Subject: [sidr] A chair consensus statement on route leaks and forward plan

From: "Murphy, Sandra" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 09:49:09 +0000

A chair consensus statement on route leaks and forward plan

Route leaks have been mentioned and discussed at length in the working group and in working group meetings many times.

One view is that route leaks are a critical concern to many operators and so should be included in the work of this working group.

The opposing view is that route leaks are not in scope of the wg charter.  Route leaks are presently ill-defined and even the common understanding seems to rely on arrangements between neighbors that are presently unpublished, and are not carried in the BGP protocol.

There were discussions and individual draft proposals for mechanisms that could extend the BGP protocol to communicate and enforce route leak constraints.

The rough consensus of the working group was that route leaks are an important problem but not presently within the scope of possible work in this working group.  The plan to address the problem has three steps – first, that definition and requirements would be considered in other working groups, then mechanisms for protection possibly including extensions to bgp could be developed, and then security protections for those mechanisms could be developed.  At present, definition and requirements is in the scope of the GROW working group, and any identified extensions to bgp that result would be in the scope of the IDR working group. 

At this point in time, the GROW working group has adopted one work item to define route leaks and has a draft under consideration.  It is not possible to state definitively that this work will progress or what the results or next steps will be.

--Sandy, speaking for the co-chairs