MPLS-TE Basics, Pt.4 (Routing)
In this final section we will steer traffic into our tunnel. As a reminder here is the topology:
We currently have tun1 up which creates an LSP from R1 to XR5, but traffic is not using this tunnel yet, as we saw in the last section (Pt. 3).
The simplest way to steer traffic into this tunnel is to create a static route to the destination pointing out the tunnel interface:
As you can see, now IP traffic destined to 5.5.5.5 is routed through the tunnel along the CSPF bestpath.
Autoroute Announce
A better approach is to use the autoroute announce feature under the tunnel interface. This essentially inserts the tunnel as a valid path to the IGP when the router locally runs SPF. The tunnel is not advertised to other routers, but instead the tunnel is a usable link from the perspective of the local router’s IGP process.
Let’s remove the static route and use this feature.
Notice that the route is now know via ISIS. The metric is 40 which seems odd, as the metric should be 50, right? (R1-R2=10, R2-R4=10, R4-XR3=10, XR3-XR5=10, XR5-Lo0=10).
(IGP cost of the path the tunnel takes)
The reason it is 40 is because, by deafult, the tunnel metric will be the IGP shortest metric to that destination, not the metric of the real path that the tunnel takes.
(IGP shortest path cost to 5.5.5.5/32, which the tunnel uses for its metric).
We can change the metric that the tunnel is announced as by using tunnel mpls traffic-eng autoroute metric.
absolute sets an explicit value for the tunnel metric.
relative can be a value from -10 to +10 and sets the tunnel metric to a value relative to the IGP bestpath to that destination. For example, if I use relative -5, the metric will now be 35.
So if the IGP sees a TE tunnel with cost 40, and IGP path with cost 40, why is traffic not load balanced? This is due to a very specific rule when it comes to load balancing with TE tunnels. If the destination (in this case 5.5.5.5) is in the IP forwarding path, then no load balancing occurs, only the tunnel is used. If the destination is not in the IP forwarding path and that path has an equal cost to a tunnel, then load balancing does occur.
How exactly can the destination not be in the IP forwarding path? If there is a destination beyond XR5, such as R6, and there is an IP path that does not take XR5, then it is possible to load balance traffic to R6 with the IP route and the TE tunnel.
Let’s experiment with this. Change the tunnel metric to a relative value of positive 5 and see what happens in the routing table.
The routing entry is back to the IP route with a best path of 40. SPF evaluated the tunnel with a cost of 45 and the IGP path with cost 40 wins.
Let’s change the tunnel to a metric 5 below the IGP cost.
The best path is tunnel1 again.
As a review, what happens if you remove the autoroute metric altogether?
Answer: The tunnel defaults to a metric equal to the IGP shortest path to the destination, which is 40. SPF sees two equal cost paths, but the IGP path contains the destination (5.5.5.5) so it is not eligible for load balancing. Only the tunnel is used.
Forwarding Adjacency (FA)
We can take this one step further and advertise the tunnel into the IGP so other routers can use it in their path calculations. This feature is called forwarding adjacency, sometimes abreviated as FA. To do this, you need a bidirectional LSP in order to create a sort of p2p link from the IGP’s perspective. Right now we have a unidirectional LSP only - from R1 to XR5. The IGP on other routers will only use this “link” in calculations if there is an LSP in the opposite direction, from XR5 to R1. Let’s create this LSP on XR5 and advertise the tunnel into the IGP. This also gives us an opprotunity to configure a TE tunnel on XR.
R1 now has a p2p connection to XR5. The default ISIS metric of an interface is 10, which is why the tunnel is advertised with a metric of 10.
Forwarding Adjacency with OSPF
OSPF has a few quirks when using forwarding adjacency that are worth pointing out.
When enabling forwarding-adjacency with OSPF on a tunnel interface, OSPF calculates the cost using the bandwidth as it would for a normal interface. The problem is that, by default, the tunnel bandwidth is very low, at least on the CSR1000v platform that I am using to test with.
The RSVP bandwidth reservation (tunnel mpls traffic-eng bandwidth) has nothing to do with the tunnel “physical line” bandwidth as seen by OSPF. You can either set the bandwidth of the tunnel using the normal bandwidth command, or just explicitly set the cost using ip ospf cost.
Secondly, the way you enable OSPF for the interface is a little counter-intuitive. You might think you can simply add tunnel mpls traffic-eng forwarding-adjacency and it will be advertised. But you also need to “advertise” the link into OSPF just like a regular interface. You either add ip ospf 1 area 0 to the tunnel interface, or add the unnumbered source of the tunnel (usually lo0) as a network statement under the ospf process.
If the loopback is already included in a network statement, the tunnel will also be advertised automatically. But if the loopback is activated for ospf via the interface command (as seen below) you will need to either do the same for the tunnel interface, or create a network statement matching the loopback.
Achieving “unequal” cost load balancing using FA
By using FA, you can (arguably) achieve unequal-cost load balancing. I say arguably, because you are still using equal cost multipath, but the underlay is actually unequal cost.
For example, in the diagram below, R1 has two unequal paths to R7. The cost of all links is 100 (all links are 1G, using an auto-reference bandwidth of 100G).
If we create two bidirectional tunnels between R2/R7 and R3/R7, and announce them to the IGP using the same metric, we can create equal cost load balancing using an “unequal cost underlay.”
R1 has two equal cost paths to R7, with a cost of 151 for each. (100 to R2 or R3, 50 for the tunnel, 1 for the R7 loopback).
Conclusion
This concludes the series which gave you an overview of the basics of MPLS-TE. We saw how the TED works and is populated by the IGP. We experimented with RSVP and saw how it creates a path and advertises the label for the tunnel. We saw how CSPF works and explored some options for steering traffic along a path that differs from the IGP best path. Finally, we saw how we can actually route traffic over our MPLS-TE tunnel.
Further Reading
MPLS Fundamentals, Luc De Ghein, Chapter 8
I would highly recommend this chapter. It covers everything you saw in this series, and more.
Last updated
