scope:

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) systems will be used in core networks where system downtime must be kept to an absolute minimum. Many MPLS Label Switching Routers (LSRs) may, therefore, exploit Fault Tolerant (FT) hardware or software to provide high availability of the core networks.

The details of how FT is achieved for the various components of an FT LSR, including Label Distribution Protocol (LDP), the switching hardware and TCP, are implementation specific. This document identifies issues in the LDP specification in RFC 3036, "LDP Specification", that make it difficult to implement an FT LSR using the current LDP protocols, and defines enhancements to the LDP specification to ease such FT LSR implementations.

The issues and extensions described here are equally applicable to RFC 3212, "Constraint-Based LSP Setup Using LDP" (CR-LDP).