GMPLS Signaling Procedure for Egress Control
RFC 4003

Network Working Group                                          L. Berger
Request for Comments: 4003                                Movaz Networks
Updates: 3473                                              February 2005
Category: Standards Track

              GMPLS Signaling Procedure for Egress Control

Status of This Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).

Abstract

   This document clarifies the procedures for the control of the label
   used on an output/downstream interface of the egress node of a Label
   Switched Path (LSP).  This control is also known as "Egress Control".
   Support for Egress Control is implicit in Generalized Multi-Protocol
   Label Switching (GMPLS) Signaling.  This document clarifies the
   specification of GMPLS Signaling and does not modify GMPLS signaling
   mechanisms and procedures.

1.  Background

   The ability to control the label used on the output/downstream
   interface of an egress node was one of the early requirements for
   GMPLS.  In the initial GMPLS documents, this was called "Egress
   Control".  As the GMPLS documents progressed, the ability to control
   a label on an egress interface was generalized to support control of
   a label on any interface.  This generalization is seen in Section 6
   of [RFC3471] and Section 5.1 of [RFC3473].  When this functionality
   was generalized, the procedures to support control of a label at the
   egress were also generalized.  Although the result was intended to
   cover egress control, this intention is not clear to all.  This note
   reiterates the procedures to cover control of a label used on an
   egress output/downstream interface.

Berger                      Standards Track                     [Page 1]
RFC 4003      GMPLS Signaling Procedure for Egress Control February 2005

   For context, the following is the text from the GMPLS signalling
   document dated June 2000 about how ERO (Explicit Route Object) for
   egress control:

      6. Egress Control

      The LSR at the head-end of an LSP can control the termination of
      the LSP by using the ERO.  To terminate an LSP on a particular
      outgoing interface of the egress LSR, the head-end may specify the
      IP address of that interface as the last element in the ERO,
      provided that interface has an associated IP address.

      There are cases where the use of IP address doesn't provide enough
      information to uniquely identify the egress termination.  One case
      is when the outgoing interface on the egress LSR is a component
      link of a link bundle.  Another case is when it is desirable to
      "splice" two LSPs together, i.e., where the tail of the first LSP
      would be "spliced" into the head of the second LSP.  This last
      case is more likely to be used in the non-PSC classes of links.

      6.2. Procedures

      The Egress Label subobject may appear only as the last subobject
      in the ERO/ER.  Appearance of this subobject anywhere else in the
      ERO/ER is treated as a "Bad strict node" error.

      During an LSP setup, when a node processing the ERO/RR performs
      Next Hop selection finds that the second subobject is an Egress
      Label Subobject, the node uses the information carried in this
      subobject to determine the handling of the data received over that
      LSP.  Specifically, if the Link ID field of the subobject is non
      zero, then this field identifies a specific (outgoing) link of the
      node that should be used for sending all the data received over
      the LSP.  If the Label field of the subobject is not Implicit NULL
      label, this field specifies the label that should be used as an
      outgoing label on the data received over the LSP.

      Procedures by which an LSR at the head-end of an LSP obtains the
      information needed to construct the Egress Label subobject are
      outside the scope of this document.

2.  Egress Control Procedures

   This section is intended to complement Sections 5.1.1 and 5.2.1 of
   [RFC3473].  The procedures described in those sections are not
   modified.  This section clarifies procedures related to the label
   used on an egress output/downstream interface.

Berger                      Standards Track                     [Page 2]
RFC 4003      GMPLS Signaling Procedure for Egress Control February 2005