RFC 3032 (rfc3032) - Page 1 of 23

MPLS Label Stack Encoding

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Network Working Group                                           E. Rosen
Request for Comments: 3032                                     D. Tappan
Category: Standards Track                                    G. Fedorkow
                                                     Cisco Systems, Inc.
                                                              Y. Rekhter
                                                        Juniper Networks
                                                            D. Farinacci
                                                                   T. Li
                                                  Procket Networks, Inc.
                                                                A. Conta
                                                  TranSwitch Corporation
                                                            January 2001


                       MPLS Label Stack Encoding

Status of this Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   "Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)" [1] requires a set of
   procedures for augmenting network layer packets with "label stacks",
   thereby turning them into "labeled packets".  Routers which support
   MPLS are known as "Label Switching Routers", or "LSRs".  In order to
   transmit a labeled packet on a particular data link, an LSR must
   support an encoding technique which, given a label stack and a
   network layer packet, produces a labeled packet.  This document
   specifies the encoding to be used by an LSR in order to transmit
   labeled packets on Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) data links, on LAN
   data links, and possibly on other data links as well.  On some data
   links, the label at the top of the stack may be encoded in a
   different manner, but the techniques described here MUST be used to
   encode the remainder of the label stack.  This document also
   specifies rules and procedures for processing the various fields of
   the label stack encoding.






Rosen, et al.               Standards Track
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