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RE: Final draft of response to the OIF



Hi Adrian,

I proposed a simple (and I think technically sound) solution to
item #1 and saw no objections, however the answer has not changed.

I do not understand the reason for different encodings for
VC-4 and STS-3c SPE.  I think they should be the same, unless
there is a technical need to distinguish them.

I also do not understand the RCC=1 NCC=1 encoding, since the rule
contained in the current RFC actually makes more sense.  If there is
only
one signal element, there is no contiguous concatenation, by definition.
So I fail to see the usefulness of these encodings.

Regards,
Ben

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ccamp@ops.ietf.org 
> [mailto:owner-ccamp@ops.ietf.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Farrel
> Sent: Friday, August 26, 2005 6:27 AM
> To: ccamp@ops.ietf.org
> Subject: Final draft of response to the OIF
> 
> Thanks to all who have commented so far.
> 
> Here is an updated draft. I plan to send by the end of 
> August, so furhter
> comments should be made quickly.
> 
> Thanks,
> 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.
> 
> We plan to issue a revision to RFC 3946 to make this 
> clarification. The
> text of this clarification still needs to be agreed by the 
> CCAMP working
> group, but the draft revision contains the nodes as updated 
> below with the
> addition of a third note as shown.
> 
>    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 implies a number of contiguous components greater than or
>       equal to 1.
> 
>    Note 3: Following these rules, when requesting a VC-4 signal, the
>       RCC and the NCC values must be set to 0 whereas for an 
> STS-3c SPE
>       signal, the RCC and the NCC values must be set 1. However, if
>       local conditions allow and since the setting of the RCC and NCC
>       values is locally driven, the requesting upstream node MAY set
>       the RCC and NCC values to either SDH or SONET settings without
>       impacting the function. Moreover, the downstream node SHOULD
>       accept the requested values if local conditions allow. If these
>       values can not be supported, the receiver downstream node MUST
>       generate a PathErr/NOTIFICATION message (see Sections 2.2 and
>       2.3, respectively).
> 
> > 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, a 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 but might
> include the toggling of the presence of the RESV_CONFIRM object on the
> Resv message.
> 
> Note that a ResvConf message is not necessarily reliably delivered
> end-to-end. Relying on the receipt of a ResvConf message before doing
> something (e.g. turning on the laser) might be a poor idea. 
> GMPLS uses the
> Administrative Status object and in particular the R-bit in order to
> reliably achieve this function.
> 
> > 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...
> 
>    <Hello Message> ::= <Common Header> [ <INTEGRITY> ]
>                               <HELLO>
> 
> 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
> 
> 
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