Overview

The following provides a brief description of MPLS and LDP and lists the functionality supported by SR Linux in this release. It contains the following topics:

About MPLS

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a label switching technology that provides the ability to set up connection-oriented paths over a connectionless IP network. MPLS facilitates network traffic flow and provides a mechanism to engineer network traffic patterns independently from routing tables. MPLS sets up a specific path for a sequence of packets. The packets are identified by a label stack inserted into each packet.

MPLS requires a set of procedures to enhance network-layer packets with label stacks, which then turns them into labeled packets. Routers that support MPLS are known as Label Switching Routers (LSRs). To transmit a labeled packet on a particular data link, an LSR must support the encoding technique.

In MPLS, packets can carry not only one label but a set of labels in a stack. An LSR can swap the label at the top of the stack, pop the label, or swap the label and push one or more labels into the stack. The processing of a labeled packet is completely independent of the level of hierarchy. The processing is always based on the top label, without regard for the possibility that some number of other labels may have been above it in the past, or that some number of other labels may be below it at present.

MPLS is currently supported on 7250 IXR platforms.

LSRs

LSRs perform different label switching functions based on their position in a Label Switched Path (LSP). The LSRs in an LSP do one of the following:

  • The LSR at the or head-end of an LSP is the ingress label edge router (LER). The ingress LER can encapsulate packets with an MPLS header and forward them to the next router along the path. A point-to-point LSP can only have one ingress LER.

    The ingress LER is programmed to perform a label push operation. More specifically, it is programmed with an IP route that encapsulates matching IP packets using MPLS and forwards them to one or more next-hop routers. Each outgoing MPLS packet has a label stack (in the MPLS header), and the top entry in each stack contains a label value pushed by the route lookup process that indicates the path to be followed.

  • A transit LSR is an intermediate router in the LSP between the ingress and egress routers. Each transit LSR along the path is programmed to perform a label swap operation: the transit LSR is programmed with an MPLS route that matches the label value at the top of the label stack, pops that label stack entry, pushes a new top label and forwards the resulting MPLS packet to the next set of routers along the path.

  • The penultimate LSR (the one before last) in the LSP can be programmed to perform a pop-and-forward operation, known as penultimate hop popping (PHP). In this case, the LSR is programmed with an MPLS route that matches the label value at the top of the label stack, pops that label stack entry, and forwards the resulting packet to the tail-end router. The packet sent by the PHP LSR to the egress LER may be the original IP payload packet, but the forwarding decision made by the PHP LSR is based only on the incoming top label value, not IP route lookup.

  • The router at the tail-end of an LSP is the egress LER. The egress LER strips the MPLS encapsulation, which changes it from an MPLS packet to a data packet, and then forwards the packet to its destination using information in the forwarding table. Each point-to-point LSP can have only one egress router. The ingress and egress routers in an LSP cannot be the same router.

    If the penultimate LSR is just a normal transit LSR performing a label swap (no PHP), the egress LER must be programmed to perform the pop operation. In this case, the programmed MPLS route matches the label value at the top of the label stack, the egress LER pops that label entry and then does another lookup on the next header; usually this is an IP header and the packet is forwarded based on IP route lookup.

About LDP

Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) is a protocol used to distribute MPLS labels in non-traffic-engineered applications. LDP allows routers to establish LSPs through a network by mapping network-layer routing information directly to data link layer-switched paths.

An LSP is defined by the set of labels from the ingress LER to the egress LER. LDP associates a Forwarding Equivalence Class (FEC) with each LSP it establishes. A FEC is a collection of common actions associated with a class of packets. When an LSR assigns a label to a FEC, it must allow other LSRs in the path to know about the label. LDP helps to establish the LSP by providing a set of procedures that LSRs can use to distribute labels.

The FEC associated with an LSP specifies which packets are mapped to that LSP. LSPs are extended through a network as each LSR splices incoming labels for a FEC to the outgoing label assigned to the next-hop for the specific FEC.

LDP performs the label distribution only in MPLS environments. The LDP operation begins with a hello discovery process to find LDP peers in the network. LDP peers are two LSRs that use LDP to exchange label/FEC mapping information. An LDP session is created between LDP peers. A single LDP session allows each peer to learn the other’s label mappings (LDP is bidirectional) and to exchange label binding information.

LDP signaling works with the MPLS label manager to manage the relationships between labels and the corresponding FEC. An MPLS label identifies a set of actions that the forwarding plane performs on an incoming packet before discarding it. The FEC is identified through the signaling protocol (in this case, LDP) and allocated a label. The mapping between the label and the FEC is communicated to the forwarding plane.

When an unlabeled packet ingresses the router, classification policies associate it with a FEC. The appropriate label is imposed on the packet, and the packet is forwarded.

Supported functionality

In the current release, SR Linux supports the following MPLS and LDP functionality:

MPLS

  • Statically configured MPLS forwarding entries

  • Configurable label range

  • MPLS label manager that shares the MPLS label space among client applications that require MPLS labels

LDP

  • LDPv4 implementation compliant with RFC 5036

  • LDP support in the default network-instance only

  • Label distribution using DU (downstream unsolicited), ordered control

  • Platform label space only

  • Configurable label range (dynamic, non-shared label-block)

  • Support for overload TLV when label-block has no free entries

  • Configurable timers (hello-interval, hello-holdtime, keepalive-interval)

  • Ingress LER, transit LSR, and egress LER roles for /32 IPv4 FECs

  • Automatic FEC origination of the system0.0 /32 IPv4 address prefix

  • /32 IPv4 FEC resolution using IGP routes, with longest prefix match option

  • ECMP support with configurable next-hop limit (up to 64)

  • Automatic installation of all LDP /32 IPv4 prefix FECs into TTM

  • Per-peer configurable FEC limit

  • Graceful restart helper capability

  • BGP shortcuts for IPv4 traffic

  • Protocol debug/trace-options

  • LDP-IGP synchronization

  • Advertise address mapping message for primary IPv4 address of the adjacent interface only.

  • Non-configurable capability advertisement in INITIALIZATION messages only claiming support for:

    • State advertisement control (SAC) with interest in IPv4 prefix FECs only

    • Fault tolerance (Graceful Restart)

    • Nokia overload TLV

    • Unrecognized notification

  • Split-horizon support: A label-mapping message is not advertised to a peer if the FEC matches an address sent by that peer in an Address Mapping message.