BGP-LS for SR EPE: Border Gateway Protocol - Link State (BGP-LS) Extensions for Segment Routing BGP Egress Peer Engineering
How BGP-LS can carry a router's BGP peering topology and the segment identifiers that steer traffic to those peers.
Previdi, S., Talaulikar, K., Ed., Filsfils, C., Patel, K., Ray, S., and J. Dong, "Border Gateway Protocol - Link State (BGP-LS) Extensions for Segment Routing BGP Egress Peer Engineering", RFC 9086, DOI 10.17487/RFC9086, August 2021, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9086>.
@misc{rfc9086,
series = {Request for Comments},
number = 9086,
howpublished = {RFC 9086},
publisher = {RFC Editor},
doi = {10.17487/RFC9086},
url = {https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9086},
author = {S. Previdi and K. Talaulikar and C. Filsfils and K. Patel and S. Ray and J. Dong},
title = {{Border Gateway Protocol - Link State (BGP-LS) Extensions for Segment Routing BGP Egress Peer Engineering}},
pagetotal = 15,
year = 2021,
month = aug,
} RFC text
Contents
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) S. Previdi
Request for Comments: 9086 Huawei Technologies
Category: Standards Track K. Talaulikar, Ed.
ISSN: 2070-1721 C. Filsfils
Cisco Systems, Inc.
K. Patel
Arrcus, Inc.
S. Ray
Individual
J. Dong
Huawei Technologies
August 2021
Border Gateway Protocol - Link State (BGP-LS) Extensions for Segment
Routing BGP Egress Peer Engineering
Abstract
A node steers a packet through a controlled set of instructions,
called segments, by prepending the packet with a list of segment
identifiers (SIDs). A segment can represent any instruction,
topological or service based. SR segments allow steering a flow
through any topological path and service chain while maintaining per-
flow state only at the ingress node of the SR domain.
This document describes an extension to Border Gateway Protocol -
Link State (BGP-LS) for advertisement of BGP Peering Segments along
with their BGP peering node information so that efficient BGP Egress
Peer Engineering (EPE) policies and strategies can be computed based
on Segment Routing.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9086.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2021 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
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Requirements Language
3. BGP Peering Segments
4. BGP-LS NLRI Advertisement for BGP Protocol
4.1. BGP Router-ID and Member AS Number
4.2. Mandatory BGP Node Descriptors
4.3. Optional BGP Node Descriptors
5. BGP-LS Attributes for BGP Peering Segments
5.1. Advertisement of the PeerNode SID
5.2. Advertisement of the PeerAdj SID
5.3. Advertisement of the PeerSet SID
6. IANA Considerations
6.1. New BGP-LS Protocol-ID
6.2. Node Descriptors and Link Attribute TLVs
7. Manageability Considerations
8. Security Considerations
9. References
9.1. Normative References
9.2. Informative References
Acknowledgements
Contributors
Authors' Addresses
1. Introduction
Segment Routing (SR) leverages source routing. A node steers a
packet through a controlled set of instructions, called segments, by
prepending the packet with a list of segment identifiers (SIDs). A
SID can represent any instruction, topological or service based. SR
segments allows to enforce a flow through any topological path or
service function while maintaining per-flow state only at the ingress
node of the SR domain.
The SR architecture [RFC8402] defines three types of BGP Peering
Segments that may be instantiated at a BGP node:
* Peer Node Segment (PeerNode SID) : instruction to steer to a
specific peer node
* Peer Adjacency Segment (PeerAdj SID) : instruction to steer over a
specific local interface towards a specific peer node
* Peer Set Segment (PeerSet SID) : instruction to load-balance to a
set of specific peer nodes
SR can be directly applied to either an MPLS data plane (SR-MPLS)
with no change on the forwarding plane or to a modified IPv6
forwarding plane (SRv6).
This document describes extensions to the BGP - Link State Network
Layer Reachability Information (BGP-LS NLRI) and the BGP-LS Attribute
defined for BGP-LS [RFC7752] for advertising BGP peering segments
from a BGP node along with its peering topology information (i.e.,
its peers, interfaces, and peering Autonomous Systems (ASes)) to
enable computation of efficient BGP Egress Peer Engineering (BGP-EPE)
policies and strategies using the SR-MPLS data plane. The
corresponding extensions for SRv6 are specified in [BGPLS-SRV6].
[RFC9087] illustrates a centralized controller-based BGP Egress Peer
Engineering solution involving SR path computation using the BGP
Peering Segments. This use case comprises a centralized controller
that learns the BGP Peering SIDs via BGP-LS and then uses this
information to program a BGP-EPE policy at any node in the domain to
perform traffic steering via a specific BGP egress node to specific
External BGP (EBGP) peer(s) optionally also over a specific
interface. The BGP-EPE policy can be realized using the SR Policy
framework [SR-POLICY].
This document introduces a new BGP-LS Protocol-ID for BGP and defines
new BGP-LS Node and Link Descriptor TLVs to facilitate advertising
BGP-LS Link NLRI to represent the BGP peering topology. Further, it
specifies the BGP-LS Attribute TLVs for advertisement of the BGP
Peering Segments (i.e., PeerNode SID, PeerAdj SID, and PeerSet SID)
to be advertised in the same BGP-LS Link NLRI.
2. Requirements Language
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 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
3. BGP Peering Segments
As described in [RFC8402], a BGP-EPE-enabled Egress Provider Edge
(PE) node instantiates SR Segments corresponding to its attached
peers. These segments are called BGP Peering Segments or BGP Peering
SIDs. In the case of EBGP, they enable the expression of source-
routed interdomain paths.
An ingress border router of an AS may compose a list of SIDs to steer
a flow along a selected path within the AS, towards a selected egress
border router C of the AS, and to a specific EBGP peer. At minimum,
a BGP-EPE policy applied at an ingress PE involves two SIDs: the Node
SID of the chosen egress PE and then the BGP Peering SID for the
chosen egress PE peer or peering interface.
Each BGP session MUST be described by a PeerNode SID. The
description of the BGP session MAY be augmented by additional PeerAdj
SIDs. Finally, multiple PeerNode SIDs or PeerAdj SIDs MAY be part of
the same group/set in order to group EPE resources under a common
PeerSet SID. These BGP Peering SIDs and their encoding are described
in detail in Section 5.
The following BGP Peering SIDs need to be instantiated on a BGP
router for each of its BGP peer sessions that are enabled for Egress
Peer Engineering:
* One PeerNode SID MUST be instantiated to describe the BGP peer
session.
* One or more PeerAdj SID MAY be instantiated corresponding to the
underlying link(s) to the directly connected BGP peer session.
* A PeerSet SID MAY be instantiated and additionally associated and
shared between one or more PeerNode SIDs or PeerAdj SIDs.
While an egress point in a topology usually refers to EBGP sessions
between external peers, there's nothing in the extensions defined in
this document that would prevent the use of these extensions in the
context of Internal BGP (IBGP) sessions. However, unlike EBGP
sessions, which are generally between directly connected BGP routers
also along the traffic forwarding path, IBGP peer sessions may be set
up to BGP routers that are not in the forwarding path. As such, when
the IBGP design includes sessions with route reflectors, a BGP router
SHOULD NOT instantiate a BGP Peering SID for those sessions to peer
nodes that are not in the forwarding path since the purpose of BGP
Peering SID is to steer traffic to those specific peers. Thus, the
applicability for IBGP peering may be limited to only those
deployments where the IBGP peer is also along the forwarding data
path.
Any BGP Peering SIDs instantiated on the node are advertised via BGP-
LS Link NLRI type as described in the sections below. An
illustration of the BGP Peering SIDs' allocations in a reference BGP
peering topology along with the information carried in the BGP-LS
Link NLRI and its corresponding BGP-LS Attribute are described in
[RFC9087].
4. BGP-LS NLRI Advertisement for BGP Protocol
This section describes the BGP-LS NLRI encodings that describe the
BGP peering and link connectivity between BGP routers.
This document specifies the advertisement of BGP peering topology
information via BGP-LS Link NLRI type, which requires use of a new
BGP-LS Protocol-ID.
+=============+==================================+
| Protocol-ID | NLRI Information Source Protocol |
+=============+==================================+
| 7 | BGP |
+-------------+----------------------------------+
Table 1: BGP-LS Protocol Identifier for BGP
The use of a new Protocol-ID allows separation and differentiation
between the BGP-LS NLRIs carrying BGP information from the BGP-LS
NLRIs carrying IGP link-state information defined in [RFC7752].
The BGP Peering information along with their Peering Segments are
advertised using BGP-LS Link NLRI type with the Protocol-ID set to
BGP. BGP-LS Link NLRI type uses the Descriptor TLVs and BGP-LS
Attribute TLVs as defined in [RFC7752]. In order to correctly
describe BGP nodes, new TLVs are defined in this section.
[RFC7752] defines BGP-LS Link NLRI type as follows:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Protocol-ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Identifier |
| (64 bits) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
// Local Node Descriptors //
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
// Remote Node Descriptors //
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
// Link Descriptors //
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 1: BGP-LS Link NLRI
Node Descriptors and Link Descriptors are defined in [RFC7752].
4.1. BGP Router-ID and Member AS Number
Two new Node Descriptor TLVs are defined in this document:
* BGP Router Identifier (BGP Router-ID):
Type: 516
Length: 4 octets
Value: 4-octet unsigned non-zero integer representing the BGP
Identifier as defined in [RFC6286]
* Member-AS Number (Member-ASN)
Type: 517
Length: 4 octets
Value: 4-octet unsigned non-zero integer representing the
Member-AS Number [RFC5065]
4.2. Mandatory BGP Node Descriptors
The following Node Descriptor TLVs MUST be included in BGP-LS NLRI as
Local Node Descriptors when distributing BGP information:
* BGP Router-ID (TLV 516), which contains a valid BGP Identifier of
the local BGP node.
* Autonomous System Number (TLV 512) [RFC7752], which contains the
Autonomous System Number (ASN) or AS Confederation Identifier (an
ASN) [RFC5065], if confederations are used, of the local BGP node.
Note that Section 2.1 of [RFC6286] requires the BGP identifier
(Router-ID) to be unique within an Autonomous System and non-zero.
Therefore, the <ASN, BGP Router-ID> tuple is globally unique. Their
use in the Node Descriptor helps map Link-State NLRIs with BGP
protocol-ID to a unique BGP router in the administrative domain where
BGP-LS is enabled.
The following Node Descriptor TLVs MUST be included in BGP-LS Link
NLRI as Remote Node Descriptors when distributing BGP information:
* BGP Router-ID (TLV 516), which contains the valid BGP Identifier
of the peer BGP node.
* Autonomous System Number (TLV 512) [RFC7752], which contains the
ASN or the AS Confederation Identifier (an ASN) [RFC5065], if
confederations are used, of the peer BGP node.
4.3. Optional BGP Node Descriptors
The following Node Descriptor TLVs MAY be included in BGP-LS NLRI as
Local Node Descriptors when distributing BGP information:
* Member-ASN (TLV 517), which contains the ASN of the confederation
member (i.e., Member-AS Number), if BGP confederations are used,
of the local BGP node.
* Node Descriptors as defined in [RFC7752].
The following Node Descriptor TLVs MAY be included in BGP-LS Link
NLRI as Remote Node Descriptors when distributing BGP information:
* Member-ASN (TLV 517), which contains the ASN of the confederation
member (i.e., Member-AS Number), if BGP confederations are used,
of the peer BGP node.
* Node Descriptors as defined in [RFC7752].
5. BGP-LS Attributes for BGP Peering Segments
This section defines the BGP-LS Attributes corresponding to the
following BGP Peer Segment SIDs:
* Peer Node Segment Identifier (PeerNode SID)
* Peer Adjacency Segment Identifier (PeerAdj SID)
* Peer Set Segment Identifier (PeerSet SID)
The following new BGP-LS Link Attribute TLVs are defined for use with
BGP-LS Link NLRI for advertising BGP Peering SIDs:
+================+==============+
| TLV Code Point | Description |
+================+==============+
| 1101 | PeerNode SID |
+----------------+--------------+
| 1102 | PeerAdj SID |
+----------------+--------------+
| 1103 | PeerSet SID |
+----------------+--------------+
Table 2: BGP-LS TLV Code
Points for BGP-EPE
PeerNode SID, PeerAdj SID, and PeerSet SID all have the same format
as defined below:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Flags | Weight | Reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| SID/Label/Index (variable) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 2: BGP Peering SIDs TLV Format
* Type: 1101, 1102, or 1103 as listed in Table 2
* Length: variable. Valid values are either 7 or 8 based on whether
the encoding is done as a SID Index or a label.
* Flags: one octet of flags with the following definition:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|V|L|B|P| Rsvd |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 3: Peering SID TLV Flags Format
- V-Flag: Value Flag. If set, then the SID carries a label
value. By default, the flag is SET.
- L-Flag: Local Flag. If set, then the value/index carried by
the SID has local significance. By default, the flag is SET.
- B-Flag: Backup Flag. If set, the SID refers to a path that is
eligible for protection using fast reroute (FRR). The
computation of the backup forwarding path and its association
with the BGP Peering SID forwarding entry is implementation
specific. Section 3.6 of [RFC9087] discusses some of the
possible ways of identifying backup paths for BGP Peering SIDs.
- P-Flag: Persistent Flag: If set, the SID is persistently
allocated, i.e., the SID value remains consistent across router
restart and session/interface flap.
- Rsvd bits: Reserved for future use and MUST be zero when
originated and ignored when received.
* Weight: 1 octet. The value represents the weight of the SID for
the purpose of load balancing. An example use of the weight is
described in [RFC8402].
* SID/Index/Label. According to the TLV length and the V- and
L-Flag settings, it contains either:
- A 3-octet local label where the 20 rightmost bits are used for
encoding the label value. In this case, the V- and L-Flags
MUST be SET.
- A 4-octet index defining the offset in the Segment Routing
Global Block (SRGB) [RFC8402] advertised by this router. In
this case, the SRGB MUST be advertised using the extensions
defined in [RFC9085].
The values of the PeerNode SID, PeerAdj SID, and PeerSet SID Sub-TLVs
SHOULD be persistent across router restart.
When enabled for Egress Peer Engineering, the BGP router MUST include
the PeerNode SID TLV in the BGP-LS Attribute for the BGP-LS Link NLRI
corresponding to its BGP peering sessions. The PeerAdj SID and
PeerSet SID TLVs MAY be included in the BGP-LS Attribute for the BGP-
LS Link NLRI.
Additional BGP-LS Link Attribute TLVs as defined in [RFC7752] MAY be
included with the BGP-LS Link NLRI in order to advertise the
characteristics of the peering link, e.g., one or more interface
addresses (TLV 259 or TLV 261) of the underlying link(s) over which a
multi-hop BGP peering session is set up may be included in the BGP-LS
Attribute along with the PeerNode SID TLV.
5.1. Advertisement of the PeerNode SID
The PeerNode SID TLV includes a SID associated with the BGP peer node
that is described by a BGP-LS Link NLRI as specified in Section 4.
The PeerNode SID, at the BGP node advertising it, has the following
semantics (as defined in [RFC8402]):
* SR operation: NEXT
* Next-Hop: the connected peering node to which the segment is
associated
The PeerNode SID is advertised with a BGP-LS Link NLRI, where:
* Local Node Descriptors include:
- Local BGP Router-ID (TLV 516) of the BGP-EPE-enabled Egress PE
- Local ASN (TLV 512)
* Remote Node Descriptors include:
- Peer BGP Router-ID (TLV 516) (i.e., the peer BGP ID used in the
BGP session)
- Peer ASN (TLV 512)
* Link Descriptors include the addresses used by the BGP session
encoded using TLVs as defined in [RFC7752]:
- IPv4 Interface Address (TLV 259) contains the BGP session IPv4
local address.
- IPv4 Neighbor Address (TLV 260) contains the BGP session IPv4
peer address.
- IPv6 Interface Address (TLV 261) contains the BGP session IPv6
local address.
- IPv6 Neighbor Address (TLV 262) contains the BGP session IPv6
peer address.
* Link Attribute TLVs include the PeerNode SID TLV as defined in
Figure 2.
5.2. Advertisement of the PeerAdj SID
The PeerAdj SID TLV includes a SID associated with the underlying
link to the BGP peer node that is described by a BGP-LS Link NLRI as
specified in Section 4.
The PeerAdj SID, at the BGP node advertising it, has the following
semantics (as defined in [RFC8402]):
* SR operation: NEXT
* Next-Hop: the interface peer address
The PeerAdj SID is advertised with a BGP-LS Link NLRI, where:
* Local Node Descriptors include:
- Local BGP Router-ID (TLV 516) of the BGP-EPE-enabled Egress PE
- Local ASN (TLV 512)
* Remote Node Descriptors include:
- Peer BGP Router-ID (TLV 516) (i.e., the peer BGP ID used in the
BGP session)
- Peer ASN (TLV 512)
* Link Descriptors MUST include the following TLV, as defined in
[RFC7752]:
- Link Local/Remote Identifiers (TLV 258) contains the 4-octet
Link Local Identifier followed by the 4-octet Link Remote
Identifier. The value 0 is used by default when the link
remote identifier is unknown.
* Additional Link Descriptors TLVs, as defined in [RFC7752], MAY
also be included to describe the addresses corresponding to the
link between the BGP routers:
- IPv4 Interface Address (Sub-TLV 259) contains the address of
the local interface through which the BGP session is
established.
- IPv6 Interface Address (Sub-TLV 261) contains the address of
the local interface through which the BGP session is
established.
- IPv4 Neighbor Address (Sub-TLV 260) contains the IPv4 address
of the peer interface used by the BGP session.
- IPv6 Neighbor Address (Sub-TLV 262) contains the IPv6 address
of the peer interface used by the BGP session.
* Link Attribute TLVs include the PeerAdj SID TLV as defined in
Figure 2.
5.3. Advertisement of the PeerSet SID
The PeerSet SID TLV includes a SID that is shared amongst BGP peer
nodes or the underlying links that are described by BGP-LS Link NLRI
as specified in Section 4.
The PeerSet SID, at the BGP node advertising it, has the following
semantics (as defined in [RFC8402]):
* SR operation: NEXT
* Next-Hop: load-balance across any connected interface to any peer
in the associated peer set
The PeerSet SID TLV containing the same SID value (encoded as defined
in Figure 2) is included in the BGP-LS Attribute for all of the BGP-
LS Link NLRI corresponding to the PeerNode or PeerAdj segments
associated with the peer set.
6. IANA Considerations
This document defines:
* A new Protocol-ID: BGP. The code point is from the "BGP-LS
Protocol-IDs" registry.
* Two new TLVs: BGP-Router-ID and BGP Confederation Member. The
code points are in the "BGP-LS Node Descriptor, Link Descriptor,
Prefix Descriptor, and Attribute TLVs" registry.
* Three new BGP-LS Attribute TLVs: PeerNode SID, PeerAdj SID, and
PeerSet SID. The code points are in the "BGP-LS Node Descriptor,
Link Descriptor, Prefix Descriptor, and Attribute TLVs" registry.
6.1. New BGP-LS Protocol-ID
This document defines a new value in the registry "BGP-LS Protocol-
IDs":
+=============+==================================+===========+
| Protocol-ID | NLRI information source protocol | Reference |
+=============+==================================+===========+
| 7 | BGP | RFC 9086 |
+-------------+----------------------------------+-----------+
Table 3: BGP-LS Protocol-ID
6.2. Node Descriptors and Link Attribute TLVs
This document defines five new TLVs in the registry "BGP-LS Node
Descriptor, Link Descriptor, Prefix Descriptor, and Attribute TLVs":
* Two new Node Descriptor TLVs
* Three new Link Attribute TLVs
All five of the new code points are in the same registry: "BGP-LS
Node Descriptor, Link Descriptor, Prefix Descriptor, and Attribute
TLVs".
The following new Node Descriptor TLVs are defined:
+================+==========================+===========+
| TLV Code Point | Description | Reference |
+================+==========================+===========+
| 516 | BGP Router-ID | RFC 9086 |
+----------------+--------------------------+-----------+
| 517 | BGP Confederation Member | RFC 9086 |
+----------------+--------------------------+-----------+
Table 4: BGP-LS Descriptor TLV Code Points
The following new Link Attribute TLVs are defined:
+================+==============+===========+
| TLV Code Point | Description | Reference |
+================+==============+===========+
| 1101 | PeerNode SID | RFC 9086 |
+----------------+--------------+-----------+
| 1102 | PeerAdj SID | RFC 9086 |
+----------------+--------------+-----------+
| 1103 | PeerSet SID | RFC 9086 |
+----------------+--------------+-----------+
Table 5: BGP-LS Attribute TLV Code Points
7. Manageability Considerations
The new protocol extensions introduced in this document augment the
existing IGP topology information BGP-LS distribution [RFC7752] by
adding support for distribution of BGP peering topology information.
As such, Section 6 of [RFC7752] (Manageability Considerations)
applies to these new extensions as well.
Specifically, the malformed Link-State NLRI and BGP-LS Attribute
tests for syntactic checks in Section 6.2.2 of [RFC7752] (Fault
Management) now apply to the TLVs defined in this document. The
semantic or content checking for the TLVs specified in this document
and their association with the BGP-LS NLRI types or their associated
BGP-LS Attributes is left to the consumer of the BGP-LS information
(e.g., an application or a controller) and not the BGP protocol.
A consumer of the BGP-LS information retrieves this information from
a BGP Speaker, over a BGP-LS session (refer to Sections 1 and 2 of
[RFC7752]). The handling of semantic or content errors by the
consumer would be dictated by the nature of its application usage and
is hence beyond the scope of this document. It may be expected that
an error detected in the NLRI Descriptor TLVs would result in that
specific NLRI update being unusable and hence its update to be
discarded along with an error log, whereas an error in Attribute TLVs
would result in only that specific attribute being discarded with an
error log.
The operator MUST be provided with the options of configuring,
enabling, and disabling the advertisement of each of the PeerNode
SID, PeerAdj SID, and PeerSet SID as well as control of which
information is advertised to which internal or external peer. This
is not different from what is required by a BGP speaker in terms of
information origination and advertisement.
BGP Peering Segments are associated with the normal BGP routing
peering sessions. However, the BGP peering information along with
these Peering Segments themselves are advertised via a distinct BGP-
LS peering session. It is expected that this isolation as described
in [RFC7752] is followed when advertising BGP peering topology
information via BGP-LS.
BGP-EPE functionality enables the capability for instantiation of an
SR path for traffic engineering a flow via an egress BGP router to a
specific peer, bypassing the normal BGP best-path routing for that
flow and any routing policies implemented in BGP on that egress BGP
router. As with any traffic-engineering solution, the controller or
application implementing the policy needs to ensure that there is no
looping or misrouting of traffic. Traffic counters corresponding to
the MPLS label of the BGP Peering SID on the router would indicate
the traffic being forwarded based on the specific EPE path.
Monitoring these counters and the flows hitting the corresponding
MPLS forwarding entry would help identify issues, if any, with
traffic engineering over the EPE paths. Errors in the encoding or
decoding of the SR information in the TLVs defined in this document
may result in the unavailability of such information to a Centralized
EPE Controller or incorrect information being made available to it.
This may result in the controller not being able to perform the
desired SR-based optimization functionality or performing it in an
unexpected or inconsistent manner. The handling of such errors by
applications like such a controller may be implementation specific
and out of scope of this document.
8. Security Considerations
[RFC7752] defines BGP-LS NLRI to which the extensions defined in this
document apply. Section 8 of [RFC7752] also applies to these
extensions. The procedures and new TLVs defined in this document, by
themselves, do not affect the BGP-LS security model discussed in
[RFC7752].
BGP-EPE enables engineering of traffic when leaving the
administrative domain via an egress BGP router. Therefore,
precaution is necessary to ensure that the BGP peering information
collected via BGP-LS is limited to specific consumers in a secure
manner. Segment Routing operates within a trusted domain [RFC8402],
and its security considerations also apply to BGP Peering Segments.
The BGP-EPE policies are expected to be used entirely within this
trusted SR domain (e.g., between multiple AS/domains within a single
provider network).
The isolation of BGP-LS peering sessions is also required to ensure
that BGP-LS topology information (including the newly added BGP
peering topology) is not advertised to an external BGP peering
session outside an administrative domain.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC5065] Traina, P., McPherson, D., and J. Scudder, "Autonomous
System Confederations for BGP", RFC 5065,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5065, August 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5065>.
[RFC6286] Chen, E. and J. Yuan, "Autonomous-System-Wide Unique BGP
Identifier for BGP-4", RFC 6286, DOI 10.17487/RFC6286,
June 2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6286>.
[RFC7752] Gredler, H., Ed., Medved, J., Previdi, S., Farrel, A., and
S. Ray, "North-Bound Distribution of Link-State and
Traffic Engineering (TE) Information Using BGP", RFC 7752,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7752, March 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7752>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
[RFC8402] Filsfils, C., Ed., Previdi, S., Ed., Ginsberg, L.,
Decraene, B., Litkowski, S., and R. Shakir, "Segment
Routing Architecture", RFC 8402, DOI 10.17487/RFC8402,
July 2018, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8402>.
[RFC9085] Previdi, S., Talaulikar, K., Ed., Filsfils, C., Gredler,
H., and M. Chen, "Border Gateway Protocol - Link State
(BGP-LS) Extensions for Segment Routing", RFC 9085,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9085, August 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9085>.
9.2. Informative References
[BGPLS-SRV6]
Dawra, G., Filsfils, C., Talaulikar, K., Chen, M.,
Bernier, D., and B. Decraene, "BGP Link State Extensions
for SRv6", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
idr-bgpls-srv6-ext-08, 8 June 2021,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-idr-
bgpls-srv6-ext-08>.
[RFC9087] Filsfils, C., Ed., Previdi, S., Dawra, G., Ed., Aries, E.,
and D. Afanasiev, "Segment Routing Centralized BGP Egress
Peer Engineering", RFC 9087, DOI 10.17487/RFC9087, August
2021, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9087>.
[SR-POLICY]
Filsfils, C., Talaulikar, K., Voyer, D., Bogdanov, A., and
P. Mattes, "Segment Routing Policy Architecture", Work in
Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-spring-segment-
routing-policy-13, 28 May 2021,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-spring-
segment-routing-policy-13>.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Jakob Heitz, Howard Yang, Hannes
Gredler, Peter Psenak, Arjun Sreekantiah, and Bruno Decraene for
their feedback and comments. Susan Hares helped in improving the
clarity of the document with her substantial contributions during her
shepherd's review. The authors would also like to thank Alvaro
Retana for his extensive review and comments, which helped correct
issues and improve the document.
Contributors
Mach(Guoyi) Chen
Huawei Technologies
China
Email: mach.chen@huawei.com
Acee Lindem
Cisco Systems Inc.
United States of America
Email: acee@cisco.com
Authors' Addresses
Stefano Previdi
Huawei Technologies
Email: stefano@previdi.net
Ketan Talaulikar (editor)
Cisco Systems, Inc.
India
Email: ketant@cisco.com
Clarence Filsfils
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Brussels
Belgium
Email: cfilsfil@cisco.com
Keyur Patel
Arrcus, Inc.
Email: Keyur@arrcus.com
Saikat Ray
Individual
Email: raysaikat@gmail.com
Jie Dong
Huawei Technologies
Huawei Campus, No. 156 Beiqing Rd.
Beijing
100095
China
Email: jie.dong@huawei.com
ISO Plain Language
On this page
§1Advertising BGP Peering Topology with BGP-LS
Segment Routing (SR) leverages source routing. A node steers a packet through a controlled set of instructions, called segments, by prepending the packet with a list of segment identifiers (SIDs). A SID can represent any instruction, topological or service based. SR segments allow a flow to be enforced through any topological path or service function while maintaining per-flow state only at the ingress node of the SR domain.
The SR architecture (RFC 8402) defines three types of BGP peering segment that may be instantiated at a BGP node. The PeerNode SID is an instruction to steer to a specific peer node. The PeerAdj SID is an instruction to steer over a specific local interface towards a specific peer node. The PeerSet SID is an instruction to load-balance to a set of specific peer nodes. SR can be applied directly to an MPLS data plane, called SR-MPLS, with no change to the forwarding plane, or to a modified IPv6 forwarding plane, called SRv6.
This document describes extensions to the BGP-LS NLRI and the BGP-LS Attribute defined for BGP-LS (RFC 7752), for advertising BGP peering segments from a BGP node along with its peering topology information, meaning its peers, interfaces and peering Autonomous Systems, to enable computation of efficient BGP egress peer engineering policies using the SR-MPLS data plane. The corresponding extensions for SRv6 are specified in a separate Internet-Draft. RFC 9087 illustrates a centralized controller-based solution in which a controller learns the BGP peering SIDs via BGP-LS and then uses them to program an egress peer engineering policy at any node in the domain, so that traffic is steered via a specific BGP egress node to specific external peers, optionally over a specific interface.
The document introduces a new BGP-LS Protocol-ID for BGP and defines new BGP-LS node and link descriptor TLVs, so that BGP-LS link NLRIs can represent the BGP peering topology. It also specifies the BGP-LS attribute TLVs for the three peering segments, to be advertised in the same BGP-LS link NLRI.
Segment Routing lets the sender list the steps a packet should take. To send traffic out through one chosen BGP neighbour, the sender needs an identifier for that neighbour. This RFC defines how a router publishes that identifier, and the facts about the neighbour, so that a controller elsewhere can use it.
§3The Three BGP Peering Segments
As described in RFC 8402, a BGP-EPE-enabled Egress Provider Edge node instantiates SR segments corresponding to its attached peers. These segments are called BGP peering segments or BGP peering SIDs. In the case of external BGP, they enable the expression of source-routed interdomain paths.
An ingress border router of an AS may compose a list of SIDs to steer a flow along a selected path within the AS, towards a selected egress border router, and to a specific external peer. At minimum, a BGP-EPE policy applied at an ingress node involves two SIDs: the Node SID of the chosen egress node, and then the BGP peering SID for the chosen egress peer's peer or peering interface.
Each BGP session MUST be described by a PeerNode SID, and that description MAY be augmented by additional PeerAdj SIDs. Multiple PeerNode SIDs or PeerAdj SIDs MAY be part of the same group, so that EPE resources can be grouped under a common PeerSet SID. On a router, one PeerNode SID MUST be instantiated for each BGP peer session enabled for egress peer engineering, one or more PeerAdj SIDs MAY be instantiated for the underlying links to the directly connected peer, and a PeerSet SID MAY be instantiated and associated and shared between one or more PeerNode SIDs or PeerAdj SIDs.
While an egress point in a topology usually refers to external BGP sessions between external peers, nothing in these extensions prevents their use with internal BGP sessions. Unlike external sessions, which are generally between directly connected BGP routers also along the traffic forwarding path, internal BGP peer sessions may be set up with BGP routers that are not in the forwarding path. When the internal BGP design includes sessions with route reflectors, a BGP router SHOULD NOT instantiate a BGP peering SID for those sessions, because the purpose of a peering SID is to steer traffic to those specific peers. The applicability for internal BGP peering may therefore be limited to deployments where the peer is also along the forwarding data path.
Three identifiers cover the useful cases. A PeerNode SID points at a neighbour. A PeerAdj SID points at one particular link towards that neighbour, so you can pick which path leaves the router. A PeerSet SID points at a group of neighbours and lets the traffic be spread across them.
| Segment | What it steers to | SR operation | Next hop |
|---|---|---|---|
| PeerNode SID THIS RFC | A specific peer node | NEXT | The connected peering node |
| PeerAdj SID | A specific local interface towards a specific peer node | NEXT | The interface peer address |
| PeerSet SID | A set of specific peer nodes | NEXT | Any connected interface to any peer in the set |
§4The BGP-LS Link NLRI for BGP
The advertisement of BGP peering topology information uses the BGP-LS Link NLRI type, which requires a new BGP-LS Protocol-ID. The Protocol-ID 7 is used, with the NLRI information source protocol being BGP. Using a new Protocol-ID allows the BGP-LS NLRIs carrying BGP information to be separated and differentiated from those carrying IGP link-state information defined in RFC 7752. The BGP peering information, along with the peering segments, is advertised using the BGP-LS Link NLRI type with that Protocol-ID, using the descriptor TLVs and BGP-LS attribute TLVs as defined in RFC 7752.
Two new node descriptor TLVs are defined. The BGP Router Identifier has type 516, length 4 octets, and a value that is a 4-octet unsigned non-zero integer representing the BGP Identifier as defined in RFC 6286. The Member-AS Number has type 517, length 4 octets, and a value that is a 4-octet unsigned non-zero integer representing the Member-AS Number of RFC 5065.
When distributing BGP information, the BGP Router-ID (TLV 516) and the Autonomous System Number (TLV 512) MUST be included as local node descriptors, describing the local BGP node. The same two TLVs MUST be included as remote node descriptors, describing the peer BGP node. The ASN carries the AS number, or the AS Confederation Identifier if confederations are used. Section 2.1 of RFC 6286 requires the BGP identifier to be unique within an Autonomous System and non-zero, so the pair of ASN and BGP router ID is globally unique, and using it in the node descriptor helps map link-state NLRIs with the BGP protocol ID to a unique BGP router in the administrative domain where BGP-LS is enabled.
The Member-ASN (TLV 517) MAY be included as a local or remote node descriptor when BGP confederations are used, as may the node descriptors defined in RFC 7752.
The advertisement is a standard BGP-LS link record with a new protocol number, 7, so that consumers can tell BGP peering facts apart from ordinary link-state facts. Two new fields identify a router: its BGP router ID and its AS number. A third, the member AS number, is only needed when the AS uses confederations.
§5The Peering SID TLVs
Three new BGP-LS link attribute TLVs are defined for advertising BGP peering SIDs: type 1101 for the PeerNode SID, 1102 for the PeerAdj SID and 1103 for the PeerSet SID. All three have the same format. The Type field carries the code point, and the Length field is variable, with valid values of either 7 or 8 octets depending on whether the encoding is done as a SID index or as a label. A one-octet Flags field carries four flags and four reserved bits. The V-Flag, the value flag, means the SID carries a label value, and is set by default. The L-Flag, the local flag, means the value or index carried by the SID has local significance, and is also set by default. The B-Flag, the backup flag, means the SID refers to a path that is eligible for protection using fast reroute. The P-Flag, the persistent flag, means the SID is persistently allocated, so the SID value remains consistent across a router restart and a session or interface flap. The reserved bits must be zero when originated and ignored when received.
A one-octet Weight field carries the weight of the SID for the purpose of load balancing. The SID, index or label field contains either a 3-octet local label where the 20 rightmost bits are used for the label value, in which case the V and L flags must be set, or a 4-octet index defining the offset in the Segment Routing Global Block advertised by this router, in which case the SRGB must be advertised using the extensions defined in RFC 9085. The values of the PeerNode, PeerAdj and PeerSet SID sub-TLVs SHOULD be persistent across a router restart.
When egress peer engineering is enabled, the router MUST include the PeerNode SID TLV in the BGP-LS attribute for the BGP-LS link NLRI corresponding to its BGP peering sessions. The PeerAdj SID and PeerSet SID TLVs MAY be included. Additional BGP-LS link attribute TLVs defined in RFC 7752 MAY be included, for example the interface addresses of the underlying link or links over which a multi-hop BGP peering session is set up.
The PeerNode SID has the SR operation NEXT, with the connected peering node to which the segment is associated as next hop. It is advertised in an NLRI whose link descriptors include the IPv4 interface address (TLV 259) and IPv4 neighbour address (TLV 260), and the IPv6 interface address (TLV 261) and IPv6 neighbour address (TLV 262), holding the addresses used by the BGP session. The PeerAdj SID also has the SR operation NEXT, with the interface peer address as next hop. Its link descriptors MUST include the Link Local/Remote Identifiers (TLV 258), holding the 4-octet link local identifier followed by the 4-octet link remote identifier, with the value 0 used by default when the remote identifier is unknown. The PeerSet SID also has the SR operation NEXT, with load-balancing across any connected interface to any peer in the associated peer set as next hop. The PeerSet SID TLV containing the same SID value is included in the BGP-LS attribute for all the link NLRIs corresponding to the PeerNode or PeerAdj segments associated with the peer set.
Each peering segment travels in its own attribute field, and the three fields have the same shape: a flags byte, a weight byte for load balancing, and the identifier itself, either as a label or as an offset into a block of identifiers the router has advertised. The flags say whether the identifier is a label, whether it is only meaningful on this router, whether it has a backup path, and whether it survives a restart.
| Field | Name | Size | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
TYPE | Type | 2 bytes | 1101 PeerNode SID, 1102 PeerAdj SID, 1103 PeerSet SID. | |
LENGTH | Length | 2 bytes | Variable; valid values are 7 or 8 octets. | |
FLAGS | Flags | 1 byte | V value, L local, B backup, P persistent, and four reserved bits. | |
WEIGHT | Weight | 1 byte | Weight of the SID for the purpose of load balancing. | |
RESERVED | Reserved | 2 bytes | Reserved for future use. | |
SID | SID/Label/Index | 4 bytes | A 3-octet local label with 20 bits used, or a 4-octet offset in the SRGB. |
§6IANA Registrations
The document defines one new Protocol-ID in the BGP-LS Protocol-IDs registry, the value 7 for BGP, which identifies BGP as the source protocol of the NLRI information.
It also defines five new TLVs, all in the registry for BGP-LS node descriptor, link descriptor, prefix descriptor and attribute TLVs. Two are node descriptor TLVs: type 516, BGP Router-ID, and type 517, BGP Confederation Member. Three are link attribute TLVs: type 1101, PeerNode SID, type 1102, PeerAdj SID, and type 1103, PeerSet SID.
The RFC registers one new protocol number, 7, and five new code points: two for describing a BGP router and three for carrying the peering segments.
- 7Protocol-ID BGP — Marks the link NLRIs that carry BGP peering information.
- 516BGP Router-ID — Node descriptor holding the 4-octet BGP identifier of a router.
- 517BGP Confederation Member — Node descriptor holding the member AS number.
- 1101PeerNode SID — Link attribute holding the segment that steers to a peer node.
- 1102PeerAdj SID — Link attribute holding the segment for a link towards a peer.
- 1103PeerSet SID — Link attribute holding the segment shared by a set of peers.
§7Manageability Considerations
The new protocol extensions augment the existing IGP topology information distributed by BGP-LS by adding support for distributing BGP peering topology information, so the manageability considerations in Section 6 of RFC 7752 apply to them as well. In particular, the malformed link-state NLRI and BGP-LS attribute tests for syntactic checks now apply to the TLVs defined here. The semantic or content checking for those TLVs and their association with the BGP-LS NLRI types or BGP-LS attributes is left to the consumer of the BGP-LS information, such as an application or a controller, and not to the BGP protocol.
A consumer retrieves this information from a BGP speaker over a BGP-LS session. How it handles semantic or content errors depends on its application and is beyond the scope of the document. An error detected in the NLRI descriptor TLVs would be expected to make that specific NLRI update unusable, so the update is discarded along with an error log, whereas an error in attribute TLVs would result in only that specific attribute being discarded with an error log.
The operator MUST be provided with the options of configuring, enabling and disabling the advertisement of each of the PeerNode SID, PeerAdj SID and PeerSet SID, as well as control of which information is advertised to which internal or external peer. BGP peering segments are associated with the normal BGP routing peering sessions, but the peering information and the segments themselves are advertised over a distinct BGP-LS peering session, and it is expected that this isolation is followed when advertising BGP peering topology information via BGP-LS.
Egress peer engineering enables the instantiation of a segment routing path for traffic engineering a flow via an egress BGP router to a specific peer, bypassing the normal BGP best-path routing for that flow and any routing policies implemented in BGP on that egress router. As with any traffic-engineering solution, the controller or application implementing the policy needs to ensure that there is no looping or misrouting of traffic. Traffic counters corresponding to the MPLS label of the peering SID on the router would indicate the traffic being forwarded based on the specific EPE path, and monitoring those counters and the flows hitting the corresponding MPLS forwarding entry would help identify issues.
An operator has to be able to switch each kind of peering segment on or off and to choose which peers receive them, because the peering facts reveal how the network is connected to the outside. The controller that computes policies has to avoid creating loops, and the routers need counters so the operator can see how much traffic each policy is actually carrying.
§8Security Considerations
RFC 7752 defines the BGP-LS NLRI to which these extensions apply, and Section 8 of RFC 7752 also applies to them. The procedures and new TLVs defined here, by themselves, do not affect the BGP-LS security model discussed in RFC 7752.
BGP-EPE enables engineering of traffic when leaving the administrative domain via an egress BGP router, so precaution is necessary to ensure that the BGP peering information collected via BGP-LS is limited to specific consumers in a secure manner. Segment Routing operates within a trusted domain, and its security considerations also apply to BGP peering segments. The BGP-EPE policies are expected to be used entirely within this trusted SR domain, for example between multiple ASes or domains within a single provider network.
The isolation of BGP-LS peering sessions is also required, so that the BGP-LS topology information, including the newly added BGP peering topology, is not advertised to an external BGP peering session outside an administrative domain.
The peering facts describe how the network connects to other networks, so they should not leak outside the domain that collects them. The BGP-LS session that carries them must be kept separate from the sessions that talk to external peers.