One document matched: draft-ietf-psamp-framework-04.txt

Differences from draft-ietf-psamp-framework-03.txt


                                                                          
  Internet Draft                                                          
  Document: <draft-psamp-framework-04.txt>                                
  Expires: April 2004                                                     
                                                   Nick Duffield (Editor) 
                                                     AT&T Labs – Research 
                                                                          
                                                             October 2003 
   
   
                A Framework for Packet Selection and Reporting 
   
   
  Status of this Memo 
   
     This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with 
     all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.  
      
     Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 
     Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that 
     other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
     Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of 
     six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other 
     documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts 
     as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in 
     progress."  
      
     The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at 
     http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt  
      
     The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at 
     http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 
      
  Abstract 
      
     A wide range of traffic engineering and troubleshooting tasks rely 
     on timely and detailed traffic measurements that can be 
     consistently interpreted. This document describes a framework for 
     packet sampling that is (a) general enough to serve as the basis 
     for a wide range of operational tasks, and (b) needs only a small 
     set of packet selectors that facilitate ubiquitous deployment in 
     router interfaces or dedicated measurement devices, even at very 
     high speeds.  The framework also covers reporting and exporting 
     functions used by the sampling host, and configuration of the 
     sampling PSAMP functions. 
      
     Comments on this document should be addressed to the PSAMP Working 
     Group mailing list: psamp@ops.ietf.org 
      
     To subscribe: psamp-request@ops.ietf.org, in body: subscribe 
     Archive: https://ops.ietf.org/lists/psamp/ 
      
      
   

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  Table of Contents 
   
     1.   Motivation...................................................3 
     2.   Elements, Terminology and Architecture.......................4 
     3.   Requirements.................................................7 
     3.1  Selection Process Requirements...............................7 
     3.2  Reporting Process Requirements...............................8 
     3.3  Export Process Requirements..................................8 
     3.4  Configuration Requirements...................................9 
     4.   Packet Selection.............................................9 
     4.1  Packet Selection Terminology.................................9 
     4.2  PSAMP Packet Selection Operations...........................11 
     4.3  Input Sequence Numbers for Primitive Selection Processes....13 
     4.4  Composite Selectors.........................................13 
     4.5  Constraints on the Sampling Frequency.......................13 
     4.6  Criteria for Choice of Selection Operations.................13 
     5.   Reporting Process...........................................15 
     5.1  Mandatory Contents of Packet Reports (MUST).................15 
     5.2  Extended Packet Reports.....................................15 
     5.3  PSAMP Extended Packet Reports in the Presence of IPFIX......16 
     5.4  Report Interpretation.......................................16 
     5.5  Report Timeliness...........................................17 
     6.   Parallel Measurement Processes..............................17 
     7.   Export Process..............................................18 
     7.1  Collector Destination.......................................18 
     7.2  Local Export................................................18 
     7.3  Reliable vs. Unreliable Transport...........................18 
     7.4  Limiting Delay for Export Packets...........................18 
     7.5  Configurable Export Rate Limit..............................19 
     7.6  Congestion-aware Unreliable Transport.......................19 
     7.7  Collector-based Rate Reconfiguration........................20 
     7.7.1 Changing the Export Rate and Other Rates...................20 
     7.7.2 Notions of Fairness........................................21 
     7.7.3 Behavior Under Overload and Failure........................21 
     8.   Configuration and Management................................22 
     9.   Feasibility and Complexity..................................22 
     9.1  Feasibility.................................................22 
     9.1.1 Filtering..................................................22 
     9.1.2 Sampling...................................................23 
     9.1.3 Hashing....................................................23 
     9.1.4 Reporting..................................................23 
     9.1.5 Export.....................................................23 
     9.2  Potential Hardware Complexity...............................23 
     10.  Applications................................................24 
     10.1 Baseline Measurement and Drill Down.........................25 
     10.2 Passive Performance Measurement.............................25 
     10.3 Troubleshooting.............................................26 
     11.  Security Considerations.....................................27 
     12.  References..................................................27 
     13.  Authors' Addresses..........................................28 
   
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     14.  Intellectual Property Statement.............................29 
     15.  Full Copyright Statement....................................30 
   
                                                               
      
     Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003).  All Rights Reserved. 
     This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformanc with 
     all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. 
      
     Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 
     Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that 
     other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- 
     Drafts. 
      
     Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six 
     months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other 
     documents at any time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts 
     as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in 
     progress." 
      
     The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at 
     http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt 
      
     The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at 
     http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 
         
     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 RFC 2119. 
   
      
  1. Motivation 
      
     This document describes a framework in which to define a standard 
     set of capabilities for network elements to select subsets of 
     packets by statistical and other methods. The framework 
     accommodates ongoing work to (i) specify a set of selectors by 
     which packets are sampled; (ii) specify the information that is to 
     be made available for reporting on sampled packets; (iii) describe 
     a protocol by which information on sampled packets is reported to 
     applications; (iv) describe a protocol by which packet selection 
     and reporting are configured. 
      
     The motivation to standardize these capabilities comes from the 
     need for measurement-based support for network management and 
     control across multivendor domains. This requires domain wide 
     consistency in the types of selection schemes available, the manner 
     in which the resulting measurements are presented, and 
     consequently, consistency of the interpretation that can be put on 
     them. 
      
     The capabilities are positioned as suppliers of packet samples to 
     higher level consumers, including both remote collectors and 
   
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     applications, and on board measurement-based applications.  Indeed, 
     development of the standards within the framework described here 
     should be open to influence by the requirements of standards in 
     related IETF Working Groups, for example, IP Performance Metrics 
     (IPPM) [RFC2330] and Internet Traffic Engineering (TEWG) [LCTV02]. 
     Conversely, we expect that aspects of this framework not 
     specifically concerned with the central issue of packet selection 
     and report formation may be able to leverage work in other Working 
     Groups. Potential examples are the format and export of reports on 
     selected packets, which may leverage the information model and 
     export protocols of IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) [QZCZ03], 
     and work in congestion aware unreliable transport in the Datagram 
     Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP) [FHK02], and related work in The 
     Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) [SCTP] and [PR-SCTP]. 
      
  2. Elements, Terminology and Architecture 
      
     This section defines the basic elements of the PSAMP framework. At 
     the highest level, the architecture comprises observation points 
     (at which packets are observed), measurement processes (which 
     select packets and construct reports on them) and export processes 
     (which export reports to collectors). The full definitions of these 
     terms now follow.  
      
     * Observation Point: a location in the network where a packet 
        stream is observed. Examples include: 
         
          - a line to which a probe is attached; 
              
          - a shared medium, such as an Ethernet-based LAN; 
              
          - a single port of a router, or set of interfaces (physical or 
             logical) of a router; 
              
          - an embedded measurement subsystem within an interface.  
              
     * Observed Packet Stream: the set of all packets observed at the 
        observation point. 
         
     * Packet Stream: either the observed packet stream, or a subset of 
        it. 
         
        Note that packets selected from a stream, e.g. by sampling, do 
        not necessarily possess a property by which they can be 
        distinguished from packets that have not been selected. For this 
        reason the term “stream” is favored over “flow”, which is defined 
        as set of packets with common properties [QuZC02]. 
         
     * Selection Process: takes a packet stream as its input and selects 
        a subset of that stream as its output. 
         
     * Packet Content: the union of the packet header (which includes 
        link layer, network layer and other encapsulation headers) and 
   
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        the packet payload. 
         
     * Selection State: a selection process may maintain state 
        information for use by the selection process and/or the reporting 
        process. At a given time, the selection state may depend on 
        packets observed at and before that time, and other variables. 
        Examples include: 
          
          - sequence numbers of packets at the input of selectors; 
              
          - a timestamp of observation of the packet at the observation 
             points; 
              
          - iterators for pseudorandom number generators; 
       
          - hash values calculated during selection; 
    
          - indicators of whether the packet was selected by a given 
             selector; 
              
        Selection processes may change portions of the selection state as 
        a result of processing a packet. 
         
     * Selector: defines the action of a selection process on a single 
        packet of its input. A selected packet becomes an element of the 
        output packet stream of the selection process. 
         
        The selector can make use of the following information in 
        determining whether a packet is selected: 
         
          - the packet’s content; 
              
          - information derived from the packet's treatment at the 
             observation point; 
              
          - any selection state that may be maintained by the selection 
             process. 
              
     * Composite Selection Process: an ordered composition of selection 
        processes, in which the output stream issuing from one component 
        forms the input stream for the succeeding component.  
         
     * Primitive Selection Process: a selection process that is not a 
        composite selection process. 
   
     * Composite Selector: the selector of a composite selection 
        process. 
      
     * Primitive Selector: the selector of a primitive selection 
        process. 
   
     * Reporting Process: creates a report stream on packets selected by 
        a selection process, in preparation for export. The input to the 
   
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        reporting process comprises that information available to the 
        selection process per selected packet, specifically: 
         
          - the selected packet’s content; 
              
          - information derived from the selected packet's treatment at 
             the observation point; 
              
          - any selection state maintained by the inputting selection 
             process, reflecting any modifications to the selection state 
             made during selection of the packet. 
      
     * Report Stream: the output of a reporting process is a report 
        stream, comprising two distinguished types of information: packet 
        reports, and report interpretation. 
      
     * Packet Reports: a configurable subset of the per packet input to 
        the reporting process.  
      
     * Report Interpretation: subsidiary information relating to one or 
        more packets, that is used for interpretation of their packet 
        reports. Examples include configuration parameters of the 
        selection process and of the reporting process. 
      
     * Measurement Process: the composition of a selection process that 
        takes the observed packet stream as its input, followed by a 
        reporting process. 
      
     * Export Process: sends the output of one or more reporting 
        processes to one or more collectors. 
      
     * Collector: a collector receives a report stream exported by one 
        or more export processes. In some cases, the host of the 
        measurement and/or export processes may also serve as the 
        collector. 
      
     * Export packets: one or packet reports, and perhaps report 
        interpretation, are bundled by the export process into a export 
        packet for export to a collector. 
    
     Various possibilities for the high level architecture of these 
     elements are as follows. 
      
         MP = Measurement Process, EP = Export Process 
      
        +---------------------+                 +------------------+ 
        |Observation Point(s) |                 | Collector(1)     | 
        |MP(s)--->EP----------+---------------->|                  |     
        |MP(s)--->EP----------+-------+-------->|                  | 
        +---------------------+       |         +------------------+ 
                                      |     
        +---------------------+       |         +------------------+ 
        |Observation Point(s) |       +-------->| Collector(2)     | 
   
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        |MP(s)--->EP----------+---------------->|                  | 
        +---------------------+                 +------------------+ 
                                         
        +---------------------+          
        |Observation Point(s) |          
        |MP(s)--->EP---+      |          
        |              |      |          
        |Collector(3)<-+      | 
        +---------------------+   
      
     The PSAMP measurement process can be viewed as analogous to the 
     IPFIX metering process. The PSAMP measurement process takes an 
     observed packet stream as its input, and produces packet reports as 
     its output. The IPFIX metering process produces flow records as its 
     output. The distinct name “measurement process” has been retained 
     in order to avoid potential confusion in settings where IPFIX and 
     PSAMP coexist, and in order to avoid the implicit requirement that 
     the PSAMP version satisfy the requirements of an IPFIX metering 
     process (at least while these are under development). The relation 
     between PSAMP and IPFIX is further discussed in [QC03]. 
   
  3. Requirements    
      
  3.1 Selection Process Requirements. 
      
     * Ubiquity: The selectors must be simple enough to be implemented 
        ubiquitously at maximal line rate. 
      
     * Applicability: the set of selectors must be rich enough to 
        support a range of existing and emerging measurement based 
        applications and protocols. This requires a workable trade-off 
        between the range of traffic engineering applications and 
        operational tasks it enables, and the complexity of the set of 
        capabilities. 
      
     * Extensibility: to allow for additional packet selectors to 
        support future applications. 
      
     * Flexibility: to support selection of packets using different 
        network protocols or encapsulation layers (e.g. IPv4, IPv6, MPLS, 
        etc).  
   
     * Robust Selection: packet selection MUST be robust with respect to 
        attempts to craft an observed packet stream from which packets 
        are selected disproportionately (e.g. to evade selection, or 
        overload measurement systems). 
         
     * Parallel Measurement Processes: multiple independent measurement 
        processes at the same host, able to operate simultaneously. 
      
     * Non-contingency: in order to satisfy the ubiquity requirement, 
        the selection decision for each packet MUST NOT depend on future 
        packets.  Rather, the selection decision MUST be capable of being 
   
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        made on the basis of the selection process input up to and 
        including the packet in question. This excludes selection 
        functions that require caching of packet for selection contingent 
        on subsequent packets. See also the timeliness requirement 
        following. 
      
     Selectors are outlined in Section 4, and described in more detail 
     in the companion document [ZMRD03].  
      
  3.2 Reporting Process Requirements 
      
     * Transparency: allow transparent interpretation of the report 
        stream, without any need to obtain additional information 
        concerning the observed packet stream. 
      
     * Robustness to Information Loss: allow robust interpretation of 
        the report stream with respect to packet reports missing due to 
        data loss, e.g. in transport, or within the selection, reporting 
        or exporting processes.  Inclusion in reporting of information 
        that enables the accuracy of measurements to be determined. 
      
     * Faithfulness: all reported quantities that relate to the packet 
        treatment MUST reflect the router state and configuration 
        encountered by the packet at the time it is received by the 
        measurement process. 
      
     * Privacy: selection of the content of packet reports will be 
        cognizant of privacy and anonymity issues while being responsive 
        to the needs of measurement applications, and in accordance with 
        RFC 2804 [RFC2804].  Full packet capture of arbitrary packet 
        streams is explicitly out of scope. 
   
     A specific reporting processes meeting these requirements, and th e 
     requirement for ubiquity, is described in Section 5. 
      
  3.3 Export Process Requirements 
      
     * Timeliness: packet reports SHOULD be made available to the 
        collector quickly enough to support near real time applications. 
        Specifically, any report on a packet SHOULD be dispatched within 
        1 second of the time of receipt of the packet by the measurement 
        process. See Section 5.5 for further discussion of this point 
      
     * Congestion Avoidance: export of a report stream across a network 
        MUST be congestion avoiding in compliance with RFC 2914 [RFC 
        2914]. 
      
     * Secure Export: 
              
          - confidentiality: the option to encrypt exported data MUST be 
             provided. [MUST vs. SHOULD needs further WG discussion].  
              

   
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          - integrity: alterations in transit to exported data MUST be 
             detectable at the collector 
              
          - authenticity: authenticity of exported data MUST be 
             verifiable by the collector in order to detect forged data. 
      
     The motivation here is the same as for security in IPFIX export; 
     see Sections 6.3 and 10 of [QZCZ03].   
      
  3.4 Configuration Requirements 
      
     * Ease of Configuration: of sampling and export parameters, e.g. 
        for automated remote reconfiguration in response to collected 
        reports. 
      
     * Secure Configuration: the option to configure via protocols that 
        prevent unauthorized reconfiguration or eavesdropping on 
        configuration communications MUST be available.  Eavesdropping on 
        configuration might allow an attacker to gain knowledge that 
        would be helpful in crafting a packet stream to (for example) 
        evade subversion, or overload the measurement infrastructure. 
   
     Configuration is discussed in Section 8. Feasibility and complexity 
     of PSAMP operations is discussed in Section 9. 
      
     Reuse of existing protocols will be encouraged provided the 
     protocol capabilities are compatible with the requirements laid out 
     in this document. 
      
  4. Packet Selection  
      
  4.1 Packet Selection Terminology. 
      
     * Filtering: a filter is a selection operation that selects a 
        packet deterministically based on the packet content, its 
        treatment, and functions of these occurring in the selection 
        state. Examples include mask/match filtering, and hash-based 
        selection. 
      
     * Sampling: a selection operation that is not a filter is called a 
        sampling operation. This reflects the intuitive notion that if 
        the selection of a packet cannot be determined from its content 
        alone, there must be some type of sampling taking place.  
      
     * Content-independent Sampling: a sampling operation that does not 
        use packet content (or quantities derived from it) as the basis 
        for selection is called a content-independent sampling operation. 
        Examples include systematic sampling, and uniform pseudorandom 
        sampling driven by a pseudorandom number whose generation is 
        independent of packet content. Note that in content-independent 
        sampling it is not necessary to access the packet content in 
        order to make the selection decision. 
      
   
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     * Content-dependent Sampling: a sampling operation where selection 
        is dependent on packet content is called a content-dependent 
        sampling operation. Examples include pseudorandom selection 
        according to a probability that depends on the contents of a 
        packet field; note that this is not a filter. 
   
     * Hash Domain: a subset of the packet content and the packet 
        treatment, viewed as an N-bit string for some positive integer N. 
      
     * Hash Range: a set of M-bit strings for some positive integer M. 
      
     * Hash Function: a deterministic map from the hash domain into the 
        hash range. 
      
     * Hash Selection Range: a subset of the hash range. The packet is 
        selected if the action of the hash function on the hash domain 
        for the packet yields a result in the hash selection range. 
      
     * Hash-based Selection: filtering specified by a hash domain, a 
        hash function, and hash range and a hash selection range. 
   
     * Approximative Selection: selection operations in any of the above 
        categories may be approximated by operations in the same or 
        another category for the purposes of implementation. For example, 
        uniform pseudorandom sampling may be approximated by hash-based 
        selection, using a suitable hash function and hash domain. In 
        this case, the closeness of the approximation depends on the 
        choice of hash function and hash domain. 
      
     * Population size: the number of packets in a subset of a packet 
        stream. 
   
     * Sample size: the number of packets selected from a subset of a 
        packet stream by a selection operation. 
   
     * Attained Selection Frequency: the actual frequency with which 
        packets are selected by a selection process. The attained 
        sampling frequency is calculated as ratio of the size of a sample 
        size to the size of the population from which it was selected.  
         
     * Target Selection Frequency: the long-term frequency with which 
        packets are expected to be selected, based on selector parameter 
        settings. Depending on the selector, the target selection 
        frequency may be count-based or time-based. 
         
        For sampling operations, due to the inherent statistical 
        variability of sampling decisions, the target and attained 
        selection frequencies will not in general be equal, although they 
        may be close in some circumstances, e.g., when the population 
        size is large. In hash-based selection, the target selection 
        frequency is the quotient of size of the hash selection range by 
        the size of the hash range.  
      
   
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  4.2 PSAMP Packet Selection Operations 
      
     A spectrum of packet selection operations is described in detail in 
     [ZMRD03]. Here we only briefly summarize the meanings for 
     completeness. 
   
     A PSAMP selection process MUST support at least one of the 
     following selectors. 
         
     * Systematic Time Based Sampling: packet selection is triggered at 
        periodic instants separated by a time called the Spacing. All 
        packets that arrive within a certain time of the trigger (called 
        the Interval Length) are selected. 
      
     * Systematic Count Based Sampling: similar to systematic time based 
        expect that selection is reckoned with respect to packet count 
        rather than time. Packet selection is triggered periodically by 
        packet count, a number of successive packets being selected 
        subsequent to each trigger. 
      
     * Uniform Probabilistic Sampling: packets are selected 
        independently with fixed sampling probability p. 
      
     * Non-uniform Probabilistic Sampling: packets are selected 
        independently with probability p that depends on packet content. 
      
     * Probabilistic n-out-of-N Sampling: form each count-based 
        successive block of N packets, n are selected at random  
      
     * Mask/match Filtering: this entails taking the masking portions of 
        the packet (i.e. taking the bitwise AND with a binary mask) and 
        selecting the packet if the result falls in a range specified in 
        the selection parameters of the filter.  This specification 
        doesn't preclude the future definition of a high level syntax for 
        defining filtering in a concise way (e.g. TCP port taking a 
        particular value) providing that syntax can be  compiled into the 
        bitwise expression. 
         
        Mask/match operations SHOULD be available for different protocol 
        portions of the packet header: 
   
          - the IP header (excluding options in IPv4, stacked headers in 
             IPv6) 
              
          - transport header 
              
          - encapsulation headers (including MPLS label stack, ATOM, if 
             present) 
         
        When the host of a selection process offers mask/match filtering, 
        and, in its usual capacity other than in performing PSAMP 
        functions, identifies or processes information from one or more 
        of the above protocols, then the information SHOULD be made 
   
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        available for filtering. For example, when a host routes based on 
        destination IP address, that field should be made available for 
        filtering. Conversely, a host that does not route is not expected 
        to be able to locate an IP address within a packet, or make it 
        available for filtering, although it MAY do so. 
      
     * Hash-based Selection: Hash-based selection will employ one or 
        more hash functions to be standardized.  The hash domain is 
        specified by a bitmaps on the IP packet header and the IP 
        payload.  
         
        When the hash function is sufficiently good, hash-based selection 
        can be used to approximate uniform random sampling over the hash 
        domain. The target sampling frequency is then the ratio of the 
        size of the selection range to the hash range. 
         
        Applications of hash-based selection include: 
           
          - Trajectory Sampling: all routers use the same hash selector; 
             the hash domain includes only portions of the packet that do 
             not change from hop to hop. (For example, in an IP packet, 
             TTL is excluded.) Hence packets are consistently selected in 
             the sense that they are selected at all routers on their 
             path or none. Reports packets also include a second hash 
             (the label hash) that distinguishes different packets. 
             Reports of a given packet reaching the collector from 
             different routers can be used to reconstruct the path taken 
             by the packet. Trajectory sampling is proposed in [DuGr01]; 
             further description is found in [ZMRD03]; some applications 
             are described in Section 10. 
      
          - Consistent Flow Sampling: the hash domain is a flow key. For 
             a given flow, either all or none of its packets are sampled. 
             This is accomplished without the need to maintain flow 
             state. 
      
          Some applications need to calculate packet hashes for purpose 
          other than selection (e.g. the label hash in trajectory 
          sampling). This can be achieved by placing a calculated hash 
          in the selection state, and setting the selection range to be 
          the whole of the hash range. 
      
     * Router State Filtering: the selection process MAY support 
        filtering based on the following conditions, which may be 
        combined with the AND, OR or NOT operators:  
   
          - Ingress interface at which packet arrives equals a specified 
             value 
          - Egress interface to which packet is routed to equals a 
             specified value 
          - Packet violated Access Control List (ACL) on the router 
          - Failed Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF) 
          - Failed Resource Reservation (RSVP) 
   
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          - No route found for the packet 
          - Origin Autonomous System (AS) equals a specified value or 
             lies within a given  range 
          - Destination AS equals a specified value or lies within a 
             given range 
   
      Router architectural considerations may preclude some information 
      concerning the packet treatment, e.g. routing state, being 
      available at line rate for selection of packets. However, if 
      selection not based on routing state has reduced down from line 
      rate, subselection based on routing state may be feasible. 
      
  4.3 Input Sequence Numbers for Primitive Selection Processes. 
        
     Each instance of a primitive selection process MUST maintain a 
     count of packets presented at its input. The counter value is to be 
     included as a sequence number for selected packets. The sequence 
     numbers are considered as part of the packet's selection state. 
      
     Use of input sequence numbers enables applications to determine the 
     attained frequency at which packets are selected, and hence 
     correctly normalize network usage estimates regardless of loss of 
     information, regardless of whether this loss occurs because of 
     discard of packet reports in the measurement or reporting process 
     (e.g. due to resource contention in the host of these processes), 
     or loss of export packets in transmission or collection. See 
     [RFC3176] for further details. 
      
  4.4 Composite Selectors 
      
     The ability to compose selectors in a selection process SHOULD be 
     provided. The following combinations appear to be most useful for 
     applications: 
             
     * filtering followed by sampling 
         
     * sampling followed by filtering 
      
     Composite selectors are useful for drill down applications. The 
     first component of a composite selector can be used to reduce the 
     load on the second component. In this setting, the advantage to be 
     gained from a given ordering can depend on the composition of the 
     packet stream. 
      
  4.5 Constraints on the Sampling Frequency 
   
     Sampling at full line rate, i.e. with probability 1, is not 
     excluded in principle, although resource constraints may not 
     support it in practice. 
      
  4.6 Criteria for Choice of Selection Operations 
      

   
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     In current practice, sampling has been performed using particular 
     algorithms, including: 
      
     * pseudorandom independent sampling with probability 1/N; 
         
     * systematic sampling of every Nth packet.   
      
     The question arises as to whether both of these should be 
     standardized as distinct selection operations, or whether they can 
     be regarded as different implementations of a single selection 
     operation. 
      
     To determine the answer to this question, we need to consider  
      
     (a) measured or assumed statistical properties of the packet 
     stream, e.g., one or more of the following: 
   
          - contents of different packets are statistically independent 
              
          - correlations between contents of different packets decay at 
             a specified rate 
              
          - contents of certain fields within the same packet are 
             significantly variable and exhibit small cross correlation 
               
     (b) the desired reference sampling model, e.g., one of: 
      
          - sample packets with long term probability 1/N 
              
          - sample packets independent with probability 1/N 
              
     (c) the set of possible alternatives and implementations, e.g., one 
     of: 
          - pseudorandom independent sampling with probability 1/N 
              
          - systematic sampling with period N 
      
          - hash-based sampling with target probability 1/N 
   
     (d) the tolerance for error in the applications that use the 
     collected packet reports.  
      
     We can say that a given alternative from (c) reproduces a reference 
     model (b) for the applications if the results obtained using them 
     are sufficiently accurate in (d) for traffic satisfying an assumed 
     statistical properties in (a). Clearly, application to evaluate 
     methods in (c) requires developing agreement on the relevant 
     properties in (a), (b) and (d). 
      
     Example: systematic sampling with period N will not count the 
     occurrence of closely space packets (less than N counts apart) from 
     the same flow. Thus for applications that are concerned with the 
     joint statistics of multiple packets within flows, systematic 
   
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     sampling may not reproduce the results obtained with random 
     sampling sufficiently accurately. 
      
  5. Reporting Process 
      
  5.1 Mandatory Contents of Packet Reports (MUST) 
      
     The reporting process MUST include the following in each packet 
     report: 
      
          (i) the input sequence number(s) of any sampling operation 
            that acted on the packet in the instance of a measurement 
            process of which the reporting process is a component. 
      
     The reporting process MUST be able to include the following in each 
     packet report, as a configurable option: 
      
          (ii) some number of contiguous bytes from the start of the 
          packet, including the packet header (which includes link 
          layer, network layer and other encapsulation headers) and some 
          subsequent bytes of the packet payload. 
           
     Some devices hosting reporting processes may not have the resource 
     capacity or functionality to provide more detailed packet reports 
     that those in (i) and (ii) above. Using this minimum required 
     reporting functionality, the reporting process places the burden of 
     interpretation on the collector, or on applications that it 
     supplies. 
      
  5.2 Extended Packet Reports (MAY) 
   
     The reporting process MAY provide for the inclusion in packet 
     reports of the following information, inclusion any or all being 
     configurable as a option. 
      
          (iii) fields relating to the following protocols used in the 
          packet, specifically: IPv4, IPV6, transport protocols, MPLS, 
          ATOM. Note that optional reporting of field contents may be 
          used to reduce reporting bandwidth, in which case the option 
          to not report information in (ii) above would be exercised. 
      
          (iv) packet treatment, including: 
      
            - identifiers for any input and output interfaces of the 
          observation point that were traversed by the packet 
            
           - source and destination AS 
      
          (v) selection state associated with the packet, including: 
      
          - the timestamp of observation of the packet at the 
          observation point 
      
   
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          - hashes, where calculated. 
   
  5.3 Extended Packet Reports in the Presence of IPFIX 
      
     If IPFIX is supported at the observation point, then in order to be 
     PSAMP compliant, extended packet reports MUST be able to include 
     all fields required in the IPFIX information model [QZCZ03], with 
     modifications appropriate to reporting on single packets rather 
     than flows. 
   
  5.4  Report Interpretation 
   
     Information for use in report interpretation MUST include  
      
          (i) configuration parameters of the selectors of the packets 
          reported on.  
           
          (ii) format of the packet report; 
           
          (iii) indication of the inherent accuracy of the reported 
          quantities, e.g., of the packet timestamp.  
           
          (iv) identifiers for observation point, measurement process, 
          and export process.  
   
     The accuracy measure in (iii) is of fundamental importance for 
     estimating the likely error attached to estimates formed from the 
     packet reports by applications. 
      
     Identifiers in (iv) are necessary, e.g., in order to match packet 
     reports to the selection process that selected them. For example, 
     when packet reports due to a sampling operation suffer loss (either 
     during export, or in transit) it may be desirable to reconfigure 
     downwards the sampling rate on the selection process that selected 
     them.  
      
     The requirements for robustness and transparency are motivations 
     for including report interpretation in the report stream. Inclusion 
     makes the report stream self-defining.  The PSAMP framework 
     excludes reliance on an alternative model in which interpretation 
     is recovered out of band. This latter approach is not robust with 
     respect to undocumented changes in selector configuration, and may 
     give rise to future architectural problems for network management 
     systems to coherently manage both configuration and data 
     collection. 
      
     It is not envisaged that all report interpretation be included in 
     every packet report. Many of the quantities listed above are 
     expected to be relatively static; they could be communicated 
     periodically, and upon change. 
      
     To conserve network bandwidth and resources at the collector, the 
     export packets may be compressed before export.  Compression is 
   
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     expected to be quite effective since the sampled packets may share 
     many fields in common, e.g. if a filter focuses on packets with 
     certain values in particular header fields. Using compression, 
     however, could impact the timeliness of packet reports. Any 
     consequent delay MUST not violate the timeliness requirement for 
     availability of packet reports at the collector. 
      
  5.5 Report Timeliness 
   
     Low measurement latency allows the traffic monitoring system to be 
     more responsive to real-time network events, for example, in 
     quickly identifying sources of congestion. Timeliness is generally 
     a good thing for devices performing the sampling since it minimizes 
     the amount of memory needed to buffer samples. 
      
     Keeping the packet dispatching delay to under 1 second has other 
     benefits besides limiting buffer requirements. For many 
     applications a 1 second time resolution is sufficient. Applications 
     in this category would include: identifying sources associated with 
     congestion; tracing denial of service attacks through the network 
     and constructing traffic matrices. 
      
     A dispatch delay of 1 second in these situations eliminates the 
     need for timestamping by synchronized clocks at observation points 
     devices, or for the observation points and collector to maintain 
     bi-directional communication in order to track clock offsets. The 
     collector can simply process packet reports in the order that they 
     are received---using its own clock as a "global" time base---
     avoiding the complexity of buffering and reordering samples. See 
     [DuGeGr02] for an example. 
   
  6. Parallel Measurement Processes 
      
     Because of the increasing number of distinct measurement 
     applications, with varying requirements, it is desirable to set up 
     parallel measurement processes on given observed packet stream. A 
     device capable of hosting a measurement process SHOULD be able to 
     support more than one independently configurable measurement 
     process simultaneously. Each such measurement process SHOULD have 
     the option of being equipped with its own export process; otherwise 
     the parallel measurement processes MAY share the same export 
     process.  
      
     Each of the parallel measurement processes SHOULD be independent. 
     However, resource constraints may prevent complete reporting on a 
     packet selected by multiple selection processes. In this case, 
     reporting for the packet MUST be complete for at least one 
     measurement process; other measurement processes need only record 
     that they selected the packet, e.g., by incrementing a counter. The 
     priority amongst measurement processes under resource contention 
     SHOULD be configurable. 
      

   
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     It is not proposed to standardize the number of parallel 
     measurement processes. 
      
  7. Export Process 
      
  7.1 Collector Destination 
   
     When exporting to a remote collector, the collector is identified 
     by IP address, transport protocol, and transport port number. 
      
  7.2 Local Export 
      
     The report stream may be directly exported to on-board measurement 
     based applications, for example those that form composite 
     statistics from more than one packet. Local export may be presented 
     through an interface direct to the higher level applications, i.e., 
     through an API, rather than employing the transport used for off-
     board export. Specification of such an API is outside the scope of 
     the PSAMP framework. 
      
     A possible example of local export could be that packets selected 
     by the PSAMP measurement process serve as the input for the IPFIX 
     protocol, which then forms flow records out of the stream of 
     selected packets. Note that IPFIX being still developed; this is 
     given only as a possible example. 
      
  7.3 Reliable vs. Unreliable Transport 
      
     The export of the report stream does not require reliable export. 
     On the contrary, retransmission of lost export packets consumes 
     additional network resources and requires maintenance of state by 
     the export process. As such, the export process would have to be 
     able to receive and process acknowledgments, and to store 
     unacknowledged data. Furthermore, the host of the export process 
     may not possess its own network address at which to receive 
     acknowledgments. For example an autonomous embedded measurement 
     subsystem in an interface may simply inject export packets into the 
     interface packet stream, designating the interface address as the 
     source address of the export packets). These requirements would be 
     a significant impediment to having ubiquitous support PSAMP. 
      
     Instead, it is proposed that the export process support unreliable 
     export.  Sequence numbers on the export packets would indicate when 
     loss has occurred, and the analysis of the surviving report stream 
     can be used to determine the degree of loss.  In some sense, packet 
     loss becomes another form of sampling (albeit a less desirable, and 
     less controlled, form of sampling). 
      
  7.4 Limiting Delay for Export Packets 
         
     The export process may queue the report stream in order to export 
     multiple packet reports in a single export packet. Any consequent 

   
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     delay MUST still allow for timely availability of packet reports at 
     the collector as described in Section 5.4. 
      
  7.5 Configurable Export Rate Limit 
      
     The export process MUST be able to limit its export rate; otherwise 
     it could overload the network and/or the collector. Note this 
     problem would be exacerbated using reliable transport mode, since 
     any lost packets would be retransmitted, thereby imposing an 
     additional load on the network. 
      
     At times, the reporting process may generate new packet reports or 
     report interpretation faster than the allowed export rate.  In this 
     situation, the export process MUST discard the excess packet 
     reports rather than transmitting them to the collector. Sequence 
     numbers reported for selector input enable correction for lost 
     packet reports. An additional sequence number for dispatched export 
     packets enables the collector to determine the degree of loss in 
     transmission. 
      
     There are two options for a configurable rate limit. First, if the 
     transport protocol has a configurable rate limit, that can be used. 
     The second option is to limit the rate at which export packets are 
     supplied to the transport protocol. A candidate for implementation 
     of rate limiting is the leaky bucket, with tokens corresponding 
     e.g. to bytes or packets. 
      
     The export rate limit MUST be configurable per export process. Note 
     that since congestion loss can occur at any link on the export 
     path, it is not sufficient to limit rate simply as a function of 
     the bandwidth of the interface out of which export takes place. 
      
  7.6 Congestion-aware Unreliable Transport 
      
     Export packets compete for resources with other Internet transfers.  
     Congestion-aware export is important to ensure that the export 
     packets do not overwhelm the capacity of the network or unduly 
     degrade the performance of other applications, while making good 
     use of available bandwidth resources.  
      
     Choice of transport for PSAMP has to be made under the following 
     constraints: 
      
          (i) IESG has mandated that all transport in new protocols must 
          be congestion aware 
      
          (ii) reliable transport is too onerous for general entities 
          that support PSAMP (see Section 7.3) 
         
          (iii) there currently exists no IETF standardized unreliable 
          congestion-aware transport  
      

   
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     In the absence of an existing IETF standardized unreliable 
     congestion-aware protocol, PSAMP will provisionally nominate the 
     reliable congestion aware transport protocol TCP as the interim 
     transport protocol for export. From the preceding arguments, TCP is 
     unsatisfactory for final standardization in PSAMP. In the meantime, 
     the PSAMP Working Group will evaluate (at least) the following 
     alternatives for congestion aware unreliable transport, as they 
     become available, with a view to selecting one of them and 
     discarding TCP: 
       
          (i) unreliable transport protocols adopted in the future by 
          the IPFIX Working Group, 
      
          (ii) the Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP); 
          currently under development; see [FHK02]  
         
          (iii) The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) under 
          development [SCTP]. SCTP is by default reliable, but has the 
          capability to operate in unreliable and partially reliable 
          modes [PR-SCTP]. See [D03] for description of its potential 
          use in flow export. 
      
          (iv) collector-based rate reconfiguration, described below. 
      
      
  7.7 Collector-based Rate Reconfiguration 
         
     Since collector-based rate reconfiguration is a new proposal, this 
     draft will discuss it in some detail. 
      
     The collector can detect congestion loss along the path from the 
     exporting device to the collector by observing packet loss, 
     manifest as gaps in the sequence numbers, or the absence of packets 
     for a period of time. The server can run an appropriate congestion-
     control algorithm to compute a new export rate limit, then 
     reconfigure the export process with the new rate.  This is an 
     attractive alternative to requiring the export process to receive 
     acknowledgment packets.  Implementing the congestion control 
     algorithm in the collector has the added advantages of flexibility 
     in adapting the sending rate and the ability to incorporate new 
     congestion-control algorithms as they become available. 
      
  7.7.1   Changing the Export Rate and Other Rates 
      
     Forcing the export process to discard excess packet reports is an 
     effective control under short term congestion. Alternatively, the 
     selection process could be reconfigured to select fewer packets, or 
     the reporting process could be reconfigured to send smaller reports 
     on each selected packet. This may be a more appropriate reaction to 
     long-term congestion. In some cases, a collector may receive export 
     packets due to more than one export process, and could decide to 
     reduce the export or other rates associated with one export process 
     rather than another, in order to prioritize the export packets.  
   
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     This type of flexibility is valuable for network operators that 
     collect export packets from multiple locations to drive multiple 
     applications. 
      
  7.7.2   Notions of Fairness 
      
     In some cases, it may be reasonable to allow the collector to have 
     flexibility in deciding how aggressively to respond to congestion. 
     For example, the host of the export process and the collector may 
     have a very small round-trip time (RTT) relative to other traffic.  
     Conventional TCP-friendly congestion control would allocate a very 
     large share of the bandwidth to the PSAMP export traffic.  Instead, 
     the collector could apply an algorithm that reacts more 
     aggressively to congestion to give a larger share of the bandwidth 
     to other traffic (with larger RTTs). 
      
     In other cases, the export packets may require a larger share of 
     the bandwidth than other flows.  For example, consider a link that 
     carries tens of thousands of flows, including some non TCP-friendly 
     DoS attack traffic.  Restricting the PSAMP traffic to a fair share 
     allocation may be too restrictive, and might limit the collection 
     of the data necessary to diagnose the DoS attack which overloads 
     links over which export packets are carried. In order to maintain 
     report collection during periods of congestion, PSAMP report 
     streams may claim more than a fair share of link bandwidth, 
     provided the number of report streams in competition with fair 
     sharing traffic is limited. The collector could also employ 
     policies that allocate bandwidth in certain proportions amongst 
     different measurement processes.  
      
     Note that the ability to control differential bandwidth usage in 
     the manner described in this section may be partially or wholly 
     lost if congestion control is performed by other means purely at 
     the transport level.  
      
  7.7.3   Behavior Under Overload and Failure 
      
     The congestion control algorithm has to be robust to severe 
     overload or complete loss of connectivity between the host of the 
     export process and the collector, and also to the failure of host 
     of the export process or the collector. For example, in a scenario 
     where the collector is unable to reconfigure the export rate 
     because of loss of reverse (collector to exporting host) 
     connectivity, it is desirable for the exporting host to reduce the 
     export rate autonomously.  Similarly, if no export packets reach 
     the collector because of loss of forward connectivity, the 
     collector should not react to this by increasing the export rate. 
     This problem may be solved through periodic heartbeat packets in 
     both directions (i.e., export packets in the forward direction, 
     configuration refresh messages in the reverse direction). This 
     allows each side to detect a loss in connectivity or outright 
     failure and to react appropriately. 
      
   
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  8. Configuration and Management 
      
     A key requirement for PSAMP is the easy reconfiguration of the 
     parameters of the measurement process: those for selection, packet 
     reports and export. Examples are  
      
          (i) support of measurement-based applications that want to 
          drill-down on traffic detail in real-time;  
           
          (ii) collector-based rate reconfiguration. 
      
     To facilitate reconfiguration and retrieval of parameters, they are 
     to reside in a Management Information Base (MIB). Mandatory 
     configuration, capabilities and monitoring objects will cover all 
     minimum required (MUST) PSAMP functionality. 
      
     Secondary objects will cover the recommended PSAMP functionality 
     (SHOULD), and MUST be provided only when such functionality is 
     offered by a host. Such PSAMP functionality includes configuration 
     of offered selectors, composite selectors, multiple measurement 
     processes, and report format including the choice of fields to be 
     reported. For further details concerning the PSAMP MIB, see 
     [DRC03]. 
      
     PSAMP requires a uniform mechanism with which to access and 
     configure the MIB. SNMP access MUST be provided by the host of the 
     MIB. 
      
      
  9. Feasibility and Complexity 
      
     In order for PSAMP to be supported across the entire spectrum of 
     networking equipment, it must be simple and inexpensive to 
     implement.  One can envision easy-to-implement instances of the 
     mechanisms described within this draft. Thus, for that subset of 
     instances, it should be straightforward for virtually all system 
     vendors to include them within their products. Indeed, sampling and 
     filtering operations are already realized in available equipment. 
      
     Here we give some specific arguments to demonstrate feasibility and 
     comment on the complexity of hardware implementations. We stress 
     here that the point of these arguments is not to favor or recommend 
     any particular implementation, or to suggest a path for 
     standardization, but rather to demonstrate that the set of possible 
     implementations is not empty. 
      
  9.1  Feasibility 
         
  9.1.1   Filtering 
      
     Filtering consists of a small number of mask (bit-wise logical), 
     comparison and range (greater than) operations.  Implementation of 
   
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     at least a small number of such operations is straightforward. For 
     example, filters for security access control lists (ACLs) are 
     widely implemented. This could be as simple as an exact match on 
     certain fields, or involve more complex comparisons and ranges. 
      
  9.1.2   Sampling 
      
     Sampling based on either counters (counter set, decrement, test for 
     equal to zero) or range matching on the hash of a packet (greater 
     than) is possible given a small number of selectors, although there 
     may be some differences in ease of implementation for hardware vs. 
     software platforms. 
      
  9.1.3   Hashing  
         
     Hashing functions vary greatly in complexity.  Execution of a small 
     number of sufficient simple hash functions is implementable at line 
     rate. Concerning the input to the hash function, hop-invariant IP 
     header fields (IP address, IP identification) and TCP/UDP header 
     fields (port numbers, TCP sequence number) drawn from the first 40 
     bytes of the packet have been found to possess a considerable 
     variability; see [DuGr01]. 
      
  9.1.4   Reporting 
      
     The simplest packet report would duplicate the first n bytes of the 
     packet. However, such an uncompressed format may tax the bandwidth 
     available to the reporting process for high sampling rates; 
     reporting selected fields would save on this bandwidth. Thus there 
     is a trade-off between simplicity and bandwidth limitations. 
      
  9.1.5   Export 
      
     Ease of exporting export packets depends on the system 
     architecture. Most systems should be able to support export by 
     insertion of export packets, even through the software path. 
       
  9.2 Potential Hardware Complexity 
      
     We now comment on the complexity of possible hardware 
     implementations. Achieving low constants for performance while 
     minimizing hardware resources is, of course, a challenge, 
     especially at very high clock frequencies. Most of these 
     operations, however, are very basic and their implementations very 
     well understood; in fact, the average ASIC designer simply uses 
     canned library instances of these operations rather than design 
     them from scratch. In addition, networking equipment generally does 
     not need to run at the fastest clock rates, further reducing the 
     effort required to get reasonably efficient implementations. 
      
     Simple bit-wise logical operations are easy to implement in 
     hardware.  Such operations (NAND/NOR/XNOR/NOT) directly translate 
     to four-transistor gates.  Each bit of a multiple-bit logical 
   
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     operation is completely independent and thus can be performed in 
     parallel incurring no additional performance cost above a single 
     bit operation. 
      
     Comparisons (EQ/NEQ) take O(lg(M)) stages of logic, where M is the 
     number of bits involved in the comparison.  The lg(M) is required 
     to accumulate the result into a single bit. 
      
     Greater than operations, as used to determine whether a hash falls 
     in a selection range, are a determination of the most significant 
     not-equivalent bit in the two operands.  The operand with that 
     most-significant-not-equal bit set to be one is greater than the 
     other.  Thus, a greater than operation is also an O(lg(M)) stages 
     of logic operation. Optimized implementations of arithmetic 
     operations are also O(lg(M)) due to propagation of the carry bit. 
      
     Setting a counter is simply loading a register with a state. Such 
     an operation is simple and fast O(1).  Incrementing or decrementing 
     a counter is a read, followed by an arithmetic operation followed 
     by a store.  Making the register dual-ported does take additional 
     space, but it is a well-understood technique.  Thus, the 
     increment/decrement is also an O(lg(M)) operation. 
      
     Hashing functions come in a variety of forms.  The computation 
     involved in a standard Cyclic Redundancy Code (CRC) for example are 
     essentially a set of XOR operations, where the intermediate result 
     is stored and XORed with the next chunk of data.  There are only 
     O(1) operations and no log complexity operations.  Thus, a simple 
     hash function, such as CRC or generalizations thereof, can be 
     implemented in hardware very efficiently. 
      
     At the other end of the range of complexity, the MD5 function uses 
     a large number of bit-wise conditional operations and arithmetic 
     operations.  The former are O(1) operations and the latter are 
     O(lg(M)). MD5 specifies 256 32b ADD operations per 16B of input 
     processed.  Consider processing 10Gb/sec at 100MHz (this processing 
     rate appears to be currently available). This requires processing 
     12.5B/cycle, and hence at least 200 adders, a sizeable number. 
     Because of data dependencies within the MD5 algorithm, the adders 
     cannot be simply run in parallel, thus requiring either faster 
     clock rates and/or more advanced architectures. Thus, selection 
     hashing functions as complex as MD5 may be precluded for ubiquitous 
     use at full line rate. This motivates exploring the use of 
     selection hash functions with complexity somewhere between that of 
     MD5 and CRC. However, identification hashing with MD5 on only 
     selected packets is feasible at a sufficiently low sampling 
     frequency. 
         
  10. Applications  
         
     We first describe several representative operational applications 
     that require traffic measurements at various levels of temporal and 
     spatial granularity. Some of the goals here appear similar to those 
   
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     of IPFIX, at least in the broad classes of applications supported. 
     However, there are two major differences: 
      
          - PSAMP aims for ubiquitous deployment of packet measurement, 
             including devices that are not expected to support IPFIX. 
             This offers broader reach for existing applications.   
              
          - PSAMP can support new applications through the type of 
             packet selectors that it supports 
      
  10.1    Baseline Measurement and Drill Down 
      
     Packet sampling is ideally suited to determine the composition of 
     the traffic across a network. The approach is to enable measurement 
     on a cut-set of the network links such that each packet entering 
     the network is seen at least once, for example, on all ingress 
     links. Unfiltered sampling with a relatively low frequency 
     establishes baseline measurements of the network traffic. Packet 
     reports include packet attributes of common interest: source and 
     destination address and port numbers, prefix, protocol number, type 
     of service, etc. Traffic matrices are indicated by reporting source 
     and destination AS matrices. Absolute traffic volumes are estimated 
     by renormalizing the sampled traffic volumes through division by 
     either the target sampling frequency, or by the attained sampling 
     frequency (as derived by interface packet counters included in the 
     report stream) 
      
     Suppose an operator or a measurement-based application detects an 
     interesting subset of a packet stream, as identified by a 
     particular packet attribute. Real-time drill-down to that subset is 
     achieved by instantiating a new measurement process on the same 
     packet stream from which the subset was reported. The selection 
     process of the new measurement process filters according to the 
     attribute of interest, and composes with sampling if necessary to 
     manage the frequency of packet selection. 
      
  10.2    Passive Performance Measurement 
        
     Hash-based sampling enables the tracking of the performance 
     experience by customer traffic, customers identified by a list of 
     source or destination prefixes, or by ingress or egress interfaces. 
     Operational uses include the verification of Service Level 
     Agreements (SLAs), and troubleshooting following a customer 
     complaint. 
      
     In this application, trajectory sampling is enabled at all network 
     ingress and egress interfaces. The label hash is used to match up 
     ingress and egress samples. Rates of loss in transit between 
     ingress and egress are estimated from the proportion of 
     trajectories for which no egress report is received. Note loss of 
     customer packets is distinguishable from loss of packet reports 
     through use of report sequence numbers. Assuming synchronization of 

   
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     clocks between different entities, delay of customer traffic across 
     the network may also be measured. 
      
     Extending hash-selection to all interfaces in the network would 
     enable attribution of poor performance to individual network links. 
      
  10.3    Troubleshooting 
      
     PSAMP can also be used to diagnose problems whose occurrence is 
     evident from aggregate statistics, per interface utilization and 
     packet loss statistics.  These statistics are typically moving 
     averages over relatively long time windows, e.g., 5 minutes, and 
     serve as a coarse-grain indication of operational health of the 
     network. The most common method of obtaining such measurements are 
     through the appropriate SNMP MIBs (MIB-II and vendor-specific 
     MIBs.) 
      
     Suppose an operator detects a link that is persistently overloaded 
     and experiences significant packet drop rates. There is a wide 
     range of potential causes: routing parameters (e.g., OSPF link 
     weights) that are poorly adapted to the traffic matrix, e.g., 
     because of a shift in that matrix; a denial of service attack or a 
     flash crowd; a routing problem (link flapping). In most cases, 
     aggregate link statistics are not sufficient to distinguish between 
     such causes, and to decide on an appropriate corrective action. For 
     example, if routing over two links is unstable, and the links flap 
     between being overloaded and inactive, this might be averaged out 
     in a 5 minute window, indicating moderate loads on both links. 
      
     Baseline PSAMP measurement of the congested link, as described in 
     Section 10.1, enables measurements that are fine grained in both 
     space and time. The operator has to be able to determine how many 
     bytes/packets are generated for each source/destination address, 
     port number, and prefix, or other attributes, such as protocol 
     number, MPLS forwarding equivalence class (FEC), type of service, 
     etc. This allows the precise determination of the nature of the 
     offending traffic. For example, in the case of a DDoS attack, the 
     operator would see a significant fraction of traffic with an 
     identical destination address. 
      
     In certain circumstances, precise information about the spatial 
     flow of traffic through the network domain is required to detect 
     and diagnose problems and verify correct network behavior. In the 
     case of the overloaded link, it would be very helpful to know the 
     precise set of paths that packets traversing this link follow. This 
     would readily reveal a routing problem such as a loop, or a link 
     with a misconfigured weight. More generally, complex diagnosis 
     scenarios can benefit from measurement of traffic intensities (and 
     other attributes) over a set of paths that is constrained in some 
     way. For example, if a multihomed customer complains about 
     performance problems on one of the access links from a particular 
     source address prefix, the operator should be able to examine in 

   
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  Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting       October 2003 
   
     detail the traffic from that source prefix which also traverses the 
     specified access link towards the customer. 
      
     While it is in principle possible to obtain the spatial flow of 
     traffic through auxiliary network state information, e.g., by 
     downloading routing and forwarding tables from routers, this 
     information is often unreliable, outdated, voluminous, and 
     contingent on a network model. For operational purposes, a direct 
     observation of traffic flow is more reliable, as it does not depend 
     on any such auxiliary information. For example, if there was a bug 
     in a router's software, direct observation would allow the 
     diagnosis the effect of this bug, while an indirect method would 
     not. 
      
  11. Security Considerations 
      
        Security considerations are addressed in: 
       
        - Section 3.1: item Robust Selection 
        - Section 3.3: item Secure Export   
        - Section 3.4: item Secure Configuration 
        
  12. References 
      
        [B88] R.T. Braden, A pseudo-machine for packet monitoring and 
              statistics, in Proc ACM SIGCOMM 1988 
      
        [ClPB93] K.C. Claffy, G.C. Polyzos, H.-W. Braun, Application of 
              Sampling Methodologies to Network Traffic Characterization, 
              Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM'93, San Francisco, CA, USA, 
              September 13-17, 1993 
      
        [DRC03] T. Dietz, D. Romascanu, B. Claise, Definitions of 
              Managed Objects for Packet Sampling, Internet Draft,  
              draft-ietf-psamp-mib-00.txt, work in progress, June 2003. 
      
        [D03] M. Djernaes, Cisco Systems NetFlow Services Export Version 
              9 Transport, Internet Draft,  
              draft-djernaes-netflow-9-transport-00.txt, work in 
              progress, February 2003 
      
        [DuGr01] N. G. Duffield and M. Grossglauser, Trajectory Sampling 
              for Direct Traffic Observation, IEEE/ACM Trans. on 
              Networking, 9(3), 280-292, June 2001. 
      
        [DuGeGr02] N.G. Duffield, A. Gerber, M. Grossglauser, Trajectory 
              Engine: A Backend for Trajectory Sampling, IEEE Network 
              Operations and Management Symposium 2002, Florence, Italy, 
              April 15-19, 2002. 
      
   
        [RFC2914] S. Floyd, Congestion Control Principles, RFC 2914, 
              September 2000. 
   
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  Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting       October 2003 
         
        [FHK02] S. Floyd, M. Handley. E. Kohler, Problem Statement for 
              DCCP, Internet Draft draft-ietf-dccp-problem-00.txt, work 
              in progress, October 2002. 
      
        [RFC2804] IAB and IESG, Network Working Group, IETF Policy on 
              Wiretapping, RFC 2804, May 2000 
   
        [LCTV02] W.S. Lai, B.Christian, R.W. Tibbs, S. Van den Berghe, A 
              Framework for Internet Traffic Engineering Measurement 
              Internet Draft draft-ietf-tewg-measure-05.txt, work in 
              progress, February 2003. 
      
        [RFC3176] P. Phaal, S. Panchen, N. McKee, InMon Corporation's 
              sFlow: A Method for Monitoring Traffic in Switched and 
              Routed Networks, RFC 3176, September 2001 
      
        [RFC2330] V. Paxson, G. Almes, J. Mahdavi, M. Mathis,  Framework 
              for IP Performance Metrics, RFC 2330, May 1998 
      
        [QC03] J. Quittek, B. Claise, On the Relationship between PSAMP     
              and IPFIX, Internet Draft draft-quittek-psamp-ipfix-01.txt, 
              work in progress, February 2003. 
          
        [QZCZ03] J. Quittek, T. Zseby, B. Claise, S. Zander, 
              Requirements for IP Flow Information Export, Internet Draft 
              draft-ietf-ipfix-reqs-10.txt, work in progress, June 2003. 
      
        [SPSJTKS01] A. C. Snoeren, C. Partridge, L. A. Sanchez, C. E. 
              Jones, F. Tchakountio, S. T. Kent, W. T. Strayer, Hash-
              Based IP Traceback, Proc. ACM SIGCOMM 2001, San Diego, CA, 
              September 2001. 
      
        [RFC2960] Stewart, R. (ed.) "Stream Control Transmission 
              Protocol", RFC 2960, October 2000 
      
        [PR-SCTP] Stewart, R, "SCTP Partial Reliability Extension", 
              Internet Draft, draft-stewart-tsvwg-prsctp-01.txt, work in 
              progress, June 2003. 
      
  13. Authors' Addresses 
      
        Derek Chiou 
        Avici Systems 
        101 Billerica Ave 
        North Billerica, MA 01862 
        Phone: +1 978-964-2017 
        Email: dchiou@avici.com 
      
        Benoit Claise 
        Cisco Systems 
        De Kleetlaan 6a b1 
        1831 Diegem 
   
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  Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting       October 2003 
   
   
        Belgium 
        Phone: +32 2 704 5622 
        Email: bclaise@cisco.com 
      
        Nick Duffield 
        AT&T Labs - Research 
        Room B-139 
        180 Park Ave 
        Florham Park NJ 07932, USA 
        Phone: +1 973-360-8726 
        Email: duffield@research.att.com 
      
        Albert Greenberg 
        AT&T Labs - Research 
        Room A-161 
        180 Park Ave 
        Florham Park NJ 07932, USA 
        Phone: +1 973-360-8730 
        Email: albert@research.att.com 
      
        Matthias Grossglauser 
        School of Computer and Communication Sciences 
        EPFL 
        1015 Lausanne 
        Switzerland 
        Email: matthias.grossglauser@epfl.ch 
      
        Peram Marimuthu 
        Cisco Systems 
        170, W. Tasman Drive 
        San Jose, CA 95134 
        Phone: (408) 527-6314 
        Email: peram@cisco.com 
      
        Jennifer Rexford 
        AT&T Labs - Research 
        Room A-169 
        180 Park Ave 
        Florham Park NJ 07932, USA 
        Phone: +1 973-360-8728 
        Email: jrex@research.att.com 
       
        Ganesh Sadasivan  
        Cisco Systems  
        170 W. Tasman Drive  
        San Jose, CA 95134  
        Phone: (408) 527-0251  
        Email: gsadasiv@cisco.com 
      
      
  14. Intellectual Property Statement 
      

   
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 Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting       October 2003 
   
     AT&T Corporation may own intellectual property applicable to this 
     contribution. The IETF has been notified of AT&T's licensing intent 
     for the specification contained in this document. See 
     http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/ATT-GENERAL.txt for AT&T's IPR 
     statement. 
      
  15. Full Copyright Statement 
      
     Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003).  All Rights Reserved. 
      
     This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to 
     others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain 
     it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, 
     published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction 
     of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this 
     paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. 
     However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such 
     as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet 
     Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the 
     purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the 
     procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process 
     must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages 
     other than English. 
      
     The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be 
     revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns. 
      
      
     This document and the information contained herein is provided on 
     an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET 
     ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR 
     IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF 
     THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED 
     WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 
   











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