Thursday, January 12, 2017

OSPF graceful restart in EXOS


OSPFv3 Graceful restart

To protect data plane during the events on Control plane like failover, process restart etc., Graceful restart can be used. In EXOS OSPFv3 Graceful restart supported from 16.2

Without Graceful restart



Without graceful restart, adjacent routers will assume that information previously received from the restarting router is stale and will not be used to forward traffic to that router.

With Graceful restart

However, in many cases, two conditions exist that allow the router restarting OSPF to continue to forward traffic correctly. The first condition is that forwarding can continue while the control function is restarted. Most modern router system designs separate the forwarding function from the control function so that traffic can still be forwarded independent of the state of the OSPF function. Routes learned through OSPF remain in the routing table and packets continue to be forwarded. The second condition required for graceful restart is that the network remain stable during the restart period. If the network topology is not changing, the current routing table remains correct. Often, networks can remain stable during the time for restarting OSPF.

Restarting and helper mode



Routers involved with graceful restart fill one of two roles: the restarting router or the helper router.
With graceful restart, the router that is restarting sends out Grace-LSAs informing its neighbors that it is in graceful restart mode, how long the helper router should assist with the restart (the grace period), and why the restart occurred. If the neighboring routers are configured to help with the graceful restart (helper-mode), they will continue to advertise the restarting router as if it was fully adjacent. Traffic continues to be routed as though the restarting router is fully functional.
  If the network topology changes, the helper routers will stop advertising the restarting router. The helper router will continue in helper mode until the restarting router indicates successful termination of graceful restart, the Grace-LSAs expire, or the network topology changes. A router can be configured for graceful restart, and for helper-mode separately. A router can be a helper when its neighbor restarts, and can in turn be
helped by a neighbor if it restarts.

Planned and Unplanned Restarts

Two types of graceful restarts are defined: planned and unplanned.
A planned restart would occur if the software module for OSPFv3 was upgraded, or if the router operator decided to restart the OSPF control function for some reason. The router has advance warning, and is able to inform its neighbors in advance that OSPF is restarting.
An unplanned restart would occur if there was some kind of system failure that caused a remote rebootor a crash of OSPFv3, or a failover occurs. As OSPFv3 restarts, it informs its neighbors that it is in themidst of an unplanned restart.
You can decide to configure a router to enter graceful restart for only planned restarts, for only unplanned restarts, or for both. Also, you can separately decide to configure a router to be a helper for only planned, only unplanned, or for both kinds of restarts.

OSPFv3 Graceful restart Configuration

Configure a router to perform graceful OSPFv3 restart:
configure ospfv3 restart [none | planned | unplanned | both]
Configure a router interface to act as a graceful OSPFv3 restart helper:
configure ospfv3 [[vlan | tunnel] all | {vlan} vlan-name | {tunnel} tunnelname | area area-identifier] restart-helper [none | planned | unplanned |both]
The graceful restart period sent out to helper routers can be configured with the following command:
configure ospfv3 restart grace-period seconds
Disable or enable helper router LSA check:
disable ospfv3 [[vlan | tunnel] all | vlanvlan-name | {tunnel} tunnel-name |area area-identifier] restart-helper-lsa-check
enable ospfv3 [[vlan | tunnel] all | {vlan} vlan-name | {tunnel} tunnel-name |area area-identifier] restart-helper-lsa-check
By default, a helper router will terminate graceful restart if received LSAs would affect the restarting router. This will occur when the restart-helper receives an LSA that will be flooded to the restarting router or when there is a changed LSA on the restarting router's retransmission list when graceful restart is initiated.

No comments:

Post a Comment