One document matched: draft-ietf-psamp-framework-11.txt

Differences from draft-ietf-psamp-framework-10.txt


   ` 
                                                                         
   Internet Draft                               Nick Duffield (Editor) 
   Category: Informational                        AT&T Labs - Research 
   Document: draft-ietf-psamp-framework-11.txt                May 2007 
   Expires: November 2007                                                
                                                                         
                                                                         
                                                                         
    
    
               A Framework for Packet Selection and Reporting 
    
    
   Status of this Memo 

      By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents 
      that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or 
      she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which 
      he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with 
      Section 6 of BCP 79. 
       
      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.  
       
      This Internet-Draft will expire on June, 2007. 
       
   Copyright Notice  
       
      Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007). 
       
       
   Abstract 
       
      This document specifies a framework for the PSAMP (Packet 
      SAMPling) protocol.  The functions of this protocol are to select 
      packets from a stream according to a set of standardized 
      selectors, to form a stream of reports on the selected packets, 
      and to export the reports to a collector.  This framework details 
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007                [Page 1] 
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      the components of this architecture, then describes some generic 
      requirements, motivated by the dual aims of ubiquitous deployment 
      and utility of the reports for applications.  Detailed 
      requirements for selection, reporting and exporting are 
      described, along with configuration requirements of the 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/ 
       
   Table of Contents 
    
      1.   Introduction...............................................4 
      2.   PSAMP Documents Overview...................................4 
      3.   Elements, Terminology and High-level Architecture..........5 
      3.1  High-level description of the PSAMP Architecture ..........5 
      3.2  Observation Points, Packet Streams and Packet Content......5 
      3.3  Selection Process .........................................6 
      3.4  Reporting..................................................7 
      3.5  Metering Process...........................................8 
      3.6  Exporting Process .........................................8 
      3.7  PSAMP Device...............................................8 
      3.8  Collector..................................................9 
      3.9  Possible Configurations....................................9 
      4.   Generic Requirements for PSAMP............................10 
      4.1  Generic Selection Process Requirements....................10 
      4.2  Generic Reporting Requirements............................11 
      4.3  Generic Exporting Process Requirements....................12 
      4.4  Generic Configuration Requirements........................12 
      5.   Packet Selection..........................................13 
      5.1  Two Types of Selector.....................................13 
      5.2  PSAMP Packet Selectors....................................13 
      5.3  Selection Fraction Terminology............................16 
      5.4  Input Sequence Numbers for Primitive Selectors............17 
      5.5  Composite Selectors.......................................18 
      5.6  Constraints on the Selection Fraction.....................18 
      6.   Reporting.................................................18 
      6.1  Mandatory Contents of Packet Reports: Basic Reports.......18 
      6.2  Extended Packet Reports...................................19 
      6.3  Extended Packet Reports in the Presence of IPFIX .........20 
      6.4  Report Interpretation.....................................20 
      7.   Parallel Metering Processes...............................20 
      8.   Exporting Process ........................................21 
      8.1  Use of IPFIX..............................................21 
      8.2  Congestion-aware Unreliable Transport.....................21 
      8.3  Configurable Export Rate Limit............................22 
      8.4  Limiting Delay for Export Packets ........................22 
      8.5  Export Packet Compression ................................23 
      8.6  Collector Destination.....................................24 
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007                [Page 2] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      8.7  Local Export.............................................24 
      9.   Configuration and Management.............................24 
      10.  Feasibility and Complexity...............................24 
      10.1 Feasibility..............................................25 
      10.1.1 Filtering..............................................25 
      10.1.2 Sampling ..............................................25 
      10.1.3 Hashing................................................25 
      10.1.4 Reporting..............................................25 
      10.1.5 Exporting..............................................26 
      10.2 Potential Hardware Complexity............................26 
      11.  Applications.............................................27 
      11.1 Baseline Measurement and Drill Down......................27 
      11.2 Trajectory Sampling......................................28 
      11.3 Passive Performance Measurement..........................28 
      11.4 Troubleshooting..........................................29 
      12.  Security Considerations..................................30 
      13.  IANA Considerations......................................30 
      14.  References ..............................................30 
      14.1 Normative References.....................................30 
      14.2 Informative References...................................31 
      15.  Authors' Addresses.......................................32 
      16.  Intellectual Property Statements.........................33 
      17.  Copyright Statement......................................34 
      18.  Disclaimer ..............................................34 
    
                                                               
      Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).  All Rights Reserved. 
      This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance 
      with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC 2026. 
       
      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. 
       
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007                [Page 3] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
   1. Introduction 
       
      This document describes the PSAMP framework for network elements 
      to select subsets of packets by statistical and other methods, 
      and to export a stream of reports on the selected packets to a 
      collector.  
       
      The motivation for the PSAMP standard 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, and the 
      manner in which the resulting measurements are presented and 
      interpreted. 
       
      The motivation for specific packet selection operations comes 
      from the applications that they enable.  Development of the PSAMP 
      standard is open to influence by the requirements of standards in 
      related IETF Working Groups, for example, IP Performance Metrics 
      (IPPM) [RFC-2330] and Internet Traffic Engineering (TEWG).  
       
      The name PSAMP is a contraction of the phrase Packet Sampling.  
      The word "sampling" captures the idea that only a subset of all 
      packets passing a network element will be selected for reporting.  
      But PSAMP selection operations include random selection, 
      deterministic selection (filtering), and deterministic 
      approximations to random selection (hash-based selection). 
       
   2. PSAMP Documents Overview 
    
      PSAMP-FW: "A Framework for Packet Selection and Reporting" (this 
      document).  This document describes the PSAMP framework for 
      network elements to select subsets of packets by statistical and 
      other methods, and to export a stream of reports on the selected 
      packets to a collector.  Definitions of terminology and the use 
      of the terms "must", "should" and "may" in this document are 
      informational only. 
       
      [PSAMP-TECH]: "Sampling and Filtering Techniques for IP Packet 
      Selection", describes the set of packet selection techniques 
      supported by PSAMP. 
       
      [PSAMP-MIB]: "Definitions of Managed Objects for Packet Sampling" 
      describes the PSAMP Management Information Base  
       
      [PSAMP-PROTO]: "Packet Sampling (PSAMP) Protocol Specifications" 
      specifies the export of packet information from a PSAMP Exporting 
      Process to a PSAMP Colleting Process 
          
      [PSAMP-INFO]: "Information Model for Packet Sampling Exports" 
      defines an information and data model for PSAMP. 
       
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007                [Page 4] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
   3. Elements, Terminology and High-level Architecture 
       
   3.1 High-level description of the PSAMP Architecture 
       
      Here is an informal high level description of the PSAMP protocol 
      operating in a PSAMP Device (all terms will be defined 
      presently).  A stream of packets is observed at an Observation 
      Point.  A Selection Process inspects each packet to determine 
      whether or not it is to be selected from reporting.  The 
      Selection Process is part of the Metering Process, which 
      constructs a report on each selected packet, using the Packet 
      Content, and possibly other information such as the packet 
      treatment at the Observation Point or the arrival timestamp.  An 
      Exporting Process sends the Packet Reports to a Collector, 
      together with any subsidiary information needed for their 
      interpretation.  
    
      The following figure indicates the sequence of the three 
      processes (Selection, Metering, and Exporting) within the PSAMP 
      device.  
    
         
                    +------------------+  
                    | Metering Process |  
                    | +-----------+    |     +-----------+  
          Observed  | | Selection |    |     | Exporting |  
          Packet--->| | Process   |--------->| Process   |--->Collector  
          Stream    | +-----------+    |     +-----------+  
                    +------------------+  
           
    
      The following sections give the detailed definitions of each of 
      all the objects just named. 
    
   3.2 Observation Points, Packet Streams and Packet Content 
       
      This section contains the definition of terms relevant to 
      obtaining the packet input to the selection process.  
       
      * Observation Point  
       
        An Observation Point is a location in the network where IP 
        packets can be 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 a set of interfaces 
        (physical or logical) of a router. 
         
        Note that every Observation Point is associated with an 
        Observation Domain (defined below), and that one Observation 
        Point may be a superset of several other Observation Points.   
        For example one Observation Point can be an entire line card.   

    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007                [Page 5] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
        That would be the superset of the individual Observation Points 
        at the line card's interfaces. 
       
      * Observed Packet Stream 
         
        The Observed Packet Stream is the set of all packets observed 
        at the Observation Point. 
       
      * Packet Stream 
    
        A Packet Stream denotes a subset of the Observed Packet Stream 
        that flows past some specified point within the Selection 
        Process.  
        An example of a Packet Stream is the output of the Selection 
        Process.  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 [RFC-3917]. 
    
         
      * Packet Content 
       
        The Packet Content denotes the union of the packet header 
        (which includes link layer, network layer and other 
        encapsulation headers) and the packet payload. 
    
    
   3.3 Selection Process 
       
      This section defines the selection process and related objects. 
       
      * Selection Process 
         
        A Selection Process takes the Observed Packet Stream as its 
        input and selects a subset of that stream as its output. 
         
      * Selection State:  
       
        A Selection Process may maintain state information for use by 
        the Selection Process.  At a given time, the Selection State 
        may depend on packets observed at and before that time, and 
        other variables.  Examples include: 
                 
            (i)   sequence numbers of packets at the input of 
        Selectors; 
                   
            (ii)  a timestamp of observation of the packet at the  
                  Observation Point; 
                   
            (iii) iterators for pseudorandom number generators; 
                   
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007                [Page 6] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
            (iv)  hash values calculated during selection; 
                   
            (v)   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.  Selection state for a 
        packet is to reflect the state after processing the packet. 
            
            
      * Selector:  
       
        A Selector defines the action of a Selection Process on a 
        single packet of its input.  If selected, the packet becomes an 
        element of the output Packet Stream. 
                 
        The Selector can make use of the following information in 
        determining whether a packet is selected: 
                 
            (i)  the Packet Content; 
                   
            (ii) information derived from the packet's treatment at the  
                 Observation Point; 
                   
            (iii) any selection state that may be maintained by the  
                  Selection Process. 
         
    
      * Composite Selector:  
         
        A Composite Selector is an ordered composition of Selectors, in 
        which the output Packet Stream issuing from one Selector forms 
        the input Packet Stream to the succeeding Selector. 
    
            
      * Primitive Selector:  
       
        A Selector is primitive if it is not a Composite Selector. 
               
            
   3.4 Reporting 
        
       
      * Packet Reports  
                
        Packet Reports comprise a configurable subset of a packet's 
        input to the Selection Process, including the Packet Content, 
        information relating to its treatment (for example, the output 
        interface), and its associated selection state (for example, a 
        hash of the Packet Content).  
    
            
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007                [Page 7] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      * Report Interpretation:  
         
        Report Interpretation comprises subsidiary information, 
        relating to one or more packets, that are used for 
        interpretation of their Packet Reports.  Examples include 
        configuration parameters of the Selection Process.  
         
    
      * Report Stream: 
         
        The Report Stream is the output of a Metering Process, 
        comprising two distinguished types of information: Packet 
        Reports, and Report Interpretation.  
    
              
   3.5 Metering Process 
    
      A Metering Process selects packets from the Observed Packet 
      Stream using a Selection Process, and produces as output a Report 
      Stream concerning the selected packets. 
       
      The PSAMP Metering Process can be viewed as analogous to the 
      IPFIX metering process [IPFIX-PROTO], which produces flow records 
      as its output.  While the Metering Process definition in this 
      document specifies the PSAMP definition, the PSAMP protocol 
      specifications [PSAMP-PROTO] will use the IPFIX Metering Process 
      definition, which also suits the PSAMP requirements.   The 
      relationship between PSAMP and IPFIX is described more in [PSAMP-
      INFO] and [PSAMP-PROTO].  
    
       
   3.6 Exporting Process 
       
      * Exporting Process:  
         
        An Exporting Process sends, in the form of Export Packets, the 
        output of one or more Metering Processes to one or more 
        Collectors.  
    
      * Export Packets:  
         
        An Export Packet is a combination of Report Interpretation(s) 
        and/or one or more Packet Reports that are bundled by the 
        Exporting Process into a Export Packet for exporting to a 
        Collector.   
       
   3.7 PSAMP Device 
       
      A PSAMP Device is a device hosting at least an Observation Point, 
      a Selection Process and an Exporting Process.  Typically, 
      corresponding Observation Point(s), Selection Process(es) and 

    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007                [Page 8] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      Exporting Process(es) are co-located at this device, for example 
      at a router. 
       
       
   3.8 Collector 
       
      A Collector receives a Report Stream exported by one or more 
      Exporting Processes.  In some cases, the host of the Metering 
      and/or Exporting Processes may also serve as the Collector. 
       
       
       
       
    
   3.9 Possible Configurations 
        
      Various possibilities for the high level architecture of these 
      elements are as follows. 
       
          MP = Metering Process, EP = Exporting process 
       
          PSAMP Device 
         +---------------------+                 +------------------+ 
         |Observation Point(s) |                 | Collector(1)     | 
         |MP(s)--->EP----------+---------------->|                  |     
         |MP(s)--->EP----------+-------+-------->|                  | 
         +---------------------+       |         +------------------+ 
                                       | 
          PSAMP Device                 |     
         +---------------------+       |         +------------------+ 
         |Observation Point(s) |       +-------->| Collector(2)     | 
         |MP(s)--->EP----------+---------------->|                  | 
         +---------------------+                 +------------------+ 
             
          PSAMP Device                              
         +---------------------+          
         |Observation Point(s) |          
         |MP(s)--->EP---+      |          
         |              |      |          
         |Collector(3)<-+      | 
         +---------------------+   
       
      The most generic Metering Process configuration is composed of: 
    
                +------------------------------------+ 
                | +----------+                       | 
                | |Selection |                       | 
       Observed | |Process   |  Packet               |   
       Packet-->| |(primitive|-> Stream ->           |--> Report Stream  
       Stream   | | selector)|                       |  
                | +----------+                       |  
                |          Metering Process          |  
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007                [Page 9] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
                +------------------------------------+ 
    
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
      A Metering Process with a composite selector is composed of: 
       
                +--------------------------------------------------... 
                | +-----------------------------------+      
                | | +----------+         +----------+ |     
                | | |Selection |         |Selection | |   
       Observed | | |Process   |         |Process   | |     
       Packet-->| | |(primitive|-Packet->|(primitive|---> Packet ... 
       Stream   | | |selector1)| Stream  |selector2)| |   Stream    
                | | +----------+         +----------+ |   
                | |        Composite Selector         |               
                | +-----------------------------------+                
                |                   Metering Process               
                +--------------------------------------------------... 
       
                  ...-------------+ 
                                  | 
                                  |    
                                  |    
                                  |    
                                  |---> Report Stream 
                                  |    
                                  |  
                                  | 
                                  |  
                                  | 
                  ...-------------+ 
       
    
   4. Generic Requirements for PSAMP 
       
      This section describes the generic requirements for the PSAMP 
      protocol.  A number of these are realized as specific 
      requirements in later sections. 
    
   4.1 Generic Selection Process Requirements. 
       
      * Ubiquity: The Selectors must be simple enough to be implemented 
        ubiquitously at maximal line rate. 
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 10] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
       
      * 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: the protocol must be able to accommodate 
        additional packet Selectors not currently defined. 
       
      * Flexibility: the protocol must support selection of packets 
        using various network protocols or encapsulation layers, 
        including Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) [IPv4], Internet 
        Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) [RFC-2460], and Multiprotocol Label 
        Switching (MPLS) [RFC-3031].  
    
      * Robust Selection: packet selection must be robust against 
        attempts to craft an Observed Packet Stream from which packets 
        are selected disproportionately (e.g. to evade selection, or 
        overload measurement systems). 
    
      * Parallel Metering Processes: the protocol must support 
        simultaneous operation of multiple independent Metering 
        Processes at the same host. 
       
      * Causality: the selection decision for each packet should depend 
        only weakly, if at all, upon future packets arrivals.  This 
        promotes ubiquity by limiting the complexity of the selection 
        logic. 
         
      * Encrypted Packets: Selectors that interpret packet fields must 
        be configurable to ignore (i.e. not select) encrypted packets, 
        when they are detected.  
    
      Specific Selectors are outlined in Section 5, and described in 
      more detail in the companion document [PSAMP-TECH].  
       
   4.2 Generic Reporting Requirements 
       
      * Self-defining: the Report Stream must be complete in the sense 
        that no additional information need be retrieved from the 
        Observation Point in order to interpret and analyze the 
        reports.   
       
      * Indication of Information Loss: the Report Stream must include 
        sufficient information to indicate or allow the detection of 
        loss occurring within the Selection, Metering, and/or Exporting 
        Processes, or in transport.  This may be achieved by the use of 
        sequence numbers. 
       

    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 11] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      * Accuracy: the Report Stream must include 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 
        Metering 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].  Full packet capture of arbitrary 
        packet streams is explicitly out of scope. 
       
      See section 6 for further discussions on Reporting. 
       
   4.3 Generic Exporting Process Requirements 
       
      * Timeliness: configuration must allow for limiting of buffering 
        delays for the formation and transmission for Export Packets. 
        See Section 8.4 for further details. 
       
      * Congestion Avoidance: export of a Report Stream across a 
        network must be congestion avoiding in compliance with [RFC-
        2914].  This is discussed further in Section 8.2. 
       
      * Secure Export: 
              
        (i) confidentiality: the option to encrypt exported data must 
        be provided. 
     
        (ii) integrity: alterations in transit to exported data must be 
        detectable at the Collector 
              
        (iii) 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 [RFC-3917].   
       
   4.4 Generic 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 evade 
        subversion, or overload the measurement infrastructure. 
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 12] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
    
      Configuration is discussed in Section 9.  Feasibility and 
      complexity of PSAMP operations is discussed in Section 10. 
    
   5. Packet Selection 
       
      This section details specific requirements for the Selection 
      Process, motivated by the generic requirements of Section 3.3. 
       
       
   5.1 Two Types of Selector 
    
      PSAMP categorizes selectors into two types: 
       
      * Filtering: a filter is a Selector that selects a packet 
        deterministically based on the Packet Content, or its 
        treatment, or functions of these occurring in the Selection 
        State.  Two examples are: 
       
           (i) Property match filtering: a packet is selected if a 
           specific field in the packet equals a predefined value.   
            
           (ii) Hash-based selection: a hash function is applied to the 
           Packet Content, and the packet is selected if the result 
           falls in a specified range. 
       
      * Sampling: a selector 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.  
         
        Sampling operations can be divided into two subtypes: 
    
           (i) Content-independent sampling, which does not use Packet 
           Content in reaching sampling decisions.  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. 
       
           (ii) Content-dependent sampling, in which the Packet Content 
           is used in reaching selection decisions.  An application is 
           pseudorandom selection according to a probability that 
           depends on the contents of a packet field, e.g., sampling 
           packets with a probability dependent on their TCP/UDP port 
           numbers.  Note that this is not a Filter. 
            
            
       
   5.2 PSAMP Packet Selectors 
       
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 13] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
       A spectrum of packet selectors is described in detail in [PSAMP-
       TECH].  Here we only briefly summarize the meanings for 
       completeness. 
    
      A PSAMP Selection Process must support at least one of the 
      following Selectors. 
          
      * 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. 
    
      * 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. 
       
      * probabilistic n-out-of-N sampling: from each count-based 
        successive block of N packets, n are selected at random.   
       
      * 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. 
       
      * property match filtering  
         
        With this Filtering method a packet is selected if a specific 
        field within the packet and/or on properties of the router 
        state equal(s) a predefined value.  Possible filter fields are 
        all IPFIX flow attributes specified in [IPFIX-INFO].  Further 
        fields can be defined by vendor specific extensions.  
         
        A packet is selected if Field=Value.  Masks and ranges are only 
        supported to the extent to which [IPFIX-INFO] allows them e.g. 
        by providing explicit fields like the netmasks for source and 
        destination addresses.  
         
        AND operations are possible by concatenating filters, thus 
        producing a composite selection operation.  In this case, the 
        ordering in which the filtering happens is implicitly defined 
        (outer filters come after inner filters).  However, as long as 
        the concatenation is on filters only, the result of the 
        cascaded filter is independent from the order, but the order 
        may be important for implementation purposes, as the first 
        filter will have to work at a higher rate.  In any case, an 
        implementation is not constrained to respect the filter 
        ordering, as long as the result is the same, and it may even 

    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 14] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
        implement the composite filtering in filtering in one single 
        step. 
         
        OR operations are not supported with this basic model.  More 
        sophisticated filters (e.g. supporting bitmasks, ranges or OR 
        operations etc.) can be realized as vendor specific schemes.  
         
        Property match operations should be available for different 
        protocol portions of the packet header: 
    
           (i) the IP header (excluding options in IPv4, stacked 
           headers in IPv6) 
            
           (ii) transport header 
            
           (iii) encapsulation headers (e.g. the MPLS label stack, if 
           present) 
         
        When the PSAMP Device offers property match filtering, and, in 
        its usual capacity other than in performing PSAMP functions, 
        identifies or processes information from IP, transport or 
        encapsulation protocols, then the information should be made 
        available for filtering.  For example, when a PSAMP Device 
        routes based on destination IP address, that field should be 
        made available for filtering.  Conversely, a PSAMP Device 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. 
         
        Since packet encryption alters the meaning of encrypted fields, 
        property match filtering must be configurable to ignore 
        encrypted packets, when detected. 
         
        The Selection Process may support filtering based on the 
        properties of the router state:  
       
           (i) Ingress interface at which packet arrives equals a 
           specified value 
           (ii) Egress interface to which packet is routed to equals a 
           specified value 
           (iii) Packet violated Access Control List (ACL) on the 
           router 
           (iv) Failed Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF) 
           (v) Failed Resource Reservation (RSVP) 
           (vi) No route found for the packet 
           (vii) Origin Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Autonomous System 
           (AS) [RFC-4271] equals a specified value or lies within a 
           given range 
           (viii) Destination BGP AS equals a specified value or lies 
           within a given range 
    

    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 15] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
        Router architectural considerations may preclude some 
        information concerning the packet treatment being available at 
        line rate for selection of packets.  For example, the Selection 
        Process may not be implemented in the fast path that is able to 
        access routing state at line rate.  However, when filtering 
        follows sampling (or some other selection operation) in a 
        Composite Selector, the rate of the Packet Stream output from 
        the sampler and input to the filter may be sufficiently slow 
        that the filter could select based on routing state.  
    
      * Hash-based Selection:  
         
        Hash-based selection will employ one or more hash functions to 
        be standardized.  A hash function is applied to a subset of 
        Packet Content, and the packet is selected of the resulting 
        hash falls in a specified range.  The stronger the hash 
        function, the more closely hash-based selection approximates 
        uniform random sampling.  Privacy of hash selection range and 
        hash function parameters obstructs subversion of the selector 
        by packets that are crafted either to avoid selection or to be 
        selected.  Privacy of the hash function is not required. 
        Robustness and security considerations of hash-based selection 
        are further discussed in further in [PSAMP-TECH].  Applications 
        of hash-based sampling are described in Section 11. 
    
    
   5.3 Selection Fraction Terminology 
       
      * Population:  

        A population is a Packet Stream, or a subset of a Packet 
        Stream.  A Population can be considered as a base set from 
        which packets are selected.  An example is all packets in the 
        Observed Packet Stream that are observed within some specified 
        time interval. 
       
      * Population Size:  

        The Population Size is the number of all packets in a 
        Population. 
            
      * Configured Selection Fraction 
         
        The Configured Selection Fraction is the ratio of the number of 
        packets selected by a Selector from an input Population, to the 
        Population Size, as based on the configured selection 
        parameters. 
            
      * Attained Selection Fraction 
         

    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 16] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
        The Attained Selection Fraction is the actual ratio of the 
        number of packets selected by a Selector from an input 
        Population, to the Population Size.  
    
      For some sampling methods the Attained Selection Fraction can 
      differ from the Configured Selection Fraction due to, for 
      example, the inherent statistical variability in sampling 
      decisions of probabilistic sampling and hash-based selection.  
      Nevertheless, for large Population Sizes and properly configured 
      Selectors, the Attained Selection Fraction usually approaches the 
      Configured Selection Fraction. 
    
      The notions of Configured/Attained Selection Fraction extend 
      beyond Selectors.  An illustrative example is the Configured 
      Selection Fraction of the composition of the Metering Process 
      with the Exporting Process.  Here the Population is the Observed 
      Packet Stream or a subset thereof.  The Configured Selection 
      Fraction is the fraction of the Population for which Packet 
      Reports which are expected to reach the Collector.  This quantity 
      may reflect additional parameters, not necessarily described in 
      the PSAMP protocol, that determine the degree of loss suffered by 
      Packet Reports en route to the Collector, e.g., the transmission 
      bandwidth available to the Exporting Process.  In this example, 
      the Attained Selection Fraction is the fraction of Population 
      packets for which reports did actually reach the Collector, and 
      thus incorporates the effect of any loss of Packet Reports due, 
      e.g, to resource contention at the Observation Point, or during 
      transmission. 
       
    
   5.4 Input Sequence Numbers for Primitive Selectors 
         
      Each instance of a Primitive Selector 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 Selection Fraction, 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 Metering Process (e.g. due to resource 
      contention in the host of these processes), or loss of export 
      packets in transmission or collection.  See [RFC-3176] for 
      further details. 
       
      As an example, consider a set of n consecutive packet reports r1, 
      r2,... , rn, selected by a sampling operation and received at a 
      Collector.  Let s1, s2,..., sn be the input sequence numbers 
      reported by the packets.  The Attained Selection Fraction for the 
      composite of the measurement and exporting processes, taking into 

    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 17] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      account both packet sampling at the Observation Point and loss in 
      transmission, is computed as R = (n-1)/(sn-s1).  (Note R would be 
      1 if all packets were selected and there were no transmission 
      loss). 
       
      The Attained Selection Fraction can be used to estimate the 
      number bytes present in a portion of the Observed Packet Stream.  
      Let b1, b2,..., bn be the bytes reported in each of the packets 
      that reached the Collector, and set B = b1+b2+...+bn.  Then the 
      total bytes present in packets in the Observed Packet Stream 
      whose input sequence numbers lie between s1 and sn is estimated 
      by B/R, i.e, scaling up the measured bytes through division by 
      the Attained Selection Fraction 
       
      With Composite Selectors, an input sequence number must be 
      reported for each Selector in the composition. 
    
   5.5 Composite Selectors 
       
      The ability to compose Selectors in a Selection Process should be 
      provided.  The following combinations appear to be most useful 
      for applications: 
       
      *  concatentation of property match filters.  This is useful for 
      constructing the AND of the component filters. 
             
      * 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 depends on the composition of 
      the packet stream. 
       
   5.6 Constraints on the Selection Fraction 
    
      Sampling at full line rate, i.e. with probability 1, is not 
      excluded in principle, although resource constraints may not 
      permit it in practice. 
       
   6. Reporting 
       
      This section details specific requirements for reporting, 
      motivated by the generic requirements of Section 3.4 
       
   6.1 Mandatory Contents of Packet Reports: Basic Reports 
       
      Packet Reports must include the following: 
       

    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 18] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
           (i) the input sequence number(s) of any Selectors that acted 
           on the packet in the instance of a Metering Process which 
           produced the report. 
            
           (ii) the identifier of the Metering Process that produced 
           the selected packet 
            
      The Metering Process must support inclusion of the following in 
      each Packet Report, as a configurable option: 
       
           (iii) a basic report on the packet, i.e., 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 may not have the resource capacity or functionality 
      to provide more detailed packet reports that those in (i), (ii) 
      and (iii) above.  Using this minimum required reporting 
      functionality, the Metering Process places the burden of 
      interpretation on the Collector, or on applications that it 
      supplies.  Some devices may have the capability to provide 
      extended packet reports, described in the next section.  
    
   6.2 Extended Packet Reports 
    
      The Metering Process may support inclusion in Packet Reports of 
      the following information, inclusion any or all being 
      configurable as an option. 
       
           (iv) fields relating to the following protocols used in the 
           packet: IPv4, IPV6, transport protocols, MPLS. 
             
           (v) packet treatment, including: 
       
            - identifiers for any input and output interfaces of the 
           Observation Point that were traversed by the packet 
             
            - source and destination BGP AS 
       
           (vi) Selection State associated with the packet, including: 
       
           - the timestamp of observation of the packet at the 
           Observation Point.  The timestamp should be reported to 
           microsecond resolution.  
       
           - hashes, where calculated. 
       
       It is envisaged that selection of fields for Extended Packet 
       Reporting may be used to reduce reporting bandwidth, in which 
       case the option to report information in (iii) may not be 
       exercised. 
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 19] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
    
   6.3 Extended Packet Reports in the Presence of IPFIX 
       
      If an IPFIX metering process 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 [IPFIX-INFO], with modifications appropriate to 
      reporting on single packets rather than flows. 
    
   6.4  Report Interpretation 
    
      The 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.  
    
      The accuracy measure in (iii) is of fundamental importance for 
      estimating the likely error attached to estimates formed from the 
      Packet Reports by applications. 
       
      The requirements for robustness and transparency are motivations 
      for including Report Interpretation in the Report Stream: it 
      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. 
    
   7. Parallel Metering Processes 
       
      Because of the increasing number of distinct measurement 
      applications, with varying requirements, it is desirable to set 
      up parallel Metering Processes on a given Observed Packet Stream.  
      A device capable of hosting a Metering Process should be able to 
      support more than one independently configurable Metering Process 
      simultaneously.  Each such Metering Process should have the 
      option of being equipped with its own Exporting Process; 
      otherwise the parallel Metering Processes may share the same 
      Exporting Process.  
       
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 20] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      Each of the parallel Metering 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 
      Metering Process; other Metering Processes need only record that 
      they selected the packet, e.g., by incrementing a counter.  The 
      priority amongst Metering Processes under resource contention 
      should be configurable. 
       
      It is not proposed to standardize the number of parallel Metering 
      Processes. 
       
   8. Exporting Process 
       
      This section details specific requirements for the Exporting 
      Process, motivated by the generic requirements of Section 3.6 
       
   8.1 Use of IPFIX 
       
      PSAMP will use the IP Flow Information eXport (IPFIX) protocol 
      for export of the Report Stream.  The IPFIX protocol is well 
      suited for this purpose, because the IPFIX architecture matches 
      the PSAMP architecture very well and the means provided by the 
      IPFIX protocol are sufficient for PSAMP purposes.  On the other 
      hand, not all features of the IPFIX protocol will need to be 
      implemented by some PSAMP devices.  For example, a device that 
      offers only content-independent sampling and basic PSAMP 
      reporting has no need to support IPFIX capabilities based on 
      packet fields. 
       
   8.1 Export Packets 
    
      Export packets may contain one or more Packet Reports, and/or 
      Report Interpretation.  Export packets must also contain: 
       
           (i) An identifier for the Exporting Process 
       
           (ii) An export packet sequence number.  
             
           An export packet sequence number enables the Collector to 
           identify loss of export packets in transit.  Note that some 
           transport protocols, e.g. UDP, do not provide sequence 
           numbers.  Moreover, having sequence numbers available at the 
           application level enables the Collector to calculate packet 
           loss rate for use, e.g., in estimating original traffic 
           volumes from export packet that reach the Collector.    
       
   8.2 Congestion-aware Unreliable Transport 
    
      The export of the Report Stream does not require reliable export.   
      Section 5.4 shows that the use of input sequence numbers in 
      packet Selectors means that the ability to estimate traffic rates 
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 21] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      is not impaired by export loss.  Export packet loss becomes 
      another form of sampling, albeit a less desirable, and less 
      controlled, form of sampling. 
       
      In distinction, retransmission of lost Export Packets consumes 
      additional network resources.  The requirement to store 
      unacknowledged data is an impediment to having ubiquitous support 
      for PSAMP. 
       
      In order to jointly satisfy the timeliness and congestion 
      avoidance requirements of Section 4.3, a congestion-aware 
      unreliable transport protocol may be used.  IPFIX is compatible 
      with this requirement, since it mandates support of the Stream 
      Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) [RFC-2960] and the SCTP 
      Partial Reliability Extension [RFC-3758].  
       
      IPFIX also allows the use of User Datagram Protocol (UDP) [RFC-
      768] although it is not a congestion-aware protocol.  However, in 
      this case, the Export Packets must remain wholly within the 
      administrative domains of the operators [IPFIX-PROTO].  The PSAMP 
      exporting process is equipped with a configurable export rate 
      limit (see Section 8.3 following) that can be used to limit the 
      export rate when a congestion aware transport protocol is not 
      used.  The Collector, upon detection of export packet loss 
      through missing export sequence numbers, may reconfigure the 
      export rate limit downwards in order to avoid congestion. 
    
   8.3 Configurable Export Rate Limit 
       
      The exporting process must have an export rate limit, 
      configurable per Exporting Process.  This is useful for two 
      reasons: 
       
           (i) Even without network congestion, the rate of packet 
           selection may exceed the capacity of the Collector to 
           process reports, particularly when many Exporting Processes 
           feed a common Collector.  Use of an Export Rate Limit allows 
           control of the global input rate to the Collector. 
       
           (ii) IPFIX provides export using UDP as the transport 
           protocol in some circumstances.  An Export Rate Limit allows 
           the capping of the export rate to match both path link 
           speeds and the capacity of the Collector.  
    
   8.4 Limiting Delay for Export Packets 
          
      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. 
       
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 22] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      Keeping the packet dispatching delay small has other benefits 
      besides limiting buffer requirements.  For many applications a 
      resolution of 1 second 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.  Furthermore, keeping 
      dispatch delay within the resolution required by applications 
      eliminates the need for timestamping by synchronized clocks at 
      observation points, 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.  This avoids the complexity of buffering and 
      reordering samples.  See [DuGeGr02] for an example. 
       
      The delay between observation of a packet and transmission of a 
      Export Packet containing a report on that packet has several 
      components.  It is difficult to standardize a given numerical 
      delay requirement, since in practice the delay may be sensitive 
      to processor load at the Observation Point.  Therefore, PSAMP 
      aims to control that portion of the delay within the Observation 
      Point that is due to buffering in the formation and transmission 
      of Export Packets.  
    
      In order to limit delay in the formation of Export Packets, the 
      Exporting Process must provide the ability to close out and 
      enqueue for transmission any Export Packet during formation as 
      soon as it includes one Packet Report.  
       
      In order to limit the delay in the transmission of Export 
      Packets, a configurable upper bound to the delay of an Export 
      Packet prior to transmission must be provided.  If the bound is 
      exceeded the Export Packet is dropped.  This functionality can be 
      provided by the timed reliability service of the SCTP Partial 
      Reliability Extension [RFC-3758]. 
       
      The Exporting Process may enqueue the Report Stream in order to 
      export multiple Packet Reports in a single export packet.  Any 
      consequent delay must still allow for timely availability of 
      Packet Reports as just described.  The timed reliability service 
      of the SCTP Partial Reliability Extension [RFC-3758] allows the 
      dropping of packets from the export buffer once their age in the 
      buffer exceeds a configurable bound.  A suitable default value 
      for the bound should be used in order to avoid a low transmission 
      rate due to misconfiguration. 
       
   8.5 Export Packet Compression 
       
      To conserve network bandwidth and resources at the Collector, the 
      Export Packets may be compressed before export.  Compression is 
      expected to be quite effective since the sampled packets may 
      share many fields in common, e.g. if a filter focuses on packets 
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 23] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      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. 
    
    
   8.6 Collector Destination 
    
      When exporting to a remote Collector, the Collector is identified 
      by IP address, transport protocol, and transport port number. 
       
   8.7 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 Metering Process serve as the input for the IPFIX 
      protocol, which then forms flow records out of the stream of 
      selected packets.  
    
   9. Configuration and Management 
    
      A key requirement for PSAMP is the easy reconfiguration of the 
      parameters of the Metering Process: those for selection, packet 
      reports and export.  An important example is to support 
      measurement-based applications that want to adaptively drill-down 
      on traffic detail in real-time;  
       
      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 
      mandatory PSAMP functionality. 
       
      Secondary objects will cover the recommended and optional PSAMP 
      functionality, and must be provided when such functionality is 
      offered by a PSAMP Device.  Such PSAMP functionality includes 
      configuration of offered Selectors, multiple Metering Processes, 
      and report format including the choice of fields to be reported.  
      For further details concerning the PSAMP MIB, see [PSAMP-MIB]. 
       
      PSAMP requires a uniform mechanism with which to access and 
      configure the MIB.  SNMP access must be provided by the host of 
      the MIB. 
    
   10. 
      Feasibility and Complexity 
       
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 24] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      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. 
       
   10.1     Feasibility 
          
   10.1.1  Filtering 
       
      Filtering consists of a small number of mask (bit-wise logical), 
      comparison and range (greater than) operations.  Implementation 
      of 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. 
       
   10.1.2  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. 
       
   10.1.3  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]. 
       
   10.1.4  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 Exporting Process for high sampling 
      rates; reporting selected fields would save on this bandwidth. 

    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 25] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      Thus there is a trade-off between simplicity and bandwidth 
      limitations. 
       
   10.1.5  Exporting 
       
      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. 
        
   10.2    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 the 
      Selectors, 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 
      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(log(M)) stages of logic, where M is 
      the number of bits involved in the comparison.  The log(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(log(M)) stages of logic operation.  Optimized implementations 
      of arithmetic operations are also O(log(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(log(M)) 
      operation. 
       
      Hashing functions come in a variety of forms.  The computation 
      involved in a standard Cyclic Redundancy Code (CRC) for example 
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 26] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      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(log(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.  In some 
      applications (see Section below) a second hash may be calculated 
      on only selected packets; MD5 is feasible for this purpose if the 
      rate of production of selected packets is sufficiently low. 
          
   11.       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 of IPFIX, at least in the broad classes of applications 
      supported.  The major benefit of PSAMP is the support of new 
      network management applications, specifically, those enabled by 
      the packet Selectors that it supports.  
       
   11.1    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 
      selection fraction 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 Configured 
      Selection Fraction, or by the Attained Selection Fraction (as 
      derived from input packet counters included in the Report Stream)  
       

    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 27] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      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 Metering Process on the same 
      Observed Packet Stream from which the subset was reported.  The 
      Selection Process of the new Metering Process filters according 
      to the attribute of interest, and composes with sampling if 
      necessary to manage the attained fraction of packets selected. 
       
   11.2    Trajectory Sampling 
       
       
      The goal of trajectory sampling is the selection of a subset of  
      packets at all enabled Observation Points at which they are 
      observed in a network domain.  Thus the selection decisions are 
      consistent in the sense that each packet is selected either at 
      all enabled Observation Points, or at none of them.  Trajectory 
      sampling is realized by hash-based selection if all enabled 
      Observation Points apply a common hash function to a portion of 
      the Packet Content that is invariant along the packet path.  
      (Thus, fields such at TTL and CRC are excluded). 
       
      The trajectory followed by a packet is reconstructed from Packet 
      Reports on it that reach the Collector.  Reports on a given 
      packet are associated either by matching a label comprising the 
      invariant reported Packet Content, or possibly some digest of it.  
      The reconstruction of trajectories, and methods for dealing with 
      possible ambiguities due to label collisions (identical labels 
      reported by different packets) and potential loss of reports in 
      transmission are dealt with in [DuGr01], [DuGeGr02] and [DuGr04]. 
       
   11.3    Passive Performance Measurement 
         
      Trajectory 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.  Rates of loss in transit 
      between ingress and egress are estimated from the proportion of 
      trajectories for which no egress report is received.  Note that 
      loss of customer packets is distinguishable from loss of packet 
      reports through use of report sequence numbers.  Assuming 
      synchronization of clocks between different entities, delay of 
      customer traffic across the network may also be measured; see 
      [Zs02]. 
       


    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 28] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      Extending hash-selection to all interfaces in the network would 
      enable attribution of poor performance to individual network 
      links. 
       
   11.4    Troubleshooting 
       
      PSAMP Packet Reports 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 [RFC-1213] 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 11.1, 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 
      Distributed Denial of Service(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 
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 29] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      operator should be able to examine in 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 provided by trajectory 
      sampling 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.  
       
   12.       Security Considerations 
       
         Security considerations are addressed in: 
        
         - Section 4.1: item Robust Selection 
         - Section 4.3: item Secure Export   
         - Section 4.4: item Secure Configuration 
       
      Security considerations for the choice of hash function for hash-
      based selection are discussed in [PSAMP-TECH]. 
    
   13.       IANA Considerations  
       
      This document has no actions for IANA 
         
   14.       References 
       
    
   14.1    Normative References 
    
       
      [PSAMP-TECH] T. Zseby, M. Molina, F. Raspall, N. G. Duffield, S. 
              Niccolini, Sampling and Filtering Techniques for IP 
              Packet Selection, RFC XXXX. [Currently Internet Draft,  
              draft-ietf-psamp-sample-tech-07.txt, work in progress, 
              July 2005. 
       
      [PSAMP-MIB] T. Dietz, B. Claise, Definitions of Managed Objects 
              for Packet Sampling, RFC XXXX. [Currently Internet Draft, 
              draft-ietf-psamp-mib-06.txt, work in progress, June 
              2006.] 
       
      [PSAMP-PROTO] B. Claise (Ed.) Packet Sampling (PSAMP) Protocol 
              Specifications, RFC XXXX. [Currently Internet Draft 
              draft-ietf-psamp-protocol-07.txt, work in progress, 
              October 2006.] 
       
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 30] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      [PSAMP-INFO] T. Dietz, F. Dressler, G. Carle, B. Claise, 
              Information Model for Packet Sampling Exports, RFC XXXX.  
              [Currently Internet Draft, draft-ietf-psamp-info-05, 
              October  2006 
       
       
      [IPFIX-PROTO]   B. Claise (Ed.) IPFIX Protocol Specifications , 
              Internet Draft,  
              draft-ietf-ipfix-protocol-24.txt, November 2006. 
       
      [IPFIX-INFO] J. Quittek, S. Bryant, B. Claise, P. Aitken, J. 
              Meyer,  "Information Model for IP Flow Information 
              Export"  
              draft-ietf-ipfix-info-15, February 2007 
       
      [RFC-2960] R. Stewart, (ed.) "Stream Control Transmission 
              Protocol", RFC 2960, October 2000. 
       
      [RFC-3758] R. Stewart, M. Ramalho, Q. Xie, M. Tuexen, P. Conrad, 
              "SCTP Partial Reliability Extension", RFC 3758, May 2004. 
       
    
   14.2    Informative References 
       
            
           [RFC-2460] S. Deering, R. Hinden, Internet Protocol, Version 
              6 (IPv6) Specification, RFC 2460, December 1998. 
            
           [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. 
            
           [DuGr04] N. G. Duffield and M. Grossglauser, Trajectory 
              Sampling with Unreliable Reporting, Proc IEEE Infocom 
              2004, Hong Kong, March 2004, 
    
           [RFC-2914] S. Floyd, Congestion Control Principles, RFC 
              2914, September 2000. 
                 
           [RFC-2804] IAB and IESG, Network Working Group, IETF Policy 
              on Wiretapping, RFC 2804, May 2000 
            
           [RFC-1213] K. McCloghrie, M. Rose, Management Information 
              Base for Network Management of TCP/IP-based 
              internets:MIB-II, RFC 1213, March 1991. 
            
            
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 31] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
           [RFC-3176] P. Phaal, S. Panchen, N. McKee, InMon 
              Corporation's sFlow: A Method for Monitoring Traffic in 
              Switched and Routed Networks, RFC 3176, September 2001 
            
           [RFC-2330] V. Paxson, G. Almes, J. Mahdavi, M. Mathis, 
              Framework for IP Performance Metrics, RFC 2330, May 1998 
    
           [RFC-768]  Postel, J., "User Datagram Protocol" RFC 768, 
              August 1980 
    
           [RFC-3917] J. Quittek, T. Zseby, B. Claise, S. Zander, 
              Requirements for IP Flow Information Export, RFC 3917, 
              October 2004. 
            
           [RFC-4271]   Rekhter, Y., Li, T., Hares, S. "A Border 
              Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271, January 2006. 
                   
           [RFC-3031]  Rosen, E., Viswanathan, A. and R. Callon, 
              "Multiprotocol Label Switching Architecture", RFC 3031, 
              January 2001. 
    
           [Zs02] T. Zseby, ``Deployment of Sampling Methods for SLA 
              Validation with Non-Intrusive Measurements'', Proceedings 
              of Passive and Active Measurement Workshop (PAM 2002), 
              Fort Collins, CO, USA, March 25-26, 2002  
       
   15.       Authors' Addresses 
       
       
         Derek Chiou 
         Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering  
         University of Texas at Austin 
         1 University Station, Stop C0803, ENS Building room 135, 
         Austin TX, 78712, USA 
         Phone: +1 512 232 7722 
         Email: Derek@ece.utexas.edu 
       
       
         Benoit Claise 
         Cisco Systems 
         De Kleetlaan 6a b1 
         1831 Diegem 
         Belgium 
         Phone: +32 2 704 5622 
         Email: bclaise@cisco.com 
       
         Nick Duffield 
         AT&T Labs - Research 
         Room B139 
         180 Park Ave 
         Florham Park NJ 07932, USA 
         Phone: +1 973-360-8726 
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 32] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
         Email: duffield@research.att.com 
       
         Albert Greenberg 
         One Microsoft Way 
         Redmond, WA 98052-6399 
         USA 
         Phone: +1 425-722-8870 
         Email: albert@microsoft.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: + 1 408 527-6314 
         Email: peram@cisco.com 
    
         Jennifer Rexford 
         Department of Computer Science 
         Princeton University 
         35 Olden Street 
         Princeton, NJ 08540-5233, USA 
         Phone: +1 609-258-5182 
         Email: jrex@cs.princeton.edu 
       
        
         Ganesh Sadasivan  
         Cisco Systems  
         170 W. Tasman Drive  
         San Jose, CA 95134  
         Phone: (408) 527-0251  
         Email: gsadasiv@cisco.com 
       
   16.       Intellectual Property Statements 
       
      The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of 
      any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might 
      be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the 
      technology described in this document or the extent to which 
      any license under such rights might or might not be 
      available; nor does it represent that it has made any 
      independent effort to identify any such rights.  Information 
      on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can 
      be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. 
      Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and 
      any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the 
    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 33] 
    
   Internet Draft      Packet Selection and Reporting        May 2007 
    
    
      result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or 
      permission for the use of such proprietary rights by 
      implementers or users of this specification can be obtained 
      from the IETF on-line IPR repository at 
      http://www.ietf.org/ipr. 
       
      The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its 
      attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or 
      other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may 
      be required to implement this standard. Please address the 
      information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org. 
       
       
   17.       Copyright Statement 
       
      Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007). 
       
      This document is subject to the rights, licenses and 
      restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth 
      therein, the authors retain all their rights. 
       
   18.       Disclaimer 
       
      This document and the information contained herein are provided 
      on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE 
      REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE 
      IETF TRUST AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM 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. 
       




















    
   Duffield (Ed.)          Expires November 2007               [Page 34] 
    


PAFTECH AB 2003-20262026-04-23 02:58:22