Network Working Group M. Portoles
Internet-Draft V. Ashtaputre
Intended status: Experimental V. Moreno
Expires: May 18, 2019 F. Maino
Cisco Systems
D. Farinacci
lispers.net
November 14, 2018

LISP L2/L3 EID Mobility Using a Unified Control Plane
draft-ietf-lisp-eid-mobility-03

Abstract

The LISP control plane offers the flexibility to support multiple overlay flavors simultaneously. This document specifies how LISP can be used to provide control-plane support to deploy a unified L2 and L3 overlay solution for End-point Identifier (EID) mobility, as well as analyzing possible deployment options and models.

Requirements Language

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].

Status of This Memo

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/.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

This Internet-Draft will expire on May 18, 2019.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2018 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

This document describes the architecture and design options required to offer a unified L2 and L3 overlay solution for End-point Identifier (EID) mobility using the LISP control-plane.

The architecture takes advantage of the flexibility that LISP provides to simultaneously support different overlay types. While the LISP specification defines both the data-plane and the control-plane, this document focuses on the use of the control-plane to provide L2 and L3 overlay services with EID mobility. The control plane may be combined with a data-plane of choice e.g., [LISP], [VXLAN-GPE], or [VXLAN].

The recommendation on whether a flow is sent over the L2 or the L3 overlay is based on whether the traffic is bridged (intra-subnet or non-IP) or routed (inter-subnet), respectively. This allows treating both overlays as separate segments, and enables L2-only and L3-only deployments (and combinations of them) without modifying the architecture.

The unified solution for L2 and L3 overlays offers the possibility to extend subnets and routing domains (as required in state-of-art Datacenter and Enterprise architectures) with mobility support and traffic optimization.

An important use-case of the unified architecture is that, while most data centers are complete layer-3 routing domains, legacy applications either have not converted to IP or still use auto-discovery at layer-2 and assume all nodes in an application cluster belong to the same subnet. For these applications, the L2-overlay limits the functionality to where the legacy app lives versus having to extend layer-2 into the underlay network.

Broadcast, Unknown and Multicast traffic on the overlay are supported by either replicated unicast, or underlay (RLOC) multicast as specified in [RFC6831] and [RFC8378].

2. Definition of Terms

LISP related terms are defined as part of the LISP specification [RFC6830], notably EID, RLOC, Map-Request, Map- Reply, Map-Notify, Ingress Tunnel Router (ITR), Egress Tunnel Router (ETR), Map- Server (MS) and Map-Resolver (MR).

3. Reference System

The following figure illustrates the reference system used to support the packet flow description throughout this document. The system presents 4 sites. Site A and Site D provide access to different subnets (non-extended), while Site B and Site C extend a common subnet. The xTR in each one of the sites registers EIDs from the sites with the LISP Mapping System and provides support to encapsulate overlay (EID) traffic through the underlay (RLOC space).

                           ,-------------.
                          (Mapping System )
                           -+------------+
                          +--+--+   +-+---+
                          |MS/MR|   |MS/MR|
                          +-+---+   +-----+
             .-._..-._.--._..|._.,.-._.,|-._.-_._.-.._.-.
         .-.'                                            '.-.
        (                    L3 Underlay                     )
         (                   (RLOC Space)                    )
         '.-._.'.-._.'--'._.'.-._.'.-._.'.-._.'.-._.'.-._.-.'
           /              |                 |               \
   RLOC=IP_A          RLOC=IP_B         RLOC=IP_C         RLOC=IP_D
   +-+--+--+          +-+--+--+         +-+--+--+         +-+--+--+
  .| xTR A |.-.      .| xTR B |.-.     .| xTR C |.-.     .| xTR D |.-.
 ( +-+--+--+   )    ( +-+--+--+   )   ( +-+--+--+   )   ( +-+--+--+   )
.'   Site A   )   .'   Site B    )   .'   Site C   )   .'   Site D   )
( 1.0.0.0/24 .    ( 3.0.0.0/24  .    ( 3.0.0.0/24 .   (  2.0.0.0/24 .
'--'._.'.     )    '--'._.'.     )    '--'._.'.    )   '--'._.'.     )
       /  '--'            |  '--'          |   '--'             \ '--'
   '--------'          '--------'        '--------'        '--------'
   :  End   :          :  End   :        :  End   :        :  End   :
   :Device 1:          :Device 2:        :Device 3:        :Device 4:
   '--------'          '--------'        '--------'        '--------'
   IP: 1.0.0.1         IP: 3.0.0.2       IP: 3.0.0.3       IP: 2.0.0.4
                    MAC: 0:0:3:0:0:2   MAC: 0:0:3:0:0:3
         

Figure 1: Reference System Architecture with unified L2 and L3 overlays

The recommended selection between the use of L2 and L3 overlays is to map them to bridged (intra-subnet or non-IP) and routed (inter-subnet) traffic. The rest of the document follows this recommendation to describe the packet flows.

However, note that in a different selection approach, intra-subnet traffic MAY also be sent over the L3 overlay. Section 6.1 specifies the changes needed to send all IP traffic using the L3 overlay and restricting the use of the L2 overlay to non-IP traffic.

When required, the control plane makes use of two basic types of EID-to-RLOC mappings associated to end-hosts and in order to support the unified architecture:

4. L3 Overlays and Mobility Support

4.1. Reference Architecture and packet flows

In order to support the packet flow descriptions in this section we use Figure 1 as reference. This section uses Sites A and D to describe the flows.

           /              |                 |               \
   RLOC=IP_A          RLOC=IP_B         RLOC=IP_C         RLOC=IP_D
   +-+--+--+          +-+--+--+         +-+--+--+         +-+--+--+
  .| xTR A |.-.      .| xTR B |.-.     .| xTR C |.-.     .| xTR D |.-.
 ( +-+--+--+   )    ( +-+--+--+   )   ( +-+--+--+   )   ( +-+--+--+   )
.'   Site A   )   .'   Site B    )   .'   Site C   )   .'   Site D   )
( 1.0.0.0/24 .    ( 3.0.0.0/24  .    ( 3.0.0.0/24 .   (  2.0.0.0/24 .
'--'._.'.     )    '--'._.'.     )    '--'._.'.    )   '--'._.'.     )
       /  '--'            |  '--'          |   '--'             \ '--'
   '--------'          '--------'        '--------'        '--------'
   :  End   :          :  End   :        :  End   :        :  End   :
   :Device 1:          :Device 2:        :Device 3:        :Device 4:
   '--------'          '--------'        '--------'        '--------'
 (IID1,1.0.0.1)      (IID1,3.0.0.2)     (IID1,3.0.0.3)    (IID1,2.0.0.4)
                  (IID2,0:0:3:0:0:2)   (IID2,0:0:3:0:0:3)
            

Figure 2: Reference Mobility Architecture

4.1.1. Routed Traffic Flow: L3 Overlay use

Inter-subnet traffic is encapsulated using the L3 overlay. The process to encapsulate this traffic is the same as described in the original specification [RFC6830]. We describe the packet flow here for completeness

The following is a sequence example of the unicast packet flow and the control plane operations when in the topology shown in Figure 1 End-Device 1, in LISP site A, wants to communicate with End-Device 4 in LISP site D. Note that both end systems reside in different subnets. We'll assume that End-Device 1 knows the EID IP address of End-Device 4 (e.g. it is learned using a DNS service).

4.1.2. L3 Mobility Flow

The support to L3 mobility covers the requirements to allow an end-host to move from a given site to another and maintain correspondence with the rest of end-hosts that are connected to the same L3 routing domain. This support MUST ensure convergence of L3 forwarding (IPv4/IPv6 based) from the old location to the new one when the host completes its move.

The update of the ITR map-caches when EIDs move MAY be achieved using Data Driven SMRs or the Publish/Subscribe mechanisms defined in [I-D.ietf-lisp-pubsub]. The following two sections are sequence descriptions of the packet flow when End-Device 1 in the reference figure roams to site D.

4.1.2.1. L3 Mobility Flow using Data Driven SMRs

The following is a sequence description of the packet flow when End-Device 1 in the reference figure roams to site D. This sequence uses Data Driven SMRs to trigger the updates of the ITR map-caches.

4.1.2.2. L3 Mobility Flow using Publish/Subscribe Mechanisms

When Publish/Subscribe ([I-D.ietf-lisp-pubsub]) mechanisms are used, the flow of signaling to achieve EID mobility is modified. In this case, when an local end-device connected via an ITR establishes communication with a remote mobile end-device (connected to a remote ETR), the ITR will issue a Map-Request for the mobile end-device. Following the Mapping Request Subscribe Procedures defined in [I-D.ietf-lisp-pubsub], the Map-request will be issued with the N-bit set on the EID-Record so that the ITR is notified of any RLOC-set changes for the mobile EID-prefix.

The following is a sequence description of the packet flow when End-Device 1 in the reference figure roams to site D. This sequence leverages Publish/Subscribe mechanisms to update the ITR map-caches.

4.2. Implementation Considerations

4.2.1. L3 Segmentation

LISP support of segmentation and multi-tenancy is structured around the propagation and use of Instance-IDs, and handled as part of the EID in control plane operations. The encoding is described in [RFC8060] and its use in [RFC8111].

Instance-IDs can be used to support L3 overlay segmentation, such as in extended VRFs or multi-VPN overlays ([I-D.ietf-lisp-vpn]).

4.2.2. L3 Database-Mappings

When an end-host is attached or detected in an ETR that provides L3-overlay services and mobility, a database Mapping is registered to the mapping system with the following structure:

The registration of these EIDs MUST follow the LCAF format as defined in [RFC8060] and the specific EID record to be used is illustrated in the following figure:

+-> +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|   |                          Record TTL                           |
|   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
E   | Locator Count | EID mask-len  | ACT |A|      Reserved         |
I   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
D   | Rsvd  |  Map-Version Number   |         AFI = 16387           |
|   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
r   |    Rsvd1     |     Flags      |   Type = 2    | IID mask-len  |
e   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
c   |             4 + n             |        Instance-ID...         |
o   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
r   |       ...Instance-ID          |        EID-AFI = 1 or 2       |
d   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|   |                    EID-Prefix (IPv4 or IPv6)                  |
|   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|  /|    Priority   |    Weight     |  M Priority   |   M Weight    |
| L +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| o |        Unused Flags     |L|p|R|           Loc-AFI             |
| c +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|  \|                             Locator                           |
+-> +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
              

The L3 EID record follows the structure as described in [RFC6830].

4.2.3. LISP Mapping System support

The interface between the xTRs and the Mapping System is described in [RFC6833] and this document follows the specification as described there. When available, the registrations MAY be implemented over a reliable transport as described in [I-D.kouvelas-lisp-map-server-reliable-transport].

In order to support system convergence after mobility, when the Map-Server receives a new registration for a specific EID, it MUST send a Map-Notify to the entire RLOC set in the site that last registered this same EID. This Map-Notify is used to track moved-away state of L3 EIDs as described in Section 4.2.4.

4.2.4. Using SMRs to Track Moved-Away Hosts

One of the key elements to support end-host mobility using the LISP architecture is the Solicit-Map-Request (SMR). This is a special message by means of which an ETR can request an ITR to send a new Map-Request for a particular EID record. In essence the SMR message is used as a signal to indicate a change in mapping information and it is described with detail in [RFC6830].

In order to support mobility, an ETR SHALL maintain a list of EID records for which it has to generate a SMR message whenever it receives traffic with that EID as destination.

The particular strategy to maintain an Away Table is implementation specific and it will be typically based on the strategy to detect the presence of hosts and the use of Map-Notify messages received from the Map-Server. In essence the table SHOULD provide support to the following:

4.2.5. L3 multicast support

L3 Multicast traffic on the overlay MAY be supported by either replicated unicast, or underlay (RLOC) multicast. Specific solutions to support L3 multicast over LISP controlled overlays are specified in in [RFC6831], and [RFC8378].

4.2.6. Time-to-Live Handling in Data-Plane

The LISP specification ([RFC6830]) describes how to handle Time-to-Live values of the inner and outer headers during encapsulation and decapsulation of packets when using the L3 overlay.

5. L2 Overlays and Mobility Support

5.1. Reference Architecture and packet flows

In order to support L2 packet flow descriptions in this section we use Figure 1 as reference. This section uses Sites B and C to describe the flows.

           /              |                 |               \
   RLOC=IP_A          RLOC=IP_B         RLOC=IP_C         RLOC=IP_D
   +-+--+--+          +-+--+--+         +-+--+--+         +-+--+--+
  .| xTR A |.-.      .| xTR B |.-.     .| xTR C |.-.     .| xTR D |.-.
 ( +-+--+--+   )    ( +-+--+--+   )   ( +-+--+--+   )   ( +-+--+--+   )
.'   Site A   )   .'   Site B    )   .'   Site C   )   .'   Site D   )
( 1.0.0.0/24 .    ( 3.0.0.0/24  .    ( 3.0.0.0/24 .   (  2.0.0.0/24 .
'--'._.'.     )    '--'._.'.     )    '--'._.'.    )   '--'._.'.     )
       /  '--'            |  '--'          |   '--'             \ '--'
   '--------'          '--------'        '--------'        '--------'
   :  End   :          :  End   :        :  End   :        :  End   :
   :Device 1:          :Device 2:        :Device 3:        :Device 4:
   '--------'          '--------'        '--------'        '--------'
 (IID1,1.0.0.1)      (IID1,3.0.0.2)     (IID1,3.0.0.3)    (IID1,2.0.0.4)
                  (IID2,0:0:3:0:0:2)   (IID2,0:0:3:0:0:3)
              

Figure 3: Reference Mobility Architecture

5.1.1. Bridged Traffic Flow: L2 Overlay use

Bridged traffic is encapsulated using the L2 overlay. This section provides an example of the unicast packet flow and the control plane operations when in the topology shown in Figure 1, the End-Device 2 in site B communicates with the End-Device 3 in site C. In this case we assume that End Device 2, knows the MAC address of End-Device 3 (e.g., learned through ARP).

5.1.2. L2 Mobility Flow

The support to L2 mobility covers the requirements to allow an end-host to move from a given site to another and maintain correspondence with the rest of end-hosts that are connected to the same L2 domain (e.g. extended VLAN). This support MUST ensure convergence of L2 forwarding (MAC based) from the old location to the new one, when the host completes its move.

The update of the ITR map-caches when EIDs move MAY be achieved using Data Driven SMRs or the Publish/Subscribe mechanisms defined in [I-D.ietf-lisp-pubsub]. The following two sections are sequence descriptions of the packet flow when End-Device 2 in the reference figure roams to site C, which is extending its own subnet network.

5.1.2.1. L2 Mobility Flow using Data Driven SMRs

The following is a sequence description of the packet flow when End-Device 2 in the reference figure roams to site C. This sequence uses Data Driven SMRs to trigger the updates of the ITR map-caches.

5.1.2.2. L2 Mobility Flow using Publish/Subscribe mechanisms

When Publish/Subscribe ([I-D.ietf-lisp-pubsub]) mechanisms are used, the flow of signaling to achieve EID mobility is modified. In this case, when an End-Device connected via an ITR establishes communication with a mobile EID-prefix, the ITR will issue a Map-Request for the mobile End-device. Following the Mapping Request Subscribe Procedures defined in [I-D.ietf-lisp-pubsub], the Map-request will be issued with the N-bit set on the EID-Record so that the ITR is notified of any RLOC-set changes for the mobile EID-prefix.

The following is a sequence description of the packet flow when End-Device 2 in the reference figure roams to site C. This sequence leverages Publish/Subscribe mechanisms to update the ITR map-caches.

5.2. Implementation Considerations

5.2.1. L2 Segmentation

As with L3 overlays, LISP support of L2 segmentation is structured around the propagation and use of Instance-IDs, and handled as part of the EID in control plane operations. The encoding is described in [RFC8060] and its use in [RFC8111]. Instance-IDs are unique to a Mapping System and MAY be used to identify the overlay type (e.g., L2 or L3 overlay).

An Instance-ID can be used for L2 overlay segmentation. An important aspect of L2 segmentation is the mapping of VLANs to IIDs. In this case a Bridge Domain (which is the L2 equivalent to a VRF as a forwarding context) maps to an IID, a VLAN-ID may map 1:1 to a bridge domain or different VLAN-IDs on different ports may map to a common Bridge Domain, which in turn maps to an IID in the L2 overlay. When ethernet traffic is double tagged, usually the outer 802.1Q tag will be mapped to a bridge domain on a per port basis, and the inner 802.1Q tag will remain part of the payload to be handled by the overlay. The IID should therefore be able to carry ethernet traffic with or without an 802.1Q header. A port may also be configured as a trunk and we may chose to take the encapsulated traffic and map it to a single IID in order to multiplex traffic from multiple VLANs on a single IID. These are all examples of local operations that could be effected on VLANs in order to map them to IIDs, they are provided as examples and are not exhaustive.

5.2.2. L2 Database-Mappings

When an end-host is attached or detected in an ETR that provides L2-overlay services, a database Mapping is registered to the mapping system with the following structure:

The registration of these EIDs MUST follow the LCAF format as defined in [RFC8060] and as illustrated in the following figure:

+-> +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|   |                          Record TTL                           |
|   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
E   | Locator Count | EID mask-len  | ACT |A|      Reserved         |
I   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
D   | Rsvd  |  Map-Version Number   |         AFI = 16387           |
|   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
r   |    Rsvd1     |     Flags      |   Type = 2    | IID mask-len  |
e   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
c   |             4 + n             |        Instance-ID...         |
o   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
r   |       ...Instance-ID          |        EID-AFI = 6            |
d   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|   |                   Layer-2 MAC Address  ...                    |
|   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|  /| ... Layer-2 MAC Address       |    Priority   |    Weight     |
| L +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| o |  M Priority   |   M Weight    |        Unused Flags     |L|p|R|
| c +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | |           Loc-AFI             |     Locator....               |
| | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|  \|       ...   Locator
+-> +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
                

The L2 EID record follows the structure as described in [RFC6830].

5.2.3. Interface to the LISP Mapping System

The interface between the xTRs and the Mapping System is described in [RFC6833] and this document follows the specification as described there. When available, the registrations MAY be implemented over a reliable transport.

In order to support system convergence after mobility, when the Map-Server receives a new registration for a specific EID, it MUST send a Map-Notify to the entire RLOC set in the site that last registered this same EID. This Map-Notify is used to track moved-away state of L2 EIDs as described in Section 5.2.4.

5.2.4. SMR support to track L2 hosts that moved away

In order to support mobility, an ETR SHALL maintain a list of EID records for which it has to generate a SMR message whenever it receives traffic with that EID as destination.

The particular strategy to maintain a SMR table is implementation specific. In essence the table SHOULD provide support for the following:

5.2.5. L2 Broadcast and Multicast traffic

Broadcast and Multicast traffic on the L2-overlay is supported by either replicated unicast, or underlay (RLOC) multicast.

xTRs that offer L2 overlay services and are part of the same Instance-ID join a common Multicast Group. When required, this group allows ITRs to send traffic that needs to be replicated (flooded) to all ETRs participating in the L2-overlay (e.g., broadcast traffic within a subnet). When the core network (RLOC space) supports native multicast ETRs participating in the L2-overlay join a (*,G) group associated to the Instance-ID.

When multicast is not available in the core network, each xTR that is part of the same instance-ID SHOULD register a (S,G) entry to the mapping system using the procedures described in [RFC8378], where S is 0000-0000-0000/0 and G is ffff-ffff-ffff/48. This strategy allows and ITR to know which ETRs are part of the L2 overlay and it can head-end replicate traffic to.

Following the same case, when multicast is not available in the core network, the procedures in [RFC8378] can be used to ensure proper distribution of link-local multicast traffic across xTRs participating in the L2 overlay. In such case, the xTRs SHOULD join a (S,G) entry with S being 0000-0000-0000/0 and where G is 0100-0000-0000/8.

5.2.6. L2 Unknown Unicast Support

An ITR attempts to resolve MAC destination misses through the Mapping System. When the destination host remains undiscovered the destination is considered an Unknown Unicast.

A Map-Server SHOULD respond to a Map-Request for an undiscovered host with a Negative Map-Reply with action "Native Forward". Alternatively the action "Drop" may be used in order to suppress Unknown Unicast forwarding.

An ITR that receives a Negative Map-Reply with Action "Native Forward" will handle traffic for the undiscovered host as L2 Broadcast traffic and will be unicast replicated or flooded using underlay multicast to the rest of ETRs in the Layer-2 overlay.

Upon discovery of a previously unknown unicast MAC EID, a data triggered SMR for the discovered EID should be sent by the discovery ETR back to the ITRs that are flooding the unknown unicast traffic. This would allow ITRs to refresh their caches and stop flooding unknown unicast traffic as necessary.

5.2.7. Time-to-Live Handling in Data-Plane

When using a L2 overlay and the encapsulated traffic is IP traffic, the Time-to-Live value of the inner IP header MUST remain unmodified during encapsulation and decapsulation. Network hops traversed as part of the L2 overlay SHOULD be hidden to tools like traceroute and applications that require direct L2 connectivity.

5.3. Support to ARP resolution through Mapping System

5.3.1. Map-Server support to ARP resolution: Packet Flow

A large majority of applications are IP based and, as a consequence, end systems are typically provisioned with IP addresses as well as MAC addresses.

In this case, to limit the flooding of ARP traffic and reduce the use of multicast in the RLOC network, the LISP mapping system MAY be used to support ARP resolution at the ITR.

In order to provide this support, ETRs handle and register an additional EID-to-RLOC mapping as follows,

There is a dedicated IID used for the registration of the ARP/ND related mappings. Thus, a system with L2 and L3 overlays as well as ARP/ND mappings would have three IIDs at play. In the spirit of providing clarity, we will refer to those IIDs as L2-IID, L3-IID and ARP-IID respectively. By using these definitions, we do not intend to coin new terminology, nor is there anything special about those IIDs that would make them differ from the generic definition of an IID. The types of mappings expected in such a system are summarized below:

The following packet flow sequence describes the use of the LISP Mapping System to support ARP resolution for hosts residing in a subnet that is extended to multiple sites. Using Figure 1, End-Device 2 tries to find the MAC address of End-Device 3. Note that both have IP addresses within the same subnet:

This example shows how LISP, by replacing dynamic data plane learning (such as Flood-and-Learn) can reduce the use of multicast in the underlay network.

Note that ARP resolution using the Mapping System is a stateful operation on the ITR. The source IP,MAC tuple coming from the ARP request have to be stored to generate the ARP-reply when the Map-Reply is received.

Note that the ITR SHOULD cache the ARP entry. In that case future ARP-requests can be handled without sending additional Map-Requests.

5.3.2. ARP registrations: MAC as a locator record

When an end-host is attached or detected in an ETR that provides L2-overlay services and also supports ARP resolution using the LISP control-plane, an additional mapping entry is registered to the mapping system:

In this case both the xTRs and the Mapping System MUST support an EID-to-RLOC mapping where the MAC address is set as a locator record.

In order to guarantee compatibility with current implementations of xTRs, the MAC locator record SHALL be encoded following the AFI-List LCAF Type defined in [RFC8060]. This option would also allow adding additional attributes to the locator record, while maintaining compatibility with legacy devices.

This mapping is registered with the Mapping System using the following EID record structure,

+-> +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|   |                          Record TTL                           |
|   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
E   | Locator Count | EID mask-len  | ACT |A|      Reserved         |
I   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
D   | Rsvd  |  Map-Version Number   |         AFI = 16387           |
|   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
r   |    Rsvd1     |     Flags      |   Type = 2    | IID mask-len  |
e   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
c   |             4 + n             |        Instance-ID...         |
o   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
r   |       ...Instance-ID          |        EID-AFI = 1 or 2       |
d   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|   |                    EID-Prefix (IPv4 or IPv6)                  |
|   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|  /|    Priority   |    Weight     |  M Priority   |   M Weight    |
| | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| M |        Unused Flags     |L|p|R|        AFI = 16387            |
| A +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| C |    Rsvd1     |     Flags      |   Type = 1    |     Rsvd2     |
| | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | |             2 + 6             |             AFI = 6           |
| | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| | |                    Layer-2 MAC Address  ...                   |
| | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|  \| ... Layer-2 MAC Address       |
+-> +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+.
              

An EID record with a locator record that carries a MAC address follows the same structure as described in [RFC6830]. However, some fields of the EID record and the locator record require special consideration:

Locator Count:
This value SHOULD be set to 1.
Instance-ID:
This is the IID used to provide segmentation of the L2-overlays, L3 overlays and ARP tables.
Priority and Weight:
IP to MAC bindings are one to one bindings. An ETR SHOULD not register more than one MAC address in the locator record together with an IP based EID. The Priority of the MAC address record is set to 255. The Weight value SHOULD be ignored and the recommendation is to set it to 0.
L bit:
This bit of the locator record SHOULD only be set to 1 when an ETR is registering its own IP to MAC binding.
p bit:
This bit of the locator record SHOULD be set to 0.
R bit:
This bit of the locator record SHOULD be set to 0.

Note that an IP EID record that carries a MAC address in the locator record, SHALL be registered with the Proxy Map-Reply bit set.

5.3.3. Implementation Considerations

While ARP support through the LISP Mapping System fits the LISP Control-Plane there are a series of considerations to take into account when providing this feature:

6. Optional Deployment Models

The support of an integrated L2 and L3 overlay solution takes multiple architectural design options, that depend on the specific requirements of the deployment environment. While some of the previous describe specific packet flows and solutions based on the recommended solution, this section documents OPTIONAL design considerations that differ from the recommended one but that MAY be required on alternative deployment environments.

6.1. IP Forwarding of Intra-subnet Traffic

As pointed out at the beginning the recommended selection of the L2 and L3 overlays is not the only one possible. In fact, providing L2 extension to some cloud platforms is not always possible and subnets need to be extended using the L3 overlay.

In order to send all IP traffic (intra- and inter-subnet) through the L3 overlay the solution MUST change the ARP resolution process described in Section 5.3.1 to the following one (we follow again Figure 1 to drive the example. End-Device 2 queries about End-Device 3):

It is also important to note that using this strategy to extend subnets through the L3 overlay but still keeping the L2 overlay for the rest of traffic MAY lead to flow asymmetries. This MAY be the case in deployments that filter Gratuitous ARPs, or when moved hosts continue using actual L2 information collected before a migration.

6.2. Data-plane Encapsulation Options

The LISP control-plane offers independence from the data-plane encapsulation. Any encapsulation format that can carry a 24-bit instance-ID can be used to provide the unified overlay.

Common encapsulation formats that can be used are [VXLAN-GPE], [LISP] and [VXLAN]:

7. IANA Considerations

This memo includes no request to IANA.

8. Acknowledgements

This draft builds on top of two expired drafts that introduced the concept of LISP L2/L3 overlays (draft-maino-nvo3-lisp-cp and draft-hertoghs-nvo3-lisp-controlplane-unified). Many thanks to the combined authors of those drafts, that SHOULD be considered main contributors of this draft as well: Vina Ermagan, Dino Farinacci, Yves Hertoghs, Luigi Iannone, Fabio Maino, Victor Moreno, and Michael Smith.

9. References

9.1. Normative References

[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997.
[RFC6830] Farinacci, D., Fuller, V., Meyer, D. and D. Lewis, "The Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP)", RFC 6830, DOI 10.17487/RFC6830, January 2013.
[RFC6831] Farinacci, D., Meyer, D., Zwiebel, J. and S. Venaas, "The Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) for Multicast Environments", RFC 6831, DOI 10.17487/RFC6831, January 2013.
[RFC6833] Fuller, V. and D. Farinacci, "Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) Map-Server Interface", RFC 6833, DOI 10.17487/RFC6833, January 2013.
[RFC7348] Mahalingam, M., Dutt, D., Duda, K., Agarwal, P., Kreeger, L., Sridhar, T., Bursell, M. and C. Wright, "Virtual eXtensible Local Area Network (VXLAN): A Framework for Overlaying Virtualized Layer 2 Networks over Layer 3 Networks", RFC 7348, DOI 10.17487/RFC7348, August 2014.
[RFC8060] Farinacci, D., Meyer, D. and J. Snijders, "LISP Canonical Address Format (LCAF)", RFC 8060, DOI 10.17487/RFC8060, February 2017.
[RFC8111] Fuller, V., Lewis, D., Ermagan, V., Jain, A. and A. Smirnov, "Locator/ID Separation Protocol Delegated Database Tree (LISP-DDT)", RFC 8111, DOI 10.17487/RFC8111, May 2017.
[RFC8378] Moreno, V. and D. Farinacci, "Signal-Free Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) Multicast", RFC 8378, DOI 10.17487/RFC8378, May 2018.

9.2. Informative References

[I-D.ietf-lisp-gpe] Maino, F., Lemon, J., Agarwal, P., Lewis, D. and M. Smith, "LISP Generic Protocol Extension", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-lisp-gpe-06, September 2018.
[I-D.ietf-lisp-pubsub] Rodriguez-Natal, A., Ermagan, V., Leong, J., Maino, F., Cabellos-Aparicio, A., Barkai, S., Farinacci, D., Boucadair, M., Jacquenet, C. and S. Secci, "Publish/Subscribe Functionality for LISP", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-lisp-pubsub-02, November 2018.
[I-D.ietf-lisp-vpn] Moreno, V. and D. Farinacci, "LISP Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-lisp-vpn-02, May 2018.
[I-D.kouvelas-lisp-map-server-reliable-transport] Cassar, C., Leong, J., Lewis, D., Kouvelas, I. and J. Arango, "LISP Map Server Reliable Transport", Internet-Draft draft-kouvelas-lisp-map-server-reliable-transport-04, September 2017.

Authors' Addresses

Marc Portoles Comeras Cisco Systems 170 Tasman Drive San Jose, CA 95134 USA EMail: mportole@cisco.com
Vrushali Ashtaputre Cisco Systems 170 Tasman Drive San Jose, CA 95134 USA EMail: vrushali@cisco.com
Victor Moreno Cisco Systems 170 Tasman Drive San Jose, CA 95134 USA EMail: vimoreno@cisco.com
Fabio Maino Cisco Systems 170 Tasman Drive San Jose, CA 95134 USA EMail: fmaino@cisco.com
Dino Farinacci lispers.net San Jose, CA USA EMail: farinacci@gmail.com