



IDR Working Group                                                J. Dong
Internet-Draft                                       Huawei Technologies
Intended status: Standards Track                                 R. Chen
Expires: 3 September 2026                                ZTE Corporation
                                                                 S. Wang
                                                           China Telecom
                                                                W. Jiang
                                                            China Mobile
                                                            2 March 2026


          BGP Flowspec for IETF Network Slice Traffic Steering
              draft-ietf-idr-flowspec-network-slice-ts-05

Abstract

   BGP Flow Specification (Flowspec) provides a mechanism to distribute
   traffic Flow Specifications and the forwarding actions to be
   performed to the specific traffic flows.  A set of Flowspec
   components are defined to specify the matching criteria that can be
   applied to the packet, and a set of BGP extended communities are
   defined to encode the actions a routing system can take on a packet
   which matches the flow specification.

   An IETF Network Slice enables connectivity between a set of Service
   Demarcation Points (SDPs) with specific Service Level Objectives
   (SLOs) and Service Level Expectations (SLEs) over a common underlay
   network.  To meet the connectivity and performance requirements of
   network slice services, network slice service traffic may need to be
   mapped to a corresponding Network Resource Partition (NRP).  The edge
   nodes of the NRP needs to identify the traffic flows of specific
   connectivity constructs of network slices, and steer the matched
   traffic into the corresponding NRP, or a specific path within the
   corresponding NRP.

   BGP Flowspec can be used to distribute the matching criteria and the
   forwarding actions to be performed on network slice service traffic.
   The existing Flowspec components can be reused for the matching of
   network slice services flows at the edge of an NRP.  New components
   and traffic action may need to be defined for steering network slice
   service flows into the corresponding NRP.  This document defines the
   extensions to BGP Flowspec for IETF network slice traffic steering
   (NS-TS).

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.



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   Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.1.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Matching Rules for Network Slice Traffic  . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.1.  NRP ID Component  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Network Slice Traffic Steering Actions  . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.1.  Traffic Steering to NRP specific BE Path  . . . . . . . .   5
       3.1.1.  Redirect to NRP specific Resource-aware Segment . . .   5
       3.1.2.  Encapsulate-NRP-ID Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.2.  Traffic Steering to NRP specific TE Path  . . . . . . . .   6
   4.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   6.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   7.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     7.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     7.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10







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1.  Introduction

   BGP Flow Specification (Flowspec) [RFC8955] [RFC8956] and BGP Flow
   Specification Version 2 [I-D.ietf-idr-fsv2-ip-basic] provide the BGP
   based mechanism to distribute traffic Flow Specifications and the
   forwarding actions to be performed to the matched traffic flows.  A
   set of Flowspec components are defined to specify the matching
   criteria that is applied to the packet, and a set of Traffic
   Filtering Action are defined to encode the actions a routing system
   can take on a packet which matches the flow specification.

   [RFC9543] defines the term "IETF Network Slice" and discusses the
   general framework for requesting and operating IETF Network Slices,
   their characteristics, and the necessary system components and
   interfaces.  As described in [RFC9543], an IETF Network Slice enables
   connectivity between a set of Service Demarcation Points (SDPs) with
   specific Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and Service Level
   Expectations (SLEs) over a common underlay network.  To meet the
   connectivity and performance requirements, network slice services may
   need to be mapped to a Network Resource Partition (NRP).  An NRP is a
   collection of resources (bufferage, queuing, scheduling, etc.) in the
   underlay network.  Each NRP can be identified using a unique NRP ID
   in control plane and management plane.  The NRP ID may also be
   encapsulated in data packet as an NRP Selector ID to guide the NRP-
   specific packet forwarding.  The edge nodes of an NRP needs to
   identify the traffic flows of specific connectivity constructs of
   network slices, and steer the matched packets into the corresponding
   NRP, so that the packet can be forwarded via either a shortest path
   or a Traffic Engineering (TE) path within the NRP.

   BGP Flowspec can be used to distribute the matching criteria and the
   forwarding actions to network nodes for steering the matched service
   traffic into an NRP.  The existing Flowspec components can be reused
   for the matching of network slice service flows.  New components and
   traffic actions may need to be defined for steering network slice
   service flows into the corresponding NRP.  This document defines the
   extensions to BGP Flowspec for IETF Network Slice Traffic Steering
   (NS-TS).

1.1.  Requirements Language

   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 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.





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2.  Matching Rules for Network Slice Traffic

   A set of traffic matching rules can be used as the criteria to match
   the traffic flows of specific connectivity constructs of IETF network
   slice.  The BGP Flowspec components as defined in [RFC8955] [RFC8956]
   can be used to specify the matching rules for network slice service
   packets.

   In some cases, such as for multi-domain network slices, data packets
   of a network slice are encapsulated with data plane NRP ID in an
   upstream network domain using the mechanisms as described in
   [I-D.ietf-6man-enhanced-vpn-vtn-id].  Then the ingress edge node of
   the downstream network domain may perform traffic matching based on
   the NRP ID in the packets and the corresponding network slice
   matching rules, so that the packets can be steered into a
   corresponding NRP in the local domain.  A new Flow component called
   NRP ID component is defined for this purpose.

2.1.  NRP ID Component

   The format of the NRP ID component follows the Flowspec encoding as
   defined in [I-D.ietf-idr-fsv2-ip-basic], which consists of 1-octet
   type field, 1-octet length field, and variable value field.  The type
   of NRP ID component is to be assigned by IANA.  The format of the
   value field is shown as below:

     1                   2                   3                   4
     0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
     |g|         Flags              |            Reserved            |
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
     |                            NRP ID                             |
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

   Where

   *  Flags: 2-octet flag field.  The first (most significant) bit is
      defined in this document, the rest of the flag bits SHOULD be set
      to zero on transmission and MUST be ignored on receipt.

   *  Global bit (g): When set, it indicates the NRP ID to be matched
         is a global unique NRP ID; otherwise the NRP ID is a domain
         significant NRP ID.  The g bit is used for an NRP which span
         multiple network domains, and a global NRP ID has been
         coordinated among these domains.

   *  Reserved: 2-octet reserved bits.  It SHOULD be set to zero on
      transmission and MUST be ignored on receipt.



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   *  NRP ID: A 4-octet identifier which is used to identify an NRP.

3.  Network Slice Traffic Steering Actions

   For data packets which match the Flow Specification of a network
   slice, specific forwarding actions need to be applied.  When the
   network slice service flows are mapped to an NRP in the underlay
   network, the packets of the flows need to be forwarded in the
   corresponding NRP using either a shortest (BE) path or a Traffic
   Engineering (TE) path.

   This section describes several actions to be performed on packets
   which match the Flow Specification of a network slice.

3.1.  Traffic Steering to NRP specific BE Path

   Packets of a network slice service flow can be steered into an NRP
   and forwarded to the NRP egress node following the shortest path with
   the NRP.  In this case, the identifier of the NRP needs to be carried
   in the packet so that the packet forwarding will be performed using
   the set of resources allocated to the NRP.  Depends on the type of
   the data plane NRP specific identifier, there are two options of this
   traffic steering.

3.1.1.  Redirect to NRP specific Resource-aware Segment

   When resource-aware SR segments
   [I-D.ietf-spring-resource-aware-segments] are used to represent the
   network resources allocated to an NRP, packets of a network slice
   could be steered into an NRP BE path by encapsulating the packets
   with a resource-aware segment of the egress node in the NRP.  For
   SRv6 data plane, this could be achieved by using the "redirect-to-IP"
   actions defined in [I-D.ietf-idr-flowspec-redirect-ip].  The
   mechanism for SR-MPLS data plane will be specified in a future
   version.

3.1.2.  Encapsulate-NRP-ID Action

   When a data plane NRP ID (called NRP Selector ID)
   [I-D.ietf-teas-nrp-scalability] is used to identify the set of
   network resources allocated to an NRP, packets of a network slice
   service flow could be steered into an NRP specific BE path by
   encapsulating the NRP Selector ID together with the IP address or the
   SR SID of the egress node in the NRP.

   For encapsulating the data plane NRP ID to the matched packets, a new
   BGP extended community is defined for the "Encapsulate-NRP-ID"
   action.  The format of this extended community is as below:



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       0                   1                   2                   3
       0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |     Type      |   Sub-Type    |E|           Flags             |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                            NRP ID                             |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
             Figure 1. The format of Encapsulate-NRP-ID action

   where:

   *  Type: 0x80.  It belongs to the Generic Transitive Extended
      Community Type as defined in [RFC9184].

   *  Sub-type: 1 octet to be assigned by IANA.

   *  Flags: 2-octet flag field.  The first bit is defined in this
      document.  The rest of the flags are unused, which SHOULD be set
      to zero on transmission and MUST be ignored on receipt.

   *  Encapsulate (E) bit: When set, it indicates the NRP ID MUST be
         encapsulated with an outer header to the packet.  Otherwise the
         NRP ID replaces the NRP ID in the existing header of the
         packet.

   *  NRP ID: A 4-octet identifier which is used to identify an NRP.

   If a packet matches the Flow Specification of an IETF network slice,
   and the traffic actions associated with the flow specification is the
   Encapsulate-NRP-ID action, then the packet is encapsulated with an
   corresponding NRP Selector ID in the packet header.  The mapping
   between the control plane NRP ID and the NRP Selector ID of a
   spedific data plane is maintained by the receiving BGP speaker.  The
   Encapsulate-NRP-ID action MAY be used together with the "Rediect-to-
   IP" action as defined in [I-D.ietf-idr-flowspec-redirect-ip], in that
   case the destination address of the outer IP header is set to the IP
   address in the redirect to IP next-hop action.  The IPv6
   encapsulation of NRP ID is specified in
   [I-D.ietf-6man-enhanced-vpn-vtn-id].  The encapsulation of NRP-ID in
   other data plane is for further study and out of the scope of this
   document.

3.2.  Traffic Steering to NRP specific TE Path

   Packets of a network slice can be steered into a TE path within the
   corresponding NRP.  In an SR network, the network slice traffic can
   be steered into an SR Policy [RFC9256] which is associated with the
   corresponding NRP.



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   In SR networks where the NRP is instantiated using NRP specific
   resource-aware segments [I-D.ietf-spring-resource-aware-segments],
   the segment list of the SR policy are built with resource-aware SR
   segments which represents the set of network resources allocated to
   the NRP on different network segments.

   In SR networks where the data plane NRP Selector ID is used to
   identify the set of network resources allocated to the NRP, the
   mechanism as defined in[I-D.ietf-idr-sr-policy-nrp] provides the BGP
   SR Policy extensions to associate an SR Policy candidate path with an
   NRP-ID.

   In both of the above two cases, the mechanism defined in
   [I-D.ietf-idr-ts-flowspec-srv6-policy] could be used to steer traffic
   to an SR Policy which is associated with an NRP.

4.  Security Considerations

   The security considerations of BGP [RFC4271] and BGP Flowspec
   [RFC8955] [RFC8956] apply to this document.

5.  IANA Considerations

   IANA is requested to assign a new type code point from "Flow Spec
   Component Types" registry.

            Type Value      IPv4 Name     IPv6 Name     Reference
            ----------     ----------    ----------    -------------
             TBA1            NRP ID        NRP ID      This document

   IANA is requested to assign a new sub-type from "Generic Transitive
   Extended Community Sub-Types" registry.

             Value            Description                Reference
             -----     ---------------------------     -------------
             TBA2      Flowspec Encapsulate-NRP-ID     This document

6.  Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank Haisheng Wu, Haibo Wang and Shunwan
   Zhuang for the review and discussion of this document.

7.  References

7.1.  Normative References






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   [I-D.ietf-idr-fsv2-ip-basic]
              Hares, S., Eastlake, D. E., Dong, J., Yadlapalli, C., and
              S. Maduschke, "BGP Flow Specification Version 2 - for
              Basic IP", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
              idr-fsv2-ip-basic-03, 3 March 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-idr-
              fsv2-ip-basic-03>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC4271]  Rekhter, Y., Ed., Li, T., Ed., and S. Hares, Ed., "A
              Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4271, January 2006,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4271>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

   [RFC8955]  Loibl, C., Hares, S., Raszuk, R., McPherson, D., and M.
              Bacher, "Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules",
              RFC 8955, DOI 10.17487/RFC8955, December 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8955>.

   [RFC8956]  Loibl, C., Ed., Raszuk, R., Ed., and S. Hares, Ed.,
              "Dissemination of Flow Specification Rules for IPv6",
              RFC 8956, DOI 10.17487/RFC8956, December 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8956>.

   [RFC9184]  Loibl, C., "BGP Extended Community Registries Update",
              RFC 9184, DOI 10.17487/RFC9184, January 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9184>.

7.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-6man-enhanced-vpn-vtn-id]
              Dong, J., Li, Z., Xie, C., Ma, C., and G. S. Mishra,
              "Carrying Network Resource (NR) related Information in
              IPv6 Extension Header", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
              draft-ietf-6man-enhanced-vpn-vtn-id-14, 11 February 2026,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-6man-
              enhanced-vpn-vtn-id-14>.






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   [I-D.ietf-idr-flowspec-redirect-ip]
              Haas, J., Henderickx, W., and A. Simpson, "BGP Flow-Spec
              Redirect-to-IP Action", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
              draft-ietf-idr-flowspec-redirect-ip-05, 13 February 2026,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-idr-
              flowspec-redirect-ip-05>.

   [I-D.ietf-idr-sr-policy-nrp]
              Dong, J., Hu, Z., and R. Pang, "BGP SR Policy Extensions
              for Network Resource Partition", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-idr-sr-policy-nrp-07, 11
              February 2026, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-ietf-idr-sr-policy-nrp-07>.

   [I-D.ietf-idr-ts-flowspec-srv6-policy]
              Wenying, J., Liu, Y., Zhuang, S., Mishra, G. S., and S.
              Chen, "Traffic Steering using BGP FlowSpec with SR
              Policy", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-idr-
              ts-flowspec-srv6-policy-08, 1 February 2026,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-idr-ts-
              flowspec-srv6-policy-08>.

   [I-D.ietf-spring-resource-aware-segments]
              Dong, J., Miyasaka, T., Zhu, Y., Qin, F., and Z. Li,
              "Introducing Resource Awareness to SR Segments", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-spring-resource-
              aware-segments-17, 19 January 2026,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-spring-
              resource-aware-segments-17>.

   [I-D.ietf-teas-nrp-scalability]
              Dong, J., Li, Z., Gong, L., Yang, G., and G. S. Mishra,
              "Scalability Considerations for Network Resource
              Partition", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
              teas-nrp-scalability-09, 11 February 2026,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-teas-
              nrp-scalability-09>.

   [RFC9256]  Filsfils, C., Talaulikar, K., Ed., Voyer, D., Bogdanov,
              A., and P. Mattes, "Segment Routing Policy Architecture",
              RFC 9256, DOI 10.17487/RFC9256, July 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9256>.

   [RFC9543]  Farrel, A., Ed., Drake, J., Ed., Rokui, R., Homma, S.,
              Makhijani, K., Contreras, L., and J. Tantsura, "A
              Framework for Network Slices in Networks Built from IETF
              Technologies", RFC 9543, DOI 10.17487/RFC9543, March 2024,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9543>.



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Authors' Addresses

   Jie Dong
   Huawei Technologies
   Email: jie.dong@huawei.com


   Ran Chen
   ZTE Corporation
   Email: chen.ran@zte.com.cn


   Subin Wang
   China Telecom
   Email: wangsb6@chinatelecom.cn


   Wenying Jiang
   China Mobile
   Email: jiangwenying@chinamobile.com































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