Vendor Specific LISP Canonical Address Format (LCAF)

The LISP Canonical Address Format (LCAF) defines the format and encoding for different address types that can be used on LISP deployments. However, certain deployments require specific format encodings that may not be applicable outside of the use-case for which they are defined. This document extends to introduce a Vendor Specific LCAF that defines how organizations can create LCAF addresses to be used only on particular LISP implementations. This document also updates to specify the behavior when receiving unrecognized LCAF Types.

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

does not explain how an implementation should handle unrecognized LCAF Type. This document updates to specify that any unrecognized LCAF Type received in a LISP control plane message MUST be ignored. If all Locators are ignored, this is equivalent to a LISP control message with Locator Count = 0, as described in . If an EID-Prefix only contains unrecognized LCAF Types, the LISP control message MUST be dropped and the event MUST be logged.

The Vendor Specific LCAF relies on using the IEEE Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) to prevent collisions across vendors or organizations using the LCAF. The format of the Vendor Specific LCAF is provided below.

The fields in the first 8 octets of the above Vendor Specific LCAF are actually the fields defined in the general LCAF format specified in . The "Type" field MUST be set to the value assigned by IANA to indicate that this is a Vendor Specific LCAF (255 is recommended, see ). The Length field has to be set accordingly to the length of the internal format plus the OUI plus the Rsvd3 fields as for . The fields defined by the Vendor Specific LCAF are: Rsvd3: This 8-bit field is reserved for future use. It MUST be set to 0 on transmit and MUST be ignored on receipt. Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI): This is a 24-bit field that carries an OUI or CID (Company ID) assigned by the IEEE Registration Authority (RA) as defined by the IEEE Std 802 Internal format: This is a variable length field that is left undefined on purpose. Each vendor or organization can define its own internal format(s) to use with the Vendor Specific LCAF. The Vendor Specific LCAF type SHOULD NOT be used in deployments where different organizations interoperate. However, there may be cases where two (or more) organizations share a common deployment on which they explicitly and mutually agree to use a particular Vendor Specific LCAF. In that case, the organizations involved need to carefully assess the interoperability concerns for that particular deployment. It is NOT RECOMMENDED to use an OUI not assigned to an organization. If a LISP device receives a LISP message containing a Vendor Specific LCAF with an OUI that it does not understand, it MUST drop the message and it SHOULD create a log message.

This document enables organizations to define new LCAFs for their internal use. It is the responsibility of these organizations to properly assess the security implications of the formats they define. Security considerations from apply to this document.

The authors would like to thank Joel Halpern, Luigi Iannone, and Alvaro Retana for their suggestions and guidance regarding this document.

Following the guidelines of , IANA is asked to assign a value (255 is suggested) for the Vendor Specific LCAF from the "LISP Canonical Address Format (LCAF) Types" registry (defined in ) as follows: Value # LISP LCAF Type Name Reference TBD Vendor Specific [This Document],