Basic MPLS Tutorial

May 4th, 2011in MPLS KnowledgeGo to comments

MPLS is a new forwarding mechanism called label switching in which packets are forwarded based
on labels. However, hosts are unaware about labeled packets so routers will need to add a label
when entering MPLS area and remove that label after leaving there.
The idea of label switching is to have only the first router do an IP lookup and assign a label, then
all future routes in the network can cheat by doing exact match switching based on a label. This
would reduce load on the core routers, where high-performance was the most difficult to achieve,
and distribute the routing lookups across lower speed edge routers.
In a traditional IP network:
* Each router performs an IP lookup (routing), determines a next-hop based on its routing table,
and forwards the packet to that next-hop.
* Rinse and repeat for every router, each making its own independent routing decisions, until the
final destination is reached.
MPLS does label switching instead:
* The first device does a routing lookup, just like before.
* But instead of finding a next-hop, it finds the final destination router.
* And it finds a pre-determined path from here to that final router.
* The router applies a label (or shim) based on this information.
* Future routers use the label to route the traffic without needing to perform any additional IP
lookups.
* At the final destination router, the label is removed and the packet is delivered via normal IP
routing.
Therefore in an MPLS network, data packets are assigned labels. Packet-forwarding
decisions are made solely on the contents of this label, without the need to examine the
packet itself.
Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) table
To enable MPLS on a Cisco router, we must turn on CEF first so lets analyze what lies inside a CEF
table.
As you know, router uses routing protocols (like OSPF, EIGRP, RIP), static routes and connected
routes to create the Routing table (or Routing Information Base RIB). When CEF is enabled, the
router uses this table to create a more optimized table, called Forwarding Information Base (FIB),
which contains the next hop and outgoing interfaces of specific routes. Although FIB table does not
differ much from RIB table but the router only spends very little time to find the correct entry,
resulting in a smaller forwarding delay and more packets can be proceeded per second.
Below shows the topology of a small network and the output of the show ip cef command on R1
router.

CEF (FIB) table of R1

Of course CEF table is clearer than Routing table as you can see below

Routing table of R1
How MPLS forward packets
MPLS forwards packets based on the Forwarding Information Base (FIB) and Label Forwarding
Information Base (LFIB) tables. FIB and LFIB have all necessary label information as well as the
outgoing interface and next-hop information.
FIB: As said above, router uses CEF to create this table. In most cases, the ingress router uses
this table for incoming unlabeled packets. The router matches the destination IP address to the
best prefix (network) it has in the FIB. It then injects a label and forwards that packet.
LFIB: Used by the core MPLS routers (which are not ingress and egress MPLS routers). They
compare the label in the incoming packet with the label they have in their LFIB. If a match is
found, the routers forward that packet based on that match. If not, the packet will be dropped. The
LFIB is created by the LIB and FIB tables.
Note: All routers in MPLS domain have both FIB and LFIB tables but only edge routers use FIB
(ingress router uses FIB, egress router uses LFIB and FIB)

The LIB table holds all the labels known to the LSR and associated information that could possibly
be used to forward packets. However, each LSR must choose the best label to use so FIB and LFIB
contain only labels of best paths. To choose the best label, LSRs rely on the routing protocols
decision about the best route.
Label Switch Router (LSR) refers to any router that has awareness of MPLS labels, for example
routers R1, R2, R3 and R4 in the below example. The entry and exit routers of an MPLS network
are called edge LSR (or label edge routers LER), which, respectively, inject (push) an MPLS label
onto an incoming packet (label assignment) and remove (pop) it off the outgoing packet (label
removal). An edge LSR is often a high-speed router device in the core of an MPLS network that
participates in the establishment of Label Switched Paths (LSP) using the appropriate label
signaling protocol and high-speed switching of the data traffic based on the established paths. In
the below example, R1 and R4 are edge LSRs (LERs).
When a networks inbound router receives traffic, it inserts an MPLS label between the IP packet
and the appropriate Layer 2 header for the physical link. The label contains an index value that
identifies a next-hop address for the particular LSP. When the next-hop transit router receives the
packet, it uses the index in the MPLS label to determine the next-hop address for the packet and
forwards the packet to the next router in the LSP.

In this example, when R1 receives a packet with a destination of 1.1.1.1 it first performs a routing
lookup and assigns label 2 to this destination and forwards it to R2. R2 checks its Label
Forwarding Information Base (LFIB) table and sees that the outgoing label of label 2 is label 7. It
swaps label 2 with label 7 and forwards it to R3. R3 acts similarly to R2 and swaps label 7 with
label 4 and forwarding it to R4. The edge router R4 removes that label and does a routing lookup to
find and forward that packet to its next hop. The whole process is summarized below:
1. After OSPF convergence, all routers have information about network 1.0.0.0/8 and this
information is placed in the RIB.
2. On R1, the label distribution protocol (LDP) assigns the label 11 to the network 10.0.0.0/8 and
advertises the label to its neighbors.
3. Other routers running OSPF also have information about this network so they use their own LDP
to assign a label to this network. They also advertise it to other neighbors by using LDP. For
example, R2 advertises to R1 (and R3) that it uses label 2 for the network 1.0.0.0/8. R1 receives
this information and marks it as the outing label. R3 does not use this label but it also save this
label in its LIB. R3 also advertises to R2 (and R4) it uses label 7 for this network. R4 advertises to
R3 it uses label 4 for this network. Notice that labels are stored in the LIB.
4. Each router uses information about the network, local label and outgoing label to build the LFIB.
Now when an incoming packet to the destination 1.1.1.1/8 arrives, the ingress router lookup in the
FIB table and it learns this packet should be labeled 2. The router pushes lable 2 to that packet and
forwards it to the outgoing interface to the downstream router (R2 in this case).
R2 receives a labeled packet so it lookups in the LFIB, swaps the label 2 with label 7 and forwards
it to the outgoing interface. Other core LSRs proceed incoming labeled packet in the same way as
R2.
The packet continues traveling to the egress LER. Because egress LER receives a labeled packet so
it lookups in its LFIB table too. In the LFIB, router R4 learns that label 4 is assigned to an implicitnull (or pop label) so the router removes (pop) the label and forwards that packet to the network
10.0.0.0/8.
That is all the theory. Now lets return to our simple example with 3 routers to see what are
actually inside these tables.

LIB table of R1

LFIB table of R1
MPLS key points

Assignment of a particular packet to a particular FEC is done just once, as the packet
enters the network.
Packets are labeled before they are forwarded to the next hop.
All forwarding is driven by labels.
No further analysis of the packets network layer header at subsequent hops.
Label is used as an index into a table which specifies the next hop and a new label. The old
label is swapped with the new label and the packet is forwarded to its next hop.
Its important to think of MPLS as having two components, the control plane and data plane. LDP is
mainly used for the control plane to exchange labels. From the control plane we can build the data
plane. On cisco routers this is CEF table.
Control plane: Exchanges Layer 3 routing information and labels; contains complex mechanisms to
exchange routing information, such as OSPF, EIGRP, IS-IS, and BGP, and to exchange labels; such
as LDP, and RSVP
Data plane: Forwards packets based on labels; has a simple forwarding engine
Comments (25)

1.

Comments

follower of iptut
May 26th, 2011

Very good stuff..Thanks for sharing.

2.

soon2b CCIP
July 11th, 2011

Very informative and helpful.. BIG THANKS!

3.

Kerem
August 18th, 2011

good stauff, Thanks

4.

Prashant
September 13th, 2011

FIB is a part of control plane or Data Plane ,,,,,? pls explain?

5.

usman
September 26th, 2011

FIB is copy of RIB/Routing Table stored in dataplane

6.

Mowgoul
November 24th, 2011

There is an (FIB) error in dataplane/controlplane picture: RIB > CEF -> FIB
7.

Deepti
April 16th, 2012

Very informative & to th point.. Thanks a lot

8.

harsh sharma..punjab
May 25th, 2012

thanks very clear nd compact info

9.

Packeteer
June 16th, 2012

In the green and blue image under Label Switch Router (LSR) why is router 4 performing Label
removal? based on Penultimate Hop Popping wouldnt R4 have advertised to R3 that it doesnt
have a label for the 10.0.0.0/8 route (as it would advertise an implicit-null value).
Therefore R3 would have recieved the packet, removed the label (instead of replacing it) and
forward it to R4 which would then just route the packet?
10.

Tahir
July 18th, 2012

@ Packeteer
Dear all,
two keypoints must be kept in mind
1) Label poping is used to pop off the label at penultimate hop for a network directly connected to
LSR
2) Label untaging is done to untag the label at ultimate hop for a network not directly connected to
any LSR and definitely outside the MPLS domain.
In the above example the 1.0.0.0/8 network is not directly connected to any LSR so untagging will
be done instead of PHP (penultimate hop poping).
Note: label untaging and label poping are two different things.
11.

Propls
October 11th, 2012

I would like to pose a question to clarify something for the MPLS Domain image above (with
routers R1 thru R4).
-If R1 is instead connected to 2 routers, such as R2 and R5, and both routers (R2 & R5) have
information about network 1.0.0.0/8, how does R1 choose between R2 and R5?
12.

kumar
October 16th, 2012

Hi,
Fundamentally routing table will have multiple paths . However when it prepares the Routing
Information base or Label Information base ( LIB), the best path is taken into account. therefore
we will have single best path in the LIBs. Best path is dependent on the matrix values and
algorithms for Routing table that is running in the network (OSPF, EIGRP or BGP).
Hence best path ( Single Route) will be there to switch the traffic in the router
13.

Think
November 16th, 2012

It will choose the R2? Cuz its more closer as well as more faster in reaching out to the R1.
14.

Sanju Yadav
December 21st, 2012

Very usefull information. Thank u soo much.

15.

Tesfaye
January 2nd, 2013

Thank you very much .

16.

Dennis
January 10th, 2013

Excellent explanation. Even a layman like me understands.

17.

BCG
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Very Good Tutorial

18.

sanu.pj
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