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Add a Single Tunnel

You can provision tunnels by using either the Path Computation Element Protocol (PCEP) or the Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF). Whether provisioned by using PCEP or NETCONF, tunnels can be learned by using PCEP or device collection. If learned by using device collection, the PCE requires periodic device collection to learn about tunnels and other updates to the network. To learn about how to schedule a device collection task, see Add a Device Collection Task.

Note:

For Cisco IOS-XR devices, you must first run device collection before provisioning tunnels by using NETCONF.

Once you create device collection tasks, the PCE discovers tunnels provisioned by using NETCONF. Unlike PCEP, the PCE with NETCONF supports logical nodes.

For more information about managing logical nodes, see Considerations When Using Logical Nodes later in this topic.

To provision a single tunnel:

  1. Select Network > Topology.

    The Topology page is displayed with the topology map at the center and the network information table at the bottom of the page.

  2. In the Tunnel tab, select Provisioning > Tunnel.

    The Add Tunnel page appears.

  3. Complete the configuration on each tab according to the guidelines in Table 1.
    Note:

    Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are mandatory.

  4. (Optional) From any tab, click Preview Path at the bottom of the page to view the path on the topology map.
  5. Click Add to add the tunnel.

    A confirmation message appears on the top of the page, indicating that a provision tunnel request was successfully created:

    • If you have the Auto-approve permission assigned to your user role, the request is automatically approved and deployed on the devices.
    • If you don't have Auto-approve permission, the request must be manually approved and then, deployed. See About the Change Control Management Page.

    The tunnel then appears in the Tunnel tab of the network information table (in the Topology page).

Table 1: Fields on the Add Tunnel Page

Field

Description

Properties

Provisioning Method

From the list, select one of the following methods to be used to provision the tunnel:

  • NETCONF (default)—The tunnel is statically provisioned and the associated configuration statements appear in the router configuration file. Upon provisioning, this tunnel is added as a device-controlled tunnel.

  • PCEP (Path Computation Element Protocol)—The path computation element (PCE) initiates the tunnel and the associated configuration statements do not appear in the router configuration file. Upon provisioning, this tunnel is added as a PCE-initiated tunnel.

Note:
  • For Cisco IOS-XR routers, NETCONF-based tunnel provisioning has the same capabilities as PCEP-based tunnel provisioning.

  • When provisioning tunnels by using NETCONF one at a time, the provisioning order might be sent before the response to a previous provisioning order is received. The second order might not have the correct bandwidth allocation information and the PCE might not be able to provide ECMP. We recommend provisioning multiple tunnels through NETCONF in one operation (bulk provisioning) in order to avoid this issue.

Provision Type

From the list, select the type of tunnel that you want to provision:

  • RSVP
  • SR (segment routing)
  • SRv6

Name

For a primary tunnel, specify a unique name for the tunnel.

For a secondary or standby tunnel, specify the same name as the primary tunnel that is associated with the secondary or standby tunnel.

You can use any number of alphanumeric characters, hyphens, and underscores.

Note:

If you are adding multiple parallel tunnels that will share the same design parameters, the name you specify here is used as the base for automatically naming those tunnels. See the Count and Delimiter fields in the Advanced tab for more information.

Node A

From the list, select the node that you want to use as the ingress node.

Node Z

From the list, select the node that you want to use as the egress node.

IP Z

From the list, select the IP address for Node Z (that is, the egress node).

The options in the list are populated based on the Node Z that you selected.

Admin Status

The Path Computation Server uses the administration status of the tunnel to decide whether to route, provision, or both route and provision the tunnel.

If the Path Computation Server routes the tunnel, no traffic flows through the tunnel and its operational status is Up. If the Path Computation Server provisions the tunnel, traffic flows through the tunnel and its operational status is Active.

Select one of the following options as the administration status:

  • Up—If you select this option, the Path Computation Server routes and provisions the tunnel.

  • Planned—If you select this option, the Path Computation Server routes the tunnel and reserves capacities for the tunnel. However, the Path Computation Server doesn’t provision the tunnel.

  • Shutdown—If you select this option, the Path Computation Server neither routes nor provisions the tunnel. The tunnel is maintained in the datastore and is associated with a persist state. This means that the tunnel can be brought back up at a later time, if required.

Path Type

From the list, select primary, secondary, or standby as the path type.

Path Name

Specify the name for the path.

This field is available only for primary tunnels with RSVP provisioning type, and for all secondary and standby tunnels.

Planned Bandwidth

Specify the planned bandwidth (along with valid units, with no space between the bandwidth and units) for the tunnel.

If you specify a value without units, bps is automatically applied.

Valid units are:

  • B or b

  • M or m

  • K or k

  • G or g

Examples: 50M, 1000b, 25g.

Bandwidth Sizing

Note:

This option is displayed only when you select PCEP as the provisioning method.

Click the toggle button to enable or disable (default) bandwidth sizing for the tunnel.

If you enable bandwidth sizing, the tunnel is included in the periodic re-computation of planned bandwidth based on aggregated tunnel traffic statistics.

Adjustment Threshold (%)

Note:

This option is available only when you enable bandwidth sizing.

Specify the sensitivity (in %) of the automatic bandwidth adjustment.

The new planned bandwidth is only considered if it differs from the existing bandwidth by the value of this setting or more. The default value is 10%.

Minimum Bandwidth

Note:

This option is available only when you enable bandwidth sizing.

Specify the minimum planned bandwidth (along with valid units, with no space between the bandwidth and units) for the tunnel. If you specify a value without units, bps is automatically applied.

If the new planned bandwidth is less than the minimum setting, the PCE signals the tunnel with the minimum bandwidth. However, if the new planned bandwidth falls in between the maximum and minimum settings, The PCE signals the tunnel with the new planned bandwidth.

The valid units are:

  • B or b

  • M or m

  • K or k

  • G or g

Examples: 50M, 1000b, 25g.

Maximum Bandwidth

Note:

This option is available only when you enable bandwidth sizing.

Specify the maximum planned bandwidth (along with valid units, with no space between the bandwidth and units) for the tunnel. If you specify a value without units, bps is automatically applied.

If the new planned bandwidth is greater than the maximum setting, the PCE signals the tunnel with the maximum bandwidth. However, if the new planned bandwidth falls in between the maximum and minimum settings, the PCE signals the tunnel with the new planned bandwidth.

The valid units are:

  • B or b

  • M or m

  • K or k

  • G or g

Examples: 50M, 1000b, 25g.

Minimum Variation Threshold

Note:

This option is available only when you enable bandwidth sizing.

Specify the sensitivity of the automatic bandwidth adjustment when the new planned bandwidth is compared with the current planned bandwidth.

Default: Zero.

The new planned bandwidth is only considered if the difference is greater than or equal to the value of this setting. Because it is not a percentage, this is used to prevent small fluctuations from triggering unnecessary bandwidth changes.

If both the adjustment threshold and the minimum variation threshold are greater than zero, both settings are taken into consideration. The new planned bandwidth is considered if the percentage difference is greater than or equal to the adjustment threshold and the actual difference is greater than or equal to the minimum variation.

Color Community

Note:

This field is available only for the SR provision type. This field is not available for the SRv6 and RSVP provision types.

Assign a color for the segment routing tunnel that can be used to map traffic on the tunnel.

Use Penultimate Hop as Signaling Address

Note:

This field is available only for segment routing tunnels.

Click the toggle button to enable the Path Computation Server to use the penultimate hop as the signaling address for Egress Peer Engineering.

If you haven’t specified a color community, the setting applies to all traffic. If you’ve specified a color community, the setting applies to traffic in that color community.

Setup

Specify the setup priority for the tunnel traffic.

Priority levels range from 0 (highest priority) through 7 (lowest priority). The default is 7, which is the standard MPLS tunnel definition in Junos OS.

Based on the setup priority, the PCE determines whether a new tunnel can be established, by preempting an existing tunnel. The existing tunnel can be preempted if the setup priority of the new tunnel is higher than that of the existing tunnel and the preemption releases enough bandwidth for the new tunnel.

Hold

Specify the hold priority for the tunnel traffic.

Priority levels range from 0 (highest priority) through 7 (lowest priority). The default is 7, which is the standard MPLS tunnel definition in Junos OS.

Based on the hold priority, the PCE determines whether the tunnel can be preempted or not. If the hold priority for a tunnel is higher, it is unlikely for the tunnel to be preempted.

Planned Metric

Specify the static tunnel metric.

The PCE uses this metric to route the tunnel instead of allowing the router to choose a path.

Routing Method

From the list, select a routing method to specify whether the PCE should compute and provision the path for the tunnel:

The available options are:

  • routeByDevice—This is the default routing method when the PCE learns or creates a PCC-controlled tunnel. For this method, The PCE does not compute and provision a path.

    This method is appropriate for three types of tunnels: RSVP TE PCC-controlled tunnels, segment routing PCEP-based tunnels, and segment routing NETCONF-based tunnels.

    Note:

    If you select this routing method, your router must run Junos OS Release 19.1 or later. This is to ensure that the router can abide by the hop requirements that you specify in the Path tab in this configuration.

  • Other routing methods (default, delay, adminWeight, constant, distance, IS-IS, OSPF)—When a PCC-controlled tunnel uses a routing method other than RouteByDevice, the PCE computes and provisions the path as a strict explicit route. The tunnel’s existing explicit route might be modified to a PCE-computed strict explicit route.

    For example, a loose explicit route specified by you or learned from the router might be modified to a strict explicit route.

Binding SID

Note:

Binding SID field is available only for segment routing tunnels with NETCONF as the provisioning type.

Specify the numerical binding SID label value.

Binding SID represents the path that is defined by the hops you specify on the Path tab (that is, the hops that make up the private forwarding adjacency link).

Range: 1000000 to 1048575.

Use Node SID
Note:

Use Node SID field is valid only for tunnels with SR as the provision type. To use Node SID for path computation, you must configure the LSP to Path Computation Instance fields in the Pathfinder Settings. For more information, see LSP to Path Computation Instance.

Enable this field to use Node SIDs for path computation.

Constraints

Admin Group Include All

From the list, select one or more admin group bits for the tunnel to traverse links that include all of the admin groups specified in this field. The maximum selections allowed is 32.

The admin group bits are mapped to meaningful names, such as colors (configured from the Configuration > Network > Admin Group page). You can easily differentiate the different traffic routes in the display and also use coloring constraints to influence the path of the tunnel.

Admin Group Include Any

From the list, select one or more admin group bits. The tunnel traverses links that include at least one of the admin groups specified in this field. The maximum selections allowed is 32.

Admin Group Exclude

From the list, select one or more admin group bits. The tunnel traverses links that do not include any of the admin groups specified in this field. The maximum selections allowed is 32.

Maximum Delay

Specify the maximum delay (in milliseconds) for the tunnel, which is used as a constraint for tunnel rerouting.

Maximum Hop

Specify an integer value for the maximum number of hops that the tunnel can traverse.

Maximum Cost

Specify an integer value for the maximum cost to be associated with the tunnel.

Advanced

Count

Specify the number of parallel tunnels to be created between two endpoints.

These tunnels share the same design parameters as specified in the Constraints tab.

Note:

Creating parallel tunnels in this manner is different from provisioning multiple tunnels (Provisioning > Multiple Tunnels) where you configure Design parameters separately for each tunnel.

Delimiter

Note:

This field is available only when the count value is greater than 1.

Specify a delimiter value, which can consist of alphanumeric characters and special characters except space, comma (,), and semicolon (;).

This value is used in the automatic naming of parallel tunnels that share the same design parameters. The PCE names the tunnels using the name you enter in the Properties tab and appends the delimiter value plus a unique numerical value beginning with 1.

Example: myTunnel_1, myTunnel_2, and so on.

Description

Specify a comment or description for the tunnel for your reference.

Symmetric Pair Group

Specify a unique name for the symmetric pair group. You can use any number of alphanumeric and special characters.

Tunnels with the same group name (as specified in this field) are considered part of a symmetric pair group.

You create a symmetric pair group so that the tunnel from the ingress node to the egress node follows the same path as the tunnel from the egress node to the ingress node. When two tunnels are present with the same end nodes but in opposite directions, the path routing uses the same set of links. For example, assume that the source to destination for Tunnel1 is NodeA to NodeZ, and the source to destination for Tunnel2 is NodeZ to NodeA. Selecting Tunnel1-Tunnel2 as a symmetric pair group places both tunnels along the same set of links. Tunnels in the same group are paired based on the source and destination node.

Create Symmetric Pair

Note:

This option is displayed only when you specify a symmetric pair group.

Click the toggle button to enable the creation of a symmetric pair.

This option allows you to create the symmetric pair in the same operation as creating the tunnel.

Diversity Group

Specify the name for a group of tunnels to which this tunnel belongs, and for which you want diverse paths.

Diversity Level

From the list, select the level of diversity for the tunnel:

  • Default—No diversity level will be applied.

  • Site—Two paths don’t intersect at any given site (aside from the source and destination). Site diversity is the strongest as it includes SRLG and link diversity.

  • SRLG (Shared Risk Link Group)—Two paths don't intersect at any of the group’s links or nodes (aside from the source and destination). SRLG diversity includes link diversity.

  • Link—Two paths don’t intersect at any given link. Link diversity is the weakest.

Slice Include All

Specify one or more topology slice IDs for the tunnel to be routed over links and nodes, that are tagged with all the slice IDs specified in this field.

Slice Include Any

Specify one or more topology slice IDs for the tunnel to be routed over links and nodes, that are tagged with at least one of the slice IDs specified in this field.

Slice Exclude

Specify one or more topology slice IDs for the tunnel to be routed over links and nodes, that are not tagged with any of the slice IDs specified in this field.

Route on Protected IP Link

Click to enable the toggle button if you want the route to use protected IP links as much a possible.

Custom Attributes

Click the Add icon (+) to specify provisioning properties not directly supported by the GUI.

For example, you cannot specify a hop-limit when you provision a tunnel. However, you can add hop-limit as a custom attribute.

At the edit > protocols > mpls > label-switched-path hierarchy level in the NETCONF template file, you must add the statements that are needed to provision with the property you are adding. If the property is present with the defined value, then the provisioning statement is executed.

Path

Routing Path Type

From the list, select the type of routing path for the tunnel:

  • Dynamic—Allows the PCE to compute a path without imposing any path restrictions.

  • Required—Prevents the PCE from using any other path for this tunnel. If the required path is not viable and available, the tunnel is down and the PCE does not perform computation to look for an alternate path.

  • Preferred—Instructs the PCE to use this path over any other, as long as it is viable and available. If it is not viable and available, the PCE computes an alternate path.

Add Hop

This option available only if the routing path type is Preferred or Required.

Click the Add (+) icon or click Add Hop. From the list, select an option as the first hop between node A and node Z.

Note:

For SRv6 provisioning type, the list displays IPv6 router identifiers.

In addition, click the toggle button next to this field to specify whether the hop is strict or loose:

  • If you specify the hop as strict, the tunnel must take a direct path from the previous router to this router.

  • If you specify the hop as loose, the tunnel can take any path to reach this router; the PCE chooses the best path.

To add more hops, click the + icon again. You can add a maximum of 37 hops.

Note:

When specifying a loose hop, you can choose from all links in the network. When specifying a loose hop for a Required path, anycast group SIDs are also available for selection.

Schedule

Plan

  • No Schedule—(Default) tunnel provisioning is not scheduled (that is, tunnels are provisioned immediately upon submission of the provisioning request).

  • Once—In the Start and End fields that appear, specify the start date and time and end date and time at which you want to provision the tunnels. The tunnels are provisioned once at the specified date and time.

  • Recurring Daily—Specify the start and end dates and start and end times in the Start Date, End Date, Start Time, and End Time fields that appear. The tunnels are provisioned daily.

Considerations When Using Logical Nodes

You can add and provision tunnels that incorporate logical nodes. Junos OS does not support PCEP for logical nodes, but the PCE can still import logical node information using device collection. When you run a device collection task, the PCE uses the Junos OS show configuration command on each router to obtain both physical and logical node information. The logical node information must then be correlated with the physical node information, before provisioning tunnels that use logical nodes.

To provision a tunnel that uses logical nodes:

  1. On the Topology page (Network > Topology), click the Node tab in the network information table and confirm that the PCEP Status is Up for all the physical nodes. For logical nodes, the PCEP Status is blank because the Path Computation Element Protocol cannot directly discover tunnels originating from a logical system.

  2. Enable NETCONF for the physical nodes (if not already done):

    1. Select Configuration > Devices.

      The Device page appears.

    2. Select a device and click the Edit icon.

      The Edit Device-Name page appears.

    3. In the Protocols section, select NETCONF and click the toggle button to enable NETCONF for the selected device.

    4. Click Save.

      NETCONF is now enabled for the selected device.

      Repeat the procedure to enable NETCONF for multiple devices.

    5. On the Topology page, click the Node tab in the network information table and confirm that the NETCONF Status is Up for these devices.

  3. Create and run a device collection task to obtain the latest information.

    Note:

    Run device collection before you attempt to create tunnels that incorporate logical nodes. Otherwise, the logical nodes are not available as selections for Nodes A and Z in the Add Tunnel page (Network > Topology > Tunnel tab > Provisioning).

    To create a device collection task:

    1. Select Settings > Network > Task Scheduler.

      The Task Scheduler page appears.

    2. Click Add.

      The Create New Task page (wizard) appears.

    3. Configure the fields on each step of the wizard, as required.

      If you use the Selective Devices option, select only the physical devices. See Add a Device Collection Task for more information.

    4. Click Submit.

      The details of the task that you created are displayed on the Task Scheduler page. The device collection data is sent to the Path Computation Server for routing and is reflected in the Topology view.

    When you run the device collection task, the PCE uses the Junos OS show configuration command on each physical router to obtain both physical and logical node information. This information enables the PCE to correlate each logical node to its corresponding physical node. You can confirm this correlation from the Node tab in the network information table (Network > Topology).

  4. (Optional) Add the Physical Hostname and Physical Host IP columns to the Node tab. For a logical node, the hostname and IP address in these columns tell you which physical node correlates with the logical node.

  5. Provision tunnels:

    Now that the logical nodes are in the device list and are correlated to the correct physical nodes, you can create tunnels that incorporate logical nodes. You do this using the same procedure as tunnels using only physical nodes. Ensure that you select NETCONF as the provisioning method.

  6. Run the device collection task periodically to keep the logical node information updated. There are no real time updates for logical nodes.