Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES) MIB

Abstract

This memo defines a Management Information Base (MIB) module for use with network management protocols in the Internet community. In particular, it defines managed objects for the Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES) Network Element (NE).

Status of This Memo

This is an Internet Standards Track document.

This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.

Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5813.

Copyright Notice

Copyright © 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1. The Internet-Standard Management Framework ......................2
   2. Introduction ....................................................2
   3. Requirements Notation ...........................................3
   4. ForCES MIB Overview .............................................3
   5. ForCES MIB Definition ...........................................4
   6. Associations Kept in the MIB ...................................13
   7. Support for Multiple CEs and FEs ...............................14
   8. Security Considerations ........................................14
   9. IANA Considerations ............................................15
   10. References ....................................................15
      10.1. Normative References .....................................15
      10.2. Informative References ...................................16
   Appendix A.  Acknowledgments ......................................17

1. The Internet-Standard Management Framework

For a detailed overview of the documents that describe the current Internet-Standard Management Framework, please refer to section 7 of [RFC3410].

Managed objects are accessed via a virtual information store, termed the Management Information Base or MIB. MIB objects are generally accessed through the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Objects in the MIB are defined using the mechanisms defined in the Structure of Management Information (SMI). This memo specifies a MIB module that is compliant to the SMIv2, which is described in STD 58, [RFC2578], STD 58, [RFC2579] and STD 58, [RFC2580].

2. Introduction

   The ForCES MIB module is a read-only MIB module that captures
   information related to the ForCES protocol ([RFC3654], [RFC3746],
   [FORCES-APP], and [RFC5810]).

The ForCES MIB module does not include information that is specified in other MIB modules, such as packet counters for interfaces, etc.

More specifically, the information in the ForCES MIB module relative to associations (between Control Elements and Forwarding Elements) that are in the UP state includes:

• identifiers of the elements in the association,

• configuration parameters of the association, and

• statistics of the association.

3. Requirements Notation

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

4. ForCES MIB Overview

The MIB module contains the latest ForCES protocol version supported by the Control Element (CE) (forcesLatestProtocolVersionSupported). Note that the CE must also allow interaction with Forwarding Elements (FEs) supporting earlier versions.

For each association identified by the pair CE ID and FE ID, the following associated information is provided by the MIB module as an entry (forcesAssociationEntry) in the association table (forcesAssociationTable):

• Version number of the ForCES protocol running in this association (forcesAssociationRunningProtocolVersion).

• Time when the association entered the UP state (forcesAssociationTimeUp).

• Time when the association left the UP state (forcesAssociationTimeDown). Note that this is only used for notification purposes as the association is removed from the MIB immediately after it leaves the UP state.

• Number of ForCES Heartbeat messages sent from the CE (forcesAssociationHBMsgSent) and received by the CE (forcesAssociationHBMsgReceived) since the association entered the UP state.

• Number of operational ForCES messages sent from the CE (forcesAssociationOperMsgSent) and received by the CE (forcesAssociationOperMsgReceived) since the association entered the UP state. Only messages other than Heartbeat, Association Setup, Association Setup Response, and Association Teardown are counted.

Finally, the MIB module defines the following notifications:

• Whenever an association enters the UP state, a notification (forcesAssociationEntryUp) is issued containing the version of the ForCES protocol running. CE ID and FE ID are concatenated to form the table index, hence they appear in the OID of the ForCES- protocol running-version object. Optionally, a notification

(forcesAssociationEntryUpStats) can instead be issued with all associated information for this association, except forcesAssociationTimeDown.

• Whenever an association leaves the UP state, a notification (forcesAssociationEntryDown) is issued containing the version of the ForCES protocol running. Optionally, a notification (forcesAssociationEntryDownStats) can instead be issued with all associated information for this association. The reason is that the association and all its associated information will be removed from the MIB immediately after this notification has been issued.

5. ForCES MIB Definition

FORCES-MIB DEFINITIONS ::= BEGIN

IMPORTS

          MODULE-IDENTITY, OBJECT-TYPE, NOTIFICATION-TYPE,
            mib-2, Integer32
            FROM SNMPv2-SMI

TEXTUAL-CONVENTION, TimeStamp

            FROM SNMPv2-TC
          
          MODULE-COMPLIANCE, OBJECT-GROUP,
          NOTIFICATION-GROUP
            FROM SNMPv2-CONF

ZeroBasedCounter32

            FROM RMON2-MIB;

forcesMib MODULE-IDENTITY

          LAST-UPDATED "201003100000Z"  -- March 10, 2010
          ORGANIZATION "IETF Forwarding and Control Element
                        Separation (ForCES) Working Group"
          CONTACT-INFO
              "WG Charter:
                http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/forces-charter.html

Mailing lists:

                    General Discussion: forces@ietf.org
                    To Subscribe:
                    https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/forces

Chairs:

                        Patrick Droz
                        Email: dro@zurich.ibm.com
                        Jamal Hadi Salim
                        Email: hadi@mojatatu.com
          
                Editor: Robert Haas
                        IBM
                        Email:  rha@zurich.ibm.com"
          DESCRIPTION
              "This MIB module contains managed object definitions
               for the ForCES Protocol.

Copyright © 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as authors of the code. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, is permitted pursuant to, and subject to the license terms contained in, the Simplified BSD License set forth in Section 4.c of the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info).

               This version of this MIB module is part of RFC 5813;
               see the RFC itself for full legal notices."
          REVISION "201003100000Z"  -- March 10, 2010
          DESCRIPTION
             "Initial version, published as RFC 5813."
         ::= { mib-2 187 }
 
 --****************************************************************
 
      forcesMibNotifications OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { forcesMib 0 }
      forcesMibObjects       OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { forcesMib 1 }
      forcesMibConformance   OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { forcesMib 2 }

ForcesID ::= TEXTUAL-CONVENTION

          STATUS      current
          DESCRIPTION
              "The ForCES identifier is a 4-octet quantity."
          SYNTAX      OCTET STRING (SIZE (4))

ForcesProtocolVersion ::= TEXTUAL-CONVENTION

          DISPLAY-HINT "d"
          STATUS      current
          DESCRIPTION
              "ForCES protocol version number.
               The version numbers used are defined in the
               specifications of the respective protocol:
               1 - ForCESv1, RFC 5810."
          SYNTAX      Integer32 (1..255)

-- Notifications

forcesAssociationEntryUp NOTIFICATION-TYPE

         OBJECTS     {
            forcesAssociationRunningProtocolVersion
         }
         STATUS      current
         DESCRIPTION
              "This notification is generated as soon
               as an association enters the UP state.
               Note that these notifications are not
               throttled as the CE itself should
               throttle the setup of associations."
         ::= { forcesMibNotifications 1 }

forcesAssociationEntryDown NOTIFICATION-TYPE

         OBJECTS     {
            forcesAssociationRunningProtocolVersion
         }
         STATUS      current
         DESCRIPTION
              "This notification is generated as soon
               as an association leaves the UP state.
               Note that these notifications are not
               throttled as the CE itself should
               throttle the setup of associations."
         ::= { forcesMibNotifications 2 }

forcesAssociationEntryUpStats NOTIFICATION-TYPE

         OBJECTS     {
            forcesAssociationRunningProtocolVersion,
            forcesAssociationTimeUp
         }
         STATUS      current
         DESCRIPTION
              "This notification is generated as soon
               as an association enters the UP state.
               Note that these notifications are not
               throttled as the CE itself should
               throttle the setup of associations."
         ::= { forcesMibNotifications 3 }

forcesAssociationEntryDownStats NOTIFICATION-TYPE

         OBJECTS     {
            forcesAssociationRunningProtocolVersion,
            forcesAssociationTimeUp,
            forcesAssociationTimeDown,
            forcesAssociationHBMsgSent,
            forcesAssociationHBMsgReceived,
            forcesAssociationOperMsgSent,
            forcesAssociationOperMsgReceived,
            forcesAssociationCounterDiscontinuityTime
            }
         STATUS      current
         DESCRIPTION
              "This notification is generated as soon
               as an association leaves the UP state.
               Note that these notifications are not
               throttled as the CE itself should
               throttle the setup of associations."
         ::= { forcesMibNotifications 4 }

-- Objects

forcesLatestProtocolVersionSupported OBJECT-TYPE

          SYNTAX      ForcesProtocolVersion
          MAX-ACCESS  read-only
          STATUS      current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "The ForCES protocol version supported by the CE.
                  The current protocol version is 1.
                  Note that the CE must also allow interaction
                  with FEs supporting earlier versions."
          ::= { forcesMibObjects 1 }
      
      forcesAssociations OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { forcesMibObjects 2 }

forcesAssociationTable OBJECT-TYPE

          SYNTAX SEQUENCE OF ForcesAssociationEntry
          MAX-ACCESS not-accessible
          STATUS current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "The (conceptual) table of associations."
          ::= { forcesAssociations 1 }

forcesAssociationEntry OBJECT-TYPE

          SYNTAX ForcesAssociationEntry
          MAX-ACCESS not-accessible
          STATUS current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "A (conceptual) entry for one association."
          INDEX { forcesAssociationCEID, forcesAssociationFEID }
          ::= { forcesAssociationTable 1 }

ForcesAssociationEntry ::= SEQUENCE {

forcesAssociationCEID ForcesID,

forcesAssociationFEID ForcesID,

forcesAssociationRunningProtocolVersion

ForcesProtocolVersion,

forcesAssociationTimeUp TimeStamp,

forcesAssociationTimeDown TimeStamp,

              forcesAssociationHBMsgSent        ZeroBasedCounter32,
              forcesAssociationHBMsgReceived    ZeroBasedCounter32,
              forcesAssociationOperMsgSent      ZeroBasedCounter32,
              forcesAssociationOperMsgReceived  ZeroBasedCounter32,
              forcesAssociationCounterDiscontinuityTime  TimeStamp
     }

forcesAssociationCEID OBJECT-TYPE

          SYNTAX ForcesID
          MAX-ACCESS not-accessible
          STATUS current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "The ForCES ID of the CE."
          ::= { forcesAssociationEntry 1 }

forcesAssociationFEID OBJECT-TYPE

          SYNTAX ForcesID
          MAX-ACCESS not-accessible
          STATUS current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "The ForCES ID of the FE."
          ::= { forcesAssociationEntry 2 }

forcesAssociationRunningProtocolVersion OBJECT-TYPE

          SYNTAX      ForcesProtocolVersion
          MAX-ACCESS  read-only
          STATUS      current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "The current ForCES protocol version used in
                  this association.
                  The current protocol version is 1."
          ::= { forcesAssociationEntry 3 }

forcesAssociationTimeUp OBJECT-TYPE

          SYNTAX TimeStamp
          MAX-ACCESS read-only
          STATUS current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "The value of sysUpTime at the time this
                  association entered the UP state.
                  If this association started prior to the last
                  initialization of the network subsystem, then
                  this object contains a zero value.
                  This object allows to uniquely identify
                  associations with the same CE and FE IDs."
          ::= { forcesAssociationEntry 4 }

forcesAssociationTimeDown OBJECT-TYPE

          SYNTAX TimeStamp
          MAX-ACCESS accessible-for-notify
          STATUS current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "The value of sysUpTime at the time this
                  association left the UP state."
          ::= { forcesAssociationEntry 5 }

forcesAssociationHBMsgSent OBJECT-TYPE

          SYNTAX ZeroBasedCounter32
          MAX-ACCESS read-only
          STATUS current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "A counter of how many Heartbeat messages have
                  been sent by the CE on this association
                  since the association entered the UP state.
                  Discontinuities in the value of this counter
                  can occur at reinitialization of the management
                  system, and at other times as indicated by the
                  value of forcesAssociationCounterDiscontinuityTime."
          ::= { forcesAssociationEntry 6 }

forcesAssociationHBMsgReceived OBJECT-TYPE

          SYNTAX ZeroBasedCounter32
          MAX-ACCESS read-only
          STATUS current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "A counter of how many Heartbeat messages
                  have been received by the CE on this association
                  since the association entered the UP state.
                  Discontinuities in the value of this counter
                  can occur at reinitialization of the management
                  system, and at other times as indicated by the
                  value of forcesAssociationCounterDiscontinuityTime."
          ::= { forcesAssociationEntry 7 }

forcesAssociationOperMsgSent OBJECT-TYPE

          SYNTAX ZeroBasedCounter32
          MAX-ACCESS read-only
          STATUS current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "A counter of how many messages other than
                  Heartbeat (i.e., Config and Query)
                  have been sent by the CE on this association
                  since the association entered the UP state.
                  Discontinuities in the value of this counter
                  can occur at reinitialization of the management
                  system, and at other times as indicated by the
                  value of forcesAssociationCounterDiscontinuityTime."
          ::= { forcesAssociationEntry 8 }

forcesAssociationOperMsgReceived OBJECT-TYPE

          SYNTAX ZeroBasedCounter32
          MAX-ACCESS read-only
          STATUS current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "A counter of how many messages other than
                  Heartbeat (i.e., Config response, Query response,
                  event notification, and packet redirect)
                  have been received by the CE on this association
                  since the association entered the UP state.
                  Discontinuities in the value of this counter
                  can occur at reinitialization of the management
                  system, and at other times as indicated by the
                  value of forcesAssociationCounterDiscontinuityTime."
          ::= { forcesAssociationEntry 9 }

forcesAssociationCounterDiscontinuityTime OBJECT-TYPE

          SYNTAX TimeStamp
          MAX-ACCESS read-only
          STATUS current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "The value of sysUpTime on the most recent occasion
                  at which any one or more of this association's
                  counters suffered a discontinuity.  The relevant
                  counters are the specific instances associated with
                  this association of any ZeroBasedCounter32 object
                  contained in the forcesAssociationTable.  If no
                  such discontinuities have occurred since the last
                  reinitialization of the local management subsystem,
                  then this object contains a zero value."
          ::= { forcesAssociationEntry 10 }

-- Conformance

      forcesMibCompliances   OBJECT IDENTIFIER
                               ::= { forcesMibConformance 1 }
      forcesMibGroups        OBJECT IDENTIFIER
                               ::= { forcesMibConformance 2 }

-- Compliance statements

      forcesMibCompliance  MODULE-COMPLIANCE
          STATUS current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "The compliance statement for routers running
                  ForCES and implementing the ForCES MIB."
          MODULE  -- this module
            MANDATORY-GROUPS { forcesMibGroup, forcesNotificationGroup }

GROUP forcesNotificationStatsGroup
DESCRIPTION

"Implementation of this group is recommended."

GROUP forcesStatsGroup
DESCRIPTION

"Implementation of this group is recommended."

          ::= { forcesMibCompliances 1 }

-- Units of conformance

forcesNotificationGroup NOTIFICATION-GROUP

          NOTIFICATIONS { forcesAssociationEntryUp,
                          forcesAssociationEntryDown
                        }
          STATUS  current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "A collection of notifications for signaling
                  important ForCES events."
          ::= { forcesMibGroups 1 }

forcesMibGroup OBJECT-GROUP

          OBJECTS { forcesLatestProtocolVersionSupported,
                    forcesAssociationRunningProtocolVersion
                  }
          STATUS  current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "A collection of objects to support management
                  of ForCES routers."
        ::= { forcesMibGroups 2 }

forcesNotificationStatsGroup NOTIFICATION-GROUP

          NOTIFICATIONS { forcesAssociationEntryUpStats,
                          forcesAssociationEntryDownStats
                        }
          STATUS  current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "A collection of optional notifications for
                  signaling important ForCES events including
                  statistics."
          ::= { forcesMibGroups 3 }

forcesStatsGroup OBJECT-GROUP

          OBJECTS { forcesAssociationTimeUp,
                    forcesAssociationTimeDown,
                    forcesAssociationHBMsgSent,
                    forcesAssociationHBMsgReceived,
                    forcesAssociationOperMsgSent,
                    forcesAssociationOperMsgReceived,
                    forcesAssociationCounterDiscontinuityTime
                  }
          STATUS  current
          DESCRIPTION
                 "A collection of optional objects to provide
                  extra information about the associations.
                  There is no protocol reason to keep such
                  information, but these objects can be very
                  useful in debugging connectivity problems."
        ::= { forcesMibGroups 4}
      
      END

6. Associations Kept in the MIB

Associations enter the UP state as soon as the CE has sent to the FE an Association Setup Response message containing a successful Association Setup Result. Only associations that are UP are reflected in this MIB module.

Associations are removed from the MIB module as soon as they leave the UP state, i.e., if the CE has not received any message (Heartbeat or other protocol message) from the FE within a given time period or if an Association Teardown message has been sent by the CE.

Statistics counters are initialized to zero when the association is created. If the same association goes down and comes back up, the counters will reset and the discontinuity can be discovered by checking the discontinuity timestamp. In addition, the time-up timestamp in the association allows to distinguish new associations from past ones with the same index. Note that the optional down notification contains the statistics with the final values of the statistics counters.

7. Support for Multiple CEs and FEs

An NE consists of one or more FEs and one or more CEs. Where there is a single CE, that CE will have knowledge of all the associations in the NE and so can provide the information necessary to support the managed objects defined in this MIB module. Where there is more than one CE, information about the associations may be distributed among the CEs. Whether each CE implements the managed objects for the associations of which it is aware or whether the CEs cooperate to present the appearance of a single set of managed objects for all the associations in the NE is outside the scope of this document.

8. Security Considerations

There are no management objects defined in this MIB module that have a MAX-ACCESS clause of read-write and/or read-create. So, if this MIB module is implemented correctly, then there is no risk that an intruder can alter or create any management objects of this MIB module via direct SNMP SET operations.

Some of the readable objects in this MIB module (i.e., objects with a MAX-ACCESS other than not-accessible) may be considered sensitive or vulnerable in some network environments. It is thus important to control even GET and/or NOTIFY access to these objects and possibly to even encrypt the values of these objects when sending them over the network via SNMP. These are the tables and objects and their sensitivity/vulnerability:

• Objects in the forcesMibGroup are protocol versions. They are neither sensitive nor vulnerable.

• Objects in the forcesStatsGroup are statistics. They are neither sensitive nor vulnerable.

SNMP versions prior to SNMPv3 did not include adequate security. Even if the network itself is secure (for example by using IPsec), even then, there is no control as to who on the secure network is allowed to access and GET/SET (read/change/create/delete) the objects in this MIB module.

It is RECOMMENDED that implementers consider the security features as provided by the SNMPv3 framework (see [RFC3410], section 8), including full support for the SNMPv3 cryptographic mechanisms (for authentication and privacy).

Further, deployment of SNMP versions prior to SNMPv3 is NOT RECOMMENDED. Instead, it is RECOMMENDED to deploy SNMPv3 and to enable cryptographic security. It is then a customer/operator responsibility to ensure that the SNMP entity giving access to an instance of this MIB module is properly configured to give access to the objects only to those principals (users) that have legitimate rights to indeed GET or SET (change/create/delete) them.

9. IANA Considerations

The MIB module in this document uses the following IANA-assigned OBJECT IDENTIFIER values recorded in the SMI Numbers registry:

         Descriptor        OBJECT IDENTIFIER value
         ----------        -----------------------
         
         forcesMIB         { mib-2 187 }

10. References

10.1. Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
   
   [RFC2578]  McCloghrie, K., Ed., Perkins, D., Ed., and J.
              Schoenwaelder, Ed., "Structure of Management Information
              Version 2 (SMIv2)", STD 58, RFC 2578, April 1999.
   
   [RFC2579]  McCloghrie, K., Ed., Perkins, D., Ed., and J.
              Schoenwaelder, Ed., "Textual Conventions for SMIv2",
              STD 58, RFC 2579, April 1999.
   
   [RFC2580]  McCloghrie, K., Perkins, D., and J. Schoenwaelder,
              "Conformance Statements for SMIv2", STD 58, RFC 2580,
              April 1999.
   
   [RFC5810]  Doria, A., Ed., Hadi Salim, J., Ed., Haas, R., Ed.,
              Khosravi, H., Ed., Wang, W., Ed., Dong, L., Gopal, R., and
              J. Halpern, "Forwarding and Control Element Separation
              (ForCES) Protocol Specification", RFC 5810, March 2010.

10.2. Informative References

[FORCES-APP]

              Crouch, A., Khosravi, H., Doria, A., Wang, X., and K.
              Ogawa, "ForCES Applicability Statement", Work in Progress,
              February 2010.
   
   [RFC3410]  Case, J., Mundy, R., Partain, D., and B. Stewart,
              "Introduction and Applicability Statements for
              Internet-Standard Management Framework", RFC 3410,
              December 2002.
   
   [RFC3654]  Khosravi, H. and T. Anderson, "Requirements for Separation
              of IP Control and Forwarding", RFC 3654, November 2003.
   
   [RFC3746]  Yang, L., Dantu, R., Anderson, T., and R. Gopal,
              "Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES)
              Framework", RFC 3746, April 2004.

Appendix A. Acknowledgments

The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Spencer Dawkins, Jinrong Fenggen, John Flick, Xiaoyi Guo, Joel Halpern, Tom Petch, Jamal Hadi Salim, and Bert Wijnen.

Author's Address

   Robert Haas
   IBM
   Saeumerstrasse 4
   Rueschlikon  8803
   CH
   
   EMail: rha@zurich.ibm.com
   URI:   http://www.zurich.ibm.com/~rha