RFC 3814 (rfc3814) - Page 2 of 42

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) Forwarding Equivalence Class To Next Hop Label Forwarding Entry (FEC-To-NHLFE) Management Information Base (MIB)

RFC 3814                      MPLS FTN MIB                     June 2004


   7.  Example Illustrating MIB Module Components . . . . . . . . . .  8
       7.1.  Sample FTN Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       7.2.  Creating FTN Entries and Applying them to Interfaces . .  9
       7.3.  Mapping an FTN Entry to Multiple Interfaces. . . . . . . 10
       7.4.  Inserting an Entry Into Existing List. . . . . . . . . . 11
       7.5.  Pictorial Tabular Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       7.6.  Deleting an Entry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   8.  The Use of RowPointer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   9.  MPLS-FTN-STD-MIB Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   10. Security Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
   11. IANA Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
       11.1. IANA Considerations for MPLS-FTN-STD-MIB . . . . . . . . 39
   12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
       12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
       12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
   13. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
   14. Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
   15. Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

1.  Introduction

   This memo defines a portion of the Management Information Base (MIB)
   for use with network management protocols in the Internet community.
   In particular, it describes managed objects for specifying Forwarding
   Equivalence Class (FEC) to Next Hop Label Forwarding Entry (NHLFE)
   mappings and corresponding actions for Multiprotocol Label Switching
   (MPLS).

   At the ingress of an MPLS network, packets entering the MPLS domain
   are assigned to an FEC.  Those packets belonging to an FEC are
   associated with an NHLFE (i.e., MPLS label) via the FEC-to-NHLFE
   (FTN) mapping [RFC 3031].  This relationship defines how ingress LSRs
   will impose MPLS labels onto incoming packets.  It also defines how
   egress LSRs will decapsulate the MPLS shim header from MPLS packets.

   Conceptually, some of the FTN table functionality could be
   implemented using the Forwarding Information Base (FIB) to map all
   packets destined for a prefix to an LSP.  However, this mapping is
   coarse in nature.

   Similar functionality is already being used in other contexts such as
   security filters, access filters, and RSVP flow identification.  All
   of these require various combinations of matching based on IP header
   and upper-layer header information to identify packets for a
   particular treatment.  When packets match a particular rule, a
   corresponding action is executed on those packets.  For example, two
   popular actions to take when a successful match is identified are
   allowing the packet to be forwarded or to discard it.  However, other



Nadeau, et al.              Standards Track