Generic UDP Encapsulation for IP Tunneling
draft-ietf-tsvwg-gre-in-udp-encap-02

Network Working Group                                    E. Crabbe, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                  Google
Intended status: Standard Track                            L. Yong, Ed.
                                                             Huawei USA
                                                             X. Xu, Ed.
                                                    Huawei Technologies

Expires: January 2015                                    July 1, 2014

                Generic UDP Encapsulation for IP Tunneling
                   draft-ietf-tsvwg-gre-in-udp-encap-02

Abstract

   This document describes a method of encapsulating arbitrary
   protocols within GRE and UDP headers.  In this encapsulation, the
   source UDP port may be used as an entropy field for purposes of load
   balancing while the payload protocol may be identified by the GRE
   Protocol Type.

Status of This Document

   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 http://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 January 1, 2015.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://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

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   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...................................................3
      1.1. Applicability Statement...................................3
   2. Terminology....................................................4
      2.1. Requirements Language.....................................4
   3. Procedures.....................................................4
   4. Encapsulation Considerations...................................8
   5. Backward Compatibility.........................................9
   6. IANA Considerations............................................9
   7. Security Considerations.......................................10
      7.1. Vulnerability............................................10
   8. Acknowledgements..............................................10
   9. Contributors..................................................10
   10. References...................................................11
      10.1. Normative References....................................11
      10.2. Informative References..................................12
   11. Authors' Addresses...........................................13

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1. Introduction

   Load balancing, or more specifically, statistical multiplexing of
   traffic using Equal Cost Multi-Path (ECMP) and/or Link Aggregation
   Groups (LAGs) in IP networks is a widely used technique for creating
   higher capacity networks out of lower capacity links. Most existing
   routers in IP networks are already capable of distributing IP
   traffic flows over ECMP paths and/or LAGs on the basis of a hash
   function performed on flow invariant fields in IP packet headers and
   their payload protocol headers. Specifically, when the IP payload is
   a User Datagram Protocol (UDP)[RFC0768] or Transmission Control
   Protocol (TCP) packet, router hash functions frequently operate on
   the five-tuple of the source IP address, the destination IP address,
   the source port, the destination port, and the protocol/next-header

   Several tunneling techniques are in common use in IP networks, such
   as Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) [RFC2784], MPLS [RFC4023] and
   L2TPv3 [RFC3931]. GRE is an increasingly popular encapsulation
   choice, especially in environments where MPLS is unavailable or
   unnecessary. Unfortunately, use of common GRE endpoints may reduce
   the entropy available for use in load balancing, especially in
   environments where the GRE Key field [RFC2890] is not readily
   available for use as entropy in forwarding decisions.

   This document defines a generic GRE-in-UDP encapsulation for
   tunneling arbitrary network protocol payloads across an IP network
   environment where ECMP or LAGs are used. The GRE header provides
   payload protocol de-multiplexing by way of it's protocol type field
   [RFC2784] while the UDP header provides additional entropy by way of
   it's source port.

   This encapsulation method requires no changes to the transit IP
   network. Hash functions in most existing IP routers may utilize and
   benefit from the use of a GRE-in-UDP tunnel is without needing any
   change or upgrade to their ECMP implementation. The encapsulation
   mechanism is applicable to a variety of IP networks including Data
   Center and wide area networks.

  1.1. Applicability Statement

   It is recommended to use the GRE-in-UDP encapsulation technology in
   a Service Provider (SP) network and/or DC network where the
   congestion control is not a concern, rather than over the Internet
   where the congestion control is a must.

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2. Terminology

   The terms defined in [RFC768] are used in this document.

  2.1. Requirements Language

   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 [RFC2119].

3. Procedures

   When a tunnel ingress device conforming to this document receives a
   packet, the ingress MUST encapsulate the packet in UDP and GRE
   headers and set the destination port of the UDP header to [TBD]
   Section 6. The ingress device must also insert the payload protocol
   type in the GRE Protocol Type field.  The ingress device SHOULD set
   the UDP source port based on flow invariant fields from the payload
   header, otherwise it should be set to a randomly selected constant
   value, e.g. zero, to avoid packet flow reordering. How a tunnel
   ingress generates entropy from the payload is outside the scope of
   this document. The tunnel ingress MUST encode its own IP address as
   the source IP address and the egress tunnel endpoint IP address.
   The TTL field in the IP header must be set to a value appropriate
   for delivery of the encapsulated packet to the tunnel egress
   endpoint.

   When the tunnel egress receives a packet, it must remove the outer
   UDP and GRE headers.  Section 5 describes the error handling when
   this entity is not instantiated at the tunnel egress.

   To simplify packet processing at the tunnel egress, packets destined
   to this assigned UDP destination port [TBD] MAY have their UDP
   checksum set to zero. In the environment where the UDP packets may
   be mis-delivered [RFC5405], UDP checksum SHOULD be used. Upon
   receiving a packet with a non-zero checksum, tunnel egress MUST
   perform the UDP checksum verification. For an IPv6 network, UDP
   checksum SHOULD be used.

   The tunnel ingress may set the GRE Key Present, Sequence Number
   Present, and Checksum Present bits and associated fields in the GRE
   header defined by [RFC2784] and [RFC2890].

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   Congestion control is a critical aspect of proper network operation.
   If only IP traffic is carried by a tunnel, there is no need to apply
   any congestion control mechanism at tunnel endpoints as the end
   hosts already have congestion control mechanisms available. If the
   traffic end points do not provide any congestion control, but the
   tunnel is used in an environment where congestion on the underlying
   IP network is mitigated by some form of end to end traffic
   engineering or scheduling, additional congestion control at tunnel
   endpoints may be unnecessary. In the absence of either, a congestion
   control mechanism SHOULD be implemented at the tunnel ingress and
   egress. This is particularly important in the case of inter-domain
   tunnels.  Any potential congestion control mechanism [CB] to be
   applied at tunnel endpoints is outside the scope of this draft.

   The format of the GRE-in-UDP encapsulation for both IPv4 and IPv6
   outer headers is shown in the following figures:

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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

      IPv4 Header:
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |Version|  IHL  |Type of Service|          Total Length         |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |         Identification        |Flags|      Fragment Offset    |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |  Time to Live |Protcol=17(UDP)|          Header Checksum      |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                       Source IPv4 Address                     |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                     Destination IPv4 Address                  |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      UDP Header:
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |       Source Port = XXXX      |       Dest Port = TBD         |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |           UDP Length          |        UDP Checksum           |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      GRE Header:
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |C| |K|S| Reserved0       | Ver |         Protocol Type         |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |      Checksum (optional)      |       Reserved1 (Optional)    |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                         Key (optional)                        |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                 Sequence Number (Optional)                    |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                      Figure 1  UDP+GRE IPv4 headers

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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

      IPv6 Header:
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |Version| Traffic Class |           Flow Label                  |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |         Payload Length        | NxtHdr=17(UDP)|   Hop Limit   |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                                                               |
      +                                                               +
      |                                                               |
      +                     Outer Source IPv6 Address                 +
      |                                                               |
      +                                                               +
      |                                                               |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                                                               |
      +                                                               +
      |                                                               |
      +                  Outer Destination IPv6 Address               +
      |                                                               |
      +                                                               +
      |                                                               |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      UDP Header:
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |       Source Port = XXXX      |       Dest Port = TBD         |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |           UDP Length          |        UDP Checksum           |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

      GRE Header:
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |C| |K|S| Reserved0       | Ver |         Protocol Type         |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |      Checksum (optional)      |       Reserved1 (Optional)    |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                         Key (optional)                        |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                 Sequence Number (Optional)                    |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                      Figure 2  UDP+GRE IPv6 headers

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   The total overhead increase for a UDP+GRE tunnel without use of
   optional GRE fields, representing the lowest total overhead increase,
   is 32 bytes in the case of IPv4 and 52 bytes in the case of IPv6.
   The total overhead increase for a UDP+GRE tunnel with use of GRE Key,
   Sequence and Checksum Fields, representing the highest total
   overhead increase, is 44 bytes in the case of IPv4 and 64 bytes in
   the case of IPv6.

4. Encapsulation Considerations

   GRE-in-UDP encapsulation is single tunnel mechanism where both GRE
   and UDP header are required. The mechanism allows the tunneled
   traffic to be unicast, broadcast, or multicast traffic.  Entropy may
   be generated from the header of tunneled unicast or
   broadcast/multicast packets at tunnel ingress. The mapping mechanism
   between the tunneled multicast traffic and the multicast capability
   in the IP network is transparent and independent to the
   encapsulation and is outside the scope of this document.

   Tunnel ingress SHOULD perform the fragmentation [GREMTU] on a packet
   before the encapsulation and factor in both GRE and UDP overhead
   bytes in the effective Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) size. Tunnel
   ingress MUST use the same source UDP port for all packet fragments
   to ensure that the transit routers will forward the packet fragments
   on the same path. An operator should factor in the addition overhead
   bytes when considering an MTU size for the payload to reduce the
   likelihood of fragmentation.

   To ensure the tunneled traffic gets the same treatment over the IP
   network, prior to the encapsulation process, tunnel ingress should
   process the payload to get the proper parameters to fill into the IP
   header such as DiffServ [RFC2983].  Tunnel end points that support
   ECN MUST use the method described in [RFC6040] for ECN marking
   propagation.  This process is outside of the scope of this document.

   Note that the IPv6 header [RFC2460] contains a flow label field that
   may be used for load balancing in an IPv6 network [RFC6438].  Thus
   in an IPv6 network, either GRE-in-UDP or flow labels may be used for
   improving load balancing performance. Use of GRE-in-UDP
   encapsulation provides a unified hardware implementation for load

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   balancing in an IP network independent of the IP version(s) in use.
   However IPv6 network require performing the checksum, which may
   impact network performance and user experience. Thus, a flow label
   based load balancing may be a better approach in an IPv6 network.

5. Backward Compatibility

   It is assumed that tunnel ingress routers must be upgraded in order
   to support the encapsulations described in this document.

   No change is required at transit routers to support forwarding of
   the encapsulation described in this document.

   If a router that is intended for use as a tunnel egress does not
   support the GRE-in-UDP encapsulation described in this document, it
   will not be listening on destination port [TBD].  In these cases,
   the router will conform to normal UDP processing and respond to the
   tunnel ingress with an ICMP message indicating "port unreachable"
   according to [RFC792].  Upon receiving this ICMP message, the tunnel
   ingress MUST NOT continue to use GRE-in-UDP encapsulation toward
   this tunnel egress without management intervention.

6. IANA Considerations

   IANA is requested to make the following allocation:

         Service Name: GRE-in-UDP
         Transport Protocol(s): UDP
         Assignee: IESG <iesg@ietf.org>
         Contact: IETF Chair <chair@ietf.org>
         Description: GRE-in-UDP Encapsulation
         Reference: [This.I-D]
         Port Number: TBD
         Service Code: N/A
         Known Unauthorized Uses: N/A
         Assignment Notes: N/A

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7. Security Considerations

  7.1. Vulnerability

   Neither UDP nor GRE encapsulation effects security for the payload
   protocol. When using GRE-in-UDP, Network Security in a network is
   the same as that of a network using GRE.

   Use of ICMP for signaling of the GRE-in-UDP encapsulation capability
   adds a security concern.  Tunnel ingress devices may want to
   validate the origin of ICMP Port Unreachable messages before taking
   action.  The mechanism for performing this validation is out of the
   scope of this document.

   In an instance where the UDP src port is not set based on the flow
   invariant fields from the payload header, a random port SHOULD be
   selected in order to minimize the vulnerability to off-path attacks.
   [RFC6056] How the src port randomization occurs is outside scope of
   this document.

   Using one standardized value in UDP destination port for an
   encapsulation indication may increase the vulnerability of off-path
   attack. To overcome this, tunnel egress may request tunnel ingress
   using a different and specific value [RFC6056] in UDP destination
   port for the GRE-in-UDP encapsulation indication. How the tunnel end
   points communicate the value is outside scope of this document.

8. Acknowledgements

   Authors like to thank Vivek Kumar, Ron Bonica, Joe Touch, Ruediger
   Geib, Gorry Fairhurst, David Black, Lar Edds, Lloyd, and many others
   for their review and valuable input on this draft.

9. Contributors

   The following people all contributed significantly to this document
   and are listed below in alphabetical order:

   John E. Drake
   Juniper Networks

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   Email: jdrake@juniper.net

   Adrian Farrel
   Juniper Networks

   Email: adrian@olddog.co.uk

   Vishwas Manral
   Hewlett-Packard Corp.
   3000 Hanover St, Palo Alto.

   Email: vishwas.manral@hp.com

   Carlos Pignataro
   Cisco Systems
   7200-12 Kit Creek Road
   Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 USA

   EMail: cpignata@cisco.com

   Yongbing Fan
   China Telecom
   Guangzhou, China.
   Phone: +86 20 38639121

   Email: fanyb@gsta.com

10. References

  10.1. Normative References

   [RFC768]  Postel, J., "User Datagram Protocol", STD 6, RFC 768,
             August 1980.

   [RFC791]  DARPA, "Internet Protocol", RFC791, September 1981

   [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
             Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2784] Farinacci, D., Li, T., Hanks, S., Meyer, D., and P.
             Traina, "Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)", RFC 2784,
             March 2000.

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   [RFC2890] Dommety, G., "Key and Sequence Number Extensions to GRE",
             RFC2890, September 2000.

   [RFC2983] Black, D., "Differentiated Services and Tunnels", RFC2983,
             October 2000.

   [RFC5405] Eggert, L., "Unicast UDP Usage Guideline for Application
             Designers", RFC5405, November 2008.

   [RFC6040] Briscoe, B., "Tunneling of Explicit Congestion
             Notification", RFC6040, November 2010

   [RFC6438] Carpenter, B., Amante, S., "Using the IPv6 Flow Label for
             Equal Cost Multipath Routing and Linda Aggregation in
             tunnels", RFC6438, November, 2011

   [RFC6935] Eubanks, M., Chimento, P., and M. Westerlund, "IPv6 and
             UDP Checksums for Tunneled Packets", RFC 6935, April 2013.

   [RFC6936] Fairhurst, G. and M. Westerlund, "Applicability Statement
             for the Use of IPv6 UDP Datagrams with Zero Checksums",
             RFC 6936, April 2013.

  10.2. Informative References

   [RFC792] Postel, J., "Internet Control Message Protocol", STD 5, RFC
             792, September 1981.

   [RFC2460] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
             (IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998.

   [RFC3931] Lau, J., Townsley, M., and I. Goyret, "Layer Two Tunneling
             Protocol - Version 3 (L2TPv3)", RFC 3931, March 2005.

   [RFC4023] Worster, T., Rekhter, Y., and E. Rosen, "Encapsulating
             MPLS in IP or Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)", RFC
             4023, March 2005.

   [RFC4364] Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private
             Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4364, February 2006.

   [RFC4884] Bonica, R., Gan, D., Tappan, D., and C. Pignataro,
             "Extended ICMP to Support Multi-Part Messages", RFC 4884,
             April 2007.

   [RFC6056] Larsen, M. and Gont, F., "Recommendations for Transport-
             Protocol Port Randomization", RFC6056, January 2011

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   [RFC6790] Kompella, K., Drake, J., Amante, S., Henderickx, W., and
             L. Yong, "The Use of Entropy Labels in MPLS Forwarding",
             RFC 6790, November 2012.

   [GREMTU]  Bonica, R., "A Fragmentation Strategy for Generic Routing
             Encapsulation (GRE)", draft-bonica-intara-gre-mtu, work in
             progress

   [CB]      Fairhurst, G., "Network Transport Circuit Breakers",
             draft-fairhurst-tsvwg-circuit-breaker-01, work in progress

11. Authors' Addresses

   Edward Crabbe (editor)
   Google
   1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
   Mountain View, CA  94102
   US

   Lucy Yong (editor)
   Huawei Technologies, USA

   Email: lucy.yong@huawei.com

   Xiaohu Xu (editor)
   Huawei Technologies,
   Beijing, China

   Email: xuxiaohu@huawei.com

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