RPL Observations
draft-ietf-roll-rpl-observations-06
ROLL R. Jadhav, Ed.
Internet-Draft
Intended status: Standards Track R. Sahoo
Expires: December 5, 2021 Juniper
Y. Wu
Huawei
June 3, 2021
RPL Observations
draft-ietf-roll-rpl-observations-06
Abstract
This document describes RPL protocol design issues, various
observations and possible consequences of the design and
implementation choices.
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Table of Contents
1. Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Requirements Language and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. DTSN increment in storing MOP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. Deliberations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. DAO retransmission and use of DAO-ACK in storing MOP . . . . 5
4.1. Significance of bidirectional Path establishment
indication and relevance of DAO-ACK . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. Problems with hop-by-hop DAO-ACK . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.3. Problems with end-to-end DAO-ACK . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.4. Deliberations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.5. Implementation Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Interpreting Trickle Timer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Handling resource unavailability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6.1. Deliberations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
7. Handling aggregated targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7.1. Deliberations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8. RPL Transit Information in DAO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8.1. Deliberations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
9. Upgrades or Extensions to RPL protocol . . . . . . . . . . . 10
10. Path Control bits handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
11. Asymmetric Links and RPL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
12. Adjacencies probing with RPL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
12.1. Deliberations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
13. Control Options eliding mechanism in RPL . . . . . . . . . . 12
14. Managing persistent variables across node reboots . . . . . . 12
14.1. Persistent storage and RPL state information . . . . . . 12
14.2. Lollipop Counters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
14.3. RPL State variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
14.3.1. DODAG Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
14.3.2. DTSN field in DIO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
14.3.3. PathSequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
14.4. State variables update frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
14.5. Deliberations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
14.6. Implementation Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
15. Capabilities and its role in RPL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
15.1. Handshaking node capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
15.2. How do Capabilities differ from MOP and Configuration
Option? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
15.3. Deliberations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
16. Backward Compatibility issues with RPL Options . . . . . . . 17
17. RPL under-specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
18. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
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19. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
20. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
21. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
21.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
21.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Appendix A. Additional Stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1. Motivation
The primary motivation for this draft is to enlist different issues
with RPL operation and invoke a discussion within the working group.
This draft by itself is not intended for RFC tracks but as a WG
discussion track. This draft may in turn result in other work items
taken up by the WG which may improvise on the issues mentioned
herewith.
2. Introduction
RPL [RFC6550] specifies a proactive distance-vector routing scheme
designed for LLNs (Low Power and Lossy Networks). RPL enables the
network to be formed as a DODAG and supports storing mode and non-
storing mode of operations. Non-storing mode allows reduced memory
resource usage on the nodes by allowing non-BR nodes to operate
without managing a routing table and involves use of source routing
by the Root to direct the traffic along a specific path. In storing
mode of operation intermediate routers maintain routing tables.
This work aims to highlight various issues with RPL which makes it
difficult to handle certain scenarios. This work will highlight such
issues in context to RPL's mode of operations (storing versus non-
storing). There are cases where RPL does not provide clear rules and
implementations have to make their choices hindering interoperability
and performance.
[I-D.clausen-lln-rpl-experiences] provides some interesting points.
Some sections in this draft may overlap with some observations in
[clausen], but this is been done to further extend some scenarios or
observations. It is highly encouraged that readers should also visit
[I-D.clausen-lln-rpl-experiences] for other insights. Regardless,
this draft is self-sufficient in a way that it does not expect to
have read [clausen-draft].
2.1. Requirements Language and Terminology
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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NS-MOP = RPL Non-storing Mode of Operation
S-MOP = RPL Storing Mode of Operation
This document uses terminology described in [RFC6550] and [RFC6775].
3. DTSN increment in storing MOP
DTSN increment has major impact on the overall RPL control traffic
and on the efficiency of downstream route update. DTSN is sent as
part of DIO message and signals the downstream nodes to trigger the
target advertisement. The 6LR needs to decide when to update the
DTSN and usually it should do it in a conservative way. The DTSN
update mechanism determines how soon the downward routes are
established along the new path. RPL specifications does not provide
any clear mechanism on how the DTSN update should happen in case of
storing mode.
(6LBR)
|
|
|
(A)
/ \
/ \
/ \
(B) -(C)
| / |
| / |
| / |
(D)- (E)
\ ;
\ ;
\ ;
(F)
/ \
/ \
/ \
(G) (H)
Figure 1: Sample topology
Consider example topology shown in Figure 1, assume that node D
switches the parent from node B to C. Ideally the downstream nodes D
and its sub-childs should send their target advertisement to the new
path via node C. To achieve this result in a efficient way is a
challenge. Incrementing DTSN is the only way to trigger the DAO on
downstream nodes. But this trigger should be sent not only on the
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first hop but to all the grand-child nodes. Thus DTSN has to be
incremented in the complete sub-DODAG rooted at node D thus resulting
in DIO/DAO storm along the sub-DODAG. This is specifically a big
issue in high density networks where the metric deteoration might
happen transiently even though the signal strength is good.
The primary implementation issue is whether a child node increment
its own DTSN when it receives DTSN update from its parent node? This
would result in DAO-updates in the sub-DODAG, thus the cost could be
very high. If not incremented it may result in serious loss of
connectivity for nodes in the sub-DODAG.
3.1. Deliberations
(1) In S-MOP, should the child node increment its DTSN on seeing
that its preferred parent has updated its DTSN?
(2) What are rules for DTSN increment for S-MOP, which multiple
implementations can follow thus allowing consistent performance
across different implementations?
4. DAO retransmission and use of DAO-ACK in storing MOP
[RFC6550] has an optional DAO-ACK mechanism using which an upstream
parent confirms the reception of a DAO from the downstream child. In
case of storing mode, the DAO is addressed to the immediate hop
upstream parent resulting in DAO-ACK from the parent. There are two
implementations possible:
(1) Hop-by-hop ACK: A parent responds with a DAO-ACK immedetialy
after receiving the DAO.
(2) End-to-End ACK: A node waits for the upstream parent to send
DAO-ACK to respond with a DAO-ACK downstream. The upstream
parent may do as many attempts to successfully send this DAO
upstream. In other words, the parent node accepts the
responsibilty of sending the DAO upstream till the point it is
ACKed the moment it responds back with its own ACK to the child.
1-> 3->
DAO DAO
(TgtNode)--------(6LR)-------(root)
ACK ACK
<-2 <-4
Figure 2: Hop-by-hop DAO-ACK
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1-> 2->
DAO DAO
(TgtNode)--------(6LR)-------(root)
ACK ACK
<-4 <-3
Figure 3: End-to-End DAO-ACK
4.1. Significance of bidirectional Path establishment indication and
relevance of DAO-ACK
Lot of application traffic patterns requires that the bidirectional
path be established between the target node and the root. A typical
example is that COAP request with ACK bit set would require an
acknowledgement from the end receiver and thus warrants bidirectional
path establishment. It is imperative that the target node first
ascertains whether such a bidirectional path is established before
initiating such application traffic. In case of non-storing MOP, the
DAO-ACK works perfectly fine to ascertain such bidirectional
connectivity since it is an indication that the root which usually is
the direct destination of the DAO has received the DAO. But in case
of storing MOP, things are more complicated since DAO is sent hop-by-
hop and the DAO-ACK semantics are not clear enough as per the current
specification. As mentioned in above section, an implementation can
choose to implement hop-by-hop ACK or end-to-end ACK.
4.2. Problems with hop-by-hop DAO-ACK
The primary issue with this mode is that target node cannot ascertain
bidirection path connectivity on the reception of the DAO-ACK.
4.3. Problems with end-to-end DAO-ACK
In this case, it is possible for the target node to ascertain if the
DAO has indeed reached the root since the reception of DAO-ACK on
target node confirms this. However there is extra state information
that needs to be maintained on the 6LRs on behalf of all the child
nodes. Also it is very difficult for the target node to ascertain a
timer value to decide whether the DAO transmission has failed to
reach the root.
4.4. Deliberations
(1) How should an implementation interpret the DAO-ACK semantics?
(2) What is the best way for the target node to know that the end to
end bidirectional path is successfully installed or updated? In
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NS-MOP, the DAO-ACK provides a clear way to do this. Can the
same be achieved for storing-MOP?
(3) What happens if the DAO-ACK with Status!=0 is responded by
ancestor node?
(4) How to selectively NACK subset of targets in case target options
are aggregated?
4.5. Implementation Notes
Current RPL open source implementations have both types of DAO-ACK
implementations. For e.g. RIOT supports hop-by-hop DAO-ACK.
Contiki older versions supported hop-by-hop ACK but the recent
version have changed to end-to-end ACK implementation.
The sequence of sending no-path DAO and DAO matters when updating the
routing adjacencies on a parent switch. If an implementation chooses
to send no-path DAO before DAO then it results in significantly more
overhead for route invalidation. This is because no-path DAO would
traverse all the way up to the BR clearing the routes on the way. In
case there is a common ancestor post which the old and new path
remains same then it is better to send regular DAO first thus
limiting the propagation of subsequent no-path DAO till this common
ancestor.
5. Interpreting Trickle Timer
Trickle algorithm defines a mechanism to reset the timer. Trickle
timer reset is unlike regular periodic timers wherein the timer is
simply reset to start again. Reset of trickle timer implies
resetting the trickle back to Imin and starting with a new interval
as mentioned in Section 4.2 of [RFC6206].
|----|--------|----------------|------------------------------| . . . .
Imin I2 I3 I4 I5
Figure 4: Trickle Timer Operation
The above figure shows an example of trickle intervals. An interval
is double that of the previous interval size. Section 4.2. of
[RFC6206] states that,
"If Trickle hears a transmission that is "inconsistent" and I is
greater than Imin, it resets the Trickle timer. To reset the timer,
Trickle sets I to Imin and starts a new interval as in step 2. If I
is equal to Imin when Trickle hears an "inconsistent" transmission,
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Trickle does nothing. Trickle can also reset its timer in response
to external "events"."
Thus if the trickle timer has advanced to subsequent intervals i.e.,
>= I2, then a reset of trickle timer implies going back to Imin.
However, if the trickle timer is currently in Imin and if it hears an
inconsistent transmission then it does nothing.
In context to multicast DIS/DIO operation, this implies that if the
DIO trickle timer is already at Imin and if the node hears a
multicast DIS, then the timer does nothing. It MUST NOT reset the
timer again in this case.
An implementation MUST never restart the timer within an interval.
For e.g., in the above figure, if the timer is in interval I2, the
implementation MUST never restart the timer to the beginning of the
current interval i.e., I2. If the timer is in interval T2 and if the
reset is to be done then the interval is set back to Imin. If the
timer is already in Imin, then the reset should do nothing.
6. Handling resource unavailability
The nodes in the constrained networks have to maintain various
records such as neighbor cache entries and routing entries on behalf
of other targets to facilitate packet forwarding. Because of the
constrained nature of the devices the memory available may be very
limited and thus the path selection algorithm may have to take into
consideration such resource constraints as well.
RPL currently does not have any mechanism to advertise such resource
indicator metrics. The primary tables associated with RPL are
routing table and the neighbor cache. Even though neighbor cache is
not directly linked with RPL protocol, the maintenance of routing
adjacencies results in updates to neigbor cache.
6.1. Deliberations
Is it possible to know that an upstream parent/ancestor cannot
hold enough routing entries and thus this path should not be used?
Is it possible to know that an upstream parent cannot hold any
more neighbor cache entry and thus this upstream parent should not
be used?
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7. Handling aggregated targets
RPL allows and defines specific procedures so as to aid target
aggregation in DAO. Having said that, the specification does not
mandate use of aggregated targets nor does it make any comment on
whether a receiving node needs to handle it. Target aggregation is
an useful tool and especially helps with link layer technologies that
does not suffer from low MTUs such as PLC. Even if the
implementation does not support aggregating targets, it should
atleast mandate reception of aggregated targets in DAO.
RPL has a mechanism currently to ACK the DAO but it does not have a
mechanism to ACK the target option. Thus in case of aggregated
targets in the DAO, if the subset of the targets fail then it is
impossible for the DAO-ACK to signal this to the DAO sender.
7.1. Deliberations
Even if the implementation does not support aggregating targets,
should it atleast mandate reception and handling of aggregated
targets in DAO?
There is a good scope for compressing aggregated targets which can
significantly reduce the RPL control overhead.
How to selectively NACK subset of targets in case target options
are aggregated?
The DEFAULT_DAO_DELAY of 1sec does not help much with aggregation.
The upstream parent nodes should wait for more time then the child
nodes so as to effectively aggregate. Can we have
DEFAULT_DAO_DELAY a function of the level/rank the node is at?
8. RPL Transit Information in DAO
RPL allows associating a target or set of targets with a Transit
Information Option which contains attributes for a path to one or
more destinations identified by the set of targets. In case of NS-
MOP, the transit Information will contain the all critical Parent
Address which allows the common ancestor usually the root to identify
the source route header for the target node. The Transit Information
also contains other information such as Path Sequence and Path
Lifetime which are critical for maintaining route adjacencies.
RPL however does not mandate the use of Transit Information Option
for targets.
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8.1. Deliberations
Is it ok to let implementations decide on the inclusion of Transit
Information Option?
Is it possible to achieve interop without mandating use of Transit
Information Option?
If the Transit Information Option is sent, should the handling of
PathSequence be mandated?
9. Upgrades or Extensions to RPL protocol
RPL extensibility is highly desirable and is controlled by protocol
elements within the messaging framework. In the pursuit to keep the
signalling overhead less, RPL specification has been restricting in
its approach to extend its field ranges, thus in some cases putting
extensibility at stakes. Consider for example, the mode of operation
bits which is three bits in the RPL specification. These bits are
already saturated and it may be difficult to add major upgrades
without extending these bits.
Addition of new Control Options or new RPL Codes almost certainly
results in backward compatibility issues. RFC6550 clearly mentions
that a message with an unknown RPL Code MUST be silently discarded.
However, no explicit handling is suggested for unknown RPL control
option types. In some cases, implementations simply copy-forward an
unknown option as it is while in other cases the unknown option is
stripped off before forwarding the message.
Deliberations:
(1) What are the extensibility options RPL could implement? How
much overhead would it incur?
(2) Most of the extensions are in the form of new control options.
Should RPL have a mechanism to only handle such extensions in a
backward compatible but in a generic manner?
10. Path Control bits handling
RPL uses Path Control bits in the DAO's Transit Information Option
for installing multiple downward routes to the nodes. These multiple
routes could be used for reliability, latency or traffic load-
balancing within a DAG. The path control bits are usable both in
storing and non-storing mode of operation.
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RFC6550 Section 9.9 bullet point 9 requires a mandatory setting of
Path Control bits in all the unicast DAOs sent by the Target node.
However, no existing implementation of RPL supports this. There is
no reason for a network which only requires a single path to the root
to mandatorily support path control bits.
Deliberations:
(1) Should the mandatory clause for supporting Path Control Bits in
RFC6550 Section 9.9 point 9 be removed?
(2) Handling Path Control Bits may be complex. An implementation
guideline explaining the use-cases and resource (memory
requirements) assumptions would help implementors decide the
utility of this technique.
11. Asymmetric Links and RPL
Section 3.1 of [I-D.ietf-intarea-adhoc-wireless-com] explains
asymmetric link characteristics and what it takes for a protocol to
support asymmetric links. RPL depends on bi-directional links for
control even though near-perfect symmetry is not expected. The
implication of this is that the upstream and downstream path remains
same within a given RPL instance for any pair of nodes. There are
following questions sprouting of this design:
(1) Is it possible to detect asymmetric links?
(2) In the presence of asymmetric links what is the impact on the
control overhead and is there a way to possibly mitigate or
alleviate any negative impact?
[I-D.ietf-roll-aodv-rpl] defines a mechanism to use a pair of
instances which are coupled. This allows disjoint upstream and
downstream paths between pair of nodes assuming that the link
asymmetricity is detected using some outside techniques. The link
assumes that the link asymmetricity is already known to the nodes in
the form of static configuration. In case of 6tisch networks, the
availability of transmission slots information can be used to
identify link asymmetricity. The challenge with regards to detecting
link asymmetricity arises from scenarios where, for example, the
nodes transmit with unequal power levels.
12. Adjacencies probing with RPL
RPL avoids periodic hello messaging as compared to other distance-
vector protocols. It uses trickle timer based mechanism to update
configuration parameters. This significantly reduces the RPL control
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overhead. One of the fallout of this design choice is that, in the
absence of regular traffic, the adjacencies could not be tested and
repaired if broken.
RPL provides a mechanism in the form of unicast DIS to query a
particular node for its DIO. A node receiving a unicast DIS MUST
respond with a unicast DIO with Configuration Option. This mechanism
could as well be made use of for probing adjacencies and certain
implementations such as Contiki uses this. The periodicity of the
probing is implementation dependent, but the node is expected to
invoke probing only when
(1) There is no data traffic based on which the links could be
tested.
(2) There is no L2 feedback. In some case, L2 might provide
periodic beacons at link layer and the absence of beacons could
be used for link tests.
12.1. Deliberations
(1) Should the probing scheme be standardized? In some cases using
multicast based probing may prove advantageous.
(2) In some cases using multicast based probing may prove
advantageous. Currently RPL does not have multicast based
probing. Multicast DIS/DIO may not be suitable for probing
because it could possibly lead to change of states.
13. Control Options eliding mechanism in RPL
RPL configuration changes are rare and thus various configuration
options may not change over a long period of time. RPL provides a
way for the configuration options to be elided but there are no clear
guidelines on how the eliding should be handled. In the absence of
such guidelines, it is possible that certain nodes may end up using
stale configuration in the event of transient link failures.
14. Managing persistent variables across node reboots
14.1. Persistent storage and RPL state information
Devices are required to be functional for several years without
manual maintanence. Usually battery power consumption is considered
key for operating the devices for several (tens of) years. But apart
from battery, flash memory endurance may prove to be a lifetime
bottleneck in constrained networks. Endurance is defined as maximum
number of erase-write cycles that a NAND/NOR cell can undergo before
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losing its 'gauranteed' write operation. In some cases (cheaper
NAND-MLC/TLC), the endurance can be as less as 2K cycles. Thus for
e.g. if a given cell is written 5 times a day, that NAND-flash cell
assuming an endurance of 10K cycles may last for less than 6 years.
Wear leveling is a popular technique used in flash memory to minimize
the impact of limited cell endurance. Wear leveling works by
arranging data so that erasures and re-writes are distributed evenly
across the medium. The memory sectors are over-provisioned so that
the writes are distributed across multiple sectors. Many IoT
platforms do not necessarily consider this over-provisioning and
usually provision the memory only to what is required. Some
scenarios such as street-lighting may not require the application
layer to write any information to the persistent storage and thus the
over-provisioning is often ignored. In such cases if the network
stack ends up using persistent storage for maintaining its state
information then it becomes counter-productive.
In a star topology, the amount of persistent data write done by
network protocols is very limited. But ad-hoc networks employing
routing protocols such as RPL assume certain state information to be
retained across node reboots. In case of IoT devices this storage is
mostly floating gate based NAND/NOR based flash memory. The impact
of loss of this state information differs depending upon the type
(6LN/6LR/6LBR) of the node.
14.2. Lollipop Counters
[RFC6550] Section 7.2. explains sequence counter operation defining
lollipop [Perlman83] style counters. Lollipop counters specify
mechanism in which even if the counter value wraps, the algorithm
would be able to tell whether the received value is the latest or
not. This mechanism also helps in "some cases" to recover from node
reboot, but is not foolproof.
Consider an e.g. where Node A boots up and initialises the seqcnt to
240 as recommended in [RFC6550]. Node A communicates to Node B using
this seqcnt and node B uses this seqcnt to determine whether the
information node A sent in the packet is latest. Now lets assume,
the counter value reaches 250 after some operations on Node A, and
node B keeps receiving updated seqcnt from node A. Now consider that
node A reboots, and since it reinitializes the seqcnt value to 240
and sends the information to node B (who has seqcnt of 250 stored on
behalf of node A). As per section 7.2. of [RFC6550], when node B
receives this packet it will consider the information to be old
(since 240 < 250).
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+-----+-----+----------+
| A | B | Output |
+-----+-----+----------+
| 240 | 240 | A<B, old |
| 240 | 241 | A<B, old |
| 240 | :: | A<B, old |
| 240 | 256 | A<B, old |
| 240 | 0 | A<B, new |
| 240 | 1 | A>B, new |
| 240 | :: | A>B, new |
| 240 | 127 | A>B, new |
+-----+-----+----------+
Default values for lollipop counters considered from [RFC6550]
Section 7.2.
Table 1: Example lollipop counter operation
Based on this figure, there is dead zone (240 to 0) in which if A
operates after reboot then the seqcnt will always be considered
smaller. Thus node A needs to maintain the seqcnt in persistent
storage and reuse this on reboot.
14.3. RPL State variables
The impact of loss of RPL state information differs depending upon
the node type (6LN/6LR/6LBR). Following sections explain different
state variables and the impact in case this information is lost on
reboot.
14.3.1. DODAG Version
The tuple (RPLInstanceID, DODAGID, DODAGVersionNumber) uniquely
identifies a DODAG Version. DODAGVersionNumber is incremented
everytime a global repair is initiated for the instance (global or
local). A node receiving an older DODAGVersionNumber will ignore the
DIO message assuming it to be from old DODAG version. Thus a 6LBR
node (and 6LR node in case of local DODAG) needs to maintain the
DODAGVersionNumber in the persistent storage, so as to be available
on reboot. In case the 6LBR could not use the latest
DODAGVersionNumber the implication are that it won't be able to
recover/re-establish the routing table.
14.3.2. DTSN field in DIO
DTSN (Destination advertisement Trigger Sequence Number) is a DIO
message field used as part of procedure to maintain Downward routes.
A 6LBR/6LR node may increment a DTSN in case it requires the
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downstream nodes to send DAO and thus update downward routes on the
6LBR/6LR node. In case of RPL NS-MOP, only the 6LBR maintains the
downward routes and thus controls this field update. In case of
S-MOP, 6LRs additionally keep downward routes and thus control this
field update.
In S-MOP, when a 6LR node switches parent it may have to issue a DIO
with incremented DTSN to trigger downstream child nodes to send DAO
so that the downward routes are established in all parent/ancestor
set. Thus in S-MOP, the frequency of DTSN update might be relatively
high (given the node density and hysteresis set by objective function
to switch parent).
14.3.3. PathSequence
PathSequence is part of RPL Transit Option, and associated with RPL
Target option. A node whichs owns a target address can associate a
PathSequence in the DAO message to denote freshness of the target
information. This is especially useful when a node uses multiple
paths or multiple parents to advertise its reachability.
Loss of PathSequence information maintained on the target node can
result in routing adjacencies been lost on 6LRs/6LBR/6BBR.
14.4. State variables update frequency
+--------------------+-------------------+------------------------+
| State variable | Update frequency | Impacts node type |
+--------------------+-------------------+------------------------+
| DODAGVersionNumber | Low | 6LBR, 6LR(local DODAG) |
| DTSN | High(SM),Low(NSM) | 6LBR, 6LR |
| PathSequence | High(SM),Low(NSM) | 6LR, 6LN |
+--------------------+-------------------+------------------------+
Low=<5 per day, High=>5 per day; SM=Storing MOP, NSM=Non-Storing MOP
Table 2: RPL State variables
14.5. Deliberations
(1) Is it possible that RPL removes the use of persistent storage
for maintaining state information?
(2) In most cases, the node reboots will happen very rarely. Thus
doing a persistent storage book-keeping for handling node reboot
might not make sense. Is it possible to consider signaling
(especially after the node reboots) so as to avoid maintaining
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this persistent state? Is it possible to use one-time on-reboot
signalling to recover some state information?
(3) It is necessary that RPL avoids using persistent storage as far
as possible. Ideally, extensions to RPL should consider this as
a design requirement especially for 6LR and 6LN nodes. DTSN and
PathSequence are the primary state variables which have major
impact.
14.6. Implementation Notes
An implementation should use a random DAOSequence number on reboot so
as to avoid a risk of reusing the same DAOSequence on reboot.
Regardless the sequence counter size of 8bits does not provide much
gurantees towards choosing a good random number. A parent node will
not respond with a DAO-ACK in case it sees a DAO with the same
previous DAOSequence.
Write-Before-Use: The state information should be written to the
flash before using it in the messaging. If it is done the other way,
then the chances are that the node power downs before writing to the
persistent storage.
15. Capabilities and its role in RPL
RPL is a distributed protocol and it requires that the participating
nodes agree on basic set of primitives to follow. RPL currently
handles this using MOP (Mode of Operation) bits in the DIO. MOP bits
inform the nodes the basic mode of operation a node MUST support to
join the Instance as a 6LR. The MOP is decided and advertised by the
root of the RPL Instance. A node not supporting the given MOP may
still join the Instance as a leaf node or 6LN.
RPL further uses DIO Configuration Option to advertise the
configuration each node needs to use (for e.g., for trickle timer).
15.1. Handshaking node capabilities
Currently there exist no mechanism to handshake capabilities of the
root or 6LRs or 6LNs. If a feature is optional and is supported by
6LRs/6LNs then currently there exists no mechanism to signal it.
There are several RPL extension proposals which are possibly optional
features. Root needs to know if the 6LR/6LN supports these optional
features to enable the extension in that path context. Similarly
6LRs and 6LNs need to know whether the root supports certain
extensions that it can make use of.
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15.2. How do Capabilities differ from MOP and Configuration Option?
Unlike MOP and Configuration Option which are issued by the root of
the Instance, Capabilities can be issued by any node. A 6LN/6LR node
can advertise its capabilities such that those can be seen by
intermediate 6LRs and the root of the Instance.
15.3. Deliberations
(1) Is it possible for leaf nodes to advertise their set of
capabilities, which can be used by root and/or intermediate 6LRs
to make run time decisions?
(2) How should these capabilities be carried? Should it be carried
in DAO/DIO/DAO-ACK?
(3) Should the definition of capabilities be same in both directions
(upstream/downstream)?
16. Backward Compatibility issues with RPL Options
Most of the new work in ROLL requires addition of new control
options. Everytime a new control option is added, it is required
that all the nodes upgrade to support this option. In many cases,
the new specification declares using a Flag day to switch to the new
functionality.
New control options may not require mandatory handling on every node
but it requires at-least some processing. For e.g., assume that a
new control option is added to DIO message. The option does not
require any handling on the nodes not supporting it but it requires
at-least for these nodes to forward this new control option
downstream. Currently the new control option may be stripped off.
It should be possible for the unknown control options to be copied
as-is to the downstream/upstream node(s). The specification defining
the new control option will decide whether a node should strip-off or
copy the unknown control option.
17. RPL under-specification
(a) PathSequence: Is it mandatory to use PathSequence in DAO Transit
Information Option? RPL mentions that a 6LR/6LBR hosting the
routing entry on behalf of target node should refresh the
lifetime on reception of a new Path Sequence. But RPL does not
necessarily mandate use of Path Sequence. Most of the open
source implementation [RIOT] [CONTIKI] currently do not issue
Path Sequence in the DAO message.
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(b) Target Option aggregation in DAO: RPL allows multiple targets to
be aggregated in a single DAO message and has introduced a
notion of DelayDAO using which a 6LR node could delay its DAO to
enable such aggregation. But RPL does not have clear text on
handling of aggregated DAOs and thus it hinders
interoperability.
(c) DTSN Update: RPL does not clearly define in which cases DTSN
should be updated in case of storing mode of operation. More
details for this are presented in Section 3.
18. Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Pascal Thubert for hallway chats and for helping
understand the existing design rationales. Thanks to Michael
Richardson for Unstrung RPL implementation rationale. Thanks to ML
discussions, in particular (https://www.ietf.org/mail-
archive/web/roll/current/msg09443.html).
19. IANA Considerations
This memo includes no request to IANA.
20. Security Considerations
This is an information draft and does add any changes to the existing
specifications.
21. References
21.1. 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>.
[RFC6206] Levis, P., Clausen, T., Hui, J., Gnawali, O., and J. Ko,
"The Trickle Algorithm", RFC 6206, DOI 10.17487/RFC6206,
March 2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6206>.
[RFC6550] Winter, T., Ed., Thubert, P., Ed., Brandt, A., Hui, J.,
Kelsey, R., Levis, P., Pister, K., Struik, R., Vasseur,
JP., and R. Alexander, "RPL: IPv6 Routing Protocol for
Low-Power and Lossy Networks", RFC 6550,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6550, March 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6550>.
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[RFC6775] Shelby, Z., Ed., Chakrabarti, S., Nordmark, E., and C.
Bormann, "Neighbor Discovery Optimization for IPv6 over
Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPANs)",
RFC 6775, DOI 10.17487/RFC6775, November 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6775>.
21.2. Informative References
[I-D.clausen-lln-rpl-experiences]
Clausen, T., Verdiere, A. C. D., Yi, J., Herberg, U., and
Y. Igarashi, "Observations on RPL: IPv6 Routing Protocol
for Low power and Lossy Networks", draft-clausen-lln-rpl-
experiences-11 (work in progress), March 2018.
[I-D.ietf-intarea-adhoc-wireless-com]
Baccelli, E. and C. E. Perkins, "Multi-hop Ad Hoc Wireless
Communication", draft-ietf-intarea-adhoc-wireless-com-02
(work in progress), July 2016.
[I-D.ietf-roll-aodv-rpl]
Anamalamudi, S., Zhang, M., Perkins, C. E., Anand, S., and
B. Liu, "Supporting Asymmetric Links in Low Power
Networks: AODV-RPL", draft-ietf-roll-aodv-rpl-10 (work in
progress), April 2021.
[Perlman83]
Perlman, R., "Fault-Tolerant Broadcast of Routing
Information", North-Holland Computer Networks, Vol.7,
December 1983.
Appendix A. Additional Stuff
Authors' Addresses
Rahul Arvind Jadhav (editor)
Marathahalli
Bangalore, Karnataka 560037
India
Email: rahul.ietf@gmail.com
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Rabi Narayan Sahoo
Juniper
Whitefield
Bangalore, Karnataka 560037
India
Email: rabinarayans0828@gmail.com
Yuefeng Wu
Huawei
No.101, Software Avenue, Yuhuatai District,
Nanjing, Jiangsu 210012
China
Phone: +86-15251896569
Email: wuyuefeng@huawei.com
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