idnits 2.17.1 draft-ietf-babel-applicability-01.txt: Checking boilerplate required by RFC 5378 and the IETF Trust (see https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info): ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- No issues found here. Checking nits according to https://www.ietf.org/id-info/1id-guidelines.txt: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- No issues found here. Checking nits according to https://www.ietf.org/id-info/checklist : ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- No issues found here. Miscellaneous warnings: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- == The copyright year in the IETF Trust and authors Copyright Line does not match the current year -- The document date (January 5, 2017) is 2661 days in the past. Is this intentional? Checking references for intended status: Informational ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 6126 (Obsoleted by RFC 8966) -- Obsolete informational reference (is this intentional?): RFC 7298 (Obsoleted by RFC 8967) Summary: 0 errors (**), 0 flaws (~~), 1 warning (==), 3 comments (--). Run idnits with the --verbose option for more detailed information about the items above. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Network Working Group J. Chroboczek 3 Internet-Draft IRIF, University of Paris-Diderot 4 Intended status: Informational January 5, 2017 5 Expires: July 9, 2017 7 Applicability of the Babel routing protocol 8 draft-ietf-babel-applicability-01 10 Abstract 12 This document describes some application areas where the Babel 13 routing protocol (RFC 6126) has been found to be useful. 15 Status of This Memo 17 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the 18 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. 20 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 21 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute 22 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- 23 Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 25 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months 26 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 27 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference 28 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." 30 This Internet-Draft will expire on July 9, 2017. 32 Copyright Notice 34 Copyright (c) 2017 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the 35 document authors. All rights reserved. 37 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal 38 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents 39 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of 40 publication of this document. Please review these documents 41 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect 42 to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must 43 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of 44 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as 45 described in the Simplified BSD License. 47 Table of Contents 49 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 50 2. Existing successful deployments of Babel . . . . . . . . . . 2 51 2.1. Hybrid networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 52 2.2. Large scale overlay networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 53 2.3. Pure mesh networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 54 2.4. Small unmanaged networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 55 3. Application Areas where Babel is not recommended . . . . . . 3 56 3.1. Large, stable networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 57 3.2. Low-power and constrained networks . . . . . . . . . . . 3 58 4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 59 5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 60 6. Informational References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 61 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 63 1. Introduction 65 Babel [RFC6126] is a loop-avoiding distance-vector routing protocol 66 that aims to be robust in a variety of environments. 68 This document describes a few areas where Babel has been found to be 69 useful. It is structured as follows. In Section 2, we describe 70 application areas where Babel has been successfully deployed, and in 71 Section 3, we describe application areas where deployment of Babel is 72 not encouraged because better alternatives are available. 74 2. Existing successful deployments of Babel 76 2.1. Hybrid networks 78 Babel is able to deal with both classical, prefix-based ("Internet- 79 style") routing and flat ("mesh-style") routing over non-transitive 80 link technologies. Because of that, it has seen a number of 81 succesful deployments in medium-sized hybrid networks, networks that 82 combine a wired, aggregated backbone with meshy wireless bits at the 83 edges. No other routing protocol known to us is similarly robust and 84 efficient in this particular type of network. 86 2.2. Large scale overlay networks 88 The algorithms used by Babel (loop avoidance, hysteresis, delayed 89 updates) allow it to remain stable and efficient in the presence of 90 unstable metrics, even in the presence of a feedback loop. For this 91 reason, it has been successfully deployed in large scale overlay 92 networks, built out of thousands of tunnels spanning continents, 93 where it is used with a metric computed from links' latencies 94 [DELAY-BASED]. 96 2.3. Pure mesh networks 98 Babel has been repeatedly shown to be competitive with dedicated 99 routing protocols for wireless mesh networks [REAL-WORLD] 100 [BRIDGING-LAYERS]. While this particular niche is already served by 101 a number of mature protocols, notably OLSR-ETX and OLSRv2 [RFC7181] 102 equipped with the DAT metric [RFC7779], Babel has seen a moderate 103 amount of successful deployment in pure mesh networks. 105 2.4. Small unmanaged networks 107 Because of its small size and simple configuration, Babel has been 108 deployed in small, unmanaged networks (three to five routers), where 109 it serves as a more efficient replacement for RIP [RFC2453], with the 110 significant advantage of having good support for wireless links. 112 3. Application Areas where Babel is not recommended 114 There exist application areas where Babel is a poor fit. 116 3.1. Large, stable networks 118 Babel relies on periodic updates, and even in a stable network, it 119 generates a constant amount of background traffic. In large, stable, 120 well-administered networks, it is preferable to use protocols layered 121 above a reliable transport mechanism, such as OSPF [RFC5340], EIGRP 122 [RFC7868] or IS-IS [RFC1195]. 124 3.2. Low-power and constrained networks 126 Babel relies on periodic updates and maintains within each node an 127 amount of state that is proportional to the number of reachable 128 destinations. In networks containing resource-constrained or 129 exteremely low-power nodes, it may be preferable to use a protocol 130 that limits the amount of state maintained and propagated; we have 131 heard of AODVv2 [AODVv2], RPL [RFC6550] and LOADng [LOADng]. 133 4. IANA Considerations 135 This document requires no IANA actions. [RFC Editor: please remove 136 this section before publication.] 138 5. Security Considerations 140 As in all distance-vector routing protocols, a Babel speaker receives 141 reachability information from its neighbours, which by default is 142 trusted. A number of attacks are possible if this information is not 143 suitably protected, either by a lower-layer mechanism or by an 144 extension to the protocol itself (e.g. [RFC7298]). 146 Implementors and deployers must be aware of the insecure nature of 147 the base protocol, and must take suitable measures to ensure that the 148 protocol is deployed as securely as required by the application. 150 6. Informational References 152 [AODVv2] Perkins, C., Ratliff, S., Dowdell, J., Steenbrink, L., and 153 V. Mercieca, "Ad Hoc On-demand Distance Vector Version 2 154 (AODVv2) Routing", draft-ietf-manet-aodvv2-16 (work in 155 progress), May 2016. 157 [BRIDGING-LAYERS] 158 Murray, D., Dixon, M., and T. Koziniec, "An Experimental 159 Comparison of Routing Protocols in Multi Hop Ad Hoc 160 Networks", Proc. ATNAC 2010, 2010. 162 [DELAY-BASED] 163 Jonglez, B. and J. Chroboczek, "A delay-based routing 164 metric", March 2014, . 166 [LOADng] Clausen, T., Verdiere, A., Yi, J., Niktash, A., Igarashi, 167 Y., Satoh, H., Herberg, U., Lavenu, C., Lys, T., and J. 168 Dean, "The Lightweight On-demand Ad hoc Distance-vector 169 Routing Protocol - Next Generation (LOADng)", draft- 170 clausen-lln-loadng-15 (work in progress), January 2017. 172 [REAL-WORLD] 173 Abolhasan, M., Hagelstein, B., and J. Wang, "Real-world 174 performance of current proactive multi-hop mesh 175 protocols", Asia-Pacific Conference on Communication 2009, 176 2009. 178 [RFC1195] Callon, R., "Use of OSI IS-IS for routing in TCP/IP and 179 dual environments", RFC 1195, December 1990. 181 [RFC2453] Malkin, G., "RIP Version 2", STD 56, RFC 2453, November 182 1998. 184 [RFC5340] Coltun, R., Ferguson, D., Moy, J., and A. Lindem, "OSPF 185 for IPv6", RFC 5340, July 2008. 187 [RFC6126] Chroboczek, J., "The Babel Routing Protocol", RFC 6126, 188 February 2011. 190 [RFC6550] Winter, T., Ed., Thubert, P., Ed., Brandt, A., Hui, J., 191 Kelsey, R., Levis, P., Pister, K., Struik, R., Vasseur, 192 JP., and R. Alexander, "RPL: IPv6 Routing Protocol for 193 Low-Power and Lossy Networks", RFC 6550, March 2012. 195 [RFC7181] Clausen, T., Dearlove, C., Jacquet, P., and U. Herberg, 196 "The Optimized Link State Routing Protocol Version 2", 197 RFC 7181, April 2014. 199 [RFC7298] Ovsienko, D., "Babel Hashed Message Authentication Code 200 (HMAC) Cryptographic Authentication", RFC 7298, 201 DOI 10.17487/RFC7298, July 2014, 202 . 204 [RFC7779] Rogge, H. and E. Baccelli, "Directional Airtime Metric 205 Based on Packet Sequence Numbers for Optimized Link State 206 Routing Version 2 (OLSRv2)", RFC 7779, 207 DOI 10.17487/RFC7779, April 2016. 209 [RFC7868] Savage, D., Ng, J., Moore, S., Slice, D., Paluch, P., and 210 R. White, "Cisco's Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing 211 Protocol (EIGRP)", RFC 7868, DOI 10.17487/RFC7868, May 212 2016. 214 Author's Address 216 Juliusz Chroboczek 217 IRIF, University of Paris-Diderot 218 Case 7014 219 75205 Paris Cedex 13 220 France 222 Email: jch@irif.fr