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IETF RFC 8596
Last modified on Friday, June 7th, 2019
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) A. Malis
Request for Comments: 8596 S. Bryant
Category: Informational Futurewei
ISSN: 2070-1721 J. Halpern
Ericsson
W. Henderickx
Nokia
June 2019
MPLS Transport Encapsulation for the Service Function Chaining (SFC)
Network Service Header (NSH)
 Abstract
This document describes how to use a Service Function Forwarder (SFF)
Label (similar to a pseudowire label or VPN label) to indicate the
presence of a Service Function Chaining (SFC) Network Service Header
(NSH) between an MPLS label stack and the NSH original packet/frame.
This allows SFC packets using the NSH to be forwarded between SFFs
over an MPLS network. The label is also used to select between
multiple SFFs in the destination MPLS node.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
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). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are candidates for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8596.
Malis, et al. Informational PAGE 1 
RFC 8596 MPLS for the SFC NSH June 2019
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2019 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 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. Terminology ................................................3
2. MPLS Encapsulation Using an SFF Label ...........................3
2.1. MPLS Label Stack Construction at the Sending Node ..........4
2.2. SFF Label Processing at the Destination Node ...............5
3. Equal-Cost Multipath (ECMP) Considerations ......................5
4. Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM)
Considerations ..................................................6
5. IANA Considerations .............................................6
6. Security Considerations .........................................6
7. References ......................................................7
7.1. Normative References .......................................7
7.2. Informative References .....................................8
Acknowledgements ...................................................9
Authors' Addresses .................................................9
1. Introduction
As discussed in [RFC 8300], a number of transport encapsulations for
the Service Function Chaining (SFC) Network Service Header (NSH)
already exist, such as Ethernet, UDP, GRE, and others.
This document describes an MPLS transport encapsulation for the NSH
and how to use a Service Function Forwarder (SFF) [RFC 7665] Label to
indicate the presence of the NSH in the MPLS packet payload. This
allows SFC packets using the NSH to be forwarded between SFFs in an
MPLS transport network, where MPLS is used to interconnect the
network nodes that contain one or more SFFs. The label is also used
to select between multiple SFFs in the destination MPLS node.
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RFC 8596 MPLS for the SFC NSH June 2019
From an SFC perspective, this encapsulation is equivalent to other
transport encapsulations of packets using the NSH. This can be
illustrated by adding an additional line to the example of a next-hop
SPI / SI-to-network ("SPI" and "SI" stand for "Service Path
Identifier" and "Service Index") overlay network locator mapping in
Table 1 of [RFC 8300]:
+------+------+---------------------+-------------------------+
| SPI | SI | Next Hop(s) | Transport Encapsulation |
+------+------+---------------------+-------------------------+
| 25 | 220 | Label 5467 | MPLS |
+------+------+---------------------+-------------------------+
Table 1: Extension to Table 1 in RFC 8300
SFF Labels are similar to other service labels at the bottom of an
MPLS label stack that denote the contents of the MPLS payload being
other than a normally routed IP packet, such as a Layer 2 pseudowire,
an IP packet that is routed in a VPN context with a private address,
or an Ethernet virtual private wire service.
This informational document follows well-established MPLS procedures
and does not require any actions by IANA or any new protocol
extensions.
Note that using the MPLS label stack as a replacement for the SFC
NSH, covering use cases that do not require per-packet metadata, is
described in [RFC 8595].
1.1. Terminology
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] [RFC 8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
2. MPLS Encapsulation Using an SFF Label
The encapsulation is a standard MPLS label stack [RFC 3032] with an
SFF Label at the bottom of the stack, followed by an NSH as defined
by [RFC 8300] and the NSH original packet/frame.
Much like a pseudowire label, an SFF Label MUST be allocated by the
downstream receiver of the NSH from its per-platform label space,
since the meaning of the label is identical, independent of which
incoming interface it is received from [RFC 3031].
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RFC 8596 MPLS for the SFC NSH June 2019
If a receiving node supports more than one SFF (i.e., more than one
SFC forwarding instance), then the SFF Label can be used to select
the proper SFF, by having the receiving node advertise more than one
SFF Label to its upstream sending nodes as appropriate.
The method used by the downstream receiving node to advertise SFF
Labels to the upstream sending node is out of scope for this
document. That said, a number of methods are possible, such as via a
protocol exchange, or via a controller that manages both the sender
and the receiver using the Network Configuration Protocol
(NETCONF) / YANG, BGP, the Path Computation Element Communication
Protocol (PCEP), etc. One such BGP-based method has already been
defined and is documented in [BGP-NSH-SFC]. This does not constrain
the further definition of other such advertisement methods in the
future.
While the SFF Label will usually be at the bottom of the label stack,
there may be cases where there are additional label stack entries
beneath it. For example, when an Associated Channel Header (ACH) is
carried that applies to the SFF, a Generic Associated Channel Label
(GAL) [RFC 5586] will be in the label stack below the SFF. Similarly,
an Entropy Label Indicator / Entropy Label (ELI/EL) [RFC 6790] may be
carried below the SFF in the label stack. This is identical to the
situation with VPN labels.
This document does not define the setting of the Traffic Class (TC)
field [RFC 5462] (formerly known as the Experimental Use (EXP) bits
[RFC 3032]) in the SFF Label.
2.1. MPLS Label Stack Construction at the Sending Node
When one SFF wishes to send an SFC packet with an NSH to another SFF
over an MPLS transport network, a label stack needs to be constructed
by the MPLS node that contains the sending SFF in order to transport
the packet to the destination MPLS node that contains the receiving
SFF. The label stack is constructed as follows:
1. Push zero or more labels that are interpreted by the destination
MPLS node on to the packet, such as the GAL [RFC 5586] (see
Section 4). The TTL for these labels is set according to the
relevant standards that define these labels.
2. Push the SFF Label to identify the desired SFF in the receiving
MPLS node. The TTL for this MPLS label MUST be set to 1 to avoid
mis-forwarding.
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RFC 8596 MPLS for the SFC NSH June 2019
3. Push zero or more additional labels such that (a) the resulting
label stack will cause the packet to be transported to the
destination MPLS node, and (b) when the packet arrives at the
destination node, either:
* the SFF Label will be at the top of the label stack (this is
typically the case when penultimate hop popping is used at the
penultimate node), or
* as a part of normal MPLS processing, the SFF Label becomes the
top label in the stack before the packet is forwarded to
another node and before the packet is dispatched to a higher
layer.
The TTL for these labels is set by configuration or set to the
defaults for normal MPLS operation in the network.
2.2. SFF Label Processing at the Destination Node
The destination MPLS node performs a lookup on the SFF Label to
retrieve the next-hop context between the SFF and SF, e.g., to
retrieve the destination Media Access Control (MAC) address in the
case where native Ethernet encapsulation is used between the SFF and
SF. How the next-hop context is populated is out of scope for this
document.
The receiving SFF SHOULD check that the received SFF Label has a TTL
of 1 upon receipt. Any other values indicate a likely error
condition and SHOULD result in discarding the packet.
The receiving MPLS node then pops the SFF Label (and any labels
beneath it) so that the destination SFF receives the SFC packet with
the NSH at the top of the packet.
3. Equal-Cost Multipath (ECMP) Considerations
As discussed in [RFC 4928] and [RFC 7325], there are ECMP
considerations for payloads carried by MPLS.
Many existing routers use deep packet inspection to examine the
payload of an MPLS packet. If the first nibble of the payload is
equal to 0x4 or 0x6, these routers (sometimes incorrectly, as
discussed in [RFC 4928]) assume that the payload is IPv4 or IPv6,
respectively and, as a result, perform ECMP load balancing based on
(presumed) information present in IP/TCP/UDP payload headers or in a
combination of MPLS label stack and (presumed) IP/TCP/UDP payload
headers in the packet.
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For SFC, ECMP may or may not be desirable. To prevent ECMP when it
is not desired, the NSH Base Header was carefully constructed so that
the NSH could not look like IPv4 or IPv6 based on its first nibble.
See Section 2.2 of [RFC 8300] for further details. Accordingly, the
default behavior for MPLS-encapsulated SFC is to not use ECMP other
than by using entropy derived from the MPLS label stack. This
results in all packets going to the same SF taking the same path
regardless of the use of ECMP in the network.
If ECMP is desired when SFC is used with an MPLS transport network,
there are two possible options: entropy labels [RFC 6790] and
flow-aware transport [RFC 6391] labels. A recommendation regarding
choosing between these options, and their proper placement in the
label stack, is left for future study.
4. Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) Considerations
OAM at the SFC layer is handled by SFC-defined mechanisms [RFC 8300].
However, OAM may be required at the MPLS transport layer. If so,
then standard MPLS-layer OAM mechanisms such as the GAL [RFC 5586] may
be used at the transport label layer.
5. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.
6. Security Considerations
This document describes a method for transporting SFC packets using
the NSH over an MPLS transport network. It follows well-established
MPLS procedures in widespread operational use. It does not define
any new protocol elements or allocate any new code points, and it is
no more or less secure than carrying any other protocol over MPLS.
To the MPLS network, the NSH and its contents are simply an opaque
payload.
In addition, the security considerations in [RFC 8595] also apply to
this document.
Malis, et al. Informational PAGE 6
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7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 2119>.
[RFC 3031] Rosen, E., Viswanathan, A., and R. Callon, "Multiprotocol
Label Switching Architecture", RFC 3031,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 3031, January 2001,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 3031>.
[RFC 3032] Rosen, E., Tappan, D., Fedorkow, G., Rekhter, Y.,
Farinacci, D., Li, T., and A. Conta, "MPLS Label Stack
Encoding", RFC 3032, DOI 10.17487/RFC 3032, January 2001,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 3032>.
[RFC 5462] Andersson, L. and R. Asati, "Multiprotocol Label Switching
(MPLS) Label Stack Entry: "EXP" Field Renamed to "Traffic
Class" Field", RFC 5462, DOI 10.17487/RFC 5462,
February 2009, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5462>.
[RFC 7665] Halpern, J., Ed. and C. Pignataro, Ed., "Service Function
Chaining (SFC) Architecture", RFC 7665,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 7665, October 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7665>.
[RFC 8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in
RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 8174, May 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8174>.
[RFC 8300] Quinn, P., Ed., Elzur, U., Ed., and C. Pignataro, Ed.,
"Network Service Header (NSH)", RFC 8300,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 8300, January 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8300>.
[RFC 8595] Farrel, A., Bryant, S., and J. Drake, "An MPLS-Based
Forwarding Plane for Service Function Chaining", RFC 8595,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 8595, June 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8595>.
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7.2. Informative References
[BGP-NSH-SFC]
Farrel, A., Drake, J., Rosen, E., Uttaro, J., and L.
Jalil, "BGP Control Plane for NSH SFC", Work in Progress,
draft-ietf-bess-nsh-bgp-control-plane-11, May 2019.
[RFC 4928] Swallow, G., Bryant, S., and L. Andersson, "Avoiding Equal
Cost Multipath Treatment in MPLS Networks", BCP 128,
RFC 4928, DOI 10.17487/RFC 4928, June 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 4928>.
[RFC 5586] Bocci, M., Ed., Vigoureux, M., Ed., and S. Bryant, Ed.,
"MPLS Generic Associated Channel", RFC 5586,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 5586, June 2009,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5586>.
[RFC 6391] Bryant, S., Ed., Filsfils, C., Drafz, U., Kompella, V.,
Regan, J., and S. Amante, "Flow-Aware Transport of
Pseudowires over an MPLS Packet Switched Network",
RFC 6391, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6391, November 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6391>.
[RFC 6790] Kompella, K., Drake, J., Amante, S., Henderickx, W., and
L. Yong, "The Use of Entropy Labels in MPLS Forwarding",
RFC 6790, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6790, November 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6790>.
[RFC 7325] Villamizar, C., Ed., Kompella, K., Amante, S., Malis, A.,
and C. Pignataro, "MPLS Forwarding Compliance and
Performance Requirements", RFC 7325, DOI 10.17487/RFC 7325,
August 2014, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7325>.
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RFC 8596 MPLS for the SFC NSH June 2019
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Jim Guichard, Eric Rosen, Med
Boucadair, Alexander (Sasha) Vainshtein, Jeff Tantsura, Anoop
Ghanwani, John Drake, Loa Andersson, Carlos Pignataro, Christian
Hopps, and Benjamin Kaduk for their reviews and comments.
Authors' Addresses
Andrew G. Malis
Futurewei
Email: agmalis@gmail.com
Stewart Bryant
Futurewei
Email: stewart.bryant@gmail.com
Joel M. Halpern
Ericsson
Email: joel.halpern@ericsson.com
Wim Henderickx
Nokia
Email: wim.henderickx@nokia.com
Malis, et al. Informational PAGE 9
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 18605 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Friday, June 7th, 2019
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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