IDR Working Group M. Shen Internet-Draft W. Li Intended status: Standards Track L. Wang Expires: 16 April 2027 G. Wang S. Zhuang Huawei Technologies 13 October 2026 BGP Flow-Spec Traffic Compress Action draft-shen-idr-flowspec-traffic-compress-action-05 Abstract BGP Flow Specification Version 2 (FSv2) provides an extensible framework for disseminating traffic flow specification rules and associated actions. While traditional Flow-spec actions cover rate- limiting, redirecting, and marking, emerging applications require dynamic bandwidth optimization. This document specifies a new traffic filtering action to support selective, on-demand traffic compression across network domains using BGP Extended Communities aligned with the FSv2 architecture. 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. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on 16 April 2027. Shen, et al. Expires 16 April 2027 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Traffic Compression Action October 2026 Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/ license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. Traffic Compress Extended Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Operational and Processing Considerations . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.1. Role Assignment and Directionality . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.2. Hardware Offload and Capability Negotiation . . . . . . . 4 4. Error Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1. Introduction BGP [RFC4271] Flow Specification [RFC8955] [RFC8956] and its evolution to Version 2 (FSv2) specified in [I-D.ietf-idr-fsv2-ip-basic] allow for the dissemination of traffic flow specification rules and traffic filtering actions. Traditional Flow-spec actions define widely-used filtering behaviors such as discard, rate limit, and traffic marking. Data transmitted across enterprise networks, data centers, and external connections varies widely in nature (e.g., database payloads, bulk text, multimedia, and signaling). Certain traffic aggregates present significant redundancy and high compression ratios, whereas other data streams have little to no compression potential or require dedicated processing hardware. Shen, et al. Expires 16 April 2027 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Traffic Compression Action October 2026 While BGP Flow-spec enables network-wide policy distribution, static configurations lack the agility required for dynamic data-center interconnect (DCI) traffic engineering. Therefore, this document introduces a new BGP Flow-spec action that enables network operators to dynamically apply traffic compression based on granular traffic filters, saving core transport bandwidth and improving overall network utilization. 2. Traffic Compress Extended Community This document proposes a new BGP extended community called the "flow- spec traffic compress action". It operates as a Generic Transitive Extended Community type ("0x80"). The sub-type value [to be assigned by IANA] indicates that the global administrator and local administrator fields encode a flow-spec traffic compress action aligned with FSv2 action guidelines. In this extended community, the 2-byte global administrator field encodes compression algorithms referred to as Compression Parameter Index (CPI) [RFC3173]. The 4-byte local administrator field carries compression parameters (CPV). The new BGP extended community is encoded as follows: 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | 0x80 | Sub-Type | CPI | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | CPV | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ * Sub-Type: TBD. * CPI (2 octets): The values 0-63 designate well-known compression algorithms. The values 64-255 are reserved for future use. The values 256-61439 are negotiated between the endpoints in the definition of an IPComp Association [RFC3173]. * CPV (4 octets): Parameters associated with the selected CPI. Depending on the CPI, the CPV can be divided into distinct segments (e.g., algorithm tuning flags, window sizes, or application IDs). Unused bits MUST be set to zero by the originating BGP speaker and ignored upon receipt. Shen, et al. Expires 16 April 2027 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Traffic Compression Action October 2026 For instance, when utilizing the zstd compression algorithm, the CPV can be structured as: . 3. Operational and Processing Considerations 3.1. Role Assignment and Directionality Generally, the ingress node receiving the Flow-spec Traffic Compress Extended Community acts as the compression controller or enforcement point, directing matching packets through hardware or software compression pipelines before forwarding them across bandwidth- constrained WAN/DCI links. 3.2. Hardware Offload and Capability Negotiation Because compression and decompression introduce processing overhead, transit nodes receiving this action MUST verify that they possess the hardware or software capabilities corresponding to the requested CPI. If a node lacks the requested compression capability, it MUST fall back to standard uncompressed forwarding or report a local policy exception, preventing packet dropping due to processing failures. 4. Error Handling If multiple traffic compression extended communities exist in a BGP route attribute, the value of the first traffic compression extended community MUST take precedence. The validation of the TLVs and extended community structures introduced in this document MUST be performed to verify formatting correctness. In case of any malformed attributes detected, error handling MUST comply with [RFC7606] and the error policies defined in [I-D.ietf-idr-fsv2-ip-basic]. 5. IANA Considerations IANA is requested to create a new entry/registry under the "Extended Community" registries: SubType Description ------- --------------------------------------------- TBD Traffic Compress Extended Community Shen, et al. Expires 16 April 2027 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Traffic Compression Action October 2026 6. Security Considerations Traffic compression introduces potential vector risks, such as CPU exhaustion (Denial-of-Service) attacks caused by malformed or highly inefficient payload structures designed to trigger worst-case compression cycles. Operators SHOULD implement rate-limiting or resource quotas on compression-enabled forwarding engines. Furthermore, standard BGP security mechanisms (such as RPKI and BGP session authentication) MUST be deployed to prevent unauthorized injection of compression action extended communities. 7. Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the review and inputs from Haibo Wang, Gang Yan, Linda Dunbar, Zhenbin Li, Rainbow Wu, Jie Dong and Ziqing Cao. 8. References 8.1. Normative References [I-D.ietf-idr-fsv2-ip-basic] Hares, S., Eastlake, D. E., Dong, J., Yadlapalli, C., Maduschke, S., and J. Haas, "BGP Flow Specification Version 2 - for Basic IP", Work in Progress, Internet- Draft, draft-ietf-idr-fsv2-ip-basic-08, 28 September 2026, . [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, . [RFC3173] Shacham, A., Monsour, B., Pereira, R., and M. Thomas, "IP Payload Compression Protocol (IPComp)", RFC 3173, DOI 10.17487/RFC3173, September 2001, . [RFC7606] Chen, E., Ed., Scudder, J., Ed., Mohapatra, P., and K. Patel, "Revised Error Handling for BGP UPDATE Messages", RFC 7606, DOI 10.17487/RFC7606, August 2015, . [RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May 2017, . Shen, et al. Expires 16 April 2027 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Traffic Compression Action October 2026 [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, . [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, . 8.2. Informative References [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, . Authors' Addresses Ming Shen Huawei Technologies Huawei Campus, No. 156 Beiqing Road Beijing 100095 China Email: shenming2@huawei.com Wenyan Li Huawei Technologies Huawei Campus, No. 156 Beiqing Road Beijing 100095 China Email: liwenyan@huawei.com Lili Wang Huawei Technologies Huawei Campus, No. 156 Beiqing Road Beijing 100095 China Email: lily.wong@huawei.com Shen, et al. Expires 16 April 2027 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Traffic Compression Action October 2026 Guoqiang Wang Huawei Technologies Huawei Campus, No. 156 Beiqing Road Beijing 100095 China Email: wangguoqiang5@huawei.com Shunwan Zhuang Huawei Technologies Huawei Campus, No. 156 Beiqing Road Beijing 100095 China Email: zhuangshunwan@huawei.com Shen, et al. Expires 16 April 2027 [Page 7]