4. Basic Overview
4. Basic Overview
One key concept of LISP is that end-systems (hosts) operate the same way they do today. The IP addresses that hosts use for tracking sockets and connections, and for sending and receiving packets, do not change. In LISP terminology, these IP addresses are called Endpoint Identifiers (EIDs).
Routers continue to forward packets based on IP destination addresses. When a packet is LISP encapsulated, these addresses are referred to as Routing Locators (RLOCs). Most routers along a path between two hosts will not change; they continue to perform routing/ forwarding lookups on the destination addresses. For routers between the source host and the ITR as well as routers from the ETR to the destination host, the destination address is an EID. For the routers between the ITR and the ETR, the destination address is an RLOC.
Another key LISP concept is the "Tunnel Router". A Tunnel Router prepends LISP headers on host-originated packets and strips them prior to final delivery to their destination. The IP addresses in this "outer header" are RLOCs. During end-to-end packet exchange between two Internet hosts, an ITR prepends a new LISP header to each packet, and an ETR strips the new header. The ITR performs EID-to-RLOC lookups to determine the routing path to the ETR, which has the RLOC as one of its IP addresses.
Some basic rules governing LISP are:
o End-systems (hosts) only send to addresses that are EIDs. They don't know that addresses are EIDs versus RLOCs but assume that packets get to their intended destinations. In a system where LISP is deployed, LISP routers intercept EID-addressed packets and assist in delivering them across the network core where EIDs cannot be routed. The procedure a host uses to send IP packets does not change.
o EIDs are always IP addresses assigned to hosts.
o LISP routers mostly deal with Routing Locator addresses. See details in Section 4.1 to clarify what is meant by "mostly".
o RLOCs are always IP addresses assigned to routers, preferably topologically oriented addresses from provider CIDR (Classless Inter-Domain Routing) blocks.
o When a router originates packets, it may use as a source address either an EID or RLOC. When acting as a host (e.g., when terminating a transport session such as Secure SHell (SSH), TELNET, or the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)), it may use an EID that is explicitly assigned for that purpose. An EID that identifies the router as a host MUST NOT be used as an RLOC; an EID is only routable within the scope of a site. A typical BGP configuration might demonstrate this "hybrid" EID/RLOC usage where a router could use its "host-like" EID to terminate iBGP sessions to other routers in a site while at the same time using RLOCs to terminate eBGP sessions to routers outside the site.
o Packets with EIDs in them are not expected to be delivered end-to-end in the absence of an EID-to-RLOC mapping operation. They are expected to be used locally for intra-site communication or to be encapsulated for inter-site communication.
o EID-Prefixes are likely to be hierarchically assigned in a manner that is optimized for administrative convenience and to facilitate scaling of the EID-to-RLOC mapping database. The hierarchy is based on an address allocation hierarchy that is independent of the network topology.
o EIDs may also be structured (subnetted) in a manner suitable for local routing within an Autonomous System (AS).
An additional LISP header MAY be prepended to packets by a TE-ITR when re-routing of the path for a packet is desired. A potential use-case for this would be an ISP router that needs to perform Traffic Engineering for packets flowing through its network. In such a situation, termed "Recursive Tunneling", an ISP transit acts as an additional ITR, and the RLOC it uses for the new prepended header would be either a TE-ETR within the ISP (along an intra-ISP traffic engineered path) or a TE-ETR within another ISP (an inter-ISP traffic engineered path, where an agreement to build such a path exists).
In order to avoid excessive packet overhead as well as possible encapsulation loops, this document mandates that a maximum of two LISP headers can be prepended to a packet. For initial LISP deployments, it is assumed that two headers is sufficient, where the first prepended header is used at a site for Location/Identity separation and the second prepended header is used inside a service provider for Traffic Engineering purposes.
Tunnel Routers can be placed fairly flexibly in a multi-AS topology. For example, the ITR for a particular end-to-end packet exchange might be the first-hop or default router within a site for the source host. Similarly, the ETR might be the last-hop router directly connected to the destination host. Another example, perhaps for a VPN service outsourced to an ISP by a site, the ITR could be the site's border router at the service provider attachment point. Mixing and matching of site-operated, ISP-operated, and other Tunnel Routers is allowed for maximum flexibility. See Section 8 for more details.