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RE: [PWE3] status signalling of MPLS PW state



Didn't notice the change from 16 bits to 4 octets for
pw status (ignore the Hex comment) for
status. Though I think a 4 octets is a large field for a status,
why not reserve some octets in that field (something
like vendor specifics, etc)...
 
Hamid.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ould-Brahim, Hamid [CAR:1A00:EXCH]
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 11:41 AM
To: 'Andrew G. Malis'; Luca Martini
Cc: pwe3@ietf.org
Subject: RE: [PWE3] status signalling of MPLS PW state

[Catching up on my emails...]
 
Nice to see we are making progress on an integrated
approach. Some comments on the proposal...

> >
> >The format of the PW Status TLV is:
> >.DS 0 0
>   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
> +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
> |1|0|     PW Status (0x0???)    |            Length             |
> +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
> |                         Status Code                           |
> +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
> .DE
>
 
Since the U bit in LDP notification message is set
to 1 then the U bit in Status TLV MUST be set to 0. In other
words an LDP notify message having a U bit set to 1
MUST include the status message. Maybe this is
not desirable for
all notify messages having U bit set. The problem is the notification
message includes the PW FEC TLV and that TLV is always
present (no U bit) in notification message below.
In other words there is no point in including the PW FEC in notify
message without including the status TLV (therefore the status TLV U bit
must be set to 0). If we want to keep the Status TLV
optional, then we need to fix PW FEC (I don't expect that
is acceptable...). More on this item,  see the end of this
email...

> Where status is a 4 octet bit field:
>
> .nf
> 0x00000000 - Pseudo Wire forwarding ( clear all failures )
> 0x00000001 - Pseudo Wire Not Forwarding
> 0x00000002 - Local Customer-facing PW ( ingress ) Receive Fault
> 0x00000004 - Local Customer-facing PW ( egress ) Transmit Fault
> 0x00000008 - Local PSN-facing PW ( ingress ) Receive Fault
> 0x00000010 - Local PSN-facing PW ( egress ) Transmit Fault
> .En
>
  Since these are codepoints in Hex the above should be
  rewritten to:
 
  0x0000 - Pseudo Wire forwarding ( clear all failures )
  0x0001 - Pseudo Wire Not Forwarding
  0x0002 - Local Customer-facing PW ( ingress ) Receive Fault
  0x0004 - Local Customer-facing PW ( egress ) Transmit Fault
  0x0008 - Local PSN-facing PW ( ingress ) Receive Fault
  0x0010 - Local PSN-facing PW ( egress ) Transmit Fault
  
> >The above status codes can be logically combined to indicate
> more then a
> >single failure at once. Each fault can be cleared by sending
> an appropriate
> >status message with the respective bit cleared. The presence
> of the lowest
> >bit (PW Not Forwarding) acts only as a generic failure
> indication when there
> >is a link-down event for which none of the other bits apply.
 
   The status should always be combined when multiple
   errors happen in an incremental way. For example at a given
   time a PE sends local Customer-facing ingress fault and later on
   the transmit fails, the sender PE should then update the previous
   status sent and not sent a separate status with only the latter
   problem reported.
   This is to avoid that a new status for another problem
   clears the problem for the previous status. Same thing when
   new problems happen and other problems are cleared. The receiving
   PE should screen *ALL* the status bits (for updating the
   status of already reported problems), except for 0x001.
   It is important to note that when this codepoint is sent
   the receiving PE should *ignore* all the other bit (and not
   treat them as clear).
 
   Since this is bitfield style approach, depending what new status
   will be added, it may happen that not all combinations
   are meaningful.
 
   I am not as well clear on 0x001/not forwarding status.
   0x0002 and 0x0010 means the PE not forwarding as well. Reading
   from the above, 0x001 is only applicable to these two
   codepoints (it is really a summary of these two codepoints).
   If we want it to be a summary of all the codepoints
   then we should call it something like "Down/Disabled/General
   problem".  

> >
> >The Status TLV is transported to the remote PW peer via the
> LDP notification
> >message. The format of the Notification Message is:
> >
> >.DS 0 0
> >  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
> >+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
> >|1|   Notification   (0x0001)   |      Message Length           |
> >+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
> >|                           Message ID                          |
> >+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
> >|                           PW FEC TLV                          |
> >+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
> >|                         PW Status TLV                         |
> >+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
> >.DE
> >
 
The LDP spec says that when U bit is set to 1 in the LDP
notification message:
 
"U bit
   Should be 0 when the Status TLV is sent in a Notification message.
   Should be 1 when the Status TLV is sent in some other message."
 
In the PW status case, the normal notification for basic LDP is not carried
in some other message (still carried within the LDP notification message).
I assume this needs clarification with MPLS WG such that LDP implementations
that have U bit set will not interpret that status will be received
in some other messages (maybe this is not an issue, a clarification/checking
is always good in case of ambiguity...).
Now if a PE doesn't understand status TLV and that PE receives
a notification message with U bit set and PW FEC& status
included, should that PE ignores the LDP notification? Note that
I expect basic LDP implementation to understand notify message
but they may not understand the status TLV. In that case, the
status TLV and PW FEC must always be present together, if
a status TLV is ignored then PW FEC is as well ignored. This
area needs clarification.

> >The PW FEC TLV SHOULD not include the interface parameters
> as they are
> >ignored in the context of this message. When a PE's
> CE-facing interface
> >encounters an error, use of the new message allows the PE to
> send a single
> >Status message, using a PW FEC TLV with only the group ID
> set, to denote
> >this change in status for all affected PW connections.
> >
 
As I indicated in my previous emails, this solution works only
with PWid FEC not with generalized ID FEC (at least for the
Group ID). I suggest we have either:
 
a) status TLV/Notify specified for both PW FECs, or
b) a different one for Generalized ID FEC...
 
In either case, the text should clarify this...
Note that for l2vpn, only VPLS service (vkompella proposal) is using
the PWid FEC, the other proposals will not take advantage
of this change (until this proposal works with generalized
ID FEC)...
 
Hamid.

> >
>
>