Internet Draft



Internet Draft                                           Cengiz Alaettinoglu
Expires  October 23, 1997                                            USC/ISI
draft-ietf-rps-rpsl-02.txt                                        Tony Bates
                                                               Cisco Systems
                                                                Elise Gerich
                                                             At Home Network
                                                           Daniel Karrenberg
                                                                        RIPE
                                                                 David Meyer
                                                        University of Oregon
                                                             Marten Terpstra
                                                                Bay Networks
                                                           Curtis Villamizer
                                                                         ANS
                                                              April 23, 1997



                Routing Policy Specification Language (RPSL)




Status of this Memo


This Internet  Draft  is  the  reference document  for  the  Routing  Policy
Specification Language (RPSL). RPSL allows a network operator to be able  to
specify routing policies at  various levels in  the Internet hierarchy;  for
example at the Autonomous  System (AS) level.   At  the same time,  policies
can be specified  with sufficient detail  in RPSL so  that low level  router
configurations can be generated from them.  RPSL is extensible; new  routing
protocols and new protocol features can be introduced at any time.

This document is an Internet Draft, and can be found as draft-ietf-rps-rpsl-
02.txt in any  standard internet  drafts repository.    Internet Drafts  are
working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its  Areas,
and its Working Groups.  Note that other groups may also distribute  working
documents as Internet Drafts.

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Internet Drafts may be  updated, replaced, or  obsoleted by other  documents
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Please check  the I-D  abstract  listing contained  in each  Internet  Draft
directory to learn the current status of this or any other Internet Draft.
Internet Draft                      RPSL                      April 23, 1997

Contents


1 Introduction                                                             3

2 RPSL Names, Reserved Words, and Representation                           4


3 mntner Class                                                             6

4 person Class                                                             7


5 route Class                                                              8

6 Set Classes                                                              9

  6.1 route-set Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

  6.2 as-set Class  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

  6.3 Predefined Set Objects  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

  6.4 Hierarchical Set Names  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12


7 aut-num Class                                                           13

  7.1 import Attribute:  Import Policy Specification  . . . . . . . . . . 13

    7.1.1Peering Specification  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

    7.1.2Action Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

    7.1.3Filter Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

    7.1.4Example Policy Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

  7.2 export Attribute:  Export Policy Specification  . . . . . . . . . . 21

   7.3 Other  Routing  Protocols, Multi-Protocol  Routing Protocols,  and
    Injecting Routes Between Protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22

  7.4 Ambiguity Resolution  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

  7.5 default Attribute:  Default Policy Specification  . . . . . . . . . 25

  7.6 Structured Policy Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

8 dictionary Class                                                        30



Alaettinoglu et.  al.           Expires  October 23, 1997           [Page 2]
Internet Draft                      RPSL                      April 23, 1997

  8.1 Initial RPSL Dictionary and Example Policy Actions and Filters  . . 33

9 Advanced route Class                                                    38

  9.1 Specifying Static Routes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

  9.2 Specifying Aggregate Routes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39


10inet-rtr Class                                                          41

11inet-tunnel Class and Specifying Tunnels                                42


12Security Consideration                                                  45

13Acknowledgements                                                        45


A Routing Registry Sites                                                  47

B Authors' Addresses                                                      47































Alaettinoglu et.  al.           Expires  October 23, 1997           [Page 3]
Internet Draft                      RPSL                      April 23, 1997

1 Introduction


This Internet  Draft  is  the  reference document  for  the  Routing  Policy
Specification Language (RPSL). RPSL allows a network operator to be able  to
specify routing policies at  various levels in  the Internet hierarchy;  for
example at the Autonomous  System (AS) level.   At  the same time,  policies
can be specified  with sufficient detail  in RPSL so  that low level  router
configurations can be generated from them.  RPSL is extensible; new  routing
protocols and new protocol features can be introduced at any time.

RPSL is a  replacement for  the current Internet  de-facto standard  routing
policy specification  language  known  as  RIPE-181  [6]  or  RFC-1786  [7].
RIPE-81 [8] was the first language  deployed in the Internet for  specifying
routing policies.  It was later replaced by RIPE-181 [6].

Through operational  use of  RIPE-181 it  has become  apparent that  certain
policies cannot be specified and a need for an enhanced and more generalized
language is needed.  RPSL addresses RIPE-181's limitations.  RPSL is  object
oriented; that  is,  objects contain  pieces  of policy  and  administrative
information.  These objects are registered in the Internet Routing  Registry
(IRR) by the authorized organizations.   The registration process is  beyond
the scope of this document.  Please refer to [2] and [4] for more details on
the IRR.

In the following sections,  we present the classes  that are used to  define
various policy  and administrative  objects.    The "mntner"  class  defines
entities authorized  to add,  delete  and modify  a  set of  objects.    The
"person" class  describes technical  and administrative  contact  personnel.
Autonomous systems (ASes) are specified using  the "aut-num" class.   Routes
are specified using  the "route"  class.   Sets of  ASes and  routes can  be
defined using  the  "as-set" and  "route-set"  classes.    The  "dictionary"
class provides the  extensibility to  the language.    The "inet-rtr"  class
is used  to specify  routers.   Tunnels  are specified  using  "inet-tunnel"
class.  Many of these  classes were originally defined in earlier  documents
[6, 18, 20, 17, 5] and have all been enhanced.

This document is self-contained.  However, the reader is encouraged to  read
RIPE-181 [7] and the  associated documents [18, 20,  17, 5] as they  provide
significant background as to th