Gert, Maybe another approach could be to use the IP SLA LSP ping option... Seems to be supported since SXH: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios-xml/ios/ipsla/command/sla_s2.html#GU ID-91306735-FA32-4AF8-B8EF-61FD667CD15B
Arie -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Gert Doering Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 12:05 To: [email protected] Subject: [c-nsp] forced path MPLS tunnel question Hi, I'm currently considering options to better monitor the MPLS bits of our network - specifically, make sure that MPLS *forwarding* works, without having to rely on end systems noticing EoMPLS links going "black hole" or L3 VRFs going down. One of the reasons for MPLS forwarding to break could be "ethernet circuit bought from $3rd_party, their equipment failing to properly forward all different ethernet types -> IPv4 works, MPLS fails" - happened to a colleague recently, which got me thinking... The way I thought this could be done is to setup a MPLS tunnel with a static path, crossing all "major" links (this is a small network, so the tunnel just needs to go through 6 routers or so to visit all backbone MPLS links), and then send ping probes down that tunnel. MPLS forwarding breaks -> ping breaks -> operator goes investigating. Now, the documentation that I found ties this to "tunnel mode mpls traffic-eng" and *this* seems to require OSPF or ISIS being used as an IGP - which we don't have, right now. (Platform is 6500/Sup720, IOS 12.2SXH/SXI) So, Question #1: - is there a way to setup a static MPLS tunnel/LSP "take *this* link and then *that* link and then go *there*" without OSPF or ISIS? Question #2: - what is happening "behind the scenes" to make static(!) paths require OSPF / ISIS? I can understand that auto-te needs the necessary metrics, but "basic MPLS" works fine with just BGP/LDP/EIGRP... (And yes, I could move everything over to OSPF, it's just that I want to understand the reasons for it) thanks, gert -- USENET is *not* the non-clickable part of WWW! //www.muc.de/~gert/ Gert Doering - Munich, Germany [email protected] fax: +49-89-35655025 [email protected] _______________________________________________ cisco-nsp mailing list [email protected] https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/cisco-nsp archive at http://puck.nether.net/pipermail/cisco-nsp/
