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# RSVP-TE Graceful Restart

RSVP-TE graceful restart enables routers to maintain MPLS forwarding state when a link or node failure occurs. In a link failure, control communication is lost between two nodes, but the nodes do not lose their control or forwarding state.

A node failure occurs when the LSR has a failure in the RSVP-TE control plane, but not in the data plane. The LSR maintains its data forwarding state. Traffic can continue to be forwarded while RSVP-TE restarts and recovers. The graceful restart feature supports the restoration and resynchronization of RSVP-TE states and MPLS forwarding state between the restarting router and its RSVP-TE peers during the graceful restart recovery period.

The RSVP-TE graceful restart feature enables an LSR to gracefully restart, to act as a graceful restart helper node for a neighboring router that is restarting, or both.

## Announcement of the Graceful Restart Capability

LSRs use the RSVP-TE hello mechanism to announce their graceful restart capabilities to their peer RSVP-TE routers. Both restarting LSRs and helper LSRs include the restart_cap object in hello requests and hello acks. The restart_cap object specifies both the graceful restart time and the graceful restart recovery time:

- restart time—The sum of how long it takes the sender to restart RSVP-TE after a control plane failure plus how long it takes to reestablish hello communication with the neighboring RSVP-TE routers.
- recovery time—The period within which you want neighboring routers to resynchronize with the sending router’s RSVP-TE state and MPLS forwarding state after the peers have re-established hello communication. The restarting LSR advertises the configured or default recovery time only while the graceful restart is in progress. When the LSR is not currently restarting or when it is incapable of preserving its MPLS forwarding state during the restart, the LSR advertises a recovery time of zero.

Both the restarting router and neighboring GR helper routers save the restart and recovery times that they receive from their peers.

## Restarting Behavior

When the control plane fails, the LSR stops sending hello messages to its RSVP-TE neighbors. However, as a restarting router the LSR can continue to forward MPLS traffic because it preserves its MPLS forwarding state during the restart. When RSVP-TE comes back up, the restarted router sends the first hello message to its neighbors with a new source instance value to indicate that it had a control plane failure. The destination instance value in the hello message is set to zero. The recovery time included in this hello message is set to zero only if the router was unable to preserve the MPLS forwarding state or to support control state recovery.

When a neighboring router that has been configured as a graceful restart helper determines that the number of continuous missing hellos has reached the configured hello miss limit, it declares the router to be down. The helper router then waits for a period equal to the restart time that it received from the router and stored before the failure. During this period, the helper router preserves the restarting router's RSVP-TE state and MPLS forwarding state for the established LSPs and keeps forwarding MPLS traffic. However, the helper router suspends the refreshing of path and resv state to the restarting router. The helper router keeps sending hello messages to the restarting router with an unchanged source instance value and a destination instance value set to zero. The helper router removes the RSVP-TE state for any LSP that was in the process of being established when the neighbor was declared to be down.

If the helper router does not receive a hello message from the restarting router during the restart period, the helper router immediately exits the recovery procedure and cleans up the states associated with the restarting router. The helper router determines that the failed neighbor has restarted when it finds a new source instance in the neighbor's hello message. When a nonzero recovery time is received in that hello message, the helper router determines that the restarted neighbor supports state recovery. The helper router then starts the recovery procedures. However, if the recovery time specified in the hello message is zero, then the helper router exits the recovery procedure and cleans up the states associated with the restarting router.

## Recovery Behavior

In the recovery period, neighboring helper routers and the restarting router resynchronize the RSVP-TE state and MPLS forwarding state. During this period, MPLS traffic continues to be forwarded.

The helper router starts the recovery procedure by marking as stale the RSVP-TE state associated with the restarting router. The upstream helper router then refreshes all the path messages shared with the downstream restarting router. The upstream helper router includes the recovery_label object in the path message to the downstream restarting router for the label binding information that the restarting router specified before the restart. The downstream helper router does not refresh the reservation state control block (RSB) shared with the restarting router until a corresponding path message is received from the restarting router.

During the recovery period, the restarting router checks for the state associated with an incoming path message. If the RSVP-TE state already exists, the restarting router handles the path message as usual. Otherwise, the restarting router examines the path message for the recovery_label object. If the recovery_label object is not found, the restarting router treats the path message as a setup request for a new LSP and handles the path message as usual.

If the recovery_label object is found, the restarting router searches for the outgoing label based on the incoming interface and incoming label that are specified in the recovery_label object. If the restarting router does not find a match for the forwarding entry, the restarting router treats the path message as a setup request for a new LSP. If the restarting router finds a match, it conveys to the downstream neighbors the outgoing label associated with the forwarding entry in the suggested_label object in the path message and it continues normal operations.

The helper router removes the stale flag for the RSVP-TE state when it receives the corresponding state in path or resv messages sent by the restarting router. When the recovery period expires, the helper router deletes any RSVP-TE states that still have a stale flag. Graceful restart is considered to be complete when the recovery period expires or when the last LSP needing recovery is recovered.

## Preservation of an Established LSP Label

Labels used for an established LSP are preserved through the graceful restart by means of the recovery_label object and the suggested_label object in the path messages. The recovery_label object conveys the incoming label of the restarting LSR that the restarting LSR passed to the upstream helper before the restart. The suggested_label object includes the outgoing label that the restarting LSR used before the restart. The suggested_label object conveys the outgoing label from the restarting LSR to its downstream neighbor.

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