Internet Engineering Task Force M. Goyal, Ed.
Internet-Draft University of Wisconsin
Intended status: Experimental Milwaukee
Expires: May 17, 2012 E. Baccelli
M. Philipp
INRIA
A. Brandt
Sigma Designs
J. Martocci
Johnson Controls
November 14, 2011
Reactive Discovery of Point-to-Point Routes in Low Power and Lossy
Networks
draft-ietf-roll-p2p-rpl-05
Abstract
This document specifies a route discovery mechanism, complementary to
the RPL base functionality. This mechanism allows an IPv6 router to
discover and establish, on demand, a route to another IPv6 router in
the LLN such that the discovered route meets specified metrics
constraints, without necessarily going along the DAG links
established by basic RPL.
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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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 May 17, 2012.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. The Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Applicability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. Functional Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
6. The Route Discovery Option (RDO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.1. Setting a DIO Carrying a Route Discovery Option . . . . . 10
7. The Discovery Reply Object (DRO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7.1. Secure DRO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7.2. Setting an RDO Carried in a Discovery Reply Object . . . . 13
8. P2P Route Discovery By Creating a Temporary DAG . . . . . . . 14
8.1. Joining a Temporary DAG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
8.2. Trickle Operation For DIOs Carrying a Route Discovery
Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
8.3. Processing a DIO Carrying a Route Discovery Option . . . . 15
8.4. Additional Processing of a DIO Carrying a Route
Discovery Option At An Intermediate Router . . . . . . . . 16
8.5. Additional Processing of a DIO Carrying a Route
Discovery Option At The Target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
8.6. Processing a DRO At An Intermediate Router . . . . . . . . 17
8.7. Processing a DRO At The Origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
9. The Discovery Reply Object Acknowledgement (DRO-ACK) . . . . . 19
10. Packet Forwarding Along a P2P Route . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
11. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
12. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
12.1. Additions to RPL Control Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
12.2. Additions to RPL Control Message Options . . . . . . . . . 21
13. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
14. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
14.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
14.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
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1. Introduction
Targeting Low power and Lossy Networks (LLNs), the RPL routing
protocol [I-D.ietf-roll-rpl] provides paths along a Directed Acyclic
Graph (DAG) rooted at a single router in the network: the sink.
Establishment and maintenance of the DAG is performed by each router
in the LLN using specific link-local multicast signalling (DIO
messages).
When two arbitrary routers (none of which being the sink) need to
communicate, basic RPL provides dog-legged paths along DAG links,
which may not be efficient enough for several Home and Building
Automation applications [RFC5826][RFC5867], for the following reasons
[I-D.brandt-roll-rpl-applicability-home-building]:
o The need to preprovision routes: each potential destination in the
network must declare itself as such, via specific additional
signalling (DAO messages).
o The need to route along DAG links: depending on the network
topology and metrics in use, the constraint to route along a DAG
may cause significantly suboptimal P2P routes and severe traffic
congestion near the DAG root.
This document thus describes a mechanism complementary to the basic
RPL functionality, enabling source-initiated, on-demand discovery of
a route between arbitrary routers in the LLN, such that the
discovered route meets specified metrics constraints, without
necessarily going along an existing DAG. Hereafter, such routes are
called point-to-point (P2P) routes. The specified mechanism allows
for the discovery of source routes as well as hop-by-hop routes.
Discovered routes may not be the best available but are guaranteed to
satisfy the desired constraints in terms of the routing metrics and
are thus considered "good enough" from the application's perspective.
A complementary functionality helping to decide whether or not to
initiate a route discovery, is a mechanism measuring the end-to-end
cost of an existing route. Section 4 provides further details on how
such functionality, specified in [I-D.ietf-roll-p2p-measurement], is
used to determine the value of metric constraints parameters in the
route discovery mechanism described in this document.
2. The Use Cases
The mechanism described in this document is intended to be employed
as complementary to RPL in specific scenarios that need P2P paths
between arbitrary routers.
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One use case, common in a home environment, involves a remote control
(or a motion sensor) that suddenly needs to communicate with a lamp
module, whose network address is a-priori known. In this case, the
source of data (the remote control or the motion sensor) must be able
to discover a route to the destination (the lamp module) "on demand".
Another use case, common in a large commercial building environment,
involves a large LLN deployment where P2P communication along a
particular DAG among hundreds (or thousands) of routers creates
severe traffic congestion near that DAG's root, and thus routes
across this DAG are desirable.
The use cases also include scenarios where energy or latency
constraints are not satisfied by P2P routes provided by basic RPL
along a DAG because they involve traversing many more intermediate
routers than necessary to reach the destination.
3. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
[RFC2119].
Additionally, this document uses terminology from
[I-D.ietf-roll-terminology] and [I-D.ietf-roll-rpl]. This document
introduces the following terms:
Origin : The RPL node initiating the route discovery.
Target : The RPL node at the other end point of the route(s) to be
discovered.
Intermediate Router: An RPL router that is neither the origin nor the
target.
Forward Route: A route in the forward direction, i.e., from the
origin to the target.
Backward Route: A route in the backward direction, i.e., from the
target to the origin.
Bidirectional Route: A route that can be used in both forward and
backward directions.
Source Route: A complete and ordered list of routers that can be used
by a packet to travel from a source to a destination node.
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Hop-by-hop Route: The route characterized by each router on the route
using its routing table to determine the next hop on the route.
4. Applicability
The route discovery mechanism, described in this document, may be
invoked by an origin when no route exists between itself and the
target or when the existing routes do not satisfy the desired
performance requirements. The mechanism is designed to discover and
establish one hop-by-hop route or discover one or more source routes
such that the discovered route(s) meet the specified constraints. In
some application contexts, the constraints that the discovered
route(s) must satisfy are intrinsically known or can be specified by
the application. For example, an origin that expects a target to be
less than 5 hops away may use "hop-count < 5" as the constraint. In
other application contexts, the origin may need to measure the cost
of an existing route to the target to determine the constraints. For
example, an origin that measures the total ETX of its along-DAG route
to the target to be 20 may use "ETX < x*20", where x is a fraction
that the origin decides, as the constraint. A mechanism measuring
the cost of an existing route between the origin and the target is
specified in [I-D.ietf-roll-p2p-measurement]. If there is no
existing route between the origin and target or the cost measurement
for the existing route fails, the origin will have to guess the
constraints used in the initial route discovery. Once, the initial
route discovery succeeds or fails, the origin will have a better
estimate for the constraints to be used in the subsequent route
discovery.
This document describes an on-demand discovery mechanism for P2P
routes that is complementary to the proactive routes offered by RPL
base functionality. The mechanism described in this document may
result in discovery of better P2P routes than the ones available
along a DAG designed to optimize routing cost to the DAG's root. The
improvement in route quality depends on a number of factors including
the network topology, the routing metrics in use and the prevalent
conditions in the network. A network designer may take in
consideration both the benefits (potentially better routes; no need
to maintain routes proactively) and costs (control messages generated
during the route discovery process) when using this mechanism.
5. Functional Overview
This section contains a high level description of P2P-RPL, the route
discovery mechanism specified in this document.
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Similarly to basic RPL, P2P-RPL uses IPv6 link-local multicasted DIO
messages to establish a DAG (maintained temporarily). Each router
joining the DAG determines a rank for itself in the DAG and ignores
the subsequent DIO messages received from lower (higher in numerical
value) ranked neighbors. Thus, the DIO messages propagate outward
from the DAG root rather than return inward towards the DAG root. As
basic RPL, DIO message generation at a router is further controlled
by a Trickle timer that allows a router to avoid generating
unnecessary messages [RFC6206]. P2P-RPL also uses the routing
metrics, objective function [I-D.ietf-roll-routing-metrics] and
packet forwarding framework developed for basic RPL.
The P2P route discovery takes place by forming a temporary DAG rooted
at the origin. The DIOs used to create the temporary DA, carry the
following additional information via a Route Discovery Option (RDO
defined in Section 6):
o The target
o The relevant routing metrics
o The constraints that the discovered route must satisfy. These
constraints also limit how far the Discovery message may travel.
o The nature of the route(s) to be discovered: hop-by-hop or source
routes. This specification allows for the discovery of one hop-
by-hop route or up to four source routes in the forward direction.
o The desired number of routes (if source routes are being
discovered)
o Whether the route(s) need to be bidirectional. If bidirectional
route(s) are being discovered, the target may store the route in
backward direction for use as a source route. This specification
does not provide for the establishment of backward hop-by-hop
routes.
As the routers join the temporary DAG, they keep track of the best
(partial) route(s) they have seen and advertise these routes, along
with the corresponding routing metrics, in their DIOs. The routing
metrics are measured in forward direction unless bidirectional routes
are being discovered, in which case the measurement of routing
metrics need to take in account both forward and backward directions.
A router, including the target, discards a received DIO if the
aggregated routing metrics on the route advertised by the DIO do not
satisfy the listed constraints. These constraints can be used to
limit the propagation of DIO messages used for P2P route discovery.
A router may also discard a received DIO if it does not wish to be a
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part of the discovered route due to limited resources or due to
policy reasons.
When the target receives a DIO, it checks whether the route
advertised therein satisfies the routing constraints. If yes, the
target may select the route for further processing as described next.
This document does not specify a particular method for the target to
select a route among the ones that satisfy the route constraints.
Example selection methods include selecting any route that meets the
constraints or selecting the best route(s) discovered over a certain
time period.
If one or more source routes are being discovered, the target sends
the discovered source routes to the origin via Discovery Reply Object
(DRO) messages, defined in Section 7, with one DRO message carrying
one discovered route. On receiving a DRO message, the origin stores
the route contained therein in its memory.
If a hop-by-hop route is being discovered, the target sends a DRO
message to the origin after selecting a suitable route among the ones
that satisfy the route constraints. The DRO message travels towards
the origin along the discovered route, establishing state for this
route in the routers on the path.
The target may store a discovered route in its memory if it is
bidirectional and use it as a backward source-route to send packets
to the origin.
The target may request the origin to acknowledge the receipt of a DRO
message by sending back a DRO Acknowledgement (DRO-ACK) message
defined in Section 9. The origin unicasts a DRO-ACK message to the
target. When the target does not receive the requested DRO-ACK
within a certain time interval of sending a DRO, it resends the DRO
message carrying the same route as before.
The use of trickle timers to delay the propagation of DIO messages
may cause some nodes to generate these messages even when the desired
routes have already been discovered. In order to preempt the
generation of such unnecessary messages, the target may set a "stop"
bit in the DRO message defined in Section 7, to let the nodes in the
LLN know about the completion of the route discovery process.
6. The Route Discovery Option (RDO)
This section specifies a new RPL option, Route Discovery Option (RDO)
which, when carried inside a DIO message, identifies that message as
performing a P2P route discovery by creating a temporary DAG as
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specified in this document.
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type = 10 | Option Length |D|H| N | Compr | L | Rem |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
| Target |
| |
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
| Address[1..n] |
| |
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 1: Format of the Route Discovery Option
In order to perform P2P route discovery as specified in this
document, a DIO MUST carry a Route Discovery Option (RDO) illustrated
in Figure 1. A Route Discovery Option consists of the following
fields:
o Option Type: 0x0A (to be confirmed by IANA).
o Option Length: 8-bit unsigned integer, representing the length in
octets of the option, not including the Option Type and Option
Length fields.
o Direction (D): This flag indicates the direction in which the
desired routes should be optimized. The flag is set to 1 if the
routes are to be optimized for use in both forward and backward
directions. If the discovered routes need be optimized in the
forward direction only, the flag is reset to 0. Note that the
discovered routes must have bidirectional reachability
irrespective of the value of D flag. This is because DRO messages
(defined in Section 7) travel from the target back the origin
along one of the discovered routes. The link-level metric objects
contained in the DIO SHOULD be measured in the direction indicated
by the D flag.
o Hop-by-hop (H): This flag is set to 1 if a hop-by-hop route is
desired. The flag is reset to zero if source routes are desired.
This specification allows for the establishment of one hop-by-hop
route and up to four source routes in the forward direction. This
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specification does not allow for the establishment of hop-by-hop
routes in the backward direction. If a bidirectional route is
discovered, the target MAY use the route in backward direction as
a source route to reach the origin, irrespective of the value of H
flag.
o Number of Routes (N): When source routes are being discovered, the
value in this field plus one indicates the desired number of
routes. When a hop-by-hop route is being discovered this field
MUST be set to zero on transmission and ignored on reception.
o Compr: 4-bit unsigned integer indicating the number of prefix
octets that are elided from the Target field and the Address
vector. For example, Compr value will be 0 if full IPv6 addresses
are carried in the Target field and the Address vector.
o Life Time (L): A 2-bit field that indicates the suggested life
time of the temporary DAG, i.e., the suggested duration a router
joining the temporary DAG must maintain its membership in the DAG.
The mapping between the values in this field and the minimum life
time of the temporary DAG is as follows:
* 0x00: 1 second;
* 0x01: 4 seconds;
* 0x02: 16 seconds;
* 0x03: 64 seconds;
Note that a router MAY detach from the temporary DAG sooner if it
receives a DRO message concerning this DAG with "stop" bit set
(defined in Section 7).
o Rem: this field indicates the number of empty fields inside the
Address vector.
o Target: The IPv6 address of the target after eliding Compr number
of prefix octets.
o Address[1..n]: A vector of IPv6 addresses representing a (partial)
route in the forward direction:
* Each element in the vector has size (16 - Compr) octets.
* The total number of elements inside the Address vector is given
by n = (Option Length - 2 - (16 - Compr))/(16 - Compr).
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* The Address vector is used to accumulate a route optimized in
the direction specified by the D field.
* The IPv6 addresses in the Address vector MUST be accessible in
both forward and backward directions. Accessibility in the
backward direction is required because the DRO message uses the
route accumulated in the Address vector to travel from the
target to the origin.
* The Address vector MUST carry the accumulated route in the
forward direction, i.e., the first element in the Address
vector must contain the IPv6 address of the router next to the
origin and so on.
* The origin and target addresses MUST NOT be included in the
Address vector.
* A router adding its address to the vector MUST ensure that its
address does not already exist in the vector. A router
specifying a complete route in the Address vector MUST ensure
that the vector does not contain any address more than once.
* The Address vector MUST NOT contain any multicast addresses.
6.1. Setting a DIO Carrying a Route Discovery Option
A DIO message MUST NOT carry more than one Route Discovery Option. A
router MUST discard a DIO if it contains more than one Route
Discovery Option.
The Base Object in a DIO message carrying a Route Discovery Option
MUST be set in the following manner:
o RPLInstanceID: RPLInstanceID MUST be a local value as described in
Section 5.1 of [I-D.ietf-roll-rpl]. The origin MUST NOT use the
same RPLInstanceID in two or more concurrent route discoveries.
The origin MAY use the same RPLInstanceID value to establish hop-
by-hop P2P routes to different target routers.
o Version Number: MUST be set to zero. The temporary DAG used for
P2P route discovery does not exist long enough to have new
versions.
o Grounded (G) Flag: MUST be cleared since this DAG is temporary in
nature and MUST NOT be used for routing purpose.
o Mode of Operation (MOP), DTSN: These fields MUST be set to value 0
since this DAG does not support downward routing.
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o DODAGPreference (Prf): This field MUST be set to value 0 (least
preferred).
o DODAGID: This field MUST be set to the IPv6 address of the origin.
o The other fields in the Base Object can be set in the desired
fashion as per the rules described in [I-D.ietf-roll-rpl].
The DIO message must carry a DODAG Configuration option. The DODAG
Configuration option MUST be set in the following manner:
o MaxRankIncrease: This field MUST be set to 0 to disable local
repair of the temporary DAG.
o Trickle parameters SHOULD be set as described in Section 8.2.
o The Default Lifetime and Lifetime Unit parameters in DODAG
Configuration option indicate the life time of the state the
routers maintain for a hop-by-hop route established using the
mechanism described in this draft.
o The other fields in the DODAG Configuration option, including the
OCP (identifying the Objective function defining the considered
metrics and constraints [I-D.ietf-roll-routing-metrics]) can be
set in the desired fashion as per the rules described in
[I-D.ietf-roll-rpl].
A DIO, carrying a Route Discovery Option, MUST NOT carry any Route
Information or Prefix Information options described in
[I-D.ietf-roll-rpl], in which case the DIO should be discarded.
7. The Discovery Reply Object (DRO)
This section defines two new RPL Control Message types, the Discovery
Reply Object (DRO), with code 0x04 (to be confirmed by IANA), and the
Secure DRO, with code 0x84 (to be confirmed by IANA). A DRO serves
one of the following functions:
o Carry a discovered source route from the target to the origin;
o Establish a hop-by-hop route as it travels from the target to the
origin.
A DRO message MAY also serve the function of letting the routers in
the LLN know that a P2P route discovery is complete and no more DIO
messages need to be generated for the corresponding temporary DAG. A
DRO message MUST carry one Route Discovery Option and travel from the
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target to the origin via link-local multicast along the route
specified in the Route Discovery Option.
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| RPLInstanceID | Version |Seq|S|A| Reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
| DODAGID |
| |
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Option(s)...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+...
Figure 2: Format of the base Discovery Reply Object (DRO)
The format of the base Discovery Reply Object (DRO) is shown in
Figure 2. A base DRO consists of the following fields:
o RPLInstanceID: The RPLInstanceID of the temporary DAG used for
route discovery.
o Version: The Version of the temporary DAG used for route
discovery.
o Sequence Number (Seq): This 2-bit field indicates the sequence
number for the DRO. This field is relevant when the A flag
(specified below) is set, i.e., the target requests an
acknowledgement from the origin for a received DRO. The origin
includes the RPLInstanceID, the DODAGID and the Sequence Number of
the received DRO inside the DRO-ACK message it sends back to the
target.
o Stop (S): This flag, when set by the target, indicates that the
P2P route discovery is over. The routers, receiving such a DRO,
SHOULD cancel any pending DIO transmissions for the temporary DAG
created for the route discovery and MAY detach from this DAG
immediately. Note that the stop flag serves to stop further DIO
transmissions for a P2P route discovery but it does not affect the
processing of DRO messages at either the origin or the
intermediate routers. In other words, a router (the origin or an
intermediate router) MUST continue to process the DRO messages
even if an earlier DRO message (with same RPLInstanceID, DODAGID
and Version Number fields) had the stop flag set.
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o Ack Required (A): This flag, when set by the target, indicates
that the origin SHOULD unicast a DRO-ACK message (defined in
Section 9) to the target when it receives the DRO.
o Reserved: These bits are reserved for future use. These bits MUST
be set to zero on transmission and MUST be ignored on reception.
o DODAGID: The DODAGID of the temporary DAG used for route
discovery. The DODAGID also identifies the origin. The
RPLInstanceID, the Version and the DODAGID together uniquely
identify the temporary DAG used for route discovery and can be
copied from the DIO message advertizing the temporary DAG.
o Options: The DRO message MUST carry one Route Discovery Option
that MUST specify a complete route between the target and the
origin. The DRO message MAY carry a Metric Container Option that
contains the aggregated routing metrics values for the route
specified in Route Discovery Option.
7.1. Secure DRO
A Secure DRO message follows the format in Figure 7 of
[I-D.ietf-roll-rpl], where the base format is the base DRO shown in
Figure 2.
7.2. Setting an RDO Carried in a Discovery Reply Object
A Discovery Reply Object MUST carry a Route Discovery Option (RDO).
An RDO carried in a Discovery Reply Object MUST be set as defined in
Section 6 except for the following fields:
o Direction (D): this flag should be set to zero on transmission and
ignored on reception.
o Number of Routes (N): this field MUST be set to zero on
transmission and ignored on reception.
o Life Time (L): this field MUST be set to zero on transmission and
ignored on reception.
o Rem: this field indicates the number of fields in the Address
vector yet to be visited.
o Address[1..n]: the Address vector MUST contain a complete route
between the origin and the target such that the first element in
the vector contains the IPv6 address of the router next to the
origin and the last element contains the IPv6 address of the
router next to the target.
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8. P2P Route Discovery By Creating a Temporary DAG
This section details the functioning of P2P route discovery by
creating a temporary DAG, using the RDO option in DIO messages on one
hand and DRO messages on the other hand.
8.1. Joining a Temporary DAG
When a router joins a temporary DAG advertized by a DIO carrying a
Route Discovery Option, it SHOULD maintain its membership in the DAG
for the suggested Life Time duration listed in the Route Discovery
Option. Maintaining membership in the DAG implies storing:
o The RPLInstanceID, the DODAGID and the DODAGVersionNumber for the
temporary DAG;
o The router's rank in the temporary DAG;
o The best values of the routing metrics, along with the associated
route(s) from the origin until this router (carried inside the
Route Discovery Option) in the DIOs received so far.
The only purpose of a temporary DAG's existence is to facilitate the
propagation of the Discovery messages. The temporary DAG MUST NOT be
used to route packets. A router SHOULD detach from the temporary DAG
once the duration of its membership in the DAG has exceeded the DAG's
suggested life time. A router MAY detach from a temporary DAG sooner
when it receives a DRO about the temporary DAG with stop flag set
(defined in Section 7).
8.2. Trickle Operation For DIOs Carrying a Route Discovery Option
An RPL router uses a Trickle timer [RFC6206] to control DIO
transmissions. The Trickle control of DIO transmissions provides
quick resolution of any "inconsistency" while avoiding redundant DIO
transmissions. The Trickle algorithm also imparts protection against
loss of DIOs due to inherent lack of reliability in wireless
communication. When controlling the transmissions of a DIO carrying
a Route Discovery Option, a Trickle timer SHOULD follow the following
rules:
o The receipt of a DIO, that allows the router to advertise a better
route (in terms of the routing metrics and the OCP in use) than
before, is considered "inconsistent" and hence resets the Trickle
timer. Note that the first receipt of a DIO advertising a
particular temporary DAG is always considered an inconsistent
event under this rule.
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o The receipt of a DIO, that advertises a better route than the
router but does not lead to the router advertising a better route
itself, is considered "consistent".
o The receipt of a DIO, that advertises as good a route as the
router itself, is considered "consistent".
o The receipt of a DIO, that advertises a worse route than what the
router advertises, is considered neither "consistent" nor
"inconsistent", i.e., the receipt of such a DIO has no impact on
the Trickle operation.
o The recommended values of Imin and Imax are same as in base RPL
specification [I-D.ietf-roll-rpl], i.e., 8ms and 2.3 hours
respectively.
o The recommended value of redundancy constant "k" is 1. With this
value of "k", a DIO transmission will be suppressed if the router
receives even a single "consistent" DIO during a timer interval.
8.3. Processing a DIO Carrying a Route Discovery Option
The rules for DIO processing and transmission, described in Section 8
of RPL [I-D.ietf-roll-rpl], apply to DIOs carrying a Route Discovery
option as well except as modified in this document.
The following rules for processing a DIO carrying a Route Discovery
Option apply to both intermediate routers and the target.
A router SHOULD discard a received DIO with no further processing if
it does not have bidirectional reachability with the neighbor that
originated the received DIO. This is to ensure that a discovered
route can be used to send a DRO message from the target to the
origin. Note that bidirectional reachability does not mean that the
link must have the same values for a routing metric in both
directions. A router SHOULD update the values of the link-level
routing metrics included inside the DIO in the direction indicated by
the D flag in the Route Discovery Option. If the D flag is 0, i.e.,
the discovered routes need not be bidirectional, the link-level
routing metrics SHOULD be measured in the forward direction, i.e.,
towards the node receiving the DIO. If the D flag is 1, i.e.,
bidirectional routes are desired, the link-level routing metrics
SHOULD be calculated so as to take in account the metric's value in
both forward and backward directions.
A router MUST discard the DIO with no further processing if it can
not evaluate the mandatory route constraints listed in the DIO or if
the routing metric values do not satisfy one or more of the mandatory
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constraints.
8.4. Additional Processing of a DIO Carrying a Route Discovery Option
At An Intermediate Router
An intermediate router MUST discard a received DIO, containing a
Route Discovery Option, with no further processing if the router can
not elide "Compr" (as specified in the Route Discovery Option) prefix
octets from its IPv6 address that would potentially be added to the
Address vector as specified next.
On receiving a DIO containing a Route Discovery Option, an
intermediate router MUST determine whether this DIO advertises a
better route than the router itself and whether the receipt of the
DIO would allow the router to advertise a better route than before.
Accordingly, the router SHOULD consider this DIO as consistent/
inconsistent from Trickle perspective as described in Section 8.2.
If the received DIO would allow the router to improve the route it
advertises, the router MUST add its IPv6 address to the route inside
the received DIO at location Address[n-Rem+1] and store this route in
memory for inclusion in its future DIOs. When an intermediate router
adds itself to a route, it MUST ensure that the IPv6 address added to
the route is accessible in both forward and backward directions. To
improve the diversity of the routes being discovered, an intermediate
router SHOULD remember multiple partial routes, the best it knows in
terms of the routing metrics, that it can advertise in the Route
Discovery Option inside its DIO. When the router generates its DIO,
it SHOULD randomly select the partial route to be included in the
Route Discovery Option from the set of best routes it has seen so
far.
8.5. Additional Processing of a DIO Carrying a Route Discovery Option
At The Target
The target discards a received DIO with no further processing if the
routing metrics inside the DIO do not satisfy the mandatory
constraints. Otherwise, the target MAY select the route contained in
the Route Discovery Option for further processing. This document
does not prescribe a particular method for the target to select such
routes. Example selection methods include selecting the desired
number of routes as they are identified or selecting the best routes
discovered over a certain time period. If multiple routes are
desired, the target SHOULD avoid selecting routes that have large
segments in common. If a discovered route is bidirectional (D=1),
the target MAY store the route in backward direction, obtained by
reversing the discovered forward route, for use as a source route to
reach the origin. After selecting a route, the target sends a
Discovery Reply Object (DRO) message back to the origin (identified
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by the DODAGID field in the DIO). In this DRO, the target includes a
Route Discovery Option that contains the selected route inside the
Address vector. The Route Discovery Option included in the DRO
message MUST copy the H flag from the Route Discovery Option inside
the received DIO message. The other fields inside the Route
Discovery Option MUST be set as specified in Section 6. The
mechanism for the propagation of DRO messages is described in
Section 7.
The target MAY set the A flag inside the DRO message if it desires
the origin to send back a DRO-ACK message on receiving the DRO. In
this case, the target waits for DRO_ACK_WAIT_TIME duration for the
DRO-ACK message to arrive. Failure to receive the DRO-ACK message
within this time duration causes the target to retransmit the DRO
message. The target MAY retransmit the DRO message in this fashion
up to MAX_DRO_RETRANSMISSIONS times.
The target MAY include a Metric Container Option in the DRO message.
This Metric Container contains the end-to-end routing metric values
for the route specified in the Route Discovery Option. The target
MAY set the stop flag inside the DRO message (defined in Section 7)
if it has already selected the desired number of routes. A target
MUST NOT forward a DIO carrying a Route Discovery option any further.
8.6. Processing a DRO At An Intermediate Router
When a router receives a DRO message that does not list its IPv6
address in the DODAGID field, the router MUST process the received
message in the following manner:
o If the stop flag inside the received DRO is set and the router
currently belongs to the temporary DAG identified by the
(RPLInstanceID, DODAGID and Version fields of the) DRO, the router
SHOULD cancel any pending DIO transmissions for this temporary
DAG. Additionally, the router MAY detach from the temporary DAG
immediately.
o An intermediate router MUST ignore any Metric Container Option
contained in the DRO message.
o If Address[Rem] element inside the Route Discovery Option lists
the router's own IPv6 address, the router is a part of the route
carried in the Route Discovery Option. In this case, the router
MUST do the following:
* If the H flag inside the Route Discovery Option inside the DRO
message is set, the router SHOULD store the state for the
forward hop-by-hop route carried inside the Route Discovery
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Option. This state consists of:
+ The RPLInstanceID and the DODAGID fields of the DRO.
+ The route's destination, the target (identified by Target
field in Route Discovery Option).
+ The IPv6 address of the next hop, Address[Rem+1] (unless Rem
value equals the number of elements in the Address vector,
in which case the target itself is the next hop).
The router MUST drop the DRO message without further processing
if the H flag inside the Route Discovery Option is set but the
router chooses not to store the state for the hop-by-hop route.
* If the router already maintains a hop-by-hop state listing the
target as the destination and carrying same RPLInstanceID and
DODAGID fields as the received DRO and the next hop information
in the state does not match the next hop indicated in the
received DRO, the router MUST drop the DRO message with no
further processing.
* The router MUST decrement the Rem field inside the Route
Discovery Option and send the DRO further via link-local
multicast.
8.7. Processing a DRO At The Origin
When a router receives a DRO message that lists its IPv6 address in
the DODAGID field, the router recognizes itself as the origin for the
corresponding P2P route discovery and processes the Route Discovery
Option contained in the DRO in the following manner.
If the stop flag inside the received DRO is set and the origin still
belongs to the temporary DAG it initiated, it SHOULD cancel any
pending DIO transmissions for this temporary DAG. Additionally, the
origin MAY detach from the temporary DAG immediately.
If the Route Discovery Option inside the DRO identifies the
discovered route as a source route (H=0), the origin SHOULD store in
its memory the discovered route contained in the Address vector.
If the Route Discovery Option inside the DRO identifies the
discovered route as a hop-by-hop route (H=1), the origin SHOULD store
in its memory the state for the discovered route in the manner
described in Section 8.6.
If the received DRO message contains a Metric Container Option as
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well, the origin MAY store the values of the routing metrics
associated with the discovered route in its memory. This information
may be useful in formulating the constraints for any future P2P route
discovery to the target.
If the A flag is set to one in the received DRO message, the origin
SHOULD generate a DRO-ACK message as described in Section 9 and
unicast the message to the target. The origin MAY source route the
DRO-ACK message to the target using the route contained in the
received DRO. If the received DRO established a hop-by-hop route to
the target, the origin MAY send the DRO-ACK message along this route.
Section 10 describes how a packet may be forwarded along a route
discovered using the mechanism described in this document.
9. The Discovery Reply Object Acknowledgement (DRO-ACK)
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| RPLInstanceID | Version |Seq| Reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
| DODAGID |
| |
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 3: Format of the base Discovery Reply Object Acknowledgement
(DRO-ACK)
A DRO message may fail to reach the origin due to a number of
reasons. Unlike the DIO messages that benefit from Trickle-
controlled retransmissions, the DRO messages are prone to loss due to
reasons associated with wireless communication. Since a DRO message
travels via link-local multicast, it can not use link-level
acknowledgements to improve the reliability of its transmission.
Also, an intermediate router may drop the DRO message (e.g., because
of its inability to store the state for the hop-by-hop route the DRO
is establishing). To protect against the potential failure of a DRO
message to reach the origin, the target MAY request the origin to
send back a DRO Acknowledgement (DRO-ACK) message on receiving a DRO
message. Failure to receive such an acknowledgement within the
DRO_ACK_WAIT_TIME interval of sending the DRO message forces the
target to resend the message.
This section defines two new RPL Control Message types: DRO
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Acknowledgement (DRO-ACK; with code 0x05; to be confirmed by IANA)
and Secure DRO-ACK (with code 0x85; to be confirmed by IANA). A DRO-
ACK message MUST travel as a unicast message from the origin to the
target. The format of a base DRO-ACK message is shown in Figure 3.
Various fields in a DRO-ACK message MUST have the same values as the
corresponding fields in the DRO message. The field marked as
"Reserved" MUST be set to zero on transmission and MUST be ignored on
reception. A Secure DRO-ACK message follows the format in Figure 7
of [I-D.ietf-roll-rpl], where the base format is same as the base
DRO-ACK shown in Figure 3.
10. Packet Forwarding Along a P2P Route
This document specifies a mechanism to discover P2P routes, which can
be either source routes or hop-by-hop ones. A packet MAY use an RH4
header [I-D.ietf-6man-rpl-routing-header] to travel along a P2P
source route. Travel along a P2P hop-by-hop route requires
specifying the RPLInstanceID and the DODAGID to identify the route.
This is because P2P route discovery does not use globally unique
RPLInstanceID values and hence both the RPLInstanceID, which is a
local value assigned by the origin, and the DODAGID, which is an IPv6
address belonging to the origin, are required to uniquely identify a
P2P hop-by-hop route to a particular destination. A packet MAY
include an RPL option [I-D.ietf-6man-rpl-option] inside the IPv6 hop-
by-hop options header to travel along a P2P hop-by-hop route. In
this case, the origin MUST set the DODAGID of the P2P route as the
source IPv6 address of the packet. Further, the origin MUST specify
the RPLInstanceID, associated with the P2P route, inside the RPL
option and set the O flag inside the RPL option to 1. A router
receiving this packet will check the O flag inside the RPL option and
correctly infer the source IPv6 address of the packet as the DODAGID
of the hop-by-hop route to be used for forwarding the packet further.
11. Security Considerations
The security considerations for the operation of the reactive P2P
route discovery mechanism described in this document are similar to
the ones for the operation of RPL (as described in Section 19 of
[I-D.ietf-roll-rpl]). Section 10 of RPL specification
[I-D.ietf-roll-rpl] describes a variety of security mechanisms to
provide data confidentiality, authentication, replay protection and
delay protection services. Each RPL control message has a secure
version that allows the specification of the level of security and
the algorithms used to secure the message. The mechanism defined in
this document is based on the use of DIOs to form temporary DAGs and
discover P2P routes. These DIOs can be used in their secure versions
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if desired. New RPL control messages defined in this document (DRO
and DRO-ACK) have secure versions as well. Thus, a particular
deployment of the reactive P2P route discovery mechanism described in
this document can analyze its security requirements and use the
appropriate set of RPL security mechanisms that meet those
requirements.
12. IANA Considerations
12.1. Additions to RPL Control Codes
IANA is requested to allocate new code points in the "RPL Control
Codes" registry for the "Discovery Reply Object" and "Discovery Reply
Object Acknowledgement" (and their secure versions) described in this
document.
+------+--------------------------------------------+---------------+
| Code | Description | Reference |
+------+--------------------------------------------+---------------+
| 0x04 | Discovery Reply Object | This document |
| 0x05 | Discovery Reply Object Acknowledgement | This document |
| 0x84 | Secure Discovery Reply Object | This document |
| 0x85 | Secure Discovery Reply Object | This document |
| | Acknowledgement | |
+------+--------------------------------------------+---------------+
RPL Control Codes
12.2. Additions to RPL Control Message Options
IANA is requested to allocate a new value in the "RPL Control Message
Options" registry for the "Route Discovery Option" described in this
document.
+-------+-----------------+---------------+
| Value | Meaning | Reference |
+-------+-----------------+---------------+
| 10 | Route Discovery | This document |
+-------+-----------------+---------------+
RPL Control Message Options
13. Acknowledgements
Authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the following
individuals (in alphabetical order) in the development of this
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document: Dominique Barthel, Thomas Clausen, Richard Kelsey, Phil
Levis, Zach Shelby, Pascal Thubert and JP Vasseur.
14. References
14.1. Normative References
[I-D.ietf-roll-routing-metrics]
Vasseur, J., Kim, M., Pister, K., Dejean, N., and D.
Barthel, "Routing Metrics used for Path Calculation in Low
Power and Lossy Networks",
draft-ietf-roll-routing-metrics-19 (work in progress),
March 2011.
[I-D.ietf-roll-rpl]
Winter, T., Thubert, P., Brandt, A., Clausen, T., Hui, J.,
Kelsey, R., Levis, P., Pister, K., Struik, R., and J.
Vasseur, "RPL: IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low power and
Lossy Networks", draft-ietf-roll-rpl-19 (work in
progress), March 2011.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC6206] Levis, P., Clausen, T., Hui, J., Gnawali, O., and J. Ko,
"The Trickle Algorithm", RFC 6206, March 2011.
14.2. Informative References
[I-D.brandt-roll-rpl-applicability-home-building]
Brandt, A., Baccelli, E., and R. Cragie, "Applicability
Statement: The use of RPL in Building and Home
Environments",
draft-brandt-roll-rpl-applicability-home-building-01 (work
in progress), November 2010.
[I-D.ietf-6man-rpl-option]
Hui, J. and J. Vasseur, "RPL Option for Carrying RPL
Information in Data-Plane Datagrams",
draft-ietf-6man-rpl-option-04 (work in progress),
October 2011.
[]
Hui, J., Vasseur, J., Culler, D., and V. Manral, "An IPv6
Routing Header for Source Routes with RPL",
draft-ietf-6man-rpl-routing-header-04 (work in progress),
October 2011.
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[I-D.ietf-roll-p2p-measurement]
Goyal, M., Baccelli, E., Brandt, A., and J. Martocci, "A
Mechanism to Measure the Quality of a Point-to-point Route
in a Low Power and Lossy Network",
draft-ietf-roll-p2p-measurement-02 (work in progress),
October 2011.
[I-D.ietf-roll-terminology]
Vasseur, J., "Terminology in Low power And Lossy
Networks", draft-ietf-roll-terminology-06 (work in
progress), September 2011.
[RFC5826] Brandt, A., Buron, J., and G. Porcu, "Home Automation
Routing Requirements in Low-Power and Lossy Networks",
RFC 5826, April 2010.
[RFC5867] Martocci, J., De Mil, P., Riou, N., and W. Vermeylen,
"Building Automation Routing Requirements in Low-Power and
Lossy Networks", RFC 5867, June 2010.
Authors' Addresses
Mukul Goyal (editor)
University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
3200 N Cramer St
Milwaukee, WI 53201
USA
Phone: +1 414 2295001
Email: mukul@uwm.edu
Emmanuel Baccelli
INRIA
Phone: +33-169-335-511
Email: Emmanuel.Baccelli@inria.fr
URI: http://www.emmanuelbaccelli.org/
Matthias Philipp
INRIA
Phone: +33-169-335-511
Email: Matthias.Philipp@inria.fr
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Anders Brandt
Sigma Designs
Emdrupvej 26A, 1.
Copenhagen, Dk-2100
Denmark
Phone: +45-29609501
Email: abr@sdesigns.dk
Jerald Martocci
Johnson Controls
507 E Michigan St
Milwaukee, WI 53202
USA
Phone: +1 414-524-4010
Email: jerald.p.martocci@jci.com
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