Subject: IPv6 Router Alert Option for LSP Ping/Trace

From: "Nobo Akiya (nobo)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2014 20:12:09 +0000

Hi 6MANers,

One commonly deployed MPLS OAM tool is LSP Ping/Traceroute (RFC4379).

http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc4379/?include_text=1

One of the mandatory requirement from the draft is that Router Alert option MUST be set in the IP header.

For IPv4, value zero(0) is used.

https://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-routeralert-values/ipv4-routeralert-values.xhtml

For IPv6 ... as vendors are starting to implement MPLS on IPv6 control plane, we have realized that there is no generic IPv6 Router Alert code point which can be used by LSP Ping/Traceroute.

http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv6-routeralert-values/ipv6-routeralert-values.xhtml

1. There's no need for a generic code point in IPv6 Router Alert option.
2. There's probably no need for a generic OAM code point in IPv6 Router Alert option.
3. There is, however, a need for a code point for LSP Ping/Traceroute, if the tool is to comply with RFC4379.

I spoke to authors of RFC4379, and was suggested that (3) is the way to go.

But before going ahead to write a small draft for this code point allocation (intended for MPLS WG as it updates RFC4379), I wanted to see if 6MANers had any comments/questions/concerns with this.

Appreciate your time in advance.

-Nobo