Static Pseudowire Provisioning for VPLS Services

A virtual private LAN service (VPLS) domain consists of a set of PE routers that act as a single virtual Ethernet bridge for the customer sites connected to these routers. By configuring static pseudowires for the VPLS domain, network providers do not need to configure the LDP or BGP protocols that are normally used for signaling. Static pseudowires require that you configure a set of in and out labels for each pseudowire configured for the VPLS domain. You still need to configure a VPLS identifier and neighbor identifiers for a static VPLS domain. You can configure both static and dynamic neighbors within the same VPLS routing instance.

The manual configuration of a static pseudowire in MPLS requires configuring many parameters at the two PE sides. We recommend that you configure the parameters on both sides the same to make the pseudowire operational. A mismatch in one or more parameters on either end can cause the pseudowire not to operate correctly. In the case of a dynamic pseudowire, these parameters are negotiated at either end through a signaling session. For static pseudowire, there is no such signaling session and therefore parameters must be pre-selected and configured on both PE ends.

To enable static VPLS on a router, you need either to configure a virtual tunnel interface (requires the router to have a tunnel services PIC) or to configure a label-switching interface (LSI).

To configure an LSI, include the no-tunnel-services statement at the [edit protocols vpls static-vpls] hierarchy level.