Kireeti –
The text I proposed below (3 paragraph’s worth) is intended to “replace current
paragraphs 2 and 3 of Section 6”.
I am fine with changing
“The egress LSR follows the procedures defined in [RFC 8029]…”
To
“The egress LSR MUST follow the procedures defined in [RFC 8029]…”
Mach and Greg should speak for themselves – but I had the impression that Mach
was agreeable – but Greg I am not so sure about.
Les
From: Kireeti Kompella [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2017 12:06 PM
To: Les Ginsberg (ginsberg) <[email protected]>; Mach Chen
<[email protected]>; Carlos Pignataro (cpignata) <[email protected]>; Greg
Mirsky <[email protected]>
Cc: Tom Nadeau <[email protected]>; [email protected]; Alia Atlas
<[email protected]>; Reshad Rahman (rrahman) <[email protected]>; rtg-bfd@ietf.
org <[email protected]>; Kireeti Kompella <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Technical Errata Reported] RFC5884 (5085)
Hi Les,
Just to be sure, you’re suggesting
a) Change the sentence “The egress LSR MAY respond … BFD session.” to
“The egress LSR follows the procedures … reply message.” (or better yet, “The
egress LSR MUST follow the procedures ….”)
b) Move this sentence to after the BFD stuff.
c) Remove the redundant comma (sigh! Thought I knew commas.)
I am fine with all three suggestions. I think that the main point (the source
of interop issues) is (a); the other changes definitely improve readability,
but are not showstoppers (imo).
I gather from Greg’s latest email (2017/09/08) and Mach’s email below that
they’re both fine with these changes. Greg, Mach: speak up if not.
As for “new interop issues”, the current situation is pretty bad, so let’s fix
it.
As to how to implement these changes, I don’t personally care. It seems
heavyweight to issue a bis for this, rather than just errata, but I’m happy to
leave that to the WG chairs to decide.
Kireeti.
From: "Les Ginsberg (ginsberg)" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: Tuesday, August 15, 2017 at 05:16
To: Mach Chen <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, "Carlos
Pignataro (cpignata)" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Greg
Mirsky <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Cc: Tom Nadeau <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>,
"[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>,
Kireeti Kompella <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, Alia Atlas
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, "Reshad Rahman (rrahman)"
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, "rtg-bfd@ietf.
org<mailto:rtg-bfd@ietf.%20org>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: RE: [Technical Errata Reported] RFC5884 (5085)
I tend to agree with Mach – and I think what Mach states is also reinforcing
the point that Carlos has made – which is that echo reply procedures are
defined by RFC 8029 – not by RFC 5884.
However, the current text suffers from much more than the ambiguity regarding
Echo Reply.
1)Second paragraph of Section 6 goes back and forth between discussing BFD
Control packets, then Echo Reply, then BFD Control Packets
2)Third paragraph of Section 6 has an inappropriate use of “,” in the sentence:
“The BFD Control packets from the
ingress to the egress LSR MUST set the local discriminator of the
egress LSR, in the Your Discriminator field.”
3)Section 6.1 defines when the BFD Discriminator TLV MUST be sent and when it
is optional in LSP ping. There is actually no need for Section 6 to say
anything in this regard.
I propose revised text below – which is much more extensive in its changes than
what has been proposed thus far, but I think it is necessary to eliminate all
ambiguity.
That said, there is no question that the current text is subject to multiple
interpretations – so any change in text runs the risk of introducing new
interoperability issues. On balance it is probably necessary to take this risk
as there is no guarantee that implementations are interoperable today, but the
WG should still consider this point carefully.
The text below replaces current paragraphs 2 and 3 of Section 6.
<new text start>
On receipt of the LSP Ping Echo request message, the egress LSR MUST
send a BFD Control packet to the ingress LSR, if the validation of
the FEC in the LSP Ping Echo request message succeeds. This BFD
Control packet MUST set the Your Discriminator field to the
discriminator received from the ingress LSR in the LSP Ping Echo
request message. The local discriminator assigned by the egress LSR
MUST be used as the My Discriminator field in the BFD session packets
sent by the egress LSR.
The ingress LSR follows the procedures in [BFD] to send BFD Control
packets to the egress LSR in response to the BFD Control packets
received from the egress LSR. The BFD Control packets from the
ingress to the egress LSR MUST set the local discriminator of the
egress LSR in the Your Discriminator field. The egress LSR
demultiplexes the BFD session based on the received Your
Discriminator field. As mentioned above, the egress LSR MUST send
Control packets to the ingress LSR with the Your Discriminator field
set to the local discriminator of the ingress LSR. The ingress LSR
uses this to demultiplex the BFD session.
The egress LSR follows the procedures defined in [RFC 8029] to determine when
to respond with an LSP Ping Echo reply message.
<new text end>
Les
From: Rtg-bfd [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mach Chen
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2017 12:56 AM
To: Carlos Pignataro (cpignata); Greg Mirsky
Cc: Tom Nadeau; [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>; Kireeti Kompella
([email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>); Alia Atlas; Reshad Rahman
(rrahman); rtg-bfd@ietf. org
Subject: RE: [Technical Errata Reported] RFC5884 (5085)
Hi all,
IMHO, the point is not about whether the Echo Reply is optional for a normal
LSP Ping, where the echo reply is totally controlled by the reply mode.
For RFC5884, since the reply mode is not specified, based on the current text,
it can be interpreted as the following two ways:
1) it implies a new “mode” introduced, it’s actually a “special” LSP Ping,
the process is just as what is currently described in the RFC: an Echo Reply
is OPTINAL, whether and when to send Echo Reply is up to the egress LSR, and
the Ingress LSR should not assume an Echo reply will be returned;
2) the echo reply is still controlled by the reply mode, and given that
there is a “Do not reply” mode, the current text seems right, but not that
clear.
I incline to think way (2) is more nature, if so, the proposed “Corrected
Text” may not work if the Sender set the reply mode to “Do not reply”.
I’d suggest:
Original Text
-------------
The egress LSR MAY respond with an LSP Ping Echo
reply message that carries the local discriminator assigned by it for
the BFD session.
NEW:
The egress LSR MAY respond with an LSP Ping Echo
reply message that carries the local discriminator assigned by it for
the BFD session. Whether to send an LSP Ping Echo reply message is
determined by the reply mode carried the received Echo request message.
Best regards,
Mach
From: Rtg-bfd [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Carlos Pignataro
(cpignata)
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2017 8:17 AM
To: Greg Mirsky <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Cc: Tom Nadeau <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>;
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>; Kireeti Kompella
([email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>)
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>; Alia Atlas
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>; Reshad Rahman (rrahman)
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>; rtg-bfd@ietf. org
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [Technical Errata Reported] RFC5884 (5085)
Greg,
This is my final email on this topic, since the arguments are now just silly
and not technically constructive.
1. It's not about understanding English. It's about understanding specs! The
"(if any)" that you quote means there are situations in which there's no echo
reply. As I already explained to you, that's for example the case with
Reply-mode: No-reply. However, the "(if any)" does not mean an Echo Reply is
OPTIONAL. !! Or that you choose when a reply is not sent!!
2. RFC 8029 obsoleted 4379. But to my recollection, nothing changed relevant to
this Errata.
BFD for MPLS could have updated LSP ping behavior -- it just didn't.
Sent from my iPad
On Aug 14, 2017, at 2:12 PM, Greg Mirsky
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi Carlos,
thank you for sharing your view on how LSP Echo request with BFD Discriminator
used to bootstrap a BFD session over MPLS LSP. I'm surprised that you refer to
RFC 8029 as normative reference when commenting on RFC 5884. But even if we
look into RFC 8029, it still has the same texts I've quoted in the previous
note that suggest that echo reply is optional. Consider one of them "The
Sender's Handle is filled in by the sender and returned unchanged by the
receiver in the echo reply (if any)." Though English is my third language, I
interpret "if any" in that sentence as clear indication that the echo reply may
not be sent ever.
Regards,
Greg
On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 7:45 PM, Carlos Pignataro (cpignata)
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Jeff, WG,
I believe there is one additional consideration — please see inline.
On Aug 11, 2017, at 1:39 PM, Jeffrey Haas
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
[Note that I have adjusted the addresses in the headers to try to catch the
RFC authors' current accounts.]
The 5884 interop issue keeps bubbling up. Balaji submitted an errata, which
provides us with a good place to start technical discussion.
Please note I also spent some time off-list discussing this errata with
Balaji.
On Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 10:35:50PM -0700, RFC Errata System wrote:
Section: 6
Original Text
-------------
The egress LSR MAY respond with an LSP Ping Echo
reply message that carries the local discriminator assigned by it for
the BFD session.
Corrected Text
--------------
The egress LSR MUST respond with an LSP Ping Echo reply message that
MAY carry the local discriminator assigned by it for the BFD session.
Notes
-----
It is not clear from the original text which of the following is optional:
- The egress MUST send a reply, but the discriminator in the reply is optional
- The reply itself is optional
Technically, the reply cannot be optional, because the egress needs to report
LSP-Ping verification status to the ingress.
This is correct — but even more so, technically, it is not up to RFC 5884 to
define when an LSP-Ping reply is optional or not.
That’s’ up to https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8029#section-4.4
Lacking a Reply Mode set to "Do not reply"
(https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8029#page-12) the RFC 8029 procedures dictate a
response be sent, independent of whether the RFC 5884 procedures use that
information or not.
More below.
The proposed text recommends to include BFD discriminator in the reply. This
was the intent of the original text.
My opinion follows:
In section 6 -
: On receipt of the LSP Ping Echo request message, the egress LSR MUST
: send a BFD Control packet to the ingress LSR, if the validation of
: the FEC in the LSP Ping Echo request message succeeds. This BFD
: Control packet MUST set the Your Discriminator field to the
: discriminator received from the ingress LSR in the LSP Ping Echo
: request message. The egress LSR MAY respond with an LSP Ping Echo
: reply message that carries the local discriminator assigned by it for
: the BFD session. The local discriminator assigned by the egress LSR
: MUST be used as the My Discriminator field in the BFD session packets
: sent by the egress LSR.
In the text above, I consider it quite clear that the receipt of the BFD
packet contains sufficient state to bring up the BFD session. The receipt
of the same Discriminator in the LSP Ping Echo Reply is optional.
This makes sense partially because the reply may be dropped and we want the
BFD session to come up as fast as possible.
Yes, especially because the first sentence says that the egress sending a BFD
Control packet implies FEC validation passed. However,
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8029#section-4.4 does more than FEC validation.
The point of contention appears to be what to do if we *never* get such
replies. It's worth pointing out additional text in RFC 5884, section 3.2.
: Hence, BFD is used in conjunction with LSP Ping for MPLS LSP fault
: detection:
:
: i) LSP Ping is used for bootstrapping the BFD session as described
: later in this document.
:
: ii) BFD is used to exchange fault detection (i.e., BFD session)
: packets at the required detection interval.
:
: iii) LSP Ping is used to periodically verify the control plane
: against the data plane by ensuring that the LSP is mapped to
: the same FEC, at the egress, as the ingress.
iii above reminds us that the LSP may be torn down because LSP Ping fails.
Thus, it seems problematic that we do not get a reply ever.
However, with the BFD session in the Up state, we have information proving
that the LSP is up. Thus we have contradictory intent.
---
My opinion is that the MAY in the RFC 5884 procedures is intended to have
the BFD session come up by the most expedient means. I do not believe the
likely intent was to say "don't send Echo Reply". Among other things, that
seems contrary to the intent of the general LSP Ping procedures.
Having given my personal observations, we now get to the business of the
Working Group: Debating intent and related text.
My individual opinion is that, as written, RFC 5884 cannot mean any other thing
that “ The egress LSR MUST respond with an LSP Ping Echo reply message that
MAY carry the local discriminator assigned by it for the BFD session”.
In other words, I support this errata.
This is because RFC 5884 did not update RFC 4379’s procedures. And thus a
response is needed based on 8029 irregardless of whether 5884 uses it.
That said, it is debatable whether that LSP Ping response is useful or not. If
it is not sent, it does not comply to 8029. But if the WG wants for it to be
not send, a new spec is needed.
Thanks,
-- Jeff
—
Carlos Pignataro, [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
“Sometimes I use big words that I do not fully understand, to make myself sound
more photosynthesis."
