Patent ID: 11876695
Assignee: JUNIPER NETWORKS, INC.
Field: Digital communication (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 16:
17. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing program instructions, which when executed by at least one processor in a system for supporting echo or traceroute functionality in a path spanning multiple autonomous systems (ASes) having segment routing (SR) enabled, the path including an ingress node and an egress node, causes the at least one processor to perform a method comprising:
a) obtaining a return label stack to reach the ingress node from one of either (A) the egress node, or (B) a transit node in the path, wherein the return label stack includes at least two types of labels selected from a group of label types consisting of (A) an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) segment identifier, (B) an IGP node segment identifier, (C) an IGP adjacency segment identifier, (D) a border gateway protocol (BGP) segment identifier, and (E) a binding segment identifier;
b) obtaining a label stack to reach, from the ingress node, either (A) the egress node, or (B) the transit node;
c) generating a request message including both (1) the label stack and (2) the return label stack;
d) sending the request message towards either (A) the egress node, or (B) the transit node using the label stack;
e) receiving, by either (A) the egress node, or (B) the transit node, the request message, wherein the request message includes information for performing a validity check;
f) performing a validity check using the information included in the request message to generate validity information;
g) generating a reply message including the validity information and forwarding information including the return label stack that was included in the request message, the return label stack including at least two labels that enable the reply message to reach the ingress node from the one of either (A) the egress node, or (B) a transit node in the path; and
h) sending the reply message towards the ingress node using the forwarding information from the return label stack included in the request message.