US 2026/0156069 A1 · SRV6 POLICY TYPE FOR PACKET PATH TRACING IN LARGE DIAMETER NETWORKS

Abstract

The present disclosure provides systems and methods for enabling packet path tracing (PT) in large diameter networks that would otherwise exceed a hop limit imposed by hardware edit-depth limitations. Upon determining that a Midpoint Compressed Data (MCD) stack of a packet header is full, a PT Encapsulation and Copy (PEC) enabled midpoint node can apply an encapsulation protocol that generates a new header grouping that encapsulates a previous header grouping therein, copies information from the previous header grouping into the new header grouping, and adds a new MCD stack to the packet header for further population of path tracing data and to ensure that the packet remains along the intended path. The encapsulation protocol ensures that the new header grouping remains within the edit-depth of each midpoint node encountered by the packet. The path tracing information can be combined at a controller resulting in full path information for the packet.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method, comprising:

collecting, at a first stack of a first hop-by-hop header of a first header group of a packet, a set of hop-by-hop information across a plurality of nodes within a network that are encountered by the packet along a path of the packet, wherein the first stack is capable of storing a maximum capacity of hop-by-hop information;
determining, at a midpoint node of the plurality of nodes, that the first stack of the first hop-by-hop header has reached the maximum capacity;
generating, based on the determination that the first stack of the first hop-by-hop header has reached the maximum capacity, a second header group that encapsulates the first header group;
copying contents of a first IPv6 header of the first header group into the second IPv6 header of the second header group;
and
updating a payload length field of a second IPV6 header of the second header group to reflect a new length of the packet.

3 more elements

A system, comprising:

a midpoint node of a plurality of nodes of a network, the midpoint node including a processor in communication with a memory and a network interface, the memory including instructions, which, when executed, cause the processor to:
receive, at the processor, a packet including a first hop-by-hop header of a first header group, the first hop-by-hop header including a first stack that includes a set of hop-by-hop information across the plurality of nodes within the network that are encountered by the packet along a path of the packet, wherein the first stack is capable of storing a maximum capacity of hop-by-hop information;
determine, at the processor, that the first stack of the first hop-by-hop header has reached the maximum capacity;
generate, based on the determination that the first stack of the first hop-by-hop header has reached the maximum capacity, a second header group that encapsulates the first header group;
copy contents of a first IPv6 header of the first header group into a second IPV6 header of the second header group;
and
update a payload length field of the second IPV6 header of the second header group to reflect a new length of the packet.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Srv6 policy type for packet path tracing in large diameter networks

Life of this patent

Srv6 policy type for packet path tracing in large diameter networks

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20