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Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) Using BGP for Auto-Discovery and Signaling
draft-ietf-l2vpn-vpls-bgp-08

The information below is for an old version of the document that is already published as an RFC.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 4761.
Authors Yakov Rekhter , Kireeti Kompella
Last updated 2018-12-20 (Latest revision 2006-06-22)
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Intended RFC status Proposed Standard
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IESG IESG state Became RFC 4761 (Proposed Standard)
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Responsible AD Mark Townsley
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draft-ietf-l2vpn-vpls-bgp-08
Network Working Group                                   K. Kompella, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                           Y. Rekhter, Ed.
Expires: December 23, 2006                              Juniper Networks
                                                            June 21, 2006

   Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) Using BGP for Auto-discovery and
                                Signaling
                       draft-ietf-l2vpn-vpls-bgp-08

Status of this Memo

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    This Internet-Draft will expire on December 23, 2006.

Copyright Notice

    Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).

Abstract

    Virtual Private LAN (Local Area Network) Service (VPLS), also known
    as Transparent LAN Service, and Virtual Private Switched Network
    service, is a useful Service Provider offering.  The service offers a
    Layer 2 Virtual Private Network (VPN); however, in the case of VPLS,
    the customers in the VPN are connected by a multipoint Ethernet LAN,
    in contrast to the usual Layer 2 VPNs, which are point-to-point in
    nature.

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    This document describes the functions required to offer VPLS, a
    mechanism for signaling a VPLS, and rules for forwarding VPLS frames
    across a packet switched network.

Table of Contents

    1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
      1.1.  Scope of this Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
      1.2.  Conventions used in this document  . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
      1.3.  Changes from version 06 to 07  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
      1.4.  Changes from version 05 to 06  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
      1.5.  Changes from version 04 to 05  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
      1.6.  Changes from version 03 to 04  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
    2.  Functional Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
      2.1.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
      2.2.  Assumptions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
      2.3.  Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
    3.  Control Plane  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
      3.1.  Autodiscovery  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
        3.1.1.  Functions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
        3.1.2.  Protocol Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
      3.2.  Signaling  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
        3.2.1.  Label Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
        3.2.2.  VPLS BGP NLRI  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
        3.2.3.  PW Setup and Teardown  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
        3.2.4.  Signaling PE Capabilities  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
      3.3.  BGP VPLS Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
      3.4.  Multi-AS VPLS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
        3.4.1.  a) VPLS-to-VPLS connections at the ASBRs.  . . . . . . 18
        3.4.2.  b) EBGP redistribution of VPLS information between
                ASBRs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
        3.4.3.  c) Multi-hop EBGP redistribution of VPLS
                information between ASes.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
        3.4.4.  Allocation of VE IDs Across Multiple ASes  . . . . . . 20
      3.5.  Multi-homing and Path Selection  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
      3.6.  Hierarchical BGP VPLS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
    4.  Data Plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
      4.1.  Encapsulation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
      4.2.  Forwarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
        4.2.1.  MAC address learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
        4.2.2.  Aging  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
        4.2.3.  Flooding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
        4.2.4.  Broadcast and Multicast  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
        4.2.5.  "Split Horizon" Forwarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
        4.2.6.  Qualified and Unqualified Learning . . . . . . . . . . 26
        4.2.7.  Class of Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
    5.  Deployment Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

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    6.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
    7.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
    8.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
      8.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
      8.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
    Appendix A.  Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
    Appendix B.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
    Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
    Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 37

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1.  Introduction

    Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS), also known as Transparent LAN
    Service, and Virtual Private Switched Network service, is a useful
    service offering.  A Virtual Private LAN appears in (almost) all
    respects as an Ethernet LAN to customers of a Service Provider.
    However, in a VPLS, the customers are not all connected to a single
    LAN; the customers may be spread across a metro or wide area.  In
    essence, a VPLS glues together several individual LANs across a
    packet-switched network to appear and function as a single LAN ([9]).
    This is accomplished by incorporating MAC address learning, flooding
    and forwarding functions in the context of pseudowires that connect
    these individual LANs across the packet-switched network.

    This document details the functions needed to offer VPLS, and then
    goes on to describe a mechanism for the autodiscovery of the
    endpoints of a VPLS as well as for signaling a VPLS.  It also
    describes how VPLS frames are transported over tunnels across a
    packet switched network.  The autodiscovery and signaling mechanism
    uses BGP as the control plane protocol.  This document also briefly
    discusses deployment options, in particular, the notion of decoupling
    functions across devices.

    Alternative approaches include: [14], which allows one to build a
    Layer 2 VPN with Ethernet as the interconnect; and [13]), which
    allows one to set up an Ethernet connection across a packet-switched
    network.  Both of these, however, offer point-to-point Ethernet
    services.  What distinguishes VPLS from the above two is that a VPLS
    offers a multipoint service.  A mechanism for setting up pseudowires
    for VPLS using the Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) is defined in
    [10].

1.1.  Scope of this Document

    This document has four major parts: defining a VPLS functional model;
    defining a control plane for setting up VPLS; defining the data plane
    for VPLS (encapsulation and forwarding of data); and defining various
    deployment options.

    The functional model underlying VPLS is laid out in Section 2.  This
    describes the service being offered, the network components that
    interact to provide the service, and at a high level their
    interactions.

    The control plane described in this document uses Multiprotocol BGP
    [4] to establish VPLS service, i.e., for the autodiscovery of VPLS
    members and for the setup and teardown of the pseudowires that
    constitute a given VPLS instance.  Section 3 focuses on this, and

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    also describes how a VPLS that spans Autonomous System boundaries is
    set up, as well as how multi-homing is handled.  Using BGP as the
    control plane for VPNs is not new (see [14], [6] and [11]): what is
    described here is based on the mechanisms proposed in [6].

    The forwarding plane and the actions that a participating Provider
    Edge (PE) router offering the VPLS service must take is described in
    Section 4.

    In Section 5, the notion of 'decoupled' operation is defined, and the
    interaction of decoupled and non-decoupled PEs is described.
    Decoupling allows for more flexible deployment of VPLS.

1.2.  Conventions used in this document

    The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
    "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
    document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 ([1]).

1.3.  Changes from version 06 to 07

    [NOTE to RFC Editor: this section is to be removed before
    publication.]

    Note: the DISCUSSes below are referred to by id; they can be accessed
    at https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/
    pidtracker.cgi?command=view_comment&id=[ID]

    Updated title of doc to reflect use of BGP.  (Fenner's DISCUSS id
    44901).

    Addressed Russ Housley's DISCUSSes on Figure 6 and Section 6 (ids
    44778 and 44779).

    Addressed Sam Hartman's DISCUSS on the Security Considerations (id
    48432).

    Resolution of Kessens' DISCUSS (id 44870):

    1.  Reference to RFC 4364 has been made normative.  There is no
        normative text in ref draft-kompella-l2vpn-l2vpn -- any such text
        has long since been incorporated directly into this document.

    2.  Description and IANA section updated.

    3.  Expanded section (b) of Section 3.4 to clarify the data plane
        operation for option b.

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    4.  Updated Section 3.5 to clarify that a VPLS customer can run STP
        independent of whether the SP uses multi-homing or not.

    5.  P bit text deleted (left over from an earlier edit.)

    6.  Addressed (hopefully) by Sam's DISCUSS.

    7.  Updated Security Considerations to incorporate the techniques
        described in RFC 4364 for inter-AS VPNs.  Also, added a paragraph
        stating that misconfiguration could cause inter-VPLS connections,
        just as can happen with RFC 4364.

    Updated references; added reference to RFC 4023.

1.4.  Changes from version 05 to 06

    [NOTE to RFC Editor: this section is to be removed before
    publication.]

    Changes in response to GenART review.

    Updated Abstract and Introduction to make it clear that VPLS is an
    Ethernet-based service.

    Added sections on Aging, Broadcast and Multicast, Qualified and
    Unqualified learning and CoS.  Also added a section on scaling the
    BGP control plane.  These were requested for consistency between the
    BGP and LDP VPLS documents.

    Added a section clarifying the concepts of label blocks, why they are
    necessary and how they are used.

    For multi-AS operation, added a short introduction to the three
    options, comparing their usage.

    Lots of clean-up: consistent usage of terms, expansion of acronyms
    before use, references.

1.5.  Changes from version 04 to 05

    [NOTE to RFC Editor: this section is to be removed before
    publication.]

    Updated IANA section to reflect agreement with authors of [11] that
    the two docs should use the same AFI for L2VPN information.

    Addressed comments received from Alex Zinin.  No technical changes,
    but a more complete description to cover the issues that Alex raised:

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    1.  encoding of BGP NEXT_HOP for the new AFI/SAFI is not described

    2.  VE ID, Block offset, Block size, Label base are not described
        anywhere

    3.  no information on how the receiving PE choose the PW label

    4.  section 3.2.2 talks about PE capabilities all of a sudden and
        introduces a L2 Info Community, whose fields and use are not
        described

    Changes to address these:

    1.  Broke up section 3.2.1 into "Concepts" and "PW Setup".

    2.  Expanded section on "Signaling PE Capabilities".

    3.  Added a new section 3.3 "BGP VPLS Operation".

    4.  Minor tweaking, e.g. to fix section number references.

1.6.  Changes from version 03 to 04

    [NOTE to RFC Editor: this section is to be removed before
    publication.]

    Incorporated IDR review comments from Eric Ji, Chaitanya Kodeboyina,
    and Mike Loomis.  Most changes are clarifications and rewording for
    better readability.  The substantive changes are to remove several
    flags from the control field.

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2.  Functional Model

    This will be described with reference to the following figure.

                                                        -----
                                                       /  A1 \
         ----                                     ____CE1     |
        /    \          --------       --------  /    |       |
       |  A2 CE2-      /        \     /        PE1     \     /
        \    /   \    /          \___/          | \     -----
         ----     ---PE2                        |  \
                     |                          |   \   -----
                     | Service Provider Network |    \ /     \
                     |                          |     CE5  A5 |
                     |            ___           |   /  \     /
              |----|  \          /   \         PE4_/    -----
              |u-PE|--PE3       /     \       /
              |----|    --------       -------
       ----  /   |    ----
      /    \/    \   /    \               CE = Customer Edge Device
     |  A3 CE3    --CE4 A4 |              PE = Provider Edge Router
      \    /         \    /               u-PE = Layer 2 Aggregation
       ----           ----                A<n> = Customer site n

    Figure 1: Example of a VPLS

2.1.  Terminology

    Terminology similar to that in [6] is used: a Service Provider (SP)
    network with P (Provider-only) and PE (Provider Edge) routers, and
    customers with CE (Customer Edge) devices.  Here, however, there is
    an additional concept, that of a "u-PE", a Layer 2 PE device used for
    Layer 2 aggregation.  The notion of u-PE is described further in
    Section 5.  PE and u-PE devices are "VPLS-aware", which means that
    they know that a VPLS service is being offered.  We will call these
    VPLS edge devices, which could be either a PE or an u-PE, a VE.

    In contrast, the CE device (which may be owned and operated by either
    the SP or the customer) is VPLS-unaware; as far as the CE is
    concerned, it is connected to the other CEs in the VPLS via a Layer 2
    switched network.  This means that there should be no changes to a CE
    device, either to the hardware or the software, in order to offer
    VPLS.

    A CE device may be connected to a PE or a u-PE via Layer 2 switches
    that are VPLS-unaware.  From a VPLS point of view, such Layer 2
    switches are invisible, and hence will not be discussed further.
    Furthermore, a u-PE may be connected to a PE via Layer 2 and Layer 3

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    devices; this will be discussed further in a later section.

    The term "demultiplexor" refers to an identifier in a data packet
    that identifies both the VPLS to which the packet belongs as well as
    the ingress PE.  In this document, the demultiplexor is an MPLS
    label.

    The term "VPLS" will refer to the service as well as a particular
    instantiation of the service (i.e., an emulated LAN); it should be
    clear from the context which usage is intended.

2.2.  Assumptions

    The Service Provider Network is a packet switched network.  The PEs
    are assumed to be (logically) fully meshed with tunnels over which
    packets that belong to a service (such as VPLS) are encapsulated and
    forwarded.  These tunnels can be IP tunnels, such as GRE, or MPLS
    tunnels, established by RSVP-TE or LDP.  These tunnels are
    established independently of the services offered over them; the
    signaling and establishment of these tunnels are not discussed in
    this document.

    "Flooding" and MAC address "learning" (see Section 4) are an integral
    part of VPLS.  However, these activities are private to an SP device,
    i.e., in the VPLS described below, no SP device requests another SP
    device to flood packets or learn MAC addresses on its behalf.

    All the PEs participating in a VPLS are assumed to be fully meshed in
    the data plane, i.e., there is a bidirectional pseudowire between
    every pair of PEs participating in that VPLS, and thus every
    (ingress) PE can send a VPLS packet to the egress PE(s) directly,
    without the need for an intermediate PE (see Section 4.2.5.)  This
    requires that VPLS PEs are logically fully meshed in the control
    plane so that a PE can send a message to another PE to set up the
    necessary pseudowires.  See Section 3.6 for a discussion on
    alternatives to achieve a logical full mesh in the control plane.

2.3.  Interactions

    VPLS is a "LAN Service" in that CE devices that belong to VPLS V can
    interact through the SP network as if they were connected by a LAN.
    VPLS is "private" in that CE devices that belong to different VPLSs
    cannot interact.  VPLS is "virtual" in that multiple VPLSs can be
    offered over a common packet switched network.

    PE devices interact to "discover" all the other PEs participating in
    the same VPLS, and to exchange demultiplexors.  These interactions
    are control-driven, not data-driven.

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    u-PEs interact with PEs to establish connections with remote PEs or
    u-PEs in the same VPLS.  This interaction is control-driven.

    PE devices can participate simultaneously in both VPLS and IP VPNs
    ([6]).  These are independent services, and the information exchanged
    for each type of service is kept separate as the Network Layer
    Reachability Information (NLRI) used for this exchange have different
    Address Family Identifiers (AFI) and Subsequent Address Family
    Identifiers (SAFI).  Consequently, an implementation MUST maintain a
    separate routing storage for each service.  However, multiple
    services can use the same underlying tunnels; the VPLS or VPN label
    is used to demultiplex the packets belonging to different services.

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3.  Control Plane

    There are two primary functions of the VPLS control plane:
    autodiscovery, and setup and teardown of the pseudowires that
    constitute the VPLS, often called signaling.  Section 3.1 and
    Section 3.2 describe these functions.  Both of these functions are
    accomplished with a single BGP Update advertisement; Section 3.3
    describes how this is done by detailing BGP protocol operation for
    VPLS.  Section 3.4 describes the setting up of pseudowires that span
    Autonomous Systems.  Section 3.5 describes how multi-homing is
    handled.

3.1.  Autodiscovery

    Discovery refers to the process of finding all the PEs that
    participate in a given VPLS instance.  A PE can either be configured
    with the identities of all the other PEs in a given VPLS, or the PE
    can use some protocol to discover the other PEs.  The latter is
    called autodiscovery.

    The former approach is fairly configuration-intensive, especially
    since it is required that the PEs participating in a given VPLS are
    fully meshed (i.e., that every PE in a given VPLS establish
    pseudowires to every other PE in that VPLS).  Furthermore, when the
    topology of a VPLS changes (i.e., a PE is added to, or removed from
    the VPLS), the VPLS configuration on all PEs in that VPLS must be
    changed.

    In the autodiscovery approach, each PE "discovers" which other PEs
    are part of a given VPLS by means of some protocol, in this case BGP.
    This allows each PE's configuration to consist only of the identity
    of the VPLS instance established on this PE, not the identity of
    every other PE in that VPLS instance -- that is auto-discovered.
    Moreover, when the topology of a VPLS changes, only the affected PE's
    configuration changes; other PEs automatically find out about the
    change and adapt.

3.1.1.  Functions

    A PE that participates in a given VPLS instance V must be able to
    tell all other PEs in VPLS V that it is also a member of V. A PE must
    also have a means of declaring that it no longer participates in a
    VPLS.  To do both of these, the PE must have a means of identifying a
    VPLS and a means by which to communicate to all other PEs.

    U-PE devices also need to know what constitutes a given VPLS;
    however, they don't need the same level of detail.  The PE (or PEs)
    to which a u-PE is connected gives the u-PE an abstraction of the

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    VPLS; this is described in section 5.

3.1.2.  Protocol Specification

    The specific mechanism for autodiscovery described here is based on
    [14] and [6]; it uses BGP extended communities [5] to identify
    members of a VPLS, in particular, the Route Target community, whose
    format is described in [5].  The semantics of the use of Route
    Targets is described in [6]; their use in VPLS is identical.

    As it has been assumed that VPLSs are fully meshed, a single Route
    Target RT suffices for a given VPLS V, and in effect that RT is the
    identifier for VPLS V.

    A PE announces (typically via I-BGP) that it belongs to VPLS V by
    annotating its NLRIs for V (see next subsection) with Route Target
    RT, and acts on this by accepting NLRIs from other PEs that have
    Route Target RT.  A PE announces that it no longer participates in V
    by withdrawing all NLRIs that it had advertised with Route Target RT.

3.2.  Signaling

    Once discovery is done, each pair of PEs in a VPLS must be able to
    establish (and tear down) pseudowires to each other, i.e., exchange
    (and withdraw) demultiplexors.  This process is known as signaling.
    Signaling is also used to transmit certain characteristics of the
    pseudowires that a PE sets up for a given VPLS.

    Recall that a demultiplexor is used to distinguish among several
    different streams of traffic carried over a tunnel, each stream
    possibly representing a different service.  In the case of VPLS, the
    demultiplexor not only says to which specific VPLS a packet belongs,
    but also identifies the ingress PE.  The former information is used
    for forwarding the packet; the latter information is used for
    learning MAC addresses.  The demultiplexor described here is an MPLS
    label.  However, note that the PE-to-PE tunnels need not be MPLS
    tunnels.

    Using a distinct BGP Update message to send a demultiplexor to each
    remote PE would require the originating PE to send N such messages
    for N remote PEs.  The solution described in this document allows a
    PE to send a single (common) Update message that contains
    demultiplexors for all the remote PEs, instead of N individual
    messages.  Doing this reduces the control plane load both on the
    originating PE as well as on the BGP Route Reflectors that may be
    involved in distributing this Update to other PEs.

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3.2.1.  Label Blocks

    To accomplish this, we introduce the notion of "label blocks".  A
    label block, defined by a label base LB and a VE block size VBS, is a
    contiguous set of labels {LB, LB+1, ..., LB+VBS-1}.  Here's how label
    blocks work.  All PEs within a given VPLS are assigned unique VE IDs
    as part of their configuration.  A PE X wishing to send a VPLS update
    sends the same label block information to all other PEs.  Each
    receiving PE infers the label intended for PE X by adding their
    (unique) VE ID to the label base.  In this manner, each receiving PE
    gets a unique demultiplexor for PE X for that VPLS.

    This simple notion is enhanced with the concept of a VE block offset
    VBO.  A label block defined by <LB, VBO, VBS> is the set {LB+VBO, LB+
    VBO+1, ..., LB+VBO+VBS-1}.  Thus, instead of a single large label
    block to cover all VE IDs in a VPLS, one can have several label
    blocks, each with a different label base.  This makes label block
    management easier, and also allows PE X to cater gracefully to a PE
    joining a VPLS with a VE ID that is not covered by the set of label
    blocks that that PE X has already advertised.

    When a PE starts up, or is configured with a new VPLS instance, the
    BGP process may wish to wait to receive several advertisements for
    that VPLS instance from other PEs to improve the efficiency of label
    block allocation.

3.2.2.  VPLS BGP NLRI

    The VPLS BGP NLRI described below, with a new AFI and SAFI (see [4])
    is used to exchange VPLS membership and demultiplexors.

    A VPLS BGP NLRI has the following information elements: a VE ID, a VE
    Block Offset, a VE Block Size and a label base.  The format of the
    VPLS NLRI is given below.  The AFI is the L2VPN AFI (to be assigned
    by IANA), and the SAFI is the VPLS SAFI (65).  The Length field is in
    octets.

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       +------------------------------------+
       |  Length (2 octets)                 |
       +------------------------------------+
       |  Route Distinguisher  (8 octets)   |
       +------------------------------------+
       |  VE ID (2 octets)                  |
       +------------------------------------+
       |  VE Block Offset (2 octets)        |
       +------------------------------------+
       |  VE Block Size (2 octets)          |
       +------------------------------------+
       |  Label Base (3 octets)             |
       +------------------------------------+

    Figure 2: BGP NLRI for VPLS Information

    A PE participating in a VPLS must have at least one VE ID.  If the PE
    is the VE, it typically has one VE ID.  If the PE is connected to
    several u-PEs, it has a distinct VE ID for each u-PE.  It may
    additionally have a VE ID for itself, if it itself acts as a VE for
    that VPLS.  In what follows, we will call the PE announcing the VPLS
    NLRI PE-a, and we will assume that PE-a owns VE ID V (either
    belonging to PE-a itself, or to a u-PE connected to PE-a).

    VE IDs are typically assigned by the network administrator.  Their
    scope is local to a VPLS.  A given VE ID should belong to only one
    PE, unless a CE is multi-homed (see Section 3.5).

    A label block is a set of demultiplexor labels used to reach a given
    VE ID.  A VPLS BGP NLRI with VE ID V, VE Block Offset VBO, VE Block
    Size VBS and label base LB communicates to its peers the following:

        label block for V: labels from LB to (LB + VBS - 1), and

        remote VE set for V: from VBO to (VBO + VBS - 1).

    There is a one-to-one correspondence between the remote VE set and
    the label block: VE ID (VBO + n) corresponds to label (LB + n).

3.2.3.  PW Setup and Teardown

    Suppose PE-a is part of VPLS foo, and makes an announcement with VE
    ID V, VE Block Offset VBO, VE Block Size VBS and label base LB.  If
    PE-b is also part of VPLS foo, and has VE ID W, PE-b does the
    following:

    1.  checks if W is part of PE-a's 'remote VE set': if VBO <= W < VBO
        + VBS, then W is part of PE-a's remote VE set.  If not, PE-b

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        ignores this message, and skips the rest of this procedure.

    2.  sets up a PW to PE-a: the demultiplexor label to send traffic
        from PE-b to PE-a is computed as (LB + W - VBO).

    3.  checks if V is part of any 'remote VE set' that PE-b announced,
        i.e., PE-b checks if V belongs to some remote VE set that PE-b
        announced, say with VE Block Offset VBO', VE Block Size VBS' and
        label base LB'.  If not, PE-b MUST make a new announcement as
        described in Section 3.3.

    4.  sets up a PW from PE-a: the demultiplexor label over which PE-b
        should expect traffic from PE-a is computed as: (LB' + V - VBO').

    If Y withdraws an NLRI for V that X was using, then X MUST tear down
    its ends of the pseudowire between X and Y.

3.2.4.  Signaling PE Capabilities

    The following extended attribute, the "Layer2 Info Extended
    Community", is used to signal control information about the
    pseudowires to be setup for a given VPLS.  The extended community
    value is to be allocated by IANA (currently used value is 0x800A).
    This information includes the Encaps Type (type of encapsulation on
    the pseudowires), Control Flags (control information regarding the
    pseudowires) and the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) to be used on
    the pseudowires.

    The Encaps Type for VPLS is 19.

       +------------------------------------+
       | Extended community type (2 octets) |
       +------------------------------------+
       |  Encaps Type (1 octet)             |
       +------------------------------------+
       |  Control Flags (1 octet)           |
       +------------------------------------+
       |  Layer-2 MTU (2 octet)             |
       +------------------------------------+
       |  Reserved (2 octets)               |
       +------------------------------------+

    Figure 3: Layer2 Info Extended Community

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        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |   MBZ     |C|S|      (MBZ = MUST Be Zero)
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

    Figure 4: Control Flags Bit Vector

    With reference to Figure 4, the following bits in the Control Flags
    are defined; the remaining bits, designated MBZ, MUST be set to zero
    when sending and MUST be ignored when receiving this community.

         Name   Meaning
            C   A Control word (
    [7]
    ) MUST or MUST NOT be present when
                sending VPLS packets to this PE, depending on whether C
                is 1 or 0, respectively
            S   Sequenced delivery of frames MUST or MUST NOT be used
                when sending VPLS packets to this PE. depending on
                whether S is 1 or 0, respectively

3.3.  BGP VPLS Operation

    To create a new VPLS, say VPLS foo, a network administrator must pick
    a RT for VPLS foo, say RT-foo.  This will be used by all PEs that
    serve VPLS foo.  To configure a given PE, say PE-a, to be part of
    VPLS foo, the network administrator only has to choose a VE ID V for
    PE-a.  (If PE-a is connected to u-PEs, PE-a may be configured with
    more than one VE ID; in that case, the following is done for each VE
    ID).  The PE may also be configured with a Route Distinguisher (RD);
    if not, it generates a unique RD for VPLS foo.  Say the RD is
    RD-foo-a.  PE-a then generates an initial label block and a remote VE
    set for V, defined by VE Block Offset VBO, VE Block Size VBS and
    label base LB.  These may be empty.

    PE-a then creates a VPLS BGP NLRI with RD RD-foo-a, VE ID V, VE Block
    Offset VBO, VE Block Size VBS and label base LB.  To this, it
    attaches a Layer2 Info Extended Community and a RT, RT-foo.  It sets
    the BGP Next Hop for this NLRI as itself, and announces this NLRI to
    its peers.  The Network Layer protocol associated with the Network
    Address of the Next Hop for the combination <AFI=L2VPN AFI, SAFI=VPLS
    SAFI> is IP; this association is required by [4], Section 5.  If the
    value of the Length of the Next Hop field is 4, then the Next Hop
    contains an IPv4 address.  If this value is 16, then the Next Hop
    contains an IPv6 address.

    If PE-a hears from another PE, say PE-b, a VPLS BGP announcement with
    RT-foo and VE ID W, then PE-a knows that PE-b is a member of the same

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    VPLS (autodiscovery).  PE-a then has to set up its part of a VPLS
    pseudowire between PE-a and PE-b, using the mechanisms in
    Section 3.2.  Similarly, PE-b will have discovered that PE-a is in
    the same VPLS, and PE-b must set up its part of the VPLS pseudowire.
    Thus, signaling and pseudowire setup is also achieved with the same
    Update message.

    If W is not in any remote VE set that PE-a announced for VE ID V in
    VPLS foo, PE-b will not be able to set up its part of the pseudowire
    to PE-a.  To address this, PE-a can choose to withdraw the old
    announcement(s) it made for VPLS foo, and announce a new Update with
    a larger remote VE set and corresponding label block that covers all
    VE IDs that are in VPLS foo.  This however, may cause some service
    disruption.  An alternative for PE-a is to create a new remote VE set
    and corresponding label block, and announce them in a new Update,
    without withdrawing previous announcements.

    If PE-a's configuration is changed to remove VE ID V from VPLS foo,
    then PE-a MUST withdraw all its announcements for VPLS foo that
    contain VE ID V. If all of PE-a's links to its CEs in VPLS foo go
    down, then PE-a SHOULD either withdraw all its NLRIs for VPLS foo, or
    let other PEs in the VPLS foo know in some way that PE-a is no longer
    connected to its CEs.

3.4.  Multi-AS VPLS

    As in [14] and [6], the above autodiscovery and signaling functions
    are typically announced via I-BGP.  This assumes that all the sites
    in a VPLS are connected to PEs in a single Autonomous System (AS).

    However, sites in a VPLS may connect to PEs in different ASes.  This
    leads to two issues: 1) there would not be an I-BGP connection
    between those PEs, so some means of signaling across ASes is needed;
    and 2) there may not be PE-to-PE tunnels between the ASes.

    A similar problem is solved in [6], Section 10.  Three methods are
    suggested to address issue (1); all these methods have analogs in
    multi-AS VPLS.

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    Here is a diagram for reference:

      __________       ____________       ____________       __________
     /          \     /            \     /            \     /          \
                 \___/        AS 1  \   /  AS 2        \___/
                                     \ /
       +-----+           +-------+    |    +-------+           +-----+
       | PE1 | ---...--- | ASBR1 | ======= | ASBR2 | ---...--- | PE2 |
       +-----+           +-------+    |    +-------+           +-----+
                  ___                / \                ___
                 /   \              /   \              /   \
     \__________/     \____________/     \____________/     \__________/

    Figure 6: Inter-AS VPLS

    As in the above reference, three methods for signaling inter-provider
    VPLS are given; these are presented in order of increasing
    scalability.  Method (a) is the easiest to understand conceptually,
    and the easiest to deploy; however, it requires an Ethernet
    interconnect between the ASes, and both VPLS control and data plane
    state on the AS border routers (ASBRs).  Method (b) requires VPLS
    control plane state on the ASBRs and MPLS on the AS-AS interconnect
    (which need not be Ethernet).  Method (c) requires MPLS on the AS-AS
    interconnect, but no VPLS state of any kind on the ASBRs.

3.4.1.  a) VPLS-to-VPLS connections at the ASBRs.

    In this method, an AS Border Router (ASBR1) acts as a PE for all
    VPLSs that span AS1 and an AS to which ASBR1 is connected, such as
    AS2 here.  The ASBR on the neighboring AS (ASBR2) is viewed by ASBR1
    as a CE for the VPLSs that span AS1 and AS2; similarly, ASBR2 acts as
    a PE for this VPLS from AS2's point of view, and views ASBR1 as a CE.

    This method does not require MPLS on the ASBR1-ASBR2 link, but does
    require that this link carry Ethernet traffic, and that there be a
    separate VLAN sub-interface for each VPLS traversing this link.  It
    further requires that ASBR1 does the PE operations (discovery,
    signaling, MAC address learning, flooding, encapsulation, etc.) for
    all VPLSs that traverse ASBR1.  This imposes a significant burden on
    ASBR1, both on the control plane and the data plane, which limits the
    number of multi-AS VPLSs.

    Note that in general, there will be multiple connections between a
    pair of ASes, for redundancy.  In this case, the Spanning Tree
    Protocol (STP) ([15]), or some other means of loop detection and
    prevention, must be run on each VPLS that spans these ASes, so that a
    loop-free topology can be constructed in each VPLS.  This imposes a
    further burden on the ASBRs and PEs participating in those VPLSs, as

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    these devices would need to run a loop detection algorithm for each
    such VPLS.  How this may be achieved is outside the scope of this
    document.

3.4.2.  b) EBGP redistribution of VPLS information between ASBRs.

    This method requires I-BGP peerings between the PEs in AS1 and ASBR1
    in AS1 (perhaps via route reflectors), an E-BGP peering between ASBR1
    and ASBR2 in AS2, and I-BGP peerings between ASBR2 and the PEs in
    AS2.  In the above example, PE1 sends a VPLS NLRI to ASBR1 with a
    label block and itself as the BGP nexthop; ASBR1 sends the NLRI to
    ASBR2 with new labels and itself as the BGP nexthop; and ASBR2 sends
    the NLRI to PE2 with new labels and itself as the nexthop.
    Correspondingly, there are three tunnels: T1 from PE1 to ASBR1, T2
    from ASBR1 to ASBR2, and T3 from ASBR2 to PE2.  Within each tunnel,
    the VPLS label to be used is determined by the receiving device;
    e.g., the VPLS label within T1 is a label from the label block that
    ASBR1 sent to PE1.  The ASBRs are responsible for receiving VPLS
    packets encapsulated in a tunnel, and performing the appropriate
    label swap operations described next so that the next receiving
    device can correctly identify and forward the packet.

    The VPLS NLRI that ASBR1 sends to ASBR2 (and the NLRI that ASBR2
    sends to PE2) is identical to the VPLS NLRI that PE1 sends to ASBR1,
    except for the label block.  To be precise, the Length, the Route
    Distinguisher, the VE ID, the VE Block Offset, and the VE Block Size
    MUST be the same; the Label Base may be different.  Furthermore,
    ASBR1 must also update its forwarding path as follows: if the Label
    Base sent by PE1 is L1, the Label-block Size is N, the Label Base
    sent by ASBR1 is L2, and the tunnel label from ASBR1 to PE1 is T,
    then ASBR1 must install the following in the forwarding path:

       swap L2 with L1 and push T,

       swap L2+1 with L1+1 and push T, ...

       swap L2+N-1 with L1+N-1 and push T.

    ASBR2 must act similarly, except that it may not need a tunnel label
    if it is directly connected with ASBR1.

    When PE2 wants to send a VPLS packet to PE1, PE2 uses its VE ID to
    get the right VPLS label from ASBR2's label block for PE1, and uses a
    tunnel label to reach ASBR2.  ASBR2 swaps the VPLS label with the
    label from ASBR1; ASBR1 then swaps the VPLS label with the label from
    PE1, and pushes a tunnel label to reach PE1.

    In this method, one needs MPLS on the ASBR1-ASBR2 interface, but

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    there is no requirement that the link layer be Ethernet.
    Furthermore, the ASBRs take part in distributing VPLS information.
    However, the data plane requirements of the ASBRs is much simpler
    than in method (a), being limited to label operations.  Finally, the
    construction of loop-free VPLS topologies is done by routing
    decisions, viz.  BGP path and nexthop selection, so there is no need
    to run the Spanning Tree Protocol on a per-VPLS basis.  Thus, this
    method is considerably more scalable than method (a).

3.4.3.  c) Multi-hop EBGP redistribution of VPLS information between
         ASes.

    In this method, there is a multi-hop E-BGP peering between the PEs
    (or preferably, a Route Reflector) in AS1 and the PEs (or Route
    Reflector) in AS2.  PE1 sends a VPLS NLRI with labels and nexthop
    self to PE2; if this is via route reflectors, the BGP nexthop is not
    changed.  This requires that there be a tunnel LSP from PE1 to PE2.
    This tunnel LSP can be created exactly as in [6], section 10 (c), for
    example using E-BGP to exchange labeled IPv4 routes for the PE
    loopbacks.

    When PE1 wants to send a VPLS packet to PE2, it pushes the VPLS label
    corresponding to its own VE ID onto the packet.  It then pushes the
    tunnel label(s) to reach PE2.

    This method requires no VPLS information (in either the control or
    the data plane) on the ASBRs.  The ASBRs only need to set up PE-to-PE
    tunnel LSPs in the control plane, and do label operations in the data
    plane.  Again, as in the case of method (b), the construction of
    loop-free VPLS topologies is done by routing decisions, i.e., BGP
    path and nexthop selection, so there is no need to run the Spanning
    Tree Protocol on a per-VPLS basis.  This option is likely to be the
    most scalable of the three methods presented here.

3.4.4.  Allocation of VE IDs Across Multiple ASes

    In order to ease the allocation of VE IDs for a VPLS that spans
    multiple ASes, one can allocate ranges for each AS.  For example, AS1
    uses VE IDs in the range 1 to 100, AS2 from 101 to 200, etc.  If
    there are 10 sites attached to AS1 and 20 to AS2, the allocated VE
    IDs could be 1-10 and 101 to 120.  This minimizes the number of VPLS
    NLRIs that are exchanged while ensuring that VE IDs are kept unique.

    In the above example, if AS1 needed more than 100 sites, then another
    range can be allocated to AS1.  The only caveat is that there be no
    overlap between VE ID ranges among ASes.  The exception to this rule
    is multi-homing, which is dealt with below.

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3.5.  Multi-homing and Path Selection

    It is often desired to multi-home a VPLS site, i.e., to connect it to
    multiple PEs, perhaps even in different ASes.  In such a case, the
    PEs connected to the same site can either be configured with the same
    VE ID or with different VE IDs.  In the latter case, it is mandatory
    to run STP on the CE device, and possibly on the PEs, to construct a
    loop-free VPLS topology.  How this can be accomplished is outside the
    scope of this document; however, the rest of this section will
    describe in some detail the former case.  Note that multi-homing by
    the SP and STP on the CEs can co-exist; thus it is recommended that
    the VPLS customer run STP if the CEs are able to.

    In the case where the PEs connected to the same site are assigned the
    same VE ID, a loop-free topology is constructed by routing
    mechanisms, in particular, by BGP path selection.  When a BGP speaker
    receives two equivalent NLRIs (see below for the definition), it
    applies standard path selection criteria such as Local Preference and
    AS Path Length to determine which NLRI to choose; it MUST pick only
    one.  If the chosen NLRI is subsequently withdrawn, the BGP speaker
    applies path selection to the remaining equivalent VPLS NLRIs to pick
    another; if none remain, the forwarding information associated with
    that NLRI is removed.

    Two VPLS NLRIs are considered equivalent from a path selection point
    of view if the Route Distinguisher, the VE ID and the VE Block Offset
    are the same.  If two PEs are assigned the same VE ID in a given
    VPLS, they MUST use the same Route Distinguisher, and they SHOULD
    announce the same VE Block Size for a given VE Offset.

3.6.  Hierarchical BGP VPLS

    This section discusses how one can scale the VPLS control plane when
    using BGP.  There are at least three aspects of scaling the control
    plane:

    1.  alleviating the full mesh connectivity requirement among VPLS BGP
        speakers;

    2.  limiting BGP VPLS message passing to just the interested speakers
        rather than all BGP speakers; and

    3.  simplifying the addition and deletion of BGP speakers, whether
        for VPLS or other applications.

    Fortunately, the use of BGP for Internet routing as well as for IP
    VPNs has yielded several good solutions for all these problems.  The
    basic technique is hierarchy, using BGP Route Reflectors (RRs) ([8]).

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    The idea is to designate a small set of Route Reflectors which are
    themselves fully meshed, and then establish a BGP session between
    each BGP speaker and one or more RRs.  In this way, there is no need
    of direct full mesh connectivity among all the BGP speakers.  If the
    particular scaling needs of a provider requires a large number of
    RRs, then this technique can be applied recursively: the full mesh
    connectivity among the RRs can be brokered by yet another level of
    RRs.  The use of RRs solves problems 1 and 3 above.

    It is important to note that RRs, as used for VPLS and VPNs, are
    purely a control plane technique.  The use of RRs introduces no data
    plane state and no data plane forwarding requirements on the RRs, and
    does not in any way change the forwarding path of VPLS traffic.  This
    is in contrast to the technique of Hierarchical VPLS defined in [10].

    Another consequence of this approach is that it is not required that
    one set of RRs handles all BGP messages, or that a particular RR
    handle all messages from a given PE.  One can define several sets of
    RRs, for example a set to handle VPLS, another to handle IP VPNs and
    another for Internet routing.  Another partitioning could be to have
    some subset of VPLSs and IP VPNs handled by one set of RRs, and
    another subset of VPLSs and IP VPNs handled by another set of RRs;
    the use of Route Target Filtering (RTF), described in [12] can make
    this simpler and more effective.

    Finally, problem 2 (that of limiting BGP VPLS message passing to just
    the interested BGP speakers) is addressed by the use of RTF.  This
    technique is orthogonal to the use of RRs, but works well in
    conjunction with RRs.  RTF is also very effective in inter-AS VPLS;
    more details on how RTF works and its benefits are provided in [12].

    It is worth mentioning an aspect of the control plane that is often a
    source of confusion.  No MAC addresses are exchanged via BGP.  All
    MAC address learning and aging is done in the data plane individually
    by each PE.  The only task of BGP VPLS message exchange is
    autodiscovery and label exchange.

    Thus, BGP processing for VPLS occurs when

    1.  a PE joins or leaves a VPLS; or

    2.  a failure occurs in the network, bringing down a PE-PE tunnel or
        a PE-CE link.

    These events are relatively rare, and typically, each such event
    causes one BGP update to be generated.  Coupled with BGP's messaging
    efficiency when used for signaling VPLS, these observations lead to
    the conclusion that BGP as a control plane for VPLS will scale quite

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    well both in terms of processing and memory requirements.

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4.  Data Plane

    This section discusses two aspects of the data plane for PEs and
    u-PEs implementing VPLS: encapsulation and forwarding.

4.1.  Encapsulation

    Ethernet frames received from CE devices are encapsulated for
    transmission over the packet switched network connecting the PEs.
    The encapsulation is as in [7].

4.2.  Forwarding

    VPLS packets are classified as belonging to a given service instance
    and associated forwarding table based on the interface over which the
    packet is received.  Packets are forwarded in the context of the
    service instance based on the destination MAC address.  The former
    mapping is determined by configuration.  The latter is the focus of
    this section.

4.2.1.  MAC address learning

    As was mentioned earlier, the key distinguishing feature of VPLS is
    that it is a multipoint service.  This means that the entire Service
    Provider network should appear as a single logical learning bridge
    for each VPLS that the SP network supports.  The logical ports for
    the SP "bridge" are the customer ports as well as the pseudowires on
    a VE.  Just as a learning bridge learns MAC addresses on its ports,
    the SP bridge must learn MAC addresses at its VEs.

    Learning consists of associating source MAC addresses of packets with
    the (logical) ports on which they arrive; this association is the
    Forwarding Information Base (FIB).  The FIB is used for forwarding
    packets.  For example, suppose the bridge receives a packet with
    source MAC address S on (logical) port P. If subsequently, the bridge
    receives a packet with destination MAC address S, it knows that it
    should send the packet out on port P.

    If a VE learns a source MAC address S on logical port P, then later
    sees S on a different port P', then the VE MUST update its FIB to
    reflect the new port P'.  A VE MAY implement a mechanism to damp
    flapping of source ports for a given MAC address.

4.2.2.  Aging

    VPLS PEs SHOULD have an aging mechanism to remove a MAC address
    associated with a logical port, much the same as learning bridges do.
    This is required so that a MAC address can be relearned if it "moves"

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    from a logical port to another logical port, either because the
    station to which that MAC address belongs really has moved, or
    because of a topology change in the LAN that causes this MAC address
    to arrive on a new port.  In addition, aging reduces the size of a
    VPLS MAC table to just the active MAC addresses, rather than all MAC
    addresses in that VPLS.

    The "age" of a source MAC address S on a logical port P is the time
    since it was last seen as a source MAC on port P. If the age exceeds
    the aging time T, S MUST be flushed from the FIB.  This of course
    means that every time S is seen as a source MAC address on port P,
    S's age is reset.

    An implementation SHOULD provide a configurable knob to set the aging
    time T on a per-VPLS basis.  In addition, an implementation MAY
    accelerate aging of all MAC addresses in a VPLS if it detects certain
    situations, such as a Spanning Tree topology change in that VPLS.

4.2.3.  Flooding

    When a bridge receives a packet to a destination that is not in its
    FIB, it floods the packet on all the other ports.  Similarly, a VE
    will flood packets to an unknown destination to all other VEs in the
    VPLS.

    In Figure 1 above, if CE2 sent an Ethernet frame to PE2, and the
    destination MAC address on the frame was not in PE2's FIB (for that
    VPLS), then PE2 would be responsible for flooding that frame to every
    other PE in the same VPLS.  On receiving that frame, PE1 would be
    responsible for further flooding the frame to CE1 and CE5 (unless PE1
    knew which CE "owned" that MAC address).

    On the other hand, if PE3 received the frame, it could delegate
    further flooding of the frame to its u-PE.  If PE3 was connected to 2
    u-PEs, it would announce that it has two u-PEs.  PE3 could either
    announce that it is incapable of flooding, in which case it would
    receive two frames, one for each u-PE, or it could announce that it
    is capable of flooding, in which case it would receive one copy of
    the frame, which it would then send to both u-PEs.

4.2.4.  Broadcast and Multicast

    There is a well-known broadcast MAC address.  An Ethernet frame whose
    destination MAC address is the broadcast MAC address must be sent to
    all stations in that VPLS.  This can be accomplished by the same
    means that is used for flooding.

    There is also an easily recognized set of "multicast" MAC addresses.

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    Ethernet frames with a destination multicast MAC address MAY be
    broadcast to all stations; a VE MAY also use certain techniques to
    restrict transmission of multicast frames to a smaller set of
    receivers, those that have indicated interest in the corresponding
    multicast group.  Discussion of this is outside the scope of this
    document.

4.2.5.  "Split Horizon" Forwarding

    When a PE capable of flooding (say PEx) receives a broadcast Ethernet
    frame, or one with an unknown destination MAC address, it must flood
    the frame.  If the frame arrived from an attached CE, PEx must send a
    copy of the frame to every other attached CE, as well as to all other
    PEs participating in the VPLS.  If, on the other hand, the frame
    arrived from another PE (say PEy), PEx must send a copy of the packet
    only to attached CEs.  PEx MUST NOT send the frame to other PEs,
    since PEy would have already done so.  This notion has been termed
    "split horizon" forwarding, and is a consequence of the PEs being
    logically fully meshed for VPLS.

    Split horizon forwarding rules apply to broadcast and multicast
    packets, as well as packets to an unknown MAC address.

4.2.6.  Qualified and Unqualified Learning

    The key for normal Ethernet MAC learning is usually just the
    (6-octet) MAC address.  This is called "unqualified learning".
    However, it is also possible that the key for learning includes the
    VLAN tag when present; this is called "qualified learning".

    In the case of VPLS, learning is done in the context of a VPLS
    instance, which typically corresponds to a customer.  If the customer
    uses VLAN tags, one can make the same distinctions of qualified and
    unqualified learning.  If the key for learning within a VPLS is just
    the MAC address, then this VPLS is operating under unqualified
    learning.  If the key for learning is (customer VLAN tag + MAC
    address), then this VPLS is operating under qualified learning.

    Choosing between qualified and unqualified learning involves several
    factors, the most important of which is whether one wants a single
    global broadcast domain (unqualified), or a broadcast domain per VLAN
    (qualified).  The latter makes flooding and broadcasting more
    efficient, but requires larger MAC tables.  These considerations
    apply equally to normal Ethernet forwarding and to VPLS.

4.2.7.  Class of Service

    In order to offer different Classes of Service within a VPLS, an

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    implementation MAY choose to map 802.1p bits in a customer Ethernet
    frame with a VLAN tag to an appropriate setting of EXP bits in the
    pseudowire and/or tunnel label, allowing for differential treatment
    of VPLS frames in the packet-switched network.

    To be useful, an implementation SHOULD allow this mapping function to
    be different for each VPLS, as each VPLS customer may have their own
    view of the required behavior for a given setting of 802.1p bits.

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5.  Deployment Options

    In deploying a network that supports VPLS, the SP must decide what
    functions the VPLS-aware device closest to the customer (the VE)
    supports.  The default case described in this document is that the VE
    is a PE.  However, there are a number of reasons that the VE might be
    a device that does all the Layer 2 functions (such as MAC address
    learning and flooding), and a limited set of Layer 3 functions (such
    as communicating to its PE), but, for example, doesn't do full-
    fledged discovery and PE-to-PE signaling.  Such a device is called a
    "u-PE".

    As both of these cases have benefits, one would like to be able to
    "mix and match" these scenarios.  The signaling mechanism presented
    here allows this.  For example, in a given provider network, one PE
    may be directly connected to CE devices; another may be connected to
    u-PEs that are connected to CEs; and a third may be connected
    directly to a customer over some interfaces and to u-PEs over others.
    All these PEs perform discovery and signaling in the same manner.
    How they do learning and forwarding depends on whether or not there
    is a u-PE; however, this is a local matter, and is not signaled.
    However, the details of the operation of a u-PE and its interactions
    with PEs and other u-PEs is beyond the scope of this document.

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6.  Security Considerations

    The focus in Virtual Private LAN Service is the privacy of data,
    i.e., that data in a VPLS is only distributed to other nodes in that
    VPLS and not to any external agent or other VPLS.  Note that VPLS
    does not offer confidentiality, integrity, or authentication: VPLS
    packets are sent in the clear in the packet-switched network, and a
    man-in-the-middle can eavesdrop, and may be able to inject packets
    into the data stream.  If security is desired, the PE-to-PE tunnels
    can be IPsec tunnels.  For more security, the end systems in the VPLS
    sites can use appropriate means of encryption to secure their data
    even before it enters the Service Provider network.

    There are two aspects to achieving data privacy in a VPLS: securing
    the control plane, and protecting the forwarding path.  Compromise of
    the control plane could result in a PE sending data belonging to some
    VPLS to another VPLS, or blackholing VPLS data, or even sending it to
    an eavesdropper, none of which are acceptable from a data privacy
    point of view.  Since all control plane exchanges are via BGP,
    techniques such as in [2] help authenticate BGP messages, making it
    harder to spoof updates (which can be used to divert VPLS traffic to
    the wrong VPLS), or withdraws (denial of service attacks).  In the
    multi-AS options (b) and (c), this also means protecting the inter-AS
    BGP sessions, between the ASBRs, the PEs or the Route Reflectors.
    One can also use the techniques described in section 10 (b) and (c)
    of [6], both for the control plane and the data plane.  Note that [2]
    will not help in keeping VPLS labels private -- knowing the labels,
    one can eavesdrop on VPLS traffic.  However, this requires access to
    the data path within a Service Provider network.

    There can also be misconfiguration leading to unintentional
    connection of CEs in different VPLSs.  This can be caused, for
    example, by associating the wrong Route Target with a VPLS instance.
    This problem, shared by [6], is for further study.

    Protecting the data plane requires ensuring that PE-to-PE tunnels are
    well-behaved (this is outside the scope of this document), and that
    VPLS labels are accepted only from valid interfaces.  For a PE, valid
    interfaces comprise links from P routers.  For an ASBR, a valid
    interface is a link from an ASBR in an AS that is part of a given
    VPLS.  It is especially important in the case of multi-AS VPLSs that
    one accept VPLS packets only from valid interfaces.

    MPLS-in-IP and MPLS-in-GRE tunneling are specified in [3].  If it is
    desired to use such tunnels to carry VPLS packets, then the security
    considerations described in Section 8 of that document must be fully
    understood.  Any implementation of VPLS that allows VPLS packets to
    be tunneled as described in that document MUST contain an

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    implementation of IPsec that can be used as therein described.  If
    the tunnel is not secured by IPsec, then the technique of IP address
    filtering at the border routers, described in Section 8.2 of that
    document, is the only means of ensuring that a packet that exits the
    tunnel at a particular egress PE was actually placed in the tunnel by
    the proper tunnel head node (i.e., that the packet does not have a
    spoofed source address).  Since border routers frequently filter only
    source addresses, packet filtering may not be effective unless the
    egress PE can check the IP source address of any tunneled packet it
    receives, and compare it to a list of IP addresses that are valid
    tunnel head addresses.  Any implementation that allows MPLS-in-IP
    and/or MPLS-in-GRE tunneling to be used without IPsec MUST allow the
    egress PE to validate in this manner the IP source address of any
    tunneled packet that it receives.

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7.  IANA Considerations

    IANA is asked to allocate an AFI for L2VPN information (suggested
    value: 25).  This should be the same as the AFI requested by [11].

    IANA is asked to allocate an extended community value for the Layer2
    Info Extended Community (suggested value: 0x800a).

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8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

    [1]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
         Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

    [2]  Heffernan, A., "Protection of BGP Sessions via the TCP MD5
         Signature Option", RFC 2385, August 1998.

    [3]  Worster, T., Rekhter, Y., and E. Rosen, "Encapsulating MPLS in
         IP or Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)", RFC 4023,
         March 2005.

    [4]  Bates, T., "Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP-4",
         draft-ietf-idr-rfc2858bis-10 (work in progress), March 2006.

    [5]  Sangli, S., Tappan, D., and Y. Rekhter, "BGP Extended
         Communities Attribute", RFC 4360, February 2006.

    [6]  Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private Networks
         (VPNs)", RFC 4364, February 2006.

    [7]  Martini, L., Rosen, E., El-Aawar, N., and G. Heron,
         "Encapsulation Methods for Transport of Ethernet over MPLS
         Networks", RFC 4448, April 2006.

8.2.  Informative References

    [8]   Bates, T., Chandra, R., and E. Chen, "BGP Route Reflection - An
          Alternative to Full Mesh IBGP", RFC 2796, April 2000.

    [9]   Andersson, L. and E. Rosen, "Framework for Layer 2 Virtual
          Private Networks (L2VPNs)", draft-ietf-l2vpn-l2-framework-05
          (work in progress), June 2004.

    [10]  Lasserre, M. and V. Kompella, "Virtual Private LAN Services
          Using LDP", draft-ietf-l2vpn-vpls-ldp-09 (work in progress),
          June 2006.

    [11]  Ould-Brahim, H., "Using BGP as an Auto-Discovery Mechanism for
          VR-based Layer-3 VPNs", draft-ietf-l3vpn-bgpvpn-auto-07 (work
          in progress), April 2006.

    [12]  Marques, P., "Constrained VPN Route Distribution",
          draft-ietf-l3vpn-rt-constrain-02 (work in progress), June 2005.

    [13]  Martini, L., "Pseudowire Setup and Maintenance using the Label

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          Distribution Protocol", draft-ietf-pwe3-control-protocol-17
          (work in progress), June 2005.

    [14]  Kompella, K., "Layer 2 VPNs Over Tunnels",
          draft-kompella-l2vpn-l2vpn-01 (work in progress), January 2006.

    [15]  Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, "Information
          technology - Telecommunications and information exchange
          between systems - Local and metropolitan area networks - Common
          specifications - Part 3: Media Access Control (MAC) Bridges:
          Revision. This is a revision of ISO/IEC 10038: 1993, 802.1j-
          1992 and 802.6k-1992.  It incorporates P802.11c, P802.1p and
          P802.12e.  ISO/IEC 15802-3: 1998.", IEEE Standard 802.1D,
          July 1998.

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Appendix A.  Contributors

    The following contributed to this document:

            Javier Achirica, Telefonica
            Loa Andersson, Acreo
            Chaitanya Kodeboyina, Juniper
            Giles Heron, Tellabs
            Sunil Khandekar, Alcatel
            Vach Kompella, Alcatel
            Marc Lasserre, Riverstone
            Pierre Lin
            Pascal Menezes
            Ashwin Moranganti, Appian
            Hamid Ould-Brahim, Nortel
            Seo Yeong-il, Korea Tel

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Appendix B.  Acknowledgements

    Thanks to Joe Regan and Alfred Nothaft for their contributions.  Many
    thanks too to Eric Ji, Chaitanya Kodeboyina, Mike Loomis and Elwyn
    Davies for their detailed reviews.

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Authors' Addresses

    Kireeti Kompella (editor)
    Juniper Networks
    1194 N. Mathilda Ave.
    Sunnyvale, CA  94089
    US

    Email: kireeti@juniper.net

    Yakov Rekhter (editor)
    Juniper Networks
    1194 N. Mathilda Ave.
    Sunnyvale, CA  94089
    US

    Email: yakov@juniper.net

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