RFC 9184

BGP Extended Community Registries Update

📅 published January 2022, from ietf

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 💖

Okay bestie, let's get into this one. ✨ This is RFC 9184: BGP Extended Community Registries Update, and it's written by C. Loibl from next layer Telekom GmbH 🎀 It came out in January 2022 and it's a Standards Track document 🔥

It updates RFC 7153 and RFC 8955, so it's changing things those two already set up. 🦋 It doesn't obsolete anything, which means nothing gets thrown out, just tweaked 💅

The whole point is to fix some IANA registry entries that were labeled "Experimental Use" even though they're clearly being used for real, non-experimental stuff. Super misleading, honestly 🙈

The IETF document is still in its original state and in the same IETF namespace, so you can find the official version at https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9184 🌸

Abstract ✨

This doc updates a bunch of BGP Extended Community registries so that the "Experimental Use" registration procedure gets replaced in some entries. Why? Because those codepoints are not experimental at all, and calling them that is just confusing 💀

It updates RFC 7153 and RFC 8955 🌈

Status of This Memo 🎀

This is an Internet Standards Track document, meaning it's an official standard, not just an idea floating around 👑

It's a product of the IETF and it reflects the consensus of the IETF community. It got public review and was approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). If you want more info on Internet Standards, check out Section 2 of RFC 7841 🫶

You can find the current status, any errata, and a way to send feedback at https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9184 💜

Copyright Notice 🌸

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) as they were in effect on the date of publication. Please actually read these, because they spell out your rights and restrictions 🙈 Any Code Components pulled out of this document have to include Revised BSD License text, as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions, and they come with no warranty, per the Revised BSD License 🧚

Table of Contents 🦋

1. Introduction
2. IANA Considerations
- 2.1. Registry: BGP Transitive Extended Community Types
- 2.2. Registry: Generic Transitive Experimental Use Extended Community Sub-Types
- 2.3. Registry: Generic Transitive Experimental Use Extended Community Part 2 Sub-Types
- 2.4. Registry: Generic Transitive Experimental Use Extended Community Part 3 Sub-Types
3. Security Considerations
4. References
- 4.1. Normative References
- 4.2. Informative References
Acknowledgements
Author's Address

1. Introduction 🌷

Okay so the IANA registries for the type values and sub-type values of the BGP Extended Communities attribute got reorganized by [RFC7153] 🧩 Now IANA keeps a registry called "BGP Transitive Extended Community Types," and it includes a range of type values (0x80-0x8F) that's reserved for Experimental Use [RFC8126] 🍓

Here's the tea: types 0x80, 0x81, and 0x82 were already being used out of that experimental range, in [RFC5575] and [RFC7674]. Both of those got obsoleted by [RFC8955] 😭 So the main use for those types and sub-type registries is non-experimental. Not experimental at all, bestie 💀

Section 2 is where the fix lives. It changes the registration procedure for types 0x80-0x82 from "Experimental Use" to "First Come First Served" [RFC8126], and it removes "Experimental Use" from the sub-type registry names too. That updates [RFC7153] and [RFC8955] ✨

2. IANA Considerations 🎀

2.1. Registry: BGP Transitive Extended Community Types 💅

IANA maintains a registry called "BGP Transitive Extended Community Types." IANA added RFC 9184 to the reference for this registry 🦋 They also renamed the type values according to Table 1, and they added RFC 9184 as a reference for the existing entries 🌈

+=======+==============================================+===========+
| Type  | Name                                         | Reference |
| Value |                                              |           |
+=======+==============================================+===========+
| 0x80  | Generic Transitive Extended Community (Sub-  | RFC 9184  |
|       | Types are defined in the "Generic Transitive |           |
|       | Extended Community Sub-Types" registry)      |           |
+-------+----------------------------------------------+-----------+
| 0x81  | Generic Transitive Extended Community Part 2 | RFC 9184  |
|       | (Sub-Types are defined in the "Generic       |           |
|       | Transitive Extended Community Part 2 Sub-    |           |
|       | Types" registry)                             |           |
+-------+----------------------------------------------+-----------+
| 0x82  | Generic Transitive Extended Community Part 3 | RFC 9184  |
|       | (Sub-Types are defined in the "Generic       |           |
|       | Transitive Extended Community Part 3 Sub-    |           |
|       | Types" registry)                             |           |
+-------+----------------------------------------------+-----------+

Table 1: Registry: BGP Transitive Extended Community Types 🍓

IANA also changed the registration procedures for this registry, for type values 0x80 through 0x82, to First Come First Served [RFC8126] ✨ The resulting registration procedures should look like Table 2 👑

+===========+===============================================+
| Range     | Registration Procedures                       |
+===========+===============================================+
| 0x00-0x3f | First Come First Served                       |
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+
| 0x80-0x82 | First Come First Served (see RFC 9184)        |
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+
| 0x83-0x8f | Reserved for Experimental Use (see [RFC3692]) |
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+
| 0x90-0xbf | Standards Action                              |
+-----------+-----------------------------------------------+

Table 2: Registration Procedures: BGP Transitive Extended Community Types 🧚

2.2. Registry: Generic Transitive Experimental Use Extended Community Sub-Types 🌸

IANA maintains a registry called "Generic Transitive Experimental Use Extended Community Sub-Types." IANA added RFC 9184 to the reference for this registry and renamed it to:

"Generic Transitive Extended Community Sub-Types"

No more "Experimental Use" in the name, slay 💅

2.3. Registry: Generic Transitive Experimental Use Extended Community Part 2 Sub-Types 🦋

IANA maintains a registry called "Generic Transitive Experimental Use Extended Community Part 2 Sub-Types." IANA added RFC 9184 to the reference for this registry and renamed it to:

"Generic Transitive Extended Community Part 2 Sub-Types"

2.4. Registry: Generic Transitive Experimental Use Extended Community Part 3 Sub-Types 🌈

IANA maintains a registry called "Generic Transitive Experimental Use Extended Community Part 3 Sub-Types." IANA added RFC 9184 to the reference for this registry and renamed it to:

"Generic Transitive Extended Community Part 3 Sub-Types"

3. Security Considerations 💀

There are no direct security considerations coming from this document 🫶 Nothing spicy here, so you can relax a little 🌸

4. References 📚

4.1. Normative References 💜

[RFC7153] Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "IANA Registries for BGP Extended Communities", RFC 7153, DOI 10.17487/RFC7153, March 2014, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7153>.

[RFC8126] Cotton, M., Leiba, B., and T. Narten, "Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 8126, DOI 10.17487/RFC8126, June 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8126>.

4.2. Informative References 🧚

[RFC3692] Narten, T., "Assigning Experimental and Testing Numbers Considered Useful", BCP 82, RFC 3692, DOI 10.17487/RFC3692, January 2004, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3692>.

[RFC5575] Marques, P., Sheth, N., Raszuk, R., Greene, B., Mauch, J., and D. McPherson, "Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules", RFC 5575, DOI 10.17487/RFC5575, August 2009, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5575>.

[RFC7674] Haas, J., Ed., "Clarification of the Flowspec Redirect Extended Community", RFC 7674, DOI 10.17487/RFC7674, October 2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7674>.

[RFC8955] Loibl, C., Hares, S., Raszuk, R., McPherson, D., and M. Bacher, "Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules", RFC 8955, DOI 10.17487/RFC8955, December 2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8955>.

Acknowledgements 🫶

The author wants to thank Alvaro Retana, who pointed out that the IANA registry had misleading entries in this context 🌷

Author's Address 🎀

Christoph Loibl next layer Telekom GmbH Mariahilfer Guertel 37/7 1150 Vienna Austria

Phone: +43 664 1176414 Email: cl@tix.at

That's the whole RFC, bestie! 🌈💖 Ate, slayed, and left no crumbs 💅✨

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