MPLS Working Group L. Andersson
Internet-Draft Bronze Dragon Consulting
Updates: 3032, 7274 (if approved) K. Kompella
Intended status: Informational Juniper Networks
Expires: February 13, 2021 A. Farrel
Old Dog Consulting
August 12, 2020
Special Purpose Label terminology
draft-ietf-mpls-spl-terminology-03
Abstract
This document discusses and recommends a terminology that may be used
when MPLS Special Purpose Labels (SPL) are specified and documented.
This document updates RFC 7274 and RFC 3032.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on February 13, 2021.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
Andersson, et al. Expires February 13, 2021 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft SPL Terminology August 2020
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2.1. GMPLS Special Purpose Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Terminology and Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1. Introduction
RFC 7274 [RFC7274] made some changes to the terminology used for MPLS
Special Purpose Labels, but did not define consistent terminology.
One thing that RFC 7274 did was to deprecate use of the term
"reserved labels" when describing a range of labels allocated from a
registry maintained by IANA. The term "Reserved" in such a registry
means "set aside, not to be used", but that range of labels was
available for allocation according to the policies set out in that
registry. The name "Special Purpose Labels" was introduced in RFC
7274 in place of the previous term, and the abbreviation SPL was
recommended.
At the time of writing the first version of this document, the IETF
was in the process of allocating the very first SPLs from the
Extended SPL (eSPL) range [RFC8595]. This document discusses and
recommends terminology and abbreviations to be used when talking
about and documenting Special Purpose Labels.
This document updates RFC 3032 [RFC3032] and RFC 7274 [RFC7274] in
that it changes the terminology for both Base SPLs and Extended SPLs.
2. Background
Two sets of SPLs are defined for use in MPLS:
The range of 0-15, Base Special Purpose Labels (bSPLs), is
specified in RFC 3032 [RFC3032].
The range 0-1048575 of eSPLs is specified in RFC 7274 [RFC7274].
Andersson, et al. Expires February 13, 2021 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft SPL Terminology August 2020
* the values 0-15 have been reserved never to be allocated
* the values 16-239 are available for allocation
* the values 240-255 are for experimental use
* the values 256-1048575 are currently not available for
allocation. A standard track RFC will be needed to allocate
any labels from this range.
2.1. GMPLS Special Purpose Labels
Note that IANA maintains a registry called "Special Purpose
Generalized Label Values". Labels in that registry have special
meaning when present in certain signalling objects, are 32 bits long,
and are not to be confused with MPLS forwarding plane labels. This
document does not make any changes to the GMPLS registry or to how
labels from that registry are described.
3. Terminology and Abbreviations
IANA maintains a name space for 'Special-Purpose Multiprotocol Label
Switching (MPLS) Label Values' code points [SPL-NAME-SPACE]. Within
this name space there are two registries. One is called the
'Special-Purpose MPLS Label Values' registry [bSPL]. The other is
called 'Extended Special-Purpose MPLS Label Values' registry [eSPL].
The difference in the name of the name space and the first registry
is only that the MPLS abbreviation is expanded. This document
changes the name of the first registry to 'Base Special-Purpose MPLS
Label Values', but leaves the name of the latter registry unchanged
as 'Extended Special-Purpose MPLS Label Values'.
The following conventions will be used in specifications and when
talking about SPLs
o Collectively, the two ranges are known as Special Purpose Labels
(SPL).
o The special purpose labels from the lower range will be called
Base Special Purpose Labels (bSPL).
o The special purpose labels from the higher range will be called
Extended Special Purpose Labels (eSPL).
o The combination of the Extension Label (XL) (value 15 which is a
bSPL, but that is also called xSPL) and an eSPL is called a
Composite Special Purpose Label (cSPL).
Andersson, et al. Expires February 13, 2021 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft SPL Terminology August 2020
This results in a label stacks such as the illustrative examples
shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2.
0 31
| MPLS Label Stack entry |
+--------+--------+--------+--------+
| MPLS Label Stack entry |
+--------+--------+--------+--------+
bSPL | Base SPL |
+--------+--------+--------+--------+
| MPLS Label Stack entry (cont.) |
Figure 1: Example of Label Stack
0 31
| MPLS Label Stack entry |
+--------+--------+--------+--------+
| MPLS Label Stack entry |
+--------+--------+--------+--------+
xSPL | Extension Label (XL) | <--+
+--------+--------+--------+--------+ |--- cSPL
eSPL | Extended SPL | <--+
+--------+--------+--------+--------+
| MPLS Label Stack entry (cont.) |
Figure 2: Example of Label Stack
4. Security Considerations
The document describes the terminology to be used when describing and
specifying the use of SPLs. It does not effect the forwarding in the
MPLS data plane, nor does it have any effect on how LSPs are
established by an MPLS control plane or by a centralized controller.
This document does not aim to describe existing implementations of
SPLs or potential vulnerabilities of SPLs.
Andersson, et al. Expires February 13, 2021 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft SPL Terminology August 2020
5. IANA Considerations
We request that the name of the IANA registry that today is called
"Special-Purpose MPLS Label Values" is changed to "Base Special-
Purpose MPLS Label Values".
6. Acknowledgements
The authors of this document would like to thank Stewart Bryant for
careful review and constructive suggestions.
We would also like to thank the Routing Directorate reviwer Eric Gray
for a detailed, careful and insightful review.
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[bSPL] "Special-Purpose MPLS Label Values",
.
[eSPL] "Extended Special-Purpose MPLS Label Values",
.
[RFC3032] Rosen, E., Tappan, D., Fedorkow, G., Rekhter, Y.,
Farinacci, D., Li, T., and A. Conta, "MPLS Label Stack
Encoding", RFC 3032, DOI 10.17487/RFC3032, January 2001,
.
[RFC7274] Kompella, K., Andersson, L., and A. Farrel, "Allocating
and Retiring Special-Purpose MPLS Labels", RFC 7274,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7274, June 2014,
.
[SPL-NAME-SPACE]
"Special-Purpose Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
Label Values", .
7.2. Informative References
[RFC8595] Farrel, A., Bryant, S., and J. Drake, "An MPLS-Based
Forwarding Plane for Service Function Chaining", RFC 8595,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8595, June 2019,
.
Andersson, et al. Expires February 13, 2021 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft SPL Terminology August 2020
Authors' Addresses
Loa Andersson
Bronze Dragon Consulting
Email: loa@pi.nu
Kireeti Kompella
Juniper Networks
Email: kireeti@juniper.net
Adrian Farrel
Old Dog Consulting
Email: adrian@olddog.co.uk
Andersson, et al. Expires February 13, 2021 [Page 6]