Responding to the OIF

Hi,

As Lyndon noted in Paris, the OIF has sent us a communication requesting some guidance on a bunch of questions.

This is to start the business of constructing a reply. thanks to Dimitri for supplying some of this text.

Please send comments and improvements.

Adrian

======

To: Jim Jones, OIF Technical Committee Chair
From: Adrian Farrel and Kireeti Kompella,
WG Co-Chairs for IETF CCAMP
Copy: Alex Zinin and Bill Fenner, IETF Routing Area Directors
Subject: Response to your questions about GMPLS parameters.

Dear Jim,

Thanks for your correspondence about the questions with respect to GMPLS parameters that arose before and during your interoperability testing. CCAMP is pleased to receive such questions and is glad to have the opportunity to explain the intended operation of the GMPLS protocols.

Much of the material supplied below can be simply extracted from the relevant RFCs.

> 1. Use of the NCC and RCC fields for STS-3c/VC-4 connections
>
> During OIF testing it was noted that some ambiguity exists in the
> specification of encoding of NCC, RCC and NVC for certain types of
> connections: NCC and RCC for an STS-3c/VC-4 connection can be set to 0 or
> to 1 depending on which example of RFC 3946 is followed.
>
> Clarification is requested from IETF CCAMP as to which setting is
> considered correct, or if both settings should be accepted (this procedure
> was used during testing at Supercomm).

This question about RFC 3946 was raised informally on the CCAMP mailing list at the start of March this year.

Even when the signal Type value is the same (i.e. value 6) the NCC, RCC and NVC values depend on the specific signal being requested.

From the examples in the annex we have...

   A VC-4 signal is formed by applying the following
   settings to a VC-4 Elementary Signal.
      RCC = 0
      NCC = 0
      NVC = 0
      MT = 1
      T   = 0

   An STS-3c SPE signal is formed by applying the following
   settings to an STS-3c SPE Elementary Signal.
      RCC = 1 (standard contiguous concatenation)
      NCC = 1
      NVC = 0
      MT = 1
      T   = 0

Your question probably arises from the two notes and subsequent paragraph in section 2.1 or RFC 3946. Here it says...

   Note 1: when requesting a SONET STS-Nc SPE with N=3*X, the
      Elementary Signal to use must always be an STS-3c_SPE signal type
      and the value of NCC must always be equal to X. This allows also
      facilitating the interworking between SONET and SDH. In
      particular, it means that the contiguous concatenation of three
      STS-1 SPEs can not be requested because according to this
      specification, this type of signal must be coded using the STS-3c
      SPE signal type.

   Note 2: when requesting a transparent STS-N/STM-N signal
      limited to a single contiguously concatenated STS-Nc_SPE/VC-4-Nc,
      the signal type must be STS-N/STM-N, RCC with flag 1 and NCC set
      to 1.

   The NCC value must be consistent with the type of contiguous
   concatenation being requested in the RCC field. In particular, this
   field is irrelevant if no contiguous concatenation is requested (RCC
   = 0), in that case it must be set to zero when sent, and should be
   ignored when received. A RCC value different from 0 must imply a
   number of contiguous components greater than 1.

We believe that this final sentence should read "greater than or equal to 1," and that this interpretation resolves all of your issues and makes the text consistent with the examples.

> 2. Setting of NVC for VCAT connections
>
> It was also noted that the setting of NVC may be somewhat ambiguous for
> the case where diverse connections are used within a single VCAT group.
> Each individual RSVP session controls a single connection, but the
> connection is part of a larger VCAT group and carries VCAT encoding of the
> H4 byte. Clarification is requested from IETF CCAMP and ITU-T Q.14/15 as
> to the correct setting of NVC for this case (0 or 1?). It should be noted
> that this case may occur with a VCAT group with only a single initial
> member, and that the NVC may provide an indication that VCAT encoding of
> the H4 byte is in use for the connection.

A VCn-Xv group split into X components requires each of its component to be signaled with the NVC value set to 1. This setting is regardless of how the components are established.

> 3. Length of the Interface Switching Capability TLV
>
> Although the Interface Switching Capability TLV defined by CCAMP for
> SONET/SDH connections was not used for the testing, it was noted that the
> text describing the length of the Interface Switching Capability TLV
> defined in draft-ietf-ccamp-ospf-gmpls-extensions-12.txt may be slightly
> ambiguous due to the use of padding bytes.
>
> RFC 3630 states that "The TLV is padded to four-octet alignment; padding
> is not included in the length field (so a three octet value would have a
> length of three, but the total size of the TLV would be eight octets)."

Yes. Section 2.3.2 of RFC3630 gives a definitive statement of the meaning of the length field and the use of padding, and provides an example.

> Reading of the encoding in draft-ietf-ccamp-ospf-gmpls-extensions-12.txt
> specifies that the length of the TLV for TDM is 41 bytes plus 3 bytes of
> padding, and should be given in the length field as 41 bytes rather than
> 44. OIF requests verification of this interpretation from the experts in
> IETF CCAMP group.

Note that the Interface Switching Capability Descriptor defined in draft-ietf-ccamp-ospf-gmpls-extensions-12.txt is a sub-TLV of the Link TLV. Sub-TLVs and TLVs follow the same encoding rules.

The ISCD TLV for TDM contains the following fields...

type 2 bytes

length 2 bytes

---

switch cap 1 byte

encoding 1 byte

reserve 2 bytes

LSP b/w 0 4 bytes

LSP b/w 1 4 bytes

LSP b/w 2 4 bytes

LSP b/w 3 4 bytes

LSP b/w 4 4 bytes

LSP b/w 5 4 bytes

LSP b/w 6 4 bytes

LSP b/w 7 4 bytes

min b/w 4 bytes

indication 1 byte
==

41 bytes

We presume that your question relates to whether the 3-byte field shown as "padding" in the TDM-specific figure on page 6 of draft-ietf-ccamp-ospf-gmpls-extensions-12.txt is an implicit or an explicit field.

It is an implicit field, and should not be included in the length of the TLV.

Nevertheless, we take this opportunity to remind the OIF that implementations of GMPLS protocols should be conservative in what they send and liberal in what they receive. Thus, an implementation that receives a TDM ISCD TLV with length 44 should not reject the TLV for this reason. It should parse the TLV according to the defined fields and skip the final three bytes. Thus, it should not affect a receiving implementation if the sending implementation has treated the "padding" field as implicit or explicit. In the event that a receiving implementation rejected such a TLV on grounds of the value contained in the length field being too large, the fault would lie with the receiving implementation not the sending implementation.

> 4. Use of ADMIN_STATUS in an initial PATH message
>
> Some implementations sent an ADMIN_STATUS object with no flags set in the
> initial PATH message, i.e., when no status change was being requested.
> Although this did not serve any particular function, it was believed that
> this could be accepted as RFC3473, sect. 7.2 (page 18) states:
>
> "The absence of the object is equivalent to receiving an object containing
> values all set to zero (0)."
>
> It was our interpretation based on this text that a node should accept an
> ADMIN_STATUS object with no flags set in the same way as if the object was
> missing. Comment on this interpretation is welcome.

The effect of the meaning is as you state, but the intention of the meaning is reversed. That is, an implementation should accept the absence of the ADMIN_STATUS object in the same way as if the object was present with no flags set. That is, the default behavior is to consider the ADMIN_STATUS object as a standard part of the processing.

We note from your first paragraph that you assume that the ADMIN_STATUS object is used to change the status of the LSP. This is a misinterpretation - it is used to control the status of the LSP. Thus, if there is no change to the status of an LSP, refresh messages must continue to carry the ADMIN_STATUS object with the same bit setting.

In this way, it is not possible to "drop" the ADMIN_STATUS object without having the same meaning as transmitting the object with all bits cleared.

> 5. Handling of multiple received ResvConf Request objects
>
> When a connection desires a confirmation that the service (i.e.
> connection) requested is in place, a RESV_CONF_REQ object is included in
> the RESV message. As this object is received by the remote end of the
> reservation, it will send a RESV_CONF message back to the requester.
>
> However, it is unclear whether it is necessary to send a RESV_CONF message
> when the RSVP connection state is refreshed by subsequent RESV. This
> becomes potentially burdensome, especially when the reservation is being
> rapidly refreshed. Therefore we ask: should the remote end send a
> RESV_CONF message for subsequent RESV messages that still include the
> RESV_CONF_REQ object? Or is it required that the requestor of the
> reservation remove the RESV_CONF_REQ object to prevent the generation of
> further RESV_CONF messages? Comment on this issue from IETF CCAMP is
> requested.

It is fundamental to the implementation of RSVP-TE that there is a good understanding of the distinction between a trigger message and a refresh message. This can be achieved by reading section 1.1 of RFC2961.

Following this understanding, you will note that a refresh message does not cause any processing to be performed at the LSR that receives it (in this case the ingress). You will also note that refresh processing is not end-to-end as implied in your text, but is hop-by-hop.

Thus, an downstream LSR that wishes to trigger a new ResvConf message must make a specific change to the content of the Resv message that it sends in order to cause a trigger message to be propagated through the network to the ingress LSR. Such processing is implementation specific.

> 6. Symmetry of Refresh Reduction usage
>
> During interop testing, we ran into a conflict caused by varying
> interpretations of RFC2961, regarding the use of SRefresh messages and the
> Refresh Reduction capabilities of the two ends of a given link. One
> interpretation of RFC2961 indicates that setting the Refresh Reduction
> Capability flag in the RSVP header indicates that that interface shall be
> capable of receiving messages related to Refresh Reduction - including the
> SRefresh message. This would be true even if the other end of the link for
> that interface were NOT indicating Refresh Reduction Capability, since the
> RFC makes no statement about symmetry in this matter.
>
> Another interpretation is that both ends of an interface must indicate
> Refresh Reduction Capability before either end can use such messages, i.e,
> use of Refresh Reduction on a link is symmetric.
>
> Comment from CCAMP WG on the correct interpretation is requested.

We are confused by your question.

You correctly state that the use of the refresh-reduction-capable bit indicates the ability of an LSR to support the receipt of refresh reduction options and messages. To quote from section 2 of RFC2961...

           When set, indicates that this node is willing and capable of
           receiving all the messages and objects described in this
           document. This includes the Bundle message described in
           Section 3, the MESSAGE_ID objects and Ack messages described
           in Section 4, and the MESSAGE_ID LIST objects and Srefresh
           message described in Section 5. This bit is meaningful only
           between RSVP neighbors.
This makes no statement about whether the LSR intends to use these options when communicating with another LSR.

However, you will note that some refresh reduction procedures require that a message is sent and response returned. In order to make use of the response, the receiver must be capable of receiving and processing the response. Thus, it would be usual for an LSR that is capable of sending refresh reduction options and messages to also set the refresh-reduction-capable bit.

In summary:

- An LSR must not send refresh reduction options or messages

to an LSR that is not setting the refresh-reduction-capable

bit.

- An LSR may send refresh reduction options or messages

to an LSR that is setting the refresh-reduction-capable bit.

- An LSR that wishes to successfully use responded refresh

reduction options or messages should set the refresh-

reduction-capable bit.

Note, finally, that section 2 of RFC 2961 states that "When it is not known if a next hop supports the extension, standard Path and Resv message based refreshes MUST be used."

> 7. Sending of ACKs bundled with the RSVP HELLO
>
> During interop testing, it was observed that Message Acks were piggybacked
> onto RSVP Hello messages, when the receiving end was not using the Hello
> protocol. In this situation, the incoming Hello's were discarded and the
> Acks were lost.
>
> We believe that Message Acks should only be piggybacked onto mandatory
> messages, and not on Hello messages because of this problem. Comment on
> this interpretation is requested.

You use of the terms "bundled" and "piggybacked" are contradictory.

"Bundled" implies the use of the Bundle message.

RFC 2961 states...

A sub-message MAY be any message type except for another

Bundle message.

Thus, Ack messages may be bundled with other messages. (Although one might consider this perverse since the Ack message is only introduced to handle the case when the Ac/Nack objects have no other message on which they can be carried.)

Further, RFC 3209 states...

A Hello message may be included
as a sub-message within a bundle message.

Therefore, it acceptable for a Ack and Hello messages to be bundled together.

The processing rules (RFC 29610 for Bundled messages are such that each sub-message is processed in its own right, and the non-support/non-use of Hello messages should not impact the processing of other messages.

On the other hand, "piggybacked" implies the use of the Ack/Nack objects within a Hello message.

Section 4.1 of RFC2961 states that Ack/Nack objects may be included in the "standard" RSVP messages, and shows where they are placed. However, RFC 3209 defines the Hello message as not including the Ack/Nack objects...

Since RFC 3209 post-dates RFC 2961, this definition is definitive and the Ack/Nack objects should not be present on the Hello message.

Give that section 5.3 of RFC 3209 states...

   The Hello Message is completely OPTIONAL. All messages may be
   ignored by nodes which do not wish to participate in Hello message
   processing.

...it is not particularly important what the message format rules are. An implementation that chooses to place an Ack/Nack object in a Hello message knows that the object might be discarded unprocessed.

> 8. TSPEC format to be used for Ethernet connections

The CCAMP working group is currently discussing the use of GMPLS for control of Ethernet devices. We will respond to this point in a separate email.

Best regards,

Adrian Farrel

Kireeti Kompella