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- Network Working Group D. Haskin
- Request For Comments: 1863 Bay Networks, Inc.
- Category: Experimental October 1995
-
-
- A BGP/IDRP Route Server alternative to a full mesh routing
-
- Status of this Memo
-
- This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
- community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any
- kind. Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
- Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
-
- Abstract
-
- This document describes the use and detailed design of Route Servers
- for dissemination of routing information among BGP/IDRP speaking
- routers.
-
- The intention of the proposed technique is to reduce overhead and
- management complexity of maintaining numerous direct BGP/IDRP
- sessions which otherwise might be required or desired among routers
- within a single routing domain as well as among routers in different
- domains that are connected to a common switched fabric (e.g. an ATM
- cloud).
-
- 1. Overview
-
- Current deployments of Exterior Routing protocols, such as the Border
- Gateway Protocol [BGP4] and the adaptation of the ISO Inter-Domain
- Routing Protocol [IDRP], require that all BGP/IDRP routers, which
- participate in inter-domain routing (border routers) and belong to
- the same routing domain, establish a full mesh connectivity with each
- other for purpose of exchanging routing information acquired from
- other routing domains. In large routing domains the number of intra-
- domain connections that needs to be maintained by each border route
- can be significant.
-
- In addition, it may be desired for a border router to establish
- routing sessions with all border routers in other domains which are
- reachable via a shared communication media. We refer to routers that
- are directly reachable via a shared media as adjacent routers. Such
- direct peering allows a router to acquire "first hand" information
- about destinations which are directly reachable through adjacent
- routers and select the optimum direct paths to these destinations.
- Establishment of BGP/IDRP sessions among all adjacent border routers
- would result in a full mesh routing connectivity. Unfortunately for
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 1]
-
- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- a switched media as ATM, SMDS or Frame Relay network which may
- inter-connect a large number of routers, due to the number of
- connections that would be needed to maintain a full mesh direct
- peering between the routers, makes this approach impractical.
-
- In order to alleviate the "full mesh" problem, this paper proposes to
- use IDRP/BGP Route Servers which would relay external routes with all
- of their attributes between client routers. The clients would
- maintain IDRP/BGP sessions only with the assigned route servers
- (sessions with more than one server would be needed if redundancy is
- desired). All routes that are received from a client router would be
- propagated to other clients by the Route Server. Since all external
- routes and their attributes are relayed unmodified between the client
- routers, the client routers would acquire the same routing
- information as they would via direct peering. We refer to such
- arrangement as virtual peering. Virtual peering allows client
- routers independently apply selection criteria to the acquired
- external routes according to their local policies as they would if a
- direct peering were established.
-
- The routing approach described in this paper assumes that border
- routers possess a mechanism to resolve the media access address of
- the next hop router for any route acquired from a virtual peer.
-
- It is fair to note that the approach presented in this paper only
- reduces the number of routing connection each border router needs to
- maintain. It does not reduce the volume of routing information that
- needs to maintained at each border router.
-
- Besides addressing the "full mesh" problems, the proposal attempts
- to achieve the following goals:
-
- - to minimize BGP/IDRP changes that need to be implemented in client
- routers in order to inter-operate with route servers;
-
- - to provide for redundancy of distribution of routing information to
- route server clients;
-
- - to minimize the amount of routing updates that have to be sent to
- route server clients;
-
- - to provide load distribution between route servers;
-
- - to avoid an excessive complexity of the interactions between Route
- Servers themselves.
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 2]
-
- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- 2. Terms And Acronyms
-
- The following terms and acronyms are used in this paper:
-
- Routing Domain - a collection of routers with the same set of
- routing policies. For IPv4 it can be identified
- with an Autonomous System Number, for IPv6
- it can be identified with a Routing Domain
- Identifier.
-
- Border Router (BR) - a router that acquires external routes, i.e.
- routes to internet points outside its routing
- domain.
-
- Route Server (RS) - a process that collects routing information
- from border routers and distributes this
- information to 'client routers'.
-
- RS Client (RC) - a router than peers with an RS in order to
- acquire routing information. A server's client
- can be a router or another route server.
-
- RS Cluster (RSC) - two or more of route servers that share the same
- subset of clients. A RS Cluster provides
- redundancy of routing information to its
- clients, i.e. routing information is provided
- to all RS Cluster clients as long as there is
- at least one functional route server in the RS
- Cluster.
-
- RCID - Cluster ID
-
- 3. RS Model
-
- In the proposed scheme a Route Server (RS) does not apply any
- selection criteria to the routes received from border routers for the
- purpose of distributing these routes to its clients. All routes
- acquired from border routers or other Route Servers are relayed to
- the client border routers.
-
- There can be two classes of Route Servers: Route Servers that relay
- external routes between routers in a single routing domain and Route
- Servers that relay external routes between border routers in
- different routing domains. The former are Intra-Domain Route Servers
- and the latter are Inter-Domain Route Servers.
-
- In the RS model proposed in this document there is no routing
- exchange between Intra-Domain Route Servers and Inter-Domain Route
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 3]
-
- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- Servers. Routes that cross a domain boundary must always pass
- through a border router of such a domain which may apply
- administrative filters to such routes.
-
- Operations of Intra-Domain Route Servers and Inter-Domain Route
- Servers are identical.
-
- One or more Route Servers form an RS Cluster (RSC). For redundancy's
- sake two or more RSs can be configured to operate in an RS Cluster.
- All route servers in an RSC share the same clients, i.e. cluster
- clients establish connections to all route servers in such an RSC for
- the purpose of exchanging routing information. Each cluster is
- assigned an unique RSC Identifier (RCID) represented by a 2-octet
- unsigned integer.
-
- Clusters which provide virtual connectivity between their clients
- would be normally exchanging routing information among themselves so
- that all external routes are propagated to all participating clients.
-
- Though a Route Server Client (RC) can be associated with multiple
- RSC, it seems that there is no real advantage of doing so except for
- a short transition period to provide a graceful re-assignment from
- one RSC to another or, if for some reason, there are multiple RS
- groups that don't exchange routing information with each other.
-
- The inter-cluster route exchange can be accomplished by forming a
- full mesh routing adjacency between clusters. In this approach,
- illustrated in the diagram below, each RS in each RSC would maintain
- a routing connection with every RS in other RS clusters. Only routes
- that are acquired from border routers are propagated to RSs in other
- RS clusters.
-
- BR11 BR12 BR1n BR21 BR22 BR2n
- | | ... | | | ... |
- ----------------- ------------------
- ! RS11 RS12 ! --- ! RS21 RS22 !
- ----------------- ------------------
- <RSC#1> \ / <RSC#2>
- \ /
- -----------------
- ! RS31 RS32 ! <RSC#3>
- -----------------
- | | ... |
- BR31 BR32 BR3n
-
- Another way to propagate routing information between clusters would
- be to form a cluster hierarchy in which an RS in one cluster
- maintains sessions only with RSs in designated clusters. In this
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 4]
-
- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- approach an RS must advertise all acquired routes to an RS in another
- cluster except the routes that are acquired from that cluster.
- Nevertheless, it allows for minimizing the number of routing
- sessions which can be highly desirable in some network. It is
- important for the hierarchical scheme that the inter-cluster route
- exchange links form a tree, i.e. there is only one route propagation
- path between any two clusters, otherwise routing loops may result.
- For detection and pruning of routing loops in a hierarchical cluster
- topology, it is advisable to include the "RCID Path" attribute (see
- 4.3.4) in all routing updates sent between route servers. This
- attribute lists IDs of all clusters in the route propagation path.
- When a duplicate ID is detected in this attribute an offending route
- needs to be discarded.
-
- The diagram below which illustrates the hierarchical approach is
- created from the diagram above by removing the route exchange link
- between clusters 2 and 3.
-
- BR11 BR12 BR1n BR21 BR22 BR2n
- | | ... | | | ... |
- ----------------- ------------------
- ! RS11 RS12 ! --- ! RS21 RS22 !
- ----------------- ------------------
- <RSC#1> \ <RSC#2>
- \
- -----------------
- ! RS31 RS32 ! <RSC#3>
- -----------------
- | | ... |
- BR31 BR32 BR3n
-
- It seems that the only disadvantage of the hierarchical model, is the
- management headache of avoiding routing loops and redundant
- information flow by insuring that inter-cluster links always form a
- tree. But more study is needed to fully evaluate the comparative
- merits of the full-mesh and hierarchical models.
-
- Since RSs in the same cluster maintain routing sessions with the same
- set of clients, it may seem that there is no need to exchange routing
- information between RSs in the same cluster. Nevertheless, such a
- route exchange may help to maintain identical routing databases in
- the servers during client acquisition periods and when a partial
- failure may affect some routing sessions.
-
- Route servers in the same RS cluster exchange control messages in
- attempt to subdivide the responsibilities of providing routing
- information to their clients. In order to simplify the RS design,
- the RS messaging is implemented on top of exterior protocol which is
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 5]
-
- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- used by route servers for the routing information exchange.
-
- 4. Operation
-
- 4.1 ADVERTISER Path Attribute
-
- Route servers act as concentrators for routes acquired by border
- routers so that the border routers need to maintain routing
- connections with only one or two designated route servers. Route
- Servers distribute routing information that is provided to them by
- the border routers to all their client.
-
- If routing information were relayed to RS clients in UPDATE messages
- with only those path attribute that are currently defined in the
- BGP-4/IDRP specification, the RS clients would not be able to
- associate external routes they receive with the border routers which
- submitted that routes to route servers. Such an association is
- necessary for making a correct route selection decision. Therefore,
- the new path attribute, ADVERTISER, is defined.
-
- The ADVERTISER is an optional non-transitive attribute that defines
- the identifying address of the border router which originally
- submitted the route to a router server in order for it to be relayed
- to other RS clients. Type Code of the ADVERTISER attribute is 255.
- This attribute must be included in every UPDATE message that is
- relayed by route servers and must be recognized by RS clients.
-
- 4.2 Route Client Operation
-
- An RS client establishes an BGP/IDRP connection to every route server
- in the RS cluster to which the route client is assigned.
-
- RS clients must be able to recognize the ADVERTISER path attribute
- that is included in all UPDATE messages received from route servers.
- Routes received in UPDATE messages from route servers are processed
- as if they were received directly from the border routers specified
- in the ADVERTISER attributes of the respective updates.
-
- If an RS client receives a route from a Intra-Domain Route Server, is
- assumed that the border router identified in the ADVERTISER attribute
- is located in the receiving client's own routing domain.
-
- If an RS client receives a route from a Inter-Domain Route Server,
- the locality of the border router identified in the ADVERTISER
- attribute can be determined from the BGP's AS_PATH attribute or
- IDRP's RD_PATH attribute respectively.
-
-
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 6]
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- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- If no ADVERTISER attribute was included in an UPDATE message from a
- route server it is assumed that the route server itself is the
- advertiser of the corresponding route.
-
- If the NEXT_HOP path attribute of an UPDATE message lists an address
- of the receiving router itself, the route that is carried in such an
- update message must be declared unreachable.
-
- In addition, it is highly desirable, albeit not required, to
- slightly modify the "standard" BGP/IDRP operation when acquiring
- routes from RSs:
-
- when a route is received from an RS and a route with the completely
- identical attributes has been previously acquired from another RS
- in the same cluster, the previously acquired route should be
- replaced with the newly acquired route. Such a route replacement
- should not trigger any route advertisement action on behalf of the
- route.
-
- RSs are designed to operate in such a way that eliminates the need to
- keep multiple copies of the same route by RS clients and minimizes
- the possibility of a route flap when the BGP/IDRP connection to one
- of the redundant route servers is lost.
-
- It is attempted to subdivide the route dissemination load between
- route servers such that only one RS provides routing updates to a
- given client. But since, for avoiding an excessive complexity, the
- reconciliation algorithm does not eliminate completely the
- possibility of races, it is still possible that a client may receive
- updates from more than one route server. Therefore, the client's
- ability to discard duplicate routes may reduce the need for a bigger
- routing database.
-
- 4.3 Route Server Operation
-
- A Route Server maintains BGP-4/IDRP sessions with its clients
- according to the respective BGP-4/IDRP specification with exception
- of protocol modifications outlined in this document.
-
- UPDATE messages sent by route servers have the same format and
- semantics as it respective BGP-4/IDRP counterparts but also carry the
- ADVERTISER path attribute which specifies the BGP Identifier of the
- border router that submitted the route advertised in the UPDATE
- message. In addition, if the hierarchical model is deployed to
- interconnect Route Server clusters, it is advisable to include the
- "RCID Path" attribute in all routing updates sent between route
- servers as described in 4.3.4.
-
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 7]
-
- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- When route servers exchange OPEN messages they include the Route
- Server protocol version (current version is 1) as well as Cluster IDs
- of their respective clusters in an Optional Parameter of the OPEN
- message. The value of Parameter Type for this parameter is 255. The
- length of the parameter data is 3 octets. The format of parameter
- data is shown below:
-
- +-----------------------+------------------------------------+
- | Version = 1 (1 octet) | Cluster ID (2 octets) |
- +-----------------------+------------------------------------+
-
- Also, route servers that belong to the same cluster send to each
- other LIST messages with lists of clients to which they're providing
- routing information. In the LIST message an RS specifies the Router
- Identifier of each client to which that RS is providing routing
- updates. Since LIST messages are relatively small there is no need to
- add a processing complexity of generating incremental updates when a
- list changes; instead the complete list is sent when RSs need to be
- informed of the changes. The format of the LIST message is presented
- in 4.3.1.
-
- 4.3.1 LIST Message Format
-
- The LIST message contains the fixed BGP/IDRP header that is followed
- with the fields shown below. The type code in the fixed header of
- the LIST message is 255.
-
- +----------+----------+----------+----------+
- | Client Identifying Address | Repeated for each
- +-------------------------------------------+ informed client
- The number of Client Identifying Address" fields is not encoded
- explicitly, but can be calculated as:
-
- (<LIST message Length> - <Header Length>) / <Address Length>,
-
- where <LIST message Length> is the value encoded in the fixed
- BGP/IDRP header, <Header Length> is the length of that header, and
- <Address Length> is 4 for IPv4 and 16 for IPv6.
-
- 4.3.2 External Route Acquisition And Advertisement
-
- A route server acquires external routes from RS clients that are also
- border routers. A RS also may acquire external routes from other
- RSs. Route servers relay all acquired routes unaltered to their
- clients. No route selection is performed for purpose of route re-
- advertisement to RS clients.
-
-
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 8]
-
- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- While route servers receive and store routing data from all their
- client, Routing Servers in the same cluster coordinate their route
- advertisement in the attempt to ensure that only one RS provides
- routing updates to a given client. If an RS fails, other Route
- Servers in the cluster take over the responsibility of providing
- routing updates to the clients that were previously served by the
- failed RS. A route flap that can result from such switch-over can be
- eliminated by the configuring client's "Hold Time" of their BGP-
- 4/IDRP sessions with the route servers to be larger than the switch-
- over time. The switch-over time is determined by the Hold Time of
- BGP-4/IDRP sessions between the route servers in the cluster and the
- period that is needed for that route servers to reconcile their route
- advertisement responsibilities. The reconciliation protocol is
- described in 4.3.3.
-
- The BGP-4/IDRP operations of route servers differs from the
- "standard" operation in the following ways:
-
- - when receiving routes from another RS, the RS Client mode of
- operation is assumed, i.e., when a route with completely
- identical attributes has been previously acquired from an RS
- belonging to the same cluster as the RS that advertises the new
- route, the previously acquired route should be discarded and
- the newly acquired route should be accepted. Such a route
- replacement should not trigger any route advertisement action
- on behalf of the route.
-
- - all acquired routes are advertised to a client router except
- routes which were acquired from that client (no route echoing);
-
- - if the hierarchical model of inter-cluster route exchange is
- used, all acquired routes are advertised to an RS in another
- RSC except routes that are acquired from that RSC. In the
- full-mesh model, only routes which are acquired from border
- routers are advertised to route servers in other clusters;
-
- - if route servers in the same RS cluster are configured to
- exchange routing information, only external routes that are
- acquired from border routers are advertised to route servers in
- the local cluster;
-
- - the ADVERTISER path attribute is included in every UPDATE
- messages that is generated by RS. This attribute must
- specify the identifying address of the border router from which
- information provided in UPDATE has been acquired. All other
- routing attributes should be relayed to RS's peers unaltered.
-
-
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 9]
-
- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- - when a route advertised by to an RS by a client becomes
- unreachable such a route needs to be declared unreachable to
- all other clients. In order to withdraw a route, the route
- server sends an UPDATE for that route to each client (except
- the client that this route was originally acquired) with the
- NEXT_HOP path attribute set to the address of the client to
- which this UPDATE is sent to. The the ADVERTISER path attribute
- with the identifying address of the border router that
- originally advertised the withdrawn route must be also included
- in such an update message.
-
- - if the hierarchical model is deployed to interconnect Route
- Server clusters, it is advisable to include the RCID_PATH
- attribute in all routing updates sent between route servers as
- described in 4.3.4. The RCID_PATH attribute is never included
- in UPDATE messages sent to border routers.
-
- 4.3.3 Intra-Cluster Coordination
-
- In order to coordinate route advertisement activities, route servers
- which are members of the same RS cluster establish and maintain
- BGP/IDRP connections between themselves forming a full-mesh
- connectivity. Normally, there is no need for more than two-three
- route servers in one cluster.
-
- Route servers belonging to the same cluster send to each other LIST
- messages with lists of clients to which they're providing routing
- information; let's call such clients "informed clients".
-
- Each RS maintains a separate "informed client" list for each RS in
- the local cluster including itself. All such lists are linked in an
- ascending order that is determined by the number of clients in each
- list; the order among the lists with the same number of clients is
- determined by comparing the identifying addresses of the
- corresponding RSs -- an RS in such a "same number of clients" subset
- is positioned after all RSs with the lower address.
-
- An RS can be in one of two RS coordination states: 'Initiation' and
- 'Active'.
-
- 4.3.3.1 Initiation State
-
- This is the initial state of route server that is entered upon RS
- startup. When the Initiation state is entered the 'InitiationTimer'
- is started. The Initiation state transits to the Active state upon
- expiration of the 'InitiationTimer' or as soon as all configured
- BGP/IDRP connections to other route servers in the local RS Cluster
- are established and LIST messages from that route servers are
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 10]
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- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- received.
-
- In the Initiation state an RS:
-
- o tries to establish connections with other RSs in the local and
- remote clusters.
-
- o accepts BGP/IDRP connections from client routers.
-
- o receives and process BGP/IDRP updates but doesn't send any
- routing updates.
-
- o stores "informed client" lists received from other RSs in the
- local cluster - a newly received list replaces the existing list
- for the same RS. If a LIST message is received from the route
- server in another RS cluster, it should be silently ignored.
-
- o initializes an empty "informed client" list for its own clients.
- o as soon as a BGP/IDRP connection to an RS in the same RS Cluster
- is established, transmits an empty LIST message to such an RS.
-
- 4.3.3.2 Active State
-
- This state is entered upon expiration of the 'InitiationTimer' or as
- soon as all configured BGP/IDRP connections to other route servers in
- the local RS Cluster are established and LIST messages from that route
- servers are received.
-
- In the Active state an RS:
-
- o continues attempts to establish connections with other route
- servers in the local and remote clusters;
-
- o accepts new BGP/IDRP connections;
-
- o transmits a LIST message to an RS in the local cluster as soon
- as an BGP/IDRP session with the RS is established and then
- whenever the local "informed client" list changes;
-
- o receives and process BGP/IDRP updates;
-
- o receives and processes "informed client" lists as described
- below:
-
- a) If a LIST message is received from the route server in
- another RS cluster, it should be silently ignored.
-
-
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 11]
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- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- b) If a LIST message is received from a route server that
- belongs to the same RS Cluster, the differences between
- the old and the new list are determined and the old "informed
- client" list for that RS is replaced by the list from the new
- message. For each client that was in the old list but not in
- the new list it is checked whether the server has
- an established BGP/IDRP connection to that client and
- the client is not in any of the other "informed client"
- lists. If both conditions are met, the processing described
- for a new client takes place (see 4.3.3.3).
-
- o for each new BGP/IDRP client (including connections established
- in Initiation state), decides if that client should become an
- "informed client", i.e. whether routing updates are to be sent
- to the client or that client has been already taken care by
- another RS in the local cluster. The decision process is
- described in the next section.
-
- 4.3.3.3 New Client Processing
-
- Whenever an RS acquires a new BGP/IDRP peer it scans through all
- "informed client" lists in order to determine if this peer has
- already been receiving routing updates from another RS in the local
- RS cluster. If the identifying address of the peer is found in one
- of the list, no routing updates are sent to that peer.
-
- If the peer's Router Id is not found, the route server initiates a
- 'DelayTimer' timer for that peer and the decision is postponed until
- that timer expires. The delay value is calculated as followed:
-
- the RS determines the relative position of its own "informed
- client" list in the linked list of all "informed client" lists.
- If such position is expressed with a number, say N, in the 1 to
- "maximum number of lists" range, then the delay value is set to
- (N-1)*<DelayGranularity>.
-
- Upon expiration of the DelayTimer, the "informed client" lists are
- scanned once again to see if the corresponding peer has already been
- receiving routing updates from another RS in the local RS cluster.
- If the Router Id of the peer is found in one of the lists as a result
- of receiving a new LIST message, no routing updates are sent to that
- peer. Otherwise, the peer's Router ID is entered in the "informed
- client" list that belongs to the RS, the transmission of the updated
- LIST message is immediately scheduled, and routing updates are sent
- to the client.
-
- The rational for the delay is to minimize races in the decision as
- which RS among route servers in the same RSC is going to provide
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 12]
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- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- routing information to a given client. The RS with least number of
- "informed clients" would have a shortest delay and is the most
- probable to win the race. This helps to equalize the number of
- "informed clients" between RSc in a cluster.
-
- After an BGP/IDRP peer is placed in the "informed client" list, it is
- only removed from the list when the BGP/IDRP connection to this peer
- is lost. While an RS client is in the list it is accurately updated
- with all routing changes.
-
- 4.3.3.5 Inter-RS Connection Failure
-
- If a route server loses a routing session with a route server in the
- same cluster, it must consider taking the responsibilities of route
- advertisement to the clients that are in the "informed client" list
- of the remote route server of the failed session.
-
- For each such client it is checked whether the server has an
- established BGP/IDRP connection to that client and the client is not
- in any of the "informed client" lists of active RS. If both
- conditions are true, the processing described for a new client takes
- place (see 4.3.3.3).
-
- After advertisement responsibilities are reconciled the "informed
- client" list associated with the failed session should be discarded.
-
- 4.3.4 RCID_PATH Attribute
-
- The RCID_PATH is an optional non-transitive attribute that is
- composed of a sequence of RS Cluster Identifiers (RCID) that
- identifies the RS Cluster through which routing information carried
- in the UPDATE message has passed. Type Code of the RCID_PATH
- attribute is 254. The attribute value field contains one or more RS
- Cluster Identifiers, each encoded as a 2-octets long field.
-
- When a route server propagates a route which has been learned from
- nother Route Server's UPDATE message, the following is performed with
- respect to the the RCID_PATH attribute:
-
- - if the destination of the route is not a route server, the
- RCID_PATH Attribute is excluded from the UPDATE message sent to
- that client.
-
- - if the destination of the route is another route server that is
- located in the advertising server's own RS cluster, the
- RCID_PATH attribute is sent unmodified.
-
-
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 13]
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- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- - if the destination of the route is a route server in a different
- RS cluster, the advertising route server shall verify that the
- RCID of the destination speaker's cluster is not present in
- the RCID_PATH attribute associated with route. If it does,
- the route shall not be advertised and an event indicating
- that a route loop was detected should be logged, otherwise
- the advertising router shall prepend its own RCID to the RCID
- sequence in the RCID_PATH attribute (put it in the leftmost
- position).
-
- When a route server propagates a route which has been learned from a
- border router to another route server then:
-
- - if the destination of the route is a route server that is
- located in the advertising router's own RS cluster, an empty
- RCID_PATH attribute shall be included in the UPDATE message
- (an empty RCID_PATH attribute is one whose length field contains
- the value zero).
-
- - if the destination of the route is a route server in a different
- RS cluster, the advertising route server shall include its own
- RCID in the RCID_PATH attribute. In this case, the RCID of
- advertising route server will be the only entry in the RCID_PATH
- attribute.
-
- 4.3.5 NOTIFICATION Error Codes
-
- In addition to the error codes defined in the BGP-4/IDRP
- specification, the following error can be indicated in a NOTIFICATION
- message that is sent by a route server:
-
- 255 LIST Message Error
-
- The following error subcodes can be associated with the LIST Message
- Error:
-
- 1 - Bad Address. This subcode indicates that a Client Identifying
- Address in the received LIST message does not represent
- a valid network layer address of a router interface.
-
- The following additional UPDATE error subcodes are also defined:
-
- 255 - Invalid ADVERTISER Attribute. This subcode indicates that
- a value of the ADVERTISER Attribute does not represent
- a valid network layer address of a router interface.
-
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- Haskin Experimental [Page 14]
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- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
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- 4.3.7 Timers
-
- The InitiationTimer value of 5 minutes is suggested.
-
- In order to avoid route flaps during an RS switch-over, a value of
- DelayGranularity should be such so the maximum possible value of the
- DelayTimer (see 4.3.3.3) combined with the Hold Time of inter-RS
- connections would be shorter than two-third of the smallest Hold Time
- interval of all BGP/IDRP connections between the route servers and
- their clients (including RSs in other clusters). So in a cluster
- with three RSs and the respective Hold Times of 30 and 90 seconds the
- DelayGranularity of 15 seconds would be a recommended value.
-
- For the same reason it is recommended that the Hold Time of BGP/IDRP
- connections between route servers in the same cluster is set to one-
- third of the smallest Hold Time of all BGP/IDRP connections between
- the route servers and their clients (including RSs in other
- clusters). So, if the smallest Hold Time of BGP/IDRP sessions with
- clients is 90 seconds, the recommended value of the Hold Time of
- BGP/IDRP connections between route servers in that cluster would be
- 30 seconds.
-
- 5. Route Server Discovery
-
- This document does not propose any mechanism for the dynamic RS
- discovery by RS clients or/and by other route servers. It is assumed
- that at minimum a manual configuration will be provided in
- participating routers to achieve the needed connectivity.
-
- 7. Security Considerations
-
- Security issues are not discussed in this document.
-
- 8. Acknowledgment
-
- Some design concepts presented in this paper benefited from
- discussions with Tony Li (cisco Systems).
-
- Author likes to thank John Krawczyk (Bay Networks) and Susan Harris
- (Merit) for their review and valuable comments.
-
- Also, author would like to thank Yakov Rekhter (IBM) for the review
- of the earlier version of this document and constructive comments.
-
- Special thanks to Ray Chang (Bay Networks) whose experience in
- implementing the concepts presented in this document helped to refine
- the route server design.
-
-
-
-
- Haskin Experimental [Page 15]
-
- RFC 1863 A BGP/IDRP Route Server October 1995
-
-
- 9. References
-
- [BGP4] Rekhter, Y., and T. Li, "A Border Gateway Protocol 4
- (BGP-4)", RFC 1771, T.J. Watson Research Center, IBM Corp.,
- cisco Systems, March 1995.
-
- [IDRP] Rekhter, Y., and P. Traina, "IDRP for IPv6", Work In Progress.
-
- 10. Author's Address
-
- Dimitry Haskin
- Bay Networks, Inc.
- 2 Federal Street
- Billerica, MA 01821
-
- EMail: dhaskin@baynetworks.com
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