FLOW SPECIFICATION PROTOCOL-BASED COMMUNICATIONS METHOD, DEVICE, AND SYSTEM

• US 20190028381A1
• Filed: 09/21/2018
• Published: 01/24/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/21/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei Investment & Holding Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: LI, Zhenbin, ZHUANG, Shunwan, CHEN, Xia, WU, Nan, LIANG, Qiandeng
• Granted Patent: US 10,757,008 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4641 Virtual LANs, VLANs, e.g. virtual private networks [VPN] LAN interconnection over a bridge based backbone H04L12/462; encapsulation techniques H04L12/4633; routing of packets H04L45/00; packet switches H04L49/00; virtual private networks for security H04L63/0272
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4645 Details on frame tagging routing of packets H04L45/00; support for virtual LAN H04L49/354
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/04 Interdomain routing, e.g. hierarchical routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/54 Organization of routing tables
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/586 of virtual routers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/64 using an overlay routing layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/03 Protocol definition or specification protocol conformance testing H04L1/244
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/40 Network security protocols

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention provide a Flow Specification-based communications method, device, and system. The method includes: obtaining, by a controller, a requirement indicating that a first resource on a forwarding device needs to be associated with a second resource on the forwarding device; and sending, by the controller, a Border Gateway Protocol Flow Specification BGP Flow Spec protocol packet according to the requirement, where the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet includes a network layer reachability information field and an extended community attribute field, the network layer reachability information field carries characteristic information of the first resource, the extended community attribute field carries a global identifier GID used to indicate the second resource, and the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet is used to instruct to associate the first resource with the second resource.

Claims

1. A Flow Specification protocol-based communication method, comprising:

obtaining, by a controller, a requirement indicating that a first resource on a forwarding device needs to be associated with a second resource on the forwarding device; and

sending, by the controller, a Border Gateway Protocol Flow Specification (BGP) Flow Spec protocol packet to the forwarding device according to the requirement, wherein the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet comprises a network layer reachability information field and an extended community attribute field, the network layer reachability information field carries characteristic information of the first resource, the extended community attribute field carries a global identifier (GID) used to indicate the second resource, and the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet is used to instruct to associate the first resource with the second resource.

2. The communication method according to claim 1, wherein the extended community attribute field comprises a GID field and a flag field, the GID field carries the GID, and the flag filed carries information used to instruct to associate the first resource with the second resource on a control plane of the forwarding device or on a forwarding plane of the forwarding device.

3. The communication method according to claim 2, wherein the flag filed comprises a forwarding plane bit and a control plane bit;

and when 0 is assigned to the forwarding plane bit and 1 is assigned to the control plane bit, it indicates that the first resource is to be associated with the second resource on the control plane, and when 1 is assigned to the forwarding plane bit and 0 is assigned to the control plane bit, it indicates that the first resource is to be associated with the second resource on the forwarding plane.

4. The communication method according to claim 2, wherein the forwarding device is a provider edge PE device, a virtual private network (VPN) instance of a first customer edge (CE) device is established on the forwarding device, and routing information of a second CE device is not in a VPN routing table of the VPN instance of the first CE device;

and the communication method further comprises;

obtaining, by the controller, a VPN service request, wherein the VPN service request is used to request the first CE device to access the second CE device;

the obtaining, by a controller, a requirement indicating that a first resource on a forwarding device needs to be associated with a second resource on the forwarding device comprises;

obtaining, by the controller according to the VPN service request, the requirement indicating that the first resource needs to be associated with the second resource, wherein the first resource is the routing information of the second CE device, and the second resource is the VPN instance of the first CE device; and

the sending, by the controller, a Border Gateway Protocol Flow Specification (BGP) Flow Spec protocol packet to the forwarding device according to the requirement comprises;

sending, by the controller, the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet to the forwarding device according to the requirement, wherein the flag filed in the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet is used to instruct to associate the first resource with the second resource on the control plane, and the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet is used to instruct to add the routing information of the second CE device to the VPN routing table of the VPN instance of the first CE device.

5. The communication method according to claim 4, wherein the communication method further comprises:

obtaining, by the controller from the forwarding device, attribute information of the VPN instance of the first CE device, wherein the attribute information comprises a VPN instance name, a VPN instance route distinguisher (RD), a VPN instance route target RT, a VPN instance index value, and VPN instance interface information;

allocating, by the controller, a mapping identifier to the attribute information of the VPN instance of the first CE device, wherein the mapping identifier uniquely indicates, in the forwarding device, the attribute information of the VPN instance of the first CE device; and

sending, by the controller, a mapping table to the forwarding device, wherein the mapping table comprises a mapping relationship between the attribute information of the VPN instance of the first CE device and the mapping identifier, wherein the GID carried in the GID field is one or more mapping identifiers.

6. The communication method according to claim 5, wherein the communication method further comprises:

obtaining, by the controller, a VPN service request used to request to configure attribute information for a VPN instance that is of a third CE device and that is newly established on the forwarding device; and

configuring, by the controller, the following attribute information for the VPN instance of the third CE device;

a VPN instance name, a VPN instance RD, a VPN instance RT, and VPN instance interface information, wherein the following attribute information of the VPN instance of the third CE device does not conflict with the attribute information corresponding to the VPN instance of the first CE device;

the VPN instance name, the VPN instance RD, and the VPN instance interface information.

7. The communication method according to claim 4, wherein a VPN instance of the second CE device is established on the forwarding device, and a VPN routing table of the VPN instance of the second CE device comprises the routing information of the second CE device;

and

the characteristic information of the first resource is at least one piece of the following attribute information of the VPN instance of the second CE device;

a VPN instance name, a VPN instance RD, a VPN instance index value, VPN instance interface information, or a VPN instance GID.

8. The communication method according to claim 4, wherein a VPN instance of the second CE device is not established on the forwarding device, and a VPN public-network routing table of the forwarding device comprises the routing information of the second CE device;

and

the characteristic information of the first resource is at least one piece of the following information;

RD information, export target information, or route prefix information that is corresponding to the routing information of the second CE device.

9. A Flow Specification protocol-based communication method, comprising:

receiving, by a forwarding device, a Border Gateway Protocol Flow Specification BGP Flow Spec protocol packet sent by a controller, wherein the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet comprises a network layer reachability information field and an extended community attribute field, the network layer reachability information field carries characteristic information, of a first resource, that is used to indicate the first resource on the forwarding device, the extended community attribute field carries a global identifier GID used to indicate a second resource on the forwarding device, and the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet is used to instruct to associate the first resource with the second resource;

obtaining, by the forwarding device, the first resource according to the characteristic information of the first resource, and obtaining the second resource according to the GID; and

associating, by the forwarding device, the first resource with the second resource.

10. The communication method according to claim 9, wherein the extended community attribute field comprises a GID field and a flag field, the GID field carries the GID, and the flag filed carries information used to instruct to associate the first resource with the second resource on a control plane of the forwarding device or on a forwarding plane of the forwarding device.

11. The communication method according to claim 10, wherein the flag filed comprises a forwarding plane bit and a control plane bit;

and when 0 is assigned to the forwarding plane bit and 1 is assigned to the control plane bit, it indicates that the first resource is to be associated with the second resource on the control plane, and when 1 is assigned to the forwarding plane bit and 0 is assigned to the control plane bit, it indicates that the first resource is to be associated with the second resource on the forwarding plane.

12. The communication method according to claim 10, wherein the forwarding device is a provider edge PE device, a virtual private network VPN instance of a first customer edge CE device is established on the forwarding device, and routing information of the second CE device is not in a VPN routing table of the VPN instance of the first CE device;

and the receiving, by a forwarding device, a BGP Flow Spec protocol packet sent by the controller comprises;

receiving, by the forwarding device, the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet sent by the controller according to a VPN service request, wherein the VPN service request is used to request the first CE device to access the second CE device, the first resource is the routing information of the second CE device, the second resource is the VPN instance of the first CE device, the flag filed in the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet is used to instruct to associate the first resource with the second resource on the control plane, and the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet is used to instruct to add the routing information of the second CE device to the VPN routing table of the VPN instance of the first CE device; and

the associating, by the forwarding device, the first resource with the second resource comprises;

adding, by the forwarding device, the routing information of the second CE device to the VPN routing table of the VPN instance of the first CE device.

13. The communication method according to claim 12, wherein the communication method further comprises:

sending, by the forwarding device, attribute information of the VPN instance of the first CE device to the controller, wherein the attribute information comprises a VPN instance name, a VPN instance route distinguisher RD, a VPN instance route target RT, a VPN instance index value, and VPN instance interface information; and

receiving, by the forwarding device, a mapping table sent by the controller, wherein the mapping table comprises a mapping relationship between the attribute information of the VPN instance of the first CE device and a mapping identifier that is allocated by the controller to the attribute information of the VPN instance of the first CE device, and the mapping identifier uniquely indicates, in the forwarding device, the attribute information of the VPN instance of the first CE device, wherein

the GID carried in the GID field is one or more mapping identifiers.

14. The communication method according to claim 12, wherein a VPN instance of the second CE device is established on the forwarding device, and a VPN routing table of the VPN instance of the second CE device comprises the routing information of the second CE device;

the characteristic information of the first resource is at least one piece of the following attribute information of the VPN instance of the second CE device;

a VPN instance name, a VPN instance RD, a VPN instance index value, VPN instance interface information, or a VPN instance GID; and

the obtaining, by the forwarding device, the first resource according to the characteristic information of the first resource comprises;

obtaining, by the forwarding device from the VPN routing table of the VPN instance of the second CE device, the routing information of the second CE device according to the characteristic information of the first resource.

15. The communication method according to claim 12, wherein a VPN instance of the second CE device is not established on the forwarding device, and a VPN public-network routing table of the forwarding device comprises the routing information of the second CE device;

the characteristic information of the first resource is at least one piece of the following information;

RD information, export target information, or route prefix information that is corresponding to the routing information of the second CE device; and

the obtaining, by the forwarding device, the first resource according to the characteristic information of the first resource comprises;

obtaining, by the forwarding device from the VPN public-network routing table, the routing information of the second CE device according to the characteristic information of the first resource.

16. A controller, comprising:

an obtaining module, configured to obtain a requirement indicating that a first resource on a forwarding device needs to be associated with a second resource on the forwarding device; and

a sending module, configured to send a Border Gateway Protocol Flow Specification BGP Flow Spec protocol packet to the forwarding device according to the requirement obtained by the obtaining module, wherein the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet comprises a network layer reachability information field and an extended community attribute field, the network layer reachability information field carries characteristic information of the first resource, the extended community attribute field carries a global identifier GID used to indicate the second resource, and the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet is used to instruct to associate the first resource with the second resource.

17. The controller according to claim 16, wherein the extended community attribute field comprises a GID field and a flag field, the GID field carries the GID, and the flag filed carries information used to instruct to associate the first resource with the second resource on a control plane of the forwarding device or on a forwarding plane of the forwarding device.

18. The controller according to claim 17, wherein the flag filed comprises a forwarding plane bit and a control plane bit;

and when 0 is assigned to the forwarding plane bit and 1 is assigned to the control plane bit, it indicates that the first resource is to be associated with the second resource on the control plane, and when 1 is assigned to the forwarding plane bit and 0 is assigned to the control plane bit, it indicates that the first resource is to be associated with the second resource on the forwarding plane.

19. The controller according to claim 17, wherein the forwarding device is a provider edge PE device, a virtual private network VPN instance of a first customer edge CE device is established on the forwarding device, and routing information of a second CE device is not in a VPN routing table of the VPN instance of the first CE device;

and the obtaining module is configured to;

obtain a VPN service request, wherein the VPN service request is used to request the first CE device to access the second CE device; and

obtain, according to the VPN service request, the requirement indicating that the first resource needs to be associated with the second resource, wherein the first resource is the routing information of the second CE device, and the second resource is the VPN instance of the first CE device; and

the sending module is configured to send the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet to the forwarding device according to the requirement, wherein the flag filed in the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet is used to instruct to associate the first resource with the second resource on the control plane, and the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet is used to instruct to add the routing information of the second CE device to the VPN routing table of the VPN instance of the first CE device.

20. The controller according to claim 19, wherein

the obtaining module is further configured to obtain, from the forwarding device, attribute information of the VPN instance of the first CE device, wherein the attribute information comprises a VPN instance name, a VPN instance route distinguisher RD, a VPN instance route target RT, a VPN instance index value, and VPN instance interface information;

the controller further comprises;

an identifier allocation module, configured to allocate a mapping identifier to the attribute information of the VPN instance of the first CE device, wherein the mapping identifier uniquely indicates, in the forwarding device, the attribute information of the VPN instance of the first CE device; and

the sending module is further configured to send a mapping table to the forwarding device, wherein the mapping table comprises a mapping relationship between the attribute information of the VPN instance of the first CE device and the mapping identifier, wherein

the GID carried in the GID field is one or more mapping identifiers.

21. The controller according to claim 20, wherein

the obtaining module is further configured to obtain a VPN service request used to request to configure attribute information for a VPN instance that is of a third CE device and that is newly established on the forwarding device;

and

the controller further comprises;

a VPN instance configuration module, configured to configure the following attribute information for the VPN instance of the third CE device;

a VPN instance name, a VPN instance RD, a VPN instance RT, and VPN instance interface information, wherein the following attribute information of the VPN instance of the third CE device does not conflict with the attribute information corresponding to the VPN instance of the first CE device;

the VPN instance name, the VPN instance RD, and the VPN instance interface information.

22. A forwarding device, comprising:

a receiving module, configured to receive a Border Gateway Protocol Flow Specification BGP Flow Spec protocol packet sent by a controller, wherein the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet comprises a network layer reachability information field and an extended community attribute field, the network layer reachability information field carries characteristic information, of a first resource, that is used to indicate the first resource on the forwarding device, the extended community attribute field carries a global identifier GID used to indicate a second resource on the forwarding device, and the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet is used to instruct to associate the first resource with the second resource;

an obtaining module, configured to;

obtain the first resource according to the characteristic information that is of the first resource and that is received by the receiving module, and obtain the second resource according to the GID; and

an association module, configured to associate the first resource with the second resource according to the BGP Flow Spec protocol packet received by the receiving module.

23. The forwarding device according to claim 22, wherein the extended community attribute field comprises a GID field and a flag field, the GID field carries the GID, and the flag filed carries information used to instruct to associate the first resource with the second resource on a control plane of the forwarding device or on a forwarding plane of the forwarding device.

24. The forwarding device according to claim 23, wherein the flag filed comprises a forwarding plane bit and a control plane bit;

and when 0 is assigned to the forwarding plane bit and 1 is assigned to the control plane bit, it indicates that the first resource is to be associated with the second resource on the control plane, and when 1 is assigned to the forwarding plane bit and 0 is assigned to the control plane bit, it indicates that the first resource is to be associated with the second resource on the forwarding plane.