  PE3
                  __/    :       Service      :
              CE1 __     :       Provider    PE4
                    \     :                   : \___ CE3
                     \___ PE2                .
                            .               .
                             ...............

                           Figure 1: Scenario 1

   CE1 is a VPLS CE that is dual-homed to both PE1 and PE2 for redundant
   connectivity.  However, CE4, which is also in the same VPLS domain,
   is single-homed to just PE1.

              CE4 -------    ...............
                         \  .               .    ___ CE2
                      ___ PE1                .  /
                     /    :                  PE3
                  __/    :       Service      :
              CE1 __     :       Provider    PE4
                    \     :                   : \___ CE3
                     \___ PE2                .
                            .               .
                             ...............

                           Figure 2: Scenario 2

2.2.  VPLS Multi-homing Considerations

   The first (perhaps obvious) fact about a multi-homed VPLS CE, such as
   CE1 in Figure 1 is that if CE1 is an Ethernet switch or bridge, a
   loop has been created in the customer VPLS.  This is a dangerous
   situation for an Ethernet network, and the loop must be broken.  Even
   if CE1 is a router, it will get duplicates every time a packet is
   flooded, which is clearly undesirable.

   The next is that (unlike the case of IP-based multi-homing) only one
   of PE1 and PE2 can be actively sending traffic, either towards CE1 or
   into the SP cloud.  That is to say, load balancing techniques will
   not work.  All other PEs MUST choose the same designated forwarder
   for a multi-homed site.  Call the PE that is chosen to send traffic
   to/from CE1 the "designated forwarder".



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   In Figure 2, CE1 and CE4 must be dealt with independently, since CE1
   is dual-homed, but CE4 is not.

3.  Multi-homing Operation

   This section describes procedures for electing a designated forwarder
   among the set of PEs that are multi-homed to a customer site.  The
   procedures described in this section are applicable to BGP based
   VPLS, LDP based VPLS with BGP-AD or a VPLS that contains a mix of
   both BGP and LDP signaled PWs.

3.1.  Customer Edge (CE) NLRI

   Section 3.2.2 in [RFC4761] specifies a NLRI to be used for BGP based
   VPLS (BGP VPLS NLRI).  The format of the BGP VPLS NLRI is shown
   below.

                     +------------------------------------+
                     |  Length (2 octets)                 |
                     +------------------------------------+
                     |  Route Distinguisher  (8 octets)   |
                     +------------------------------------+
                     |  VE ID (2 octets)                  |
                     +------------------------------------+
                     |  VE Block Offset (2 octets)        |
                     +------------------------------------+
                     |  VE Block Size (2 octets)          |
                     +------------------------------------+
                     |  Label Base (3 octets)             |
                     +------------------------------------+


                               BGP VPLS NLRI

   For multi-homing operation, a customer-edge NLRI (CE NLRI) is
   proposed that uses BGP VPLS NLRI with the following fields set to
   zero: VE Block Offset, VE Block Size and Label Base.  In addition,
   the VE-ID field of the NLRI is set to CE-ID.  Thus, the CE NLRI
   contains 2 octets indicating the length, 8 octets for Route
   Distinguisher, 2 octets for CE-ID and 7 octets with value zero.

   It is valid to have non-zero VE block offset, VE block size and label
   base in the VPLS NLRI for a multi-homed site.  VPLS operations,
   including multi-homing, in such a case are outside the scope of this
   document.  However, for interoperability with existing deployments
   that use non-zero VE block offset, VE block size and label base for
   multi-homing operation, Section 6.1 provides more detail.




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   Wherever VPLS NLRI is used in this document, context must be used to
   infer if it is applicable for CE NLRI, VE NLRI or for both.

3.2.  Deployment Considerations

   It is mandatory that each instance within a VPLS domain MUST be
   provisioned with a unique Route Distinguisher value.  Unique Route
   Distinguisher allows VPLS advertisements from different VPLS PEs to
   be distinct even if the advertisements have the same VE-ID, which can
   occur in case of multi-homing.  This allows standard BGP path
   selection rules to be applied to VPLS advertisements.

   Each VPLS PE must advertise a unique VE-ID with non-zero VE Block
   Offset, VE Block Size and Label Base values in the BGP NLRI.  VE-ID
   is associated with the base VPLS instance and the NLRI associated
   with it must be used for creating PWs among VPLS PEs.  Any single-
   homed customer sites connected to the VPLS instance do not require
   any special addressing.  However, an administrator (SP operator) can
   chose to have a CE-ID for a single-homed site as well.  Any multi-
   homed customer sites connected to the VPLS instance require special
   addressing, which is achieved by use of CE-ID.  A set of customer
   sites are distinguished as multi-homed if they all have the same CE-
   ID.  The following examples illustrate the use of VE-ID and CE-ID.

   Figure 1 shows a customer site, CE1, multi-homed to two VPLS PEs, PE1
   and PE2.  In order for all VPLS PEs to set up PWs to each other, each
   VPLS PE must be configured with a unique VE-ID for its base VPLS
   instance.  In addition, in order for all VPLS PEs within the same
   VPLS domain to elect one of the multi-homed PEs as the designated
   forwarder, an indicator that the PEs are multi-homed to the same
   customer site is required.  This is achieved by assigning the same
   VPLS site ID (CE-ID) on PE1 and PE2 for CE1.  When remote VPLS PEs
   receive NLRI advertisement from PE1 and PE2 for CE1, the two NLRI
   advertisements for CE1 are identified as candidates for designated
   forwarder selection due to the same CE-ID.  Thus, same CE-ID MUST be
   assigned on all VPLS PEs that are multi-homed to the same customer
   site.

   Figure 2 shows two customer sites, CE1 and CE4, connected to PE1 with
   CE1 multi-homed to PE1 and PE2.  Similar to Figure 1 provisioning
   model, each VPLS PE must be configured with a unique VE-ID for it
   base VPLS instance.  CE1 which is multi-homed to PE1 and PE2 requires
   configuration of CE-ID and both PE1 and PE2 MUST be provisioned with
   the same CE-ID for CE1.  CE2, CE3 and CE4 are single-homed sites and
   do not require special addressing.  However, an operator can chose to
   configure a CE-ID for CE4 on PE1.  By doing so, remote PEs can
   determine that PE1 has two VPLS sites, CE1 and CE4.  If both CE1 and
   CE4 connectivity to PE1 is down, remote PEs can chose not to send



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   multicast traffic to PE1 as there are no VPLS sites reachable via
   PE1.  If CE4 was not assigned a unique CE-ID, remote PEs have no way
   to know if there are other VPLS sites attached and hence, would
   always send multicast traffic to PE1.  While CE2 and CE3 can also be
   configured with unique CE-IDs, there is no advantage in doing so as
   both PE3 and PE4 have exactly one VPLS site.

   Note that a CE-ID=0 is invalid and a PE should discard such an
   advertisement.

   Use of multiple VE-IDs per VPLS instance for either multi-homing
   operation or for any other purpose is outside the scope of this
   document.  However, for interoperability with existing deployments
   that use multiple VE-IDs, Section 6.1 provides more detail.

3.3.  Designated Forwarder Election

   BGP-based multi-homing for VPLS relies on standard BGP path selection
   and VPLS DF election.  The net result of doing both BGP path
   selection and VPLS DF election is that of electing a single
   designated forwarder (DF) among the set of PEs to which a customer
   site is multi-homed.  All the PEs that are elected as non-designated
   forwarders MUST keep their attachment circuit to the multi-homed CE
   in blocked status (no forwarding).

   These election algorithms operate on VPLS advertisements, which
   include both the NLRI and attached BGP attributes.  These election
   algorithms are applicable to all VPLS NLRIs, and not just to CE
   NLRIs.  In order to simplify the explanation of these algorithms, we
   will use a number of variables derived from fields in the VPLS
   advertisement.  These variables are: RD, SITE-ID, VBO, DOM, ACS, PREF
   and PE-ID.  The notation ADV -> <RD, SITE-ID, VBO, DOM, ACS, PREF,
   PE-ID> means that from a received VPLS advertisement ADV, the
   respective variables were derived.  The following sections describe
   two attributes needed for DF election, then describe the variables
   and how they are derived from fields in VPLS advertisement ADV, and
   finally describe how DF election is done.

3.3.1.  Attributes

   The procedures below refer to two attributes: the Route Origin
   community (see Section 4.1) and the L2-info community (see
   Section 4.2).  These attributes are required for inter-AS operation;
   for generality, the procedures below show how they are to be used.
   The procedures also outline how to handle the case that either or
   both are not present.





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   For BGP-based Multi-homing, ADV MUST contain an L2-info extended
   community as specified in [RFC4761].  Within this community are
   various control flags.  Two new control flags are proposed in this
   document.  Figure 3 shows the position of the new 'D' and 'F' flags.

                         Control Flags Bit Vector

                            0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
                            +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
                            |D|Z|F|Z|Z|Z|C|S| (Z = MUST Be Zero)
                            +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                                 Figure 3

   1.  'D' (Down): Indicates connectivity status.  In case of CE NLRI,
       the connectivity status is between a CE site and a VPLS PE.  In
       case of VE NLRI, the connectivity status is for the VPLS
       instance.  In case of CE NLRI, the bit MUST be set to one if all
       the attachment circuits connecting a CE site to a VPLS PE are
       down.  In case of VE NLRI, the bit must be set to one if the VPLS
       instance is operationally down.  Note that a VPLS instance that
       has no connectivity to any of its sites must be considered as
       operationally down.

   2.  'F' (Flush): Indicates when to flush MAC state.  A designated
       forwarder must set the F bit and a non-designated forwarder must
       clear the F bit when sending BGP CE NLRIs for multi-homed sites.
       A state transition from one to zero for the F bit can be used by
       a remote PE to flush all the MACs learned from the PE that is
       transitioning from designated forwarder to non-designated
       forwarder.  Refer to Section 5 for more details on the use case.

3.3.2.  Variables Used

3.3.2.1.  RD

   RD is simply set to the Route Distinguisher field in the NLRI part of
   ADV.

3.3.2.2.  SITE-ID

   SITE-ID is simply set to the VE-ID field in the NLRI part of the ADV.

   Note that no distinction is made whether VE-ID is for a multi-homed
   site or not.






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3.3.2.3.  VBO

   VBO is simply set to the VE Block Offset field in the NLRI part of
   ADV.

3.3.2.4.  DOM

   This variable, indicating the VPLS domain to which ADV belongs, is
   derived by applying BGP policy to the Route Target extended
   communities in ADV.  The details of how this is done are outside the
   scope of this document.

3.3.2.5.  ACS

   ACS is the status of the attachment circuits for a given site of a
   VPLS.  ACS = 1 if all attachment circuits for the site are down, and
   0 otherwise.

   ACS is set to the value of the 'D' bit in ADV that belongs to CE
   NLRI.  If ADV belongs to base VPLS instance (VE NLRI) with non-zero
   label block values, no change must be made to ACS.

3.3.2.6.  PREF

   PREF is derived from the Local Preference (LP) attribute in ADV as
   well as the VPLS Preference field (VP) in the L2-info extended
   community.  If the Local Preference attribute is missing, LP is set
   to 0; if the L2-info community is missing, VP is set to 0.  The
   following table shows how PREF is computed from LP and VP.

   +---------+---------------+----------+------------------------------+
   |    VP   |    LP Value   |   PREF   |           Comment            |
   |  Value  |               |  Value   |                              |
   +---------+---------------+----------+------------------------------+
   |    0    |       0       |    0     |   malformed advertisement,   |
   |         |               |          |         unless ACS=1         |
   |         |               |          |                              |
   |    0    | 1 to (2^16-1) |    LP    |   backwards compatibility    |
   |         |               |          |                              |
   |    0    |    2^16 to    | (2^16-1) |   backwards compatibility    |
   |         |    (2^32-1)   |          |                              |
   |         |               |          |                              |
   |    >0   | LP same as VP |    VP    |  Implementation supports VP  |
   |         |               |          |                              |
   |    >0   |    LP != VP   |    0     |   malformed advertisement    |
   +---------+---------------+----------+------------------------------+

                                  Table 1



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3.3.2.7.  PE-ID

   If ADV contains a Route Origin (RO) community (see Section 4.1) with
   type 0x01, then PE-ID is set to the Global Administrator sub-field of
   the RO.  Otherwise, if ADV has an ORIGINATOR_ID attribute, then PE-ID
   is set to the ORIGINATOR_ID.  Otherwise, PE-ID is set to the BGP
   Identifier.

3.3.3.  Election Procedures

   The election procedures described in this section apply equally to
   BGP VPLS and LDP VPLS.  A distinction MUST NOT be made on whether the
   NLRI is a multi-homing NLRI or not.  Subset of these procedures
   documented in standard BGP best path selection deals with general IP
   Prefix BGP route selection processing as defined in [RFC4271].  A
   separate part of the algorithm defined under VPLS DF election is
   specific to designated forwarded election procedures performed on
   VPLS advertisements.  A concept of bucketization is introduced to
   define route selection rules for VPLS advertisements.  Note that this
   is a conceptual description of the process; an implementation MAY
   choose to realize this differently as long as the semantics are
   preserved.

3.3.3.1.  Bucketization for standard BGP path selection

   An advertisement

           ADV -> <RD, SITE-ID, VBO, ACS, PREF, PE-ID>

   is put into the bucket for <RD, SITE-ID, VBO>.  In other words, the
   information in BGP path selection consists of <RD, SITE-ID, VBO> and
   only advertisements with exact same <RD, SITE-ID, VBO> are candidates
   for BGP path selection procedure as defined in [RFC4271].

3.3.3.2.  Bucketization for VPLS DF Election

   An advertisement

           ADV -> <RD, SITE-ID, VBO, DOM, ACS, PREF, PE-ID>

   is discarded if DOM is not of interest to the VPLS PE.  Otherwise,
   ADV is put into the bucket for <DOM, SITE-ID>.  In other words, all
   advertisements for a particular VPLS domain that have the same SITE-
   ID are candidates for VPLS DF election.







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3.3.3.3.  Tie-breaking Rules

   This section describes the tie-breaking rules for VPLS DF election.
   Tie-breaking rules for VPLS DF election are applied to candidate
   advertisements by all VPLS PEs and the actions taken by VPLS PEs
   based on the VPLS DF election result are described in Section 3.4.

   Given two advertisements ADV1 and ADV2 from a given bucket, first
   compute the variables needed for DF election:

           ADV1 -> <RD1, SITE-ID1, VBO1, DOM1, ACS1, PREF1, PE-ID1>
           ADV2 -> <RD2, SITE-ID2, VBO2, DOM2, ACS2, PREF2, PE-ID2>

   Note that SITE-ID1 = SITE-ID2 and DOM1 = DOM2, since ADV1 and ADV2
   came from the same bucket.  Then the following tie-breaking rules
   MUST be applied in the given order.

   1.  if (ACS1 != 1) AND (ACS2 == 1) ADV1 wins; stop
       if (ACS1 == 1) AND (ACS2 != 1) ADV2 wins; stop
       else continue

   2.  if (PREF1 > PREF2) ADV1 wins; stop;
       else if (PREF1 < PREF2) ADV2 wins; stop;
       else continue

   3.  if (PE-ID1 < PE-ID2) ADV1 wins; stop;
       else if (PE-ID1 > PE-ID2) ADV2 wins; stop;
       else ADV1 and ADV2 are from the same VPLS PE

   If there is no winner and ADV1 and ADV2 are from the same PE, a VPLS
   PE MUST retain both ADV1 and ADV2.

3.4.  DF Election on PEs

   DF election algorithm MUST be run by all multi-homed VPLS PEs.  In
   addition, all other PEs SHOULD also run the DF election algorithm.
   As a result of the DF election, multi-homed PEs that lose the DF
   election for a SITE-ID MUST put the ACs associated with the SITE-ID
   in non-forwarding state.

   DF election result on the egress PEs can be used in traffic
   forwarding decision.  Figure 2 shows two customer sites, CE1 and CE4,
   connected to PE1 with CE1 multi-homed to PE1 and PE2.  If PE1 is the
   designated forwarder for CE1, based on the DF election result, PE3
   can chose to not send unknown unicast and multicast traffic to PE2 as
   PE2 is not the designated forwarder for any customer site and it has
   no other single homed sites connected to it.




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4.  Multi-AS VPLS

   This section describes multi-homing in an inter-AS context.

4.1.  Route Origin Extended Community

   Due to lack of information about the PEs that originate the VPLS
   NLRIs in inter-AS operations, Route Origin Extended Community
   [RFC4360] is used to carry the source PE's IP address.

   To use Route Origin Extended Community for carrying the originator
   VPLS PE's loopback address, the type field of the community MUST be
   set to 0x01 and the Global Administrator sub-field MUST be set to the
   PE's loopback IP address.

4.2.  VPLS Preference

   When multiple PEs are assigned the same site ID for multi-homing, it
   is often desired to be able to control the selection of a particular
   PE as the designated forwarder.  Section 3.5 in [RFC4761] describes
   the use of BGP Local Preference in path selection to choose a
   particular NLRI, where Local Preference indicates the degree of
   preference for a particular VE.  The use of Local Preference is
   inadequate when VPLS PEs are spread across multiple ASes as Local
   Preference is not carried across AS boundary.  A new field, VPLS
   preference (VP), is introduced in this document that can be used to
   accomplish this.  VPLS preference indicates a degree of preference
   for a particular customer site.  VPLS preference is not mandatory for
   intra-AS operation; the algorithm explained in Section 3.3 will work
   with or without the presence of VPLS preference.

   Section 3.2.4 in [RFC4761] describes the Layer2 Info Extended
   Community that carries control information about the pseudowires.
   The last two octets that were reserved now carries VPLS preference as
   shown in Figure 4.
















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         +------------------------------------+
         | Extended community type (2 octets) |
         +------------------------------------+
         |  Encaps Type (1 octet)             |
         +------------------------------------+
         |  Control Flags (1 octet)           |
         +------------------------------------+
         |  Layer-2 MTU (2 octet)             |
         +------------------------------------+
         |  VPLS Preference (2 octets)        |
         +------------------------------------+

                 Figure 4: Layer2 Info Extended Community

   A VPLS preference is a 2-octets unsigned integer.  A value of zero
   indicates absence of a VP and is not a valid preference value.  This
   interpretation is required for backwards compatibility.
   Implementations using Layer2 Info Extended Community as described in
   (Section 3.2.4) [RFC4761] MUST set the last two octets as zero since
   it was a reserved field.

   For backwards compatibility, if VPLS preference is used, then BGP
   Local Preference MUST be set to the value of VPLS preference.  Note
   that a Local Preference value of zero for a CE-ID is not valid unless
   'D' bit in the control flags is set (see
   [I-D.kothari-l2vpn-auto-site-id]).  In addition, Local Preference
   value greater than or equal to 2^16 for VPLS advertisements is not
   valid.

4.3.  Use of BGP attributes in Inter-AS Methods

   Section 3.4 in [RFC4761] and section 4 in [RFC6074] describe three
   methods (a, b and c) to connect sites in a VPLS to PEs that are
   across multiple AS.  Since VPLS advertisements in method (a) do not
   cross AS boundaries, multi-homing operations for method (a) remain
   exactly the same as they are within as AS.  However, for method (b)
   and (c), VPLS advertisements do cross AS boundary.  This section
   describes the VPLS operations for method (b) and method (c).
   Consider Figure 5 for inter-AS VPLS with multi-homed customer sites.

4.3.1.  Inter-AS Method (b): EBGP Redistribution of VPLS Information
        between ASBRs









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                           AS1                    AS2
                          ........               ........
           CE2 _______   .        .             .        .
                   ___ PE1         .           .          PE3 --- CE3
                  /    :            .         .            :
               __/    :             :         :             :
           CE1 __     :           ASBR1 --- ASBR2           :
                 \     :            :         :            :
                  \___ PE2         .           .          PE4 ---- CE4
                         .        .             .         .
                          ........                ........



                          Figure 5: Inter-AS VPLS

   A customer has four sites, CE1, CE2, CE3 and CE4.  CE1 is multi-homed
   to PE1 and PE2 in AS1.  CE2 is single-homed to PE1.  CE3 and CE4 are
   also single homed to PE3 and PE4 respectively in AS2.  Assume that in
   addition to the base LDP/BGP VPLS addressing (VSI-IDs/VE-IDs), CE-ID
   1 is assigned for CE1.  After running DF election algorithm, all four
   VPLS PEs must elect the same designated forwarder for CE1 site.
   Since BGP Local Preference is not carried across AS boundary, VPLS
   preference as described in Section 4.2 MUST be used for carrying site
   preference in inter-AS VPLS operations.

   For Inter-AS method (b) ASBR1 will send a VPLS NLRI received from PE1
   to ASBR2 with itself as the BGP nexthop.  ASBR2 will send the
   received NLRI from ASBR1 to PE3 and PE4 with itself as the BGP
   nexthop.  Since VPLS PEs use BGP Local Preference in DF election, for
   backwards compatibility, ASBR2 MUST set the Local Preference value in
   the VPLS advertisements it sends to PE3 and PE4 to the VPLS
   preference value contained in the VPLS advertisement it receives from
   ASBR1.  ASBR1 MUST do the same for the NLRIs it sends to PE1 and PE2.
   If ASBR1 receives a VPLS advertisement without a valid VPLS
   preference from a PE within its AS, then ASBR1 MUST set the VPLS
   preference in the advertisements to the Local Preference value before
   sending it to ASBR2.  Similarly, ASBR2 must do the same for
   advertisements without VPLS Preference it receives from PEs within
   its AS.  Thus, in method (b), ASBRs MUST update the VPLS and Local
   Preference based on the advertisements they receive either from an
   ASBR or a PE within their AS.

   In Figure 5, PE1 will send the VPLS advertisements with Route Origin
   Extended Community containing its loopback address.  PE2 will do the
   same.  Even though PE3 receives the VPLS advertisements for VE-ID 1
   and 2 from the same BGP nexthop, ASBR2, the source PE address
   contained in the Route Origin Extended Community is different for the



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   CE1 and CE2 advertisements, and thus, PE3 creates two PWs, one for
   CE1 (for VE-ID 1) and another one for CE2 (for VE-ID 2).

4.3.2.  Inter-AS Method (c): Multi-Hop EBGP Redistribution of VPLS
        Information between ASes

   In this method, there is a multi-hop E-BGP peering between the PEs or
   Route Reflectors in AS1 and the PEs or Route Reflectors in AS2.
   There is no VPLS state in either control or data plane on the ASBRs.
   The multi-homing operations on the PEs in this method are exactly the
   same as they are in intra-AS scenario.  However, since Local
   Preference is not carried across AS boundary, the translation of LP
   to VP and vice versa MUST be done by RR, if RR is used to reflect
   VPLS advertisements to other ASes.  This is exactly the same as what
   a ASBR does in case of method (b).  A RR must set the VP to the LP
   value in an advertisement before sending it to other ASes and must
   set the LP to the VP value in an advertisement that it receives from
   other ASes before sending to the PEs within the AS.

5.  MAC Flush Operations

   In a service provider VPLS network, customer MAC learning is confined
   to PE devices and any intermediate nodes, such as a Route Reflector,
   do not have any state for MAC addresses.

   Topology changes either in the service provider's network or in
   customer's network can result in the movement of MAC addresses from
   one PE device to another.  Such events can result into traffic being
   dropped due to stale state of MAC addresses on the PE devices.  Age
   out timers that clear the stale state will resume the traffic
   forwarding, but age out timers are typically in minutes, and
   convergence of the order of minutes can severely impact customer's
   service.  To handle such events and expedite convergence of traffic,
   flushing of affected MAC addresses is highly desirable.

5.1.  MAC Flush Indicators

   If 'D' bit in the control flags is set in a received VE NLRI, the
   receiving PE SHOULD flush all the MAC addresses learned from the PE
   advertising the failure.

   Anytime a designated forwarder change occurs, a remote PE SHOULD
   flush all the MAC addresses it learned from the PE that lost the DF
   election (old designated forwarder).  If multiple customer sites are
   connected to the same PE, PE1 as shown in Figure 2, and redundancy
   per site is desired when multi-homing procedures described in this
   document are in effect, then it is desirable to flush just the
   relevant MAC addresses from a particular site when the site



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   connectivity is lost.  However, procedures for flushing a limited set
   of MAC addresses is beyond the scope of this document.  Use of either
   'D' or 'F' bit in control flags only allows to flush all MAC
   addresses associated with a PE.

   Designated forwarder change can occur in absence of failures, such as
   when an attachment circuit comes up.  Consider the case in Figure 2
   where PE1-CE1 link is non-operational and PE2 is the designated
   forwarder for CE1.  Also assume that Local Preference of PE1 is
   higher than PE2.  When PE1-CE1 link becomes operational, PE1 will
   send a BGP CE advertisement for CE1 to all it's peers.  If PE3
   performs the DF election before PE2, there is a chance that PE3 might
   learn MAC addresses from PE2 after it was done electing PE1.  This
   can happen since PE2 has not yet processed the BGP CE advertisement
   from PE1 and as a result continues to send traffic to PE3.  This can
   cause traffic from PE3 to CE1 to black-hole until those MAC addresses
   are deleted due to age out timers.  Therefore, to avoid such race-
   conditions, a designated forwarder must set the F bit and a non-
   designated forwarder must clear the F bit when sending BGP CE
   advertisements.  A state transition from one to zero for the 'F' bit
   can be used by a remote PE to flush all the MACs learned from the PE
   that is transitioning from designated forwarder to non-designated
   forwarder.

5.2.  Minimizing the effects of fast link transitions

   Certain failure scenarios may result in fast transitions of the link
   towards the multi-homing CE which in turn will generate fast status
   transitions of one or multiple multi-homed sites reflected through
   multiple BGP CE advertisements and LDP MAC Flush messages.

   It is recommended that a timer to damp the link flaps be used for the
   port towards the multi-homed CE to minimize the number of MAC Flush
   events in the remote PEs and the occurrences of BGP state compression
   for F bit transitions.  A timer value more than the time it takes BGP
   to converge in the network is recommended.

6.  Backwards Compatibility

   No forwarding loops are formed when PEs or Route Reflectors that do
   not support procedures defined in this section co exist in the
   network with PEs or Route Reflectors that do support.

6.1.  BGP based VPLS

   As explained in this section, multi-homed PEs to the same customer
   site MUST assign the same CE-ID and related NLRI SHOULD contain the
   block offset, block size and label base as zero.  Remote PEs that



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   lack support of multi-homing operations specified in this document
   will fail to create any PWs for the multi-homed CE-IDs due to the
   label value of zero and thus, the multi-homing NLRI should have no
   impact on the operation of Remote PEs that lack support of multi-
   homing operations specified in this document.

   For compatibility with PEs that use multiple VE-IDs with non-zero
   label block values for multi-homing operation, it is a requirement
   that a PE receiving such advertisements must use the labels in the
   NLRIs associated with lowest VE-ID for PW creation.  It is possible
   that maintaining PW association with lowest VE-ID can result in PW
   flap, and thus, traffic loss.  However, it is necessary to maintain
   the association of PW with the lowest VE-ID as it provides
   deterministic DF election among all the VPLS PEs.

6.2.  LDP VPLS with BGP Auto-discovery

   The BGP-AD NLRI has a prefix length of 12 containing only a 8 bytes
   RD and a 4 bytes VSI-ID.  If a LDP VPLS PEs running BGP AD lacks
   support of multi-homing operations specified in this document, it
   SHOULD ignore a CE NLRI with the length field of 17.  As a result it
   will not ask LDP to create any PWs for the multi-homed Site-ID and
   thus, the multi-homing NLRI should have no impact on LDP VPLS
   operation.  MH PEs may use existing LDP MAC Flush to flush the remote
   LDP VPLS PEs or may use the MAC Flush procedures as described in
   Section 5

7.  Security Considerations

   No new security issues are introduced beyond those that are described
   in [RFC4761] and [RFC4762].

8.  IANA Considerations

   At this time, this memo includes no request to IANA.

9.  Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank Yakov Rekhter, Nischal Sheth, Mitali
   Singh, Ian Cowburn and Jonathan Hardwick for their insightful
   comments and probing questions.

10.  References








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10.1.  Normative References

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

   [RFC4761]  Kompella, K. and Y. Rekhter, "Virtual Private LAN Service
              (VPLS) Using BGP for Auto-Discovery and Signaling", RFC
              4761, January 2007.

   [RFC6074]  Rosen, E., Davie, B., Radoaca, V., and W. Luo,
              "Provisioning, Auto-Discovery, and Signaling in Layer 2
              Virtual Private Networks (L2VPNs)", RFC 6074, January
              2011.

10.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.kothari-l2vpn-vpls-flush]
              Kothari, B. and R. Fernando, "VPLS Flush in BGP-based
              Virtual Private LAN Service", draft-kothari-l2vpn-vpls-
              flush-00 (work in progress), October 2008.

   [I-D.kothari-l2vpn-auto-site-id]
              Kothari, B., Kompella, K., and T. IV, "Automatic
              Generation of Site IDs for Virtual Private LAN Service",
              draft-kothari-l2vpn-auto-site-id-01 (work in progress),
              October 2008.

   [RFC4360]  Sangli, S., Tappan, D., and Y. Rekhter, "BGP Extended
              Communities Attribute", RFC 4360, February 2006.

   [RFC4364]  Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private
              Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4364, February 2006.

   [RFC4456]  Bates, T., Chen, E., and R. Chandra, "BGP Route
              Reflection: An Alternative to Full Mesh Internal BGP
              (IBGP)", RFC 4456, April 2006.

   [RFC4762]  Lasserre, M. and V. Kompella, "Virtual Private LAN Service
              (VPLS) Using Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) Signaling",
              RFC 4762, January 2007.

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








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Authors' Addresses

   Bhupesh Kothari
   Gainspeed
   295 Santa Ana Court
   Sunnyvale, CA  94085
   US

   Email: bhupesh@gainspeed.com


   Kireeti Kompella
   Juniper Networks
   1194 N. Mathilda Ave.
   Sunnyvale, CA  94089
   US

   Email: kireeti.kompella@gmail.com


   Wim Henderickx
   Alcatel-Lucent

   Email: wim.henderickx@alcatel-lucent.be


   Florin Balus
   Alcatel-Lucent

   Email: florin.balus@alcatel-lucent.com


   James Uttaro
   AT&T
   200 S. Laurel Avenue
   Middletown, NJ  07748
   US

   Email: uttaro@att.com


   Senad Palislamovic
   Alcatel-Lucent

   Email: senad.palislamovic@alcatel-lucent.com






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   Wen Lin
   Juniper Networks

   Email: wlin@juniper.net















































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