| Internet-Draft | Generalized Arguments | May 2023 |
| Li, et al. | Expires 7 November 2023 | [Page] |
This document analyzes the challenges of Arguments of SRv6 SID, and the chance of using Arguments of SRv6 SID to reduce the length of the IPv6 extension header. According to these analysis, this document specifies a kind of generalized and structured Arguments for SRv6 SID, which can carry multiple Arguments parts for a SRv6 SID.¶
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.¶
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.¶
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."¶
This Internet-Draft will expire on 7 November 2023.¶
Copyright (c) 2023 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.¶
This document analyzes the challenges of the Arguments of SRv6 SID, and the chance of using Arguments of SRv6 SID to reduce the length of the IPv6 extension header. According to these analysis, this document specifies a kind of generalized and structured arguments for SRv6 SID, which can carry multiple Arguments parts for a SRv6 SID.¶
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 RFC 2119 [RFC2119] RFC 8174 [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
SRv6: Segment Routing over IPv6¶
With the development of SRv6, several kinds of SRv6 Arguments for the SRv6 End SID and End.X SID emerge[I-D.ietf-spring-srv6-srh-compression], including:¶
1. SRv6 C-SID compression (NEXT Flavor): using Arguments to carry multiple C-SIDs.¶
2. SRv6 C-SID compression (REPLACE Flavor): using Arguments to carry the CL field.¶
3. SRv6 C-SID compression (NEXT & REPLACE Flavor): using Arguments to carry multiple C-SIDs and the CL field.¶
In addition, some new features are created, including network slicing[I-D.ietf-6man-enhanced-vpn-vtn-id], IOAM[RFC9197], Alternate Marking[RFC9343][I-D.fz-spring-srv6-alt-mark], APN6[I-D.li-apn-ipv6-encap][I-D.li-apn-header], DetNet[I-D.pthubert-detnet-ipv6-hbh], etc.¶
The instructions of these new features can be processed at:¶
1. All nodes along a SR path: the instructions can be carried in the IPv6 Hop-by-Hop Options header (HBH).¶
2. Endpoints of an SR path: the ones can be carried in the IPv6 Destination Options Header (DOH) or the SRH TLV.¶
In the second scenario, especially the second one, the usages of the options or TLVs will cause the following two issues:¶
1. Lengthening the packet header, and reducing the transmission efficiency.¶
2. Making the forwarding processing complex, affecting forwarding performance.¶
Besides these issues, in the SRv6 C-SID compression (NEXT Flavor) solution, if all the C-SIDs of the SID list which should have been encapsulated in the SRH can be put in the IPv6 destination address of the packet, because there is no SRH or DOH before SRH any more after the compression there will be no space for the instructions which should have been encapsulated in the IPv6 SRH or Destination Options Header before SRH.¶
In order to address these challenges, a feasible solution is to use the Arguments of the SRv6 SID to carry those instructions. Using SRv6 Arguments to do that will bring following benefits:¶
1. Reducing the needed space of IPv6 extension header or SRH TLV, so as to reduce the transmission overhead.¶
2. SRv6 SID can reside in the IPv6 destination address field, so the SRv6 Arguments can be read and processed as a part of IPv6 address, from which the forwarding performance will benefit, because it avoids to process the extension header or SRv6 TLV behind the IPv6 header.¶
3. Unify and simplify the processing: the instructions of both the SRv6 and the new features are all put in the Arguments part of SRv6 SID or IPv6 address.¶
In order to carry the instructions of multiple features in the SRv6 Arguments, this section defines two methods to make the SRv6 Arguments generalized and structured to allocate spaces for the instructions.¶
Network devices are configured a template for the purpose of parsing the SRv6 Arguments, and the devices read and process the content of the Arguments according to the template.¶
The template defines what features are carried, and which bits they are used.¶
For example, if the length of the Arguments is z bits and the number x, y, and z have the relationship 0<x<y<z, then the template can define that:¶
* The [0, x) bits carry the instructions of feature A;¶
* The [x, y) bits carry the instructions of feature B;¶
* The [y, z) bits carry the instructions of feature C.¶
Define a bitmap in the Arguments, and each bit in the bitmap indicates whether the instructions of a specific feature exist. The correspondence of the bit and the feature, the length of the space of Arguments to carry the instructions for the feature, and the instructions needed to be carried for a specific feature can be defined further in a standardization way.¶
The bitmap can be encoded from the most significant bit (MSB) or the least significant bit (LSB).¶
MSB:
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ...
+-+-+-+-+-+------------------------------------
|A|B|C|D|E| the instructions of feature A~E
+-+-+-+-+-+------------------------------------
LSB:
------------------------------------+-+-+-+-+-+
the instructions of feature A~E |A|B|C|D|E|
------------------------------------+-+-+-+-+-+
¶
When the bit is set (1), it indicates the instructions of the feature exist. If the bit is reset (0), there can be two options:¶
Option 1: it indicates the instructions of the feature don't exist.¶
Option 2: it indicates the instructions of the feature exist but is invalid.¶
Since it is required to shift the C-SID in the SRv6 SID while applying the NEXT or NEXT & REPLACE behavior for SRv6 C-SID compression, when method A or B is adopted, when C-SIDs are encoded in the generalized Arguments of the SRv6 SID which is used as the IPv6 destination address, these C-SIDs MUST be placed from the most significant bit (MSB), that is, these C-SIDs MUST immediately following the LOC:FUNCT part of the SRv6 SID.¶
MSB:
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+------------------------------------
|C-SID1 |C-SID2 |C-SIDn |A|B|C|D|E| the instructions of feature A~E
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+------------------------------------
LSB:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-----------------------------------+-+-+-+-+-+
|C-SID1 |C-SID2 |C-SIDn | the instructions of feature A~E |A|B|C|D|E|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-----------------------------------+-+-+-+-+-+
¶
The remaining part of the generalized Arguments following the C-SIDs SHOULD NOT be shifted when C-SIDs part is shifted. This means the position of the remaining part after the C-SIDs in the generalized arguments SHOULD be fixed.¶
This section defines a new flavor to support processing the Generalized Arguments, named as Structured Arguments flavor.¶
The pseudocode of the Structured Arguments flavor is as follows:¶
Method A:
S01. If (some NEXT-C-SIDs are encoded in the Generalized Arguments) {
S02. Left shift the C-SIDs by the length of one C-SID
S03. }
S04. Load the relative template
S05. Parse the Generalized Arguments as per section 4.1
S06. For each parsed feature {
S07. Perform actions according to the parsed instructions
as per the specifications of that feature
S08. }
Method B:
S01. If (some NEXT-C-SIDs are encoded in the Generalized Arguments) {
S02. Left shift the C-SIDs by the length of one C-SID
S03. }
S04. For each bit in the bitmap {
S05. If (the bit == 1) {
S06. Parse the instructions of the feature from the Generalized
Arguments as per section 4.2
S07. Perform actions according to the parsed instructions
as per the specifications of that feature
S08. }
S09. }
¶