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IETF RFC 7196
Last modified on Saturday, May 17th, 2014
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) C. Pelsser
Request for Comments: 7196 R. Bush
Category: Standards Track Internet Initiative Japan
ISSN: 2070-1721 K. Patel
Cisco Systems
P. Mohapatra
Sproute Networks
O. Maennel
Loughborough University
May 2014
Making Route Flap Damping Usable
 Abstract
Route Flap Damping (RFD) was first proposed to reduce BGP churn in
routers. Unfortunately, RFD was found to severely penalize sites for
being well connected because topological richness amplifies the
number of update messages exchanged. Many operators have turned RFD
off. Based on experimental measurement, this document recommends
adjusting a few RFD algorithmic constants and limits in order to
reduce the high risks with RFD. The result is damping a non-trivial
amount of long-term churn without penalizing well-behaved prefixes'
normal convergence process.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7196.
Pelsser, et al. Standards Track PAGE 1 
RFC 7196 Making Route Flap Damping Usable May 2014
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2014 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
(http://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 Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Suggested Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. RFD Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Suppress Threshold versus Churn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Maximum Penalty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
8. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1. Introduction
Route Flap Damping (RFD) was first proposed (see [RIPE178] and
[RFC 2439]) and subsequently implemented to reduce BGP churn in
routers. Unfortunately, RFD was found to severely penalize sites for
being well connected because topological richness amplifies the
number of update messages exchanged, see [MAO2002]. Subsequently,
many operators turned RFD off; see [RIPE378]. Based on the
measurements of [PELSSER2011], [RIPE580] now recommends that RFD is
usable with some changes to the parameters. Based on the same
measurements, this document recommends adjusting a few RFD
algorithmic constants and limits. The result is damping of a non-
trivial amount of long-term churn without penalizing well-behaved
prefixes' normal convergence process.
Very few prefixes are responsible for a large amount of the BGP
messages received by a router; see [HUSTON2006] and [PELSSER2011].
For example, the measurements in [PELSSER2011] showed that only 3% of
Pelsser, et al. Standards Track PAGE 2
RFC 7196 Making Route Flap Damping Usable May 2014
the prefixes were responsible for 36% percent of the BGP messages at
a router with real feeds from a Tier-1 provider and an Internet
Exchange Point during a one-week experiment. Only these very
frequently flapping prefixes should be damped. The values
recommended in Section 6 achieve this. Thus, RFD can be enabled, and
some churn reduced.
The goal is to, with absolutely minimal change, ameliorate the danger
of current RFD implementations and use. It is not a panacea, nor is
it a deep and thorough approach to flap reduction.
1.1. Suggested Reading
It is assumed that the reader understands BGP [RFC 4271] and Route
Flap Damping [RFC 2439]. This work is based on the measurements in
the paper [PELSSER2011]. A survey of Japanese operators' use of RFD
and their desires is reported in [RFD-SURVEY].
2. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" are to
be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC 2119] only when they
appear in all upper case. They may also appear in lower or mixed
case as English words, without normative meaning.
3. RFD Parameters
The following RFD parameters are common to all implementations. Some
may be tuned by the operator, some not. There is currently no
consensus on a single set of default values.
+--------------------------+----------+-------+---------+
| Parameter | Tunable? | Cisco | Juniper |
+--------------------------+----------+-------+---------+
| Withdrawal | No | 1,000 | 1,000 |
| Re-Advertisement | No | 0 | 1,000 |
| Attribute Change | No | 500 | 500 |
| Suppress Threshold | Yes | 2,000 | 3,000 |
| Half-Life (min.) | Yes | 15 | 15 |
| Reuse Threshold | Yes | 750 | 750 |
| Max Suppress Time (min.) | Yes | 60 | 60 |
+--------------------------+----------+-------+---------+
Note: Values without units specified are dimensionless constants.
Table 1: Default RFD Parameters of Juniper and Cisco
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RFC 7196 Making Route Flap Damping Usable May 2014
4. Suppress Threshold versus Churn
By turning RFD back on with the values recommended in Section 6,
churn is reduced. Moreover, with these values, prefixes going
through normal convergence are generally not damped.
[PELSSER2011] estimates that, with a suppress threshold of 6,000, the
BGP update rate is reduced by 19% compared to a situation without RFD
enabled. [PELSSER2011] studies the number of prefixes damped over a
week between September 29, 2010 and October 6, 2010. With this 6,000
suppress threshold, 90% fewer prefixes are damped compared to use of
a 2,000 threshold. That is, far fewer well-behaved prefixes are
damped.
Setting the suppress threshold to 12,000 leads to very few damped
prefixes (0.22% of the prefixes were damped with a threshold of
12,000 in the experiments in [PELSSER2011], yielding an average
hourly update reduction of 11% compared to not using RFD).
+---------------+-------------+--------------+----------------------+
| Suppress | Damped | % of Table | Update Rate (one- |
| Threshold | Prefixes | Damped | hour bins) |
+---------------+-------------+--------------+----------------------+
| 2,000 | 43,342 | 13.16% | 53.11% |
| 4,000 | 11,253 | 3.42% | 74.16% |
| 6,000 | 4,352 | 1.32% | 81.03% |
| 8,000 | 2,104 | 0.64% | 84.85% |
| 10,000 | 1,286 | 0.39% | 87.12% |
| 12,000 | 720 | 0.22% | 88.74% |
| 14,000 | 504 | 0.15% | 89.97% |
| 16,000 | 353 | 0.11% | 91.01% |
| 18,000 | 311 | 0.09% | 91.88% |
| 20,000 | 261 | 0.08% | 92.69% |
+---------------+-------------+--------------+----------------------+
Note: the current default Suppress Threshold (2,000) is overly
agressive.
Table 2: Damped Prefixes vs. Churn, from [PELSSER2011]
5. Maximum Penalty
It is important to understand that the parameters shown in Table 1
and the implementation's sampling rate impose an upper bound on the
penalty value, which we can call the 'computed maximum penalty'.
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RFC 7196 Making Route Flap Damping Usable May 2014
In addition, BGP implementations have an internal constant, which we
will call the 'maximum penalty', and the current computed penalty may
not exceed it.
6. Recommendations
Use of the following values is recommended:
Router Maximum Penalty: The internal constant for the maximum
penalty value MUST be raised to at least 50,000.
Default Configurable Parameters: In order not to break existing
operational configurations, existing BGP implementations,
including the examples in Table 1, SHOULD NOT change their default
values.
Minimum Suppress Threshold: Operators that want damping that is much
less destructive than the current damping, but still somewhat
aggressive, SHOULD configure the Suppress Threshold to no less
than 6,000.
Conservative Suppress Threshold: Conservative operators SHOULD
configure the Suppress Threshold to no less than 12,000.
Calculate But Do Not Damp: Implementations MAY have a test mode
where the operator can see the results of a particular
configuration without actually damping any prefixes. This will
allow for fine-tuning of parameters without losing reachability.
7. Security Considerations
It is well known that an attacker can generate false flapping to
cause a victim's prefix(es) to be damped.
As the recommendations merely change parameters to more conservative
values, there should be no increase in risk. In fact, the parameter
change to more conservative values should slightly mitigate the
false-flap attack.
8. Acknowledgments
Nate Kushman initiated this work some years ago. Ron Bonica, Seiichi
Kawamura, and Erik Muller contributed useful suggestions.
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RFC 7196 Making Route Flap Damping Usable May 2014
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[MAO2002] Mao, Z., Govidan, R., Varghese, G., and R. Katz, "Route
Flap Damping Exacerbates Internet Routing Convergence", In
Proceedings of SIGCOMM, August 2002,
<http://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/2002/papers/
routedampening.pdf>.
[PELSSER2011]
Pelsser, C., Maennel, O., Mohapatra, P., Bush, R., and K.
Patel, "Route Flap Damping Made Usable", PAM 2011: Passive
and Active Measurement Conference, March 2011,
<http://pam2011.gatech.edu/papers/pam2011--Pelsser.pdf>.
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC 2439] Villamizar, C., Chandra, R., and R. Govindan, "BGP Route
Flap Damping", RFC 2439, November 1998.
[RFC 4271] Rekhter, Y., Li, T., and S. Hares, "A Border Gateway
Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271, January 2006.
[RIPE378] Smith, P. and P. Panigl, "RIPE Routing Working Group
Recommendations On Route-flap Damping", RIPE 378, May
2006, <http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-378>.
9.2. Informative References
[HUSTON2006]
Huston, G., "2005 - A BGP Year in Review", RIPE 52, 2006,
<http://meetings.ripe.net/ripe-52/presentations/
ripe52-plenary-bgp-review.pdf>.
[RFD-SURVEY]
Tsuchiya, S., Kawamura, S., Bush, R., and C. Pelsser,
"Route Flap Damping Deployment Status Survey", Work in
Progress, June 2012.
[RIPE178] Barber, T., Doran, S., Karrenberg, D., Panigl, C., and J.
Schmitz, "RIPE Routing-WG Recommendation for Coordinated
Route-flap Damping Parameters", RIPE 178, February 1998,
<http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-178>.
Pelsser, et al. Standards Track PAGE 6
RFC 7196 Making Route Flap Damping Usable May 2014
[RIPE580] Bush, R., Pelsser, C., Kuhne, M., Maennel, O., Mohapatra,
P., Patel, K., and R. Evans, "RIPE Routing Working Group
Recommendation for Route Flap Damping", RIPE 580, January
2013, <http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-580>.
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RFC 7196 Making Route Flap Damping Usable May 2014
Authors' Addresses
Cristel Pelsser
Internet Initiative Japan
Jinbocho Mitsui Buiding, 1-105
Kanda-Jinbocho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0051
JP
Phone: +81 3 5205 6464
EMail: cristel@iij.ad.jp
Randy Bush
Internet Initiative Japan
5147 Crystal Springs
Bainbridge Island, Washington 98110
US
EMail: randy@psg.com
Keyur Patel
Cisco Systems
170 W. Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA 95134
US
EMail: keyupate@cisco.com
Pradosh Mohapatra
Sproute Networks
41529 Higgins Way
Fremont, CA 94539
US
EMail: mpradosh@yahoo.com
Olaf Maennel
Loughborough University
Department of Computer Science - N.2.03
Loughborough
UK
Phone: +44 115 714 0042
EMail: o@maennel.net
Pelsser, et al. Standards Track PAGE 8
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 15202 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Saturday, May 17th, 2014
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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