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Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules
RFC 8955

Document Type RFC - Proposed Standard (December 2020) Errata
Obsoletes RFC 5575, RFC 7674
Authors Christoph Loibl , Susan Hares , Robert Raszuk , Danny R. McPherson , Martin Bacher
Last updated 2023-09-26
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
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IESG Responsible AD Alvaro Retana
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RFC 8955


Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                          C. Loibl
Request for Comments: 8955                       next layer Telekom GmbH
Obsoletes: 5575, 7674                                           S. Hares
Category: Standards Track                                         Huawei
ISSN: 2070-1721                                                R. Raszuk
                                                 NTT Network Innovations
                                                            D. McPherson
                                                                Verisign
                                                               M. Bacher
                                                        T-Mobile Austria
                                                           December 2020

               Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules

Abstract

   This document defines a Border Gateway Protocol Network Layer
   Reachability Information (BGP NLRI) encoding format that can be used
   to distribute (intra-domain and inter-domain) traffic Flow
   Specifications for IPv4 unicast and IPv4 BGP/MPLS VPN services.  This
   allows the routing system to propagate information regarding more
   specific components of the traffic aggregate defined by an IP
   destination prefix.

   It also specifies BGP Extended Community encoding formats, which can
   be used to propagate Traffic Filtering Actions along with the Flow
   Specification NLRI.  Those Traffic Filtering Actions encode actions a
   routing system can take if the packet matches the Flow Specification.

   This document obsoletes both RFC 5575 and RFC 7674.

Status of This Memo

   This is an Internet Standards Track document.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Further information on
   Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8955.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2020 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
   (https://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
   2.  Definitions of Terms Used in This Memo
   3.  Flow Specifications
   4.  Dissemination of IPv4 Flow Specification Information
     4.1.  Length Encoding
     4.2.  NLRI Value Encoding
       4.2.1.  Operators
       4.2.2.  Components
         4.2.2.1.  Type 1 - Destination Prefix
         4.2.2.2.  Type 2 - Source Prefix
         4.2.2.3.  Type 3 - IP Protocol
         4.2.2.4.  Type 4 - Port
         4.2.2.5.  Type 5 - Destination Port
         4.2.2.6.  Type 6 - Source Port
         4.2.2.7.  Type 7 - ICMP Type
         4.2.2.8.  Type 8 - ICMP Code
         4.2.2.9.  Type 9 - TCP Flags
         4.2.2.10. Type 10 - Packet Length
         4.2.2.11. Type 11 - DSCP (Diffserv Code Point)
         4.2.2.12. Type 12 - Fragment
     4.3.  Examples of Encodings
   5.  Traffic Filtering
     5.1.  Ordering of Flow Specifications
   6.  Validation Procedure
   7.  Traffic Filtering Actions
     7.1.  Traffic Rate in Bytes (traffic-rate-bytes) Sub-Type 0x06
     7.2.  Traffic Rate in Packets (traffic-rate-packets) Sub-Type
           0x0c
     7.3.  Traffic-Action (traffic-action) Sub-Type 0x07
     7.4.  RT Redirect (rt-redirect) Sub-Type 0x08
     7.5.  Traffic Marking (traffic-marking) Sub-Type 0x09
     7.6.  Interaction with Other Filtering Mechanisms in Routers
     7.7.  Considerations on Traffic Filtering Action Interference
   8.  Dissemination of Traffic Filtering in BGP/MPLS VPN Networks
   9.  Traffic Monitoring
   10. Error Handling
   11. IANA Considerations
     11.1.  AFI/SAFI Definitions
     11.2.  Flow Component Definitions
     11.3.  Extended Community Flow Specification Actions
   12. Security Considerations
   13. References
     13.1.  Normative References
     13.2.  Informative References
   Appendix A.  Example Python code: flow_rule_cmp
   Appendix B.  Comparison with RFC 5575
   Acknowledgments
   Contributors
   Authors' Addresses

1.  Introduction

   This document obsoletes "Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules"
   [RFC5575] (see Appendix B for the differences).  This document also
   obsoletes "Clarification of the Flowspec Redirect Extended Community"
   [RFC7674], since it incorporates the encoding of the BGP Flow
   Specification Redirect Extended Community in Section 7.4.

   Modern IP routers have the capability to forward traffic and to
   classify, shape, rate limit, filter, or redirect packets based on
   administratively defined policies.  These traffic policy mechanisms
   allow the operator to define match rules that operate on multiple
   fields of the packet header.  Actions, such as the ones described
   above, can be associated with each rule.

   The n-tuple consisting of the matching criteria defines an aggregate
   traffic Flow Specification.  The matching criteria can include
   elements such as source and destination address prefixes, IP
   protocol, and transport protocol port numbers.

   Section 4 of this document defines a general procedure to encode Flow
   Specifications for aggregated traffic flows so that they can be
   distributed as a BGP [RFC4271] NLRI.  Additionally, Section 7 of this
   document defines the required Traffic Filtering Actions BGP Extended
   Communities and mechanisms to use BGP for intra- and inter-provider
   distribution of traffic filtering rules in order to mitigate DoS and
   DDoS attacks.

   By expanding routing information with Flow Specifications, the
   routing system can take advantage of the ACL (Access Control List) or
   firewall capabilities in the router's forwarding path.  Flow
   Specifications can be seen as more specific routing entries to a
   unicast prefix and are expected to depend upon the existing unicast
   data information.

   A Flow Specification received from an external autonomous system will
   need to be validated against unicast routing before being accepted
   (Section 6).  The Flow Specification received from an internal BGP
   peer within the same autonomous system [RFC4271] is assumed to have
   been validated prior to transmission within the internal BGP (iBGP)
   mesh of an autonomous system.  If the aggregate traffic flow defined
   by the unicast destination prefix is forwarded to a given BGP peer,
   then the local system can install more specific Flow Specifications
   that may result in different forwarding behavior, as requested by
   this system.

   From an operational perspective, the utilization of BGP as the
   carrier for this information allows a network service provider to
   reuse both internal route distribution infrastructure (e.g., route
   reflector or confederation design) and existing external
   relationships (e.g., inter-domain BGP sessions to a customer
   network).

   While it is certainly possible to address this problem using other
   mechanisms, this solution has been utilized in deployments because of
   the substantial advantage of being an incremental addition to already
   deployed mechanisms.

   Possible applications of that extension are: Automated inter-domain
   coordination of traffic filtering, such as what is required in order
   to mitigate DoS and DDoS attacks or traffic filtering in the context
   of a BGP/MPLS VPN service.  Other applications (e.g., centralized
   control of traffic in a Software-Defined Networking (SDN) or Network
   Function Virtualization (NFV) context) are also possible.

   In current deployments, the information distributed by this extension
   is originated both manually as well as automatically, the latter by
   systems that are able to detect malicious traffic flows.  When
   automated systems are used, care should be taken to ensure the
   correctness of the automated system.  The limitations of the
   receiving systems that need to process these automated Flow
   Specifications need to be taken in consideration as well (see also
   Section 12).

   This specification defines required protocol extensions to address
   most common applications of IPv4 unicast and VPNv4 unicast filtering.
   The same mechanism can be reused and new match criteria added to
   address similar filtering needs for other BGP address families, such
   as IPv6 families [RFC8956].

2.  Definitions of Terms Used in This Memo

   AFI:      Address Family Identifier

   AS:       Autonomous System

   Loc-RIB:  The Loc-RIB contains the routes that have been selected by
             the local BGP speaker's Decision Process [RFC4271].

   NLRI:     Network Layer Reachability Information

   PE:       Provider Edge router

   RIB:      Routing Information Base

   SAFI:     Subsequent Address Family Identifier

   VRF:      Virtual Routing and Forwarding

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
   BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

3.  Flow Specifications

   A Flow Specification is an n-tuple consisting of several matching
   criteria that can be applied to IP traffic.  A given IP packet is
   said to match the defined Flow Specification if it matches all the
   specified criteria.  This n-tuple is encoded into a BGP NLRI defined
   below.

   A given Flow Specification may be associated with a set of
   attributes, depending on the particular application; such attributes
   may or may not include reachability information (i.e., NEXT_HOP).
   Well-known or AS-specific community attributes can be used to encode
   a set of predetermined actions.

   A particular application is identified by a specific (Address Family
   Identifier, Subsequent Address Family Identifier (AFI, SAFI)) pair
   [RFC4760] and corresponds to a distinct set of RIBs.  Those RIBs
   should be treated independently from each other in order to assure
   noninterference between distinct applications.

   BGP itself treats the NLRI as a key to an entry in its databases.
   Entries that are placed in the Loc-RIB are then associated with a
   given set of semantics, which is application dependent.  This is
   consistent with existing BGP applications.  For instance, IP unicast
   routing (AFI=1, SAFI=1) and IP multicast reverse-path information
   (AFI=1, SAFI=2) are handled by BGP without any particular semantics
   being associated with them until installed in the Loc-RIB.

   Standard BGP policy mechanisms, such as UPDATE filtering by NLRI
   prefix as well as community matching, must apply to the Flow
   specification defined NLRI-type.  Network operators can also control
   propagation of such routing updates by enabling or disabling the
   exchange of a particular (AFI, SAFI) pair on a given BGP peering
   session.

4.  Dissemination of IPv4 Flow Specification Information

   This document defines a Flow Specification NLRI type (Figure 1) that
   may include several components, such as destination prefix, source
   prefix, protocol, ports, and others (see Section 4.2 below).

   This NLRI information is encoded using MP_REACH_NLRI and
   MP_UNREACH_NLRI attributes, as defined in [RFC4760].  When
   advertising Flow Specifications, the Length of the Next-Hop Network
   Address MUST be set to 0.  The Network Address of the Next-Hop field
   MUST be ignored.

   The NLRI field of the MP_REACH_NLRI and MP_UNREACH_NLRI is encoded as
   one or more 2-tuples of the form <length, NLRI value>.  It consists
   of a 1- or 2-octet length field followed by a variable-length NLRI
   value.  The length is expressed in octets.

                     +-------------------------------+
                     |    length (0xnn or 0xfnnn)    |
                     +-------------------------------+
                     |    NLRI value   (variable)    |
                     +-------------------------------+

                 Figure 1: Flow Specification NLRI for IPv4

   Implementations wishing to exchange Flow Specification MUST use BGP's
   Capability Advertisement facility to exchange the Multiprotocol
   Extension Capability Code (Code 1), as defined in [RFC4760].  The
   (AFI, SAFI) pair carried in the Multiprotocol Extension Capability
   MUST be (AFI=1, SAFI=133) for IPv4 Flow Specification and (AFI=1,
   SAFI=134) for VPNv4 Flow Specification.

4.1.  Length Encoding

   The length field indicates the length in octets of the variable NLRI
   value:

   *  If the NLRI length is smaller than 240 (0xf0 hex) octets, the
      length field can be encoded as a single octet.

   *  Otherwise, it is encoded as an extended-length 2-octet value in
      which the most significant nibble has the hex value 0xf.

   In Figure 1 above, values less than 240 are encoded using two hex
   digits (0xnn).  Values above 239 are encoded using 3 hex digits
   (0xfnnn).  The highest value that can be represented with this
   encoding is 4095.  For example, the length value of 239 is encoded as
   0xef (single octet), while 240 is encoded as 0xf0f0 (2 octets).

4.2.  NLRI Value Encoding

   The Flow Specification NLRI value consists of a list of optional
   components and is encoded as follows:

   Encoding: <[component]+>

   A specific packet is considered to match the Flow Specification when
   it matches the intersection (AND) of all the components present in
   the Flow Specification.

   Components MUST follow strict type ordering by increasing numerical
   order.  A given component type MAY (exactly once) be present in the
   Flow Specification.  If present, it MUST precede any component of
   higher numeric type value.

   All combinations of components within a single Flow Specification are
   allowed.  However, some combinations cannot match any packets (e.g.,
   "ICMP Type AND Port" will never match any packets) and thus SHOULD
   NOT be propagated by BGP.

   An NLRI value not encoded as specified here, including an NLRI that
   contains an unknown component type, is considered malformed and error
   handling according to Section 10 is performed.

4.2.1.  Operators

   Most of the components described below make use of comparison
   operators.  Which of the two operators is used is defined by the
   components in Section 4.2.2.  The operators are encoded as a single
   octet.

4.2.1.1.  Numeric Operator (numeric_op)

   This operator is encoded as shown in Figure 2.

                       0   1   2   3   4   5   6   7
                     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
                     | e | a |  len  | 0 |lt |gt |eq |
                     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

                  Figure 2: Numeric Operator (numeric_op)

   e (end-of-list bit):  Set in the last {op, value} pair in the list

   a (AND bit):  If unset, the result of the previous {op, value} pair
         is logically ORed with the current one.  If set, the operation
         is a logical AND.  In the first operator octet of a sequence,
         it MUST be encoded as unset and MUST be treated as always unset
         on decoding.  The AND operator has higher priority than OR for
         the purposes of evaluating logical expressions.

   len (length):  The length of the value field for this operator given
         as (1 << len).  This encodes 1 (len=00), 2 (len=01), 4
         (len=10), and 8 (len=11) octets.

   0:    MUST be set to 0 on NLRI encoding and MUST be ignored during
         decoding

   lt:   less-than comparison between data and value

   gt:   greater-than comparison between data and value

   eq:   equality between data and value

   The bits lt, gt, and eq can be combined to produce common relational
   operators, such as "less or equal", "greater or equal", and "not
   equal to", as shown in Table 1.

            +====+====+====+==================================+
            | lt | gt | eq | Resulting operation              |
            +====+====+====+==================================+
            | 0  | 0  | 0  | false (independent of the value) |
            +----+----+----+----------------------------------+
            | 0  | 0  | 1  | == (equal)                       |
            +----+----+----+----------------------------------+
            | 0  | 1  | 0  | > (greater than)                 |
            +----+----+----+----------------------------------+
            | 0  | 1  | 1  | >= (greater than or equal)       |
            +----+----+----+----------------------------------+
            | 1  | 0  | 0  | < (less than)                    |
            +----+----+----+----------------------------------+
            | 1  | 0  | 1  | <= (less than or equal)          |
            +----+----+----+----------------------------------+
            | 1  | 1  | 0  | != (not equal value)             |
            +----+----+----+----------------------------------+
            | 1  | 1  | 1  | true (independent of the value)  |
            +----+----+----+----------------------------------+

                 Table 1: Comparison Operation Combinations

4.2.1.2.  Bitmask Operator (bitmask_op)

   This operator is encoded as shown in Figure 3.

                       0   1   2   3   4   5   6   7
                     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
                     | e | a |  len  | 0 | 0 |not| m |
                     +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

                  Figure 3: Bitmask Operator (bitmask_op)

   e, a, len (end-of-list bit, AND bit, and length field):  Most
         significant nibble; defined in the Numeric Operator format in
         Section 4.2.1.1.

   not (NOT bit):  If set, logical negation of operation.

   m (Match bit):  If set, this is a bitwise match operation defined as
         "(data AND value) == value"; if unset, (data AND value)
         evaluates to TRUE if any of the bits in the value mask are set
         in the data.

   0 (all 0 bits):  MUST be set to 0 on NLRI encoding and MUST be
         ignored during decoding

4.2.2.  Components

   The encoding of each of the components begins with a type field (1
   octet) followed by a variable length parameter.  The following
   sections define component types and parameter encodings for the IPv4
   IP layer and transport layer headers.  IPv6 NLRI component types are
   described in [RFC8956].

4.2.2.1.  Type 1 - Destination Prefix

   Encoding: <type (1 octet), length (1 octet), prefix (variable)>

   Defines the destination prefix to match.  The length and prefix
   fields are encoded as in BGP UPDATE messages [RFC4271].

4.2.2.2.  Type 2 - Source Prefix

   Encoding: <type (1 octet), length (1 octet), prefix (variable)>

   Defines the source prefix to match.  The length and prefix fields are
   encoded as in BGP UPDATE messages [RFC4271].

4.2.2.3.  Type 3 - IP Protocol

   Encoding: <type (1 octet), [numeric_op, value]+>

   Contains a list of {numeric_op, value} pairs that are used to match
   the IP protocol value octet in IP packet header (see Section 3.1 of
   [RFC0791]).

   This component uses the Numeric Operator (numeric_op) described in
   Section 4.2.1.1.  Type 3 component values SHOULD be encoded as single
   octet (numeric_op len=00).

4.2.2.4.  Type 4 - Port

   Encoding: <type (1 octet), [numeric_op, value]+>

   Defines a list of {numeric_op, value} pairs that match source OR
   destination TCP/UDP ports (see Section 3.1 of [RFC0793] and the
   "Format" section of [RFC0768]).  This component matches if either the
   destination port OR the source port of an IP packet matches the
   value.

   This component uses the Numeric Operator (numeric_op) described in
   Section 4.2.1.1.  Type 4 component values SHOULD be encoded as 1- or
   2-octet quantities (numeric_op len=00 or len=01).

   In case of the presence of the port (destination-port
   (Section 4.2.2.5), source-port (Section 4.2.2.6)) component, only TCP
   or UDP packets can match the entire Flow Specification.  The port
   component, if present, never matches when the packet's IP protocol
   value is not 6 (TCP) or 17 (UDP), if the packet is fragmented and
   this is not the first fragment, or if the system is unable to locate
   the transport header.  Different implementations may or may not be
   able to decode the transport header in the presence of IP options or
   Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) NULL [RFC4303] encryption.

4.2.2.5.  Type 5 - Destination Port

   Encoding: <type (1 octet), [numeric_op, value]+>

   Defines a list of {numeric_op, value} pairs used to match the
   destination port of a TCP or UDP packet (see also Section 3.1 of
   [RFC0793] and the "Format" section of [RFC0768].

   This component uses the Numeric Operator (numeric_op) described in
   Section 4.2.1.1.  Type 5 component values SHOULD be encoded as 1- or
   2-octet quantities (numeric_op len=00 or len=01).

   The last paragraph of Section 4.2.2.4 also applies to this component.

4.2.2.6.  Type 6 - Source Port

   Encoding: <type (1 octet), [numeric_op, value]+>

   Defines a list of {numeric_op, value} pairs used to match the source
   port of a TCP or UDP packet (see also Section 3.1 of [RFC0793] and
   the "Format" section of [RFC0768].

   This component uses the Numeric Operator (numeric_op) described in
   Section 4.2.1.1.  Type 6 component values SHOULD be encoded as 1- or
   2-octet quantities (numeric_op len=00 or len=01).

   The last paragraph of Section 4.2.2.4 also applies to this component.

4.2.2.7.  Type 7 - ICMP Type

   Encoding: <type (1 octet), [numeric_op, value]+>

   Defines a list of {numeric_op, value} pairs used to match the type
   field of an ICMP packet (see also the "Message Formats" section of
   [RFC0792]).

   This component uses the Numeric Operator (numeric_op) described in
   Section 4.2.1.1.  Type 7 component values SHOULD be encoded as single
   octet (numeric_op len=00).

   In case of the presence of the ICMP type component, only ICMP packets
   can match the entire Flow Specification.  The ICMP type component, if
   present, never matches when the packet's IP protocol value is not 1
   (ICMP), if the packet is fragmented and this is not the first
   fragment, or if the system is unable to locate the transport header.
   Different implementations may or may not be able to decode the
   transport header in the presence of IP options or Encapsulating
   Security Payload (ESP) NULL [RFC4303] encryption.

4.2.2.8.  Type 8 - ICMP Code

   Encoding: <type (1 octet), [numeric_op, value]+>

   Defines a list of {numeric_op, value} pairs used to match the code
   field of an ICMP packet (see also the "Message Formats" section of
   [RFC0792]).

   This component uses the Numeric Operator (numeric_op) described in
   Section 4.2.1.1.  Type 8 component values SHOULD be encoded as single
   octet (numeric_op len=00).

   In case of the presence of the ICMP code component, only ICMP packets
   can match the entire Flow Specification.  The ICMP code component, if
   present, never matches when the packet's IP protocol value is not 1
   (ICMP), if the packet is fragmented and this is not the first
   fragment, or if the system is unable to locate the transport header.
   Different implementations may or may not be able to decode the
   transport header in the presence of IP options or Encapsulating
   Security Payload (ESP) NULL [RFC4303] encryption.

4.2.2.9.  Type 9 - TCP Flags

   Encoding: <type (1 octet), [bitmask_op, bitmask]+>

   Defines a list of {bitmask_op, bitmask} pairs used to match TCP
   control bits (see also Section 3.1 of [RFC0793]).

   This component uses the Bitmask Operator (bitmask_op) described in
   Section 4.2.1.2.  Type 9 component bitmasks MUST be encoded as 1- or
   2-octet bitmask (bitmask_op len=00 or len=01).

   When a single octet (bitmask_op len=00) is specified, it matches
   octet 14 of the TCP header (see also Section 3.1 of [RFC0793]), which
   contains the TCP control bits.  When a 2-octet (bitmask_op len=01)
   encoding is used, it matches octets 13 and 14 of the TCP header with
   the data offset (leftmost 4 bits) always treated as 0.

   In case of the presence of the TCP flags component, only TCP packets
   can match the entire Flow Specification.  The TCP flags component, if
   present, never matches when the packet's IP protocol value is not 6
   (TCP), if the packet is fragmented and this is not the first
   fragment, or if the system is unable to locate the transport header.
   Different implementations may or may not be able to decode the
   transport header in the presence of IP options or Encapsulating
   Security Payload (ESP) NULL [RFC4303] encryption.

4.2.2.10.  Type 10 - Packet Length

   Encoding: <type (1 octet), [numeric_op, value]+>

   Defines a list of {numeric_op, value} pairs used to match on the
   total IP packet length (excluding Layer 2 but including IP header).

   This component uses the Numeric Operator (numeric_op) described in
   Section 4.2.1.1.  Type 10 component values SHOULD be encoded as 1- or
   2-octet quantities (numeric_op len=00 or len=01).

4.2.2.11.  Type 11 - DSCP (Diffserv Code Point)

   Encoding: <type (1 octet), [numeric_op, value]+>

   Defines a list of {numeric_op, value} pairs used to match the 6-bit
   DSCP field (see also [RFC2474]).

   This component uses the Numeric Operator (numeric_op) described in
   Section 4.2.1.1.  Type 11 component values MUST be encoded as single
   octet (numeric_op len=00).

   The six least significant bits contain the DSCP value.  All other
   bits SHOULD be treated as 0.

4.2.2.12.  Type 12 - Fragment

   Encoding: <type (1 octet), [bitmask_op, bitmask]+>

   Defines a list of {bitmask_op, bitmask} pairs used to match specific
   IP fragments.

   This component uses the Bitmask Operator (bitmask_op) described in
   Section 4.2.1.2.  The Type 12 component bitmask MUST be encoded as
   single octet bitmask (bitmask_op len=00).

                      0   1   2   3   4   5   6   7
                    +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
                    | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |LF |FF |IsF|DF |
                    +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

                     Figure 4: Fragment Bitmask Operand

   Bitmask values:

   DF (Don't Fragment):  match if IP Header Flags Bit-1 (DF) [RFC0791]
         is 1

   IsF (Is a fragment other than the first):  match if the [RFC0791] IP
         Header Fragment Offset is not 0

   FF (First Fragment):  match if the [RFC0791] IP Header Fragment
         Offset is 0 AND Flags Bit-2 (MF) is 1

   LF (Last Fragment):  match if the [RFC0791] IP Header Fragment Offset
         is not 0 AND Flags Bit-2 (MF) is 0

   0:    MUST be set to 0 on NLRI encoding and MUST be ignored during
         decoding

4.3.  Examples of Encodings

4.3.1.  Example 1

   An example of a Flow Specification NLRI encoding for: "all packets to
   192.0.2.0/24 and TCP port 25".

             +========+================+==========+==========+
             | length | destination    | protocol | port     |
             +========+================+==========+==========+
             | 0x0b   | 01 18 c0 00 02 | 03 81 06 | 04 81 19 |
             +--------+----------------+----------+----------+

                                  Table 2

   Decoded:

         +=======+==============================================+
         | Value |                                              |
         +=======+============+=================================+
         | 0x0b  | length     | 11 octets (if len<240, 1 octet) |
         +-------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x01  | type       | Type 1 - Destination Prefix     |
         +-------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x18  | length     | 24 bit                          |
         +-------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0xc0  | prefix     | 192                             |
         +-------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x00  | prefix     | 0                               |
         +-------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x02  | prefix     | 2                               |
         +-------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x03  | type       | Type 3 - IP Protocol            |
         +-------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x81  | numeric_op | end-of-list, value size=1, ==   |
         +-------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x06  | value      | 6 (TCP)                         |
         +-------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x04  | type       | Type 4 - Port                   |
         +-------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x81  | numeric_op | end-of-list, value size=1, ==   |
         +-------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x19  | value      | 25                              |
         +-------+------------+---------------------------------+

                                 Table 3

   This constitutes an NLRI with an NLRI length of 11 octets.

4.3.2.  Example 2

   An example of a Flow Specification NLRI encoding for: "all packets to
   192.0.2.0/24 from 203.0.113.0/24 and port {range [137, 139] or
   8080}".

        +========+================+================+=============+
        | length | destination    | source         | port        |
        +========+================+================+=============+
        | 0x12   | 01 18 c0 00 02 | 02 18 cb 00 71 | 04 03 89 45 |
        |        |                |                | 8b 91 1f 90 |
        +--------+----------------+----------------+-------------+

                                 Table 4

   Decoded:

         +========+==============================================+
         | Value  |                                              |
         +========+============+=================================+
         | 0x12   | length     | 18 octets (if len<240, 1 octet) |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x01   | type       | Type 1 - Destination Prefix     |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x18   | length     | 24 bit                          |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0xc0   | prefix     | 192                             |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x00   | prefix     | 0                               |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x02   | prefix     | 2                               |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x02   | type       | Type 2 - Source Prefix          |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x18   | length     | 24 bit                          |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0xcb   | prefix     | 203                             |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x00   | prefix     | 0                               |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x71   | prefix     | 113                             |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x04   | type       | Type 4 - Port                   |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x03   | numeric_op | value size=1, >=                |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x89   | value      | 137                             |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x45   | numeric_op | "AND", value size=1, <=         |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x8b   | value      | 139                             |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x91   | numeric_op | end-of-list, value size=2, ==   |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+
         | 0x1f90 | value      | 8080                            |
         +--------+------------+---------------------------------+

                                  Table 5

   This constitutes an NLRI with an NLRI length of 18 octets.

4.3.3.  Example 3

   An example of a Flow Specification NLRI encoding for: "all packets to
   192.0.2.1/32 and fragment { DF or FF } (matching packet with DF bit
   set or First Fragments)

                 +========+===================+==========+
                 | length | destination       | fragment |
                 +========+===================+==========+
                 | 0x09   | 01 20 c0 00 02 01 | 0c 80 05 |
                 +--------+-------------------+----------+

                                  Table 6

   Decoded:

          +=======+=============================================+
          | Value |                                             |
          +=======+============+================================+
          | 0x09  | length     | 9 octets (if len<240, 1 octet) |
          +-------+------------+--------------------------------+
          | 0x01  | type       | Type 1 - Destination Prefix    |
          +-------+------------+--------------------------------+
          | 0x20  | length     | 32 bit                         |
          +-------+------------+--------------------------------+
          | 0xc0  | prefix     | 192                            |
          +-------+------------+--------------------------------+
          | 0x00  | prefix     | 0                              |
          +-------+------------+--------------------------------+
          | 0x02  | prefix     | 2                              |
          +-------+------------+--------------------------------+
          | 0x01  | prefix     | 1                              |
          +-------+------------+--------------------------------+
          | 0x0c  | type       | Type 12 - Fragment             |
          +-------+------------+--------------------------------+
          | 0x80  | bitmask_op | end-of-list, value size=1      |
          +-------+------------+--------------------------------+
          | 0x05  | bitmask    | DF=1, FF=1                     |
          +-------+------------+--------------------------------+

                                  Table 7

   This constitutes an NLRI with an NLRI length of 9 octets.

5.  Traffic Filtering

   Traffic filtering policies have been traditionally considered to be
   relatively static.  Limitations of these static mechanisms caused
   this new dynamic mechanism to be designed for the three new
   applications of traffic filtering:

   *  Prevention of traffic-based, denial-of-service (DoS) attacks

   *  Traffic filtering in the context of BGP/MPLS VPN service

   *  Centralized traffic control for SDN/NFV networks

   These applications require coordination among service providers and/
   or coordination among the AS within a service provider.

   The Flow Specification NLRI defined in Section 4 conveys information
   about traffic filtering rules for traffic that should be discarded or
   handled in a manner specified by a set of predefined actions (which
   are defined in BGP Extended Communities).  This mechanism is
   primarily designed to allow an upstream autonomous system to perform
   inbound filtering in their ingress routers of traffic that a given
   downstream AS wishes to drop.

   In order to achieve this goal, this document specifies two
   application-specific NLRI identifiers that provide traffic filters
   and a set of actions encoding in BGP Extended Communities.  The two
   application-specific NLRI identifiers are:

   *  IPv4 Flow Specification identifier (AFI=1, SAFI=133) along with
      specific semantic rules for IPv4 routes and

   *  VPNv4 Flow Specification identifier (AFI=1, SAFI=134) value, which
      can be used to propagate traffic filtering information in a BGP/
      MPLS VPN environment.

   Encoding of the NLRI is described in Section 4 for IPv4 Flow
   Specification and in Section 8 for VPNv4 Flow Specification.  The
   filtering actions are described in Section 7.

5.1.  Ordering of Flow Specifications

   More than one Flow Specification may match a particular traffic flow.
   Thus, it is necessary to define the order in which Flow
   Specifications get matched and actions being applied to a particular
   traffic flow.  This ordering function is such that it does not depend
   on the arrival order of the Flow Specification via BGP and thus is
   consistent in the network.

   The relative order of two Flow Specifications is determined by
   comparing their respective components.  The algorithm starts by
   comparing the left-most components (lowest component type value) of
   the Flow Specifications.  If the types differ, the Flow Specification
   with lowest numeric type value has higher precedence (and thus will
   match before) than the Flow Specification that doesn't contain that
   component type.  If the component types are the same, then a type-
   specific comparison is performed (see below).  If the types are
   equal, the algorithm continues with the next component.

   For IP prefix values (IP destination or source prefix), if one of the
   two prefixes to compare is a more specific prefix of the other, the
   more specific prefix has higher precedence.  Otherwise, the one with
   the lowest IP value has higher precedence.

   For all other component types, unless otherwise specified, the
   comparison is performed by comparing the component data as a binary
   string using the memcmp() function as defined by [ISO_IEC_9899].  For
   strings with equal lengths, the lowest string (memcmp) has higher
   precedence.  For strings of different lengths, the common prefix is
   compared.  If the common prefix is not equal, the string with the
   lowest prefix has higher precedence.  If the common prefix is equal,
   the longest string is considered to have higher precedence than the
   shorter one.

   The code in Appendix A shows a Python3 implementation of the
   comparison algorithm.  The full code was tested with Python 3.6.3 and
   can be obtained at
   <https://github.com/stoffi92/rfc5575bis/tree/master/flowspec-cmp>.

6.  Validation Procedure

   Flow Specifications received from a BGP peer that are accepted in the
   respective Adj-RIB-In are used as input to the route selection
   process.  Although the forwarding attributes of two routes for the
   same Flow Specification prefix may be the same, BGP is still required
   to perform its path selection algorithm in order to select the
   correct set of attributes to advertise.

   The first step of the BGP Route Selection procedure (Section 9.1.2 of
   [RFC4271]) is to exclude from the selection procedure routes that are
   considered unfeasible.  In the context of IP routing information,
   this step is used to validate that the NEXT_HOP attribute of a given
   route is resolvable.

   The concept can be extended, in the case of the Flow Specification
   NLRI, to allow other validation procedures.

   The validation process described below validates Flow Specifications
   against unicast routes received over the same AFI but the associated
   unicast routing information SAFI:

   *  Flow Specification received over SAFI=133 will be validated
      against routes received over SAFI=1.

   *  Flow Specification received over SAFI=134 will be validated
      against routes received over SAFI=128.

   In the absence of explicit configuration, a Flow Specification NLRI
   MUST be validated such that it is considered feasible if and only if
   all of the conditions below are true:

   a)  A destination prefix component is embedded in the Flow
       Specification.

   b)  The originator of the Flow Specification matches the originator
       of the best-match unicast route for the destination prefix
       embedded in the Flow Specification (this is the unicast route
       with the longest possible prefix length covering the destination
       prefix embedded in the Flow Specification).

   c)  There are no "more-specific" unicast routes, when compared with
       the flow destination prefix, that have been received from a
       different neighboring AS than the best-match unicast route, which
       has been determined in rule b.

   However, rule a MAY be relaxed by explicit configuration, permitting
   Flow Specifications that include no destination prefix component.  If
   such is the case, rules b and c are moot and MUST be disregarded.

   By "originator" of a BGP route, we mean either the address of the
   originator in the ORIGINATOR_ID Attribute [RFC4456] or the source IP
   address of the BGP peer, if this path attribute is not present.

   BGP implementations MUST also enforce that the AS_PATH attribute of a
   route received via the External Border Gateway Protocol (eBGP)
   contains the neighboring AS in the left-most position of the AS_PATH
   attribute.  While this rule is optional in the BGP specification, it
   becomes necessary to enforce it here for security reasons.

   The best-match unicast route may change over the time independently
   of the Flow Specification NLRI.  Therefore, a revalidation of the
   Flow Specification NLRI MUST be performed whenever unicast routes
   change.  Revalidation is defined as retesting rules a to c as
   described above.

   Explanation:

   The underlying concept is that the neighboring AS that advertises the
   best unicast route for a destination is allowed to advertise Flow
   Specification information that conveys a destination prefix that is
   more or equally specific.  Thus, as long as there are no "more-
   specific" unicast routes received from a different neighboring AS,
   which would be affected by that Flow Specification, the Flow
   Specification is validated successfully.

   The neighboring AS is the immediate destination of the traffic
   described by the Flow Specification.  If it requests these flows to
   be dropped, that request can be honored without concern that it
   represents a denial of service in itself.  The reasoning is that this
   is as if the traffic is being dropped by the downstream autonomous
   system, and there is no added value in carrying the traffic to it.

7.  Traffic Filtering Actions

   This document defines a minimum set of Traffic Filtering Actions that
   it standardizes as BGP Extended Communities [RFC4360].  This is not
   meant to be an inclusive list of all the possible actions but only a
   subset that can be interpreted consistently across the network.
   Additional actions can be defined as either requiring standards or as
   vendor specific.

   The default action for a matching Flow Specification is to accept the
   packet (treat the packet according to the normal forwarding behavior
   of the system).

   This document defines the following Extended Communities values shown
   in Table 8 in the form 0xttss, where tt indicates the type and ss
   indicates the sub-type of the Extended Community.  Encodings for
   these Extended Communities are described below.

    +==================+======================+=======================+
    | community 0xttss | action               | encoding              |
    +==================+======================+=======================+
    | 0x8006           | traffic-rate-bytes   | 2-octet AS, 4-octet   |
    |                  | (Section 7.1)        | float                 |
    +------------------+----------------------+-----------------------+
    | 0x800c           | traffic-rate-packets | 2-octet AS, 4-octet   |
    |                  | (Section 7.2)        | float                 |
    +------------------+----------------------+-----------------------+
    | 0x8007           | traffic-action       | bitmask               |
    |                  | (Section 7.3)        |                       |
    +------------------+----------------------+-----------------------+
    | 0x8008           | rt-redirect AS-      | 2-octet AS, 4-octet   |
    |                  | 2octet (Section 7.4) | value                 |
    +------------------+----------------------+-----------------------+
    | 0x8108           | rt-redirect IPv4     | 4-octet IPv4 address, |
    |                  | (Section 7.4)        | 2-octet value         |
    +------------------+----------------------+-----------------------+
    | 0x8208           | rt-redirect AS-      | 4-octet AS, 2-octet   |
    |                  | 4octet (Section 7.4) | value                 |
    +------------------+----------------------+-----------------------+
    | 0x8009           | traffic-marking      | DSCP value            |
    |                  | (Section 7.5)        |                       |
    +------------------+----------------------+-----------------------+

           Table 8: Traffic Filtering Action Extended Communities

   Multiple Traffic Filtering Actions defined in this document may be
   present for a single Flow Specification and SHOULD be applied to the
   traffic flow (for example, traffic-rate-bytes and rt-redirect can be
   applied to packets at the same time).  If not all of the Traffic
   Filtering Actions can be applied to a traffic flow, they should be
   treated as interfering Traffic Filtering Actions (see below).

   Some Traffic Filtering Actions may interfere with each other or even
   contradict.  Section 7.7 of this document provides general
   considerations on such Traffic Filtering Action interference.  Any
   additional definition of Traffic Filtering Actions SHOULD specify the
   action to take if those Traffic Filtering Actions interfere (also
   with existing Traffic Filtering Actions).

   All Traffic Filtering Actions are specified as transitive BGP
   Extended Communities.

7.1.  Traffic Rate in Bytes (traffic-rate-bytes) Sub-Type 0x06

   The traffic-rate-bytes Extended Community uses the following Extended
   Community encoding:

   The first two octets carry the 2-octet id, which can be assigned from
   a 2-octet AS number.  When a 4-octet AS number is locally present,
   the 2 least significant octets of such an AS number can be used.
   This value is purely informational and SHOULD NOT be interpreted by
   the implementation.

   The remaining 4 octets carry the maximum rate information in IEEE
   floating point [IEEE.754.1985] format, units being bytes per second.
   A traffic-rate of 0 should result on all traffic for the particular
   flow to be discarded.  On encoding, the traffic-rate MUST NOT be
   negative.  On decoding, negative values MUST be treated as zero
   (discard all traffic).

   Interferes with: May interfere with the traffic-rate-packets (see
   Section 7.2).  A policy may allow both filtering by traffic-rate-
   packets and traffic-rate-bytes.  If the policy does not allow this,
   these two actions will conflict.

7.2.  Traffic Rate in Packets (traffic-rate-packets) Sub-Type 0x0c

   The traffic-rate-packets Extended Community uses the same encoding as
   the traffic-rate-bytes Extended Community.  The floating point value
   carries the maximum packet rate in packets per second.  A traffic-
   rate-packets of 0 should result in all traffic for the particular
   flow to be discarded.  On encoding, the traffic-rate-packets MUST NOT
   be negative.  On decoding, negative values MUST be treated as zero
   (discard all traffic).

   Interferes with: May interfere with the traffic-rate-bytes (see
   Section 7.1).  A policy may allow both filtering by traffic-rate-
   packets and traffic-rate-bytes.  If the policy does not allow this,
   these two actions will conflict.

7.3.  Traffic-Action (traffic-action) Sub-Type 0x07

   The traffic-action Extended Community consists of 6 octets of which
   only the 2 least significant bits of the 6th octet (from left to
   right) are defined by this document, as shown in Figure 5.

      0                   1                   2                   3
      0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
     | Traffic Action Field                                          |
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
     | Tr. Action Field (cont.)  |S|T|
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

            Figure 5: Traffic-Action Extended Community Encoding

   S and T are defined as:

   T     Terminal Action (bit 47): When this bit is set, the traffic
         filtering engine will evaluate any subsequent Flow
         Specifications (as defined by the ordering procedure
         Section 5.1).  If not set, the evaluation of the traffic
         filters stops when this Flow Specification is evaluated.

   S     Sample (bit 46): Enables traffic sampling and logging for this
         Flow Specification (only effective when set).

   Traffic Action Field:  Other Traffic Action Field (see Section 11)
         bits unused in this specification.  These bits MUST be set to 0
         on encoding and MUST be ignored during decoding.

   The use of the Terminal Action (bit 47) may result in more than one
   Flow Specification matching a particular traffic flow.  All the
   Traffic Filtering Actions from these Flow Specifications shall be
   collected and applied.  In case of interfering Traffic Filtering
   Actions, it is an implementation decision which Traffic Filtering
   Actions are selected.  See also Section 7.7.

   Interferes with: No other BGP Flow Specification Traffic Filtering
   Action in this document.

7.4.  RT Redirect (rt-redirect) Sub-Type 0x08

   The redirect Extended Community allows the traffic to be redirected
   to a VRF routing instance that lists the specified route-target in
   its import policy.  If several local instances match this criteria,
   the choice between them is a local matter (for example, the instance
   with the lowest Route Distinguisher value can be elected).

   This Extended Community allows 3 different encodings formats for the
   route-target (type 0x80, 0x81, 0x82).  It uses the same encoding as
   the Route Target Extended Community in Sections 3.1 (type 0x80:
   2-octet AS, 4-octet value), 3.2 (type 0x81: 4-octet IPv4 address,
   2-octet value), and 4 of [RFC4360] and Section 2 of [RFC5668] (type
   0x82: 4-octet AS, 2-octet value) with the high-order octet of the
   Type field 0x80, 0x81, 0x82 respectively and the low-order octet of
   the Type field (Sub-Type) always 0x08.

   Interferes with: No other BGP Flow Specification Traffic Filtering
   Action in this document.

7.5.  Traffic Marking (traffic-marking) Sub-Type 0x09

   The traffic marking Extended Community instructs a system to modify
   the DSCP bits in the IP header (Section 3 of [RFC2474]) of a
   transiting IP packet to the corresponding value encoded in the 6
   least significant bits of the Extended Community value, as shown in
   Figure 6.

   The Extended Community is encoded as follows:

      0                   1                   2                   3
      0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
     |   reserved    |   reserved    |   reserved    |   reserved    |
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
     |   reserved    | r.|    DSCP   |
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

           Figure 6: Traffic Marking Extended Community Encoding

   DSCP:  new DSCP value for the transiting IP packet

   reserved (r):  MUST be set to 0 on encoding and MUST be ignored
         during decoding

   Interferes with: No other BGP Flow Specification Traffic Filtering
   Action in this document.

7.6.  Interaction with Other Filtering Mechanisms in Routers

   Implementations should provide mechanisms that map an arbitrary BGP
   community value (normal or extended) to Traffic Filtering Actions
   that require different mappings on different systems in the network.
   For instance, providing packets with a worse-than-best-effort per-hop
   behavior is a functionality that is likely to be implemented
   differently in different systems and for which no standard behavior
   is currently known.  Rather than attempting to define it here, this
   can be accomplished by mapping a user-defined community value to
   platform-/network-specific behavior via user configuration.

7.7.  Considerations on Traffic Filtering Action Interference

   Since Traffic Filtering Actions are represented as BGP extended
   community values, Traffic Filtering Actions may interfere with each
   other (e.g., there may be more than one conflicting traffic-rate-
   bytes Traffic Filtering Action associated with a single Flow
   Specification).  Traffic Filtering Action interference has no impact
   on BGP propagation of Flow Specifications (all communities are
   propagated according to policies).

   If a Flow Specification associated with interfering Traffic Filtering
   Actions is selected for packet forwarding, it is an implementation
   decision which of the interfering Traffic Filtering Actions are
   selected.  Implementors of this specification SHOULD document the
   behavior of their implementation in such cases.

   Operators are encouraged to make use of the BGP policy framework
   supported by their implementation in order to achieve a predictable
   behavior.  See also Section 12.

8.  Dissemination of Traffic Filtering in BGP/MPLS VPN Networks

   Provider-based Layer 3 VPN networks, such as the ones using a BGP/
   MPLS IP VPN [RFC4364] control plane, may have different traffic
   filtering requirements than Internet service providers.  But also
   Internet service providers may use those VPNs for scenarios like
   having the Internet routing table in a VRF, resulting in the same
   traffic filtering requirements as defined for the global routing
   table environment within this document.  This document defines an
   additional BGP NLRI type (AFI=1, SAFI=134) value, which can be used
   to propagate Flow Specification in a BGP/MPLS VPN environment.

   The NLRI format for this address family consists of a fixed-length
   Route Distinguisher field (8 octets) followed by the Flow
   Specification NLRI value (Section 4.2).  The NLRI length field shall
   include both the 8 octets of the Route Distinguisher as well as the
   subsequent Flow Specification NLRI value.  The resulting encoding is
   shown in Figure 7.

                    +--------------------------------+
                    | length (0xnn or 0xfnnn)        |
                    +--------------------------------+
                    | Route Distinguisher (8 octets) |
                    +--------------------------------+
                    |    NLRI value  (variable)      |
                    +--------------------------------+

                 Figure 7: Flow Specification NLRI for MPLS

   Propagation of this NLRI is controlled by matching Route Target
   extended communities associated with the BGP path advertisement with
   the VRF import policy, using the same mechanism as described in BGP/
   MPLS IP VPNs [RFC4364].

   Flow Specifications received via this NLRI apply only to traffic that
   belongs to the VRF(s) in which it is imported.  By default, traffic
   received from a remote PE is switched via an MPLS forwarding decision
   and is not subject to filtering.

   Contrary to the behavior specified for the non-VPN NLRI, Flow
   Specifications are accepted by default, when received from remote PE
   routers.

   The validation procedure (Section 6) and Traffic Filtering Actions
   (Section 7) are the same as for IPv4.

9.  Traffic Monitoring

   Traffic filtering applications require monitoring and traffic
   statistics facilities.  While this is an implementation specific
   choice, implementations SHOULD provide:

   *  A mechanism to log the packet header of filtered traffic.

   *  A mechanism to count the number of matches for a given Flow
      Specification rule.

10.  Error Handling

   Error handling according to [RFC7606] and [RFC4760] applies to this
   specification.

   This document introduces Traffic Filtering Action Extended
   Communities.  Malformed Traffic Filtering Action Extended Communities
   in the sense of Section 7.14 of [RFC7606] are Extended Community
   values that cannot be decoded according to Section 7 of this
   document.

11.  IANA Considerations

   This section complies with [RFC7153].

11.1.  AFI/SAFI Definitions

   IANA maintains a registry entitled "SAFI Values".  For the purpose of
   this work, IANA has updated the following SAFIs as shown in the table
   below.  (Note: This document obsoletes both [RFC7674] and [RFC5575],
   and all references to those documents have been deleted from the
   registry.)

     +=======+===========================================+===========+
     | Value | Name                                      | Reference |
     +=======+===========================================+===========+
     | 133   | Dissemination of Flow Specification rules | RFC 8955  |
     +-------+-------------------------------------------+-----------+
     | 134   | L3VPN Dissemination of Flow Specification | RFC 8955  |
     |       | rules                                     |           |
     +-------+-------------------------------------------+-----------+

                       Table 9: Registry: SAFI Values

   The above textual changes generalize the definition of the SAFIs
   rather than change its underlying meaning.  Therefore, based on "The
   YANG 1.1 Data Modeling Language" [RFC7950], the above text means that
   the following YANG enums from "Common YANG Data Types for the Routing
   Area" [RFC8294] have had their names and descriptions at
   <https://www.iana.org/assignments/iana-routing-types> changed to:

   <CODE BEGINS>
      enum flow-spec-safi {
             value 133;
             description
               "Dissemination of Flow Specification rules SAFI.";
           }
      enum l3vpn-flow-spec-safi {
             value 134;
             description
               "L3VPN Dissemination of Flow Specification rules SAFI.";
           }
   <CODE ENDS>

   A new revision statement has been added to the module as follows:

   <CODE BEGINS>
      revision 2020-12-31 {
        description "Non-backwards-compatible change of SAFI names
                     (SAFI values 133, 134).";
        reference
          "RFC 8955: Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules.";
     }
   <CODE ENDS>

11.2.  Flow Component Definitions

   A Flow Specification consists of a sequence of flow components, which
   are identified by an 8-bit component type.  IANA has created and
   maintains a registry entitled "Flow Spec Component Types".  IANA has
   updated the reference for this registry to RFC 8955.  Furthermore,
   the references to the values have been updated according to the table
   below (Note: This document obsoletes both [RFC7674] and [RFC5575],
   and all references to those documents have been deleted from the
   registry.)

                +=======+====================+===========+
                | Value | Name               | Reference |
                +=======+====================+===========+
                | 1     | Destination Prefix | RFC 8955  |
                +-------+--------------------+-----------+
                | 2     | Source Prefix      | RFC 8955  |
                +-------+--------------------+-----------+
                | 3     | IP Protocol        | RFC 8955  |
                +-------+--------------------+-----------+
                | 4     | Port               | RFC 8955  |
                +-------+--------------------+-----------+
                | 5     | Destination port   | RFC 8955  |
                +-------+--------------------+-----------+
                | 6     | Source port        | RFC 8955  |
                +-------+--------------------+-----------+
                | 7     | ICMP type          | RFC 8955  |
                +-------+--------------------+-----------+
                | 8     | ICMP code          | RFC 8955  |
                +-------+--------------------+-----------+
                | 9     | TCP flags          | RFC 8955  |
                +-------+--------------------+-----------+
                | 10    | Packet length      | RFC 8955  |
                +-------+--------------------+-----------+
                | 11    | DSCP               | RFC 8955  |
                +-------+--------------------+-----------+
                | 12    | Fragment           | RFC 8955  |
                +-------+--------------------+-----------+

                      Table 10: Registry: Flow Spec
                             Component Types

   In order to manage the limited number space and accommodate several
   usages, the following policies defined by [RFC8126] are used:

                 +==============+========================+
                 | Type Values  | Policy                 |
                 +==============+========================+
                 | 0            | Reserved               |
                 +--------------+------------------------+
                 | [1 .. 127]   | Specification Required |
                 +--------------+------------------------+
                 | [128 .. 254] | Expert Review          |
                 +--------------+------------------------+
                 | 255          | Reserved               |
                 +--------------+------------------------+

                    Table 11: Flow Spec Component Types
                                  Policies

   Guidance for Experts:
      The registration policy for the range 128-254 is Expert Review.
      The experts are expected to check the clarity of purpose and use
      of the requested code points.  The experts must also verify that
      any specification produced in the IETF that requests one of these
      code points has been made available for review by the IDR Working
      Group and that any specification produced outside the IETF does
      not conflict with work that is active or already published within
      the IETF.  It must be pointed out that introducing new component
      types may break interoperability with existing implementations of
      this protocol.

11.3.  Extended Community Flow Specification Actions

   The Extended Community Flow Specification Action types defined in
   this document consist of two parts:

   *  Type (BGP Transitive Extended Community Type)

   *  Sub-Type

   For the type part, IANA maintains a registry entitled "BGP Transitive
   Extended Community Types".  For the purpose of this work (Section 7),
   IANA has updated the references as shown in the table below.  (Note:
   This document obsoletes both [RFC7674] and [RFC5575], and all
   references to those documents have been deleted in the registry.)

       +=======+=======================================+===========+
       | Type  | Name                                  | Reference |
       | Value |                                       |           |
       +=======+=======================================+===========+
       | 0x81  | Generic Transitive Experimental Use   | RFC 8955  |
       |       | Extended Community Part 2 (Sub-Types  |           |
       |       | are defined in the "Generic           |           |
       |       | Transitive Experimental Use Extended  |           |
       |       | Community Part 2 Sub-Types" Registry) |           |
       +-------+---------------------------------------+-----------+
       | 0x82  | Generic Transitive Experimental Use   | RFC 8955  |
       |       | Extended Community Part 3 (Sub-Types  |           |
       |       | are defined in the "Generic           |           |
       |       | Transitive Experimental Use Extended  |           |
       |       | Community Part 3 Sub-Types" Registry) |           |
       +-------+---------------------------------------+-----------+

        Table 12: Registry: BGP Transitive Extended Community Types

   For the sub-type part of the Extended Community Traffic Filtering
   Actions, IANA maintains the following registries.  IANA has updated
   all names and references according to the tables below and assign a
   new value for the "Flow spec traffic-rate-packets" Sub-Type.  (Note:
   This document obsoletes both [RFC7674] and [RFC5575], and all
   references to those documents have been deleted from the registries
   below.)

      +==========+=====================================+===========+
      | Sub-Type | Name                                | Reference |
      | Value    |                                     |           |
      +==========+=====================================+===========+
      | 0x06     | Flow spec traffic-rate-bytes        | RFC 8955  |
      +----------+-------------------------------------+-----------+
      | 0x0c     | Flow spec traffic-rate-packets      | RFC 8955  |
      +----------+-------------------------------------+-----------+
      | 0x07     | Flow spec traffic-action (Use of    | RFC 8955  |
      |          | the "Value" field is defined in the |           |
      |          | "Traffic Action Fields" registry)   |           |
      +----------+-------------------------------------+-----------+
      | 0x08     | Flow spec rt-redirect AS-2octet     | RFC 8955  |
      |          | format                              |           |
      +----------+-------------------------------------+-----------+
      | 0x09     | Flow spec traffic-remarking         | RFC 8955  |
      +----------+-------------------------------------+-----------+

         Table 13: Registry: Generic Transitive Experimental Use
                      Extended Community Sub- Types

    +================+===================================+===========+
    | Sub-Type Value | Name                              | Reference |
    +================+===================================+===========+
    | 0x08           | Flow spec rt-redirect IPv4 format | RFC 8955  |
    +----------------+-----------------------------------+-----------+

         Table 14: Registry: Generic Transitive Experimental Use
                   Extended Community Part 2 Sub-Types

          +================+=======================+===========+
          | Sub-Type Value | Name                  | Reference |
          +================+=======================+===========+
          | 0x08           | Flow spec rt-redirect | RFC 8955  |
          |                | AS-4octet format      |           |
          +----------------+-----------------------+-----------+

                  Table 15: Registry: Generic Transitive
             Experimental Use Extended Community Part 3 Sub-
                                  Types

   Furthermore, IANA has updated the reference for the registries
   "Generic Transitive Experimental Use Extended Community Part 2 Sub-
   Types" and "Generic Transitive Experimental Use Extended Community
   Part 3 Sub-Types" to RFC 8955.

   The "traffic-action" Extended Community (Section 7.3) defined in this
   document has 46 unused bits, which can be used to convey additional
   meaning.  IANA created and maintains a registry entitled "Traffic
   Action Fields".  IANA has updated the reference for this registry to
   RFC 8955.  Furthermore, IANA has updated the references according to
   the table below.  These values should be assigned via IETF Review
   rules only.  (Note: This document obsoletes both [RFC7674] and
   [RFC5575], and all references to those documents have been deleted
   from the registry.)

                   +=====+=================+===========+
                   | Bit | Name            | Reference |
                   +=====+=================+===========+
                   | 47  | Terminal Action | RFC 8955  |
                   +-----+-----------------+-----------+
                   | 46  | Sample          | RFC 8955  |
                   +-----+-----------------+-----------+

                        Table 16: Registry: Traffic
                               Action Fields

12.  Security Considerations

   As long as Flow Specifications are restricted to match the
   corresponding unicast routing paths for the relevant prefixes
   (Section 6), the security characteristics of this proposal are
   equivalent to the existing security properties of BGP unicast
   routing.  Any relaxation of the validation procedure described in
   Section 6 may allow unwanted Flow Specifications to be propagated,
   and thus unwanted Traffic Filtering Actions may be applied to flows.

   Where the above mechanisms are not in place, this could open the door
   to further denial-of-service attacks, such as unwanted traffic
   filtering, remarking, or redirection.

   Deployment of specific relaxations of the validation within an
   administrative boundary of a network are useful in some networks for
   quickly distributing filters to prevent denial-of-service attacks.
   For a network to utilize this relaxation, the BGP policies must
   support additional filtering since the origin AS field is empty.
   Specifications relaxing the validation restrictions MUST contain
   security considerations that provide details on the required
   additional filtering.  For example, the use of origin validation can
   provide enhanced filtering within an AS confederation.

   Inter-provider routing is based on a web of trust.  Neighboring
   autonomous systems are trusted to advertise valid reachability
   information.  If this trust model is violated, a neighboring
   autonomous system may cause a denial-of-service attack by advertising
   reachability information for a given prefix for which it does not
   provide service (unfiltered address space hijack).  Since validation
   of the Flow Specification is tied to the announcement of the best
   unicast route, the failure in the validation of best path route may
   prevent the Flow Specification from being used by a local router.
   Possible mitigations are [RFC6811] and [RFC8205].

   On Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), routes are often exchanged via
   route servers that do not extend the AS_PATH.  In such cases, it is
   not possible to enforce the left-most AS in the AS_PATH to be the
   neighbor AS (the AS of the route server).  Since the validation of
   Flow Specification (Section 6) depends on this, additional care must
   be taken.  It is advised to use a strict inbound route policy in such
   scenarios.

   Enabling firewall-like capabilities in routers without centralized
   management could make certain failures harder to diagnose.  For
   example, it is possible to allow TCP packets to pass between a pair
   of addresses but not ICMP packets.  It is also possible to permit
   packets smaller than 900 or greater than 1000 octets to pass between
   a pair of addresses but not packets whose length is in the range
   900-1000.  Such behavior may be confusing, and these capabilities
   should be used with care whether manually configured or coordinated
   through the protocol extensions described in this document.

   Flow Specification BGP speakers (e.g., automated DDoS controllers)
   not properly programmed, algorithms that are not performing as
   expected, or simply rogue systems may announce unintended Flow
   Specifications, send updates at a high rate, or generate a high
   number of Flow Specifications.  This may stress the receiving
   systems, exceed their capacity, or lead to unwanted Traffic Filtering
   Actions being applied to flows.

   Systems may not be able to locate all header values required to
   identify a packet.  This can be especially problematic in the case of
   fragmented packets that are not the first fragment and thus lack
   upper-layer protocol headers or Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)
   NULL [RFC4303] encryption.

   While the general verification of the Flow Specification NLRI is
   specified in this document (Section 6), the Traffic Filtering Actions
   received by a third party may need custom verification or filtering.
   In particular, all non-traffic-rate actions may allow a third party
   to modify packet forwarding properties and potentially gain access to
   other routing-tables/VPNs or undesired queues.  This can be avoided
   by proper filtering/screening of the Traffic Filtering Action
   communities at network borders and only exposing a predefined subset
   of Traffic Filtering Actions (see Section 7) to third parties.  One
   way to achieve this is by mapping user-defined communities, which can
   be set by the third party, to Traffic Filtering Actions and not
   accepting Traffic Filtering Action extended communities from third
   parties.

   This extension adds additional information to Internet routers.
   These are limited in terms of the maximum number of data elements
   they can hold as well as the number of events they are able to
   process in a given unit of time.  Service providers need to consider
   the maximum capacity of their devices and may need to limit the
   number of Flow Specifications accepted and processed.

13.  References

13.1.  Normative References

   [IEEE.754.1985]
              IEEE, "Standard for Binary Floating-Point Arithmetic",
              IEEE 754-1985, DOI 10.1109/IEEESTD.2019.8766229, August
              1985, <https://doi.org/10.1109/IEEESTD.2019.8766229>.

   [ISO_IEC_9899]
              ISO, "Information technology -- Programming languages --
              C", ISO/IEC 9899:2018, June 2018.

   [RFC0768]  Postel, J., "User Datagram Protocol", STD 6, RFC 768,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC0768, August 1980,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc768>.

   [RFC0791]  Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC0791, September 1981,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc791>.

   [RFC0792]  Postel, J., "Internet Control Message Protocol", STD 5,
              RFC 792, DOI 10.17487/RFC0792, September 1981,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc792>.

   [RFC0793]  Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7,
              RFC 793, DOI 10.17487/RFC0793, September 1981,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc793>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC2474]  Nichols, K., Blake, S., Baker, F., and D. Black,
              "Definition of the Differentiated Services Field (DS
              Field) in the IPv4 and IPv6 Headers", RFC 2474,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2474, December 1998,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2474>.

   [RFC4271]  Rekhter, Y., Ed., Li, T., Ed., and S. Hares, Ed., "A
              Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4271, January 2006,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4271>.

   [RFC4360]  Sangli, S., Tappan, D., and Y. Rekhter, "BGP Extended
              Communities Attribute", RFC 4360, DOI 10.17487/RFC4360,
              February 2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4360>.

   [RFC4364]  Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private
              Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4364, DOI 10.17487/RFC4364, February
              2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4364>.

   [RFC4456]  Bates, T., Chen, E., and R. Chandra, "BGP Route
              Reflection: An Alternative to Full Mesh Internal BGP
              (IBGP)", RFC 4456, DOI 10.17487/RFC4456, April 2006,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4456>.

   [RFC4760]  Bates, T., Chandra, R., Katz, D., and Y. Rekhter,
              "Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP-4", RFC 4760,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4760, January 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4760>.

   [RFC5668]  Rekhter, Y., Sangli, S., and D. Tappan, "4-Octet AS
              Specific BGP Extended Community", RFC 5668,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5668, October 2009,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5668>.

   [RFC7153]  Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "IANA Registries for BGP
              Extended Communities", RFC 7153, DOI 10.17487/RFC7153,
              March 2014, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7153>.

   [RFC7606]  Chen, E., Ed., Scudder, J., Ed., Mohapatra, P., and K.
              Patel, "Revised Error Handling for BGP UPDATE Messages",
              RFC 7606, DOI 10.17487/RFC7606, August 2015,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7606>.

   [RFC8126]  Cotton, M., Leiba, B., and T. Narten, "Guidelines for
              Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26,
              RFC 8126, DOI 10.17487/RFC8126, June 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8126>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

13.2.  Informative References

   [RFC4303]  Kent, S., "IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)",
              RFC 4303, DOI 10.17487/RFC4303, December 2005,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4303>.

   [RFC5575]  Marques, P., Sheth, N., Raszuk, R., Greene, B., Mauch, J.,
              and D. McPherson, "Dissemination of Flow Specification
              Rules", RFC 5575, DOI 10.17487/RFC5575, August 2009,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5575>.

   [RFC6811]  Mohapatra, P., Scudder, J., Ward, D., Bush, R., and R.
              Austein, "BGP Prefix Origin Validation", RFC 6811,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6811, January 2013,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6811>.

   [RFC7674]  Haas, J., Ed., "Clarification of the Flowspec Redirect
              Extended Community", RFC 7674, DOI 10.17487/RFC7674,
              October 2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7674>.

   [RFC7950]  Bjorklund, M., Ed., "The YANG 1.1 Data Modeling Language",
              RFC 7950, DOI 10.17487/RFC7950, August 2016,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7950>.

   [RFC8205]  Lepinski, M., Ed. and K. Sriram, Ed., "BGPsec Protocol
              Specification", RFC 8205, DOI 10.17487/RFC8205, September
              2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8205>.

   [RFC8294]  Liu, X., Qu, Y., Lindem, A., Hopps, C., and L. Berger,
              "Common YANG Data Types for the Routing Area", RFC 8294,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8294, December 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8294>.

   [RFC8956]  Loibl, C., Ed., Raszuk, R., Ed., and S. Hares, Ed.,
              "Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules for IPv6",
              RFC 8956, DOI 10.17487/RFC8956, December 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8956>.

Appendix A.  Example Python code: flow_rule_cmp

   <CODE BEGINS>
   """
   Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as
   authors of the code.  All rights reserved.

   Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
   modification, is permitted pursuant to, and subject to the license
   terms contained in, the Simplified BSD License set forth in Section
   4.c of the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info).
   """

   import itertools
   import collections
   import ipaddress

   EQUAL = 0
   A_HAS_PRECEDENCE = 1
   B_HAS_PRECEDENCE = 2
   IP_DESTINATION = 1
   IP_SOURCE = 2

   FS_component = collections.namedtuple('FS_component',
                                         'component_type op_value')

   class FS_nlri(object):
       """
       FS_nlri class implementation that allows sorting.

       By calling .sort() on an array of FS_nlri objects these will be
       sorted according to the flow_rule_cmp algorithm.

       Example:
       nlri = [ FS_nlri(components=[
                FS_component(component_type=IP_DESTINATION,
                       op_value=ipaddress.ip_network('10.1.0.0/16') ),
                FS_component(component_type=4,
                       op_value=bytearray([0,1,2,3,4,5,6])),
                ]),
                FS_nlri(components=[
                FS_component(component_type=5,
                       op_value=bytearray([0,1,2,3,4,5,6])),
                FS_component(component_type=6,
                       op_value=bytearray([0,1,2,3,4,5,6])),
                ]),
              ]
       nlri.sort() # sorts the array according to the algorithm
       """
       def __init__(self, components = None):
           """
           components: list of type FS_component
           """
           self.components = components

       def __lt__(self, other):
           # use the below algorithm for sorting
           result = flow_rule_cmp(self, other)
           if result == B_HAS_PRECEDENCE:
               return True
           else:
               return False

   def flow_rule_cmp(a, b):
       """
       Example of the flowspec comparison algorithm.
       """
       for comp_a, comp_b in itertools.zip_longest(a.components,
                                              b.components):
           # If a component type does not exist in one rule
           # this rule has lower precedence
           if not comp_a:
               return B_HAS_PRECEDENCE
           if not comp_b:
               return A_HAS_PRECEDENCE
           # Higher precedence for lower component type
           if comp_a.component_type < comp_b.component_type:
               return A_HAS_PRECEDENCE
           if comp_a.component_type > comp_b.component_type:
               return B_HAS_PRECEDENCE
           # component types are equal -> type specific comparison
           if comp_a.component_type in (IP_DESTINATION, IP_SOURCE):
               # assuming comp_a.op_value, comp_b.op_value of
               # type ipaddress.IPv4Network
               if comp_a.op_value.overlaps(comp_b.op_value):
                   # longest prefixlen has precedence
                   if comp_a.op_value.prefixlen > \
                           comp_b.op_value.prefixlen:
                       return A_HAS_PRECEDENCE
                   if comp_a.op_value.prefixlen < \
                           comp_b.op_value.prefixlen:
                       return B_HAS_PRECEDENCE
                   # components equal -> continue with next component
               elif comp_a.op_value > comp_b.op_value:
                   return B_HAS_PRECEDENCE
               elif comp_a.op_value < comp_b.op_value:
                   return A_HAS_PRECEDENCE
           else:
               # assuming comp_a.op_value, comp_b.op_value of type
               # bytearray
               if len(comp_a.op_value) == len(comp_b.op_value):
                   if comp_a.op_value > comp_b.op_value:
                       return B_HAS_PRECEDENCE
                   if comp_a.op_value < comp_b.op_value:
                       return A_HAS_PRECEDENCE
                   # components equal -> continue with next component
               else:
                   common = min(len(comp_a.op_value),
                                len(comp_b.op_value))
                   if comp_a.op_value[:common] > \
                      comp_b.op_value[:common]:
                       return B_HAS_PRECEDENCE
                   elif comp_a.op_value[:common] < \
                           comp_b.op_value[:common]:
                       return A_HAS_PRECEDENCE
                   # the first common bytes match
                   elif len(comp_a.op_value) > len(comp_b.op_value):
                       return A_HAS_PRECEDENCE
                   else:
                       return B_HAS_PRECEDENCE
       return EQUAL
   <CODE ENDS>

Appendix B.  Comparison with RFC 5575

   This document includes numerous editorial changes to [RFC5575].  It
   also completely incorporates the redirect action clarification
   document [RFC7674].  It is recommended to read the entire document.
   The authors, however, want to point out the following technical
   changes to [RFC5575]:

   *  Section 1 introduces the Flow Specification NLRI.  In [RFC5575],
      BGP treats this NLRI as an opaque key to an entry in its
      databases.  This specification has removed all references to an
      opaque key property.  BGP implementations are able to understand
      the NLRI encoding.

   *  Section 4.2.1.1 defines a numeric operator and comparison bit
      combinations.  In [RFC5575], the meaning of those bit combination
      was not explicitly defined and left open to the reader.

   *  Sections 4.2.2.3 - 4.2.2.8, 4.2.2.10, and 4.2.2.11 make use of the
      above numeric operator.  The allowed length of the comparison
      value was not consistently defined in [RFC5575].

   *  Section 7 defines all Traffic Filtering Action Extended
      Communities as transitive Extended Communities.  [RFC5575] defined
      the traffic-rate action to be non-transitive and did not define
      the transitivity of the other Traffic Filtering Action communities
      at all.

   *  Section 7.2 introduces a new Traffic Filtering Action (traffic-
      rate-packets).  This action did not exist in [RFC5575].

   *  Section 7.4 contains the same redirect actions already defined in
      [RFC5575], however, these actions have been renamed to "rt-
      redirect" to make it clearer that the redirection is based on
      route-target.  This section also completely incorporates the
      [RFC7674] clarifications of the Flowspec Redirect Extended
      Community.

   *  Section 7.7 contains general considerations on interfering traffic
      actions.  Section 7.3 also cross-references Section 7.7.
      [RFC5575] did not mention this.

   *  Section 10 contains new error handling.

Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank Yakov Rekhter, Dennis Ferguson, Chris
   Morrow, Charlie Kaufman, and David Smith for their comments on the
   original [RFC5575].  Chaitanya Kodeboyina helped design the flow
   validation procedure, and Steven Lin and Jim Washburn ironed out all
   the details necessary to produce a working implementation in the
   original [RFC5575].

   A packet rate Traffic Filtering Action was also described in a Flow
   Specification extension draft and the authors would like to thank
   Wesley Eddy, Justin Dailey, and Gilbert Clark for their work.

   Additionally, the authors would like to thank Alexander Mayrhofer,
   Nicolas Fevrier, Job Snijders, Jeffrey Haas, and Adam Chappell for
   their comments and review.

Contributors

   Barry Greene, Pedro Marques, Jared Mauch, and Nischal Sheth were
   authors on [RFC5575] and, therefore, are contributing authors on this
   document.

Authors' Addresses

   Christoph Loibl
   next layer Telekom GmbH
   Mariahilfer Guertel 37/7
   1150 Vienna
   Austria

   Phone: +43 664 1176414
   Email: cl@tix.at

   Susan Hares
   Huawei
   7453 Hickory Hill
   Saline, MI 48176
   United States of America

   Email: shares@ndzh.com

   Robert Raszuk
   NTT Network Innovations
   940 Stewart Dr
   Sunnyvale, CA 94085
   United States of America

   Email: robert@raszuk.net

   Danny McPherson
   Verisign
   United States of America

   Email: dmcpherson@verisign.com

   Martin Bacher
   T-Mobile Austria
   Rennweg 97-99
   1030 Vienna
   Austria

   Email: mb.ietf@gmail.com