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Re: [MEXT] weird idea about flow bindings



George Tsirtsis escribió:
Marcelo,

Flow Movement is supposed to work in combination with DSMIPv6. Are you
suggesting the flow bindings should only work for IPv6 traffic then?

no, i ma suggesting that for IPv6 traffic, we should use the flow label
for ipv4, we certainly need to use something else
What i am not buying is that we cannot build a method that relies in the flow label cause IPv4 doesn't support it. In other words, i think it is perfeclty ok to build our reccomended method relying on the usage of the flow label, and define some other hacks to support ipv4.
why would we place such a restriction?

BTW, as far as I know flow label is the least well defined aspect of
IPv6.

but that is not the porblem of IPv6, but it is an inherent problem of defining a flow. The IP layer has a problem cause it is agonstic to flows. So, only the application knows what really a flow is. And IPv6 does provide the means for the application to signal the packets that belong to flow to the IP layer i.e. the flow label. In other words, this is a fundamental problem: IP does not knows about flows and we are trying that MIP which is in the IP layer to discriminate flows. We can either try the IP layer to guess what are the common bits of a flow or we can leverage on the explicit definition of a flow, which is what the flow label is for.
 How does the MN know whether a given CN marks each relevant flow
with a different flow label?
becuase it needs to be compliant with RFC3697?
Also note that flow labels are source
address specific so the flow label by itself is not sufficient.

sure, the flow description is src add, dst add and flow label

Also the binary format
(http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-tsirtsis-mext-binary-filters-00) in
fact allows for a very simple MN implementation if the only thing you
want to classify is flow labels. An implementation could only allow
the flow label to be set resulting in the following flow descriptor:

      0                   1                   2                   3
      0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
     |0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|M| 0000 |       (M)   Flow Label
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
         FB (cont)     |
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Or actually something like the above but including the source address
too (flag C), do me more correct..

If an MN implementation does not want to deal with any of the other
fields, it does not need to implement them.
In that sense multiple compatible implementations are allowed as long
as the HA implements the flow descriptors in their full complexity.

this is my problem. I don't want to impose the HAs to be able to parse arbitrary bits in the application data. I think this is not the right way to do it. I don't think the IP layer should be snooping into application data bits

Finally note that what constitutes a "flow" could be something like
"ALL TCP Traffic", no matter which source address and what flow label
is used. How would the MN be able to say push all TCP to one CoA and
all UDP to another based on your scheme?
well, you can do this based on the protocol field of the IP header
As i stated in my earlier reply to Hesham, i don't have a problem with using any IP header fields as flow descriptors and i may be ok with sing the transport header bits (not what i would preffer, but hey, you can't always get what you want) My problem is with supporting application data bits as part of the flow description, which i really think is broken

Makes sense?

Regards, marcelo


George


On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 10:03 AM, marcelo bagnulo braun
<marcelo at it.uc3m.es> wrote:
George Tsirtsis escribió:
Hi Marcelo, I now understand what you propose better. and it makes more sense than I initially thought.

Two issues, though:

1) this requires the CN to cooperate i.e., make proper use of flow labels.
according to RFC3697:

 To enable Flow Label based classification, source nodes SHOULD assign
 each unrelated transport connection and application data stream to a
 new flow.
...

 To enable applications and transport protocols to define what packets
 constitute a flow, the source node MUST provide means for the
 applications and transport protocols to specify the Flow Label values
 to be used with their flows.  The use of the means to specify Flow
 Label values is subject to appropriate privileges (see section 5.1).
 The source node SHOULD be able to select unused Flow Label values for
 flows not requesting a specific value to be used.

So, yes but node should do this if they expect things to work properly

It is not clear to me that even if all nodes populated the flow label (which I think is not even true)
does anybody has information about the support of RFC3697 in current OSes?

, its use would be universally consistent in a way that would ensure that the setting of the flow label by the CN would be inline with what the MN would like to identify as a flow.
that would determine the granularity of the method
I am not sure the spectrum of choices is so big that this can be a problem
could you think of some very different criteria to define what a flow is that this would be an issue?
2) This does not work for IPv4 traffic.

i don't buy this argument. If we apply this argument, then we could never use the flow label for anything, since it doesn't work for IPv4.

Reagrds, marcelo

Thoughts?
George
On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 8:58 AM, marcelo bagnulo braun <marcelo at it.uc3m.es <mailto:marcelo at it.uc3m.es>> wrote:

   ok, let me try again because it seems i am failing miserably to
   communicate what i want to say (or it simply so broken that people
   cannot believe what they are reading :-)

   Let's try with an example.

   We have the MN who has two CoAs, CoA1 and CoA2.

   The MN has a policy that says that it wants flows from app1 to be
   exchanged through CoA1 (well, the policy would say that they
   should be received by the interfece in which CoA1 is configured)
   and that flows from app2 to be exchanged through CoA2 (same
   comment about the interface applies here)

   In addition, MN has defined CoA1 to be the primary CoA i.e. the
   CoA with highest priority.

   So, we have two different situations. Either the MN starts the
   communication or the CN starts the communication. Actually, this
   is pretty irrelevant, cause the two directions of a connections
   are handled independently. the MN will send packets from app1
   through CoA1 and packets from app2 through CoA2 and it doesn't
   need any additional actions from the HA for outgoing packets.

   Now, the difficulty is with incoming packets. the MN needs to
   inform the HA about which CoA it wants to use to receive any flow.

   Suppose that the HA has no flow bindings for the MN so far.

   So, suppose that the app1 in CN starts a flow to the MN. The HA
   will receive the packet and will send it though the CoA1 cause it
   is the one with higher priority. the MN is happy and there is no
   need to do anything else.

   Suppose now that the app2 in the CN starts a flow to the MN.
   According to RFC3697, the CN SHOULD assign a different flow label
   to the packets belonging to this flow e.g. to this TCP connection.
   Let's assume it is actually a TCP connection to make the example
   more concrete.
   So, app2 opens a TCP connection to MN. CN then sends the TCP SYN
   to the MN.
   The HA receives the TCP SYN and since there is no flow binding
   state for this flow it forwards it through the CoA1 (the one with
   highest priority)
   The MN receives the TCP SYN through CoA1 and it realizes that this
   is not compliant with its flow policy. So, it extracts the flow
   label value, the src address and the dest address and it sends a
   BU to the HA stating that the flow identified by the flow label,
   src add and dest add needs to be bound to the CoA2.
   Simultaneously, it also sends the TCP SYN+ACK back to the CN.
   The CN receives the TCP SYN+ACK and sends the Ack back. the HA
   receives the ACk and will forward it based on the flow binding,
   i.e. through the CoA.

   the result is a method that never looks into higher layer
   information for setting the flows.

   makes sense?

   Regards, marcelo


   Hesham Soliman escribió:


       On 17/05/09 3:04 PM, "marcelo bagnulo braun"
       <marcelo at it.uc3m.es <mailto:marcelo at it.uc3m.es>> wrote:


           Hesham Soliman escribió:

               The flow label should be part of any filter descriptor
               anyway. So at anytime
               A MN can send a BU specifying that packets with flow
               label X should be
               directed to CoA1. I'm not sure how your proposal
               changes/adds to this.

           what i am saying is that you don't need anything else
           other than this


       => see below


               As a general issue, the flow label is unlikely to be
               used for this purpose
               until we resolve it's mutability issues

           what mutability issues are you referring to?
           AFAIU, the flow label is set randomly b the source and
           remains unchanged
           e2e and for the duration of the flow.


       => I thought RFC 3697 talked about it being changed en route
       then changed
       back before it hits the destination. But I just scanned it and
       I can't find
       this text. Maybe it was never included.


                and until it is actually _used_ in
               the API. At least until recently no one was using it.

           why do we need to have it in the API? It is only imporntat
           the the
           source sets it to a random value and keep it unchenged e2e
           and for the
           duration of the flow. I understand that these conditions
           are met today,
           right?


       => But are you saying the src MIP6 module overwrites the
       potential flow
       label set in the API? Because it is possible that an app sets
       the flow
       label. RFC 3697 assumes the presence of an e2e mechanism to
       negotiate the
       flow label. If not then how do you make sure it's always
       unique? And how do
       you make sure that the CN echoes back the same value in the
       flow label?
       And what if the CN initiated the connection?

       Hesham






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