Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES) Framework
RFC 3746

Network Working Group                                            L. Yang
Request for Comments: 3746                                   Intel Corp.
Category: Informational                                         R. Dantu
                                                    Univ. of North Texas
                                                             T. Anderson
                                                             Intel Corp.
                                                                R. Gopal
                                                                   Nokia
                                                              April 2004

     Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES) Framework

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document defines the architectural framework for the ForCES
   (Forwarding and Control Element Separation) network elements, and
   identifies the associated entities and their interactions.

Table of Contents

   1.  Definitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
       1.1. Conventions used in this document . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
       1.2. Terminologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Introduction to Forwarding and Control Element Separation
       (ForCES) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   3.  Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       3.1. Control Elements and Fr Reference Point . . . . . . . . . 10
       3.2. Forwarding Elements and Fi reference point. . . . . . . . 11
       3.3. CE Managers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
       3.4. FE Managers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   4.  Operational Phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
       4.1. Pre-association Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
            4.1.1. Fl Reference Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
            4.1.2. Ff Reference Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
            4.1.3. Fc Reference Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
       4.2. Post-association Phase and Fp reference point . . . . . . 17
            4.2.1. Proximity and Interconnect between CEs and FEs . . 18

Yang, et al.                 Informational                      [Page 1]
RFC 3746                    ForCES Framework                  April 2004

            4.2.2. Association Establishment. . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
            4.2.3. Steady-state Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
            4.2.4. Data Packets across Fp reference point . . . . . . 21
            4.2.5. Proxy FE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
       4.3. Association Re-establishment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
            4.3.1. CE graceful restart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
            4.3.2. FE restart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   5.  Applicability to RFC 1812. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
       5.1. General Router Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
       5.2. Link Layer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
       5.3. Internet Layer Protocols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
       5.4. Internet Layer Forwarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
       5.5. Transport Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
       5.6. Application Layer -- Routing Protocols. . . . . . . . . . 29
       5.7. Application Layer -- Network Management Protocol. . . . . 29
   6.  Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
   7.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
   8.  Security Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
       8.1. Analysis of Potential Threats Introduced by ForCES. . . . 31
            8.1.1. "Join" or "Remove" Message Flooding on CEs . . . . 31
            8.1.2. Impersonation Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
            8.1.3. Replay Attack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
            8.1.4. Attack during Fail Over. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
            8.1.5. Data Integrity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
            8.1.6. Data Confidentiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
            8.1.7. Sharing security parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . 33
            8.1.8. Denial of Service Attack via External Interface. . 33
       8.2. Security Recommendations for ForCES . . . . . . . . . . . 33
            8.2.1. Using TLS with ForCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
            8.2.2. Using IPsec with ForCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
   9.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37