Leaf (AR-L) procedures

An AR-L is configured as shown in the following example.

A:PE-3>config>service>vpls# info 
----------------------------------------------
            vxlan instance 1 vni 4000 create
                assisted-replication leaf replicator-activation-time 30
            bgp
            exit
            bgp-evpn
                evi 4000
                vxlan bgp 1 vxlan-instance 1
                    no shutdown
                exit
                mpls
                    shutdown
                exit
            exit
            stp
                shutdown
            exit
            sap 1/1/1:4000 create
                no shutdown
            exit
            no shutdown
----------------------------------------------

In this example configuration, the BGP advertises a new inclusive multicast route with a tunnel-type = IR, type (T) = AR-L and tunnel-id = originating-ip = next-hop = IR-IP (IP address terminating VXLAN normally, either system-ip or vxlan-src-vtep address).

The AR-L builds a single flooding list per service but controlled by the BM and U flags. These flags are displayed in the following show service id vxlan command example output.

A:PE-3# show service id 4000 vxlan 
===============================================================================
Vxlan Src Vtep IP: N/A
===============================================================================
VPLS VXLAN, Ingress VXLAN Network Id: 4000
Creation Origin: manual
Assisted-Replication: leaf      Replicator-Activation-Time: 30
RestProtSrcMacAct: none
===============================================================================
VPLS VXLAN service Network Specifics
===============================================================================
Ing Net QoS Policy : none                            Vxlan VNI Id     : 4000
Ingress FP QGrp    : (none)                          Ing FP QGrp Inst : (none)
===============================================================================
Egress VTEP, VNI
===============================================================================
VTEP Address                            Egress VNI  Num. MACs   Mcast Oper  L2
                                                                      State PBR
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.2.2.2                                 4000        0           BM    Up    No
10.4.4.4                                 4000        0           -     Up    No
192.0.2.2                               4000        0           U     Up    No
192.0.2.5                               4000        0           U     Up    No
192.0.2.6                               4000        0           U     Up    No
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of Egress VTEP, VNI : 5
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
===============================================================================

The AR-L creates the following VXLAN destinations when it receives and selects a Replicator-AR route or the Regular-IR routes.

The BM traffic is only sent to the selected AR-R, whereas the U (unknown unicast) traffic is sent to all the destinations with the U flag.

The AR-L performs per-service load-balancing of the BM traffic when two or more AR-Rs exist in the same service. The AR Leaf creates a list of candidate PEs for each AR-R (ordered by IP and VNI; candidate 0 being the lowest IP and VNI). The replicator is selected out of a modulo function of the service-id and the number of replicators, as shown in the following example output.

A:PE-3# show service id 4000 vxlan assisted-replication replicator 
===============================================================================
Vxlan AR Replicator Candidates
===============================================================================
VTEP Address           Egress VNI     In Use  In Candidate List Pending Time
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.2.2.2                4000           yes     yes               0
10.4.4.4                4000           no      yes               0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of entries : 2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
===============================================================================

A change in the number of Replicator-AR routes (for example, if a route is withdrawn or a new route appears) affects the result of the hashing, which may cause a different AR-R to be selected.

Note: An AR-L waits for the configured replicator-activation-time before sending the BM packets to the AR-R. In the interim, the AR-L uses regular ingress replication procedures. This activation time allows the AR-R to program the Leaf VTEP. If the timer is zero, the AR-R may receive packets from a not-yet-programmed source VTEP, in which case it discards the packets.

The following list summarizes other aspects of the AR-L behavior.

Figure 1 shows the expected replication behavior for BM traffic when received at the access on an AR-R, AR-L, or RNVE router. Unknown unicast follows regular ingress replication behavior regardless of the role of the ingress node for the specific service.

Figure 1. AR BM replication behavior for a BM packet