Routing management method, routing method, network controller, and router

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9973419-B2
Application number	US-201514817656-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 4, 2015
Priority date	Feb 4, 2013
Publication date	May 15, 2018
Grant date	May 15, 2018

Abstract

A routing management method includes: receiving, by a network controller, a request for creating a Layer 2 Virtual Private Network, determining, according to routing information of each router in a public network and information about a connection between each local area network and the public network, path information of a tunnel that a packet between any two of the local area networks should pass by when being transmitted in the public network; determining, according to the path information of each tunnel, forwarding information that each router forwards a packet along each tunnel, and allocating, to each router that each tunnel passes by, a label and processing information that is for the label before each router forwards the packet; and sending each piece of routing control information to each router, so that each router forwards the packet. The method reduces a calculation overhead of a router in a public network.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A routing management method, comprising:
receiving, by a network controller, a request for creating a Layer 2 Virtual Private Network, wherein the Layer 2 Virtual Private Network comprises a public network, and at least two local area networks connected by using the public network;
determining, by the network controller according to routing information of each router in the public network and information about a connection between each local area network and the public network, path information of a tunnel that a packet between any two of the local area networks should pass by when being transmitted in the public network;
determining, according to the path information of each tunnel, forwarding information that each router forwards the packet along each tunnel, and allocating, to each router that each tunnel passes by, a label and processing information that is for the label before each router forwards the packet, wherein the label is a public Multi-Protocol Label Switching label; and
sending each piece of routing control information to each router, wherein the routing control information comprises: the forwarding information that each router forwards the packet along each tunnel, a label corresponding to each router in each tunnel, and the processing information that is for the label before each router forwards the packet, so that each router forwards the packet according to each piece of routing control information, wherein
before the sending each piece of routing control information to each router, and
after the determining, according to the path information of each tunnel, forwarding information that each router forwards the packet along each tunnel, the method further comprises:
generating a flow table of each router, wherein each flow table separately comprises matching item information and instruction item information, and each piece of instruction item information corresponds to each piece of matching item information;
determining the matching item information in each flow table according to the label corresponding to each router in each tunnel, and the path information of each tunnel; and
determining each piece of instruction item information according to the forwarding information that each router forwards the packet along each tunnel, the label corresponding to each router in each tunnel, and the processing information that is for the label before each router forwards the packet,
so that after receiving the packet, the router forwards the packet according to the instruction item information, in the flow table, corresponding to the matching item information that matches the packet; and
the sending each piece of routing control information to each router comprising: sending the flow table of each router to each router.

2. The routing management method according to claim 1 , wherein
the matching item information in each flow table comprises any one of or a combination of any two or more than two of the following:
a tunnel identifier of the tunnel, a label value in the packet, an ingress interface identifier of the packet, and a Virtual Switching Institution value of the Layer 2 Virtual Private Network.

3. The routing management method according to claim 1 , wherein
each piece of instruction item information comprises any one of or a combination of any two or more than two of the following:
adding or deleting a Layer 2 header of a packet, inserting the label corresponding to the router into the packet, updating the label value in the packet as the label corresponding to the router, deleting the label in the packet, and forwarding the forwarding information of the packet.

4. The routing management method according to claim 1 , wherein
the allocating, to each router that each tunnel passes by, a label and processing information that is for the label before each router forwards the packet comprises:
allocating a network label and a tunnel label to each ingress router according to the path information of each tunnel, wherein
the ingress router is: each edge router at each tunnel ingress, wherein the edge router is a router on an edge of the public network, each network label corresponds to each local area network, and each tunnel label corresponds to each tunnel in which the router is located, and
the determining processing information that is for the label before each ingress router forwards the packet is: adding a Layer 2 header to a front end of a header of a frame structure of the packet, and inserting, into the packet, the network label corresponding to a destination local area network of the packet, and the tunnel label corresponding to the tunnel that the packet should pass by, so that in the frame structure of the packet, the network label is at a rear end of the tunnel label, and the Layer 2 header is at a front end of the tunnel label; and
allocating each tunnel label to each transit router according to the path information of each tunnel, wherein
each transit router is: any non-edge router in each tunnel;
the determining processing information that is for the label before each transit router forwards the packet is: updating a label value in the packet as: the tunnel label, corresponding to the transit router, in the tunnel that the packet should pass by; and
the determining, according to the path information of each tunnel, processing information that is for the label before each egress router forwards the packet is: deleting the Layer 2 header, the tunnel label, and the network label that are in the packet.

5. A routing method, comprising:
receiving, by a router, a packet, wherein the router is in a public network, the packet is a packet, in a Layer 2 Virtual Private Network, transmitted between any two local area networks separately connected to the public network;
comparing, by the router, information about the packet with matching item information, in a flow table, prestored by the router, and using a matching item, in the flow table, matching the packet as a packet matching item, wherein
in the flow table, each piece of instruction item information corresponds to each piece of matching item information,
each piece of matching item information in the flow table comprises: each piece of feature information that the packet needs to meet, and
each piece of instruction item information in the flow table comprises: forwarding information that the router forwards the packet, and processing information that is for the label before the router forwards the packet; and
processing, by the router, the packet according to the instruction item information corresponding to the packet matching item, and forwarding the packet, wherein
the matching item information in each flow table comprises any one of or a combination of any two or more than two of the following:
a tunnel identifier of the tunnel, a label value in the packet, an ingress interface identifier of the packet, and a Virtual Switching Institution value of the Layer 2 Virtual Private Network.

6. The routing method according to claim 5 , wherein
each piece of instruction item information comprises any one of or a combination of any two or more than two of the following:
adding or deleting a Layer 2 header of a packet, inserting the label corresponding to the router into the packet, updating the label value in the packet as the label corresponding to the router, deleting the label in the packet, and forwarding the forwarding information of the packet.

7. A network controller, comprising:
a routing information acquirer;
a tunnel manager:
a routing control information manager; and
a first transceiver, wherein
the routing information acquirer is configured to pre-acquire routing information of each router in a public network, receive a request for creat

Assignees

• Huawei Tech Co Ltd

Inventors

• Li Yan
• Wang Xuewei

Classifications

• H04L12/462

  LAN interconnection over a bridge based backbone · CPC title

• H04L47/825

  Involving tunnels, e.g. MPLS · CPC title

• H04L12/4633

  Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling · CPC title

• H04L45/04

  Interdomain routing, e.g. hierarchical routing · CPC title

• H04L45/66

  Layer 2 routing, e.g. in Ethernet based MAN's · CPC title