MPLS Top 75 Interview Questions and Answers

Ques 1. Describe the roles of RD and RT in MPLS L3VPN?

A Route Distinguisher (RD) separates routes (one VRF for each customer routing table) of
one customer from another. RD is prepended to each route (64-bit identifier is prepended)
within a VRF to identify which VPN the route belongs to. An RD is carried along with a route
via MP-BGP when exchanging VPN routes with other PE routers.
Whereas Route Distinguishers are used to maintain uniqueness among identical
routes in different VRFs, Route Targets can be used to share routes among them. We can
apply route targets to a VRF to control the import and export of routes among it and other
VRFs.

Ques 2. How can you differentiate VPNv4 and IPv4 address-family?

Below table illustrates difference between VPNv4 and IPV4 address family -

Ques 3. Is it possible to assign a same RD to multiple customers?

No, as a standard consideration we should not assign same RD for multiple customers.

Ques 4. What are the benefits of using MPLS?

Below is the list of MPLS benefits -
 Any to Any connectivity – Any 2 remote sites under MPLS may communicate to
each other rather than traversing through HUB site 1st and then again being
rerouted sub optimally to other end remote site.
 Adherence to SLAs and guaranteed packet delivery – MPLS supports QoS, which
becomes particularly essential for voice and video services.
 Cost savings – MPLS enables high savings on running costs compared to other data
services like frame relay and ATM.
 Traffic routing – At times the shortest path between two locations isn't the best due
to congestion. MPLS has ability called Traffic Engineering that enables traffic to be
sent over non-standard paths. This significantly helps reduce latency and congestion
on the paths.
Ques 5. What do you mean by MPLS?
MPLS is abbreviation for Multiprotocol Label Switching. In MPLS, data packets are be
forwarded at Layer 2 (switching level) instead of traditional way of Layer 3 routing. For this
reason, it is often informally described as operating at Layer 2.5.
In MPLS technology, each packet gets labeled on entry of service provider's network (at
ingress router – ingress LER). Thereon, all the subsequent label-switching routers (LSRs)
perform packet forwarding based only on MPLS labels.(IP Header lookup is not performed in
LSR Routers).AT egress LER , the labels is removed and original packet is forwarded toward
the destination.
Below are list of actions performed by MPLS Routers (LER or LSR)
 Push: Adds a label (by Ingress Router)
 Swap: Replace a label (by LSRs)
 Pop: Removes a label (by egress Router)

Ques 6. What is difference between MPLS and Leased Line?

Table below enlists the difference between MPLS and Leased Line -
Ques 7. Explain PHP in MPLS?
PHP is abbreviation for penultimate hop popping which means to remove the label one hop
before its destination. PHP removes the outermost label of an MPLS tagged packet on Label
Switch Router (LSR) before sending to next Label Edge Router (LER). This is performed in
MPLS domain to reduce the load on the LER. By having PHP for an LER done on the LSRs
connected to it, the load is effectively distributed among its neighbor routers.
Ques 8. Describe PUSH in relation to MPLS?
In MPLS, there are 3 operations regarding Labels –
 PUSH
 POP
 SWAP
Push operation means adding a label on the top of the IP header or on the top of the
existing labels.
In pure MPLS, when a packet comes from the outside of MPLS network, router will push a
label (i.e. add label to the packet) and redirect the packet.
Below diagram shows LER (Label Edge Router) performing the push action and adding label
on top of IP Header.
Ques 9. What is difference between MPLS LDP and RSVP?
Difference between LDP and RSVP is given in below table -

Ques 10. Describe SWAP in relation to MPLS?

SWAP is one of the 3 operations performed on Labels.SWAP means exchanging a label with
another label. SWAP is a POP and a PUSH. SWAP function is carried out by LSR Routers in the
Core of MPLS Network.
Ques 11. What is POP function in MPLS?
POP refers to removing the top label. The packet is forwarded with the remaining label stack
or as an unlabeled packet. POP means removing a label from the top of label stack.

Ques 12. What is a label?

In MPLS domain, a Label of length 32 bits is inserted in between the IP header and the
Ethernet header. A label basically tells the router which LSP it belongs to. With label, packet
forwarding in not done based on its IP routing information but based on information
associated with the label.

Ques 13. What is the structure of the label?

The various filed of an MPLS label and there explanation are as below:

Label Value: As the name suggests it is where you will find the actual value of the label.
0-15 are the reserved labels and are never made available for allocation. Label 0 is the
explicit NULL label, whereas label 3 is the implicit NULL label. Label 1 is the router alert label,
whereas label 14 is the OAM alert label.

EXP: These are the three experimental bits. These are used for QoS, normally the IP
precedence value of the IP packet will be copied here or the first three DSCP bits will be
copied here.
 S: This is the “bottom of stack” bit. In MPLS it’s possible to add more than one label.
Suppose there are three labels stacked together then the first two labels will have this field
as ‘0’ while the bottom label will have this bit set with a value of ‘1’.

TTL: Just like in the IP header, this is the time to live field. You can use this for traces in the
MPLS network. Each hop decrements the TTL by one.

Ques 14. Where will the label be imposed in a packet?

The label is imposed between the data link layer (Layer 2) header and network layer (Layer
3) header. The top of the label stack appears first in the packet, and the bottom appears last.
The network layer packet immediately follows the last label in the label stack.

Ques 15. What is a Forwarding Equivalence Class (FEC)?

Forwarding Equivalence Class (FEC) is a set of prefixes treated in the same way. FEC is used
in Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) to describe a set of packets with similar or identical
characteristics which may be forwarded the same way. Those prefixes may belong to same
prefixes if sent
1) via the same next hop
2) same exit interface
3) Same queueing policies

Ques 16. Name the major roles of MPLS Routers?

Broadly, MPLS Routers in MPLS network may be categorized into following roles –
 Label Edge Router (LER)
o Ingress LER
o Egress LER
 Label Switched Router (LSR)

Ques 17. What is Label Edge Router (LER)?

Label Edge Router is of 2 types –
 Ingress Label Edge Router (LER)
 Egress Label Edge Router (LER)

Ingress Label Edge Router (LER) is present on the edge of mpls cloud and is the entry point
where the data packet originates from its source. Ingress LER imposes label via PUSH action
and then forward packets towards destination.

Egress Label Edge Router (LER) is present on the edge of mpls network and is an exit point
of data packet towards destination. Egress LER performs label removal via POP function and
forwards IP packet towards destination.
Ques 18. What is a Label Switch Router (LSR)?
LSR router receives a labeled packet, SWAPs it with an outgoing one, and forwards the new
packet towards outgoing interface.

Ques 19. Can an LSR receive/transmit a labeled packet on a non-MPLS interface?

No. Packets are never transmitted on an interface which is not enabled for that protocol. If
an MPLS packet is received on an interface which does not have MPLS enabled, the packet is
dropped.

Ques 20. What platforms of Cisco ISR support MPLS?

Following Cisco platforms support MPLS –
 Cisco 3900 Series ISRs
 Cisco 3800 Series ISRs
 Cisco 2900 Series ISRs
  Cisco 2800 Series ISRs
 Cisco 1900 Series ISRs
 Cisco 1841 ISR
 Cisco 1800 Series ISRs (Fixed)
 Cisco 890 Platform ISRs
 Cisco 880 Platform ISRs
 Cisco 870 Platform ISRs
 Cisco 4000 Platform ISRs

Note – Cisco 880 and 870 don’t support CSC customer edge, LER and LSR configuration.

Ques 21. How much overhead does an MPLS LSP tunnel have?
An MPLS LSP tunnel has one label (four bytes) or two labels (for example, when using Link
Protection Fast reroute) of overhead. The label stack is imposed on to the packet that takes
the tunnel path.

Ques 22. How does the LSR know which is the top label, bottom label, and a middle label of
the label stack?
The label immediately after the Layer 2 header is the top label, and the label with the S bit
set to 1 is the bottom label.

Ques 23. What is the range of label values?

The range of label is 0 through (2020 -1)

Ques 24. What label values are reserved? What do the reserved values signify?
Label values 0-15 are reserved, and values 4-15 are reserved for future use. Values 0-3 are
defined as:
A value of 0 represents the IPv4 Explicit NULL Label. This label indicates that the
label stack must be popped, and the packet forwarding must be based on the IPv4 header.
This helps to keep Exp bits safe until the egress router. It is used in MPLS based QoS
A value of 1 represents the Router Alert Label. When a received packet contains this
label value at the top of the label stack, it is delivered to a local software module for
processing. The actual packet forwarding is determined by the label beneath it in the stack.
However, if the packet is forwarded further, the Router Alert Label should be pushed back
onto the label stack before forwarding. The use of this label is analogous to the use of the
Router Alert Option in IP packets (for example, ping with record route option)
A value of 2 represents the IPv6 Explicit NULL Label. It indicates that the label stack
must be popped, and the packet forwarding must be based on the IPv6 header
A value of 3 represents the Implicit NULL Label. This is a label that an LSR can assign
and distribute. However, it never actually appears in the encapsulation. It indicates that the
LSR pops the top label from the stack and forwards the rest of the packet (labeled or
unlabeled) through the outgoing interface (as per the entry in LFIB). Although this value
might never appear in the encapsulation, it needs to be specified in the Label Distribution
Protocol, so a value is reserved.
Ques 25. How many bits in an MPLS label?
In MPLS a Label of length 32 bits is inserted in between the IP header and the Ethernet
header.

Ques 26. To what multicast address are LDP hellos sent?

224.0.0.2

Ques 27. On what UDP port is LDP sent?

UDP port 646

Ques 28. What is the difference between the FIB and the LFIB?
FIB is built in the Data Plane by CEF. LFIB is built in the Data Plane. The LFIB contains
forwarding information based on label information. The FIB has forwarding information
from CEF and IP reachability. If a frame arrives with a label then the LFIB is consulted. If it is
unlabeled then the FIB is used.

Ques 29. What options are available for load balancing MPLS packets?
MPLS packets can be load balanced with the MPLS label information and/or the source and
destination address of the essential IP header.

Ques 30. Can we configure an 802.1Q trunk between two Cisco Catalyst switches on different
sites over a MPLS connection?
When you connect to a remote site through MPLS, it is a layer 3 connection, and the 802.1Q
trunk is a layer 2 protocol, so we cannot have an 802.1Q trunk across a MPLS connection.

Ques 31. Does the DHCP relay function work in the MPLS VPN network?
Yes, the DHCP request is forwarded within the VRF across the MPLS VPN network and the
egress Provider Edge sends it in the same VRF to the DHCP server.
Ques 32. What protocol and port numbers do LDP and TDP use to distribute labels to LDP/TDP
peers?

Ques 33. What is the difference between RD and RT?

Below table shares difference between RD and RT -

Ques 34. What is CEF and without enabling CEF, can we make MPLS work?
Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) is advanced, Layer 3 IP switching technology. CEF optimizes
network performance and scalability for networks with large and dynamic traffic patterns,
such as the Internet, on networks characterized by intensive applications, or chatty sessions.
CEF is mandatory in Cisco routers for MPLS.

Ques 35. What are default timers of LDP?

Default timers of LDP are –
 Hello Interval = 5 seconds
 Hold Timer = 15 seconds

Ques 36. Does MPLS support IPv6?

No, MPLS does not used IPv6 yet.
Ques 37. What is VPLS?
Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) technology to provide Ethernet-based multipoint to
multipoint communication over IP or MPLS networks. It allows geographically dispersed sites
to share an Ethernet broadcast domain by connecting sites through pseudowires.
In simple words, VPLS allows to create a logical local area network (LAN) structure between
geographically separate sites. VPLS is more of a mesh topology where it can be used to
transport non-IP traffic without any need for conversion or encapsulation.

Ques 38. How is VPLS different from MPLS?

Below is the difference between MPLS and VPLS -

Ques 39. With MPLS VPN-aware NAT, what additional information is tracked inside the NAT
translation table?
VRF information
Ques 40. What is the difference between VPN and MPLS?

Ques 41. What is a Label Switch Path?

A label-switched path (LSP) is a unidirectional path through the MPLS network. You can set
up an LSP using any of the signaling protocols such as LDP, RSVP, or BGP. The path begins at
an ingress provider edge (PE) switch, which makes a decision on which label to prefix to a
packet based on the appropriate forwarding equivalence class (FEC).
Ques 42. What is a Label Distribution Protocol?
In MPLS two adjacent Label Switching Routers (LSRs) must agree on labels used to forward
traffic. The label distribution protocol or LDP is a protocol is used for distributing
Labels in MPLS networks. LDP is a set of procedures and messages by which LSRs
establish Label Switched Paths (LSPs) through a network by mapping network layer
routing information directly to data link layer switched paths, as shown in Figure
Ques 43. What's the difference between CR-LDP and RSVP-TE?

Ques 44. What is the relationship between MPLS and the IP Routing?
Ques 45. What protocols does MPLS support besides IP?
Other than IP, MPLS supports following at Network Layer -
 IPv6
 IPX
 AppleTalk

Following are supported at Layer 2 –

 Ethernet
 Frame Relay
 Token Ring
 FDDI
 ATM

Ques 46. What differences are there in running MPLS in OSPF versus IS-IS environments?
Only major difference between running OSPF vs IS-IS in MPLS is IS-IS being more scalable
than OSPF.

Ques 47. MPLS works on which layer?

MPLS works between Layer2 and Layer 3 hence we can say MPLS works at Layer 2.5

Ques 48. What is the protocol used by MPLS?

MPLS uses TDP or LDP protocols for label distribution.

Ques 49. Which router performs the PHP function?

PHP is performed by LSR Router adjacent to the Label Edge Router.

Ques 50. Label 3 routing protocols and label exchange protocols exist at which MPLS plane?
Control Plane

Ques 51. What are the different types of labels?

Different types of labels are -
 Implicit Null
 Explicit Null
 Aggregate Label

Ques 52. Does RD travel in route update?

No, RD does travel in route update across routers.

Ques 53. In neighbor discovery command, I am receiving only xmit, what does it mean?
You can see only xmit in neighbor discovery command which means neighboring router isn't
sending any ldp hello packets. You can check on neighboring router whether MPLS enabled
or not

Ques 54. What is transport address?

Router id is transport address. Routers must first establish a TCP session between one
another before they can establish an LDP session. The TCP session enables the routers to
exchange the label advertisements needed for the LDP session. To establish the TCP session,
 each router must learn the other router's transport address. The transport address is an IP
address used to identify the TCP session over which the LDP session will run.

Ques 55. What is MP-BGP?

MP-BGP is an abbreviation for Multiprotocol BGP and is used in MPLS VPN where we use
MP-BGP to exchange the VPN labels. It is an extension to Border Gateway Protocol that
allows different types of addresses (address families) to be distributed in parallel. Whereas
standard BGP supports only IPv4 unicast addresses, Multiprotocol BGP supports IPv4 and
IPv6 addresses and it supports unicast and multicast variants of each.

Ques 56. Differences between MPLS and VPN?

Ques 57. What are the prerequisites to run MPLS?

MPLS Prerequisites are enlisted below -
 • Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) acts as a prerequisite to run MPLS on Cisco devices.
CEF may not be required on other vendors but in order to enable MPLS functionality
on Cisco, you have to enable CEF before that.
• Any IGP protocol preferably IS-IS because of its scalability. OSPF may also be used or
any other protocol.
• In case of MPLS VPN like for service providers, we need to have BGP as well.

Ques 58. Which Routing protocols support MPLS Traffic Engineering?

OSPF and IS-IS are the only Routing protocols supporting MPLS TE.

Ques 59. What are LIB?

Label information base (LIB) is generated by LDP and used to manage labels. Labels are
stored in a LIB which holds all label and forwarding information needed to forward packets.
When LDP is enabled on a router, the router will assign a local label to each IP prefix in its
routing table. This label to prefix mapping on the router is called a local binding. The router
advertises this label to prefix mapping to its neighbors which further advertise the binding to
their neighbors. The received label/prefix mapping from LDP neighbors then becomes
remote bindings on the router. The local bindings and remote bindings are stored in the
Label Information Base (LIB).

Ques 60. What is LFIB?

LFIB (abbreviation for Label forwarding information base) is created by LDP on an MPLS
Router and used to forward MPLS packets.
LDP uses the best path from routing table and populates LFIB with this best path
information. The FIB is also populated with this best label information for the particular
destination prefix. The command to view the LFIB is “show mpls forwarding-table”.
Ques 61. If we disable CEF will MPLS work?
If CEF is disabled and we try to enable MPLS the CLI will complain about the fact that CEF is
disabled and the mpls command is not accepted. Especially in case of cisco Routers, CEF
acquired information is important component of deriving FIB table.

Ques 62. What is different between VRF and VRF Lite?

Ques 63. What is VPLS?

VPLS (Abbreviation for Virtual Private LAN Services) enables multiple sites (Any to Any
connectivity) in a single bridged domain over MPLS networks. VPLS concept performs
forwarding is L2 based (MAC, VLAN). It allows customers to connect geographically
dispersed LAN sites across MPLS backbone. For customers, all sites appear to be in the same
Ethernet LAN (due to VPLS) even though traffic travels across the service provider's network.
VPLS enables Layer 2 Ethernet Virtual Private across IP/MPLS public networks.
Ques 64. Can we implement class of service with MPLS?
Yes. We can use class of service (CoS) within MPLS networks to prioritize certain types of
traffic during periods of congestion.

Ques 65. What is the difference between P and PE router in terms of MPLS?
P routers acts as LSR (Label Switching Router). It creates LSP (Label Switching Path) between
PE routers. P routers don't participate in BGP routing in the MPLS Core, and only participates
in the IGP routing in order to pass MPLS Labels through the core between the various PE
routers.
PE router maintains routing information of the site with which it is connected in the
network. Each PE router maintains a VRF (Virtual Routing and Forwarding) table for each of
its sites. Each customer connection is mapped to specific VRF. PE routers, are the
termination points for customer CE routers and therefore, need to participate in BGP (MP-
BGP more like it) in order to pass routers from 1 customer CE router to another, where ever
the destination may be.
The PE router is both the interface between the customer-facing network and the MPLS
core, and the point where customer data is given an MPLS label and/or the label is removed.

Ques 66. Two routers are having 4 equal cost links, how many ldp sessions will be
established?
1 session will be formed

Ques 67. Without route reflector can I implement MPLS?

Yes, however we need to develop full mesh BGP
Ques 68. My LDP router id, OSPF router id and BGP router id is different, will it work to
forward the traffic of customers or not?
LDP router id and BGP router-id should be same if SP is using labels only for loopbacks. If
labels are generated for each and every route then no problem at all.

Ques 69. What is the default range of MPLS labels in Cisco routers?
MPLS label range from 0 to 1,048,575 (configurable on Cisco IOS) .Labels 0 through 15 are
reserved labels.

Ques 70. What group is responsible for creating MPLS standards?

MPLS Working Group, IETF.

Ques 71. What are the components of MPLS-TE?

Below are the Components of Traffic Engineering -
 Information distribution
 Path selection/calculation
 Path setup
 Trunk admission control
 Forwarding traffic on to tunnel
 Path maintenance

Ques 72. What is "GMPLS”?

GMPLS is abbreviation for “Generalized MPLS”. It extends MPLS to encompass time-division
(e.g. SONET ADMs), wavelength (optical lambdas) and spatial switching .GMPLS is an
extension of MPLS to allow MPLS to be used as the control mechanism for configuring
packet-based paths and non-packet based devices such as optical switches, TDM MUX, and
SONET.

Ques 73. Can I make my PE router as P?

To make your PE router as P, you need to remove the BGP configurations and after that it
will not participate with customer network routing.

Ques 74. What are the requirement to run MPLS Traffic Engineering in the network?
MPLS TE has the following prerequisites -
• Network must support Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
• Network must support at least one of the following Interior Gateway protocols -
o Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS)
o Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
• Ensure that the MPLS feature set is installed and enabled
• IP Cisco Express Forwarding should be enabled

Ques 75. How to filter MPLS labels?

Label filtering can be used to minimize the number of prefixes in LIB and control which
prefixes get advertised using LDP.
Below are some of commands syntax used for filtering MPLS labels -
• “mpls ldp advertise-labels”
o Used to control which labels are advertised to which LDP neighbors
o "No" will prevent the distribution of any locally assigned labels
• mpls ldp advertise-labels for <dest prefix> to <ldp peer>
o States which destinations should have their labels advertised
o For = prefix(es)
o To = to whom

• mpls ldp neighbor <neighbor ip> labels accept <ACL>

o The specified ACL is used to filter label bindings advertised by the specified
neighbor.
o If the prefix part of the label binding is permitted by the ACL, The router will
accept the binding.
o If the prefix is denied, the router will not accept or store the binding.