RFC 9825: Extensions to OSPF for Advertising Prefix Administrative Tags
- A. Lindem, Ed.,
- P. Psenak,
- Y. Qu
Abstract
It is useful for routers in OSPFv2 and OSPFv3 routing domains to be able to
associate tags with prefixes.
Previously, OSPFv2 and OSPFv3 were relegated to a single tag and only for Autonomous
System (AS) External and Not
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 7841.¶
Information about the current status of this document, any
errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2025 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
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1. Introduction
It is useful for routers in OSPFv2 [RFC2328]
and OSPFv3 [RFC5340] routing domains to be able to associate tags with prefixes.
Previously, OSPFv2 and OSPFv3 were relegated to a single tag and only for Autonomous System (AS)
External and Not
Throughout this document, "OSPF" is used when the text applies to both OSPFv2 and OSPFv3. "OSPFv2" or "OSPFv3" is used when the text is specific to one version of the OSPF protocol.¶
The definition of the 64-bit tag was considered but discarded, given that there is no strong requirement or use case.¶
The IS-IS protocol supports a similar mechanism that is described in [RFC5130].¶
1.1. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
2. Administrative Tag Sub-TLV
This document creates a new Administrative Tag Sub-TLV for OSPFv2 and OSPFv3. This sub-TLV specifies one or more 32-bit unsigned integers that may be associated with an OSPF advertised prefix. The precise usage of these tags is beyond the scope of this document.¶
The format of the Administrative Tag Sub-TLV is as follows:¶
- Type:
-
A 16-bit field set to:¶
- Length:
- A 16-bit field that indicates the length of the value portion in octets and MUST be a multiple of 4 octets dependent on the number of administrative tags advertised. At least one administrative tag MUST be advertised.¶
- Value:
- A variable length list of one or more administrative tags.¶
This sub-TLV will carry one or more 32-bit unsigned integer values that will be used as administrative tags. If the length is 0 or not a multiple of 4 octets, the sub-TLV MUST be ignored, and the reception SHOULD be logged for further analysis (subject to rate-limiting).¶
3. Administrative Tag Applicability
The Administrative Tag Sub-TLV specified herein will be valid as a sub-TLV of the following TLVs specified in [RFC7684]:¶
The Administrative Tag Sub-TLV specified herein will be valid as a sub-TLV of the following TLVs specified in [RFC8362]:¶
The Administrative Tag Sub-TLV specified herein will be valid as a sub-TLV of the following TLVs specified in [RFC9513]:¶
4. Protocol Operation
An OSPF router supporting this specification MUST be able to advertise and interpret at least one tag for all types of prefixes. An OSPF router supporting this specification MAY be able to advertise prefixes with multiple tags and propagate prefixes with multiple tags between areas. The maximum tags that an implementation supports is a local matter depending upon supported applications using prefix tags. Depending on the application, the number of tags supported by the OSPF routers in the OSPF routing domain may limit the deployment of that application.¶
When tags are advertised for AS External or NSSA LSA prefixes, the existing tag in the OSPFv2 and OSPFv3 AS-External-LSA and NSSA-LSA encodings MUST be utilized for the first tag. Additional tags MAY be advertised using the Administrative Tag Sub-TLV specified in this document. This will facilitate backward compatibility with implementations that do not support this specification.¶
An OSPF router supporting this specification SHOULD propagate administrative tags when acting as an Area Border Router (ABR) and when originating summary advertisements into other areas (unless inhibited by local policy (Section 6)). Similarly, an OSPF router supporting this specification and acting as an ABR for a NSSA SHOULD propagate tags when translating NSSA routes to AS External advertisements [RFC3101] (also subject to local policy (Section 6)).¶
There is no implied meaning to the ordering of the tags that indicates a certain operation or set of operations need to be performed based on the order of the tags. Each tag SHOULD be treated as an autonomous identifier that MAY be used in policy to perform a policy action. Whether or not tag A precedes or succeeds, tag B SHOULD NOT change the meaning of the tags. The number of tags supported by an ABR MAY limit the number of tags that are propagated. When propagating multiple tags between areas as previously described, the order of the tags MUST be preserved so that implementations supporting fewer tags will have a consistent view across areas.¶
For configured area ranges, NSSA ranges, and configured aggregation of redistributed routes, tags from component routes SHOULD NOT be propagated to the summary. Implementations SHOULD provide a mechanism to configure multiple tags for area ranges, NSSA ranges, and redistributed route summaries.¶
4.1. Equal-Cost Multipath Applicability
When multiple LSAs contribute to an OSPF route, it is possible that these LSAs will all have different tags. In this situation, the OSPF ABR propagating the route to other areas with inter-area LSAs MUST associate the tags from one of the LSAs contributing a path and, if the implementation supports multiple tags, MAY associate tags from multiple contributing LSAs up to the maximum number of tags supported. It is RECOMMENDED that tags from LSAs are added to the path in ascending order of the LSA originator Router-ID.¶
5. BGP-LS Advertisement
Border Gateway Protocol - Link State (BGP-LS) [RFC9552] introduced the support for advertising administrative tags associated with prefixes using the BGP-LS IGP Route Tag TLV (TLV 1153). This BGP-LS TLV is used to advertise the OSPF Administrative Tags specified in this document.¶
6. Management Considerations
Implementations MAY include configuration of policies to modify the advertisement of
tags for redistributed prefixes. Implementations MAY also include configuration of
policies to modify the propagation of administrative tags between areas
(OSPFv2 Extended Prefix Opaque LSAs, OSPFv3 E
Both the support of this specification and the number of tags supported by OSPF routers within an OSPF routing domain will limit the usefulness and deployment of applications utilizing tags.¶
7. YANG Data Model
YANG [RFC7950] is a data definition language used to define the contents of a conceptual data store that allows networked devices to be managed using Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) [RFC6241] or RESTCONF [RFC8040].¶
This section defines a YANG data model that can be used to configure and manage the prefix administrative tags defined in this document, which augments the OSPF YANG data model [RFC9129], the OSPFv3 Extended LSA YANG data model [RFC9587], and the Routing Management YANG data model [RFC8349]. Additionally, the YANG data models defined in [RFC6991] are imported.¶
7.1. Tree for the YANG Data Model
This document uses the graphical representation of data models per [RFC8340].¶
The following shows the tree diagram of the module:¶
7.2. YANG Data Model for OSPF Prefix Administrative Tags
The following is the YANG module:¶
8. Security Considerations
This document describes a generic mechanism for advertising administrative tags for OSPF prefixes. The administrative tags are generally less critical than the topology information currently advertised by the base OSPF protocol. The security considerations for the generic mechanism are dependent on their application. One such application is to control leaking of OSPF routes to other protocols (e.g., BGP [RFC4271]). If an attacker were able to modify the administrative tags associated with OSPF routes, and they were being used for this application, such routes could be prevented from being advertised in routing domains where they are required (subtle denial of service) or they could be advertised into routing domains where they shouldn't be advertised (routing vulnerability). Security considerations for the base OSPF protocol are covered in [RFC2328] and [RFC5340].¶
The "ietf
The Network Configuration Access Control Model (NACM) [RFC8341] provides the means to restrict access for particular NETCONF or RESTCONF users to a preconfigured subset of all available NETCONF or RESTCONF protocol operations and content.¶
There are a number of data nodes defined in this YANG module that are writable
Some of the readable data nodes in this YANG module may be considered
sensitive or vulnerable in some network environments. Thus, it is
important to control read access (e.g., via get, get-config, or
notification) to these data nodes. Exposure of the OSPF link state
database may be useful in mounting a Denial
9. IANA Considerations
The following value has been allocated in the "OSPFv2 Extended Prefix TLV Sub-TLVs" registry [RFC7684] in the "Open Shortest Path First v2 (OSPFv2) Parameters" registry group:¶
- 13:
- Administrative Tag¶
The following value has been allocated in the "OSPFv3 Extended-LSA Sub-TLVs" registry [RFC8362] in the "Open Shortest Path First v3 (OSPFv3) Parameters" registry group:¶
- 39:
-
Administrative Tag¶
Since this sub-TLV only applies to prefixes and not links, the value of the Layer-2 Bundle Member (L2BM) field will be "X".¶
The following value has been allocated in the "OSPFv3 SRv6 Locator LSA Sub-TLVs" registry [RFC9513] in the "Open Shortest Path First v3 (OSPFv3) Parameters" registry group:¶
- 6:
- Administrative Tag¶
IANA has assigned one new URI in the "IETF XML Registry" [RFC3688]:¶
- URI:
- urn
:ietf :params :xml :ns :yang :ietf -ospf -admin -tags¶ - Registrant Contact:
- The IESG.¶
- XML:
- N/A; the requested URI is an XML namespace.¶
This document also registers one new YANG module name in the "YANG Module Names" registry [RFC6020] with the following:¶
10. References
10.1. Normative References
- [RFC2119]
-
Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC2119 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc2119 - [RFC2328]
-
Moy, J., "OSPF Version 2", STD 54, RFC 2328, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC2328 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc2328 - [RFC3688]
-
Mealling, M., "The IETF XML Registry", BCP 81, RFC 3688, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC3688 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc3688 - [RFC5340]
-
Coltun, R., Ferguson, D., Moy, J., and A. Lindem, "OSPF for IPv6", RFC 5340, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC5340 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc5340 - [RFC6020]
-
Bjorklund, M., Ed., "YANG - A Data Modeling Language for the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 6020, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC6020 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc6020 - [RFC6991]
-
Schoenwaelder, J., Ed., "Common YANG Data Types", RFC 6991, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC6991 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc6991 - [RFC7684]
-
Psenak, P., Gredler, H., Shakir, R., Henderickx, W., Tantsura, J., and A. Lindem, "OSPFv2 Prefix/Link Attribute Advertisement", RFC 7684, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC7684 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc7684 - [RFC7950]
-
Bjorklund, M., Ed., "The YANG 1.1 Data Modeling Language", RFC 7950, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC7950 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc7950 - [RFC8174]
-
Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC8174 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc8174 - [RFC8341]
-
Bierman, A. and M. Bjorklund, "Network Configuration Access Control Model", STD 91, RFC 8341, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC8341 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc8341 - [RFC8349]
-
Lhotka, L., Lindem, A., and Y. Qu, "A YANG Data Model for Routing Management (NMDA Version)", RFC 8349, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC8349 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc8349 - [RFC8362]
-
Lindem, A., Roy, A., Goethals, D., Reddy Vallem, V., and F. Baker, "OSPFv3 Link State Advertisement (LSA) Extensibility", RFC 8362, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC8362 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc8362 - [RFC9129]
-
Yeung, D., Qu, Y., Zhang, Z., Chen, I., and A. Lindem, "YANG Data Model for the OSPF Protocol", RFC 9129, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC9129 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc9129 - [RFC9513]
-
Li, Z., Hu, Z., Talaulikar, K., Ed., and P. Psenak, "OSPFv3 Extensions for Segment Routing over IPv6 (SRv6)", RFC 9513, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC9513 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc9513 - [RFC9552]
-
Talaulikar, K., Ed., "Distribution of Link-State and Traffic Engineering Information Using BGP", RFC 9552, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC9552 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc9552 - [RFC9587]
-
Lindem, A., Palani, S., and Y. Qu, "YANG Data Model for OSPFv3 Extended Link State Advertisements (LSAs)", RFC 9587, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC9587 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc9587
10.2. Informative References
- [RFC3101]
-
Murphy, P., "The OSPF Not-So-Stubby Area (NSSA) Option", RFC 3101, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC3101 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc3101 - [RFC4252]
-
Ylonen, T. and C. Lonvick, Ed., "The Secure Shell (SSH) Authentication Protocol", RFC 4252, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC4252 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc4252 - [RFC4271]
-
Rekhter, Y., Ed., Li, T., Ed., and S. Hares, Ed., "A Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC4271 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc4271 - [RFC5130]
-
Previdi, S., Shand, M., Ed., and C. Martin, "A Policy Control Mechanism in IS-IS Using Administrative Tags", RFC 5130, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC5130 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc5130 - [RFC6241]
-
Enns, R., Ed., Bjorklund, M., Ed., Schoenwaelder, J., Ed., and A. Bierman, Ed., "Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF)", RFC 6241, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC6241 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc6241 - [RFC8040]
-
Bierman, A., Bjorklund, M., and K. Watsen, "RESTCONF Protocol", RFC 8040, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC8040 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc8040 - [RFC8340]
-
Bjorklund, M. and L. Berger, Ed., "YANG Tree Diagrams", BCP 215, RFC 8340, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC8340 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc8340 - [RFC8446]
-
Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC8446 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc8446 - [RFC9000]
-
Iyengar, J., Ed. and M. Thomson, Ed., "QUIC: A UDP-Based Multiplexed and Secure Transport", RFC 9000, DOI 10
.17487 , , <https:///RFC9000 www >..rfc -editor .org /info /rfc9000
Acknowledgments
The authors of [RFC5130] are acknowledged, since this document draws upon both the IS-IS specification and deployment experience. The text in Section 4 is adopted from [RFC5130].¶
Thanks to Donnie Savage for his comments and questions.¶
Thanks to Ketan Talaulikar for his comments and providing the BGP-LS text.¶
Thanks to Tony Przygienda and Les Ginsberg for discussions on tag selection.¶
Thanks to Russ White for his Routing Directorate review.¶
Thanks to Bruno Decraene and Changwang Lin for working group last call comments.¶
Thanks to Gunter Van de Velde for has AD review and comments.¶
Thanks to David Dong for IANA review and comments.¶
Thanks to Deb Cooley, Roman Danyliw, and John Scudder for IESG review and comments.¶
Thanks to Mahesh Jethanandani for an extensive IESG review of the YANG data model.¶