DYNAMIC DIVISION OF ROUTING DOMAINS IN REACTIVE ROUTING NETWORKS

• US 20130250811A1
• Filed: 09/06/2012
• Published: 09/26/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/23/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Vasseur, Jean-Philippe, Hui, Jonathan W.
• Application Number:
  US13/605,528
• Publication Number:
  US 20130250811A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/255
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/32 Flooding denial of service attacks H04L63/1458
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/46 Cluster building
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/023 Limited or focused flooding to selected areas of a network
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/20 based on geographic position or location
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 40/28 for reactive routing

Abstract

In one embodiment, a reactive routing network may be dynamically divided into reactive routing network sub-domains that comprise a plurality of nodes having bounded route request (RREQ) scopes (e.g., search-domains) that are limited to a particular path length. The transit node in a first reactive routing network sub-domain may receive a RREQ from an originating node within the first reactive routing network sub-domain for a target node determined by the originating node to be beyond the bounded RREQ scope of the originating node. The transit node may then discover a route from the transit node to the target node, and return the route to the originating node. In this manner, the transit node may establish a complete route between the originating node and the target node.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, at a transit node, a route request (RREQ) for a target node from an originating node within a first reactive routing network sub-domain, wherein the first reactive routing network sub-domain comprises a plurality of nodes having a bounded RREQ scope limited to a particular path length, and the target node is beyond the bounded RREQ scope of the originating node;

discovering a route from the transit node to the target node; and

returning the route to the originating node to establish a complete route between the originating node and the target node.

2. The method as in claim 1, wherein the bounded RREQ scope is set by a segmentation message broadcast to the originating node.

3. The method as in claim 2, wherein the segmentation message comprises a time-to-live indicator to be used in RREQs broadcast by the plurality of nodes within the first reactive routing network sub-domain.

4. The method as in claim 2, further comprising:

triggering broadcast of the segmentation message in response to control plane overhead of the reactive routing network exceeding a predetermined threshold value.

5. The method as in claim 2, wherein the segmentation message comprises a time-to-live indicator which limits the plurality of nodes contacted by the segmentation message and define a boundary for the first reactive routing network sub-domain.

6. The method as in claim 1, wherein the RREQ for the target node comprises the transit node as a first loose hop and the target node as a final loose hop.

7. The method as in claim 4, wherein the segmentation message is broadcast in response to an instruction from a management device.

8. The method as in claim 1, wherein discovering further comprises:

multicasting the RREQ to one or more transit nodes in a reactive routing network.

9. The method as in claim 1, wherein discovering further comprises:

broadcasting the RREQ to a reactive routing network.

10. The method as in claim 1, wherein discovering further comprises:

identifying a route to the target node based on a route reply (RREP) received from a previous RREQ sent prior to the receiving step.

11. The method as in claim 1, wherein the transit node is a border router for the first reactive routing network sub-domain,

12. A method, comprising:

receiving, at a node within a reactive routing network, a segmentation message;

establishing, in response to the segmentation message, a bounded route request (RREQ) scope for any RREQ originated by the node to cause each RREQ to be limited to a particular path length; and

forwarding at least one RREQ to a transit node for any target node not identified by the node as being within the bounded RREQ scope of the node.

13. The method as in claim 12, wherein the segmentation message comprises a time-to-live indicator to be used in RREQs broadcast by a plurality of nodes within a first reactive routing network sub-domain.

14. The method as in claim 12, wherein the segmentation message is received from the transit node.

15. The method as in claim 12, wherein the node, having determined that the target node is not within the bounded RREQ scope, uses a proactive directed acyclic graph (DAG) to provide a route to the transit node, or broadcasts a RREQ to identify a route to the transit node.

16. The method as in claim 12, wherein forwarding further comprises:

setting the RREQ to indicate the transit node as the first loose hop and the target node as the final loose hop.

17. The method as in claim 12, further comprising:

receiving a route reply (RREP) from the transit node, the RREP indicating an entire path from the originating node to the target node via the transit node.

18. The method as in claim 12, further comprising:

receiving segmentation messages from two or more transit nodes; and

picking one particular transit node to receive forwarded RREQs.

19. An apparatus, comprising:

one or more network interfaces to communicate within a computer network;

a processor coupled to the network interfaces and adapted to execute one or more processes; and

a memory configured to store a process executable by the processor, the process when executed operable to;

receive, as a transit node, a route request (RREQ) for a target node from an originating node within a first reactive routing network sub-domain, wherein the first reactive routing network sub-domain comprises a plurality of nodes having a bounded RREQ scope limited to a particular path length, and the target node is beyond the bounded RREQ scope of the originating node;

discover a route from the transit node to the target node; and

return the route to the originating node to establish a complete route between the originating node and the target node.

20. The apparatus as in claim 19, wherein the process is configured to broadcast a segmentation message indicating the bounded RREQ scope.

21. The apparatus as in claim 20, the segmentation message comprising a time-to-live indicator to be used in RREQs broadcast by the plurality of nodes within the first reactive routing network sub-domain.

22. The apparatus as in claim 20, the segmentation message comprising a time-to-live indicator to limit the plurality of nodes contacted by the segmentation message and define a boundary for the first reactive routing network sub-domain.

23. The apparatus as in claim 19, wherein the process when executed is further operable to:

trigger broadcast of the segmentation message in response to control plane overhead of the reactive routing network exceeding a predetermined threshold value.

24. An apparatus, comprising:

one or more network interfaces to communicate within a computer network;

a processor coupled to the network interfaces and adapted to execute one or more processes; and

a memory configured to store a process executable by the processor, the process when executed operable to;

receive, as a node within a reactive routing network, a segmentation message;

establish, in response to the segmentation message, a bounded route request (RREQ) scope for any RREQ originated by the node which is limited to a particular path length; and

forward RREQs to a transit node for any target node not identified by the node as being within the bounded RREQ scope of the node.

25. The apparatus as in claim 24, wherein the segmentation message comprises a time-to-live indicator to be used in RREQs broadcast by a plurality of nodes within a first a reactive routing network sub-domain