RFC Number : 3036
Network Working Group L. Andersson
Request for Comments: 3036 Nortel Networks Inc.
Category: Standards Track P. Doolan
Ennovate Networks
N. Feldman
IBM Corp
A. Fredette
PhotonEx Corp
B. Thomas
Cisco Systems, Inc.
January 2001
LDP Specification
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the 'Internet
Official Protocol Standards' (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
The architecture for Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is
described in RFC 3031. A fundamental concept in MPLS is that two
Label Switching Routers (LSRs) must agree on the meaning of the
labels used to forward traffic between and through them. This common
understanding is achieved by using a set of procedures, called a
label distribution protocol, by which one LSR informs another of
label bindings it has made. This document defines a set of such
procedures called LDP (for Label Distribution Protocol) by which LSRs
distribute labels to support MPLS forwarding along normally routed
paths.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
Table of Contents
1 LDP Overview ....................................... 5
1.1 LDP Peers .......................................... 6
1.2 LDP Message Exchange ............................... 6
1.3 LDP Message Structure .............................. 7
1.4 LDP Error Handling ................................. 7
1.5 LDP Extensibility and Future Compatibility ......... 7
1.6 Specification Language ............................. 7
2 LDP Operation ...................................... 8
2.1 FECs ............................................... 8
2.2 Label Spaces, Identifiers, Sessions and Transport .. 9
2.2.1 Label Spaces ....................................... 9
2.2.2 LDP Identifiers .................................... 10
2.2.3 LDP Sessions ....................................... 10
2.2.4 LDP Transport ...................................... 11
2.3 LDP Sessions between non-Directly Connected LSRs ... 11
2.4 LDP Discovery ..................................... 11
2.4.1 Basic Discovery Mechanism .......................... 12
2.4.2 Extended Discovery Mechanism ....................... 12
2.5 Establishing and Maintaining LDP Sessions .......... 13
2.5.1 LDP Session Establishment .......................... 13
2.5.2 Transport Connection Establishment ................. 13
2.5.3 Session Initialization ............................. 14
2.5.4 Initialization State Machine ....................... 17
2.5.5 Maintaining Hello Adjacencies ...................... 20
2.5.6 Maintaining LDP Sessions ........................... 20
2.6 Label Distribution and Management .................. 21
2.6.1 Label Distribution Control Mode .................... 21
2.6.1.1 Independent Label Distribution Control ............. 21
2.6.1.2 Ordered Label Distribution Control ................. 21
2.6.2 Label Retention Mode ............................... 22
2.6.2.1 Conservative Label Retention Mode .................. 22
2.6.2.2 Liberal Label Retention Mode ....................... 22
2.6.3 Label Advertisement Mode ........................... 23
2.7 LDP Identifiers and Next Hop Addresses ............. 23
2.8 Loop Detection ..................................... 24
2.8.1 Label Request Message .............................. 24
2.8.2 Label Mapping Message .............................. 26
2.8.3 Discussion ......................................... 27
2.9 Authenticity and Integrity of LDP Messages ......... 28
2.9.1 TCP MD5 Signature Option ........................... 28
2.9.2 LDP Use of TCP MD5 Signature Option ................ 30
2.10 Label Distribution for Explicitly Routed LSPs ...... 30
3 Protocol Specification ............................. 31
3.1 LDP PDUs ........................................... 31
3.2 LDP Procedures ..................................... 32
3.3 Type-Length-Value Encoding ......................... 32
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
3.4 TLV Encodings for Commonly Used Parameters ......... 34
3.4.1 FEC TLV ............................................ 34
3.4.1.1 FEC Procedures ..................................... 37
3.4.2 Label TLVs ......................................... 37
3.4.2.1 Generic Label TLV .................................. 37
3.4.2.2 ATM Label TLV ...................................... 38
3.4.2.3 Frame Relay Label TLV .............................. 38
3.4.3 Address List TLV ................................... 39
3.4.4 Hop Count TLV ...................................... 40
3.4.4.1 Hop Count Procedures ............................... 40
3.4.5 Path Vector TLV .................................... 41
3.4.5.1 Path Vector Procedures ............................. 42
3.4.5.1.1 Label Request Path Vector .......................... 42
3.4.5.1.2 Label Mapping Path Vector .......................... 43
3.4.6 Status TLV ......................................... 43
3.5 LDP Messages ....................................... 45
3.5.1 Notification Message ............................... 47
3.5.1.1 Notification Message Procedures .................... 48
3.5.1.2 Events Signaled by Notification Messages ........... 49
3.5.1.2.1 Malformed PDU or Message ........................... 49
3.5.1.2.2 Unknown or Malformed TLV ........................... 50
3.5.1.2.3 Session KeepAlive Timer Expiration ................. 50
3.5.1.2.4 Unilateral Session Shutdown ........................ 51
3.5.1.2.5 Initialization Message Events ...................... 51
3.5.1.2.6 Events Resulting From Other Messages ............... 51
3.5.1.2.7 Internal Errors .................................... 51
3.5.1.2.8 Miscellaneous Events ............................... 51
3.5.2 Hello Message ...................................... 51
3.5.2.1 Hello Message Procedures ........................... 54
3.5.3 Initialization Message ............................. 55
3.5.3.1 Initialization Message Procedures .................. 63
3.5.4 KeepAlive Message .................................. 63
3.5.4.1 KeepAlive Message Procedures ....................... 63
3.5.5 Address Message .................................... 64
3.5.5.1 Address Message Procedures ......................... 64
3.5.6 Address Withdraw Message ........................... 65
3.5.6.1 Address Withdraw Message Procedures ................ 66
3.5.7 Label Mapping Message .............................. 66
3.5.7.1 Label Mapping Message Procedures ................... 67
3.5.7.1.1 Independent Control Mapping ........................ 67
3.5.7.1.2 Ordered Control Mapping ............................ 68
3.5.7.1.3 Downstream on Demand Label Advertisement ........... 68
3.5.7.1.4 Downstream Unsolicited Label Advertisement ......... 69
3.5.8 Label Request Message .............................. 69
3.5.8.1 Label Request Message Procedures ................... 70
3.5.9 Label Abort Request Message ........................ 72
3.5.9.1 Label Abort Request Message Procedures ............. 73
3.5.10 Label Withdraw Message ............................. 74
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 3]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
3.5.10.1 Label Withdraw Message Procedures .................. 75
3.5.11 Label Release Message .............................. 76
3.5.11.1 Label Release Message Procedures ................... 77
3.6 Messages and TLVs for Extensibility ................ 78
3.6.1 LDP Vendor-private Extensions ...................... 78
3.6.1.1 LDP Vendor-private TLVs ............................ 78
3.6.1.2 LDP Vendor-private Messages ........................ 80
3.6.2 LDP Experimental Extensions ........................ 81
3.7 Message Summary .................................... 81
3.8 TLV Summary ........................................ 82
3.9 Status Code Summary ................................ 83
3.10 Well-known Numbers ................................. 84
3.10.1 UDP and TCP Ports .................................. 84
3.10.2 Implicit NULL Label ................................ 84
4 IANA Considerations ................................ 84
4.1 Message Type Name Space ............................ 84
4.2 TLV Type Name Space ................................ 85
4.3 FEC Type Name Space ................................ 85
4.4 Status Code Name Space ............................. 86
4.5 Experiment ID Name Space ........................... 86
5 Security Considerations ............................ 86
5.1 Spoofing ........................................... 86
5.2 Privacy ............................................ 87
5.3 Denial of Service .................................. 87
6 Areas for Future Study ............................. 89
7 Intellectual Property Considerations ............... 89
8 Acknowledgments .................................... 89
9 References ......................................... 89
10 Authors' Addresses ................................. 92
Appendix A LDP Label Distribution Procedures .................. 93
A.1 Handling Label Distribution Events ................. 95
A.1.1 Receive Label Request .............................. 96
A.1.2 Receive Label Mapping .............................. 99
A.1.3 Receive Label Abort Request ........................ 105
A.1.4 Receive Label Release .............................. 107
A.1.5 Receive Label Withdraw ............................. 109
A.1.6 Recognize New FEC .................................. 110
A.1.7 Detect Change in FEC Next Hop ...................... 113
A.1.8 Receive Notification / Label Request Aborted ....... 116
A.1.9 Receive Notification / No Label Resources .......... 116
A.1.10 Receive Notification / No Route .................... 117
A.1.11 Receive Notification / Loop Detected ............... 118
A.1.12 Receive Notification / Label Resources Available ... 118
A.1.13 Detect local label resources have become available . 119
A.1.14 LSR decides to no longer label switch a FEC ........ 120
A.1.15 Timeout of deferred label request .................. 121
A.2 Common Label Distribution Procedures ............... 121
A.2.1 Send_Label ......................................... 121
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 4]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
A.2.2 Send_Label_Request ................................. 123
A.2.3 Send_Label_Withdraw ................................ 124
A.2.4 Send_Notification .................................. 125
A.2.5 Send_Message ....................................... 125
A.2.6 Check_Received_Attributes .......................... 126
A.2.7 Prepare_Label_Request_Attributes ................... 127
A.2.8 Prepare_Label_Mapping_Attributes ................... 129
Full Copyright Statement ...................................... 132
1. LDP Overview
The MPLS architecture [RFC3031] defines a label distribution protocol
as a set of procedures by which one Label Switched Router (LSR)
informs another of the meaning of labels used to forward traffic
between and through them.
The MPLS architecture does not assume a single label distribution
protocol. In fact, a number of different label distribution
protocols are being standardized. Existing protocols have been
extended so that label distribution can be piggybacked on them. New
protocols have also been defined for the explicit purpose of
distributing labels. The MPLS architecture discusses some of the
considerations when choosing a label distribution protocol for use in
particular MPLS applications such as Traffic Engineering [RFC2702].
The Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) defined in this document is a
new protocol defined for distributing labels. It is the set of
procedures and messages by which Label Switched Routers (LSRs)
establish Label Switched Paths (LSPs) through a network by mapping
network-layer routing information directly to data-link layer
switched paths. These LSPs may have an endpoint at a directly
attached neighbor (comparable to IP hop-by-hop forwarding), or may
have an endpoint at a network egress node, enabling switching via all
intermediary nodes.
LDP associates a Forwarding Equivalence Class (FEC) [RFC3031] with
each LSP it creates. The FEC associated with an LSP specifies which
packets are 'mapped' to that LSP. LSPs are extended through a
network as each LSR 'splices' incoming labels for a FEC to the
outgoing label assigned to the next hop for the given FEC.
More information about the applicability of LDP can be found in
[RFC3037].
This document assumes familiarity with the MPLS architecture
[RFC3031]. Note that [RFC3031] includes a glossary of MPLS
terminology, such as ingress, label switched path, etc.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 5]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
1.1. LDP Peers
Two LSRs which use LDP to exchange label/FEC mapping information are
known as 'LDP Peers' with respect to that information and we speak of
there being an 'LDP Session' between them. A single LDP session
allows each peer to learn the other's label mappings; i.e., the
protocol is bi-directional.
1.2. LDP Message Exchange
There are four categories of LDP messages:
1. Discovery messages, used to announce and maintain the presence
of an LSR in a network.
2. Session messages, used to establish, maintain, and terminate
sessions between LDP peers.
3. Advertisement messages, used to create, change, and delete
label mappings for FECs.
4. Notification messages, used to provide advisory information and
to signal error information.
Discovery messages provide a mechanism whereby LSRs indicate their
presence in a network by sending a Hello message periodically. This
is transmitted as a UDP packet to the LDP port at the `all routers on
this subnet' group multicast address. When an LSR chooses to
establish a session with another LSR learned via the Hello message,
it uses the LDP initialization procedure over TCP transport. Upon
successful completion of the initialization procedure, the two LSRs
are LDP peers, and may exchange advertisement messages.
When to request a label or advertise a label mapping to a peer is
largely a local decision made by an LSR. In general, the LSR
requests a label mapping from a neighboring LSR when it needs one,
and advertises a label mapping to a neighboring LSR when it wishes
the neighbor to use a label.
Correct operation of LDP requires reliable and in order delivery of
messages. To satisfy these requirements LDP uses the TCP transport
for session, advertisement and notification messages; i.e., for
everything but the UDP-based discovery mechanism.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 6]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
1.3. LDP Message Structure
All LDP messages have a common structure that uses a Type-Length-
Value (TLV) encoding scheme; see Section 'Type-Length-Value'
encoding. The Value part of a TLV-encoded object, or TLV for short,
may itself contain one or more TLVs.
1.4. LDP Error Handling
LDP errors and other events of interest are signaled to an LDP peer
by notification messages.
There are two kinds of LDP notification messages:
1. Error notifications, used to signal fatal errors. If an LSR
receives an error notification from a peer for an LDP session,
it terminates the LDP session by closing the TCP transport
connection for the session and discarding all label mappings
learned via the session.
2. Advisory notifications, used to pass an LSR information about
the LDP session or the status of some previous message received
from the peer.
1.5. LDP Extensibility and Future Compatibility
Functionality may be added to LDP in the future. It is likely that
future functionality will utilize new messages and object types
(TLVs). It may be desirable to employ such new messages and TLVs
within a network using older implementations that do not recognize
them. While it is not possible to make every future enhancement
backwards compatible, some prior planning can ease the introduction
of new capabilities. This specification defines rules for handling
unknown message types and unknown TLVs for this purpose.
1.6. Specification Language
The key words 'MUST', 'MUST NOT', 'REQUIRED', 'SHALL', 'SHALL NOT',
'SHOULD', 'SHOULD NOT', 'RECOMMENDED', 'MAY', and 'OPTIONAL' in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 7]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
2. LDP Operation
2.1. FECs
It is necessary to precisely specify which packets may be mapped to
each LSP. This is done by providing a FEC specification for each
LSP. The FEC identifies the set of IP packets which may be mapped to
that LSP.
Each FEC is specified as a set of one or more FEC elements. Each FEC
element identifies a set of packets which may be mapped to the
corresponding LSP. When an LSP is shared by multiple FEC elements,
that LSP is terminated at (or before) the node where the FEC elements
can no longer share the same path.
Following are the currently defined types of FEC elements. New
element types may be added as needed:
1. Address Prefix. This element is an address prefix of any
length from 0 to a full address, inclusive.
2. Host Address. This element is a full host address.
(We will see below that an Address Prefix FEC element which is a full
address has a different effect than a Host Address FEC element which
has the same address.)
We say that a particular address 'matches' a particular address
prefix if and only if that address begins with that prefix. We also
say that a particular packet matches a particular LSP if and only if
that LSP has an Address Prefix FEC element which matches the packet's
destination address. With respect to a particular packet and a
particular LSP, we refer to any Address Prefix FEC element which
matches the packet as the 'matching prefix'.
The procedure for mapping a particular packet to a particular LSP
uses the following rules. Each rule is applied in turn until the
packet can be mapped to an LSP.
- If there is exactly one LSP which has a Host Address FEC
element that is identical to the packet's destination address,
then the packet is mapped to that LSP.
- If there are multiple LSPs, each containing a Host Address FEC
element that is identical to the packet's destination address,
then the packet is mapped to one of those LSPs. The procedure
for selecting one of those LSPs is beyond the scope of this
document.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 8]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
- If a packet matches exactly one LSP, the packet is mapped to
that LSP.
- If a packet matches multiple LSPs, it is mapped to the LSP
whose matching prefix is the longest. If there is no one LSP
whose matching prefix is longest, the packet is mapped to one
from the set of LSPs whose matching prefix is longer than the
others. The procedure for selecting one of those LSPs is
beyond the scope of this document.
- If it is known that a packet must traverse a particular egress
router, and there is an LSP which has an Address Prefix FEC
element which is an address of that router, then the packet is
mapped to that LSP. The procedure for obtaining this knowledge
is beyond the scope of this document.
The procedure for determining that a packet must traverse a
particular egress router is beyond the scope of this document. (As
an example, if one is running a link state routing algorithm, it may
be possible to obtain this information from the link state data base.
As another example, if one is running BGP, it may be possible to
obtain this information from the BGP next hop attribute of the
packet's route.)
It is worth pointing out a few consequences of these rules:
- A packet may be sent on the LSP whose Address Prefix FEC
element is the address of the packet's egress router ONLY if
there is no LSP matching the packet's destination address.
- A packet may match two LSPs, one with a Host Address FEC
element and one with an Address Prefix FEC element. In this
case, the packet is always assigned to the former.
- A packet which does not match a particular Host Address FEC
element may not be sent on the corresponding LSP, even if the
Host Address FEC element identifies the packet's egress router.
2.2. Label Spaces, Identifiers, Sessions and Transport
2.2.1. Label Spaces
The notion of 'label space' is useful for discussing the assignment
and distribution of labels. There are two types of label spaces:
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 9]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
- Per interface label space. Interface-specific incoming labels
are used for interfaces that use interface resources for
labels. An example of such an interface is a label-controlled
ATM interface that uses VCIs as labels, or a Frame Relay
interface that uses DLCIs as labels.
Note that the use of a per interface label space only makes
sense when the LDP peers are 'directly connected' over an
interface, and the label is only going to be used for traffic
sent over that interface.
- Per platform label space. Platform-wide incoming labels are
used for interfaces that can share the same labels.
2.2.2. LDP Identifiers
An LDP identifier is a six octet quantity used to identify an LSR
label space. The first four octets identify the LSR and must be a
globally unique value, such as a 32-bit router Id assigned to the
LSR. The last two octets identify a specific label space within the
LSR. The last two octets of LDP Identifiers for platform-wide label
spaces are always both zero. This document uses the following print
representation for LDP Identifiers:
:
e.g., lsr171:0, lsr19:2.
Note that an LSR that manages and advertises multiple label spaces
uses a different LDP Identifier for each such label space.
A situation where an LSR would need to advertise more than one label
space to a peer and hence use more than one LDP Identifier occurs
when the LSR has two links to the peer and both are ATM (and use per
interface labels). Another situation would be where the LSR had two
links to the peer, one of which is ethernet (and uses per platform
labels) and the other of which is ATM.
2.2.3. LDP Sessions
LDP sessions exist between LSRs to support label exchange between
them.
When an LSR uses LDP to advertise more than one label space to
another LSR it uses a separate LDP session for each label space.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 10]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
2.2.4. LDP Transport
LDP uses TCP as a reliable transport for sessions.
When multiple LDP sessions are required between two LSRs there is
one TCP session for each LDP session.
2.3. LDP Sessions between non-Directly Connected LSRs
LDP sessions between LSRs that are not directly connected at the link
level may be desirable in some situations.
For example, consider a 'traffic engineering' application where LSRa
sends traffic matching some criteria via an LSP to non-directly
connected LSRb rather than forwarding the traffic along its normally
routed path.
The path between LSRa and LSRb would include one or more intermediate
LSRs (LSR1,...LSRn). An LDP session between LSRa and LSRb would
enable LSRb to label switch traffic arriving on the LSP from LSRa by
providing LSRb means to advertise labels for this purpose to LSRa.
In this situation LSRa would apply two labels to traffic it forwards
on the LSP to LSRb: a label learned from LSR1 to forward traffic
along the LSP path from LSRa to LSRb; and a label learned from LSRb
to enable LSRb to label switch traffic arriving on the LSP.
LSRa first adds the label learned via its LDP session with LSRb to
the packet label stack (either by replacing the label on top of the
packet label stack with it if the packet arrives labeled or by
pushing it if the packet arrives unlabeled). Next, it pushes the
label for the LSP learned from LSR1 onto the label stack.
2.4. LDP Discovery
LDP discovery is a mechanism that enables an LSR to discover
potential LDP peers. Discovery makes it unnecessary to explicitly
configure an LSR's label switching peers.
There are two variants of the discovery mechanism:
- A basic discovery mechanism used to discover LSR neighbors that
are directly connected at the link level.
- An extended discovery mechanism used to locate LSRs that are
not directly connected at the link level.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 11]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
2.4.1. Basic Discovery Mechanism
To engage in LDP Basic Discovery on an interface an LSR periodically
sends LDP Link Hellos out the interface. LDP Link Hellos are sent as
UDP packets addressed to the well-known LDP discovery port for the
'all routers on this subnet' group multicast address.
An LDP Link Hello sent by an LSR carries the LDP Identifier for the
label space the LSR intends to use for the interface and possibly
additional information.
Receipt of an LDP Link Hello on an interface identifies a 'Hello
adjacency' with a potential LDP peer reachable at the link level on
the interface as well as the label space the peer intends to use for
the interface.
2.4.2. Extended Discovery Mechanism
LDP sessions between non-directly connected LSRs are supported by LDP
Extended Discovery.
To engage in LDP Extended Discovery an LSR periodically sends LDP
Targeted Hellos to a specific address. LDP Targeted Hellos are sent
as UDP packets addressed to the well-known LDP discovery port at the
specific address.
An LDP Targeted Hello sent by an LSR carries the LDP Identifier for
the label space the LSR intends to use and possibly additional
optional information.
Extended Discovery differs from Basic Discovery in the following
ways:
- A Targeted Hello is sent to a specific address rather than to
the 'all routers' group multicast address for the outgoing
interface.
- Unlike Basic Discovery, which is symmetric, Extended Discovery
is asymmetric.
One LSR initiates Extended Discovery with another targeted LSR,
and the targeted LSR decides whether to respond to or ignore
the Targeted Hello. A targeted LSR that chooses to respond
does so by periodically sending Targeted Hellos to the
initiating LSR.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 12]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
Receipt of an LDP Targeted Hello identifies a 'Hello adjacency' with
a potential LDP peer reachable at the network level and the label
space the peer intends to use.
2.5. Establishing and Maintaining LDP Sessions
2.5.1. LDP Session Establishment
The exchange of LDP Discovery Hellos between two LSRs triggers LDP
session establishment. Session establishment is a two step process:
- Transport connection establishment.
- Session initialization
The following describes establishment of an LDP session between LSRs
LSR1 and LSR2 from LSR1's point of view. It assumes the exchange of
Hellos specifying label space LSR1:a for LSR1 and label space LSR2:b
for LSR2.
2.5.2. Transport Connection Establishment
The exchange of Hellos results in the creation of a Hello adjacency
at LSR1 that serves to bind the link (L) and the label spaces LSR1:a
and LSR2:b.
1. If LSR1 does not already have an LDP session for the exchange
of label spaces LSR1:a and LSR2:b it attempts to open a TCP
connection for a new LDP session with LSR2.
LSR1 determines the transport addresses to be used at its end
(A1) and LSR2's end (A2) of the LDP TCP connection. Address A1
is determined as follows:
a. If LSR1 uses the Transport Address optional object (TLV) in
Hello's it sends to LSR2 to advertise an address, A1 is the
address LSR1 advertises via the optional object;
b. If LSR1 does not use the Transport Address optional object,
A1 is the source address used in Hellos it sends to LSR2.
Similarly, address A2 is determined as follows:
a. If LSR2 uses the Transport Address optional object, A2 is
the address LSR2 advertises via the optional object;
b. If LSR2 does not use the Transport Address optional object,
A2 is the source address in Hellos received from LSR2.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 13]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
2. LSR1 determines whether it will play the active or passive role
in session establishment by comparing addresses A1 and A2 as
unsigned integers. If A1 > A2, LSR1 plays the active role;
otherwise it is passive.
The procedure for comparing A1 and A2 as unsigned integers is:
- If A1 and A2 are not in the same address family, they are
incomparable, and no session can be established.
- Let U1 be the abstract unsigned integer obtained by treating
A1 as a sequence of bytes, where the byte which appears
earliest in the message is the most significant byte of the
integer and the byte which appears latest in the message is
the least significant byte of the integer.
Let U2 be the abstract unsigned integer obtained from A2 in
a similar manner.
- Compare U1 with U2. If U1 > U2, then A1 > A2; if U1 < U2,
then A1 < A2.
3. If LSR1 is active, it attempts to establish the LDP TCP
connection by connecting to the well-known LDP port at address
A2. If LSR1 is passive, it waits for LSR2 to establish the LDP
TCP connection to its well-known LDP port.
Note that when an LSR sends a Hello it selects the transport address
for its end of the session connection and uses the Hello to advertise
the address, either explicitly by including it in an optional
Transport Address TLV or implicitly by omitting the TLV and using it
as the Hello source address.
An LSR MUST advertise the same transport address in all Hellos that
advertise the same label space. This requirement ensures that two
LSRs linked by multiple Hello adjacencies using the same label spaces
play the same connection establishment role for each adjacency.
2.5.3. Session Initialization
After LSR1 and LSR2 establish a transport connection they negotiate
session parameters by exchanging LDP Initialization messages. The
parameters negotiated include LDP protocol version, label
distribution method, timer values, VPI/VCI ranges for label
controlled ATM, DLCI ranges for label controlled Frame Relay, etc.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 14]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
Successful negotiation completes establishment of an LDP session
between LSR1 and LSR2 for the advertisement of label spaces LSR1:a
and LSR2:b.
The following describes the session initialization from LSR1's point
of view.
After the connection is established, if LSR1 is playing the active
role, it initiates negotiation of session parameters by sending an
Initialization message to LSR2. If LSR1 is passive, it waits for
LSR2 to initiate the parameter negotiation.
In general when there are multiple links between LSR1 and LSR2 and
multiple label spaces to be advertised by each, the passive LSR
cannot know which label space to advertise over a newly established
TCP connection until it receives the LDP Initialization message on
the connection. The Initialization message carries both the LDP
Identifier for the sender's (active LSR's) label space and the LDP
Identifier for the receiver's (passive LSR's) label space.
By waiting for the Initialization message from its peer the passive
LSR can match the label space to be advertised by the peer (as
determined from the LDP Identifier in the PDU header for the
Initialization message) with a Hello adjacency previously created
when Hellos were exchanged.
1. When LSR1 plays the passive role:
a. If LSR1 receives an Initialization message it attempts to
match the LDP Identifier carried by the message PDU with a
Hello adjacency.
b. If there is a matching Hello adjacency, the adjacency
specifies the local label space for the session.
Next LSR1 checks whether the session parameters proposed in
the message are acceptable. If they are, LSR1 replies with
an Initialization message of its own to propose the
parameters it wishes to use and a KeepAlive message to
signal acceptance of LSR2's parameters. If the parameters
are not acceptable, LSR1 responds by sending a Session
Rejected/Parameters Error Notification message and closing
the TCP connection.
c. If LSR1 cannot find a matching Hello adjacency it sends a
Session Rejected/No Hello Error Notification message and
closes the TCP connection.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 15]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
d. If LSR1 receives a KeepAlive in response to its
Initialization message, the session is operational from
LSR1's point of view.
e. If LSR1 receives an Error Notification message, LSR2 has
rejected its proposed session and LSR1 closes the TCP
connection.
2. When LSR1 plays the active role:
a. If LSR1 receives an Error Notification message, LSR2 has
rejected its proposed session and LSR1 closes the TCP
connection.
b. If LSR1 receives an Initialization message, it checks
whether the session parameters are acceptable. If so, it
replies with a KeepAlive message. If the session parameters
are unacceptable, LSR1 sends a Session Rejected/Parameters
Error Notification message and closes the connection.
c. If LSR1 receives a KeepAlive message, LSR2 has accepted its
proposed session parameters.
d. When LSR1 has received both an acceptable Initialization
message and a KeepAlive message the session is operational
from LSR1's point of view.
It is possible for a pair of incompatibly configured LSRs that
disagree on session parameters to engage in an endless sequence of
messages as each NAKs the other's Initialization messages with
Error Notification messages.
An LSR must throttle its session setup retry attempts with an
exponential backoff in situations where Initialization messages
are being NAK'd. It is also recommended that an LSR detecting
such a situation take action to notify an operator.
The session establishment setup attempt following a NAK'd
Initialization message must be delayed no less than 15 seconds,
and subsequent delays must grow to a maximum delay of no less than
2 minutes. The specific session establishment action that must be
delayed is the attempt to open the session transport connection by
the LSR playing the active role.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 16]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
The throttled sequence of Initialization NAKs is unlikely to cease
until operator intervention reconfigures one of the LSRs. After
such a configuration action there is no further need to throttle
subsequent session establishment attempts (until their
initialization messages are NAK'd).
Due to the asymmetric nature of session establishment,
reconfiguration of the passive LSR will go unnoticed by the active
LSR without some further action. Section 'Hello Message'
describes an optional mechanism an LSR can use to signal potential
LDP peers that it has been reconfigured.
2.5.4. Initialization State Machine
It is convenient to describe LDP session negotiation behavior in
terms of a state machine. We define the LDP state machine to have
five possible states and present the behavior as a state transition
table and as a state transition diagram.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 17]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
Session Initialization State Transition Table
STATE EVENT NEW STATE
NON EXISTENT Session TCP connection established INITIALIZED
established
INITIALIZED Transmit Initialization msg OPENSENT
(Active Role)
Receive acceptable OPENREC
Initialization msg
(Passive Role )
Action: Transmit Initialization
msg and KeepAlive msg
Receive Any other LDP msg NON EXISTENT
Action: Transmit Error Notification msg
(NAK) and close transport connection
OPENREC Receive KeepAlive msg OPERATIONAL
Receive Any other LDP msg NON EXISTENT
Action: Transmit Error Notification msg
(NAK) and close transport connection
OPENSENT Receive acceptable OPENREC
Initialization msg
Action: Transmit KeepAlive msg
Receive Any other LDP msg NON EXISTENT
Action: Transmit Error Notification msg
(NAK) and close transport connection
OPERATIONAL Receive Shutdown msg NON EXISTENT
Action: Transmit Shutdown msg and
close transport connection
Receive other LDP msgs OPERATIONAL
Timeout NON EXISTENT
Action: Transmit Shutdown msg and
close transport connection
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 18]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
Session Initialization State Transition Diagram
+------------+
| |
+------------>|NON EXISTENT|<--------------------+
| | | |
| +------------+ |
| Session | ^ |
| connection | | |
| established | | Rx any LDP msg except |
| V | Init msg or Timeout |
| +-----------+ |
Rx Any other | | | |
msg or | |INITIALIZED| |
Timeout / | +---| |-+ |
Tx NAK msg | | +-----------+ | |
| | (Passive Role) | (Active Role) |
| | Rx Acceptable | Tx Init msg |
| | Init msg / | |
| | Tx Init msg | |
| | Tx KeepAlive | |
| V msg V |
| +-------+ +--------+ |
| | | | | |
+---|OPENREC| |OPENSENT|----------------->|
+---| | | | Rx Any other msg |
| +-------+ +--------+ or Timeout |
Rx KeepAlive | ^ | Tx NAK msg |
msg | | | |
| | | Rx Acceptable |
| | | Init msg / |
| +----------------+ Tx KeepAlive msg |
| |
| +-----------+ |
+----->| | |
|OPERATIONAL| |
| |---------------------------->+
+-----------+ Rx Shutdown msg
All other | ^ or Timeout /
LDP msgs | | Tx Shutdown msg
| |
+---+
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 19]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
2.5.5. Maintaining Hello Adjacencies
An LDP session with a peer has one or more Hello adjacencies.
An LDP session has multiple Hello adjacencies when a pair of LSRs is
connected by multiple links that share the same label space; for
example, multiple PPP links between a pair of routers. In this
situation the Hellos an LSR sends on each such link carry the same
LDP Identifier.
LDP includes mechanisms to monitor the necessity of an LDP session
and its Hello adjacencies.
LDP uses the regular receipt of LDP Discovery Hellos to indicate a
peer's intent to use the label space identified by the Hello. An LSR
maintains a hold timer with each Hello adjacency which it restarts
when it receives a Hello that matches the adjacency. If the timer
expires without receipt of a matching Hello from the peer, LDP
concludes that the peer no longer wishes to label switch using that
label space for that link (or target, in the case of Targeted Hellos)
or that the peer has failed. The LSR then deletes the Hello
adjacency. When the last Hello adjacency for a LDP session is
deleted, the LSR terminates the LDP session by sending a Notification
message and closing the transport connection.
2.5.6. Maintaining LDP Sessions
LDP includes mechanisms to monitor the integrity of the LDP session.
LDP uses the regular receipt of LDP PDUs on the session transport
connection to monitor the integrity of the session. An LSR maintains
a KeepAlive timer for each peer session which it resets whenever it
receives an LDP PDU from the session peer. If the KeepAlive timer
expires without receipt of an LDP PDU from the peer the LSR concludes
that the transport connection is bad or that the peer has failed, and
it terminates the LDP session by closing the transport connection.
After an LDP session has been established, an LSR must arrange that
its peer receive an LDP PDU from it at least every KeepAlive time
period to ensure the peer restarts the session KeepAlive timer. The
LSR may send any protocol message to meet this requirement. In
circumstances where an LSR has no other information to communicate to
its peer, it sends a KeepAlive message.
An LSR may choose to terminate an LDP session with a peer at any
time. Should it choose to do so, it informs the peer with a Shutdown
message.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 20]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
2.6. Label Distribution and Management
The MPLS architecture [RF3031] allows an LSR to distribute a FEC
label binding in response to an explicit request from another LSR.
This is known as Downstream On Demand label distribution. It also
allows an LSR to distribute label bindings to LSRs that have not
explicitly requested them. [RFC3031] calls this method of label
distribution Unsolicited Downstream; this document uses the term
Downstream Unsolicited.
Both of these label distribution techniques may be used in the same
network at the same time. However, for any given LDP session, each
LSR must be aware of the label distribution method used by its peer
in order to avoid situations where one peer using Downstream
Unsolicited label distribution assumes its peer is also. See Section
'Downstream on Demand label Advertisement'.
2.6.1. Label Distribution Control Mode
The behavior of the initial setup of LSPs is determined by whether
the LSR is operating with independent or ordered LSP control. An LSR
may support both types of control as a configurable option.
2.6.1.1. Independent Label Distribution Control
When using independent LSP control, each LSR may advertise label
mappings to its neighbors at any time it desires. For example, when
operating in independent Downstream on Demand mode, an LSR may answer
requests for label mappings immediately, without waiting for a label
mapping from the next hop. When operating in independent Downstream
Unsolicited mode, an LSR may advertise a label mapping for a FEC to
its neighbors whenever it is prepared to label-switch that FEC.
A consequence of using independent mode is that an upstream label can
be advertised before a downstream label is received.
2.6.1.2. Ordered Label Distribution Control
When using LSP ordered control, an LSR may initiate the transmission
of a label mapping only for a FEC for which it has a label mapping
for the FEC next hop, or for which the LSR is the egress. For each
FEC for which the LSR is not the egress and no mapping exists, the
LSR MUST wait until a label from a downstream LSR is received before
mapping the FEC and passing corresponding labels to upstream LSRs.
An LSR may be an egress for some FECs and a non-egress for others.
An LSR may act as an egress LSR, with respect to a particular FEC,
under any of the following conditions:
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 21]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
1. The FEC refers to the LSR itself (including one of its directly
attached interfaces).
2. The next hop router for the FEC is outside of the Label
Switching Network.
3. FEC elements are reachable by crossing a routing domain
boundary, such as another area for OSPF summary networks, or
another autonomous system for OSPF AS externals and BGP routes
[RFC2328] [RFC1771].
Note that whether an LSR is an egress for a given FEC may change over
time, depending on the state of the network and LSR configuration
settings.
2.6.2. Label Retention Mode
The MPLS architecture [RFC3031] introduces the notion of label
retention mode which specifies whether an LSR maintains a label
binding for a FEC learned from a neighbor that is not its next hop
for the FEC.
2.6.2.1. Conservative Label Retention Mode
In Downstream Unsolicited advertisement mode, label mapping
advertisements for all routes may be received from all peer LSRs.
When using conservative label retention, advertised label mappings
are retained only if they will be used to forward packets (i.e., if
they are received from a valid next hop according to routing). If
operating in Downstream on Demand mode, an LSR will request label
mappings only from the next hop LSR according to routing. Since
Downstream on Demand mode is primarily used when label conservation
is desired (e.g., an ATM switch with limited cross connect space), it
is typically used with the conservative label retention mode.
The main advantage of the conservative mode is that only the labels
that are required for the forwarding of data are allocated and
maintained. This is particularly important in LSRs where the label
space is inherently limited, such as in an ATM switch. A
disadvantage of the conservative mode is that if routing changes the
next hop for a given destination, a new label must be obtained from
the new next hop before labeled packets can be forwarded.
2.6.2.2. Liberal Label Retention Mode
In Downstream Unsolicited advertisement mode, label mapping
advertisements for all routes may be received from all LDP peers.
When using liberal label retention, every label mappings received
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 22]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
from a peer LSR is retained regardless of whether the LSR is the next
hop for the advertised mapping. When operating in Downstream on
Demand mode with liberal label retention, an LSR might choose to
request label mappings for all known prefixes from all peer LSRs.
Note, however, that Downstream on Demand mode is typically used by
devices such as ATM switch-based LSRs for which the conservative
approach is recommended.
The main advantage of the liberal label retention mode is that
reaction to routing changes can be quick because labels already
exist. The main disadvantage of the liberal mode is that unneeded
label mappings are distributed and maintained.
2.6.3. Label Advertisement Mode
Each interface on an LSR is configured to operate in either
Downstream Unsolicited or Downstream on Demand advertisement mode.
LSRs exchange advertisement modes during initialization. The major
difference between Downstream Unsolicited and Downstream on Demand
modes is in which LSR takes responsibility for initiating mapping
requests and mapping advertisements.
2.7. LDP Identifiers and Next Hop Addresses
An LSR maintains learned labels in a Label Information Base (LIB).
When operating in Downstream Unsolicited mode, the LIB entry for an
address prefix associates a collection of (LDP Identifier, label)
pairs with the prefix, one such pair for each peer advertising a
label for the prefix.
When the next hop for a prefix changes the LSR must retrieve the
label advertised by the new next hop from the LIB for use in
forwarding. To retrieve the label the LSR must be able to map the
next hop address for the prefix to an LDP Identifier.
Similarly, when the LSR learns a label for a prefix from an LDP peer,
it must be able to determine whether that peer is currently a next
hop for the prefix to determine whether it needs to start using the
newly learned label when forwarding packets that match the prefix.
To make that decision the LSR must be able to map an LDP Identifier
to the peer's addresses to check whether any are a next hop for the
prefix.
To enable LSRs to map between a peer LDP identifier and the peer's
addresses, LSRs advertise their addresses using LDP Address and
Withdraw Address messages.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 23]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
An LSR sends an Address message to advertise its addresses to a peer.
An LSR sends a Withdraw Address message to withdraw previously
advertised addresses from a peer
2.8. Loop Detection
Loop detection is a configurable option which provides a mechanism
for finding looping LSPs and for preventing Label Request messages
from looping in the presence of non-merge capable LSRs.
The mechanism makes use of Path Vector and Hop Count TLVs carried by
Label Request and Label Mapping messages. It builds on the following
basic properties of these TLVs:
- A Path Vector TLV contains a list of the LSRs that its
containing message has traversed. An LSR is identified in a
Path Vector list by its unique LSR Identifier (Id), which is
the first four octets of its LDP Identifier. When an LSR
propagates a message containing a Path Vector TLV it adds its
LSR Id to the Path Vector list. An LSR that receives a message
with a Path Vector that contains its LSR Id detects that the
message has traversed a loop. LDP supports the notion of a
maximum allowable Path Vector length; an LSR that detects a
Path Vector has reached the maximum length behaves as if the
containing message has traversed a loop.
- A Hop Count TLV contains a count of the LSRS that the
containing message has traversed. When an LSR propagates a
message containing a Hop Count TLV it increments the count. An
LSR that detects a Hop Count has reached a configured maximum
value behaves as if the containing message has traversed a
loop. By convention a count of 0 is interpreted to mean the
hop count is unknown. Incrementing an unknown hop count value
results in an unknown hop count value (0).
The following paragraphs describes LDP loop detection procedures.
For these paragraphs, and only these paragraphs, 'MUST' is redefined
to mean 'MUST if configured for loop detection'. The paragraphs
specify messages that must carry Path Vector and Hop Count TLVs.
Note that the Hop Count TLV and its procedures are used without the
Path Vector TLV in situations when loop detection is not configured
(see [RFC3035] and [RFC3034]).
2.8.1. Label Request Message
The use of the Path Vector TLV and Hop Count TLV prevent Label
Request messages from looping in environments that include non-merge
capable LSRs.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 24]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
The rules that govern use of the Hop Count TLV in Label Request
messages by LSR R when Loop Detection is enabled are the following:
- The Label Request message MUST include a Hop Count TLV.
- If R is sending the Label Request because it is a FEC ingress, it
MUST include a Hop Count TLV with hop count value 1.
- If R is sending the Label Request as a result of having received a
Label Request from an upstream LSR, and if the received Label
Request contains a Hop Count TLV, R MUST increment the received
hop count value by 1 and MUST pass the resulting value in a Hop
Count TLV to its next hop along with the Label Request message;
The rules that govern use of the Path Vector TLV in Label Request
messages by LSR R when Loop Detection is enabled are the following:
- If R is sending the Label Request because it is a FEC ingress,
then if R is non-merge capable, it MUST include a Path Vector TLV
of length 1 containing its own LSR Id.
- If R is sending the Label Request as a result of having received a
Label Request from an upstream LSR, then if the received Label
Request contains a Path Vector TLV or if R is non-merge capable:
R MUST add its own LSR Id to the Path Vector, and MUST pass the
resulting Path Vector to its next hop along with the Label
Request message. If the Label Request contains no Path Vector
TLV, R MUST include a Path Vector TLV of length 1 containing
its own LSR Id.
Note that if R receives a Label Request message for a particular FEC,
and R has previously sent a Label Request message for that FEC to its
next hop and has not yet received a reply, and if R intends to merge
the newly received Label Request with the existing outstanding Label
Request, then R does not propagate the Label Request to the next hop.
If R receives a Label Request message from its next hop with a Hop
Count TLV which exceeds the configured maximum value, or with a Path
Vector TLV containing its own LSR Id or which exceeds the maximum
allowable length, then R detects that the Label Request message has
traveled in a loop.
When R detects a loop, it MUST send a Loop Detected Notification
message to the source of the Label Request message and drop the Label
Request message.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 25]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
2.8.2. Label Mapping Message
The use of the Path Vector TLV and Hop Count TLV in the Label Mapping
message provide a mechanism to find and terminate looping LSPs. When
an LSR receives a Label Mapping message from a next hop, the message
is propagated upstream as specified below until an ingress LSR is
reached or a loop is found.
The rules that govern the use of the Hop Count TLV in Label Mapping
messages sent by an LSR R when Loop Detection is enabled are the
following:
- R MUST include a Hop Count TLV.
- If R is the egress, the hop count value MUST be 1.
- If the Label Mapping message is being sent to propagate a Label
Mapping message received from the next hop to an upstream peer,
the hop count value MUST be determined as follows:
o If R is a member of the edge set of an LSR domain whose LSRs do
not perform 'TTL-decrement' (e.g., an ATM LSR domain or a Frame
Relay LSR domain) and the upstream peer is within that domain,
R MUST reset the hop count to 1 before propagating the message.
o Otherwise, R MUST increment the hop count received from the
next hop before propagating the message.
- If the Label Mapping message is not being sent to propagate a
Label Mapping message, the hop count value MUST be the result of
incrementing R's current knowledge of the hop count learned from
previous Label Mapping messages. Note that this hop count value
will be unknown if R has not received a Label Mapping message from
the next hop.
Any Label Mapping message MAY contain a Path Vector TLV. The rules
that govern the mandatory use of the Path Vector TLV in Label Mapping
messages sent by LSR R when Loop Detection is enabled are the
following:
- If R is the egress, the Label Mapping message need not include a
Path Vector TLV.
- If R is sending the Label Mapping message to propagate a Label
Mapping message received from the next hop to an upstream peer,
then:
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 26]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
o If R is merge capable and if R has not previously sent a Label
Mapping message to the upstream peer, then it MUST include a
Path Vector TLV.
o If the received message contains an unknown hop count, then R
MUST include a Path Vector TLV.
o If R has previously sent a Label Mapping message to the
upstream peer, then it MUST include a Path Vector TLV if the
received message reports an LSP hop count increase, a change in
hop count from unknown to known, or a change from known to
unknown.
If the above rules require R include a Path Vector TLV in the
Label Mapping message, R computes it as follows:
o If the received Label Mapping message included a Path Vector,
the Path Vector sent upstream MUST be the result of adding R's
LSR Id to the received Path Vector.
o If the received message had no Path Vector, the Path Vector
sent upstream MUST be a path vector of length 1 containing R's
LSR Id.
- If the Label Mapping message is not being sent to propagate a
received message upstream, the Label Mapping message MUST include
a Path Vector of length 1 containing R's LSR Id.
If R receives a Label Mapping message from its next hop with a Hop
Count TLV which exceeds the configured maximum value, or with a Path
Vector TLV containing its own LSR Id or which exceeds the maximum
allowable length, then R detects that the corresponding LSP contains
a loop.
When R detects a loop, it MUST stop using the label for forwarding,
drop the Label Mapping message, and signal Loop Detected status to
the source of the Label Mapping message.
2.8.3. Discussion
If loop detection is desired in an MPLS domain, then it should be
turned on in ALL LSRs within that MPLS domain, else loop detection
will not operate properly and may result in undetected loops or in
falsely detected loops.
LSRs which are configured for loop detection are NOT expected to
store the path vectors as part of the LSP state.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 27]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
Note that in a network where only non-merge capable LSRs are present,
Path Vectors are passed downstream from ingress to egress, and are
not passed upstream. Even when merge is supported, Path Vectors need
not be passed upstream along an LSP which is known to reach the
egress. When an LSR experiences a change of next hop, it need pass
Path Vectors upstream only when it cannot tell from the hop count
that the change of next hop does not result in a loop.
In the case of ordered label distribution, Label Mapping messages are
propagated from egress toward ingress, naturally creating the Path
Vector along the way. In the case of independent label distribution,
an LSR may originate a Label Mapping message for an FEC before
receiving a Label Mapping message from its downstream peer for that
FEC. In this case, the subsequent Label Mapping message for the FEC
received from the downstream peer is treated as an update to LSP
attributes, and the Label Mapping message must be propagated
upstream. Thus, it is recommended that loop detection be configured
in conjunction with ordered label distribution, to minimize the
number of Label Mapping update messages.
2.9. Authenticity and Integrity of LDP Messages
This section specifies a mechanism to protect against the
introduction of spoofed TCP segments into LDP session connection
streams. The use of this mechanism MUST be supported as a
configurable option.
The mechanism is based on use of the TCP MD5 Signature Option
specified in [RFC2385] for use by BGP. See [RFC1321] for a
specification of the MD5 hash function.
2.9.1. TCP MD5 Signature Option
The following quotes from [RFC2385] outline the security properties
achieved by using the TCP MD5 Signature Option and summarizes its
operation:
'IESG Note
This document describes current existing practice for securing
BGP against certain simple attacks. It is understood to have
security weaknesses against concerted attacks.'
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 28]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
'Abstract
This memo describes a TCP extension to enhance security for
BGP. It defines a new TCP option for carrying an MD5 [RFC1321]
digest in a TCP segment. This digest acts like a signature for
that segment, incorporating information known only to the
connection end points. Since BGP uses TCP as its transport,
using this option in the way described in this paper
significantly reduces the danger from certain security attacks
on BGP.'
'Introduction
The primary motivation for this option is to allow BGP to
protect itself against the introduction of spoofed TCP segments
into the connection stream. Of particular concern are TCP
resets.
To spoof a connection using the scheme described in this paper,
an attacker would not only have to guess TCP sequence numbers,
but would also have had to obtain the password included in the
MD5 digest. This password never appears in the connection
stream, and the actual form of the password is up to the
application. It could even change during the lifetime of a
particular connection so long as this change was synchronized
on both ends (although retransmission can become problematical
in some TCP implementations with changing passwords).
Finally, there is no negotiation for the use of this option in
a connection, rather it is purely a matter of site policy
whether or not its connections use the option.'
'MD5 as a Hashing Algorithm
Since this memo was first issued (under a different title), the
MD5 algorithm has been found to be vulnerable to collision
search attacks [Dobb], and is considered by some to be
insufficiently strong for this type of application.
This memo still specifies the MD5 algorithm, however, since the
option has already been deployed operationally, and there was
no 'algorithm type' field defined to allow an upgrade using the
same option number. The original document did not specify a
type field since this would require at least one more byte, and
it was felt at the time that taking 19 bytes for the complete
option (which would probably be padded to 20 bytes in TCP
implementations) would be too much of a waste of the already
limited option space.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 29]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
This does not prevent the deployment of another similar option
which uses another hashing algorithm (like SHA-1). Also, if
most implementations pad the 18 byte option as defined to 20
bytes anyway, it would be just as well to define a new option
which contains an algorithm type field.
This would need to be addressed in another document, however.'
End of quotes from [RFC2385].
2.9.2. LDP Use of TCP MD5 Signature Option
LDP uses the TCP MD5 Signature Option as follows:
- Use of the MD5 Signature Option for LDP TCP connections is a
configurable LSR option.
- An LSR that uses the MD5 Signature Option is configured with a
password (shared secret) for each potential LDP peer.
- The LSR applies the MD5 algorithm as specified in [RFC2385] to
compute the MD5 digest for a TCP segment to be sent to a peer.
This computation makes use of the peer password as well as the
TCP segment.
- When the LSR receives a TCP segment with an MD5 digest, it
validates the segment by calculating the MD5 digest (using its
own record of the password) and compares the computed digest
with the received digest. If the comparison fails, the segment
is dropped without any response to the sender.
- The LSR ignores LDP Hellos from any LSR for which a password
has not been configured. This ensures that the LSR establishes
LDP TCP connections only with LSRs for which a password has
been configured.
2.10. Label Distribution for Explicitly Routed LSPs
Traffic Engineering [RFC2702] is expected to be an important MPLS
application. MPLS support for Traffic Engineering uses explicitly
routed LSPs, which need not follow normally-routed (hop-by-hop) paths
as determined by destination-based routing protocols. CR-LDP [CRLDP]
defines extensions to LDP to use LDP to set up explicitly routed
LSPs.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 30]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
3. Protocol Specification
Previous sections that describe LDP operation have discussed
scenarios that involve the exchange of messages among LDP peers.
This section specifies the message encodings and procedures for
processing the messages.
LDP message exchanges are accomplished by sending LDP protocol data
units (PDUs) over LDP session TCP connections.
Each LDP PDU can carry one or more LDP messages. Note that the
messages in an LDP PDU need not be related to one another. For
example, a single PDU could carry a message advertising FEC-label
bindings for several FECs, another message requesting label bindings
for several other FECs, and a third notification message signaling
some event.
3.1. LDP PDUs
Each LDP PDU is an LDP header followed by one or more LDP messages.
The LDP header is:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Version | PDU Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| LDP Identifier |
+ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Version
Two octet unsigned integer containing the version number of the
protocol. This version of the specification specifies LDP protocol
version 1.
PDU Length
Two octet integer specifying the total length of this PDU in
octets, excluding the Version and PDU Length fields.
The maximum allowable PDU Length is negotiable when an LDP session
is initialized. Prior to completion of the negotiation the maximum
allowable length is 4096 bytes.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 31]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
LDP Identifier
Six octet field that uniquely identifies the label space of the
sending LSR for which this PDU applies. The first four octets
identify the LSR and must be a globally unique value. It should be
a 32-bit router Id assigned to the LSR and also used to identify it
in loop detection Path Vectors. The last two octets identify a
label space within the LSR. For a platform-wide label space, these
should both be zero.
Note that there is no alignment requirement for the first octet of an
LDP PDU.
3.2. LDP Procedures
LDP defines messages, TLVs and procedures in the following areas:
- Peer discovery;
- Session management;
- Label distribution;
- Notification of errors and advisory information.
The sections that follow describe the message and TLV encodings for
these areas and the procedures that apply to them.
The label distribution procedures are complex and are difficult to
describe fully, coherently and unambiguously as a collection of
separate message and TLV specifications.
Appendix A, 'LDP Label Distribution Procedures', describes the label
distribution procedures in terms of label distribution events that
may occur at an LSR and how the LSR must respond. Appendix A is the
specification of LDP label distribution procedures. If a procedure
described elsewhere in this document conflicts with Appendix A,
Appendix A specifies LDP behavior.
3.3. Type-Length-Value Encoding
LDP uses a Type-Length-Value (TLV) encoding scheme to encode much of
the information carried in LDP messages.
An LDP TLV is encoded as a 2 octet field that uses 14 bits to specify
a Type and 2 bits to specify behavior when an LSR doesn't recognize
the Type, followed by a 2 octet Length Field, followed by a variable
length Value field.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 32]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|U|F| Type | Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
| Value |
~ ~
| |
| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
U bit
Unknown TLV bit. Upon receipt of an unknown TLV, if U is clear
(=0), a notification must be returned to the message originator
and the entire message must be ignored; if U is set (=1), the
unknown TLV is silently ignored and the rest of the message is
processed as if the unknown TLV did not exist. The sections
following that define TLVs specify a value for the U-bit.
F bit
Forward unknown TLV bit. This bit applies only when the U bit is
set and the LDP message containing the unknown TLV is to be
forwarded. If F is clear (=0), the unknown TLV is not forwarded
with the containing message; if F is set (=1), the unknown TLV is
forwarded with the containing message. The sections following
that define TLVs specify a value for the F-bit.
Type
Encodes how the Value field is to be interpreted.
Length
Specifies the length of the Value field in octets.
Value
Octet string of Length octets that encodes information to be
interpreted as specified by the Type field.
Note that there is no alignment requirement for the first octet of a
TLV.
Note that the Value field itself may contain TLV encodings. That is,
TLVs may be nested.
The TLV encoding scheme is very general. In principle, everything
appearing in an LDP PDU could be encoded as a TLV. This
specification does not use the TLV scheme to its full generality. It
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 33]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
is not used where its generality is unnecessary and its use would
waste space unnecessarily. These are usually places where the type
of a value to be encoded is known, for example by its position in a
message or an enclosing TLV, and the length of the value is fixed or
readily derivable from the value encoding itself.
Some of the TLVs defined for LDP are similar to one another. For
example, there is a Generic Label TLV, an ATM Label TLV, and a Frame
Relay TLV; see Sections 'Generic Label TLV', 'ATM Label TLV', and
'Frame Relay TLV'.
While it is possible to think about TLVs related in this way in terms
of a TLV type that specifies a TLV class and a TLV subtype that
specifies a particular kind of TLV within that class, this
specification does not formalize the notion of a TLV subtype.
The specification assigns type values for related TLVs, such as the
label TLVs, from a contiguous block in the 16-bit TLV type number
space.
Section 'TLV Summary' lists the TLVs defined in this version of the
protocol and the section in this document that describes each.
3.4. TLV Encodings for Commonly Used Parameters
There are several parameters used by more than one LDP message. The
TLV encodings for these commonly used parameters are specified in
this section.
3.4.1. FEC TLV
Labels are bound to Forwarding Equivalence Classes (FECs). A FEC is
a list of one or more FEC elements. The FEC TLV encodes FEC items.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 34]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
Its encoding is:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|0|0| FEC (0x0100) | Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| FEC Element 1 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
~ ~
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| FEC Element n |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
FEC Element 1 to FEC Element n
There are several types of FEC elements; see Section 'FECs'. The
FEC element encoding depends on the type of FEC element.
A FEC Element value is encoded as a 1 octet field that specifies
the element type, and a variable length field that is the type-
dependent element value. Note that while the representation of
the FEC element value is type-dependent, the FEC element encoding
itself is one where standard LDP TLV encoding is not used.
The FEC Element value encoding is:
FEC Element Type Value
type name
Wildcard 0x01 No value; i.e., 0 value octets;
see below.
Prefix 0x02 See below.
Host Address 0x03 Full host address; see below.
Note that this version of LDP supports the use of multiple FEC
Elements per FEC for the Label Mapping message only. The use of
multiple FEC Elements in other messages is not permitted in this
version, and is a subject for future study.
Wildcard FEC Element
To be used only in the Label Withdraw and Label Release
Messages. Indicates the withdraw/release is to be applied to
all FECs associated with the label within the following label
TLV. Must be the only FEC Element in the FEC TLV.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 35]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
Prefix FEC Element value encoding:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Prefix (2) | Address Family | PreLen |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Prefix |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Address Family
Two octet quantity containing a value from ADDRESS FAMILY
NUMBERS in [RFC1700] that encodes the address family for the
address prefix in the Prefix field.
PreLen
One octet unsigned integer containing the length in bits of the
address prefix that follows. A length of zero indicates a
prefix that matches all addresses (the default destination); in
this case the Prefix itself is zero octets).
Prefix
An address prefix encoded according to the Address Family
field, whose length, in bits, was specified in the PreLen
field, padded to a byte boundary.
Host Address FEC Element encoding:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Host Addr (3) | Address Family | Host Addr Len |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
| Host Addr |
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Address Family
Two octet quantity containing a value from ADDRESS FAMILY
NUMBERS in [RFC1700] that encodes the address family for the
address prefix in the Prefix field.
Host Addr Len
Length of the Host address in octets.
Host Addr
An address encoded according to the Address Family field.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 36]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
3.4.1.1. FEC Procedures
If in decoding a FEC TLV an LSR encounters a FEC Element with an
Address Family it does not support, it should stop decoding the FEC
TLV, abort processing the message containing the TLV, and send an
'Unsupported Address Family' Notification message to its LDP peer
signaling an error.
If it encounters a FEC Element type it cannot decode, it should stop
decoding the FEC TLV, abort processing the message containing the
TLV, and send an 'Unknown FEC' Notification message to its LDP peer
signaling an error.
3.4.2. Label TLVs
Label TLVs encode labels. Label TLVs are carried by the messages
used to advertise, request, release and withdraw label mappings.
There are several different kinds of Label TLVs which can appear in
situations that require a Label TLV.
3.4.2.1. Generic Label TLV
An LSR uses Generic Label TLVs to encode labels for use on links for
which label values are independent of the underlying link technology.
Examples of such links are PPP and Ethernet.
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|0|0| Generic Label (0x0200) | Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Label |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Label
This is a 20-bit label value as specified in [RFC3032] represented
as a 20-bit number in a 4 octet field.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 37]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
3.4.2.2. ATM Label TLV
An LSR uses ATM Label TLVs to encode labels for use on ATM links.
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|0|0| ATM Label (0x0201) | Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|Res| V | VPI | VCI |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Res
This field is reserved. It must be set to zero on transmission
and must be ignored on receipt.
V-bits
Two-bit switching indicator. If V-bits is 00, both the VPI and
VCI are significant. If V-bits is 01, only the VPI field is
significant. If V-bit is 10, only the VCI is significant.
VPI
Virtual Path Identifier. If VPI is less than 12-bits it should be
right justified in this field and preceding bits should be set to
0.
VCI
Virtual Channel Identifier. If the VCI is less than 16- bits, it
should be right justified in the field and the preceding bits must
be set to 0. If Virtual Path switching is indicated in the V-bits
field, then this field must be ignored by the receiver and set to
0 by the sender.
3.4.2.3. Frame Relay Label TLV
An LSR uses Frame Relay Label TLVs to encode labels for use on Frame
Relay links.
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|0|0| Frame Relay Label (0x0202)| Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Reserved |Len| DLCI |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 38]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
Res
This field is reserved. It must be set to zero on transmission
and must be ignored on receipt.
Len
This field specifies the number of bits of the DLCI. The
following values are supported:
0 = 10 bits DLCI
2 = 23 bits DLCI
Len values 1 and 3 are reserved.
DLCI
The Data Link Connection Identifier. Refer to [RFC3034] for the
label values and formats.
3.4.3. Address List TLV
The Address List TLV appears in Address and Address Withdraw
messages.
Its encoding is:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|0|0| Address List (0x0101) | Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Address Family | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
| |
| Addresses |
~ ~
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Address Family
Two octet quantity containing a value from ADDRESS FAMILY NUMBERS
in [RFC1700] that encodes the addresses contained in the Addresses
field.
Addresses
A list of addresses from the specified Address Family. The
encoding of the individual addresses depends on the Address Family.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 39]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
The following address encodings are defined by this version of the
protocol:
Address Family Address Encoding
IPv4 4 octet full IPv4 address
IPv6 16 octet full IPv6 address
3.4.4. Hop Count TLV
The Hop Count TLV appears as an optional field in messages that set
up LSPs. It calculates the number of LSR hops along an LSP as the
LSP is being setup.
Note that setup procedures for LSPs that traverse ATM and Frame Relay
links require use of the Hop Count TLV (see [RFC3035] and [RFC3034]).
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|0|0| Hop Count (0x0103) | Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| HC Value |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
HC Value
1 octet unsigned integer hop count value.
3.4.4.1. Hop Count Procedures
During setup of an LSP an LSR R may receive a Label Mapping or Label
Request message for the LSP that contains the Hop Count TLV. If it
does, it should record the hop count value.
If LSR R then propagates the Label Mapping message for the LSP to an
upstream peer or the Label Request message to a downstream peer to
continue the LSP setup, it must must determine a hop count to include
in the propagated message as follows:
- If the message is a Label Request message, R must increment the
received hop count;
- If the message is a Label Mapping message, R determines the hop
count as follows:
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 40]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
o If R is a member of the edge set of an LSR domain whose LSRs do
not perform 'TTL-decrement' and the upstream peer is within
that domain, R must reset the hop count to 1 before propagating
the message.
o Otherwise, R must increment the received hop count.
The first LSR in the LSP (ingress for a Label Request message, egress
for a Label Mapping message) should set the hop count value to 1.
By convention a value of 0 indicates an unknown hop count. The
result of incrementing an unknown hop count is itself an unknown hop
count (0).
Use of the unknown hop count value greatly reduces the signaling
overhead when independent control is used. When a new LSP is
established, each LSR starts with unknown hop count. Addition of a
new LSR whose hop count is also unknown does not cause a hop count
update to be propagated upstream since the hop count remains unknown.
When the egress is finally added to the LSP, then the LSRs propagate
hop count updates upstream via Label Mapping messages.
Without use of the unknown hop count, each time a new LSR is added to
the LSP a hop count update would need to be propagated upstream if
the new LSR is closer to the egress than any of the other LSRs.
These updates are useless overhead since they don't reflect the hop
count to the egress.
From the perspective of the ingress node, the fact that the hop count
is unknown implies nothing about whether a packet sent on the LSP
will actually make it to the egress. All it implies is that the hop
count update from the egress has not yet reached the ingress.
If an LSR receives a message containing a Hop Count TLV, it must
check the hop count value to determine whether the hop count has
exceeded its configured maximum allowable value. If so, it must
behave as if the containing message has traversed a loop by sending a
Notification message signaling Loop Detected in reply to the sender
of the message.
If Loop Detection is configured, the LSR must follow the procedures
specified in Section 'Loop Detection'.
3.4.5. Path Vector TLV
The Path Vector TLV is used with the Hop Count TLV in Label Request
and Label Mapping messages to implement the optional LDP loop
detection mechanism. See Section 'Loop Detection'. Its use in the
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 41]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
Label Request message records the path of LSRs the request has
traversed. Its use in the Label Mapping message records the path of
LSRs a label advertisement has traversed to setup an LSP.
Its encoding is:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|0|0| Path Vector (0x0104) | Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| LSR Id 1 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
~ ~
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| LSR Id n |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
One or more LSR Ids
A list of router-ids indicating the path of LSRs the message has
traversed. Each LSR Id is the first four octets (router-id) of
the LDP identifier for the corresponding LSR. This ensures it is
unique within the LSR network.
3.4.5.1. Path Vector Procedures
The Path Vector TLV is carried in Label Mapping and Label Request
messages when loop detection is configured.
3.4.5.1.1. Label Request Path Vector
Section 'Loop Detection' specifies situations when an LSR must
include a Path Vector TLV in a Label Request message.
An LSR that receives a Path Vector in a Label Request message must
perform the procedures described in Section 'Loop Detection'.
If the LSR detects a loop, it must reject the Label Request message.
The LSR must:
1. Transmit a Notification message to the sending LSR signaling
'Loop Detected'.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 42]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
2. Not propagate the Label Request message further.
Note that a Label Request message with Path Vector TLV is forwarded
until:
1. A loop is found,
2. The LSP egress is reached,
3. The maximum Path Vector limit or maximum Hop Count limit is
reached. This is treated as if a loop had been detected.
3.4.5.1.2. Label Mapping Path Vector
Section 'Loop Detection' specifies the situations when an LSR must
include a Path Vector TLV in a Label Mapping message.
An LSR that receives a Path Vector in a Label Mapping message must
perform the procedures described in Section 'Loop Detection'.
If the LSR detects a loop, it must reject the Label Mapping message
in order to prevent a forwarding loop. The LSR must:
1. Transmit a Label Release message carrying a Status TLV to the
sending LSR to signal 'Loop Detected'.
2. Not propagate the message further.
3. Check whether the Label Mapping message is for an existing LSP.
If so, the LSR must unsplice any upstream labels which are
spliced to the downstream label for the FEC.
Note that a Label Mapping message with a Path Vector TLV is forwarded
until:
1. A loop is found,
2. An LSP ingress is reached, or
3. The maximum Path Vector or maximum Hop Count limit is reached.
This is treated as if a loop had been detected.
3.4.6. Status TLV
Notification messages carry Status TLVs to specify events being
signaled.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 43]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
The encoding for the Status TLV is:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|U|F| Status (0x0300) | Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Status Code |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Message ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Message Type |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
U bit
Should be 0 when the Status TLV is sent in a Notification message.
Should be 1 when the Status TLV is sent in some other message.
F bit
Should be the same as the setting of the F-bit in the Status Code
field.
Status Code
32-bit unsigned integer encoding the event being signaled. The
structure of a Status Code is:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|E|F| Status Data |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
E bit
Fatal error bit. If set (=1), this is a fatal error
notification. If clear (=0), this is an advisory notification.
F bit
Forward bit. If set (=1), the notification should be forwarded
to the LSR for the next-hop or previous-hop for the LSP, if
any, associated with the event being signaled. If clear (=0),
the notification should not be forwarded.
Status Data
30-bit unsigned integer which specifies the status information.
This specification defines Status Codes (32-bit unsigned integers
with the above encoding).
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 44]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
A Status Code of 0 signals success.
Message ID
If non-zero, 32-bit value that identifies the peer message to
which the Status TLV refers. If zero, no specific peer message is
being identified.
Message Type
If non-zero, the type of the peer message to which the Status TLV
refers. If zero, the Status TLV does not refer to any specific
message type.
Note that use of the Status TLV is not limited to Notification
messages. A message other than a Notification message may carry a
Status TLV as an Optional Parameter. When a message other than a
Notification carries a Status TLV the U-bit of the Status TLV should
be set to 1 to indicate that the receiver should silently discard the
TLV if unprepared to handle it.
3.5. LDP Messages
All LDP messages have the following format:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|U| Message Type | Message Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Message ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
+ +
| Mandatory Parameters |
+ +
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
+ +
| Optional Parameters |
+ +
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 45]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
U bit
Unknown message bit. Upon receipt of an unknown message, if U is
clear (=0), a notification is returned to the message originator;
if U is set (=1), the unknown message is silently ignored. The
sections following that define messages specify a value for the
U-bit.
Message Type
Identifies the type of message
Message Length
Specifies the cumulative length in octets of the Message ID,
Mandatory Parameters, and Optional Parameters.
Message ID
32-bit value used to identify this message. Used by the sending
LSR to facilitate identifying notification messages that may apply
to this message. An LSR sending a notification message in
response to this message should include this Message Id in the
Status TLV carried by the notification message; see Section
'Notification Message'.
Mandatory Parameters
Variable length set of required message parameters. Some messages
have no required parameters.
For messages that have required parameters, the required
parameters MUST appear in the order specified by the individual
message specifications in the sections that follow.
Optional Parameters
Variable length set of optional message parameters. Many messages
have no optional parameters.
For messages that have optional parameters, the optional
parameters may appear in any order.
Note that there is no alignment requirement for the first octet of an
LDP message.
The following message types are defined in this version of LDP:
Message Name Section Title
Notification 'Notification Message'
Hello 'Hello Message'
Initialization 'Initialization Message'
KeepAlive 'KeepAlive Message'
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 46]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
Address 'Address Message'
Address Withdraw 'Address Withdraw Message'
Label Mapping 'Label Mapping Message'
Label Request 'Label Request Message'
Label Abort Request 'Label Abort Request Message'
Label Withdraw 'Label Withdraw Message'
Label Release 'Label Release Message'
The sections that follow specify the encodings and procedures for
these messages.
Some of the above messages are related to one another, for example
the Label Mapping, Label Request, Label Withdraw, and Label Release
messages.
While it is possible to think about messages related in this way in
terms of a message type that specifies a message class and a message
subtype that specifies a particular kind of message within that
class, this specification does not formalize the notion of a message
subtype.
The specification assigns type values for related messages, such as
the label messages, from of a contiguous block in the 16-bit message
type number space.
3.5.1. Notification Message
An LSR sends a Notification message to inform an LDP peer of a
significant event. A Notification message signals a fatal error or
provides advisory information such as the outcome of processing an
LDP message or the state of the LDP session.
The encoding for the Notification Message is:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|0| Notification (0x0001) | Message Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Message ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Status (TLV) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Optional Parameters |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Message ID
32-bit value used to identify this message.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 47]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
Status TLV
Indicates the event being signaled. The encoding for the Status
TLV is specified in Section 'Status TLV'.
Optional Parameters
This variable length field contains 0 or more parameters, each
encoded as a TLV. The following Optional Parameters are generic
and may appear in any Notification Message:
Optional Parameter Type Length Value
Extended Status 0x0301 4 See below
Returned PDU 0x0302 var See below
Returned Message 0x0303 var See below
Other Optional Parameters, specific to the particular event being
signaled by the Notification Messages may appear. These are
described elsewhere.
Extended Status
The 4 octet value is an Extended Status Code that encodes
additional information that supplements the status information
contained in the Notification Status Code.
Returned PDU
An LSR uses this parameter to return part of an LDP PDU to the
LSR that sent it. The value of this TLV is the PDU header and
as much PDU data following the header as appropriate for the
condition being signaled by the Notification message.
Returned Message
An LSR uses this parameter to return part of an LDP message to
the LSR that sent it. The value of this TLV is the message
type and length fields and as much message data following the
type and length fields as appropriate for the condition being
signaled by the Notification message.
3.5.1.1. Notification Message Procedures
If an LSR encounters a condition requiring it to notify its peer with
advisory or error information it sends the peer a Notification
message containing a Status TLV that encodes the information and
optionally additional TLVs that provide more information about the
condition.
If the condition is one that is a fatal error the Status Code carried
in the notification will indicate that. In this case, after sending
the Notification message the LSR should terminate the LDP session by
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 48]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
closing the session TCP connection and discard all state associated
with the session, including all label-FEC bindings learned via the
session.
When an LSR receives a Notification message that carries a Status
Code that indicates a fatal error, it should terminate the LDP
session immediately by closing the session TCP connection and discard
all state associated with the session, including all label-FEC
bindings learned via the session.
3.5.1.2. Events Signaled by Notification Messages
It is useful for descriptive purpose to classify events signaled by
Notification Messages into the following categories.
3.5.1.2.1. Malformed PDU or Message
Malformed LDP PDUs or Messages that are part of the LDP Discovery
mechanism are handled by silently discarding them.
An LDP PDU received on a TCP connection for an LDP session is
malformed if:
- The LDP Identifier in the PDU header is unknown to the
receiver, or it is known but is not the LDP Identifier
associated by the receiver with the LDP peer for this LDP
session. This is a fatal error signaled by the Bad LDP
Identifier Status Code.
- The LDP protocol version is not supported by the receiver, or
it is supported but is not the version negotiated for the
session during session establishment. This is a fatal error
signaled by the Bad Protocol Version Status Code.
- The PDU Length field is too small (< 14) or too large
(> maximum PDU length). This is a fatal error signaled by the
Bad PDU Length Status Code. Section 'Initialization Message'
describes how the maximum PDU length for a session is
determined.
An LDP Message is malformed if:
- The Message Type is unknown.
If the Message Type is < 0x8000 (high order bit = 0) it is an
error signaled by the Unknown Message Type Status Code.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 49]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
If the Message Type is >= 0x8000 (high order bit = 1) it is
silently discarded.
- The Message Length is too large, that is, indicates that the
message extends beyond the end of the containing LDP PDU. This
is a fatal error signaled by the Bad Message Length Status
Code.
- The message is missing one or more Mandatory Parameters. This
is a non-fatal error signalled by the Missing Message
Parameters Status Code.
3.5.1.2.2. Unknown or Malformed TLV
Malformed TLVs contained in LDP messages that are part of the LDP
Discovery mechanism are handled by silently discarding the containing
message.
A TLV contained in an LDP message received on a TCP connection of an
LDP is malformed if:
- The TLV Length is too large, that is, indicates that the TLV
extends beyond the end of the containing message. This is a
fatal error signaled by the Bad TLV Length Status Code.
- The TLV type is unknown.
If the TLV type is < 0x8000 (high order bit 0) it is an error
signaled by the Unknown TLV Status Code.
If the TLV type is >= 0x8000 (high order bit 1) the TLV is
silently dropped. Section 'Unknown TLV in Known Message Type'
elaborates on this behavior.
- The TLV Value is malformed. This occurs when the receiver
handles the TLV but cannot decode the TLV Value. This is
interpreted as indicative of a bug in either the sending or
receiving LSR. It is a fatal error signaled by the Malformed
TLV Value Status Code.
3.5.1.2.3. Session KeepAlive Timer Expiration
This is a fatal error signaled by the KeepAlive Timer Expired Status
Code.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 50]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
3.5.1.2.4. Unilateral Session Shutdown
This is a fatal event signaled by the Shutdown Status Code. The
Notification Message may optionally include an Extended Status TLV to
provide a reason for the Shutdown. The sending LSR terminates the
session immediately after sending the Notification.
3.5.1.2.5. Initialization Message Events
The session initialization negotiation (see Section 'Session
Initialization') may fail if the session parameters received in the
Initialization Message are unacceptable. This is a fatal error. The
specific Status Code depends on the parameter deemed unacceptable,
and is defined in Sections 'Initialization Message'.
3.5.1.2.6. Events Resulting From Other Messages
Messages other than the Initialization message may result in events
that must be signaled to LDP peers via Notification Messages. These
events and the Status Codes used in the Notification Messages to
signal them are described in the sections that describe these
messages.
3.5.1.2.7. Internal Errors
An LDP implementation may be capable of detecting problem conditions
specific to its implementation. When such a condition prevents an
implementation from interacting correctly with a peer, the
implementation should, when capable of doing so, use the Internal
Error Status Code to signal the peer. This is a fatal error.
3.5.1.2.8. Miscellaneous Events
These are events that fall into none of the categories above. There
are no miscellaneous events defined in this version of the protocol.
3.5.2. Hello Message
LDP Hello Messages are exchanged as part of the LDP Discovery
Mechanism; see Section 'LDP Discovery'.
The encoding for the Hello Message is:
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 51]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|0| Hello (0x0100) | Message Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Message ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Common Hello Parameters TLV |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Optional Parameters |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Message ID
32-bit value used to identify this message.
Common Hello Parameters TLV
Specifies parameters common to all Hello messages. The encoding
for the Common Hello Parameters TLV is:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|0|0| Common Hello Parms(0x0400)| Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Hold Time |T|R| Reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Hold Time,
Hello hold time in seconds. An LSR maintains a record of
Hellos received from potential peers (see Section 'Hello
Message Procedures'). Hello Hold Time specifies the time the
sending LSR will maintain its record of Hellos from the
receiving LSR without receipt of another Hello.
A pair of LSRs negotiates the hold times they use for Hellos
from each other. Each proposes a hold time. The hold time
used is the minimum of the hold times proposed in their Hellos.
A value of 0 means use the default, which is 15 seconds for
Link Hellos and 45 seconds for Targeted Hellos. A value of
0xffff means infinite.
T, Targeted Hello
A value of 1 specifies that this Hello is a Targeted Hello. A
value of 0 specifies that this Hello is a Link Hello.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 52]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
R, Request Send Targeted Hellos
A value of 1 requests the receiver to send periodic Targeted
Hellos to the source of this Hello. A value of 0 makes no
request.
An LSR initiating Extended Discovery sets R to 1. If R is 1,
the receiving LSR checks whether it has been configured to send
Targeted Hellos to the Hello source in response to Hellos with
this request. If not, it ignores the request. If so, it
initiates periodic transmission of Targeted Hellos to the Hello
source.
Reserved
This field is reserved. It must be set to zero on transmission
and ignored on receipt.
Optional Parameters
This variable length field contains 0 or more parameters, each
encoded as a TLV. The optional parameters defined by this
version of the protocol are
Optional Parameter Type Length Value
IPv4 Transport Address 0x0401 4 See below
Configuration 0x0402 4 See below
Sequence Number
IPv6 Transport Address 0x0403 16 See below
IPv4 Transport Address
Specifies the IPv4 address to be used for the sending LSR when
opening the LDP session TCP connection. If this optional TLV
is not present the IPv4 source address for the UDP packet
carrying the Hello should be used.
Configuration Sequence Number
Specifies a 4 octet unsigned configuration sequence number that
identifies the configuration state of the sending LSR. Used by
the receiving LSR to detect configuration changes on the
sending LSR.
IPv6 Transport Address
Specifies the IPv6 address to be used for the sending LSR when
opening the LDP session TCP connection. If this optional TLV
is not present the IPv6 source address for the UDP packet
carrying the Hello should be used.
Andersson, et al. Standards Track [Page 53]
RFC 3036 LDP Specification January 2001
3.5.2.1. Hello Message Procedures
An LSR receiving Hellos from another LSR maintains a Hello adjacency
corresponding to the Hellos. The LSR maintains a hold timer with the
Hello adjacency which it restarts whenever it receives a Hello that
matches the Hello adjacency. If the hold timer for a Hello adjacency
expires the LSR discards the Hello adjacency: see sections
'Maintaining Hello Adjacencies' and 'Maintaining LDP Sessions'.
We recommend that the interval between Hello transmissions be at most
one third of the Hello hold time.
An LSR processes a received LDP Hello as follows:
1. The LSR checks whether the Hello is acceptable. The criteria
for determining whether a Hello is acceptable are
implementation dependent (see below for example criteria).
2. If the Hello is not acceptable, the LSR ignores it.
3. If the Hello is acceptable, the LSR checks whether it has a
Hello adjacency for the Hello source. If so, it restarts the
hold timer for the Hello adjacency. If not it creates a Hello
adjacency for the Hello source and starts its hold timer.
4. If the Hello carries any optional TLV 
