One document matched: draft-penno-pppoe-ext-service-00.txt

Network Working Group                                          R. Penno
Internet-Draft                                          Nortel Networks  
Expires: August, 2001                                    February, 2001
                                                         

                                                            
                                                                                                                            
                                                          
                                                          


            PPPoE Extensions For Seamless Service Selection 
                 draft-penno-pppoe-ext-service-00.txt                   

Status of this Memo


   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with 
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.


Abstract

   In the year following the publication of the PPPoE protocol much
   operational experience and customer feedback was gathered. One
   problem that access providers usually mention is that in order for 
   users to change ISPs or Service they need to manually disconnect and 
   reconnect their PPPoE client.

   We propose here a extension to the PPPoE protocol in which through a 
   new packet type a access concentrator can request a PPPoE client to 
   disconnect and reconnect to a new ISP or Service in a manner 
   transparent to the user






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Specification of Requirements

   The keywords MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD,
   SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL, when they appear in this
   document, are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [1].

Table of Contents

   1.      Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   2.      Introduction to the PPPoE Protocol. . . . . . . . . . . . .3
   3.      AC-Address TAG_TYPE and TAG_VALUE. . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   4.      The PPPoE Active Service Change (PADC) packet . . . . . . .3
   5.      Deployment Examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   6.      Security Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   10.     References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   11.     Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
           Author's Addresses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 
           Full Copyright Statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5


































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Internet-Draft     draft-penno-pppoe-ext-service-00.txt   February,2001



1. Introduction

   In the year following the publication of the PPPoE protocol much
   operational experience and customer feedback was gathered. One
   problem that access providers usually mention is that in order for 
   users to change ISPs or Service they need to manually disconnect and 
   reconnect their PPPoE client.

   We propose here a extension to the PPPoE protocol in which through a 
   new packet type a access concentrator can request a PPPoE client to 
   disconnect and reconnect to a new ISP, Service or Device in a manner 
   transparent to the user.

2. Introduction to the PPPoE Protocol

   The PPPoE protocol is relatively new, but its basic function is to 
   encapsulate PPP packets into Ethernet frames that will be de-
   encapsulated by the tunnel termination device.

   The PPPoE protocol has two stages; session and discover. PPP 
   session packets are encapsulated in the Ethernet frame with the 
   Ethertype equal to 0x8864. The Ethertype 0x8863 is used during 
   the discovering stage, where the user's PPPoE client tries to 
   identify the device that will terminate the PPPoE session. 

   To obtain further and more in depth information on the PPPoE 
   protocol refer to [RFC2516].


3. AC-Address TAG_TYPE and TAG_VALUE

   We introduce a new TAG_TYPE called AC-Address. The description 
   follows.

   0x0111 AC-Address

      This TAG indicates the UTF-8 rendition of the MAC address 
      of a Access concentrator.  It is not NULL terminated.

4. The PPPoE Active Service Change (PADC) packet

   This packet may be sent anytime after a session is established to
   indicate that a PPPoE session MUST be terminated and a new one 
   initiated to the Access Concentrator and Service-Name specified in
   the packet.  It may be sent by Access Concentrator only.  The
   DESTINATION_ADDR field is the unicast Ethernet address of the Host, 
   the CODE field is set to 0xb9 and the SESSION_ID MUST be set to 
   indicate which session is to be terminated. 
   


Penno, R.                                                      [Page 3]

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   The PADC packet MUST contain at least one TAG of TAG_TYPE Service-
   Name or AC-Address, indicating the Service or the the address of a 
   different Access Concentrator to which the new session MUST be 
   established.
   
   When a PADC is received, no further PPP traffic is allowed to be 
   Sent using that session.  Even normal PPP termination packets MUST 
   NOT be sent after sending or receiving a PADC.  A PPP peer SHOULD 
   use the PPP protocol itself to bring down a PPPoE session, but the 
   PADC MAY be used when PPP can not be used.

5. Deployment Examples

   Here we give some examples on how the PADC message with the
   respective AC-Address and Service-Name TAG-TYPES could be used in a 
   network.
  
    o Service or ISP Change
       
      In this model the user request to change his service profile or 
      ISP, usually through some web page, and Access concentrator 
      then sends a PADC message with a Service-Name TAG_TYPE.

      The web server and the Access concentrator usually communicate
      with each other through some out-of-band mechanism.

    o Access Concentrator Change

      If the Access concentrator experiences a problem or is schedule
      for downtime maintenance, it can send a PADC message to all 
      connected hosts asking them to reconnect to a different Access 
      Concentrator. In this case the PADC message would include just 
      the AC-Address TAG_TYPE.
 
    O Service and Access Concentrator Change

      If the user request a new service or ISP that is not available in 
      the Access Concentrator that it is currently connected, the 
      Access concentrator can send a PADC  message to the host 
      indicating the Address of a Access Concentrator where the
      requested service is available 


6. Security Considerations

   This is a extension to the PPPoE protocol, so the security 
   considerations mentioned therein also apply to this document. 






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7. References

   [RFC2516] Mamakos, et. al., "A Method for Transmitting PPP Over 
   Ethernet (PPPoE)", RFC 2516, February 1999

8. Acknowledgments 
    
   To be provided.  
  
   Author's Addresses 
    
   Reinaldo Penno
   Nortel Networks, Inc. 
   2305 Mission College Boulevard
   Building SC9  
   Santa Clara, CA 95134
   Email: rpenno@nortelnetworks.com 

Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.

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Acknowledgement

   Funding for the RFC editor function is currently provided by the
   Internet Society.


Penno, R.                                                      [Page 5]

Internet-Draft     draft-penno-pppoe-ext-service-00.txt   February,2001