Segment routing

Segment routing, a form of computer networking, is a modern variant of source routing that is being developed within the SPRING and IPv6 working groups of the IETF. In a segment routed network, an ingress node may prepend a header to packets that contain a list of segments, which are instructions that are executed on subsequent nodes in the network. These instructions may be forwarding instructions, such as an instruction to forward a packet to a specific destination or interface.

Segment routing works either on top of a MPLS network or on an IPv6 network. In an MPLS network, segments are encoded as MPLS labels. Under IPv6, a new header called a Segment Routing Header (SRH) is used. Segments in a SRH are encoded in a list of IPv6 addresses. The 5f00::/16 prefix has been allocated for this purpose as part of an Internet-Draft.

See also

• Bang path
• Dynamic Source Routing
• Policy-based routing can also be used to route packets using their source addresses.
• Scalable Source Routing

External links

• The Segment Routing homepage
• The Linux implementation of IPv6 Segment Routing
• "About Segment Routing" (PDF). Cisco.
• "What is segment routing?". Juniper.
• "Benefits of segment routing and path computation". Nokia. September 15, 2015.
• "MPLS Segment Routing: Driving a modern approach to MPLS transport" (PDF). Arista.
• Jilani, Said (June 4, 2019). "Segment Routing 101 and the Future of MPLS". Aviat Networks.
• Ventre, Pier Luigi; Salsano, Stefano; Polverini, Marco; Cianfrani, Antonio; Abdelsalam, Ahmed; Filsfils, Clarence; Camarillo, Pablo; Clad, Francois (2021). "Segment Routing: A Comprehensive Survey of Research Activities, Standardization Efforts, and Implementation Results". IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials. 23: 182–221. arXiv:1904.03471. doi:10.1109/COMST.2020.3036826. S2CID 102352575.