6.8.17. Concatenated Paths

If the path being monitored by BFD is concatenated with other paths (connected end-to-end in series), it may be desirable to propagate the indication of a failure of one of those paths across the BFD session (providing an interworking function for liveness monitoring between BFD and other technologies).

Two diagnostic codes are defined for this purpose: Concatenated Path Down and Reverse Concatenated Path Down. The first propagates forward path failures (in which the concatenated path fails in the direction toward the interworking system), and the second propagates reverse path failures (in which the concatenated path fails in the direction away from the interworking system, assuming a bidirectional link).

A system MAY signal one of these failure states by simply setting bfd.LocalDiag to the appropriate diagnostic code. Note that the BFD session is not taken down. If Demand mode is not active on the remote system, no other action is necessary, as the diagnostic code will be carried via the periodic transmission of BFD Control packets. If Demand mode is active on the remote system (the local system is not transmitting periodic BFD Control packets), a Poll Sequence MUST be initiated to ensure that the diagnostic code is transmitted. Note that if the BFD session subsequently fails, the diagnostic code will be overwritten with a code detailing the cause of the failure. It is up to the interworking agent to perform the above procedure again, once the BFD session reaches Up state, if the propagation of the concatenated path failure is to resume.