Network Working Group N. McGill

Network Working Group N. McGill
Request for Comments: 5641 C. Pignataro
Updates: 3931, 4349, 4454, 4591, 4719 Cisco Systems
Category: Standards Track August 2009

Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol Version 3 (L2TPv3)
Extended Circuit Status Values

Abstract

This document defines additional Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol Version 3
(L2TPv3) bit values to be used within the "Circuit Status" Attribute
Value Pair (AVP) to communicate finer-grained error states for
Attachment Circuits (ACs) and pseudowires (PWs). It also generalizes
the Active bit and deprecates the use of the New bit in the Circuit
Status AVP, updating RFC 3931, RFC 4349, RFC 4454, RFC 4591, and RFC
4719.

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

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document authors. All rights reserved.

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Provisions Relating to IETF Documents in effect on the date of
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Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
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not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format
it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other
than English.

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RFC 5641 L2TPv3 Extended Circuit Status Values August 2009

Table of Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Specification of Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2. Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. L2TPv3 Extended Circuit Status Values . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Circuit Status Usage and Clarifications . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Updates to Existing RFCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

1. Introduction

Currently, the L2TPv3 Circuit Status AVP [RFC3931] is able to convey
the UP/DOWN status of an access circuit. However, a finer
granularity is often useful to determine the direction of the fault,
as has been added for MPLS-based pseudowires and is used in the
pseudowire control protocol using the Label Distribution Protocol
(LDP); see Section 3.5 of [RFC4446] and Section 5.4.2 of [RFC4447].

Additionally, it is useful (in session-level redundancy scenarios) to
be able to indicate if a pseudowire is in a standby state, where it
is fully established by signaling and allows Operations,
Administration, and Maintenance, but is not switching data. Again,
such functionality is available for MPLS-based pseudowires using LDP,
see [PREF-FWD].

This document provides extended circuit status bit values for L2TPv3
and adds them in a manner such that it is backwards compatible with
the current Circuit Status AVP. These new bits are applicable to all
pseudowire types that use the Circuit Status AVP.

1.1. Specification of Requirements

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].

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RFC 5641 L2TPv3 Extended Circuit Status Values August 2009

1.2. Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used in this document and in the
documents that it updates. L2TPv3 Control Message Types are listed
in Section 6 of [RFC3931].

AC Attachment Circuit
AVP Attribute Value Pair
LCCE L2TP Control Connection Endpoint
NNI Network-Network Interface
PE Provider Edge
PSN Packet Switched Network
PW Pseudowire

2. L2TPv3 Extended Circuit Status Values

The Circuit Status AVP (ICRQ, ICRP, ICCN, OCRQ, OCRP, OCCN, SLI),
Attribute Type 71, indicates the initial status of, or a status
change in, the circuit to which the session is bound.

The Attribute Value field for this AVP, currently defined in
[RFC3931], has the following format:

0 1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Reserved |N|A|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Bit Bit-Value Name
----------------------------------------------------------------
(A) 15 0x0001 Active
(N) 14 0x0002 New

As currently defined in [RFC3931] and replicated in [RFC4349],
[RFC4454], [RFC4591], and [RFC4719], the two bits have the following
meanings:

o The A (Active) bit indicates whether the circuit is up/active/
ready (1) or down/inactive/not-ready (0).

o The N (New) bit indicates whether the circuit status indication is
for a new circuit (1) or an existing circuit (0).

This document updates the semantics of the A and N bits as follows
(see also Section 4):

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RFC 5641 L2TPv3 Extended Circuit Status Values August 2009

The A (Active) bit indicates whether the local pseudowire endpoint
(including the local Attachment Circuit (AC) and local Packet
Switched Network (PSN)-facing pseudowire termination) has no faults
present and is up/active/ready (1) or has faults present and is down/
inactive/not-ready (0).

The N (New) bit indicates if the notification is for a new circuit
(1) or an existing circuit (0), and is provided to emulate Network-
Network Interface (NNI) signaling between Provider Edge (PE) routers,
e.g., Frame Relay NNI. It MAY be used to convey that a circuit has
been re-provisioned or newly provisioned at the PE, which can already
be inferred from the L2TP control message type. It is therefore
uncertain as to what use the receiving PE can make of this bit,
although it MAY include logging. This document deprecates this bit
as it is of little or no use, hence this bit SHOULD be ignored on
receipt and is OPTIONAL to set on sending. For reference, see
Section 3.4 of [RFC4591], which does not specify any additional usage
beyond the setting of the N bit in the ICRQ, ICRP (and OCRQ, OCRP)
and the clearing of it in all other control messages.

This document also extends this bitmap of values to allow for finer
granularity of local pseudowire (i.e., Attachment Circuit or PSN-
facing endpoint) status reporting.

The Attribute Value field for the Circuit Status AVP, including the
new values, has the following format:

0 1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Reserved |S|E|I|T|R|N|A|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Bit Bit-Value Name
-----------------------------------------------------------------
(A) 15 0x0001 Active: Pseudowire has no faults
(N) 14 0x0002 New [use deprecated]
(R) 13 0x0004 Local Attachment Circuit (ingress) Receive Fault
(T) 12 0x0008 Local Attachment Circuit (egress) Transmit Fault
(I) 11 0x0010 Local PSN-facing PW (ingress) Receive Fault
(E) 10 0x0020 Local PSN-facing PW (egress) Transmit Fault
(S) 9 0x0040 Pseudowire is in Standby mode

The new bit values have the following meanings:

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RFC 5641 L2TPv3 Extended Circuit Status Values August 2009

(R), Local Attachment Circuit (ingress) Receive Fault

Fault Here
|
|
| +----------------------+ +----------------------+
| Rx| LCCE |Egress | Peer LCCE |
--X-->| |-------->| |
| L2TPv3 | [PSN] | L2TPv3 |
Tx| Circuit Pseudowire |Ingress | Pseudowire Circuit |
<-----| |<--------| |
+----------------------+ +----------------------+

An alarm or fault has occurred at the local Attachment Circuit
such that it is unable to receive traffic. It can still transmit
traffic.

(T), Local Attachment Circuit (egress) Transmit Fault

+----------------------+ +----------------------+
Rx| LCCE |Egress | Peer LCCE |
----->| |-------->| |
| L2TPv3 | [PSN] | L2TPv3 |
Tx| Circuit Pseudowire |Ingress | Pseudowire Circuit |
<--X--| |<--------| |
| +----------------------+ +----------------------+
|
|
Fault Here

A fault has occurred at the local Attachment Circuit such that it
is unable to transmit traffic. It can still receive traffic.

(I), Local PSN-facing PW (ingress) Receive Fault

+----------------------+ +----------------------+
Rx| LCCE |Egress | Peer LCCE |
----->| |-------->| |
| L2TPv3 | [PSN] | L2TPv3 |
Tx| Circuit Pseudowire |Ingress | Pseudowire Circuit |
<-----| |<---X----| |
+----------------------+ | +----------------------+
|
|
Fault Here

A fault has occurred in the receive direction between the local
endpoint and the remote L2TP endpoint.

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RFC 5641 L2TPv3 Extended Circuit Status Values August 2009

Note that a fault at the session level would not necessarily
trigger an L2TP control connection timeout. The means of
detecting this fault are outside the scope of this document; as an
example, detection may be via PW Type-specific means,
Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD), or other methods.

(E), Local PSN-facing PW (egress) Transmit Fault

Fault Here
|
|
+----------------------+ | +----------------------+
Rx| LCCE |Egress| | Peer LCCE |
----->| |------X->| |
| L2TPv3 | [PSN] | L2TPv3 |
Tx| Circuit Pseudowire |Ingress | Pseudowire Circuit |
<-----| |<--------| |
+----------------------+ +----------------------+

A fault has occurred in the transmit direction between the local
endpoint and the remote L2TP endpoint.

Note that a fault at the session level would not necessarily
trigger an L2TP control connection timeout. The means of
detecting this fault are outside the scope of this document; as an
example, detection may be via PW Type-specific means, BFD, or
other methods.

(S), Pseudowire is in Standby mode

Standby
|
|
+----------------------+ | +----------------------+
Rx| LCCE |Egress | Peer LCCE |
----->| |---X---->| |
| L2TPv3 | [PSN] | L2TPv3 |
Tx| Circuit Pseudowire |Ingress | Pseudowire Circuit |
<-----| |<--X-----| |
+----------------------+ | +----------------------+
|
|
Standby

The pseudowire has been placed into a Standby mode, which means
that although it was signaled (during setup of the PW) and is
operational, it is NOT switching user traffic. Any received user
traffic SHOULD be dropped. User traffic MUST NOT be transmitted.

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RFC 5641 L2TPv3 Extended Circuit Status Values August 2009

A standby pseudowire also allows for means to check its data plane
liveness in order to ensure its ability to switch data packets
end-to-end. This is achieved, for example, as detailed in
[RFC5085] or [VCCV-BFD]. However, data is not forwarded from an
Attachment Circuit (AC) into the L2TPv3 session, or from the
L2TPv3 session out to the AC.

3. Circuit Status Usage and Clarifications

In implementations prior to this specification, bits 0-13 MUST be set
to zero (see Section 5.4.5 of [RFC3931]). This allows for legacy
implementations to interwork properly with new implementations.

The following are clarifications regarding the usage of the Circuit
Status AVP bits as defined in this specification:

o The (R), (T), (I), and (E) bits are collectively referred to as
"fault status bits".

o [RFC3931] defined the (A) bit as pertaining to local access
circuit state only. This document redefines it as meaning that
"no faults are present on the local pseudowire endpoint."

o If multiple faults occur, all the fault status bits corresponding
to each fault MUST be set (i.e., they MUST be bitwise ORed
together).

o The (A) bit MUST NOT be set until all fault status bits are
cleared. This behavior allows an endpoint to be backwards
compatible with a remote endpoint that does not understand these
new status bits.

o If any of the fault status bits are set, then the (A) bit MUST be
cleared. That is, the fault status bits (R, T, I, E) are a more
granular definition of (A), such that ORing the bits provides an
inverted (A).

o If (A) is clear and the fault status bits (R, T, I, E) are clear,
it means that there is no extended circuit status. That is, the
circuit is down/inactive/not-ready (from the (A) bit), without a
more granular (extended) indication.

o The (S) bit can be set in conjunction with any other bit,
including (A). A pseudowire endpoint in Standby (S bit set) can
be up/active/ready (A bit set) or experiencing a fault (A bit
cleared and one or more of the fault status bits (R, T, I, E) set.

o Leaving Standby mode is indicated by the clearing of the (S) bit.

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RFC 5641 L2TPv3 Extended Circuit Status Values August 2009

o The usage of the (N) bit has been deprecated.

4. Updates to Existing RFCs

This document updates existing RFCs that define (either generically
or in the context of a specific set of PW Types) the Active and New
bits of the Circuit Status AVP. The Active and New bits of the
Circuit Status AVP are specified in Section 5.4.5 of [RFC3931].
Those definitions are adapted to specific Attachment Circuits and
replicated in Section 3.4 of [RFC4349] (High-Level Data Link Control
Frames over L2TPv3), Section 8 of [RFC4454] (Asynchronous Transfer
Mode over L2TPv3), Section 3.4 of [RFC4591] (Frame Relay over
L2TPv3), and Section 2.3.3 of [RFC4719] (Ethernet Frames over
L2TPv3). This document updates the definitions in all five of these
references to say:

The A (Active) bit indicates whether the local pseudowire endpoint
(including the local Attachment Circuit and local PSN-facing
pseudowire termination) has no faults present and is up/active/
ready (1) or has faults present and is down/inactive/not-ready
(0).

The N (New) bit usage is deprecated; it SHOULD be ignored on
receipt and is OPTIONAL to set on sending.

This document also updates Section 2.2 (bullet c) of [RFC4719],
removing the following two sentences:

For ICRQ and ICRP, the Circuit Status AVP MUST indicate that the
circuit status is for a new circuit (refer to N bit in Section
2.3.3).

For ICCN and SLI (refer to Section 2.3.2), the Circuit Status AVP
MUST indicate that the circuit status is for an existing circuit
(refer to N bit in Section 2.3.3) and reflect the current status
of the link (refer to A bit in Section 2.3.3).

And finally, this document updates Section 3.1 of [RFC4349], Section
3.1 of [RFC4454], Section 3.1 of [RFC4591], and Section 2.2 of
[RFC4719] with the following paragraph addition:

The usage of the N bit in the Circuit Status AVP is deprecated.
Therefore, for ICRQ and ICRP, the Circuit Status AVP need not
indicate on sending (nor check on receipt) that the circuit status
is for a new circuit, and for ICCN and SLI, the Circuit Status AVP
need not indicate on sending (nor check on receipt) that the
circuit status is for an existing circuit.

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RFC 5641 L2TPv3 Extended Circuit Status Values August 2009

5. Security Considerations

Security considerations for the Circuit Status AVP are covered in the
base L2TPv3 specification (see Section 8 of [RFC3931]). No
additional security considerations exist with extending this
attribute.

6. IANA Considerations

The Circuit Status Bits number space [IANA-l2tp] is managed by IANA
as per Section 10.7 of [RFC3931]. Five new bits (bits 9 through 13)
and one updated bit (bit 14) have been assigned as follows:

Circuit Status Bits - per [RFC3931]
-------------------

Bit 9 - S (Standby) bit
Bit 10 - E (Local PSN-facing PW (egress) Tx Fault) bit
Bit 11 - I (Local PSN-facing PW (ingress) Rx Fault) bit
Bit 12 - T (Local AC (egress) Tx Fault) bit
Bit 13 - R (Local AC (ingress) Rx Fault) bit
Bit 14 - N (New) bit [use deprecated]

7. Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Muhammad Yousuf, Mark Townsley, George
Wilkie, Prashant Jhingran, Pawel Sowinski, and Ignacio Goyret for
useful comments received.

8. References

8.1. Normative References

[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

[RFC3931] Lau, J., Townsley, M., and I. Goyret, "Layer Two
Tunneling Protocol - Version 3 (L2TPv3)", RFC 3931,
March 2005.

[RFC4349] Pignataro, C. and M. Townsley, "High-Level Data Link
Control (HDLC) Frames over Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol,
Version 3 (L2TPv3)", RFC 4349, February 2006.

[RFC4454] Singh, S., Townsley, M., and C. Pignataro, "Asynchronous
Transfer Mode (ATM) over Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol
Version 3 (L2TPv3)", RFC 4454, May 2006.

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RFC 5641 L2TPv3 Extended Circuit Status Values August 2009

[RFC4591] Townsley, M., Wilkie, G., Booth, S., Bryant, S., and J.
Lau, "Frame Relay over Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol
Version 3 (L2TPv3)", RFC 4591, August 2006.

[RFC4719] Aggarwal, R., Townsley, M., and M. Dos Santos,
"Transport of Ethernet Frames over Layer 2 Tunneling
Protocol Version 3 (L2TPv3)", RFC 4719, November 2006.

8.2. Informative References

[IANA-l2tp] Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, "Layer Two
Tunneling Protocol 'L2TP'", <http://www.iana.org>.

[PREF-FWD] Muley, P., Bocci, M., and L. Martini, "Preferential
Forwarding Status bit definition", Work in Progress,
September 2008.

[RFC4446] Martini, L., "IANA Allocations for Pseudowire Edge to
Edge Emulation (PWE3)", BCP 116, RFC 4446, April 2006.

[RFC4447] Martini, L., Rosen, E., El-Aawar, N., Smith, T., and G.
Heron, "Pseudowire Setup and Maintenance Using the Label
Distribution Protocol (LDP)", RFC 4447, April 2006.

[RFC5085] Nadeau, T. and C. Pignataro, "Pseudowire Virtual Circuit
Connectivity Verification (VCCV): A Control Channel for
Pseudowires", RFC 5085, December 2007.

[VCCV-BFD] Nadeau, T. and C. Pignataro, "Bidirectional Forwarding
Detection (BFD) for the Pseudowire Virtual Circuit
Connectivity Verification (VCCV)", Work in Progress,
July 2009.

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RFC 5641 L2TPv3 Extended Circuit Status Values August 2009

Authors' Addresses

Neil McGill
Cisco Systems
7025-4 Kit Creek Road
PO Box 14987
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
USA

EMail: [email protected]

Carlos Pignataro
Cisco Systems
7200-12 Kit Creek Road
PO Box 14987
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
USA

EMail: [email protected]

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