[nsp] Anybody tried rate limiting ICMP on a POSIP interface?

From: sthaug@nethelp.no
Date: Sun Jul 26 1998 - 10:42:20 EDT


We have had reasonable success with rate limiting ICMP (using CAR) on a
7500 with HSSI (running at E3, 34 Mbps). We recently switched our main
external connection from HSSI to POSIP (155 Mbps), and the rate limiting
no longer works the same way - or at least the *statistics* certainly
don't work the same way.

This is the access-list:

    permit icmp any any
    deny ip any any

and this is how we use it on the input side:

    rate-limit input access-group 198 160000 8000 8000 conform-action transmit exceed-action drop

Here is a typical example of "show int posip5/0/0 rate" at approximately
2 second intervals:

      params: 160000 bps, 8000 limit, 8000 extended limit
      conformed 5274 packets, 2177696 bytes; action: transmit
      exceeded 0 packets, 0 bytes; action: drop
      last packet: 6328ms ago, current burst: 0 bytes
      last cleared 00:05:34 ago, conformed 52000 bps, exceeded 0 bps

      params: 160000 bps, 8000 limit, 8000 extended limit
      conformed 5274 packets, 2177696 bytes; action: transmit
      exceeded 0 packets, 0 bytes; action: drop
      last packet: 8472ms ago, current burst: 0 bytes
      last cleared 00:05:36 ago, conformed 51000 bps, exceeded 0 bps

      params: 160000 bps, 8000 limit, 8000 extended limit
      conformed 5701 packets, 2267286 bytes; action: transmit
      exceeded 0 packets, 0 bytes; action: drop
      last packet: 559796632ms ago, current burst: 3812 bytes
      last cleared 00:05:38 ago, conformed 53000 bps, exceeded 0 bps

The first two entries show that the rate limiting statistics are updated
less frequently that once every 2 seconds (there were certainly several
ICMP packets during this interval, but the output shows none). The last
entry is rather interesting in that the number of packets that conformed
(ie. should be allowed) suddenly increased by more than 400, and the
time for the last packet suddenly was 560.000 seconds ago :-)

I've done a few experiments which seem to indicate that the ICMP rate
limiting still *works* - but these statistics don't give me any warm
fuzzy feelings. On the HSSI interface, the rate limiting statistics
seem much more consistent (reasonably even increase of packets that
conform, time for last packet behaving sanely).

The router in question is running 11.1(18.1)CE.0520, using distributed
CEF switching, and the POSIP interface has

 no ip route-cache optimum
 ip route-cache distributed

We also tried "ip route-cache flow" in addition - this made no apparent
difference to the rate limiting statistics. "ip route-cache distributed"
*does* make a difference, though - if we remove this, the rate limiting
statistics are back to normal. We also have higher CPU usage, of course,
and thus would prefer to use "ip route-cache distributed".

Anybody who can comment on this?

Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug@nethelp.no






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