Re: [bess] [Softwires] Regarding the Next Hop Network Address coding for IPv4 VPN over IPv6 Core in RFC5549

Hi Ian,

Thanks for your response!

The opinion I have collected is:
Per RFC4634, the IPv4-VPN routes shall carry the V4 Next-hop, beginning with an 8-octet RD and ending with a 4-octet IPv4 address.
Per RFC4659, the IPv6-VPN routes shall carry the V6 Next-hop, beginning with an 8-octet RD and ending with a 16-octet IPv6 address.
When we start to implement the IPv4 VPN over IPv6 Core,  it is a natural way to encode the IPv4-VPN routes with VPN-IPv6 next-hop (i.e. beginning with an 8-octet RD and ending with a 16-octet IPv6 address) .

I believe this is not just a minority opinion, and some of the current implementations are also doing this way.

I hope that the WGs can give a consistent opinion on this issue and avoid interoperability problem in the future.

Thanks,
Shunwan

From: ianfarrer@gmx.com [mailto:ianfarrer@gmx.com]
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2019 8:08 PM
To: Zhuangshunwan <zhuangshunwan@huawei.com>
Cc: bess@ietf.org; softwires@ietf.org
Subject: Re: [Softwires] Regarding the Next Hop Network Address coding for IPv4 VPN over IPv6 Core in RFC5549

Hi,

My reading of Section 3 of RFC5549 is that the v6 next-hop is encoded as an IPv6 address:

   The BGP speaker receiving the advertisement MUST use the Length of
   Next Hop Address field to determine which network-layer protocol the
   next hop address belongs to.  When the Length of Next Hop Address
   field is equal to 16 or 32, the next hop address is of type IPv6.

It’s also worth noting that RFC4659 Section 2 states:

A VPN-IPv6 address is a 24-octet quantity, beginning with an 8-octet
   "Route Distinguisher" (RD) and ending with a 16-octet IPv6 address.

So, not 16 or 32 bytes.

Thanks,
Ian

On 22. Jun 2019, at 09:59, Zhuangshunwan <zhuangshunwan@huawei.com<mailto:zhuangshunwan@huawei.com>> wrote:

Dear authors and WGs,

RFC5549 Section 6.2 says:

. 6.2.  IPv4 VPN over IPv6 Core
.
.    The extensions defined in this document may be used for support of
.    IPV4 VPNs over an IPv6 backbone.  In this application, PE routers
.    would advertise VPN-IPv4 NLRI in the MP_REACH_NLRI along with an IPv6
.    Next Hop.
.
.    The MP_REACH_NLRI is encoded with:
.
.    o  AFI = 1
.
.    o  SAFI = 128
.
.    o  Length of Next Hop Network Address = 16 (or 32)
.
.    o  Network Address of Next Hop = IPv6 address of Next Hop
.
.    o  NLRI = IPv4-VPN routes

Regarding IPv4-VPN routes, RFC4634 Section 4.3.2 says:

. 4.3.2.  Route Distribution Among PEs by BGP
[snip]
.    When a PE router distributes a VPN-IPv4 route via BGP, it uses its
.    own address as the "BGP next hop".  This address is encoded as a
.    VPN-IPv4 address with an RD of 0.  ([BGP-MP] requires that the next
.    hop address be in the same address family as the Network Layer
.    Reachability Information (NLRI).)  It also assigns and distributes an
.    MPLS label.  (Essentially, PE routers distribute not VPN-IPv4 routes,
.    but Labeled VPN-IPv4 routes.  Cf. [MPLS-BGP].)  When the PE processes
.    a received packet that has this label at the top of the stack, the PE
.    will pop the stack, and process the packet appropriately.
[snip]

Question:
RFC5549 defines "IPv4 VPN over IPv6 Core", When a PE router distributes a VPN-IPv4 route with an IPv6 Next-Hop via BGP, should the IPv6 Next-Hop be encoded as an VPN-IPv6 address with an RD of 0 ?

Thanks,
Shunwan
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