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Internet Draft Cengiz Alaettinoglu Expires May 25, 1997 USC/ISI draft-ietf-rps-rpsl-00.txt Tony Bates Cisco Systems Elise Gerich At Home Network Daniel Karrenberg RIPE Marten Terpstra Bay Networks Curtis Villamizar ANS November 25, 1996 Routing Policy Specification Language (RPSL) Status of this Memo This Internet Draft is the reference document for Routing Policy Specification Language (RPSL). RPSL allows the specification of routing policies at high level; for example at the Autonomous System (AS) level. At the same time, policies can be specified with sufficient detail in RPSL so that low level router configurations can be generated from them. RPSL is extensible; new routing protocols and new protocol features can be introduced at any time. This document is an Internet Draft, and can be found as draft-ietf-rps-rpsl- 00.txt in any standard internet drafts repository. Internet Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its Areas, and its Working Groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet Drafts. Internet Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months. Internet Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is not appropriate to use Internet Drafts as reference material, or to cite them other than as a ``working draft'' or ``work in progress.'' Please check the I-D abstract listing contained in each Internet Draft directory to learn the current status of this or any other Internet Draft. Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 1 Introduction This Internet Draft is the reference document for Routing Policy Specification Language (RPSL). RPSL allows the specification of routing policies at high level; for example at the Autonomous System (AS) level. At the same time, policies can be specified with sufficient detail in RPSL so that low level router configurations can be generated from them. RPSL is extensible; new routing protocols and new protocol features can be introduced at any time. RIPE-81 [4] was the first language deployed in the Internet for specifying routing policies. It was later replaced by another language called RIPE-181 [3]. There are limitations in the types of policies that can be described by RIPE-181 and the limitations became evident when several enterprises tried to use RIPE-181 to describe their routing policies. RPSL addresses RIPE-181's limitations. RPSL is object oriented; that is, objects contain pieces of policy and administrative information. These objects are registered in the Internet Routing Registry (IRR) by the authorized organizations. The registration process is not within the scope of this document. Please refer to [1]. In the following sections, we present the classes that are used to define various policy and administrative objects. The mntner class defines entities authorized to add, delete and modify a set of objects. The person class describes technical and administrative contact personnel. Autonomous systems (ASes) are specified using the aut-num class. Routes are specified using the route class. Sets of ASes and routes can be defined using the as-set and route-set classes. The dictionary class provides the extensibility to the language. The inet-rtr class is used to specify routers. The reader of this document is expected to be familiar with BGP [12] and interAS routing policies. This document is not a tutorial on RPSL, nor on policy routing. Please refer to applications document for a tutorial on RPSL[2]. 2 RPSL Names, Reserved Words, and Representation Each class has a set of attributes which store a piece of information about the objects of the class. Attributes can be mandatory or optional: A mandatory attribute has to be defined for all objects of the class; optional attributes can be skipped. Attributes can also be single or multiple valued. Each object is uniquely identified by a set of attributes, referred to as the class ``key''. The value of an attribute has a type. The following types are most widely Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 2] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 used: <object-name>Many objects in RPSL have a name. An <object-name> is made up of letters, digits, the character underscore ``_'', and the character hyphen ``-''; the first character of a name must be a letter, and the last character of a name must be a letter or a digit. Names are case insensitive. The following words are reserved by RPSL, and they can not be used as names: any as-any rs-any peeras and or not atomic from to at action accept announce networks Names starting with certain prefixes are reserved for certain object types. Names starting with ``as-'' are reserved for as set names. Names starting with ``rs-'' are reserved for route set names. <as-number>An AS number x is represented as the string ``ASx''. That is, the AS 226 is represented as AS226. <ip-address>An IP address is represented as a sequence of four integers in the range from 0 to 255 separated by the character dot ``.''. For example, 128.9.128.5 represents a valid IP address. <address-prefix>An address prefix is represented as an IP address followed by the character slash ``/'' followed by an integer in the range from 0 to 32. The following are valid address prefixes: 128.9.128.5/32, 128.9.0.0/16, 0.0.0.0/0; and the following address prefixes are invalid: 0/0, 128.9/16 since 0 or 128.9 are not strings containing four integers. <date>A date is represented as an eight digit integer of the form YYYYMMDD where YYYY represents the year, MM represents the month of the year (01 through 12), and DD represents the day of the month (01 through 31). For example, June 24, 1996 is represented as 19960624. <email-address>is as described in RFC-822[5]. <dns-name>is as described in RFC-1034[10]. <person>is either a full name of a person or a uniquely assigned NIC-handle. Its syntax has the following form: <firstname> [<initials>] <lastname> | <nic-handle> E.g. John E Doe Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 3] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 JED31 A NIC handle is an identifier used by INTERNIC to unambiguously refer to people. <free-form>is a sequence of ASCII characters. <X-object-name>is a name of an object of type X. That is <mntner-object- name> is a name of an mntner object. <registry-name>is a name of an IRR registry. The routing registries are listed in Appendix A. A value of an attribute may also be a lists of one of these types. A list is represented by separating the list members by commas ``,''. For example, ``AS1, AS2, AS3, AS4'' is a list of AS numbers. Note that being list valued and being multiple valued are orthogonal. A multiple valued attribute has more than one value each of which may or may not be a list depending on the attribute. On the other hand a single valued attribute may have a list value. An RPSL object is textually represented as a list of attribute-value pairs. Each attribute-value pair is written on a separate line. The attribute name starts at column 0, followed by character ``:'' and followed by the value of the attribute. The object's representation ends when a blank line is encountered. An attribute's value can be split over multiple lines, by starting the continuation lines with a white-space (`` '' or tab) character. The order of attribute-value pairs is significant, hence attribute-value pairs can not be reordered. An object's description may contain comments. A comment can be anywhere in an object's definition except for column 0, it starts at the first ``#'' character on a line and ends at the first end-of-line character. White space characters can be used to improve readability. 3 mntner Class The mntner class defines entities that can create, delete and update RPSL objects. A provider, before he/she can create any RPSL object, first needs to create a mntner object. The attributes of the mntner class are shown in Figure 1. A more complete description of mntner class can be found in [7]. Here, we summarize the mntner class for completeness. The mntner attribute is mandatory and is the class key attribute. Its value is an RPSL name. The auth attribute specifies the scheme that will be used to identify and authenticate update requests from this maintainer. It has Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 4] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 Attribute Value Type mntner <object-name> mandatory, single-valued, class key descr <free-form> mandatory, single-valued auth see description in text mandatory, multi-valued upd-to <email-address> mandatory, multi-valued mnt-nfy <email-address> optional, multi-valued tech-c <person> mandatory, multi-valued admin-c <person> mandatory, multi-valued remarks <free-form> optional, multi-valued notify <email-address> optional, multi-valued mnt-by <mntner-object-name> mandatory, multi-valued changed <email-address> <date> mandatory, multi-valued source <registry-name> mandatory, single-valued Figure 1: mntner Class Attributes the following syntax: auth: <scheme-id> <auth-info> E.g. auth: NONE auth: CRYPT-PW dhjsdfhruewf auth: MAIL-FROM .*@ripe\.net The <scheme-id>'s currently defined are: NONE, MAIL-FROM and CRYPT-PW. The <auth-info> is additional information required by a particular scheme: in the case of MAIL-FROM, it is a regular expression matching valid email addresses; in the case of CRYPT-PW, it is a password in UNIX crypt format. If multiple auth attributes are specified, an update request satisfying any one of them is authenticated to be from the maintainer. The upd-to attribute is an email address. On an unauthorized update attempt of an object maintained by this maintainer, an email message will be sent to this address. The mnt-nfy attribute is an email address. A notification message will be forwarded to this email address whenever an object maintained by this maintainer is added, changed or deleted. The descr attribute is a short, free-form textual description of the object. The tech-c attribute is a technical contact person. This is someone to be contacted for technical problems such as misconfiguration. The admin-c attribute is an administrative contact person. The remarks attribute is a free text explanation or clarification. The notify attribute is an email address to which notifications of changes to this object should be sent. The mnt-by attribute is a mntner object name. The authorization for changes Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 5] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 to this object is governed by that maintainer object. The changed attribute documents who last changed this object, and when this change was made. Its syntax has the following form: changed: <email-address> <YYYYMMDD> E.g. changed: johndoe@terabit-labs.nn 19900401 The <email-address> identifies the person who made the last change. <YYYYMMDD> is the date of the change. The source attribute specifies the registry where the object is registered. The descr, tech-c, admin-c, remarks, notify, mnt-by, changed and source attributes are attributes of all RPSL classes. We do not further discuss them in other sections. 4 person Class A person class is used to describe information about people. Even though it does not describe routing policy, we still describe it here briefly since many policy objects make reference to person objects. The details of the person class can be found in Reference [9]. The attributes of the person class are shown in Figure 2. The person attribute is the full name of the person. The phone and the fax-no attributes have the following syntax: phone: +<country-code> <city> <subscriber> [ext. <extension>] E.g.: phone: +31 20 12334676 phone: +44 123 987654 ext. 4711 5 route Class Each interAS route originated by an AS is specified using a route object. The attributes of the route class are shown in Figure 3. The route attribute is the address prefix of the route and the origin attribute is the AS number of the AS that originates the route into the interAS routing system. The route and origin attribute pair is the class key. Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 6] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 Attribute Value Type person <person> mandatory, single-valued, class key address <free-form> mandatory, multi-valued phone see description in text mandatory, multi-valued fax-no same as phone optional, multi-valued e-mail <email-address> mandatory, multi-valued nic-hdl see description in text optional, single-valued Figure 2: person Class Attributes Attribute Value Type route <address-prefix> mandatory, single-valued, class key origin <as-number> mandatory, single-valued, class key withdrawn <date> optional, single-valued member-of <route-set-object-name> optional, single-valued Section 6 inject-at see Section 9 optional, multi-valued aggregate-by see Section 9 optional, single-valued export-components see Section 9 optional, single-valued holes see Section 9 optional, single-valued Figure 3: route Class Attributes The Figure 4 shows examples of four route objects. Note that the last two route objects have the same address prefix, namely 128.8.0.0/16. However, they are different route objects since they are originated by different ASes (i.e. they have different keys). route:128.9.0.0/16 origin: AS226 route: 128.99.0.0/16 origin: AS226 route: 128.8.0.0/16 origin: AS1 route: 128.8.0.0/16 origin: AS2 withdrawn: 19960624 Figure 4: Route Objects Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 7] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 The withdrawn attribute, if present, signifies that the originator AS no longer originates this address prefix in the Internet. Its value is a date indicating the date of withdrawal. In Figure 4, the last route object is withdrawn (i.e. no longer originated by AS2) on June 24, 1996. 6 Set Classes To specify policies, it is often useful to define sets of objects. For this purpose we define two classes route-set and as-set. These classes define a named set. The members of these sets can be specified by either explicitly listing them in the set object's definition, or implicitly by having route and aut-num objects refer to the set name in their definitions, or a combination of both methods. 6.1 route-set Class The attributes of the route-set class are shown in Figure 5. The route-set attribute defines the name of the set. It is an RPSL name that starts with ``rs-''. The members attribute lists the members of the set. The members attribute is a list of address prefixes or other route-set names. Attribute Value Type route-set <object-name> mandatory, single-valued, class key members list of <address-prefixes> optional, single-valued members-by-referral list of <mntner-object-names> optional, single-valued Figure 5: route-set Class Attributes Figure 6 presents some example route-set objects. The set rs-foo contains two address prefixes, namely 128.9.0.0/16 and 128.9.0.0/16. The set rs-bar contains the members of the set rs-foo and the address prefix 128.7.0.0/16. The set rs-empty contains no members. The members-by-referral attribute is a list of maintainer names or the keyword ANY. If this attribute is used, the route set also includes those address prefixes whose route objects are registered by one of these maintainers and whose member-of attribute refers to the name of this route set. If the value of a members-by-referral attribute is ANY, any route object referring to the route set name is a member. If the members-by-referral attribute is missing, only the address prefixes listed in the members attribute are members of the set. Figure 7 presents example route-set objects that use the members-by-referral Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 8] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 route-set: rs-foo members: 128.9.0.0/16, 128.9.0.0/24 route-set: rs-bar members: 128.7.0.0/16, rs-foo route-set: rs-empty Figure 6: route-set Objects route-set: rs-foo members-by-referral: MNTR-ME, MNTR-YOU route-set: rs-bar members: 128.7.0.0/16 members-by-referral: MNTR-YOU route: 128.9.0.0/16 origin: AS1 member-of: rs-foo mnt-by: MNTR-ME route: 128.8.0.0/16 origin: AS2 member-of: rs-foo, rs-bar mnt-by: MNTR-YOU Figure 7: route-set objects. attribute. The set rs-foo contains two address prefixes, namely 128.8.0.0/16 and 128.9.0.0/16 since the route objects for 128.8.0.0/16 and 128.9.0.0/16 refer to the set name rs-foo in their member-of attribute. The set rs-bar contains the address prefixes 128.7.0.0/16 and 128.8.0.0/16. The route 128.7.0.0/16 is explicitly listed in the members attribute of rs-bar, and the route object for 128.8.0.0/16 refer to the set name rs-bar in its member-of attribute. 6.2 as-set Class The attributes of the as-set class are shown in Figure 8. The as-set attribute defines the name of the set. It is an RPSL name that starts with ``as-''. The members attribute lists the members of the set. The members attribute is a list of AS numbers, or other as-set names. Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 9] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 Attribute Value Type as-set <object-name> mandatory, single-valued, class key members list of <address-prefixes> optional, single-valued members-by-referral list of <mntner-object-names> optional, single-valued Figure 8: as-set Class Attributes Figure 9 presents two as-set objects. The set as-foo contains two ASes, namely AS1 and AS2. The set as-bar contains the members of the set as-foo and AS3, that is it contains AS1, AS2, AS3. as-set: as-foo as-set: as-bar members: AS1, AS2 members: AS3, as-foo Figure 9: as-set objects. The members-by-referral attribute is a list of maintainer names or the keyword ANY. If this attribute is used, the AS set also includes those ASes whose aut-num objects are registered by one of these maintainers and whose member-of attribute refers to the name of this AS set. If the value of a members-by-referral attribute is ANY, any AS object referring to the AS set is a member of the set. If the members-by-referral attribute is missing, only the ASes listed in the members attribute are members of the set. as-set: as-foo members: AS1, AS2 members-by-referral: MNTR-ME aut-num: AS3 aut-num: AS4 member-of: as-foo member-of: as-foo mnt-by: MNTR-ME mnt-by: MNTR-OTHER Figure 10: as-set objects. Figure 10 presents an example as-set object that uses the members-by- referral attribute. The set as-foo contains AS1, AS2 and AS3. AS4 is not a member of the set as-foo even though the aut-num object references as-foo. This is because MNTR-OTHER is not listed in the as-foo's members-by-referral attribute. Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 10] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 6.3 Predefined Set Objects In a context that expects a route set (e.g. members attribute of the route-set class), an AS number ASx defines the set of routes that are originated by ASx; and an as-set AS-X defines the set of routes that are originated by the ASes in AS-X. A route p is said to be originated by ASx if there is a route object for p with ASx as the value of the origin attribute. For example, in Figure 11, the route set rs-special contains 128.9.0.0/16, routes of AS1 and AS2, and routes of the ASes in AS set AS-FOO. route-set: rs-special members: 128.9.0.0/16, AS1, AS2, AS-FOO Figure 11: Use of AS numbers and AS sets in route sets. The keyword rs-any defines the set of all routes registered in IRR. The keyword as-any defines the set of all ASes registered in IRR. 6.4 Splitting the set name space Set names can be hierarchical. A hierarchical set name is a sequence of set names and AS numbers separated by colons ``:''. For example, the following names are valid: AS1:AS-CUSTOMERS, AS1:RS-EXCEPTIONS, AS1:RS-EXPORT:AS2, RS-EXCEPTIONS:RS-BOGUS. All set names in an hierarchical as-set name should start with ``as-''; and all set names in an hierarchical route-set name should start with ``rs-''. A set object with name X1:...:Xn-1:Xn can only be created by the maintainer of the object with name X1:...:Xn-1. That is, only the maintainer of AS1 can create a set with name AS1:AS-FOO; and only the maintainer of AS1:AS-FOO can create a set with name AS1:AS-FOO:AS-BAR. 7 aut-num Class ASes are specified using the aut-num class. The attributes of the aut-num class are shown in Figure 12. The value of the aut-num attribute is the AS number of the AS described by this object. The as-name attribute is a symbolic name (in RPSL name syntax) of the AS. The import, export and default routing policies of the AS are specified using as-in, as-out and default attributes respectively. igp-to-egp and egp-to-igp attributes are used to specify how routes are injected to and from the IGP protocol. Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 11] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 Attribute Value Type aut-num <as-number> mandatory, single-valued, class key as-name <object-name> mandatory, single-valued member-of <as-set-object-name> optional, single-valued as-in see Section 7.1 optional, multi valued as-out see Section 7.2 optional, multi valued default see Section 7.3 optional, multi valued igp-to-egp see Section 7.4 optional, multi valued egp-to-igp see Section 7.4 optional, multi valued Figure 12: aut-num Class Attributes 7.1 as-in Attribute: Import Policy Specification ---------------------- ---------------------- | 7.7.7.1 |-------| |-------| 7.7.7.2 | | | ======== | | | AS1 | EX1 |-------| 7.7.7.3 AS2 | | | | | | 9.9.9.1 |------ ------| 9.9.9.2 | ---------------------- | | ---------------------- =========== | EX2 ---------------------- | | 9.9.9.3 |--------- | | | AS3 | ---------------------- Figure 13: Example topology consisting of three ASes, AS1, AS2, and AS3; two exchange points, EX1 and EX2; and six routers. A typical interconnection of ASes is shown in Figure 13. In this example topology, there are three ASes, AS1, AS2, and AS3; two exchange points, EX1 and EX2; and six routers. Routers connected to the same exchange point peer with each other, i.e. open a connection for exchanging routing information. Each router would export a subset of the routes it has to its peer routers. Peer routers would import a subset of these routes. A router while importing routes would set some route attributes. For example, AS1 can assign higher preference values to the routes it imports from AS2 so that it prefers AS2 over AS3. While exporting routes, a router may also set some route attributes in order to affect route selection by its peers. For example, AS2 may set the MULTI-EXIT-DISCRIMINATOR BGP attribute so that Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 12] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 AS1 prefers to use the router 9.9.9.2. Most interAS policies are specified by specifying what route subsets can be imported or exported, and how the various route attributes are set and used. In RPSL, an import policy is divided into import policy expressions. Each import policy expression is specified using an as-in attribute. The as-in attribute has the following syntax: as-in: from <peering-1> [action <action-1>] . . . from <peering-N> [action <action-N>] accept <filter> The action specification is optional. The semantics are as follows: the set of routes that are matched by <filter> are imported in all the peerings specified; while importing routes at <peering-M> <action-M> is executed to set the attributes. E.g. aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 action pref = 1 accept { 128.9.0.0/16 } This example states that the route 128.9.0.0/16 is accepted from AS2 with preference 1. In the next few subsections, we will describe how peerings, actions and filters are specified. 7.1.1 Peering Specification Our example above used an AS number to specify peerings. The peerings can be specified at different granularities. The syntax of a peering specification is as follows: <peer-as> [<peer-router>] [at <local-router>] | <as-set> [at <local-router>] where <local-router> and <peer-router> are IP addresses of routers, <peer-as> is an AS number, and <as-set> is an AS set name. <peer-as> must be the AS number of <peer-router>. Both <local-router> and <peer-router> are optional. We first describe the semantics using the first form. If both <local-router> and <peer-router> are specified, this peering specification identifies only the peering between these two routers. If only <local-router> is specified, this peering specification identifies all the peerings between <local-router> and any of its peer routers in Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 13] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 <peer-as>. If only <peer-router> is specified, this peering specification identifies all the peerings between any router in the local AS and <peer-router>. If neither <local-router> nor <peer-router> is specified, this peering specification identifies all the peerings between any router in the local AS and any router in <peer-as>. If the <as-set> form is used, the peering specification identifies all the peerings between <local-router> and any of its peer routers in one of the ASes in <as-set>. If <local-router> is not specified, the peering specification identifies all the peerings between any router in the local AS and any of its peer routers in one of the ASes in <as-set>. We next give examples. Consider the topology of Figure 13 where AS1 has two routers 7.7.7.1 and 9.9.9.1; AS2 has three routers 7.7.7.2, 7.7.7.3 and 9.9.9.2; AS3 has one router 9.9.9.3. 7.7.7.1, 7.7.7.2 and 7.7.7.3 peer with each other; 9.9.9.1, 9.9.9.2 and 9.9.9.3 peer with each other. In example (1) below 7.7.7.1 imports 128.9.0.0/16 from 7.7.7.2. (1) aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 7.7.7.2 at 7.7.7.1 accept { 128.9.0.0/16 } (2) aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 at 7.7.7.1 accept { 128.9.0.0/16 } (3) aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 accept { 128.9.0.0/16 } (4) as-set: AS-FOO members: AS2, AS3 aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS-FOO at 9.9.9.1 accept { 128.9.0.0/16 } (5) aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS-FOO accept { 128.9.0.0/16 } (6) aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 at 9.9.9.1 accept { 128.9.0.0/16 } as-in: from AS3 at 9.9.9.1 accept { 128.9.0.0/16 } (7) aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 accept { 128.9.0.0/16 } as-in: from AS3 accept { 128.9.0.0/16 } In example (2), 7.7.7.1 imports 128.9.0.0/16 from 7.7.7.2 and 7.7.7.3. In example (3), 7.7.7.1 imports 128.9.0.0/16 from 7.7.7.2 and 7.7.7.3, and 9.9.9.1 imports 128.9.0.0/16 from 9.9.9.2. In example (4), 9.9.9.1 imports 128.9.0.0/16 from 9.9.9.2 and 9.9.9.3. In example (5), 9.9.9.1 imports 128.9.0.0/16 from 9.9.9.2 and 9.9.9.3, and 7.7.7.1 imports 128.9.0.0/16 from 7.7.7.2 and 7.7.7.3. The example (4) and (5) are equivalent to examples (6) Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 14] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 and (7) respectively. 7.1.2 Action Specification Policy actions in RPSL set or modify route attributes, such as assigning a preference to a route, adding a community to the community attribute, or setting the MULTI-EXIT-DISCRIMINATOR attribute. Policy actions can also instruct routers to perform special operations, such as route flap damping. The routing policy attributes whose values can be modified in policy actions are specified in the RPSL dictionary. Please refer to Section 8 for details. It is possible to form composite policy actions by separating policy actions with semicolons in which case the actions are executed in the order specified (i.e. left to right). For example: aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 action pref = 10; med = 0; community .= 10250; accept { 128.9.0.0/16 } 7.1.3 Filter Specification A policy filter is a logical expression which when applied to a set of routes returns a subset of these routes. We say that the policy filter matches the subset returned. The policy filter can match routes using any route attribute, such as the destination address prefix (or NLRI), AS-path, or community attributes. The following policy filters can be used to select a subset of routes: ANY The keyword ANY matches all routes. Address-Prefix Set This is an explicit list of address prefixes enclosed in braces '{' and '}'. The policy filter matches the set of routes whose destination address-prefix is in the set. For example: { 0.0.0.0/0 } { 128.9.0.0/16, 128.8.0.0/16, 128.7.128.0/17, 5.0.0.0/8 } { } Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 15] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 An address prefix can be optionally followed by an operator '^-', '^+', '^n', or '^n-m' where n and m are integers. ^- operator is the exclusive more specifics operator; it stands for the more specifics of the address prefix excluding the address prefix itself. ^+ operator is the inclusive more specifics operator; it stands for the more specifics of the address prefix including the address prefix itself. ^n operator, stands for all the length n specifics of the address prefix. ^n-m operator, stands for all the length n to length m specifics of the address prefix. For example, the set { 5.0.0.0/8^+, 128.9.0.0/16^-, 30.0.0.0/8^16, 30.0.0.0/8^24-32 } contains all the more specifics of 5.0.0.0/8 including 5.0.0.0/8, all the more specifics of 128.9.0.0/16 excluding 128.9.0.0/16, all the more specifics of 30.0.0.0/8 which are of length 16 such as 30.9.0.0/16, and all the more specifics of 30.0.0.0/8 which are of length 24 to 32 such as 30.9.9.100/28. Route Set Name A route set name matches the set of routes that are members of the set. A route set name may be a name of a route-set object, an AS number, or a name of an as-set object (AS numbers and as-set names implicitly define route sets; please see Section 6.3). For example: aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 action pref = 1 accept AS2 as-in: from AS2 action pref = 1 accept AS-FOO as-in: from AS2 action pref = 1 accept RS-FOO The keyword PeerAS can be used instead of the AS number of the peer AS. PeerAS is particularly useful when the peering is specified using an AS set. For example: as-set: AS-FOO members: AS2 AS3 aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS-FOO action pref = 1 accept PeerAS is same as: aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 action pref = 1 accept AS2 Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 16] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 as-in: from AS3 action pref = 1 accept AS3 A route set name can also be followed by one of the operators '^-', '^+', '^n' or '^n-m'. These operators are distributive over the route sets. For example, { 5.0.0.0/8, 6.0.0.0/8 }^+ equals { 5.0.0.0/8^+, 6.0.0.0/8^+ }, and AS1^- equals all the exclusive more specifics of routes originated by AS1. AS Path Regular Expressions An AS-path regular expression can be used as a policy filter by enclosing the expression in `<' and `>'. An AS-path policy filter matches the set of routes which traverses a sequence of ASes matched by the AS-path regular expression. A router can check this using the AS_PATH attribute in the Border Gateway Protocol [12], or the RD_PATH attribute in the Inter-Domain Routing Protocol[11]. AS-path Regular Expressions are POSIX compliant regular expressions over the alphabet of AS numbers. The regular expression constructs are as follows: ASN where ASN is an AS number. ASN matches the AS-path that is of length 1 and contains the corresponding AS number (e.g. AS-path regular expression AS1 matches the AS-path ``1''). The keyword PeerAS can be used instead of the AS number of the peer AS. AS-set where AS-set is an AS set name. AS-set matches the AS-paths that is matched by one of the ASes in the AS-set. . matches the AS-paths matched by any AS number. [...] is an AS number set. It matches the AS-paths matched by the AS numbers listed between the brackets. The AS numbers in the set are separated by white space characters. If a `-' is used between two AS numbers in this set, all AS numbers between the two AS numbers are included in the set. If an as-set name is listed, all AS numbers in the as-set are included. [^...] is a complemented AS number set. It matches any AS-path which is not matched by the AS numbers in the set. ^ Matches the empty string at the beginning of an AS-path. $ Matches the empty string at the end of an AS-path. We next list the regular expression operators in the decreasing order of Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 17] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 evaluation. These operators are left associative, i.e. performed left to right. Unary postfix operators * + ? For a regular expression A, A* matches zero or more occurrences of A; A+ matches one or more occurrences of A; A? matches zero or one occurrence of A. Binary catenation operator This is an implicit operator and exists between two regular expressions A and B when no other explicit operator is specified. The resulting expression A B matches an AS-path if A matches some prefix of the AS-path and B matches the rest of the AS-path. Binary alternative (or) operator | For a regular expressions A and B, A | B matches any AS-path that is matched by A or B. Parenthesis can be used to override the default order of evaluation. White spaces can be used to increase readability. The following are examples of AS-path filters: <AS3> <^AS1> <AS2$> <^AS1 AS2 AS3$> <^AS1 .* AS2$>. The first example matches any route whose AS-path contains AS3, the second matches routes whose AS-path starts with AS1, the third matches routes whose AS-path ends with AS2, the fourth matches routes whose AS-path is exactly ``1 2 3'', and the fifth matches routes whose AS-path starts with AS1 and ends in AS2 with any number of AS numbers in between. Composite Policy Filters The following operators (in decreasing order of evaluation) can be used to form composite policy filters: NOT Given a policy filter x, NOT x matches the set of routes that are not matched by x. That is it is the negation of policy filter x. Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 18] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 AND Given two policy filters x and y, x AND y matches the intersection of the routes that are matched by x and that are matched by y. OR Given two policy filters x and y, x OR y matches the union of the routes that are matched by x and that are matched by y. Note that an OR operator can be implicit, that is `x y' is equivalent to `x OR y'. E.g. NOT {128.9.0.0/16, 128.8.0.0/16} AS226 AS227 OR AS228 AS226 AND NOT {128.9.0.0/16} AS226 AND {0.0.0.0/0^0-18} The first example matches any route except 128.9.0.0/16 and 128.8.0.0/16. The second example matches the routes of AS226, AS227 and AS228. The third example matches the routes of AS226 except 128.9.0.0/16. The fourth example matches the routes of AS226 whose length are shorter than 19. Policy filters can also use the values of other attributes (e.g. the community attribute) for comparison. The attributes whose values can be used in policy filters are specified in the RPSL dictionary. Please refer to Section 8 for details. 7.1.4 Example Policy Expressions aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 action pref = 1 from AS3 action pref = 2 accept AS4 The above example states that AS4's routes are accepted from AS2 with preference 1, and from AS3 with preference 2 (routes with lower integer preference values are preferred over routes with higher integer preference values). aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 7.7.7.2 at 7.7.7.1 action pref = 1 from AS2 action pref = 2 accept AS4 Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 19] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 The above example states that AS4's routes are accepted from AS2 on peering 7.7.7.1-7.7.7.2 with preference 1, and on any other peering with AS2 with preference 2. 7.2 as-out Attribute: Export Policy Specification Similarly, an export policy expression is specified using an as-out attribute. The value of an as-out attribute has the following syntax: as-out: to <peering-1> [action <action-1>] . . . to <peering-N> [action <action-N>] announce <filter> The action specification is optional. The semantics are as follows: the set of routes that are matched by <filter> are exported in all the peerings specified; while exporting routes at <peering-M> <action-M> is executed to set the attributes. E.g. aut-num: AS1 as-out: to AS2 action med = 5; community .= 70 announce AS4 In this example, AS4's routes are announced to AS2 with the med attribute's value set to 5 and community 70 added to the community list. Example: aut-num: AS1 as-out: to AS-FOO announce ANY In this example, AS1 announces all of its routes to the ASes in the set AS-FOO. 7.3 default Attribute: Default Policy Specification Default routing policies are specified using the default attribute. The default attribute has the following syntax: Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 20] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 default: to <peering> [action <action>] [networks <filter>] The <action> and <filter> specifications are optional. The semantics are as follows: The <peering> specification indicates the AS (and the router if present) is being defaulted to; the <action> specification, if present, indicates various attributes of defaulting, for example a relative preference if multiple defaults are specified; and the <filter> specifications, if present, is a policy filter. A router chooses a default router from the routes in its routing table that matches this <filter>. In the following example, AS1 defaults to AS2 for routing. aut-num: AS1 default: to AS2 In the following example, router 7.7.7.1 in AS1 defaults to router 7.7.7.2 in AS2. aut-num: AS1 default: to AS2 7.7.7.2 at 7.7.7.1 In the following example, AS1 defaults to AS2 and AS3, but prefers AS2 over AS3. aut-num: AS1 default: to AS2 action pref = 1 default: to AS3 action pref = 2 In the following example, AS1 defaults to AS2 and uses 128.9.0.0/16 as the default network. aut-num: AS1 default: to AS2 networks { 128.9.0.0/16 } 7.4 egp-to-igp and igp-to-egp Attributes: Injecting Routes egp-to-igp attribute specifies how routes from an interAS routing protocol are injected into an IGP protocol, and igp-to-egp attribute specifies how IGP routes are injected into the interAS routing protocol. The syntax of the egp-to-igp and igp-to-egp attributes are as follows: Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 21] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 egp-to-igp: [at <router>] into <protocol> [action <action>] inject <filter> igp-to-egp: [at <router>] from <protocol> [action <action>] inject <filter> where <router> is an IP address of a router; <protocol> is the IGP protocol name (valid protocol names are defined in the dictionary); and <action> and <filter> are as in the as-in attribute. The semantics are that the router injects the set of routes matched by <filter> to/from the IGP <protocol> and sets the route attributes according to the <action> specified. If <router> is not specified, all routers in the AS perform the injection. In the following example, all interAS routes are injected into RIP. aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 accept AS2 egp-to-igp: into RIP inject ANY In the following example, AS1 accepts AS2's routes including more specifics, but does not inject the more specifics into OSPF. aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 accept AS2^+ egp-to-igp: into OSPF inject AS2 In the following example, AS1 injects its static routes (routes which are members of the set AS1:RS-STATIC-ROUTES) to the interAS routing protocol and appends AS1 twice to their as paths. aut-num: AS1 igp-to-egp: from STATIC action aspath.prepend(AS1, AS1) inject AS1:RS-STATIC-ROUTES 7.5 Ambiguity Resolution It is possible that the same peering can be covered by more that one peering specification in a policy expression. For example: aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 7.7.7.2 at 7.7.7.1 action pref = 2 from AS2 7.7.7.2 at 7.7.7.1 action pref = 1 accept AS4 Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 22] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 This is not an error, though definitely not desirable. To break the ambiguity, the action corresponding to the first peering specification is used. That is the routes are accepted with preference 2. We call this rule as the specification-order rule. Consider the example: aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 action pref = 2 from AS2 7.7.7.2 at 7.7.7.1 action pref = 1; dpa = 5 accept AS4 where both peering specifications cover the peering 7.7.7.1-7.7.7.2, though the second one covers it more specifically. The specification order rule still applies, and only the action ``pref = 2'' is executed. In fact, the second peering-action pair has no use since the first peering-action pair always covers it. If the intended policy was to accept these routes with preference 1 on this particular peering and with preference 2 in all other peerings, the user should have specified: aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 7.7.7.2 at 7.7.7.1 action pref = 1; dpa = 5 from AS2 action pref = 2 accept AS4 It is also possible that more than one policy expression can cover the same set of routes for the same peering. For example: aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 action pref = 2 accept AS4 as-in: from AS2 action pref = 1 accept AS4 In this case, the specification-order rule is still used. That is, AS4's routes are accepted from AS2 with preference 2. If the filters were overlapping but not exactly the same: aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 action pref = 2 accept AS4 as-in: from AS2 action pref = 1 accept AS4 OR AS5 the AS4's routes are accepted from AS2 with preference 2 and however AS5's routes are also accepted, but with preference 1. Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 23] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 We next give the general specification order rule for the benefit of the RPSL implementors. Consider two policy expressions: aut-num: AS1 as-in: from peerings-1 action action-1 accept filter-1 as-in: from peerings-2 action action-2 accept filter-2 The above policy expressions are equivalent to the following three expressions where there is no overlap: aut-num: AS1 as-in: from peerings-1 action action-1 accept filter-1 as-in: from peerings-3 action action-2 accept filter-2 AND NOT filter-1 as-in: from peerings-4 action action-2 accept filter-2 where peerings-3 are those that are covered by both peerings-1 and peerings-2, and peerings-4 are those that are covered by peerings-2 but not by peerings-1 (``filter-2 AND NOT filter-1'' matches the routes that are matched by filter-2 but not by filter-1). Example: aut-num: AS1 as-in: from AS2 7.7.7.2 at 7.7.7.1 action pref = 2 accept {128.9.0.0/16} as-in: from AS2 action pref = 1 accept {128.9.0.0/16, 75.0.0.0/8} Lets consider two peerings with AS2, 7.7.7.1-7.7.7.2 and 9.9.9.1-9.9.9.2. Both policy expressions cover 7.7.7.1-7.7.7.2. On this peering, the route 128.9.0.0/16 is accepted with preference 2, and the route 75.0.0.0/8 is accepted with preference 1. The peering 9.9.9.1-9.9.9.2 is only covered by the second policy expressions. Hence, both the route 128.9.0.0/16 and the route 75.0.0.0/8 are accepted with preference 1 on peering 9.9.9.1-9.9.9.2. 8 dictionary Class The dictionary class provides extensibility to RPSL. Dictionary objects define routing policy attributes, types, and routing protocols. Routing policy attributes, henceforth called rp-attributes, may correspond to actual Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 24] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 protocol attributes, such as the BGP path attributes (e.g. community, dpa, and AS-path), or they may correspond to router features (e.g. BGP route flap damping). As new protocols, new protocol attributes, or new router features are introduced, the dictionary object is updated to include appropriate rp-attribute and protocol definitions. An rp-attribute is an abstract class; that is their data representation is not available. Instead, they are accessed through access methods. For example, an rp-attribute for the BGP AS-path attribute may have an access method called length which returns the length of the AS-path. Access methods can take arguments. Arguments are strongly typed. For example, an rp-attribute for the BGP AS-path attribute may have an access method called prepend which takes AS numbers as argument and prepends them to the BGP AS-path attribute. Once an rp-attribute is defined in the dictionary, it can be used to describe policy filters and actions. Policy analysis tools are required to fetch the dictionary object and recognize newly defined rp-attributes, types, and protocols. The analysis tools may approximate policy analyses on rp-attributes: a filter defining rp-attribute method may always match, and an action defining rp-attribute method may always perform no-operation. Analysis tools may even download code to perform appropriate operations. The attributes of the dictionary class are shown in Figure 14. The dictionary attribute is the name of the dictionary object, obeying the RPSL naming rules. There can be many dictionary objects, however there is always one well-known dictionary object ``RPSL''. All tools use this dictionary by default. Attribute Value Type dictionary <object-name> mandatory, single-valued, class key rp-attribute see description in text optional, multi valued typedef see description in text optional, multi valued protocol see description in text optional, multi valued Figure 14: dictionary Class Attributes The rp-attribute attribute has the following syntax: rp-attribute: <name> <method-1>(<type-1-1>, ..., <type-1-N1> [, "..."]) ... <method-M>(<type-M-1>, ..., <type-M-NM> [, "..."]) where <name> is the name of the rp-attribute; and <method-i> is the name of an access method for the rp-attribute, taking Ni arguments where the j-th Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 25] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 argument is of type <type-i-j>. A method name is either an RPSL name or one of the operators defined in Figure 15. The operator methods can take only one argument. operator= operator== operator<<= operator< operator>>= operator> operator+= operator>= operator-= operator<= operator*= operator/= operator.= Figure 15: Operators An rp-attribute can have many methods defined for it. Some of the methods may even have the same name, in which case their arguments are of different types. If the argument list is followed by ``...'', the method takes a variable number of arguments. In this case, the actual arguments after the Nth argument are of type <type-N>. Arguments are strongly typed. A type of an argument can be one of the predefined types or one of the dictionary defined types. The predefined type names are listed in Figure 16. The integer and the real types can be followed by a lower and an upper bound to specify the set of valid values of the argument. The range specification is optional. We use the C language conventions for representing integer and real values. The enum type is followed by a list of RPSL names which are the valid values of the type. The boolean type can take the values true or false. as_number, ip_address, address_prefix and dns_name types are as in Section 2. filter type is a policy filter as in Section 7. integer[lower, upper] as_number real[lower, upper] ip_address enum[name, name, ...] address_prefix string dns_name boolean filter Figure 16: Predefined Types The typedef attribute specifies a dictionary defined type. Its syntax is as follows: typedef: <name> <type-1> ... <type-N> Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 26] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 where <name> is the name of the type being defined and <type-M> is another type name, either predefined or dictionary defined. The type defined by a typedef is either of the types 1 through N (analogous to unions in C[8]). A dictionary defined type can also be a list type, specified as: list [<min_elems>:<max_elems>] of <type> where the list elements are of <type> and the list contains at least <min_elems> and at most <max_elems> elements. The size specification is optional. In this case, there is no restriction in the number of list elements. A value of a list type is represented as a sequence of elements separated by the character ``,'' and enclosed by the characters ``{'' and ``}''. A protocol attribute of the dictionary class defines a protocol and a set of peering options for that protocol (which are used in inet-rtr class in Section 10). Its syntax is as follows: protocol: <name> MANDATORY | OPTIONAL <option-1>(<type-1-1>, ..., <type-1-N1> [, "..."]) ... MANDATORY | OPTIONAL <option-M>(<type-M-1>, ..., <type-M-NM> [, "..."]) where <name> is the name of the protocol; MANDATORY and OPTIONAL are keywords; and <option-i> is a peering option for this protocol, taking Ni many arguments. The syntax and semantics of the arguments are as in the rp-attribute. If the keyword MANDATORY is used the option is mandatory and needs to be specified for each peering of this protocol. If the keyword OPTIONAL is used the option can be skipped. The Figure 18 shows the initial RPSL dictionary. It has eight rp-attributes: pref to assign local preference to the routes accepted; med to assign a value to the MULTI_EXIT_DISCRIMINATOR BGP attribute; dpa to assign a value to the DPA BGP attribute; aspath to prepend a value to the AS_PATH BGP attribute; community to assign a value to or to check the value of the community BGP attribute; flap_damp to enable or disable routing flap damping feature of the routers; next-hop to assign next hop routers to static routes; and cost to assign a cost to static routes. The dictionary defines two types: community_elm and community_list. community_elm type is either a 4-byte unsigned integer, or one of the keywords no_export or no_advertise, or a list of two 2-byte unsigned integers in which case the two integers are concatenated to form a 4-byte integer. (The last form is often used in the Internet to partition the community space. A provider uses its AS number as the first two bytes, and assigns a semantics of its Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 27] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 dictionary: RPSL rp-attribute: pref # preference, smaller values represent higher preferences operator=(integer[0, 65535]) # assign an integer rp-attribute: med # BGP multi_exit_discriminator attribute operator=(integer[0, 65535]) # assign an integer operator=(enum[igp_cost]) # assign the IGP metric rp-attribute: dpa # BGP destination preference attribute (dpa) operator=(integer[0 65535]) # assign an integer rp-attribute: aspath # BGP aspath attribute prepend(as_number, ...) # prepend the AS numbers # from last to first order typedef: community_elm # needed for the community attribute integer(0, 4294967000), # 4 byte community value enum[no_export, no_advertise]# defined in RFC 1997 list[2:2] of integer[0 65535] # construct a 4 byte integer # by concating two 2-byte integers typedef: community_list # needed for the community attribute list of community_elm rp-attribute: community # BGP community attribute operator=(community_list) # assign a list of communities operator==(community_list) # true if equals the argument # order independent comparison operator.=(community_elm) # append an element append(community_elm) # same as .= remove(community_elm) # delete an element contains(community_elm) # true if element is contained rp-attribute: flap_damp # flap_damping router feature enable() # enable flap_damping disable() # disable flap_damping rp-attribute: next-hop # next hop router in a static route operator=(ip_address) # assign a router address rp-attribute: cost # cost of a static route operator=(integer[0, 65535]) # assign an integer Figure 17: RPSL Dictionary (cont.) choice to the last two bytes.) The initial dictionary (Figure 18) defines only options for the Border Gateway Protocol: asno and flap_damp. The mandatory asno option is the AS number of the peer router. The optional flap_damp option instructs the router to damp route flaps when importing routes from the peer router. Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 28] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 protocol: BGP # Border Gateway Protocol MANDATORY asno(as_number) # as number of the peer router OPTIONAL flap_damp() # enable flap damping protocol: OSPF protocol: RIP protocol: IGRP protocol: IS-IS protocol: STATIC Figure 18: RPSL Dictionary 8.1 Policy Actions and Filters Using RP-Attributes The syntax of a policy action or a filter using an rp-attribute x is as follows: x.method(arguments) x ``op'' argument where method is a method and ``op'' is an operator method of the rp-attribute x. The pref rp-attribute can be assigned a positive integer as follows: pref = 10 The med rp-attribute can be assigned either a positive integer or the word ``igp_cost'' as follows: med = 0 med = igp_cost The dpa rp-attribute can be assigned a positive integer as follows: dpa = 100 The BGP community attribute is list-valued, that is it is a list of 4-byte integers each representing a ``community''. The following examples demonstrate how to add communities to this rp-attribute: Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 29] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 community .= 100 community .= NO_EXPORT community .= {3561, 10} In the last case, a 4-byte integer is constructed where the more significant two bytes equal 3561 and the less significant two bytes equal 10. The following examples demonstrate how to delete communities from the community rp-attribute: community.delete(100) community.delete(NO_EXPORT) community.delete({3561, 10}) Filters that use the community rp-attribute can be defined as demonstrated by the following examples: community.contains(100) community.contains(NO_EXPORT) community.contains({3561, 10}) The community rp-attribute can be set to a list of communities as follows: community = {100, NO_EXPORT, {3561, 10}, 200} community = {} In this first case, the community rp-attribute contains the communities 100, NO_EXPORT, {3561, 10}, and 200. In the latter case, the community rp-attribute is cleared. The community rp-attribute can be compared against a list of communities as follows: community == {100, 200} community == {} To influence the route selection, the BGP as_path rp-attribute can be made longer by prepending AS numbers to it as follows: aspath.prepend(AS1) aspath.prepend(AS1, AS1, AS1) Flap damping can be turned on or off as follows: Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 30] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 flap_damp.enable() flap_damp.disable() The following examples are invalid: med = -50 # -50 is not in the range med = igp # igp is not one of the enum values med.assign(10) # method assign is not defined community.append({AS3561, 20}) # the first argument should be 3561 Figure 19 shows a more advanced example using the rp-attribute community. In this example, AS3561 bases its route selection preference on the community attribute. Other ASes may indirectly affect AS3561's route selection by including the appropriate communities in their route announcements. aut-num: AS1 as-out: to AS2 action community.={3651, 10} to AS3 action community.={3651, 20} announce AS1 as-set: AS3561:AS-PEERS members: AS2, AS3 aut-num: AS3561 as-in: from AS3561:AS-PEERS action pref = 10 accept community.contains({3651, 10}) as-in: from AS3561:AS-PEERS action pref = 20 accept community.contains({3651, 20}) as-in: from AS3561:AS-PEERS action pref = 30 accept ANY Figure 19: Policy example using the community rp-attribute. 9 Advanced route Class 9.1 Specifying Static Routes The attribute inject-at can be used to specify static routes. Its syntax is as follows: Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 31] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 inject-at: <router> [action <action>] where <router> is an IP address of a router and <action> is as in the aut-num class. <router> executes the <action> and injects the route to the interAS routing system. <action> may set certain route attributes such as a next-hop router or a cost. In the following example, the router 7.7.7.1 injects the route 128.7.0.0/16. The next-hop router for this route is 7.7.7.2 and the route has a cost of 10. route: 128.7.0.0/16 origin: AS1 inject-at: 7.7.7.1 action next-hop = 7.7.7.2; cost = 10; 9.2 Specifying Aggregate Routes The attributes aggregate-by, inject-at, export-components, and holes are used for specifying aggregate routes [6]. The aggregate-by attribute defines what component routes are used to form the aggregate. Its syntax is as follows: aggregate-by: [atomic] <filter> A router in the origin AS forms the aggregate route if there is at least one route in its routing table that matches <filter>. If the keyword ATOMIC is specified, the aggregation is done atomically, otherwise the BGP path attributes of the matching routes are used to form the BGP path attributes of the aggregate route. For example, if atomic aggregation is done, the aggregate route would have an AS-path that starts from the aggregating AS [6]. Otherwise, the aggregate route would have an AS-path containing AS-sets formed from the AS-paths of the matching routes. Figure 20 shows some example aggregate route objects. The aggregate 128.9.0.0/16 is generated if there is a route that matches the filter ``128.9.0.0/16^- AND <^AS226>'' (this filter matches more specifics of 128.9.0.0/16 that are received form AS226). The BGP path attributes of the matching routes are used to form the BGP path attributes of the route 128.9.0.0/16. Similarly, the aggregate 128.8.0.0/16 is generated if there is a route that matches the filter ``128.8.0.0/16^- AND <^AS226>''. However, its path attributes are generated using the atomic aggregation rules [6]. The aggregate 128.7.0.0/16 is always and atomically generated since the policy filter ``ANY'' matches any route in the routing table. Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 32] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 route: 128.9.0.0/16 origin: AS1 aggregate-by: {128.9.0.0/16^-} AND <^AS226> route: 128.8.0.0/16 origin: AS1 aggregate-by: ATOMIC {128.8.0.0/16^-} AND <^AS226> route: 128.7.0.0/16 origin: AS1 aggregate-by: ATOMIC ANY inject-at: 7.7.7.1 inject-at: 9.9.9.1 export-components: {128.7.9.0/24} Figure 20: Aggregate route objects. The inject-at attribute lists the routers in the originating AS that inject this route to the interAS routing system. That is, these routers are configured to perform the aggregation. If the inject-at attribute is missing, all routers in the originating AS perform the aggregation. The route 128.7.0.0/16 in Figure 20 is injected by routers 7.7.7.1 and 9.9.9.1 in AS1. When a set of routes are aggregated, the intent is to export only the aggregate route and suppress the exporting of the component routes to the outside world. However, to satisfy certain policy and topology constraints (e.g. a multi-homed component), it is often required to export some of the components. The export-components attribute equals an RPSL filter that matches the routes that need to be exported to the neighboring ASes. If this attribute is missing, no component route needs to be exported to the neighboring ASes. The export-components attribute can only be specified if an aggregate-by attribute is specified for the route object. The component 128.7.9.0/24 of route 128.7.0.0/16 in Figure 20 needs to be exported to other ASes. The holes attribute lists the component address prefixes which are not reachable through the aggregate route (perhaps that part of the address space is unallocated). Figure 21 shows a route object whose two components, namely 128.9.0.0/16 and 128.7.0.0/16, are not reachable via the aggregate. That is, if a data packet destined to a host in 128.9.0.0/16 is sent to AS1, AS1 can not deliver it to its final destination (i.e. it is black-holed). Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 33] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 route: 128.9.0.0/12 origin: AS1 aggregate-by: {128.9.0.0/12^-} holes: 128.7.0.0/16, 128.9.0.0/16 Figure 21: The route 128.9.0.0/12 does not lead to destinations in 128.9.0.0/16. 10 inet-rtr Class Routers are specified using the inet-rtr class. The attributes of the inet-rtr class are shown in Figure 22. The inet-rtr attribute is a valid DNS name of the router described. Each alias attribute, if present, is a canonical DNS name for the router. The value of an ifaddr attribute is an IP address followed by the word ``masklen'' and followed by an integer. The local-as attribute specifies the AS number of the AS which owns/operates this router. Attribute Value Type inet-rtr <dns-name> mandatory, single-valued, class key alias <dns-name> optional, multi-valued local-as <as-number> mandatory, single-valued ifaddr <ip-address> masklen <integer> mandatory, multi-valued peer see description in text optional, multi-valued Figure 22: inet-rtr Class Attributes Figure 23 presents an example inet-rtr object. The name of the router is ``amsterdam.ripe.net''. ``amsterdam1.ripe.net'' is a canonical name for the router. The router is connected to 4 networks. Its IP addresses and mask lengths in those networks are specified in the ifaddr attributes. Each peer attribute, if present, specifies a protocol peering with another router. The value of a peer attribute is a protocol name followed by the IP address of the peer router and followed by a comma separated list of peering options for that protocol. Possible protocol names and attributes are defined in the dictionary (please see Section 8). In the above example, the router has a BGP peering with the router 192.87.45.195 in AS3334 and turns the flap damping on when importing routes from this router. Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 34] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 inet-rtr: Amsterdam.ripe.net alias: amsterdam1.ripe.net localas: AS3333 ifaddr: 192.87.45.190 masklen 24 ifaddr: 192.87.4.28 masklen 24 ifaddr: 193.0.0.222 masklen 27 ifaddr: 193.0.0.158 masklen 27 peer: BGP 192.87.45.195 asno(AS3334), flap_damp() Figure 23: inet-rtr Objects 11 Acknowledgements We would like to thank Jessica Yu, Randy Bush, Alan Barrett, David Meyer, David Kessens, Bill Manning, Sue Hares, Ramesh Govindan, Kannan Varadhan, Satish Kumar, Craig Labovitz, Rusty Eddy, David J. LeRoy, David Whipple, Jon Postel, Deborah Estrin, and Elliot Schwartz for various comments and suggestions. References [1] How to register in RADB. http://www.ra.net/RADB.tools.docs/. [2] C. Alaettinouglu. Application of Routing Policy Specification Language (RPSL) on the Internet. Internet draft, USC Information Sciences Institute. Work in progress. [3] T. Bates, E. Gerich, L. Joncheray, J-M. Jouanigot, D. Karrenberg, M. Terpstra, and J. Yu. Representation of IP Routing Policies in a Routing Registry. Technical Report ripe-181, RIPE, RIPE NCC, Amsterdam, Netherlands, October 1994. [4] T. Bates, J-M. Jouanigot, D. Karrenberg, P. Lothberg, and M. Terpstra. Representation of IP Routing Policies in the RIPE Database. Technical Report ripe-81, RIPE, RIPE NCC, Amsterdam, Netherlands, February 1993. [5] D. Crocker. Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text messages. Request for Comment RFC-822, Network Information Center, August 1982. [6] V. Fuller, T. Li, J. Yu, and K. Varadhan. Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR): an Address Assignment and Aggregation Strategy, 1993. [7] D. Karrenberg and M. Terpstra. Authorisation and Notification of Changes in the RIPE Database. Technical Report ripe-120, RIPE, RIPE NCC, Amsterdam, Netherlands, October 1994. Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 35] Internet Draft RPSL November 25, 1996 [8] B. W. Kernighan and D. M. Ritchie. The C Programming Language. Prentice-Hall, 1978. [9] A. Lord and M. Terpstra. RIPE Database Template for Networks and Persons. Technical Report ripe-119, RIPE, RIPE NCC, Amsterdam, Netherlands, October 1994. [10] P. V. Mockapetris. Domain names - concepts and facilities. Request for Comment RFC-1034, Network Information Center, November 1987. [11] Y. Rekhter. Inter-Domain Routing Protocol (IDRP). Journal of Internetworking Research and Experience, 4:61--80, 1993. [12] Y. Rekhter and T. Li. A Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4). Request for Comment RFC-1654, Network Information Center, July 1994. A Routing Registry Sites The set of routing registries as of November 1996 are RIPE, RADB, CANet, MCI and ANS. You may contact one of these registries to find out the current list of registries. Alaettinoglu et. al. Expires May 25, 1997 [Page 36]