Re: [v6ops] Flow Label Load Balancing

Fernando Gont <fernando@gont.com.ar> Fri, 27 November 2020 20:52 UTC

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To: Alexander Azimov <a.e.azimov@gmail.com>, Tom Herbert <tom@herbertland.com>
Cc: IPv6 Operations <v6ops@ietf.org>, tcpm <tcpm@ietf.org>
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From: Fernando Gont <fernando@gont.com.ar>
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Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2020 17:52:14 -0300
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Subject: Re: [v6ops] Flow Label Load Balancing
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On 26/11/20 06:34, Alexander Azimov wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
> 
> We started discussing an incorrect default behavior, and Tom has already 
> confirmed that it will be fixed.
> 
> Later the thread turned into an argument if the flow label can be 
> changed during connection/flow lifetime according to current RFC 
> documents, though these documents can be updated. This looks a bit weird 
> for me because I always thought that it is the IETF community's 
> responsibility to document proper solutions. If something undocumented 
> but worthy happens in the industry - IETF should catch up. So, I would 
> like to get back to the discussion of reasons and their safety.
> 
> The general idea of changing the routing path upon network 
> outage/degradation looks obvious. Getting kind of source-based routing 
> can significantly reduce the reaction time and improve end-user 
> experience. The flow label has a perfect match here: transparent for the 
> application, set by the source, not part of 5-tuple, while it can be 
> used in the load balancing. 

If you have two links, then, upon change of the FL, you have 50% change 
that the path will be different -- not good.  What would you do if the 
failure continues? -- keep changing the FL?



> Let say that the flow label is a hash of values from the IP packet's 
> 5-tuple and random number. Then
> 
> 1. In the case of SYN or SYN-ACK retransmission flow label SHOULD be 
> recalculated.

This one MUST be switched of by default, too. (along with #2).


> 2. In the case of RTO timeout expiration in the established TCP session 
> the flow label MAY be recalculated. This setting MUST be switched off by 
> default.
> 3. Otherwise flow label SHOULD be preserved unchanged.
> 
> The first point stands for redirecting connection from the degraded path 
> before the connection is established, and it looks safe. The second one 
> can also improve performance if it is set on the server-side. Please 
> comment if you see security flaws in such a design.

At the very least, one should analyze the case where in #1, a packet 
gets delayed, you change the FL and retransmit, and finally you get a 
response to the original packet (and/or to both packets).

Thanks,
-- 
Fernando Gont
e-mail: fernando@gont.com.ar || fgont@si6networks.com
PGP Fingerprint: 7809 84F5 322E 45C7 F1C9 3945 96EE A9EF D076 FFF1