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Path: sparky!uunet!pipex!bnr.co.uk!uknet!edcastle!spider!raft.spider.co.uk!gerry From: gerry@spider.co.uk (Gerry Meyer) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.isdn Subject: Internet Draft-Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP Message-ID: <1992Dec21.130326.28020@spider.co.uk> Date: 21 Dec 92 13:03:26 GMT Sender: news@spider.co.uk (USENET News System) Organization: Spider Systems Limited, Edinburgh, UK Lines: 1686 Nntp-Posting-Host: orbweb.spider.co.uk Through Spider System's experiences of producing routers for the European Wide Area Network market we have found the impracticality of running standard routing protocols on X.25 PDN's and ISDN networks. Hence the following Internet Draft proposing a modification to RIP... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Network Working Group G.M. Meyer Internet Draft Spider Systems Expires May 14, 1993 November 1992 Routing over Demand Circuits on Wide Area Networks - RIP Status of this Memo This memo is being distributed to members of the Internet community in order to solicit their reactions to the proposals contained in it. This document is an Internet Draft. Internet Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its Areas, and its Working Groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet Drafts. Internet Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months. Internet Drafts may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is not appropriate to use Internet Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as a ``working draft'' or ``work in progress.'' Please check the 1id-abstracts.txt listing contained in the internet-drafts Shadow Directories on nic.ddn.mil, nnsc.nsf.net, nic.nordu.net, ftp.nisc.sri.com, or munnari.oz.au to learn the current status of any Internet Draft. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Abstract Running routing protocols on connection oriented Public Data Networks, for example X.25 packet switched networks or ISDN, can be expensive if the standard form of periodic broadcasting of routing information is adhered to. The high cost arises because a connection must to all practical intents and purposes be kept open to every destination to which routing information is to be sent, whether or not it is being used to carry user data. Routing information may also fail to be propagated if the number of destinations to which the routing information is to be sent exceeds the number of channels available to the router on the Wide Area Network (WAN). This memo defines a generalized modification which can be applied to Bellman-Ford (or distance vector) algorithm information broadcasting protocols, for example IP RIP, Netware RIP or Netware SAP, which overcomes the limitations of the traditional methods described above. The routing protocols support a purely triggered update mechanism on Meyer [Page 1] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 demand circuits on WANs. The protocols run UNMODIFIED on LANs or fixed point-to-point links. Routing information is sent on the WAN when the routing database is modified by new routing information received from another interface. When this happens a (triggered) update is sent to a list of destinations on other WAN interfaces. Because routing protocols are datagram based they are not guaranteed to be received by the peer router on the WAN. An acknowledgement and retransmission mechanism is provided to ensure that routing updates are received. To avoid unnecessary load when a connection to a destination is not currently available (possibly because of channel starvation) the circuit manager advises the routing applications on the reachability and non-reachability of destinations on the WAN. Acknowledgements I would like to thank colleagues at Spider, in particular Tom Daniel and Richard Edmonstone, for discussions and comments which helped to clarify this memo. Conventions The following language conventions are used in the items of specification in this document: o MUST -- the item is an absolute requirement of the specification. MUST is only used where it is actually required for interopera- tion, not to try to impose a particular method on implementors where not required for interoperability. o SHOULD -- the item should be followed for all but exceptional cir- cumstances. o MAY or optional -- the item is truly optional and may be followed or ignored according to the needs of the implementor. The words "should" and "may" are also used, in lower case, in their more ordinary senses. Meyer [Page 2] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ........................................... 4 2. Running a routing Protocol on the WAN .................. 6 2.1. Overview ......................................... 6 2.2. Presumption of Reachability ...................... 8 2.3. WAN Router list .................................. 8 2.4. Triggered Updates and Unreliable Delivery ........ 9 2.5. Guaranteeing delivery of Routing Updates ......... 9 2.6. The Routing Database ............................. 10 2.7. New Packet Types ................................. 11 2.8. Fragmentation .................................... 12 2.9. Preventing Queue Overload ........................ 13 3. IP Routing Information Protocol Version 1 .............. 14 4. IP Routing Information Protocol Version 2 .............. 17 5. Netware Routing Information Protocol ................... 18 6. Netware Service Advertising Protocol ................... 22 7. Timers ................................................. 26 7.1. Database Timer ................................... 26 7.2. Retransmission Timer ............................. 27 7.3. Reassembly Timer ................................. 27 8. Security Considerations ................................ 28 Meyer [Page 3] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 1. Introduction Routers are used on connection oriented networks, such as X.25 packet switched networks and ISDN networks, to allow potential connectivity to a large number of remote destinations. Circuits on the Wide Area Network (WAN) are established on demand and are relinquished when the traffic subsides. Depending on the application, the connection between any two sites for user data might actually be short and rela- tively infrequent. Practical experience of routing shows that periodic 'broadcasting' of routing updates on the WAN is unsatisfactory on several counts: o Running a routing protocol like RIP is expensive if the standard form of transmitting routing information to EVERY remote router every 30 seconds is adhered to. The more routers there are wish- ing to exchange information the worse the problem. If there are N routers on the WAN, N * (N - 1) routing updates are sent over N * (N - 1)/2 connections every broadcast period. The cost arises because a circuit must be kept open to each desti- nation to which routing information is to be sent. Routing updates are sufficiently frequent, that little benefit is obtain- able on most networks, by attempting to set up a call purely for the duration of the routing update (there are often minimum call charges, where the first data is 'free'). The option of reducing the 'broadcast' frequency, while reducing the cost, would make the system less responsive. o The number of networks to be connected (N) on the WAN can easily exceed the number of simultaneous calls (M) which the interface can support. If this happens the routing 'broadcast' will only reach M next hop routers, and (N - M) next hop routers will not receive the routing update. A basic rate ISDN interface can support 2 simultaneous calls, and even the number of logical channels most users subscribe to on an X.25 network is not large. There is no fundamental reason why routing protocols should restrict the user to run routing between so few sites. o Since there is no broadcast facility on the WAN, 'broadcasting' of routing information actually consists of sending the updates separately to all known locations. This means that N routing updates are queued for transmission on the WAN link (in addition to any data which might be queued). Meyer [Page 4] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 Routers take a pragmatic view on queuing datagrams for the WAN. If the queue length gets too long, so that datagrams at the end of the queue would take too long be transmitted in a reasonable time (say 1 to 2 seconds) the router may start discarding them. On an X.25 network, with slow line speeds (perhaps 9600 baud), it may not take too many routing updates to fulfill this condition if the link is also actively being used to carry user data. This memo addresses all the above problems. The approach taken is to modify the routing protocols so as to send information on the WAN only when there has been an update to the routing database OR a change in the reachability of the remote desti- nation is indicated by the task which manages connections on the WAN. Because datagrams are not guaranteed to get through, an acknowledge- ment and retransmission system is required. This memo describes the modifications required for Bellman-Ford (or distance vector) algo- rithm information broadcasting protocols, such as IP RIP [1,2], Netware RIP [3,5] or Netware SAP [3,6]. A separate working draft will cover modifications to shortest path algorithm protocols such as OSPF [8] and IS-IS [9,10] to support the triggered update mechanism. Meyer [Page 5] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 2. Running Routing Protocols on the WAN 2.1 Overview Multiprotocol routers are used on connection oriented Wide Area Net- works (WANs), such as X.25 packet switched networks and ISDN net- works, to interconnect Local Area Networks (LANs). By using the mul- tiplexing properties of the underlying WAN technology, several LANs can be interconnected simultaneously through a single physical inter- face on the router. A circuit manager provides an interface between the connectionless network layers (IP, IPX, CLNP etc) and the connection oriented WAN (X.25 or ISDN). Figure 1 shows a schematic representative stack showing the relationship between routing protocols, the network layers, the circuit manager and the connection oriented WAN. -------------- --------- --------- ------------- | RIP | | RIP | | SAP | | IS-IS | -------------- --------- --------- ------------- | | | | -------------- | | | | UDP | | | | -------------- | | | | | | | -------------- ---------------- ------------- | IP | | IPX | | CLNP | -------------- ---------------- ------------- | | | --------------------------------------------------------------- | Circuit Manager | --------------------------------------------------------------- |||||||||| |||||||||| --------------------------- | Connection Oriented | | WAN stack | --------------------------- A WAN circuit manager will support a variety of network layer pro- tocols, on its upper interface. On its lower interface, it may support one or more subnetworks. A subnetwork may support a number of Virtual Circuits. Figure 1. Representative Multiprotocol Router stack Meyer [Page 6] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 The router has a translation table which relates the network layer address of the next hop router to the physical address used to estab- lish a Virtual Circuit (VC) to it. Datagrams may be encapsulated in a header to distinguish the network layer protocol [11]. The circuit manager takes datagrams from the connectionless network layer protocols and (if one is not currently available) opens a VC to the next hop router. A VC can carry all traffic between two end- point routers for a given network layer protocol (or with appropriate encapsulation all network layer protocols). An idle timer is used to close the VC when the datagrams stop arriving at the circuit manager. Running routing protocols on the WAN has traditionally consisted of making small modifications to the methods used on LANs. Where rout- ing information would be broadcast periodically on a LAN interface, it is converted to a series of periodic updates sent to a list of addresses on the WAN. This memo targets two areas: o Eliminating the overkill inherent in periodic transmission of routing updates. o Overcoming the bandwith limitations on the WAN: the number of simultaneous VCs to next hop routers and restricted data throughput which the WAN link can support. The first of these is overcome by transmitting routing updates (called routing responses) only when required: o Firstly when a specific request for a routing update has been received. o Secondly when the routing database is modified by new information from another interface. o Thirdly when the circuit manager indicates that a destination has changed from an unreachable (circuit down) to a reachable (circuit up) state. Because of the inherent unreliability of a datagram based system, both routing requests and routing responses require acknowledgement, and retransmission in the event of NOT receiving an acknowledgement. To overcome the bandwidth limitations the routing application can perform a form of self-imposed flow control, to spread routing updates out over a period of time. Meyer [Page 7] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 2.2 Presumption of Reachability If a routing update is received from a next hop router on the WAN, entries in the update are thereafter always considered to be reach- able, unless proven otherwise: o If in the normal course of routing datagrams, the circuit manager fails to establish a connection to the next hop router, it noti- fies the routing application that the next hop router is not reachable through an internal circuit down message. The routing application then goes through a process of timing out database entries to make them unreachable in the routing sense. o If the circuit manager is subsequently able to establish a connec- tion to the next hop router, it will notify the routing applica- tion that the next hop router is reachable through an internal circuit up message. The routing application will then exchange messages with the next hop router so as to re-prime their respective routing databases with up to date information. Handling of circuit up and circuit down messages requires that the circuit manager takes responsibility for establishing (or re- establishing) the connection in the event of a next hop router being unreachable. A description of the processes the circuit manager must adopt to perform this task is outside the scope of this memo. 2.3 WAN Router list The routing task MAY be provided with a list of routers to send rout- ing updates to on the WAN. It will comprise of the logical addresses of next hop routers for which the router has a logical to physical address mapping. Entries in the list SHOULD be categorized (on a per-peer basis) as follows: o Running the standard routing protocol, namely transmitting updates periodically using packet formats used in LAN broadcasts. This option is supported to allow interoperability with existing routing implementations, and might also be appropriate if some of the destinations are using Permanent Virtual Circuits (PVCs) rather than SVCs. o Running the triggered update routing protocol proposed in this memo. Meyer [Page 8] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 Omitting an address from either of these categories is equivalent to not running the routing protocols. If routing packets arrive from a destination not supporting the appropriate variant they MUST be discarded. 2.4 Triggered Updates and Unreliable Delivery If triggered update information is sent to next hop routers on the WAN only once it can fail to arrive for one of the following reasons: o A free VC resource might not be available, because of a restricted number of X.25 logical channels or ISDN B-channels. o The transmit queue might be full - requiring the datagram to be discarded. o The VC might be pre-empted (in favour of establishing a VC to another next hop router) while the datagram is in a queue, result- ing in the queue being flushed and the datagram discarded. o In cases where the method of transport is not guaranteed, for example with PPP where there is no acknowledgement and retransmis- sion of HDLC frames, a corrupted frame will result in the loss of the datagram. 2.5 Guaranteeing delivery of Routing Updates To guarantee delivery of routing updates on the WAN an acknowledge- ment and retransmission scheme MUST be used: o Send a routing update to a next hop router on the WAN. o The other router updates its routing database with the new infor- mation, and responds with an acknowledgement packet. The original router receives the acknowledgement. o Otherwise the original router retransmits the update until an ack- nowledgement is received. In cases where the routing database is modified before an ack- nowledgement is received a new routing update with an updated sequence number is sent out. If an acknowledgement for the old routing update is received it is ignored. The above mechanism caters for cases where the datagram is lost because of a frame error or is discarded because of an over-full Meyer [Page 9] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 queue. The routing update and acknowledgment will eventually both get through. In cases where the circuit manager cannot establish a connection, a mechanism is provided to allow the circuit manager to inform the routing task of the failure to make a connection so that it can suppress retransmissions until a circuit becomes available. 2.6 The Routing Database A requirement of using triggered updates for propagating routing information is that NO routing information must ever get LOST or DIS- CARDED. The routing database MUST keep all alternative routing information it learns from any routing updates, so that if the best route(s) disap- pear an alternative route (if available) can replace it as the new best route. If the amount of memory this consumes is problematic, this can be re-interpreted as: o The routing application must keep SOME alternative routing infor- mation, and be aware of what has been discarded so that it can request the discarded information before its effect is noticed. Entries in the routing database can either be permanent or temporary. Entries learned from broadcasts on LANs are temporary. They will expire if not periodically refreshed by further broadcasts. Entries learned from a triggered response on the WAN are 'permanent'. They MUST not time out in the normal course of events. The entries state MUST be changed to 'temporary' by the following events: o The arrival of a routing update containing the entry set to unreachable. The normal hold down timer MUST be started, after which the entry disappears from the routing database. o The arrival of a routing update with the entry absent. If the hold down timer is not already running, the entry MUST be set to unreachable and the hold down timer started. o A message sent from the circuit manager, to indicate that it Meyer [Page 10] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 failed to make a connection in normal running. The routing table MUST be scanned for all routes via that next hop router. Aging of these routing entries MUST commence (which for IP RIP runs for 180 seconds). If that period runs out, the entry MUST be set to unreachable, and the hold down timer started. If the hold down timer expires the entry disappears from the routing database. o If the interface goes down, the circuit manager should indicate that all circuits on that interface have gone down. 2.7 New Packet Types To support triggered updates, three new packet types MUST be sup- ported: TRIGGERED REQUEST A request to the responding system to send all appropriate elements in its routing database. A triggered request is retransmitted at periodic intervals until a triggered response is received. If a response is not received after a number of retransmissions, the desti- nation should be marked as NOT supporting the mechanism and no further routing messages should be sent to that destina- tion. Routing requests are transmitted in the following cir- cumstances: o Firstly when the router is powered on. o Secondly when the circuit manager indicates a destina- tion has been in an unreachable (circuit down) state for an extended period and changes to a reachable (circuit up) state. o Thirdly in the event of all routing update fragments failing to arrive within a set period. o It may also send triggered requests at other times to compensate for discarding non-optimal routing informa- tion. Meyer [Page 11] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 TRIGGERED RESPONSE A message containing all appropriate elements of the rout- ing database, An appropriate element is an entry NOT learned from the interface to which the routing information is being sent out. This is known as "split horizon". A triggered response message may be sent in response to a triggered request, or it may be an update message issued because of a change in the routing database. A triggered response is retransmitted at periodic intervals until a triggered acknowledgement is received. If an ack- nowledgement is not received after a number of retransmis- sions, the destination should be marked as NOT supporting the mechanism and no further routing messages should be sent to that destination. TRIGGERED ACKNOWLEDGEMENT A message sent in response to every triggered response packet received. Before marking the destination as not supporting the mechanism, at least 10 retransmissions (without acknowledgement) should be sent. When a destination is marked as down, routes through it should be marked as unreachable for the duration of a hold down timer before being deleted. If a destination marked as not supporting the mechanism, subsequently sends a valid 'triggered' message, the destination should be marked as supporting the mechanism once more (to allow for the next hop router's configuration being changed). It should be sent a triggered request and a triggered response to obtain and propagate up to date routing information. Triggered response and triggered acknowledgement packets MUST contain additional fields to contain a sequence number, fragment number and number of fragments. 2.8 Fragmentation If a routing update is sufficiently large, the information MUST be fragmented over several triggered response packets: o Each fragment MUST be individually acknowledged with a triggered acknowledgement packet. Meyer [Page 12] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 The sender of the routing update MUST periodically retransmit fragments which have not been acknowledged (or until the destina- tion is marked as not supporting the mechanism). o A router receiving fragments MUST re-assemble them before updating its routing database. o If all fragments are not received within four times the retransmit period, they MUST be discarded. A triggered request packet MUST then be sent to the originator of the routing update. On receiving the triggered request packet, the originator of the routing update MUST retransmit ALL fragments. o If a fragment with an updated sequence number is received, ALL fragments with the earlier sequence number MUST be discarded. 2.9 Preventing Queue Overload In order to prevent too many routing messages being queued at a WAN interface, the routing task MAY operate a scheme whereby 'broadcast- ing' of a triggered request or triggered response to a WAN interface is staggered. All routing requests or routing responses are not sent to ALL next hop routers on the interface in a single batch: o The routing task should limit the number of outstanding triggered request messages for which a triggered response has not been received. o The routing task should limit the number of outstanding triggered response messages for which a triggered acknowledgement has not been received. As outstanding messages are appropriately acknowledged, further mes- sages can be sent out to other next hop routers, until all next hop routers have been sent the message and have acknowledged it. The maximum number of outstanding messages transmitted without ack- nowledgement is a function of the link speed and the number of other routing protocols operating the triggered update mechanism. Messages should always be acknowledged immediately (even if it causes the limit to be exceeded), since a connection is almost certainly available. This has the potential benefit of allowing the VC to close sooner (on its idle timer). Meyer [Page 13] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 3. IP Routing Information Protocol Version 1 This section should be read in conjunction with reference [1]. IP RIP is a UDP-based protocol which generally sends and receives datagrams on UDP port number 520. To support the mechanism outlined in this proposal the packet format for RIP version 1 [1] is modified as shown in Figure 2. Every Routing Information Protocol datagram contains the following: COMMAND Commands supported in RIP Version 1 are: request (1), response (2), traceon (3), traceoff (4), SUN reserved (5). The fields sequence number, fragment number and number of fragments MUST NOT be included in packets with these com- mand values. The following new commands (with values in brackets) are required: TRIGGERED REQUEST (6) A request for the responding system to send all of its routing database. Only the first 4 octets of the packet format shown in figure 2 are sent, since all routing information is implied by this request type. TRIGGERED RESPONSE (7) A message containing all of the sender's routing data- base, excluding those entries learned from the inter- face to which the routing information is being sent. This message may be sent in response to a triggered request, or it may be an update message resulting from a change in the routing database. TRIGGERED ACKNOWLEDGEMENT (8) A message sent in response to every triggered response packet received. Only the first 8 octets of the packet format shown in figure 2 are sent. Meyer [Page 14] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 0 1 2 3 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | command (1) | version (1) | must be zero (2) | +---------------+---------------+-------------------------------+ The following new fields are inserted for some commands 0 1 2 3 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | sequence number (2) | fragment (1) |no of frags (1)| +-------------------------------+-------------------------------+ Followed by up to 25 routing entries (each 20 octets) 0 1 2 3 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | address family identifier (2) | must be zero (2) | +-------------------------------+-------------------------------+ | IP address (4) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | must be zero (4) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | must be zero (4) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | metric (4) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ . . The format of a IP RIP datagram in octets, with each tick mark representing one bit. All fields are in network order. The four octets: sequence number (2), fragment number (1) and number of fragments (1) are not present in the original RIP specif- ication. They are only present if command takes the values 7 or 8. Figure 2. IP Routing Information Protocol packet format Meyer [Page 15] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 VERSION In this instance Version 1. SEQUENCE NUMBER This is a new field inserted if command takes the values 7 or 8. The sequence number MUST be incremented every time updated information is sent out on a WAN. The sequence number wraps round at 65535. When a triggered acknowledgement is sent the sequence number is set to the same value as the triggered response packet being acknowledged. FRAGMENT NUMBER The fragment number is one for the first fragment of a routing update, and is incremented for each subsequent fragment. A fragment can contain up to 25 routing entries. When a triggered acknowledgement is sent the sequence number is set to the same value as the triggered response packet being acknowledged. The sequence number MUST be identical over fragments. NUMBER OF FRAGMENTS This indicates the number of packets required to complete the routing update. A triggered acknowledgement should return the value obtained from the triggered response packet. ADDRESS FAMILY IDENTIFIER The address family identifier for IP is 2. For triggered response packets the rest of the datagram contains a list of destinations, with information about each. Each entry in this list contains a destination network or host, and the metric for it. The packet format is intended to allow RIP to carry routing information for several different protocols, identifiable by the family identifier. The IP address is the usual Internet address, stored as 4 octets in network order. The metric field must contain a value between 1 and Meyer [Page 16] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 15 inclusive, specifying the current metric for the destination, or the value 16 (representing 'infinity'), which indicates that the des- tination is not reachable. Each route sent by a router supersedes any previous route to the same destination from the same router. The maximum datagram size is 508 octets, excluding UDP and IP headers. 4. IP Routing Information Protocol Version 2 An enhancement to IP RIP to include subnetting is currently around as a working draft [2]. This section only describes differences from that memo. The triggered update mechanism can be supported by including the triggered request (6), triggered response (7) and triggered ack- nowledgement (8) commands described in the previous section. The sequence number, fragment number and number of fragments fields are included in triggered response and triggered acknowledgement com- mands. The triggered request packet should also contain the 4 extra octets corresponding to the sequence number, fragment number and number of fragments fields - but set to zero. Because additional security information is included in RIP Version 2 packets, this MUST be appended to the triggered request and triggered acknowledgement packets, as well as being present in the triggered response packet. The version number becomes 2. Other aspects of packet layout follow reference [2]. Meyer [Page 17] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 5. Netware Routing Information Protocol This section should be read in conjunction with references [3,4,5], since it only describes differences from these specifications. Netware [3] is the trade name of Novell Research's protocols for com- puter communication which are derived and extended from Xerox Network System's (XNS) protocols [7]. Netware supports a mechanism that allows routers on an internetwork to exchange routing information using the Routing Information Proto- col (RIP) which runs over the Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) pro- tocol [4] using socket number 453h. Netware RIP and IP RIP share a common heritage, in that they are both based on XNS RIP, but there is some divergence, mostly at the packet format level to reflect the differing addressing schemes. The triggered update mechanism can be applied to Netware RIP. To support the mechanism outlined in this proposal the packet format for Netware RIP [3,5] is modified as shown in Figure 3. Every datagram contains the following: RIP OPERATION Operations supported in standard Netware RIP are: request (1) and response (2). The fields sequence number, fragment number and number of fragments MUST NOT be included in packets with these opera- tion values. The following new operations are required (with values chosen to be the same as for IP RIP commands): TRIGGERED REQUEST (6) A request for the responding system to send all of its routing database. Only the first 2 octets of the packet format shown in figure 3 are sent, since all routing information is implied by this request type. Meyer [Page 18] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 0 1 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | operation (2) | +---------------+---------------+ The following new fields are inserted for some operations 0 1 2 3 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | sequence number (2) | fragment (1) |no of frags (1)| +-------------------------------+-------------------------------+ Followed by up to 50 routing entries (each 8 octets) 0 1 2 3 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | network number (4) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | number of hops (2) | number of ticks (2) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ . . The format of a Netware RIP datagram in octets, with each tick mark representing one bit. All fields are in network order. The four octets: sequence number (2), fragment number (1) and number of fragments (1) are not present in the original RIP specif- ication. They are only present if operation takes the values 7 or 8. Figure 3. Netware Routing Information Protocol packet format Meyer [Page 19] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 TRIGGERED RESPONSE (7) A message containing all of the sender's routing data- base, excluding those entries learned from the inter- face to which the routing information is being sent. This message may be sent in response to a triggered request, or it may be an update message resulting from a change in the routing database. TRIGGERED ACKNOWLEDGEMENT (8) A message sent in response to every triggered response packet received. Only the first 6 octets of the packet format shown in figure 3 are sent. SEQUENCE NUMBER This is a new field inserted if operation takes the values 7 or 8. The sequence number MUST be incremented every time updated information is sent out on a WAN. The sequence number wraps round at 65535. When a triggered acknowledgement is sent the sequence number is set to the same value as the triggered response packet being acknowledged. FRAGMENT NUMBER The fragment number is one for the first fragment of a routing update, and is incremented for each subsequent fragment. A fragment can contain up to 50 routing entries. When a triggered acknowledgement is sent the fragment number is set to the same value as the triggered response packet being acknowledged. The sequence number MUST be identical over fragments. NUMBER OF FRAGMENTS This indicates the number of fragments required to complete the routing update. Meyer [Page 20] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 A triggered acknowledgement should return the value obtained from the triggered response packet. For triggered response packets the rest of the datagram contains a list of networks, with information about each. Each entry in this list contains a destination network, and the number of hops and number of ticks for each. The maximum datagram size is 406 octets, excluding the IPX header (a further 30 octets). Meyer [Page 21] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 6. Netware Service Advertising Protocol This section should be read in conjunction with references [3,4,6], since it only describes differences from these specifications. Netware [3] also supports a mechanism that allows servers on an internetwork to advertise their services by name and type using the Service Advertising Protocol (SAP) [6] which runs over the Internet- work Packet Exchange (IPX) protocol [4] using socket number 452h. SAP operates on similar principals to running RIP. Routers act as SAP agents, collecting service information from different networks and relay it to interested parties. To support the triggered update mechanism outlined in this proposal the packet format for Netware SAP [3,6] is modified as shown in Fig- ure 4. Every Service Advertising Protocol datagram contains the following: SAP OPERATION Operations supported in standard Netware SAP are: general service query (1), general service response (2), nearest service query (3) and nearest service response (4). The fields sequence number, fragment number and number of fragments MUST NOT be included in packets with these opera- tion values. The following new operations are required: TRIGGERED GENERAL SERVICE QUERY (6) A request for the responding system to send the identi- ties of all servers of all types. Only the first 2 octets of the packet format shown in figure 4 are sent, since all service types are implied by this request type. Meyer [Page 22] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 0 1 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | operation (2) | +---------------+---------------+ The following new fields are inserted for some operations 0 1 2 3 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | sequence number (2) | fragment (1) |no of frags (1)| +-------------------------------+-------------------------------+ Followed by up to 8 service entries (each 66 octets) 0 1 2 3 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Service Type (4) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | Service Name (48) | + + . | . | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | Network Address (4) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | Node Address (6) | + +-------------------------------+ | | Socket Address (2) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | Hops to Server (2) | +-------------------------------+ . . The format of a Netware SAP datagram in octets, with each tick mark representing one bit. All fields are in network order. The four octets: sequence number (2), fragment number (1) and number of fragments (1) are not present in the original SAP specif- ication. They are only present if operation takes the values 7 or 8. Figure 4. Netware Service Advertising Protocol packet format Meyer [Page 23] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 TRIGGERED GENERAL SERVICE RESPONSE (7) A message containing all of the sender's services table, excluding those entries learned from the inter- face to which the routing information is being sent out. This message may be sent in response to a triggered general service query, or it may be an update message resulting from a change in the routing database. TRIGGERED GENERAL SERVICE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT (8) A message sent in response to every triggered general service response packet received. Only the first 6 octets of the packet format shown in figure 4 are sent. SEQUENCE NUMBER This is a new field inserted if operation takes the values 7 or 8. The sequence number MUST be incremented every time updated information is sent out on a WAN. The sequence number wraps round at 65535. When a triggered general service acknowledgement is sent the sequence number is set to the same value as the trig- gered general service response packet being acknowledged. FRAGMENT NUMBER The fragment number is one for the first fragment of a triggered general service response update, and is incre- mented for each subsequent fragment. A fragment can con- tain up to 8 service entries. When a triggered general service acknowledgement is sent, the fragment number is set to the same value as the trig- gered general service response packet being acknowledged. The sequence number MUST be identical over fragments. NUMBER OF FRAGMENTS This indicates the number of packets required to complete Meyer [Page 24] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 the service update. A triggered general service acknowledgement should return the value obtained from the triggered general service response packet. For triggered general service response packets the rest of the datagram contains a list of services, with information about each. Each entry in this list contains the service type, service name, full address (network, node and socket), and the number of hops to the server. The maximum datagram size is 534 octets, excluding the IPX header (a further 30 octets). Meyer [Page 25] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 7. Timers A number of timers must be supported to handle the triggered update mechanism: o Database timer. o Retransmission timer. o Reassembly timer. In this section appropriate timer values for IP RIP are suggested. For other routing protocols, only the database timer should need to take different values. The database timer values are chosen to match equivalent timer operation for using the protocol on a LAN. The behavior of a routing entry when a timer is running becomes indistin- guishable from a routing entry learned from a broadcast update. 7.1 Database Timer Routes learned by a triggered response command (7) are normally con- sidered to be permanent - that is they do NOT time out unless activated by one of the following events: o If the circuit manager indicates that a next hop router cannot be contacted, all routes learned from that next hop router should start timing out as if they had (just) been learned from a conven- tional response command (2). Namely each route exists while the database entry timer is running and is advertised on other interfaces as if still present. The route is then advertised as unreachable while a further hold down timer is allowed to expire, at which point the entry is deleted. If the circuit manager indicates that the next hop router can be contacted while the database entry timer is running, the routes are reinstated as permanent entries. If the database entry timer has expired and the circuit manager indicates that the next hop router is reachable, the routing pro- tocol must issue a triggered request. The routes will be rein- stated on the basis of any triggered response packet(s) received. o If a triggered response packet is received in which a route is marked unreachable, the hold down timer MUST be started and the entry is advertised as unreachable on other interfaces. On expiry of the hold down timer the entry is deleted. Meyer [Page 26] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 If a triggered response packet is received in which an existing route is ABSENT, the hold down timer MUST also be started and the entry is advertised as unreachable on other interfaces. On expiry of the hold down timer the entry is deleted. For IP RIP the hold down timer should always run for 120 seconds, to be consistent with RIP usage on broadcast networks. The database entry timer should by default run for 180 seconds. The network can be made more responsive by reducing the database entry timer value. However making this timer too short can lead to network instabili- ties. The duration of the database entry timer allows a period of grace in which contention for network resources can be resolved by the circuit manager. 7.2 Retransmission Timer The routing task runs a retransmission timer: o When a triggered request is sent it will be retransmitted periodi- cally while a triggered response packet is not received. o When a triggered response is sent a note of the sequence number and fragment number(s) of the routing update is kept. Fragments will be retransmitted at periodic intervals while a triggered acknowledgement packet is not received for the appropri- ate fragment. With call set up time on the WAN being of the order of a second, a value of 5 seconds for the retransmission timer is appropriate. If the circuit manager indicates that the next hop router is unreach- able, the retransmission is suppressed until the circuit manager indicates that the next hop router is reachable once more. Retransmissions should not run indefinitely, since a lack of response (when a circuit is up) is most likely caused by incorrect configura- tion of the next hop router. 7.3 Reassembly Timer When a router receives a triggered response update it MUST ack- nowledge each fragment. If the routing update is fragmented over more than one packet, the receiving router MUST store the fragments until ALL fragments are received. On receiving the first fragment a timer should be started. If all fragments of the routing update are not received within that period Meyer [Page 27] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 they are discarded - and a triggered request is sent back to the ori- ginator (with retransmissions if necessary). The originator MUST then resend ALL triggered response fragments The reassembly timer should be set to four times the value of the retransmission timer. With a suggested retransmission timer value of 5 seconds, the suggested reassembly timer value SHOULD be 20 seconds. Implementations MAY allow the reassembly timer and retransmission timer to be configurable (in the 1:4 ratio), but interoperability will be compromised on WANs where all participating routers DO NOT support the same values for these timers. Fragments MUST also be discarded if a new fragment with a different sequence number is received. A triggered request MUST not be sent in this instance. Meyer [Page 28] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 8. Security Considerations Security is provided my a number of aspects: o The circuit manager is required to be provided with a list of phy- sical addresses to enable it to establish a call to the next hop router on an X.25 SVC or ISDN B-channel. The circuit manager MUST only allow incoming calls to be accepted from the same well defined list of routers. The circuit manager MAY enforce additional security by not accepting incoming calls. Elsewhere in the system there will be a set of logical address and physical address tuples to enable the network protocols to run over the correct circuit. This may be a lookup table, or in some instances there may be an algorithmic conversion between the two addresses. o The routing (or service advertising) task MUST be provided with a list of logical addresses to which triggered updates are to be sent on the WAN. The list MAY be a subset of the list of next hop routers maintained by the circuit manager. There MAY also be a separate list of next hop routers to which traditional broadcasts of routing (or service advertising) updates should be sent. Next hop routers omitted from either list are assumed to be not participating in routing (or service advertis- ing) updates. The list (or lists) doubles as a list of routers from which rout- ing updates are allowed to be received from the WAN. Any routing information received from a router not in the appropriate list MUST be discarded. References [1] Hedrick. C., "Routing Information Protocol", RFC 1058, Rutgers University, June 1988. [2] Malkin. G., "RIP Version 2 - Carrying Additional Information", Internet Draft, Xylogics, July 1992. [3] Novell Incorporated., "Netware Application Notes", 1990. [4] Novell Incorporated., "Netware V2.1 Internetwork Packet Exchange Protocol (IPX) with Asynchronous Event Scheduler (AES)", Febru- ary 1988 Document Revision 1.00. Meyer [Page 29] Internet Draft Routing over Demand Circuits - RIP November 1992 [5] Novell Incorporated., "Netware V2.1 Routing Information Protocol (RIP)", February 1988 Document Revision 1.00. [6] Novell Incorporated., "Netware V2.1 Service Advertising Protocol (SAP)", February 1988 Document Revision 1.00. [7] Xerox Corporation., "Internet Transport Protocols", Xerox System Integration Standard XSIS 028112, December 1981. [8] Moy, J. "OSPF version 2", RFC 1247, Proteon Inc, July 1991. [9] ISO/DIS 10589, "Intermediate system to Intermediate system Intra-Domain routing exchange protocol for use in conjunction with the protocol for providing the connectionless-mode network service (ISO 8473)" [10] ISO 8473, Protocol for providing the connectionless-mode network service", RFC 994. [11] Malis. A., Robinson. D., and Ullmann. R., "Multiprotocol Inter- connect on X.25 and ISDN in the Packet Mode", RFC 1356, BBN Com- munications, Computervision Systems Integration and Process Software Corporation. Author's Address: Gerry Meyer Spider Systems Stanwell Street Edinburgh EH5 6NG Scotland, UK Phone: (UK) 31 554 9424 Fax: (UK) 31 554 0649 Email: gerry@spider.co.uk Meyer [Page 30]