Internet-Draft | LISP | May 2022 |
Farinacci, et al. | Expires 8 November 2022 | [Page] |
This document describes the Data-Plane protocol for the Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP). LISP defines two namespaces, End-point Identifiers (EIDs) that identify end-hosts and Routing Locators (RLOCs) that identify network attachment points. With this, LISP effectively separates control from data, and allows routers to create overlay networks. LISP-capable routers exchange encapsulated packets according to EID-to-RLOC mappings stored in a local Map-Cache.¶
LISP requires no change to either host protocol stacks or to underlay routers and offers Traffic Engineering, multihoming and mobility, among other features.¶
This document obsoletes RFC 6830.¶
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/.¶
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 8 November 2022.¶
Copyright (c) 2022 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.¶
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This document describes the Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol (LISP). LISP is an encapsulation protocol built around the fundamental idea of separating the topological location of a network attachment point from the node's identity [CHIAPPA]. As a result LISP creates two namespaces: Endpoint Identifiers (EIDs), that are used to identify end-hosts (e.g., nodes or Virtual Machines) and routable Routing Locators (RLOCs), used to identify network attachment points. LISP then defines functions for mapping between the two namespaces and for encapsulating traffic originated by devices using non-routable EIDs for transport across a network infrastructure that routes and forwards using RLOCs. LISP encapsulation uses a dynamic form of tunneling where no static provisioning is required or necessary.¶
LISP is an overlay protocol that separates control from Data-Plane, this document specifies the Data-Plane as well as how LISP-capable routers (Tunnel Routers) exchange packets by encapsulating them to the appropriate location. Tunnel routers are equipped with a cache, called Map-Cache, that contains EID-to-RLOC mappings. The Map-Cache is populated using the LISP Control-Plane protocol [I-D.ietf-lisp-rfc6833bis].¶
LISP does not require changes to either the host protocol stack or to underlay routers. By separating the EID from the RLOC space, LISP offers native Traffic Engineering, multihoming and mobility, among other features.¶
Creation of LISP was initially motivated by discussions during the IAB-sponsored Routing and Addressing Workshop held in Amsterdam in October 2006 (see [RFC4984]).¶
This document specifies the LISP Data-Plane encapsulation and other LISP forwarding node functionality while [I-D.ietf-lisp-rfc6833bis] specifies the LISP control plane. LISP deployment guidelines can be found in [RFC7215] and [RFC6835] describes considerations for network operational management. Finally, [I-D.ietf-lisp-introduction] describes the LISP architecture.¶
This document obsoletes RFC 6830.¶
LISP was originally developed to address the Internet-wide route scaling problem [RFC4984]. While there are a number of approaches of interest for that problem, as LISP as been developed and refined, a large number of other LISP uses have been found and are being used. As such, the design and development of LISP has changed so as to focus on these use cases. The common property of these uses is a large set of cooperating entities seeking to communicate over the public Internet or other large underlay IP infrastructures, while keeping the addressing and topology of the cooperating entities separate from the underlay and Internet topology, routing, and addressing.¶
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 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
One key concept of LISP is that end-systems operate the same way they do today. The IP addresses that hosts use for tracking sockets and connections, and for sending and receiving packets, do not change. In LISP terminology, these IP addresses are called Endpoint Identifiers (EIDs).¶
Routers continue to forward packets based on IP destination addresses. When a packet is LISP encapsulated, these addresses are referred to as Routing Locators (RLOCs). Most routers along a path between two hosts will not change; they continue to perform routing/forwarding lookups on the destination addresses. For routers between the source host and the ITR as well as routers from the ETR to the destination host, the destination address is an EID. For the routers between the ITR and the ETR, the destination address is an RLOC.¶
Another key LISP concept is the "Tunnel Router". A Tunnel Router prepends LISP headers on host-originated packets and strips them prior to final delivery to their destination. The IP addresses in this "outer header" are RLOCs. During end-to-end packet exchange between two Internet hosts, an ITR prepends a new LISP header to each packet, and an ETR strips the new header. The ITR performs EID-to-RLOC lookups to determine the routing path to the ETR, which has the RLOC as one of its IP addresses.¶
Some basic rules governing LISP are:¶
An additional LISP header MAY be prepended to packets by a TE-ITR when re-routing of the path for a packet is desired. A potential use-case for this would be an ISP router that needs to perform Traffic Engineering for packets flowing through its network. In such a situation, termed "Recursive Tunneling", an ISP transit acts as an additional ITR, and the destination RLOC it uses for the new prepended header would be either a TE-ETR within the ISP (along an intra-ISP traffic engineered path) or a TE-ETR within another ISP (an inter-ISP traffic engineered path, where an agreement to build such a path exists).¶
In order to avoid excessive packet overhead as well as possible encapsulation loops, this document RECOMMENDS that a maximum of two LISP headers can be prepended to a packet. For initial LISP deployments, it is assumed that two headers is sufficient, where the first prepended header is used at a site for Location/Identity separation and the second prepended header is used inside a service provider for Traffic Engineering purposes.¶
Tunnel Routers can be placed fairly flexibly in a multi-AS topology. For example, the ITR for a particular end-to-end packet exchange might be the first-hop or default router within a site for the source host. Similarly, the ETR might be the last-hop router directly connected to the destination host. Another example, perhaps for a VPN service outsourced to an ISP by a site, the ITR could be the site's border router at the service provider attachment point. Mixing and matching of site-operated, ISP-operated, and other Tunnel Routers is allowed for maximum flexibility.¶
Several of the mechanisms in this document are intended for deployment in controlled, trusted environments, and are insecure for use over the public Internet. In particular, on the public internet xTRs:¶
This section provides an example of the unicast packet flow, including also Control-Plane information as specified in [I-D.ietf-lisp-rfc6833bis]. The example also assumes the following conditions:¶
Client host1.abc.example.com wants to communicate with server host2.xyz.example.com:¶
Since additional tunnel headers are prepended, the packet becomes larger and can exceed the MTU of any link traversed from the ITR to the ETR. It is RECOMMENDED in IPv4 that packets do not get fragmented as they are encapsulated by the ITR. Instead, the packet is dropped and an ICMP Unreachable/Fragmentation-Needed message is returned to the source.¶
In the case when fragmentation is needed, this specification RECOMMENDS that implementations provide support for one of the proposed fragmentation and reassembly schemes. Two existing schemes are detailed in Section 7.¶
Since IPv4 or IPv6 addresses can be either EIDs or RLOCs, the LISP architecture supports IPv4 EIDs with IPv6 RLOCs (where the inner header is in IPv4 packet format and the outer header is in IPv6 packet format) or IPv6 EIDs with IPv4 RLOCs (where the inner header is in IPv6 packet format and the outer header is in IPv4 packet format). The next sub-sections illustrate packet formats for the homogeneous case (IPv4-in-IPv4 and IPv6-in-IPv6), but all 4 combinations MUST be supported. Additional types of EIDs are defined in [RFC8060].¶
As LISP uses UDP encapsulation to carry traffic between xTRs across the Internet, implementors should be aware of the provisions of [RFC8085], especially those given in section 3.1.11 on congestion control for UDP tunneling.¶
Implementors are encouraged to consider UDP checksum usage guidelines in section 3.4 of [RFC8085] when it is desirable to protect UDP and LISP headers against corruption.¶
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| IHL | DSCP |ECN| Total Length | / +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | Identification |Flags| Fragment Offset | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ OH | Time to Live | Protocol = 17 | Header Checksum | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | Source Routing Locator | \ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ \ | Destination Routing Locator | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ / | Source Port = xxxx | Dest Port = 4341 | UDP +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ \ | UDP Length | UDP Checksum | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ L |N|L|E|V|I|R|K|K| Nonce/Map-Version | I \ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ S / | Instance ID/Locator-Status-Bits | P +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ / |Version| IHL | DSCP |ECN| Total Length | / +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | Identification |Flags| Fragment Offset | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ IH | Time to Live | Protocol | Header Checksum | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | Source EID | \ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ \ | Destination EID | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ IHL = IP-Header-Length¶
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| DSCP |ECN| Flow Label | / +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | Payload Length | Next Header=17| Hop Limit | v +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | O + + u | | t + Source Routing Locator + e | | r + + | | H +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ d | | r + + | | ^ + Destination Routing Locator + | | | \ + + \ | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ / | Source Port = xxxx | Dest Port = 4341 | UDP +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ \ | UDP Length | UDP Checksum | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ L |N|L|E|V|I|R|K|K| Nonce/Map-Version | I \ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ S / | Instance ID/Locator-Status-Bits | P +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ / |Version| DSCP |ECN| Flow Label | / +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ / | Payload Length | Next Header | Hop Limit | v +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | I + + n | | n + Source EID + e | | r + + | | H +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ d | | r + + | | ^ + Destination EID + \ | | \ + + \ | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+¶
x 1 x x 0 x x x +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |N|L|E|V|I|R|K|K| Nonce/Map-Version | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Locator-Status-Bits | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+¶
0 x 0 1 x x x x +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |N|L|E|V|I|R|K|K| Source Map-Version | Dest Map-Version | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Instance ID/Locator-Status-Bits | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+¶
x x x x 1 x x x +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |N|L|E|V|I|R|K|K| Nonce/Map-Version | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Instance ID | LSBs | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+¶
When doing ITR/PITR encapsulation:¶
When doing ETR/PETR decapsulation:¶
Note that if an ETR/PETR is also an ITR/PITR and chooses to re-encapsulate after decapsulating, the net effect of this is that the new outer header will carry the same Time to Live as the old outer header minus 1.¶
Copying the Time to Live (TTL) serves two purposes: first, it preserves the distance the host intended the packet to travel; second, and more importantly, it provides for suppression of looping packets in the event there is a loop of concatenated tunnels due to misconfiguration.¶
Some xTRs and PxTRs performs re-encapsulation operations and need to treat the 'Explicit Congestion Notification' (ECN) in a special way. Because the re-encapsulation operation is a sequence of two operations, namely a decapsulation followed by an encapsulation, the ECN bits MUST be treated as described above for these two operations.¶
The LISP dataplane protocol is not backwards compatible with [RFC6830] and does not have explicit support for introducing future protocol changes (e.g. an explicit version field). However, the LISP control plane [I-D.ietf-lisp-rfc6833bis] allows an ETR to register dataplane capabilities by means of new LCAF types [RFC8060]. In this way an ITR can be made aware of the dataplane capabilities of an ETR, and encapsulate accordingly. The specification of the new LCAF types, new LCAF mechanisms, and their use, is out of the scope of this document.¶
ITRs and PITRs maintain an on-demand cache, referred as LISP EID-to-RLOC Map-Cache, that contains mappings from EID-prefixes to locator sets. The cache is used to encapsulate packets from the EID space to the corresponding RLOC network attachment point.¶
When an ITR/PITR receives a packet from inside of the LISP site to destinations outside of the site a longest-prefix match lookup of the EID is done to the Map-Cache.¶
When the lookup succeeds, the Locator-Set retrieved from the Map-Cache is used to send the packet to the EID's topological location.¶
If the lookup fails, the ITR/PITR needs to retrieve the mapping using the LISP Control-Plane protocol [I-D.ietf-lisp-rfc6833bis]. While the mapping is being retrieved, the ITR/PITR can either drop or buffer the packets. This document does not have specific recommendations about the action to be taken. It is up to the deployer to consider whether or not it is desirable to buffer packets and deploy a LISP implementation that offers the desired behaviour. Once the mapping is resolved it is then stored in the local Map-Cache to forward subsequent packets addressed to the same EID-prefix.¶
The Map-Cache is a local cache of mappings, entries are expired based on the associated Time to live. In addition, entries can be updated with more current information, see Section 13 for further information on this. Finally, the Map-Cache also contains reachability information about EIDs and RLOCs, and uses LISP reachability information mechanisms to determine the reachability of RLOCs, see Section 10 for the specific mechanisms.¶
This section proposes two mechanisms to deal with packets that exceed the path MTU between the ITR and ETR.¶
It is left to the implementor to decide if the stateless or stateful mechanism SHOULD be implemented. Both or neither can be used, since it is a local decision in the ITR regarding how to deal with MTU issues, and sites can interoperate with differing mechanisms.¶
Both stateless and stateful mechanisms also apply to Re-encapsulating and Recursive Tunneling, so any actions below referring to an ITR also apply to a TE-ITR.¶
An ITR stateless solution to handle MTU issues is described as follows:¶
When an ITR receives a packet from a site-facing interface and adds H octets worth of encapsulation to yield a packet size greater than L octets (meaning the received packet size was greater than S octets from the source), it resolves the MTU issue by first splitting the original packet into 2 equal-sized fragments. A LISP header is then prepended to each fragment. The size of the encapsulated fragments is then (S/2 + H), which is less than the ITR's estimate of the path MTU between the ITR and its correspondent ETR.¶
When an ETR receives encapsulated fragments, it treats them as two individually encapsulated packets. It strips the LISP headers and then forwards each fragment to the destination host of the destination site. The two fragments are reassembled at the destination host into the single IP datagram that was originated by the source host. Note that reassembly can happen at the ETR if the encapsulated packet was fragmented at or after the ITR.¶
This behavior MUST be performed by the ITR only when the source host originates a packet with the 'DF' field of the IP header set to 0. When the 'DF' field of the IP header is set to 1, or the packet is an IPv6 packet originated by the source host, the ITR will drop the packet when the size (adding in the size of the encapsulation header) is greater than L and send an ICMPv4 ICMP Unreachable/Fragmentation-Needed or ICMPv6 "Packet Too Big" message to the source with a value of S, where S is (L - H).¶
When the outer-header encapsulation uses an IPv4 header, an implementation SHOULD set the DF bit to 1 so ETR fragment reassembly can be avoided. An implementation MAY set the DF bit in such headers to 0 if it has good reason to believe there are unresolvable path MTU issues between the sending ITR and the receiving ETR.¶
This specification RECOMMENDS that L be defined as 1500. Additional information about in-network MTU and fragmentation issues can be found at [RFC4459].¶
An ITR stateful solution to handle MTU issues is described as follows:¶
Even though this mechanism is stateful, it has advantages over the stateless IP fragmentation mechanism, by not involving the destination host with reassembly of ITR fragmented packets.¶
Please note that [RFC1191] and [RFC1981], which describe the use of ICMP packets for PMTU discovery, can behave suboptimally in the presence of ICMP black holes or off-path attackers that spoof ICMP. Possible mitigations include ITRs and ETRs cooperating on MTU probe packets ([RFC4821], [I-D.ietf-tsvwg-datagram-plpmtud]), or ITRs storing the beginning of large packets to verify that they match the echoed packet in ICMP Frag Needed/PTB.¶
There are several cases where segregation is needed at the EID level. For instance, this is the case for deployments containing overlapping addresses, traffic isolation policies or multi-tenant virtualization. For these and other scenarios where segregation is needed, Instance IDs are used.¶
An Instance ID can be carried in a LISP-encapsulated packet. An ITR that prepends a LISP header will copy a 24-bit value used by the LISP router to uniquely identify the address space. The value is copied to the 'Instance ID' field of the LISP header, and the I-bit is set to 1.¶
When an ETR decapsulates a packet, the Instance ID from the LISP header is used as a table identifier to locate the forwarding table to use for the inner destination EID lookup.¶
For example, an 802.1Q VLAN tag or VPN identifier could be used as a 24-bit Instance ID. See [I-D.ietf-lisp-vpn] for LISP VPN use-case details. Please note that the Instance ID is not protected, an on-path attacker can modify the tags and for instance, allow communicatons between logically isolated VLANs.¶
Participants within a LISP deployment must agree on the meaning of Instance ID values. The source and destination EIDs MUST belong to the same Instance ID.¶
Instance ID SHOULD NOT be used with overlapping IPv6 EID addresses.¶
The Map-Cache contains the state used by ITRs and PITRs to encapsulate packets. When an ITR/PITR receives a packet from inside the LISP site to a destination outside of the site a longest-prefix match lookup of the EID is done to the Map-Cache (see Section 6). The lookup returns a single Locator-Set containing a list of RLOCs corresponding to the EID's topological location. Each RLOC in the Locator-Set is associated with a 'Priority' and 'Weight', this information is used to select the RLOC to encapsulate.¶
The RLOC with the lowest 'Priority' is selected. An RLOC with 'Priority' 255 means that MUST NOT be used for forwarding. When multiple RLOCs have the same 'Priority' then the 'Weight' states how to load balance traffic among them. The value of the 'Weight' represents the relative weight of the total packets that match the mapping entry.¶
The following are different scenarios for choosing RLOCs and the controls that are available:¶
RLOCs that appear in EID-to-RLOC Map-Reply messages are assumed to be reachable when the R-bit [I-D.ietf-lisp-rfc6833bis] for the Locator record is set to 1. When the R-bit is set to 0, an ITR or PITR MUST NOT encapsulate to the RLOC. Neither the information contained in a Map-Reply nor that stored in the mapping database system provides reachability information for RLOCs. Note that reachability is not part of the mapping system and is determined using one or more of the Routing Locator reachability algorithms described in the next section.¶
Several Data-Plane mechanisms for determining RLOC reachability are currently defined. Please note that additional Control-Plane based reachability mechanisms are defined in [I-D.ietf-lisp-rfc6833bis].¶
When determining Locator up/down reachability by examining the Locator-Status-Bits from the LISP-encapsulated data packet, an ETR will receive up-to-date status from an encapsulating ITR about reachability for all ETRs at the site. CE-based ITRs at the source site can determine reachability relative to each other using the site IGP as follows:¶
Each ITR can thus observe the presence or lack of a default route originated by the others to determine the Locator-Status-Bits it sets for them.¶
When ITRs at the site are not deployed in CE routers, the IGP can still be used to determine the reachability of Locators, provided they are injected into the IGP. This is typically done when a /32 address is configured on a loopback interface.¶
RLOCs listed in a Map-Reply are numbered with ordinals 0 to n-1. The Locator-Status-Bits in a LISP-encapsulated packet are numbered from 0 to n-1 starting with the least significant bit. For example, if an RLOC listed in the 3rd position of the Map-Reply goes down (ordinal value 2), then all ITRs at the site will clear the 3rd least significant bit (xxxx x0xx) of the 'Locator-Status-Bits' field for the packets they encapsulate.¶
When an xTR decides to use 'Locator-Status-Bits' to affect reachability information, it acts as follows: ETRs decapsulating a packet will check for any change in the 'Locator-Status-Bits' field. When a bit goes from 1 to 0, the ETR, if acting also as an ITR, will refrain from encapsulating packets to an RLOC that is indicated as down. It will only resume using that RLOC if the corresponding Locator-Status-Bit returns to a value of 1. Locator-Status-Bits are associated with a Locator-Set per EID-Prefix. Therefore, when a Locator becomes unreachable, the Locator-Status-Bit that corresponds to that Locator's position in the list returned by the last Map-Reply will be set to zero for that particular EID-Prefix.¶
Locator-Status-Bits MUST NOT be used over the public Internet and SHOULD only be used in trusted and closed deployments. In addition Locator-Status-Bits SHOULD be coupled with Map-Versioning [I-D.ietf-lisp-6834bis] to prevent race conditions where Locator-Status-Bits are interpreted as referring to different RLOCs than intended. Refer to Section 16 for security issues regarding this mechanism.¶
If an ITR encapsulates a packet to an ETR and the packet is received and decapsulated by the ETR, it is implied but not confirmed by the ITR that the ETR's RLOC is reachable. In most cases, the ETR can also reach the ITR but cannot assume this to be true, due to the possibility of path asymmetry. In the presence of unidirectional traffic flow from an ITR to an ETR, the ITR SHOULD NOT use the lack of return traffic as an indication that the ETR is unreachable. Instead, it MUST use an alternate mechanism to determine reachability.¶
The security considerations of Section 16 related to data-plane reachability applies to the data-plane RLOC reachability mechanisms described in this section.¶
When data flows bidirectionally between Locators from different sites, a Data-Plane mechanism called "nonce echoing" can be used to determine reachability between an ITR and ETR. When an ITR wants to solicit a nonce echo, it sets the N- and E-bits and places a 24-bit nonce [RFC4086] in the LISP header of the next encapsulated data packet.¶
When this packet is received by the ETR, the encapsulated packet is forwarded as normal. When the ETR is an xTR (co-located as an ITR), it then sends a data packet to the ITR (when it is an xTR co-located as an ETR), it includes the nonce received earlier with the N-bit set and E-bit cleared. The ITR sees this "echoed nonce" and knows that the path to and from the ETR is up.¶
The ITR will set the E-bit and N-bit for every packet it sends while in the echo-nonce-request state. The time the ITR waits to process the echoed nonce before it determines the path is unreachable is variable and is a choice left for the implementation.¶
If the ITR is receiving packets from the ETR but does not see the nonce echoed while being in the echo-nonce-request state, then the path to the ETR is unreachable. This decision MAY be overridden by other Locator reachability algorithms. Once the ITR determines that the path to the ETR is down, it can switch to another Locator for that EID-Prefix.¶
Note that "ITR" and "ETR" are relative terms here. Both devices MUST be implementing both ITR and ETR functionality for the echo nonce mechanism to operate.¶
The ITR and ETR MAY both go into the echo-nonce-request state at the same time. The number of packets sent or the time during which echo nonce requests are sent is an implementation-specific setting. In this case, an xTR receiving the echo-nonce-request packets will suspend the echo-nonce-request state and setup a 'echo-nonce-request-state' timer. After the 'echo-nonce-request-state' timer expires it will resume the echo-nonce-request state.¶
This mechanism does not completely solve the forward path reachability problem, as traffic may be unidirectional. That is, the ETR receiving traffic at a site MAY not be the same device as an ITR that transmits traffic from that site, or the site-to-site traffic is unidirectional so there is no ITR returning traffic.¶
The echo-nonce algorithm is bilateral. That is, if one side sets the E-bit and the other side is not enabled for echo-noncing, then the echoing of the nonce does not occur and the requesting side may erroneously consider the Locator unreachable. An ITR SHOULD set the E-bit in an encapsulated data packet when it knows the ETR is enabled for echo-noncing. This is conveyed by the E-bit in the Map-Reply message.¶
Many implementations default to not advertising they are echo-nonce capable in Map-Reply messages and so RLOC-probing tends to be used for RLOC reachability.¶
The echo-nonce mechanism MUST NOT be used over the public Internet and MUST only be used in trusted and closed deployments. Refer to Section 16 for security issues regarding this mechanism.¶
A site MAY be multihomed using two or more ETRs. The hosts and infrastructure within a site will be addressed using one or more EID-Prefixes that are mapped to the RLOCs of the relevant ETRs in the mapping system. One possible failure mode is for an ETR to lose reachability to one or more of the EID-Prefixes within its own site. When this occurs when the ETR sends Map-Replies, it can clear the R-bit associated with its own Locator. And when the ETR is also an ITR, it can clear its Locator-Status-Bit in the encapsulation data header.¶
It is recognized that there are no simple solutions to the site partitioning problem because it is hard to know which part of the EID-Prefix range is partitioned and which Locators can reach any sub-ranges of the EID-Prefixes. Note that this is not a new problem introduced by the LISP architecture. The problem exists today when a multihomed site uses BGP to advertise its reachability upstream.¶
When an ETR provides an EID-to-RLOC mapping in a Map-Reply message that is stored in the Map-Cache of a requesting ITR, the Locator-Set for the EID-Prefix MAY contain different Priority and Weight values for each locator address. When more than one best Priority Locator exists, the ITR can decide how to load-share traffic against the corresponding Locators.¶
The following hash algorithm MAY be used by an ITR to select a Locator for a packet destined to an EID for the EID-to-RLOC mapping:¶
The specific hash algorithm the ITR uses for load-sharing is out of scope for this document and does not prevent interoperability.¶
The Source port SHOULD be the same for all packets belonging to the same flow. Also note that when a packet is LISP encapsulated, the source port number in the outer UDP header needs to be set. Selecting a hashed value allows core routers that are attached to Link Aggregation Groups (LAGs) to load-split the encapsulated packets across member links of such LAGs. Otherwise, core routers would see a single flow, since packets have a source address of the ITR, for packets that are originated by different EIDs at the source site. A suggested setting for the source port number computed by an ITR is a 5-tuple hash function on the inner header, as described above. The source port SHOULD be the same for all packets belonging to the same flow.¶
Many core router implementations use a 5-tuple hash to decide how to balance packet load across members of a LAG. The 5-tuple hash includes the source and destination addresses of the packet and the source and destination ports when the protocol number in the packet is TCP or UDP. For this reason, UDP encoding is used for LISP encapsulation. In this scenario, when the outer header is IPv6, the flow label MAY also be set following the procedures specified in [RFC6438]. When the inner header is IPv6 then the flow label is not zero, it MAY be used to compute the hash.¶
Since the LISP architecture uses a caching scheme to retrieve and store EID-to-RLOC mappings, the only way an ITR can get a more up-to-date mapping is to re-request the mapping. However, the ITRs do not know when the mappings change, and the ETRs do not keep track of which ITRs requested its mappings. For scalability reasons, it is desirable to maintain this approach but need to provide a way for ETRs to change their mappings and inform the sites that are currently communicating with the ETR site using such mappings.¶
This section defines two Data-Plane mechanism for updating EID-to-RLOC mappings. Additionally, the Solicit-Map Request (SMR) Control-Plane updating mechanism is specified in [I-D.ietf-lisp-rfc6833bis].¶
Locator-Status-Bits (LSB) can also be used to keep track of the Locator status (up or down) when EID-to-RLOC mappings are changing. When LSB are used in a LISP deployment, all LISP tunnel routers MUST implement both ITR and ETR capabilities (therefore all tunnel routers are effectively xTRs). In this section the term "source xTR" is used to refer to the xTR setting the LSB and "destination xTR" is used to refer to the xTR receiving the LSB. The procedure is as follows:¶
First, when a Locator record is added or removed from the Locator-Set, the source xTR will signal this by sending a Solicit-Map Request (SMR) Control-Plane message [I-D.ietf-lisp-rfc6833bis] to the destination xTR. At this point the source xTR MUST NOT use LSB (L-bit = 0) since the destination xTR site has outdated information. The source xTR will setup a 'use-LSB' timer.¶
Second and as defined in [I-D.ietf-lisp-rfc6833bis], upon reception of the SMR message the destination xTR will retrieve the updated EID-to-RLOC mappings by sending a Map-Request.¶
And third, when the 'use-LSB' timer expires, the source xTR can use again LSB with the destination xTR to signal the Locator status (up or down). The specific value for the 'use-LSB' timer depends on the LISP deployment, the 'use-LSB' timer needs to be large enough for the destination xTR to retreive the updated EID-to-RLOC mappings. A RECOMMENDED value for the 'use-LSB' timer is 5 minutes.¶
When there is unidirectional packet flow between an ITR and ETR, and the EID-to-RLOC mappings change on the ETR, it needs to inform the ITR so encapsulation to a removed Locator can stop and can instead be started to a new Locator in the Locator-Set.¶
An ETR, can send Map-Reply messages carrying a Map-Version Number in an EID-record. This is known as the Destination Map-Version Number. ITRs include the Destination Map-Version Number in packets they encapsulate to the site.¶
An ITR, when it encapsulates packets to ETRs, can convey its own Map-Version Number. This is known as the Source Map-Version Number.¶
When presented in EID-records of Map-Register messages, a Map-Version Number is a good way for the Map-Server to assure that all ETRs for a site registering to it are synchronized according to Map-Version Number.¶
See [I-D.ietf-lisp-6834bis] for a more detailed analysis and description of Database Map-Versioning.¶
A multicast group address, as defined in the original Internet architecture, is an identifier of a grouping of topologically independent receiver host locations. The address encoding itself does not determine the location of the receiver(s). The multicast routing protocol, and the network-based state the protocol creates, determine where the receivers are located.¶
In the context of LISP, a multicast group address is both an EID and a Routing Locator. Therefore, no specific semantic or action needs to be taken for a destination address, as it would appear in an IP header. Therefore, a group address that appears in an inner IP header built by a source host will be used as the destination EID. The outer IP header (the destination Routing Locator address), prepended by a LISP router, can use the same group address as the destination Routing Locator, use a multicast or unicast Routing Locator obtained from a Mapping System lookup, or use other means to determine the group address mapping.¶
With respect to the source Routing Locator address, the ITR prepends its own IP address as the source address of the outer IP header, just like it would if the destination EID was a unicast address. This source Routing Locator address, like any other Routing Locator address, MUST be routable on the underlay.¶
There are two approaches for LISP-Multicast, one that uses native multicast routing in the underlay with no support from the Mapping System and the other that uses only unicast routing in the underlay with support from the Mapping System. See [RFC6831] and [RFC8378], respectively, for details. Details for LISP-Multicast and interworking with non-LISP sites are described in [RFC6831] and [RFC6832].¶
LISP is designed to be very "hardware-based forwarding friendly". A few implementation techniques can be used to incrementally implement LISP:¶
For performance issues related to Map-Cache management, see Section 16.¶
In what follows we highlight security considerations that apply when LISP is deployed in environments such as those specified in Section 1.1.¶
The optional mechanisms of gleaning is offered to directly obtain a mapping from the LISP encapsulated packets. Specifically, an xTR can learn the EID-to-RLOC mapping by inspecting the source RLOC and source EID of an encapsulated packet, and insert this new mapping into its Map-Cache. An off-path attacker can spoof the source EID address to divert the traffic sent to the victim's spoofed EID. If the attacker spoofs the source RLOC, it can mount a DoS attack by redirecting traffic to the spoofed victim's RLOC, potentially overloading it.¶
The LISP Data-Plane defines several mechanisms to monitor RLOC Data-Plane reachability, in this context Locator-Status Bits, Nonce-Present and Echo-Nonce bits of the LISP encapsulation header can be manipulated by an attacker to mount a DoS attack. An off-path attacker able to spoof the RLOC and/or nonce of a victim's xTR can manipulate such mechanisms to declare false information about the RLOC's reachability status.¶
For example of such attacks, an off-path attacker can exploit the echo-nonce mechanism by sending data packets to an ITR with a random nonce from an ETR's spoofed RLOC. Note the attacker must guess a valid nonce the ITR is requesting to be echoed within a small window of time. The goal is to convince the ITR that the ETR's RLOC is reachable even when it may not be reachable. If the attack is successful, the ITR believes the wrong reachability status of the ETR's RLOC until RLOC-probing detects the correct status. This time frame is on the order of 10s of seconds. This specific attack can be mitigated by preventing RLOC spoofing in the network by deploying uRPF BCP 38 [RFC2827]. In addition and in order to exploit this vulnerability, the off-path attacker must send echo-nonce packets at high rate. If the nonces have never been requested by the ITR, it can protect itself from erroneous reachability attacks.¶
A LISP-specific uRPF check is also possible. When decapsulating, an ETR can check that the source EID and RLOC are valid EID-to-RLOC mappings by checking the Mapping System.¶
Map-Versioning is a Data-Plane mechanism used to signal a peering xTR that a local EID-to-RLOC mapping has been updated, so that the peering xTR uses LISP Control-Plane signaling message to retrieve a fresh mapping. This can be used by an attacker to forge the map-versioning field of a LISP encapsulated header and force an excessive amount of signaling between xTRs that may overload them. Further security considerations on Map-Versioning can be found in [I-D.ietf-lisp-6834bis].¶
Locator-Status-Bits, echo-nonce and map-versioning MUST NOT be used over the public Internet and SHOULD only be used in trusted and closed deployments. In addition Locator-Status-Bits SHOULD be coupled with map-versioning to prevent race conditions where Locator-Status-Bits are interpreted as referring to different RLOCs than intended.¶
LISP implementations and deployments which permit outer header fragments of IPv6 LISP encapsulated packets as a means of dealing with MTU issues should also use implementation techniques in ETRs to prevent this from being a DoS attack vector. Limits on the number of fragments awaiting reassembly at an ETR, RTR, or PETR, and the rate of admitting such fragments may be used.¶
Considerations for network management tools exist so the LISP protocol suite can be operationally managed. These mechanisms can be found in [RFC7052] and [RFC6835].¶
For implementation considerations, the following changes have been made to this document since RFC 6830 was published:¶
This section provides guidance to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) regarding registration of values related to this Data-Plane LISP specification, in accordance with BCP 26 [RFC8126].¶
The IANA registry has allocated UDP port number 4341 for the LISP Data-Plane. IANA has updated the description for UDP port 4341 as follows:¶
lisp-data 4341 udp LISP Data Packets¶
An initial thank you goes to Dave Oran for planting the seeds for the initial ideas for LISP. His consultation continues to provide value to the LISP authors.¶
A special and appreciative thank you goes to Noel Chiappa for providing architectural impetus over the past decades on separation of location and identity, as well as detailed reviews of the LISP architecture and documents, coupled with enthusiasm for making LISP a practical and incremental transition for the Internet.¶
The original authors would like to gratefully acknowledge many people who have contributed discussions and ideas to the making of this proposal. They include Scott Brim, Andrew Partan, John Zwiebel, Jason Schiller, Lixia Zhang, Dorian Kim, Peter Schoenmaker, Vijay Gill, Geoff Huston, David Conrad, Mark Handley, Ron Bonica, Ted Seely, Mark Townsley, Chris Morrow, Brian Weis, Dave McGrew, Peter Lothberg, Dave Thaler, Eliot Lear, Shane Amante, Ved Kafle, Olivier Bonaventure, Luigi Iannone, Robin Whittle, Brian Carpenter, Joel Halpern, Terry Manderson, Roger Jorgensen, Ran Atkinson, Stig Venaas, Iljitsch van Beijnum, Roland Bless, Dana Blair, Bill Lynch, Marc Woolward, Damien Saucez, Damian Lezama, Attilla De Groot, Parantap Lahiri, David Black, Roque Gagliano, Isidor Kouvelas, Jesper Skriver, Fred Templin, Margaret Wasserman, Sam Hartman, Michael Hofling, Pedro Marques, Jari Arkko, Gregg Schudel, Srinivas Subramanian, Amit Jain, Xu Xiaohu, Dhirendra Trivedi, Yakov Rekhter, John Scudder, John Drake, Dimitri Papadimitriou, Ross Callon, Selina Heimlich, Job Snijders, Vina Ermagan, Fabio Maino, Victor Moreno, Chris White, Clarence Filsfils, Alia Atlas, Florin Coras and Alberto Rodriguez.¶
This work originated in the Routing Research Group (RRG) of the IRTF. An individual submission was converted into the IETF LISP working group document that became this RFC.¶
The LISP working group would like to give a special thanks to Jari Arkko, the Internet Area AD at the time that the set of LISP documents were being prepared for IESG last call, and for his meticulous reviews and detailed commentaries on the 7 working group last call documents progressing toward standards-track RFCs.¶
The current authors would like to give a sincere thank you to the people who help put LISP on standards track in the IETF. They include Joel Halpern, Luigi Iannone, Deborah Brungard, Fabio Maino, Scott Bradner, Kyle Rose, Takeshi Takahashi, Sarah Banks, Pete Resnick, Colin Perkins, Mirja Kuhlewind, Francis Dupont, Benjamin Kaduk, Eric Rescorla, Alvaro Retana, Alexey Melnikov, Alissa Cooper, Suresh Krishnan, Alberto Rodriguez-Natal, Vina Ermagen, Mohamed Boucadair, Brian Trammell, Sabrina Tanamal, and John Drake. The contributions they offered greatly added to the security, scale, and robustness of the LISP architecture and protocols.¶
[RFC Editor: Please delete this section on publication as RFC.]¶