wdiff rfc8469.original rfc8469.txt

PALS Working Group
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) S. Bryant
Internet-Draft
Request for Comments: 8469 A. Malis
Updates: 4448 (if approved) Huawei
Intended status:
Category: Standards Track I. Bagdonas
Expires: January 3, 2019
ISSN: 2070-1721 Equinix
July 02,
November 2018

Recommendation to Use of the Ethernet Control Word RECOMMENDED
draft-ietf-pals-ethernet-cw-07

Abstract

The pseudowire (PW) encapsulation of Ethernet, as defined in RFC
4448, specifies that the use of the control word (CW) is optional.
In the absence of the CW CW, an Ethernet pseudowire PW packet can be misidentified
as an IP packet by a label switching router (LSR). This in turn may lead to
the selection of the wrong equal-cost-multi-
path equal-cost multipath (ECMP) path for the
packet, leading in turn to the misordering of packets. This problem
has become more serious due to the deployment of equipment with
Ethernet MAC Media Access Control (MAC) addresses that start with 0x4 or
0x6. The use of the Ethernet PW CW addresses this problem. This
document recommends RECOMMENDS the use of the Ethernet pseudowire control
word PW CW in all but
exceptional circumstances.

This document updates RFC 4448.

Status of This Memo

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provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

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This Internet-Draft will expire on January 3, 2019.
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8469.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ....................................................3
2. Specification of Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 ...................................3
3. Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 ......................................................4
4. Recommendation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 ..................................................5
5. Equal Cost Multi-path Equal-Cost Multipath (ECMP) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 .....................................5
6. Mitigations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 .....................................................6
7. Operational Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 ......................................6
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 .........................................7
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 .............................................7
10. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
11.1. .....................................................7
10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
11.2. ......................................7
10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 ....................................8
Acknowledgments ....................................................9
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 .................................................9

1. Introduction

The pseudowire(PW) pseudowire (PW) encapsulation of Ethernet, as defined in
[RFC4448], specifies that the use of the control word (CW) is
optional. It is common for label switching routers (LSRs) to search
past the end of the label stack to determine whether the payload is
an IP packet, packet and then, if the payload is an IP packet, to it is, select the next hop based on the so so-
called "five-tuple" (IP source address, IP destination address,
protocol/next-header, transport layer transport-layer source
port port, and transport transport-
layer destination port). In the absence of a PW
CW CW, an Ethernet pseudowire PW
packet can be misidentified as an IP packet by a label switching
router (LSR) selecting the equal-cost-multi-path
(ECMP) ECMP path based on the five-tuple. This in turn
may lead to the selection of the wrong ECMP path for the packet,
leading in turn to the misordering of packets. Further discussion of
this topic is published in [RFC4928].

Flow misordering can also happen in a single path single-path scenario when
traffic classification and differential forwarding treatment
mechanisms are in use. These errors occur when a forwarder
incorrectly assumes that the packet is IP and applies a forwarding
policy based on fields in the PW payload.

IPv4 and IPv6 packets respectively start with the values 0x4 and 0x6. 0x6,
respectively. Misidentification can arise if an Ethernet PW packet
without a CW is carrying an Ethernet packet with a destination
address that starts with either of these values.

This problem has recently become more serious for a number of
reasons. Firstly, due to First, the deployment of equipment with IEEE Registration Authority Committee (RAC) has
assigned Ethernet MAC addresses that start with 0x4 or 0x6 assigned by the IEEE
Registration Authority Committee (RAC). Secondly, 0x6, and
equipment that uses MAC addresses in these series has been deployed
in networks. Second, concerns over privacy have led to the use of
MAC address randomization randomization, which assigns local MAC addresses randomly
for privacy. Random assignment results in addresses starting with
one of these two values approximately one time in eight.

The use of the Ethernet PW CW addresses this problem.

This document recommends RECOMMENDS the use of the Ethernet pseudowire control
word PW CW in all but
exceptional circumstances.

2. Specification of Requirements

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. Background

Ethernet pseudowire PW encapsulation is specified in [RFC4448]. In Of particular the reader
relevance is drawn to section Section 4.6, part of which is quoted below for the
convenience of the reader:

"The reader. Note that RFC 4448 uses the citation
[PWE3-CW] to refer to [RFC4385] and the citation [VCCV] to refer to
the document that was eventually published as [RFC5085].

The control word defined in this section is based on the Generic
PW MPLS Control Word as defined in [RFC4385]. [PWE3-CW]. It provides the
ability to sequence individual frames on the PW, avoidance of
equal-cost multiple-path load-balancing (ECMP) [RFC2992], and
Operations and Management (OAM) mechanisms including VCCV
[RFC5085].

"[RFC4385] [VCCV].

[PWE3-CW] states, "If a PW is sensitive to packet misordering and
is being carried over an MPLS PSN that uses the contents of the
MPLS payload to select the ECMP path, it MUST employ a mechanism
which prevents packet misordering." This is necessary because
ECMP implementations may examine the first nibble after the MPLS
label stack to determine whether the labeled packet is IP or not.
Thus, if the source MAC address of an Ethernet frame carried over
the PW without a control word present begins with 0x4 or 0x6, it
could be mistaken for an IPv4 or IPv6 packet. This could,
depending on the configuration and topology of the MPLS network,
lead to a situation where all packets for a given PW do not follow
the same path. This may increase out-of-order frames on a given
PW, or cause OAM packets to follow a different path than actual
traffic (see Section 4.4.3, "Frame Ordering").

"The

The features that the control word provides may not be needed for
a given Ethernet PW. For example, ECMP may not be present or
active on a given MPLS network, strict frame sequencing may not be
required, etc. If this is the case, the control word provides
little value and is therefore optional. Early Ethernet PW
implementations have been deployed that do not include a control
word or the ability to process one if present. To aid in
backwards compatibility, future implementations MUST be able to
send and receive frames without the control word
present."

At the time when pseudowires present.

When PWs were first deployed, some equipment of commercial
significance was unable to process the Ethernet Control
Word. CW. In addition, at
that time time, it was considered believed that no Ethernet MAC address had been
issued by the IEEE Registration Authority Committee (RAC) that starts
started with 0x4 or 0x6, and thus 0x6; thus, it was thought to be safe to deploy
Ethernet PWs without the CW.

Since that time time, the RAC has issued Ethernet MAC addresses that start
with 0x4 or 0x6 and thus with 0x6. Therefore, the assumption that that, in practical networks
networks, there would be no confusion between an Ethernet PW packet
without the CW and an IP packet is no longer correct.

Possibly through the use of unauthorized Ethernet MAC addresses, this
assumption has been unsafe for a while, leading some equipment
vendors to implement more complex, proprietary, proprietary methods to
discriminate between Ethernet PW packets and IP packets. Such
mechanisms rely on the heuristics of examining the transit packets in
trying to
try to find out the exact payload type of the packet and cannot be
reliable due to the random nature of the payload carried within such
packets.

A posting on the NANOG email list highlighted this problem:

https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2016-December/089395.html

RFC EDITOR Please delete this paragraph.
Kramdown does not include references when they are only found in
literal text so I include them here: [RFC4385] [RFC2992] [RFC5085] as
a fixup.

<https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2016-December/089395.html>

4. Recommendation

The ambiguity between an MPLS payload that is an Ethernet PW and one
that is an IP packet is resolved when the Ethernet PW control word CW is used.
This document updates [RFC4448] to state that where both the ingress PE
provider edge (PE) and the egress PE SHOULD support the Ethernet pseudowire control
word, then PW
CW and that, if supported, the CW MUST be used.

Where the application of ECMP to an Ethernet PW traffic is required, required and
where both the ingress and the egress PEs support [RFC6790]
(Entropy Entropy Label Indicator/Entropy
Indicator / Entropy Label (ELI/EL)) or both the ingress (ELI/EL) [RFC6790] and the egress PEs support [RFC6391] Flow-Aware Transport
of Pseudowires (FAT PW), PW) [RFC6391], then either method may be used.
The use of both methods on the same PW is not normally necessary and
should be avoided unless circumstances require it. In the case of
multi-segment PWs, if ELI/EL is used used, then it SHOULD be used on every
segment of the PW. The method by which usage of ELI/EL on every
segment is guaranteed is out of the scope of this document.

5. Equal Cost Multi-path Equal-Cost Multipath (ECMP)

Where the volume of traffic on an Ethernet PW is such that ECMP is
required
required, then one of two methods may be used:

o Flow-Aware Transport (FAT) of Pseudowires over an MPLS Packet Switched Network
Network, specified in [RFC6391], or

o LSP Label Switched Path (LSP) entropy labels labels, specified in [RFC6790]

RFC6391 [RFC6790].

RFC 6391 works by increasing the entropy of the bottom of stack bottom-of-stack
label. It requires that both the ingress and egress provider edge (PE)s PEs support this
feature. It also requires that sufficient LSRs on the LSP between
the ingress and egress PE be able to select an
ECMP path on an MPLS packet with the resultant stack depth.

RFC6790

RFC 6790 works by including an entropy value in the LSP part of the
label stack. This requires that the Ingress ingress and Egress egress PEs support
the insertion and removal of the EL and the entropy label indicator, ELI and that sufficient
LSRs on the LSP are able to preform perform ECMP based on the EL.

In both cases cases, there are considerations in getting Operations,
Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) packets to follow the same path
as a data packet. This is described in detail section in Section 7 of
[RFC6391],
[RFC6391] and section Section 6 of RFC6790. However [RFC6790]. However, in both cases cases, the
situation is improved compared to the ECMP behavior in the case where
the Ethernet PW CW was not used, since there is currently no known
method of getting a PW OAM packet to follow the same path as a PW
data packet subjected to ECMP based on the five tuple five-tuple of the IP
payload.

The PW label is pushed before the LSP label. As the EL/ELI ELI/EL labels
are part of the LSP layer rather than part of the PW layer, they are
pushed after the PW label has been pushed.

6. Mitigations

Where it is not possible to use the Ethernet PW CW, the effects of
ECMP can be disabled by carrying the PW over a traffic engineered traffic-engineered
path that does not subject the payload to load balancing (for example
example, RSVP-TE [RFC3209]). However However, such paths may be subjected to link bundle
link-bundle load
balancing and balancing, and, of course course, the single LSP has to
carry the full PW load.

7. Operational Considerations

In some cases, the inclusion of a CW in the PW is determined by
equipment configuration. Furthermore, it is possible that the
default configuration in such cases is to disable use of the CW.
Care needs to be taken to ensure that software that implements this
recommendation does not depend on existing configuration settings
that prevents prevent the use of control word. a CW. It is recommended that platform
software emits emit a rate limited rate-limited message indicating that the CW can be
used but is disabled due to existing configuration.

Instead of including a payload type in the packet, MPLS relies on the
control plane to signal the payload type that follows the bottom of
the label stack. Some LSRs attempt to deduce the packet type by MPLS
payload inspection, in some cases looking past the PW CW. If the
payload appears to be IP or IP carried in an Ethernet header header, they
perform an ECMP calculation based on what they assume to be the five five-
tuple fields. However However, deduction of the payload type in this way is
not an exact science, and where a packet that is not IP is mistaken
for an IP packet packet, the result can be packets delivered out of order.
Misordering of this type can be difficult for an operator to
diagnose. Operators should be aware when When enabling capability that allows information gleaned
from packet inspection past the PW CW to be used in any ECMP
calculation, operators should be aware that this may cause Ethernet
frames to be delivered out of order despite the presence of the CW.

8. Security Considerations

This document expresses a preference for one existing and widely
deployed Ethernet PW encapsulation over another. These methods have
identical security considerations, which are discussed in [RFC4448].
This document introduces no additional security issues.

9. IANA Considerations

This document makes has no IANA requests. actions.

10. Acknowledgments

The authors thank Job Snijders for drawing attention to this problem.
The authors also thank Pat Thaler for clarifying the matter of local
MAC address assignment. We thank Sasha Vainshtein for his valuable
review comments.

11. References

11.1.

10.1. 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>.
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

[RFC4385] Bryant, S., Swallow, G., Martini, L., and D. McPherson,
"Pseudowire Emulation Edge-to-Edge (PWE3) Control Word for
Use over an MPLS PSN", RFC 4385, DOI 10.17487/RFC4385,
February 2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4385>.

[RFC4448] Martini, L., Ed., Rosen, E., El-Aawar, N., and G. Heron,
"Encapsulation Methods for Transport of Ethernet over MPLS
Networks", RFC 4448, DOI 10.17487/RFC4448, April 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4448>.

[RFC4928] Swallow, G., Bryant, S., and L. Andersson, "Avoiding Equal
Cost Multipath Treatment in MPLS Networks", BCP 128,
RFC 4928, DOI 10.17487/RFC4928, June 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4928>.

[RFC6391] Bryant, S., Ed., Filsfils, C., Drafz, U., Kompella, V.,
Regan, J., and S. Amante, "Flow-Aware Transport of
Pseudowires over an MPLS Packet Switched Network",
RFC 6391, DOI 10.17487/RFC6391, November 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6391>.

[RFC6790] Kompella, K., Drake, J., Amante, S., Henderickx, W., and
L. Yong, "The Use of Entropy Labels in MPLS Forwarding",
RFC 6790, DOI 10.17487/RFC6790, November 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6790>.

[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>.

11.2.

10.2. Informative References

[RFC2992] Hopps, C., "Analysis of an Equal-Cost Multi-Path
Algorithm", RFC 2992, DOI 10.17487/RFC2992, November 2000,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2992>.

[RFC3209] Awduche, D., Berger, L., Gan, D., Li, T., Srinivasan, V.,
and G. Swallow, "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP
Tunnels", RFC 3209, DOI 10.17487/RFC3209, December 2001,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3209>.

[RFC5085] Nadeau, T., Ed. and C. Pignataro, Ed., "Pseudowire Virtual
Circuit Connectivity Verification (VCCV): A Control
Channel for Pseudowires", RFC 5085, DOI 10.17487/RFC5085,
December 2007, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5085>.

Acknowledgments

Authors' Addresses

Stewart Bryant
Huawei

Email: stewart.bryant@gmail.com

Andrew G G. Malis
Huawei

Email: agmalis@gmail.com

Ignas Bagdonas
Equinix

Email: ibagdona.ietf@gmail.com>