BIER

This document specifies a list of functional requirements for

Operations, Administration, and Maintenance mechanisms, protocols,

and tools that support operations in the Bit Index Explicit

Replication layer of a network.

Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER) is a multicast forwarding architecture that doesn't require an explicit tree-building protocol and doesn't require intermediate routers to maintain per-tree multicast states. Some BIER-specific information and states, which are only in proportion to the number of BIER routers but not per-tree, do need to be advertised, calculated, and maintained. This document describes BGP extensions for advertising the BIER information and methods for calculating BIER states based on the advertisements.

This document specifies protocols and procedures for forwarding Broadcast, Unknown Unicast, or Multicast (BUM) traffic of Ethernet VPNs (EVPNs) using Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER).

This document describes a generic format for use in echo request/reply mechanisms, which can be used within an IOAM-Domain, allowing the IOAM encapsulating node to discover the enabled IOAM capabilities of each IOAM transit and IOAM decapsulating node. The generic format is intended to be used with a variety of data planes such as IPv6, MPLS, Service Function Chain (SFC), and Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER).

This memo describes per-packet stateless strict and loose path steered replication and forwarding for "Bit Index Explicit Replication" (BIER) packets (RFC 8279); it is called "Tree Engineering for Bit Index Explicit Replication" (BIER-TE) and is intended to be used as the path steering mechanism for Traffic Engineering with BIER.

BIER-TE introduces a new semantic for "bit positions" (BPs). These BPs indicate adjacencies of the network topology, as opposed to (non-TE) BIER in which BPs indicate "Bit-Forwarding Egress Routers" (BFERs). A BIER-TE "packets BitString" therefore indicates the edges of the (loop-free) tree across which the packets are forwarded by BIER-TE. BIER-TE can leverage BIER forwarding engines with little changes. Co-existence of BIER and BIER-TE forwarding in the same domain is possible -- for example, by using separate BIER "subdomains" (SDs). Except for the optional routed adjacencies, BIER-TE does not require a BIER routing underlay and can therefore operate without depending on a routing protocol such as the "Interior Gateway Protocol" (IGP).

This document specifies general rules for the interaction between the BIER Algorithm (BAR) and the IGP Algorithm (IPA) used for underlay path calculation within the Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER) architecture. The semantics defined in this document update RFC 8401 and RFC 8444. This document also updates the "BIER Algorithm" registry established in RFC 8401.

The Multicast Virtual Private Network (MVPN) specifications require the use of multicast tunnels ("P-tunnels") that traverse a service provider's backbone network. The P-tunnels are used for carrying multicast traffic across the backbone. A variety of P-tunnel types are supported. Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER) is a new architecture that provides optimal multicast forwarding through a "multicast domain", without requiring intermediate routers to maintain any per-flow state or to engage in an explicit tree-building protocol. This document specifies the protocol and procedures that allow MVPN to use BIER as the method of carrying multicast traffic over a service provider's backbone network.

Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER) is an architecture that provides optimal multicast forwarding through a "BIER domain" without requiring intermediate routers to maintain multicast-related, per- flow state. BIER also does not require an explicit tree-building protocol for its operation. A multicast data packet enters a BIER domain at a Bit-Forwarding Ingress Router (BFIR) and leaves the BIER domain at one or more Bit-Forwarding Egress Routers (BFERs). The BFIR adds a BIER packet header to the packet. The BIER packet header contains a BitString in which each bit represents exactly one BFER to forward the packet to. The set of BFERs to which the multicast packet needs to be forwarded is expressed by the set of bits in the BIER packet header.

This document describes the OSPF protocol extension (from RFC 2328) that is required for BIER with MPLS encapsulation (which is defined in RFC 8296). Support for other encapsulation types and the use of multiple encapsulation types are outside the scope of this document.

This document defines IS-IS extensions to support multicast forwarding using the Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER) architecture.

Bit Index Explicit Replication (BIER) is an architecture that provides optimal multicast forwarding through a "multicast domain", without requiring intermediate routers to maintain any per-flow state or to engage in an explicit tree-building protocol. When a multicast data packet enters the domain, the ingress router determines the set of egress routers to which the packet needs to be sent. The ingress router then encapsulates the packet in a BIER header. The BIER header contains a bit string in which each bit represents exactly one egress router in the domain; to forward the packet to a given set of egress routers, the bits corresponding to those routers are set in the BIER header. The details of the encapsulation depend on the type of network used to realize the multicast domain. This document specifies a BIER encapsulation that can be used in an MPLS network or, with slight differences, in a non-MPLS network.

This document specifies a new architecture for the forwarding of multicast data packets. It provides optimal forwarding of multicast packets through a "multicast domain". However, it does not require a protocol for explicitly building multicast distribution trees, nor does it require intermediate nodes to maintain any per-flow state. This architecture is known as "Bit Index Explicit Replication" (BIER). When a multicast data packet enters the domain, the ingress router determines the set of egress routers to which the packet needs to be sent. The ingress router then encapsulates the packet in a BIER header. The BIER header contains a bit string in which each bit represents exactly one egress router in the domain; to forward the packet to a given set of egress routers, the bits corresponding to those routers are set in the BIER header. The procedures for forwarding a packet based on its BIER header are specified in this document. Elimination of the per-flow state and the explicit tree-building protocols results in a considerable simplification.