Detection of specific BFD path failures

• US 8,374,164 B2
• Filed: 04/06/2007
• Issued: 02/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 04/06/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Nadeau, Thomas D., Prairie, Danny, Swallow, George, Rahman, Reshad
• Primary Examiner(s): Harper, Kevin C
• Assistant Examiner(s): CHOUDHRY, SAMINA F
• Application Number:
  US11/697,571
• Publication Number:
  US 20080247324A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,139 Days
• Field of Search: 370/216, 370/225, 370/245, 370/351, 370/395.21, 370/389, 370/401
• US Class Current: 370/351
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/12 Discovery or management of network topologies
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/02 Topology update or discovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/28 using route fault recovery
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/50 using label swapping, e.g. multi-protocol label switch [MPLS]

Abstract

Improved detection of specific BFD LSP path failures is herein disclosed. The improved detection described herein allow for faster fault isolation of a failure along a LSP path, which in turn may allow for faster repair of the failure. When opening a BFD session with a LSP egress node, the LSP ingress node provides the LSP egress node a path descriptor along with the BFD Discriminator. If a BFD failure is detected at the LSP egress node, the LSP egress node can signal an alarm that includes a full description of the path.

Claims

1. A non-transitory tangible media for encoding logic for execution and, when executed, operable to perform operations of:

discovering a plurality of paths between an ingress node and an egress node;

constructing, by a processor, a plurality of path descriptors, wherein each path descriptor corresponds to one of the plurality of paths, and wherein each path descriptor includes a plurality of node descriptors and each node descriptor includes a downstream internet protocol (“

IP”

) address;

associating, by the processor, each path descriptor of the plurality of path descriptors with a Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (“

BFD”

) discriminator that is locally-unique to the ingress node; and

for each of the plurality of paths, bootstrapping a BFD session with the egress node, wherein the bootstrapping of the BFD session includes providing the egress node with the path descriptor and the associated BFD discriminator;

detecting a failure in the BFD session; and

sending an alarm in response to the failure of the BFD session, wherein the alarm includes the path descriptor and the associated BFD discriminator of the BFD session of the failure.

2. The non-transitory tangible media of claim 1, wherein the discovered plurality of paths comprise a plurality of label switched paths (“

LSPs”

) and the egress node is a LSP egress node.

3. The non-transitory tangible media of claim 1, wherein discovering a plurality of paths comprises:

performing a tree trace to discover all equal-cost multiple paths for a forwarding equivalence class.

4. The non-transitory tangible media of claim 2, wherein bootstrapping the BFD session comprises:

sending a LSP-ping echo-request containing the path descriptor and the associated BFD discriminator to the LSP egress node.

5. The non-transitory tangible media of claim 2, wherein bootstrapping the BFD session comprises:

providing the LSP egress node with the path descriptor in a type-length-value entry.

6. The non-transitory tangible media of claim 2, wherein bootstrapping the BFD session comprises:

providing the LSP egress node with the path descriptor in a type-length-value entry that also includes a field indicating a number of node descriptors in the path descriptor.

7. The non-transitory tangible media of claim 2, wherein bootstrapping the BFD session comprises:

providing the LSP egress node with the path descriptor in a type-length-value entry that also includes an address-type field indicating an address type and length of the downstream IP address and a length of any downstream interface fields.

8. An apparatus comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions;

a processor for executing the instruction that when executed, are operable to perform operations of;

bootstrapping a Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (“

BFD”

) session with an ingress computer system of a path, wherein the bootstrapping includes receiving, from the path'"'"'s ingress computer system, a path descriptor for the path and a BFD discriminator associated with the path descriptor, wherein the path descriptor includes a plurality of node descriptors and each node descriptor includes a downstream internet protocol (“

IP”

) address;

detecting a failure in the BFD session; and

signaling an alarm to indicate the failure, wherein the alarm includes the path descriptor for the path and the associated BFD discriminator,

wherein bootstrapping the BFD session comprises receiving, from the ingress computer system, the path descriptor in a type-length-value entry that also includes a field indicating a number of node descriptors in the path descriptor.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the path is a label switched path (LSP).

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein bootstrapping the BFD session comprises:

receiving a LSP-ping echo-request containing the path descriptor and the associated BFD discriminator from the ingress computer system.

11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein bootstrapping the BFD session comprises:

receiving, from the ingress computer system, the path descriptor in a type-length-value entry.

12. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein bootstrapping the BFD session comprises:

receiving, from the ingress computer system, the path descriptor in a type-length-value entry that also includes an address-type field indicating an address type and length of the downstream IP addresses and a length of any downstream interface fields.

13. A method comprising:

identifying a first path including a first set of nodes between a label switched path (LSP) ingress node and an LSP egress node;

identifying a second path including a second set of nodes between the LSP ingress node and the LSP egress node;

constructing a first path descriptor describing the first set of nodes and a second path descriptor describing the second set of nodes, wherein the first path descriptor includes a field indicating how many nodes are in the first set of nodes;

sending, from the LSP ingress node to the LSP egress node, the first path descriptor associated with a first Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (“

BFD”

) discriminator that is unique to the LSP ingress node; and

sending, from the LSP ingress node to the LSP egress node, the second path descriptor associated with a second BFD discriminator that is unique to the LSP ingress node.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein a LSP-ping echo-request contains the first path descriptor and the first BFD discriminator from the LSP ingress node.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the first path descriptor includes a plurality of IP addresses each corresponding to one of the first set of nodes and the second path descriptor includes a plurality of IP address each corresponding to one of the second set of nodes.