Semantic Metadata Annotation for Network Anomaly Detection Swisscom
Binzring 17 Zurich 8045 Switzerland thomas.graf@swisscom.com
Swisscom
Binzring 17 Zurich 8045 Switzerland wanting.du@swisscom.com
INSA-Lyon
Lyon France alex.huang-feng@insa-lyon.fr
Huawei
Dublin Ireland vincenzo.riccobene@huawei-partners.com
Operations and Management NMOP This document explains why and how semantic metadata annotation helps to test, validate and compare Outlier and Symptom detection, supports supervised and semi-supervised machine learning development, enables data exchange among network operators, vendors and academia and make anomalies for humans apprehensible. The proposed semantics uniforms the network anomaly data exchange between and among operators and vendors to improve their Service Disruption Detection Systems. Discussion Venues Discussion of this document takes place on the Operations and Management Area Working Group Working Group mailing list (nmop@ietf.org), which is archived at . Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at .
provides an overall introduction into how anomaly detection is being applied into the IP network domain and which operational data is needed. It approaches the problem space by automating what a network engineer would normally do when verifying a network connectivity service. Monitor from different network plane perspectives to understand wherever one network plane affects another negatively. In order to fine tune Service Disruption Detection as described in , the results provided as analytical data need to be reviewed by a Network Engineer. Keeping the human out of the monitoring but still involving him in the alarm verification loop. This document describes what information is needed to understand the output of the Service Disruption Detection for a Network Engineer, but also at the same time is semantically structured that it can be used for Service Disruption Detection System testing by comparing the results systematically and set a baseline for supervised machine learning which requires labeled operational data.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.
This document makes use of the terms defined in and . The following terms are used as defined in : Outlier Detection Service Disruption Detection Service Disruption Detection System The following terms are used as defined in : System Detect Event State Relevance Problem Symptom Cause Alarm
Observed network Symptoms are specified and categorized according to the following scheme:
Action:
Which action a network node performed for a packet in the Forwarding Plane, a path or adjacency in the Control Plane or state or statistical changes in the Management Plane. For Forwarding Plane we distinguish between missing, where the drop occurred outside the measured network node, drop and on-path delay, which was measured on the network node. For Control Plane we distinguish between reachability, which refers to a change in the routing or forwarding information base (RIB/FIB) and adjacency which refers to a change in peering or link-layer resolution. For Management Plane we refer to state or statistical changes on interfaces.
Reason:
For each action, one or more reasons describe why this action was used. For Drops in Forwarding Plane we distinguish between Unreachable because network layer reachability information was missing, Administered because an administrator configured a rule preventing the forwarding for this packet and Corrupt where the network node was unable to determine where to forward to due to packet, software or hardware error. For on-path delay we distinguish between Minimum, Average and Maximum Delay for a given flow. For Control Plane wherever a the reachability was updated or withdrawn or the adjacency was established or teared down. For Management Plane we distinguish between interfaces states up and down, and statistical errors, discards or unknown protocol counters.
Cause:
For each reason one or more causes describe why a network node has chosen that action.
consolidates for the forwarding plane a list of common Symptoms with their Actions, Reasons and Causes. Describing Symptoms and their Actions, Reason and Cause for Forwarding Plane
Action Reason Cause
Missing Previous Time
Drop Unreachable next-hop
Drop Unreachable link-layer
Drop Unreachable Time To Life expired
Drop Unreachable Fragmentation needed and Don't Fragment set
Drop Administered Access-List
Drop Administered Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding
Drop Administered Discard Route
Drop Administered Policed
Drop Administered Shaped
Drop Corrupt Bad Packet
Drop Corrupt Bad Egress Interface
Delay Min -
Delay Mean -
Delay Max -
consolidates for the control plane a list of common symptoms with their actions, reasons and causes. Describing Symptoms and their Actions, Reason and Cause for Control Plane
Action Reason Cause
Reachability Update Imported
Reachability Update Received
Reachability Withdraw Received
Reachability Withdraw Peer Down
Reachability Withdraw Suppressed
Reachability Withdraw Stale
Reachability Withdraw Route Policy Filtered
Reachability Withdraw Maximum Number of Prefixes Reached
Adjacency Established Peer
Adjacency Established Link-Layer
Adjacency Locally Teared Down Peer
Adjacency Remotely Teared Down Peer
Adjacency Locally Teared Down Link-Layer
Adjacency Remotely Teared Down Link-Layer
Adjacency Locally Teared Down Administrative
Adjacency Remotely Teared Down Administrative
Adjacency Locally Teared Down Maximum Number of Prefixes Reached
Adjacency Remotely Teared Down Maximum Number of Prefixes Reached
Adjacency Locally Teared Down Transport Connection Failed
Adjacency Remotely Teared Down Transport Connection Failed
consolidates for the management plane a list of common Symptoms with their Actions, Reasons and Causes. Describing Symptoms and their Actions, Reason and Cause for Management Plane
Action Reason Cause
Interface Up Link-Layer
Interface Down Link-Layer
Interface Errors -
Interface Discards -
Interface Unknown Protocol -
Metadata adds additional context to data. For instance, in networks the software version of a network node where Management Plane metrics are obtained from as described in. Where in Semantic Metadata the meaning or ontology of the annotated data is being described. In this section a YANG model is defined in order to provide a structure for the metadata related to anomalies happening in the network. The module is intended to describe the metadata used to "annotate" the operational data collected from the network nodes, which can include time series data and logs, as well as other forms of data that is "time-bounded". The aspects discussed so far in this document are grouped under the concept of "anomaly" which represents a collection of Symptoms. The anomaly overall has a set of parameters that describe the overall behavior of the network in a given time-window including all the observed Symptoms and Outliers.
contains the YANG tree diagram of the which augments the defined ietf-relevant-state. For each Symptom, the following parameters have been assigned: Action, Reason and Cause to describe the Symptom, a concern score indicating how critical the Symptom is and with Forwarding, Control and Management to which network plane the Symptom can be attributed to.
The module augments the anomaly of the relevant-state container and the relevant-state-notification of ietf-relevant-state defined in . The relevant-state container is used for modifying the Symptom data in the Postmortem system. Where the relevant-state-notification is used for messaging from the Alarm Aggregation to the Postmortem and the Alarm and Problem Management system.
The YANG module has one typedef defining the score and a grouping defining Action, Reason and Cause and how it attributes to the network planes.
file "ietf-network-anomaly-symptom-cbl@2025-03-03.yang" module ietf-network-anomaly-symptom-cbl { yang-version 1.1; namespace "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-network-anomaly-symptom-cbl"; prefix smcblsymptom; import ietf-relevant-state { prefix rsn; reference "RFC XXX: Relevant State and Relevant State Notification"; } organization "IETF NMOP (Network Management Operations) Working Group"; contact "WG Web: WG List: Authors: Thomas Graf Wanting Du Alex Huang Feng Vincenzo Riccobene "; description "This module defines the semantic grouping to be used by a Service Disruption Detection Systems. The defined objects is used to augment the anomaly container. Describing the symptoms action, reason and concern-score. Copyright (c) 2023 IETF Trust and the persons identified as authors of the code. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, is permitted pursuant to, and subject to the license terms contained in, the Revised BSD License set forth in Section 4.c of the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info). This version of this YANG module is part of RFC XXXX; see the RFC itself for full legal notices."; revision 2025-03-03 { description "Initial version"; reference "RFC XXX: Semantic Metadata Annotation for Network Anomaly Detection"; } typedef score { type uint8 { range "0 .. 100"; } description "Number indicating a score between 0 and 100"; } grouping cbl-symptom { description "Semantic definining a symptom detected for a connectivity service"; leaf action { type string; description "action"; } leaf reason { type string; description "reason"; } leaf cause { type string; description "cause"; } choice plane { description "Network Plane affected by the symptom"; case forwarding { leaf forwarding { type empty; description "forwarding plane"; } } case control { leaf control { type empty; description "control plane"; } } case management { leaf management { type empty; description "management plane"; } } } } augment /rsn:relevant-state/rsn:anomalies/rsn:symptom { description "Provide extension for the symptom description, specifically for connectivity services to the relevant state container"; uses cbl-symptom; } augment /rsn:relevant-state-notification/rsn:anomalies/rsn:symptom { description "Provide extension for the symptom description, specifically for connectivity services to the relevant state notification"; uses cbl-symptom; } } ]]>
The YANG module has a service and a node-termination grouping defining vpn-id, vpn-name and site-ids for service and hostname, BGP route-distinguisher, BGP peer ip address, BGP path next-hop and node interface-id. Within the NMOP working group we discuss with the Digital Map authors which existing YANG nodes instead could be used to facilitate a service and network topology context view.
file "ietf-network-anomaly-service-topology@2025-03-03" module ietf-network-anomaly-service-topology { yang-version 1.1; namespace "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-network-anomaly-service-topology"; prefix smtopology; import ietf-inet-types { prefix inet; reference "RFC 6991: Common YANG Data Types"; } import ietf-relevant-state { prefix rsn; reference "RFC XXX: Relevant State and Relevant State Notification"; } organization "IETF NMOP (Network Management Operations) Working Group"; contact "WG Web: WG List: Authors: Thomas Graf Wanting Du Alex Huang Feng Vincenzo Riccobene "; description "This module defines the symptom container to be used by a network anomaly detection system. The defined objects can be used to augment operational network collected observability data and analytical problem data equally. Describing the relevant-state of observed symptoms. Copyright (c) 2023 IETF Trust and the persons identified as authors of the code. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, is permitted pursuant to, and subject to the license terms contained in, the Revised BSD License set forth in Section 4.c of the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info). This version of this YANG module is part of RFC XXXX; see the RFC itself for full legal notices."; revision 2025-03-03 { description "Initial version"; reference "RFC XXX: Semantic Metadata Annotation for Network Anomaly Detection"; } grouping vpn-service-grouping { description "Connectivity service of type VPN. This grouping is used to augment the relevant-state container"; container vpn-service-container { description "Definition of a container including a list of VPN Service instances"; list vpn-service { key "vpn-id"; description "List of VPN services of interest"; leaf vpn-id { type string; mandatory true; description "Unique ID of the VPN connectivity service"; } leaf vpn-name { type string; description "Name of the VPN connectivity service"; } leaf-list site-ids { type string; description "List of unique site ID's of the VPN connectivity service"; } } } } grouping vpn-node-termination-grouping { description "Node Termination for the VPN Service instance. This grouping is used to augment the relevant-state container"; container vpn-node-termination-container { description "Definition of a container including a list of VPN Node Terminations"; list vpn-node-termination { key "hostname route-distinguisher"; description "List of Node Terminations of interest"; leaf hostname { type inet:host; mandatory true; description "The hostname of the network node according to [RFC1213]. This value is usually configured on the node by the administrator to uniquely identify the node in the network."; } leaf route-distinguisher { type string; mandatory true; description "The BGP route-distinguisher obtained through IPFIX IE90 mplsVpnRouteDistinguisher or BMP route-monitoring or peer_up message type."; } leaf-list peer-ip { type inet:ip-address; description "The BGP peering IP address learned through BMP route-monitoring, peer_up or peer_down message type."; } leaf-list next-hop { type inet:ip-address; description "The BGP next-hop IP address learned through BMP route-monitoring message type."; } leaf-list interface-id { type int32; description "The interface identifier obtained through IPFIX IE10 ingressInterface, IE14 egressInterface or ietf-interfaces:interfaces/interface/if-index."; } } } } augment /rsn:relevant-state/rsn:anomalies/rsn:service { description "Provide extension for the service description, specifically for connectivity services to the relevant state container"; uses vpn-service-grouping; } augment /rsn:relevant-state-notification/rsn:anomalies/rsn:service { description "Provide extension for the service description, specifically for connectivity services to the relevant state notification"; uses vpn-service-grouping; } augment /rsn:relevant-state/rsn:anomalies/rsn:service { description "Provide extension for the service description, specifically for connectivity services to the relevant state container"; uses vpn-node-termination-grouping; } augment /rsn:relevant-state-notification/rsn:anomalies/rsn:service { description "Provide extension for the service description, specifically for connectivity services to the relevant state notification"; uses vpn-node-termination-grouping; } } ]]>
The security considerations.
This section provides pointers to existing open source implementations of this draft. Note to the RFC-editor: Please remove this before publishing.
A tool called Antagonist has been implemented and refined during the IETF 119 and 120 hackathons, in order to validate the application of the YANG models defined in this draft. Antagonist provides visual support for two important use cases in the scope of this document:
  • the generation of a ground truth in relation to Symptoms and Problems in timeseries data
  • the visual validation of results produced by automated network anomaly detection tools.
The open source code can be found here:
The authors would like to thank , for his review and valuable comment. The authors would like to thank Antonio Roberto for his contribution to the ideas in this draft and Reshad Rahman and Mohamed Boucadair for his review and valuable comments.
Antagonist: Anomaly tagging on historical data