I agree and sometimes flexibility becomes an unwanted necessity (as is the case 
here with option (a)).

IMO, option (b) length based check for NH should be preferred, since it works 
for all AFI/SAFIs with an assumption that NH could be one IPv4 or IPv6 prefix. 
Very reasonable option.

Option (a) AFI/SAFI based interpretation doesn’t work for all AFI/SAFIs that 
don’t distribute non-routing information  e.g. policy, capabilities, LS etc.

Cheers,
Rajiv


On Jun 27, 2019, at 6:50 AM, Robert Raszuk 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

> Back to my suggestion: implementation should interpret nexthop RD+IPv4 and 
> nexthop IPv4 the same, and interpret nexthop RD+IPv6 and nexthop IPv6 the 
> same.

When elements of BGP UPDATE message are being parsed code must know what to 
expect. Note that we are dealing here with deployed SAFI 128 for nearly 20 
years.

So today there are two ways to know what format of next hop is in MP_REACH:

a) Inferring it from AFI/SAFI per section 3 of RFC4760

or (in addition to the above coarse assumption)

b) Inferring it from the discrete value of next hop length field as defined in 
section 3 of RFC5549

Note that if we would be defining new SAFI we can write anything we like to the 
rules of constructing the update message. But here again we are dealing with 
something which is deployed so sort of operating on the plane in flight.

If implementation can infer next hop type from length we are safe to define all 
sections to have next hop length = 16 octets and be done. But if there are some 
implementations which would only take AFI/SAFI to check if the next hop is 
correct or even further to check if the next hop length is correct then we have 
a problem.

/* Btw this notion of next hop length = 32 is bizarre ! I have never seen any 
BGP implementation sending two next hops (global IPv6 address followed by link 
local IPv6 address) not I am able to find any docs describing how any BGP stack 
would handle it. IMHO we should move this 32 next hop length to historic asap. 
*/

To the msg from Martin,

> maybe the WG would like to reach a conclusion on how to treat that erratum:
> http://www.rfc-editor.org/errata/eid5738

I would vote to reject the errata. There is no value of stuffing 8 octet of 
zeros in the next hop field. If the RFC got defined in 2012 that really means 
that most implementations are capable of inferring next hop format from the 
length field - which is very good. Accepting the errata would be a step 
backwords.

Thx,
R.

On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 11:15 AM Xiejingrong 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Thanks for the RFC historical lessons.
--there was historically some assumption that next hop must be of the same AF 
as prefix.
--RFC 2858 says that Next Hop field should match AFI. On the other hand, RFC 
4760 says that Next Hop Field should match combination of AFI/SAFI.
--authors of RFC 4364 were trying to make it consistent with 4760.
--Also, drafts of RFC 4364 and RFC 4760 were being developed practically at the 
same time period.

The problem is clear, the nexthop field has been inconsistent between different 
L3VPN/MVPN scenarios and different implementations in the long history.

<draft-dawra-bess-srv6-services-00> is the latest draft, but it has different 
nexthop in section 3.1 to 3.4, in the year 2019.

Back to my suggestion: implementation should interpret nexthop RD+IPv4 and 
nexthop IPv4 the same, and interpret nexthop RD+IPv6 and nexthop IPv6 the same.

I think it may be helpful for <draft-dawra-bess-srv6-services-00> to add the 
above text, and update RFC4364/4659/4760/5549, to eliminate the worries about 
interoperation. ----is there any worries about interoperation ?

Thanks
Jingrong


From: Alexander Okonnikov 
[mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>]
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2019 9:38 PM
To: Robert Raszuk <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Cc: UTTARO, JAMES <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>; Xiejingrong 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>; 
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>; 
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>; 
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>; 
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>; [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Idr] [bess] [Softwires] Regarding the Next Hop Network Address 
coding for IPv4 VPN over IPv6 Core in RFC5549

Hi Robert,

Sorry, I was not so precise :-) Of course, RD part in Next Hop is not copied 
from RD of NLRI, but zeroed. I was trying to explain why Next Hop field in RFC 
4364 and RFC 4659 has format RD:IP (VPNvX address) rather than just IP.

Thank you!



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