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PIM Flooding Mechanism and Source Discovery
draft-ietf-pim-source-discovery-bsr-09

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 8364.
Authors IJsbrand Wijnands , Stig Venaas , Michael Brig , Anders Jonasson
Last updated 2018-01-25 (Latest revision 2018-01-16)
Replaces draft-wijnands-pim-source-discovery-bsr
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
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Additional resources Mailing list discussion
Stream WG state Submitted to IESG for Publication
Document shepherd Mike McBride
Shepherd write-up Show Last changed 2017-06-13
IESG IESG state Became RFC 8364 (Experimental)
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Telechat date (None)
Needs a YES.
Responsible AD Alvaro Retana
Send notices to Mike McBride <mmcbride7@gmail.com>, aretana.ietf@gmail.com
IANA IANA review state Version Changed - Review Needed
draft-ietf-pim-source-discovery-bsr-09
Network Working Group                                       IJ. Wijnands
Internet-Draft                                                 S. Venaas
Intended status: Experimental                        Cisco Systems, Inc.
Expires: July 29, 2018                                           M. Brig
                                                Aegis BMD Program Office
                                                             A. Jonasson
                           Swedish Defence Material Administration (FMV)
                                                        January 25, 2018

              PIM Flooding Mechanism and Source Discovery
                 draft-ietf-pim-source-discovery-bsr-09

Abstract

   PIM Sparse-Mode (PIM-SM) uses a Rendezvous Point (RP) and shared
   trees to forward multicast packets from new sources.  Once last hop
   routers receive packets from a new source, they may join the Shortest
   Path Tree for the source for optimal forwarding.  This draft defines
   a new mechanism that provides a way to support PIM-SM without the
   need for PIM registers, RPs or shared trees.  Multicast source
   information is flooded throughout the multicast domain using a new
   generic PIM flooding mechanism.  This allows last hop routers to
   learn about new sources without receiving initial data packets.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on July 29, 2018.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   2.  Testing and Deployment Experiences  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  A Generic PIM Flooding Mechanism  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.1.  PFM Message Format  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.2.  Administrative Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.3.  Originating PFM Messages  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.4.  Processing PFM Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       3.4.1.  Initial Checks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       3.4.2.  Processing and Forwarding of PFM Messages . . . . . .  10
   4.  Distributing Source Group Mappings  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     4.1.  Group Source Holdtime TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     4.2.  Originating Group Source Holdtime TLVs  . . . . . . . . .  11
     4.3.  Processing GSH TLVs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     4.4.  The First Packets and Bursty Sources  . . . . . . . . . .  13
     4.5.  Resiliency to Network Partitioning  . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   7.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   8.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     8.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     8.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16

1.  Introduction

   PIM Sparse-Mode (PIM-SM) uses a Rendezvous Point (RP) and shared
   trees to forward multicast packets to Last Hop Routers (LHR).  After
   the first packet is received by a LHR, the source of the multicast
   stream is learned and the Shortest Path Tree (SPT) can be joined.
   This draft defines a new mechanism that provides a way to support
   PIM-SM without the need for PIM registers, RPs or shared trees.
   Multicast source information is flooded throughout the multicast
   domain using a new generic PIM flooding mechanism.  By removing the
   need for RPs and shared trees, the PIM-SM procedures are simplified,

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   improving router operations, management and making the protocol more
   robust.  Also the data packets are only sent on the SPTs, providing
   optimal forwarding.

   This mechanism has some similarities to PIM Dense Mode (PIM-DM) with
   its State-Refresh signaling [RFC3973], except that there is no
   initial flooding of data packets for new sources.  It provides the
   traffic efficiency of PIM-SM, while being as easy to deploy as PIM-
   DM.  The downside is that it cannot provide forwarding of initial
   packets from a new source, see Section 4.4.  PIM-DM is very different
   from PIM-SM and not as mature, Experimental vs Internet Standard, and
   there are only a few implementations.  The solution in this document
   consists of a lightweight source discovery mechanism on top of the
   Source-Specific Multicast (SSM) parts of PIM-SM.  It is feasable to
   implement only a subset of PIM-SM to provide SSM support, and in
   addition implement the mechanism in this draft to offer a source
   discovery mechanism for applications that do not provide their own
   source discovery.

   This document defines a generic flooding mechanism for distributing
   information throughout a PIM domain.  While the forwarding rules are
   largely similar to Bootstrap Router mechanism (BSR) [RFC5059], any
   router can originate information, and it allows for flooding of any
   kind of information.  Each message contains one or more pieces of
   information encoded as TLVs (type, length and value).  This document
   defines one TLV used for distributing information about active
   multicast sources.  Other documents may define additional TLVs.

   Note that this document is experimental.  While the flooding
   mechanism is largely similar to BSR, there are some concerns about
   scale as there can be multiple routers distributing information, and
   potentially larger amount of data that needs to be processed and
   stored.  Distributing knowledge of active sources in this way is new,
   and there are some concerns, mainly regarding potentially large
   amounts of source states that need to be distributed.  While there
   has been some testing in the field, we need to learn more about the
   forwarding efficiency, both the amount of processing per router, and
   propagation delay, and the amount of state that can be distributed.
   In particular, how many active sources one can support without
   consuming too many resources.  There are also parameters that can be
   tuned regarding how frequently information is distributed, and it is
   not clear what parameters are useful for different types of networks.

1.1.  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 [RFC2119].

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1.2.  Terminology

   RP:  Rendezvous Point

   BSR:  Bootstrap Router

   RPF:  Reverse Path Forwarding

   SPT:  Shortest Path Tree

   FHR:  First Hop Router, directly connected to the source

   LHR:  Last Hop Router, directly connected to the receiver

   PFM:  PIM Flooding Mechanism

   PFM-SD:  PFM Source Discovery

   SG Mapping:  Multicast source group mapping

2.  Testing and Deployment Experiences

   A prototype of this specification has been implemented and there has
   been some limited testing in the field.  The prototype was tested in
   a network with low bandwidth radio links.  The network has frequent
   topology changes, including frequent link or router failures.
   Previously existing mechanisms like PIM-SM and PIM-DM were tested.

   With PIM-SM the existing RP election mechanisms were found to be too
   slow.  With PIM-DM, issues were observed with new multicast sources
   starving low bandwidth links even when there are no receivers, in
   some cases such that there was no bandwidth left for prune messages.

   For the PFM-SD prototype tests, all routers were configured to send
   PFM-SD for directly connected source and to cache received
   announcements.  Applications such as SIP with multicast subscriber
   discovery, multicast voice conferencing, position tracking and NTP
   were successfully tested.  The tests went quite well.  Packets were
   rerouted as needed and there were no unnecessary forwarding of
   packets.  Ease of configuration was seen as a plus.

3.  A Generic PIM Flooding Mechanism

   The Bootstrap Router mechanism (BSR) [RFC5059] is a commonly used
   mechanism for distributing dynamic Group to RP mappings in PIM.  It
   is responsible for flooding information about such mappings
   throughout a PIM domain, so that all routers in the domain can have
   the same information.  BSR as defined, is only able to distribute

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   Group to RP mappings.  This document defines a more generic mechanism
   that can flood any kind of information.  Administrative boundaries,
   see Section 3.2, may be configured to limit to which parts of a
   network the information is flooded.

   The forwarding rules are identical to BSR, except that one can
   control whether routers should forward unsupported data types.  For
   some types of information it is quite useful that it can be
   distributed without all routers having to support the particular
   type, while there may also be types where it is necessary for every
   single router to support it.  The mechanism includes an originator
   address which is used for RPF checking to restrict the flooding, and
   prevent loops, just like BSR.  Like BSR, messages are forwarded hop
   by hop; the messages are link-local and each router will process and
   resend the messages.  Note that there is no equivalent to the BSR
   election mechanism; there can be multiple originators.  This
   mechanism is named the PIM Flooding Mechanism (PFM).

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3.1.  PFM Message Format

       0                   1                   2                   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
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |PIM Ver| Type  |N|  Reserved   |           Checksum            |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |            Originator Address (Encoded-Unicast format)        |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |T|          Type 1             |          Length 1             |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                            Value 1                            |
      |                               .                               |
      |                               .                               |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                               .                               |
      |                               .                               |
      |T|          Type n             |          Length n             |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                            Value n                            |
      |                               .                               |
      |                               .                               |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   PIM Version, Reserved and Checksum:   As specified in [RFC7761].

   Type:   PIM Message Type.  Value (pending IANA) for a PFM message.

   [N]o-Forward bit:   When set, this bit means that the PFM message is
      not to be forwarded.  This bit is defined to prevent Bootstrap
      message forwarding in [RFC5059].

   Originator Address:   The address of the router that originated the
      message.  This can be any address assigned to the originating
      router, but MUST be routable in the domain to allow successful
      forwarding.  The format for this address is given in the Encoded-
      Unicast address in [RFC7761].

   [T]ransitive bit:   Each TLV in the message includes a bit called the
      Transitive bit that controls whether the TLV is forwarded by
      routers that do not support the given type.  See Section 3.4.2.

   Type 1..n:   A message contains one or more TLVs, in this case n
      TLVs.  The Type specifies what kind of information is in the
      Value.  The type range is from 0 to 32767 (15 bits).

   Length 1..n:   The length of the the value field in octets.

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   Value 1..n:   The value associated with the type and of the specified
      length.

3.2.  Administrative Boundaries

   PFM messages are generally forwarded hop by hop to all PIM routers.
   However, similar to BSR, one may configure administrative boundaries
   to limit the information to certain domains or parts of the network.
   Implementations MUST have a way of defining a set of interfaces on a
   router as administrative boundaries for all PFM messages, or
   optionally for certain TLVs, allowing for different boundaries for
   different TLVs.  Usually one wants boundaries to be bidirectional,
   but an implementation MAY also provide unidirectional boundaries.
   When forwarding a message, a router MUST NOT send it out an interface
   that is an outgoing boundary, including bidirectional boundary, for
   all PFM messages.  If an interface is an outgoing boundary for
   certain TLVs, the message MUST NOT be sent out the interface if it is
   a boundary for all the TLVs in the message.  Otherwise the router
   MUST remove all the boundary TLVs from the message and send the
   message with the remaining TLVs.  Also, when receiving a PFM message
   on an interface, the message MUST be discarded if the interface is an
   incoming boundary, including bidirectional boundary, for all PFM
   messages.  If the interface is an incoming boundary for certain TLVs,
   the router MUST ignore all boundary TLVs.  If all the TLVs in the
   message are boundary TLVs, then the message is effectively ignored.
   Note that when forwarding an incoming message, the boundary is
   applied before forwarding.  If the message was discarded or all the
   TLVs were ignored, then no message is forwarded.  When a message is
   forwarded, it MUST NOT contain any TLVs for which the incoming
   interface is an incoming, or bidirectional, boundary.

3.3.  Originating PFM Messages

   A router originates a PFM message when it needs to distribute
   information using a PFM message to other routers in the network.
   When a message is originated depends on what information is
   distributed.  For instance this document defines a TLV to distribute
   information about active sources.  When a router has a new active
   source, a PFM message should be sent as soon as possible.  Hence a
   PFM message should be sent every time there is a new active source.
   However, the TLV also contains a holdtime and PFM messages need to be
   sent periodically.  Generally speaking, a PFM message would typically
   be sent when there is a local state change, causing information to be
   distributed with PFM to change.  Also, some information may need to
   be sent periodically.  These messages are called triggered and
   periodic messages, respectively.  Each TLV definition will need to
   define when a triggered PFM message needs to be originated, and also
   whether to send periodic messages, and how frequent.

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   A router MUST NOT originate more than N messages per minute.  This
   document does not mandate how this should be implemented, but some
   possible ways could be having a minimal time between each message,
   counting the number of messages originated and resetting the count
   every minute, or using a leaky bucket algorithm.  One benefit of
   using a leaky bucket algorithm is that it can handle bursts better.
   The default value of N is 6.  The value MUST be configurable.
   Depending on the network one may want to use a low value allowing new
   information to be propagated, but with a large number of routers and
   many updates, the total number of messages might become too large and
   require too much processing.

   There MUST be a minimum of M milliseconds between each originated
   message.  The default value of M is 1000 (1 second).  The value MUST
   be configurable.

   Unless otherwise specified by the TLV definitions, there is no
   relationship between different TLVs, and an implementation can choose
   whether to combine TLVs in one message or across separate messages.
   It is RECOMMENDED to combine multiple TLVs in one message, to reduce
   the number of messages, but it is also RECOMMENDED that the message
   is small enough to avoid fragmentation at the IP layer.  When a
   triggered PFM message needs to be sent due to a state change, a
   router MAY send a message containing only the information that
   changed.  If there are many changes occuring at about the same time,
   it might be possible to combine multiple changes in one message.  In
   the case where periodic messages are also needed, an implementation
   MAY include periodic PFM information in a triggered PFM.  E.g., if
   some information needs to be sent every 60 seconds and a triggered
   PFM is about to be sent 20 seconds before the next periodic PFM was
   scheduled, the triggered PFM might include the periodic information
   and the next periodic PFM can then be scheduled 60 seconds after
   that, rather than 20 seconds later.

   When a router originates a PFM message, it puts one of its own
   addresses in the originator field.  An implementation MUST allow an
   administrator to configure which address is used.  For a message to
   be received by all routers in a domain, all the routers need to have
   a route for this address due to the RPF based forwarding.  Hence an
   administrator needs to be careful which address to choose.  When this
   is not configured, an implementation MUST NOT use a link-local
   address.  It is RECOMMENDED to use an address of a virtual interface
   such that the originator can remain unchanged and routable
   independent of which physical interfaces or links may go down.

   The No-Forward bit MUST NOT be set, except for the case when a router
   receives a PIM Hello from a new neighbor, or a PIM Hello with a new
   Generation Identifier, defined in [RFC7761], is received from an

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   existing neighbor.  In that case an implementation MAY send PFM
   messages containing relevant information so that the neighbor can
   quickly get the correct state.  The definition of the different PFM
   message TLVs need to specify what, if anything, needs to be sent in
   this case.  If such a PFM message is sent, the No-Forward bit MUST be
   set, and the message must be sent within 60 seconds after the
   neighbor state change.  The processing rules for PFM messages will
   ensure that any other neighbors on the same link ignores the message.
   This behavior and the choice of 60 seconds is similar to what is
   defined for the No-Forward bit in [RFC5059].

3.4.  Processing PFM Messages

   A router that receives a PFM message MUST perform the initial checks
   specified here.  If the checks fail, the message MUST be dropped.  An
   error MAY be logged, but otherwise the message MUST be dropped
   silently.  If the checks pass, the contents is processed according to
   the processing rules of the included TLVs.

3.4.1.  Initial Checks

   In order to do further processing, a message MUST meet the following
   requirements.  The message MUST be from a directly connected PIM
   neighbor, the destination address MUST be ALL-PIM-ROUTERS.  Also, the
   interface MUST NOT be an incoming, nor bidirectional, administrative
   boundary for PFM messages, see Section 3.2.  If No-Forward is not
   set, the message MUST be from the RPF neighbor of the originator
   address.  If No-Forward is set, this system, the router doing these
   checks, MUST have enabled the PIM protocol within the last 60
   seconds.  See Section 3.3 for details.  In pseudo-code the algorithm
   is as follows:

            if ((DirectlyConnected(PFM.src_ip_address) == FALSE) OR
                (PFM.src_ip_address is not a PIM neighbor) OR
                (PFM.dst_ip_address != ALL-PIM-ROUTERS) OR
                (Incoming interface is admin boundary for PFM)) {
                 drop the message silently, optionally log error.
            }
            if (PFM.no_forward_bit == 0) {
                if (PFM.src_ip_address !=
                    RPF_neighbor(PFM.originator_ip_address)) {
                    drop the message silently, optionally log error.
                }
            } else if (more than 60 seconds elapsed since PIM enabled)) {
                drop the message silently, optionally log error.
            }

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   Note that src_ip_address is the source address in the IP header of
   the PFM message.  Originator is the originator field inside the PFM
   message, and is the router that originated the message.  When the
   message is forwarded hop by hop, the originator address never
   changes, while the source address will be an address belonging to the
   router that last forwarded the message.

3.4.2.  Processing and Forwarding of PFM Messages

   When the message is received, the initial checks above must be
   performed.  If it passes the checks, then for each included TLV,
   perform processing according to the specification for that TLV.

   After processing, the messsage is forwarded.  Some TLVs may be
   omitted or modified in the forwarded message.  This depends on
   administrative boundaries, see Section 3.2, the type specification
   and the setting of the Transitive bit for the TLV.  If a router
   supports the type, then the TLV is forwarded with no changes unless
   otherwise specified by the type specification.  A router not
   supporting the given type MUST include the TLV in the forwarded
   message if and only if the Transitive bit is set.  Whether a router
   supports the type or not, the value of the Transitive bit MUST be
   preserved if the TLV is included in the forwarded message.  The
   message is forwarded out of all interfaces with PIM neighbors
   (including the interface it was received on).  As specified in
   Section 3.2, if an interface is an outgoing boundary for any TLVs,
   the message MUST NOT be sent out the interface if it is an outgoing
   boundary for all the TLVs in the message.  Otherwise the router MUST
   remove any outgoing boundary TLVs of the interface from the message
   and send the message out that interface with the remaining TLVs.

4.  Distributing Source Group Mappings

   The generic flooding mechanism (PFM) defined in the previous section
   can be used for distributing source group mappings about active
   multicast sources throughout a PIM domain.  A Group Source Holdtime
   (GSH) TLV is defined for this purpose.

4.1.  Group Source Holdtime TLV

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       0                   1                   2                   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
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |1|         Type = 1              |          Length             |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |              Group Address (Encoded-Group format)             |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |            Src Count          |        Src Holdtime           |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |            Src Address 1 (Encoded-Unicast format)             |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |            Src Address 2 (Encoded-Unicast format)             |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                               .                               |
      |                               .                               |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |            Src Address m (Encoded-Unicast format)             |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   1:   The Transitive bit is set to 1.  This means that this type will
      be forwarded even if a router does not support it.  See
      Section 3.4.2.

   Type:   This TLV has type 1.

   Length:   The length of the value in octets.

   Group Address:   The group that sources are to be announced for.  The
      format for this address is given in the Encoded-Group format in
      [RFC7761].

   Src Count:   The number of source addresses that are included.

   Src Holdtime:   The Holdtime (in seconds) for the included source(s).

   Src Address:   The source address for the corresponding group.  The
      format for these addresses is given in the Encoded-Unicast address
      in [RFC7761].

4.2.  Originating Group Source Holdtime TLVs

   A PFM message MAY contain one or more Group Source Holdtime (GSH)
   TLVs.  This is used to flood information about active multicast
   sources.  Each FHR that is directly connected to an active multicast
   source originates PFM messages containing GSH TLVs.  How a multicast
   router discovers the source of the multicast packet and when it
   considers itself the FHR follows the same procedures as the
   registering process described in [RFC7761].  When a FHR has decided

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   that a register needs to be sent per [RFC7761], the SG is not
   registered via the PIM-SM register procedures, but the SG mapping is
   included in an GSH TLV in a PFM message.  Note, only the SG mapping
   is distributed in the message, not the entire packet as would have
   been done with a PIM register.  The PFM messages containing the GSH
   TLV are periodically sent for as long as the multicast source is
   active, similar to how PIM registers are periodically sent.  The
   default announcement period is 60 seconds, which means that as long
   as the source is active, it is included in a PFM message originated
   every 60 seconds.  The holdtime for the source MUST be either zero,
   or larger than the announcement period.  It is RECOMMENDED to be 3.5
   times the announcement period.  The default holdtime is 210 seconds,
   other values MAY be configured.  A source MAY be announced with a
   holdtime of zero to indicate that the source is no longer active.

   If an implementation supports originating GSH TLVs with different
   holdtimes for different sources, it can if needed send multiple TLVs
   with the same group address.  Due to the format, all the sources in
   the same TLV have the same holdtime.

   When a new source is detected, an implementation MAY send a PFM
   message containing just that particular source.  However, it MAY also
   include information about other sources that were just detected, so
   sources that are scheduled for periodic announcement later, or other
   types of information.  See Section 3.3 for details.  Note that when a
   new source is detected, one should trigger sending of a PFM message
   as soon as possible, while if a source becomes inactive, there is no
   reason to trigger a message.  There is no urgency in removing state
   for inactive sources.

   When a new PIM neighbor is detected, or an existing neighbor changes
   Generation Identifier, an implementation MAY send a triggered PFM
   message containing GSH TLVs for any Source Group mappings it has
   learned by receiving PFM GSH TLVs as well as any active directly
   connected sources.  See Section 3.3 for further details.

4.3.  Processing GSH TLVs

   A router that receives a PFM message containing GSH TLVs MUST parse
   the GSH TLVs and store each of the GSH TLVs as SG mappings with a
   holdtimer started with the advertised holdtime, unless the
   implementation specifically does not support GSH TLVs, the router is
   configured to ignore GSH TLVs in general, or to ignore GSH TLVs for
   certain sources or groups.  In particular, an administrator might
   configure a router to not process GSH TLVs if the router is known to
   never have any directly connected receivers.

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   For each group that has directly connected receivers, this router
   SHOULD send PIM (S,G) joins for all the SG mappings advertised in the
   message for the group.  Generally joins are sent, but there could for
   instance be administrative policy limiting which sources and groups
   to join.  The SG mappings are kept alive for as long as the holdtimer
   for the source is running.  Once the holdtimer expires a PIM router
   MAY send a PIM (S,G) prune to remove itself from the tree.  However,
   when this happens, there should be no more packets sent by the
   source, so it may be desirable to allow the state to time out rather
   than sending a prune.

   Note that a holdtime of zero has a special meaning.  It is to be
   treated as if the source just expired, and state to be removed.
   Source information MUST NOT be removed due to the source being
   omitted in a message.  For instance, if there is a large number of
   sources for a group, there may be multiple PFM messages, each message
   containing a different list of sources for the group.

4.4.  The First Packets and Bursty Sources

   The PIM register procedure is designed to deliver Multicast packets
   to the RP in the absence of a Shortest Path Tree (SPT) from the RP to
   the source.  The register packets received on the RP are decapsulated
   and forwarded down the shared tree to the LHRs.  As soon as an SPT is
   built, multicast packets would flow natively over the SPT to the RP
   or LHR and the register process would stop.  The PIM register process
   ensures packet delivery until an SPT is in place reaching the FHR.
   If the packets were not unicast encapsulated to the RP they would be
   dropped by the FHR until the SPT is setup.  This functionality is
   important for applications where the initial packet(s) must be
   received for the application to work correctly.  Another reason would
   be for bursty sources.  If the application sends out a multicast
   packet every 4 minutes (or longer), the SPT is torn down (typically
   after 3:30 minutes of inactivity) before the next packet is forwarded
   down the tree.  This will cause no multicast packet to ever be
   forwarded.  A well behaved application should be able to deal with
   packet loss since IP is a best effort based packet delivery system.
   But in reality this is not always the case.

   With the procedures defined in this document the packet(s) received
   by the FHR will be dropped until the LHR has learned about the source
   and the SPT is built.  That means for bursty sources or applications
   sensitive for the delivery of the first packet this solution would
   not be very applicable.  This solution is mostly useful for
   applications that don't have strong dependency on the initial
   packet(s) and have a fairly constant data rate, like video
   distribution for example.  For applications with strong dependency on
   the initial packet(s) using PIM Bidir [RFC5015] or SSM [RFC4607] is

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   recommended.  The protocol operations are much simpler compared to
   PIM SM, it will cause less churn in the network and both guarantee
   best effort delivery for the initial packet(s).

4.5.  Resiliency to Network Partitioning

   In a PIM SM deployment where the network becomes partitioned, due to
   link or node failure, it is possible that the RP becomes unreachable
   to a certain part of the network.  New sources that become active in
   that partition will not be able to register to the RP and receivers
   within that partition are not able to receive the traffic.  Ideally
   you would want to have a candidate RP in each partition, but you
   never know in advance which routers will form a partitioned network.
   In order to be fully resilient, each router in the network may end up
   being a candidate RP.  This would increase the operational complexity
   of the network.

   The solution described in this document does not suffer from that
   problem.  If a network becomes partitioned and new sources become
   active, the receivers in that partitioned will receive the SG
   Mappings and join the source tree.  Each partition works
   independently of the other partition(s) and will continue to have
   access to sources within that partition.  Once the network has
   healed, the periodic flooding of SG Mappings ensures that they are
   re-flooded into the other partition(s) and other receivers can join
   to the newly learned sources.

5.  Security Considerations

   When it comes to general PIM message security, see [RFC7761].  PFM
   messages MUST only be accepted from a PIM neighbor, but as discussed
   in [RFC7761], any router can become a PIM neighbor by sending a Hello
   message.  To control from where to accept PFM packets, one can limit
   which interfaces PIM is enabled, and also one can configure
   interfaces as administrative boundaries for PFM messages, see
   Section 3.2.  The implications of forged PFM messages depend on which
   TLVs they contain.  Documents defining new TLVs will need to discuss
   the security considerations for the specific TLVs.  In general
   though, the PFM messages are flooded within the network, and by
   forging a large number of PFM messages one might stress all the
   routers in the network.

   If an attacker can forge PFM messages, then such messages may contain
   arbitrary GSH TLVs.  An issue here is that an attacker might send
   such TLVs for a huge amount of sources, potentially causing every
   router in the network to store huge amounts of source state.  Also,
   if there is receiver interest for the groups specified in the GSH
   TLVs, routers with directly connected receivers will build Shortest

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   Path Trees for the announced sources, even if the sources are not
   actually active.  Building such trees will consume additional
   resources on routers that the trees pass through.

   PIM-SM link-local messages can be authenticated using IPsec, see
   [RFC7761] section 6.3 and [RFC5796].  Since PFM messages are link-
   local messages sent hop by hop, a link-local PFM message can be
   authenticated using IPsec such that a router can verify that a
   message was sent by a trusted neighbor and has not been modified.
   However, to verify that a received message contains correct
   information announced by the originator specified in the message, one
   will have to trust every router on the path from the originator and
   that each router has authenticated the received message.

6.  IANA Considerations

   This document requires the assignment of a new PIM message type for
   the PIM Flooding Mechanism (PFM) with the name "PIM Flooding
   Mechanism".  IANA is also requested to create a registry for PFM TLVs
   called "PIM Flooding Mechanism Message Types".  Assignments for the
   registry are to be made according to the policy "IETF Review" as
   defined in [RFC8126].  The initial content of the registry should be:

     Type         Name                    Reference
   --------------------------------------------------
      0        Reserved               [this document]
      1        Source Group Holdtime  [this document]
   2-32767     Unassigned

7.  Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank Arjen Boers for contributing to the
   initial idea, and Stewart Bryant, Yiqun Cai, Toerless Eckert, Dino
   Farinacci, Alvaro Retana and Liang Xia for their very helpful
   comments on the draft.

8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

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   [RFC5059]  Bhaskar, N., Gall, A., Lingard, J., and S. Venaas,
              "Bootstrap Router (BSR) Mechanism for Protocol Independent
              Multicast (PIM)", RFC 5059, DOI 10.17487/RFC5059, January
              2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5059>.

   [RFC5796]  Atwood, W., Islam, S., and M. Siami, "Authentication and
              Confidentiality in Protocol Independent Multicast Sparse
              Mode (PIM-SM) Link-Local Messages", RFC 5796,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5796, March 2010,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5796>.

   [RFC7761]  Fenner, B., Handley, M., Holbrook, H., Kouvelas, I.,
              Parekh, R., Zhang, Z., and L. Zheng, "Protocol Independent
              Multicast - Sparse Mode (PIM-SM): Protocol Specification
              (Revised)", STD 83, RFC 7761, DOI 10.17487/RFC7761, March
              2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7761>.

   [RFC8126]  Cotton, M., Leiba, B., and T. Narten, "Guidelines for
              Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26,
              RFC 8126, DOI 10.17487/RFC8126, June 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8126>.

8.2.  Informative References

   [RFC3973]  Adams, A., Nicholas, J., and W. Siadak, "Protocol
              Independent Multicast - Dense Mode (PIM-DM): Protocol
              Specification (Revised)", RFC 3973, DOI 10.17487/RFC3973,
              January 2005, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3973>.

   [RFC4607]  Holbrook, H. and B. Cain, "Source-Specific Multicast for
              IP", RFC 4607, DOI 10.17487/RFC4607, August 2006,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4607>.

   [RFC5015]  Handley, M., Kouvelas, I., Speakman, T., and L. Vicisano,
              "Bidirectional Protocol Independent Multicast (BIDIR-
              PIM)", RFC 5015, DOI 10.17487/RFC5015, October 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5015>.

Authors' Addresses

   IJsbrand Wijnands
   Cisco Systems, Inc.
   De kleetlaan 6a
   Diegem  1831
   Belgium

   Email: ice@cisco.com

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   Stig Venaas
   Cisco Systems, Inc.
   Tasman Drive
   San Jose  CA  95134
   USA

   Email: stig@cisco.com

   Michael Brig
   Aegis BMD Program Office
   17211 Avenue D, Suite 160
   Dahlgren  VA 22448-5148
   USA

   Email: michael.brig@mda.mil

   Anders Jonasson
   Swedish Defence Material Administration (FMV)
   Loennvaegen 4
   Vaexjoe  35243
   Sweden

   Email: anders@jomac.se

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