The MPLS WG Archive

[Vikas D <vikdw@yahoo.com>]

Hi All,

Do the control packets originated by an LSP ingress,
directed toward the LSP egress router use MPLS
forwarding?  By control packets, I mean any protocol
packets originated by layer 3 on the ingress.
 
Consider the following scenario:-
 
    Router A -----[ IP/MPLS cloud ]----- Router B

Assume that the above network is one AS.  Routers A,
B and all routers in the cloud run OSPF.  An LSP is
setup between A and B and another one is setup in the
reverse direction.  Traffic engineering is enabled at
A as well as at B.

Now, I found no reference in any MPLS draft/RFC which
talks about forwarding packets originated at router A,
destined for router B.  Are these packets forwarded
using MPLS or using "normal" IP routing?

I assume (because it sounds logical - though I did not
see any mention of it in documents), that the
signaling packets for the LSP itself (say refresh
messages in RSVP) shall not be sent over the LSP.

I am not sure about sending other protocol packets.
Say, A and B also run I-BGP with each other as the
peer.  Do the BGP (or any other application) packets
use LSP?

Thanks
- Vikas


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