Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-bfd-intervals
draft-ietf-bfd-intervals
Internet Engineering Task Force N. Akiya
Internet-Draft M. Binderberger
Updates: RFC5880 (if approved) Cisco Systems
Intended status: Informational G. Mirsky
Expires: April 17, 2015 Ericsson
October 14, 2014
Common Interval Support in Bidirectional Forwarding Detection
draft-ietf-bfd-intervals-05
Abstract
Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) requires that messages are
transmitted at regular intervals and provides a way to negotiate the
interval used by BFD peers. Some BFD implementations may be
restricted to only support several interval values. When such BFD
implementations speak to each other, there is a possibility of two
sides not being able to find a common value for the interval to run
BFD sessions.
This document updates RFC 5880 by defining a small set of interval
values for BFD that we call "Common Intervals", and recommends
implementations to support the defined intervals. This solves the
problem of finding an interval value that both BFD speakers can
support while allowing a simplified implementation as seen for
hardware-based BFD. It does not restrict an implementation from
supporting more intervals in addition to the Common Intervals.
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
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This Internet-Draft will expire on April 17, 2015.
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Copyright Notice
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. The problem with few supported intervals . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Well-defined, Common Intervals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Appendix A. Why some values are in the Common Interval set . . . 5
Appendix B. Timer adjustment with non-identical interval sets . 6
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1. Introduction
The Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) standard [RFC5880]
describes how to calculate the transmission interval and the
detection time. It does not make any statement though how to solve a
situation where one BFD speaker cannot support the calculated value.
In practice this may not been a problem as long as software-
implemented timers have been used and as long as the granularity of
such timers was small compared to the interval values being
supported, i.e. as long as the error in the timer interval was small
compared to 25 percent jitter.
In the meantime requests exist for very fast interval values, down to
3.3msec for MPLS-TP. At the same time the requested scale for the
number of BFD sessions is increasing. Both requirements have driven
vendors to use Network Processors (NP), FPGAs or other hardware-based
solutions to offload the periodic packet transmission and the timeout
detection in the receive direction. A potential problem with this
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hardware-based BFD is the granularity of the interval timers.
Depending on the implementation only a few intervals may be
supported, which can cause interoperability problems. This document
proposes a set of interval values that should be supported by all
implementations. Details are laid out in the following sections.
2. The problem with few supported intervals
Let's assume vendor "A" supports 10msec, 100msec and 1sec interval
timers in hardware. Vendor "B" supports every value from 20msec
onward, with a granularity of 1msec. For a BFD session "A" tries to
set up the session with 10msec while "B" uses 20msec as the value for
RequiredMinRxInterval and DesiredMinTxInterval. [RFC5880] describes
that the negotiated value for Rx and Tx is 20msec. But system "A" is
not able to support this. Multiple ways exist to resolve the dilemma
but none of them is without problems.
a. Realizing that it cannot support 20msec, system "A" sends out a
new BFD packet, advertising the next larger interval of 100msec
with RequiredMinRxInterval and DesiredMinTxInterval. The new
negotiated interval between "A" and "B" then is 100msec, which is
supported by both systems. The problem though is that we moved
from the 10/20msec range to 100msec, which has far deviated from
operator expectations.
b. System "A" could violate [RFC5880] and use the 10msec interval
for the Tx direction. In the receive direction it could use an
adjusted multiplier value M' = 2 * M to match the correct
detection time. Now beside the fact that we explicitly violate
[RFC5880] there may be the problem that system "B" drops up to
50% of the packets; this could be the case when "B" uses an
ingress rate policer to protect itself and the policer would be
programmed with an expectation of 20msec receive intervals.
The example above could be worse when we assume that system "B" can
only support a few timer values itself. Let's assume "B" supports
"20msec", "300msec" and "1sec". If both systems would adjust their
advertised intervals, then the adjustment ends at 1sec. The example
above could even be worse when we assume that system "B" can only
support "50msec", "500msec" and "2sec". Even if both systems walk
their supported intervals, the two systems will never be able to
agree on a interval to run any BFD sessions.
3. Well-defined, Common Intervals
The problem can be reduced by defining interval values that are
supported by all implementations. Then the adjustment mechanism
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could find a commonly supported interval without deviating too much
from the original request.
In technical terms the requirement is as follows: a BFD
implementation should support all values in the set of Common
Interval values which are equal to or larger than the fastest, i.e.
lowest, interval the particular BFD implementation supports.
This document defines the set of Common Interval values to be:
3.3msec, 10msec, 20msec, 50msec, 100msec and 1sec.
In addition support for 10sec interval together with multiplier
values up to 255 is recommended to support graceful restart.
The adjustment is always towards larger, i.e. slower, interval values
when the initial interval proposed by the peer is not supported.
This document is not adding new requirements with respect to the
precision with which a timer value must be implemented. Supporting
an interval value means to advertise this value in the
DesiredMinTxInterval and/or RequiredMinRxInterval field of the BFD
packets and to provide timers that are reasonably close. [RFC5880]
defines safety margins for the timers by defining a jitter range.
How is the "Common Interval" set used exactly? In the example above,
vendor "A" has a fastest interval of 10msec and thus would be
required to support all intervals in the Common Interval set that are
equal or larger than 10msec, i.e. it would support 10msec, 20msec,
50msec, 100msec, 1sec. Vendor "B" has a fastest interval of 20msec
and thus would need to support 20msec, 50msec, 100msec and 1sec. As
long as this requirement is met for the common set of values, then
both vendor "A" and "B" are free to support additional values outside
of the Common Interval set.
4. IANA Considerations
RFC Ed.: RFC-editor please remove this section
No request to IANA.
5. Security Considerations
This document does not introduce any additional security concerns.
The security considerations described in the BFD documents, [RFC5880]
and others, apply to devices implementing the BFD protocol,
regardless of whether or not the Common Interval set is implemented.
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6. Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Sylvain Masse and Anca Zamfir for bringing up
the discussion about the Poll sequence, and Jeffrey Haas helped
finding the fine line between "exact" and "pedantic".
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC5880] Katz, D. and D. Ward, "Bidirectional Forwarding Detection
(BFD)", RFC 5880, June 2010.
7.2. Informative References
[G.8013_Y.1731]
ITU-T G.8013/Y.1731, "ITU-T OAM functions and mechanisms
for Ethernet based network", November 2013.
[GR-253-CORE]
Telcordia Technologies, Inc., "Synchronous Optical Network
(SONET) Transport Systems: Common Generic Criteria",
October 2009.
Appendix A. Why some values are in the Common Interval set
The list of Common Interval values is trying to balance various
objectives. The list should not contain too many values as more
timers may increase the implementation costs. On the other hand less
values produces larger gaps and adjustment jumps. More values in the
lower interval range is thus seen as critical to support customer
needs for fast detection in setups with multiple vendors.
o 3.3msec: required by MPLS-TP, adopting the detection time of
10msec from [GR-253-CORE].
o 10msec: general consensus is to support 10msec. Multiple vendors
plan to or do already implement 10msec.
o 20msec: basically avoids a larger gap in this critical interval
region. Still allows 50-60msec detect and restore (with
multiplier of 2) and covers existing software-based
implementations.
o 50msec: widely deployed interval. Supporting this value reflects
reality of many BFD implementations today.
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o 100msec: similar to 10msec this value allows the reuse of
[G.8013_Y.1731] implementations, especially hardware. It allows
to support large scale of 9 x 100msec setups and would be a
replacement for 3 x 300msec configurations used by customers to
have a detection time slightly below 1sec for VoIP setups.
o 1sec: as mentioned in [RFC5880]. While the interval for Down
packets can be 1sec or larger this draft recommends to use exactly
1sec to avoid interoperability issues.
The recommended value for large intervals is 10sec, allowing for a
timeout of 42.5 minutes with a multiplier of 255. This value is kept
outside the Common Interval set as it is not required for normal BFD
operations, which occur in the sub-second range. Instead the
expected usage is for graceful restart, if needed.
Appendix B. Timer adjustment with non-identical interval sets
[RFC5880] implicitly assumes that a BFD implementation can support
any timer value equal or above the advertised value. When a BFD
speaker starts a poll sequence then the peer must reply with the
Final (F) bit set and adjust the transmit and detection timers
accordingly. With contiguous software-based timers this is a valid
assumption. Even in the case of a small number of supported interval
values this assumption holds when both BFD speakers support exactly
the same interval values.
But what happens when both speakers support intervals that are not
supported by the peer? An example is router "A" supporting the
Common Interval set plus 200msec while router "B" support the Common
Intervals plus 300msec. Assume both routers are configured and run
at 50msec. Now router A is configured for 200msec. We know the
result must be that both BFD speaker use 1sec timers but how do they
reach this endpoint?
First router A is sending a packet with 200msec. The P bit is set
according to [RFC5880]. The Tx timer stays at 50msec, the detection
timer is 3 * 200msec:
(A) DesiredTx: 200msec, MinimumRx: 200msec, P-bit
Tx: 50msec , Detect: 3 * 200msec
Router B now must reply with an F bit. The problem is B is
confirming timer values which it cannot support. The only setting to
avoid a session flap would be
(B) DesiredTx: 300msec, MinimumRx: 300msec, F-bit
Tx: 50msec , Detect: 3 * 300msec
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immediately followed by a P-bit packet as the advertised timer values
have been changed:
(B) DesiredTx: 300msec, MinimumRx: 300msec, P-bit
Tx: 50msec , Detect: 3 * 300msec
This is not exactly what [RFC5880] states in section 6.8.7 about the
transmission rate. On the other hand as we will see this state does
not last for long. Router A would adjust its timers based on the
received Final bit
(A) Tx: 200msec , Detect: 3 * 1sec
Router A is not supporting the proposed 300msec and would use 1sec
instead for the detection time. It would then respond to the
received Poll sequence from router B, using 1sec as router A does not
support the Max(200msec, 300msec):
(A) DesiredTx: 1sec, MinimumRx: 1sec, F-bit
Tx: 200msec , Detect: 3 * 1sec
followed by its own Poll sequence as the advertised timer values have
been changed:
(A) DesiredTx: 1sec, MinimumRx: 1sec, P-bit
Tx: 200msec , Detect: 3 * 1sec
Router B would adjust its timers based on the received Final
(B) Tx: 300msec , Detect: 3 * 1sec
and would then reply to the Poll sequence from router A:
(B) DesiredTx: 300msec, MinimumRx: 300msec, F-bit
Tx: 1sec , Detect: 3 * 1sec
which finally makes router A adjusting its timers:
(A) Tx: 1sec , Detect: 3 * 1sec
In other words router A and B go through multiple poll sequences
until they reach a commonly supported interval value. Reaching such
a value is guaranteed by this draft.
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Authors' Addresses
Nobo Akiya
Cisco Systems
Email: nobo@cisco.com
Marc Binderberger
Cisco Systems
Email: mbinderb@cisco.com
Greg Mirsky
Ericsson
Email: gregory.mirsky@ericsson.com
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