Gx Interface Support
Rel. 8 Gx Interface ▀
Cisco ASR 5x00 Packet Data Network Gateway Administration Guide ▄
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PULL (provisioning solicited by the PCEF): In response to a request for PCC rules being made by the PCEF, the
PCRF provisions PCC rules in the CC-Answer.
PUSH (unsolicited provisioning): The PCRF may decide to provision PCC rules without obtaining a request
from the PCEF. For example, in response to information provided to the PCRF via the Rx reference point, or in
response to an internal trigger within the PCRF. To provision PCC rules without a request from the PCEF, the
PCRF includes these PCC rules in an RA-Request message. No CCR/CCA messages are triggered by this RA-
Request.
For each request from the PCEF or upon unsolicited provisioning, the PCRF provisions zero or more PCC rules. The
PCRF may perform an operation on a single PCC rule by one of the following means:
To activate or deactivate a PCC rule that is predefined at the PCEF, the PCRF provisions a reference to this PCC
rule within a Charging-Rule-Name AVP and indicates the required action by choosing either the Charging-
Rule-Install AVP or the Charging-Rule-Remove AVP.
To install or modify a PCRF-provisioned PCC rule, the PCRF provisions a corresponding Charging-Rule-
Definition AVP within a Charging-Rule-Install AVP.
To remove a PCC rule which has previously been provisioned by the PCRF, the PCRF provisions the name of
this rule as value of a Charging-Rule-Name AVP within a Charging-Rule-Remove AVP.
Important:
In 11.0 and later releases, the maximum valid length for a charging rule name is 63 bytes. When the
length of the charging rule name is greater than 63 bytes, a charging rule report with RESOURCES_LIMITATION as
Rule-Failure-Code is sent. This charging rule report is sent only when the length of the rule name is lesser than 128
characters. When the charging rule name length is greater than or equal to 128 characters no charging rule report will be
sent. In earlier releases, the length of the charging rule name constructed by PCRF was limited to 32 bytes.
Releases prior to 14.0, when PCRF has subscribed to Out of Credit trigger, on session connect when one rule validation
fails and also when an Out of Credit was received from OCS for another rule, P-GW was trying to report these failures
in different CCR-U to PCRF. However, the second CCR-U of Out of credit was getting dropped internally.
In 14.0 and later releases, on session connect, P-GW combines the rule failure and out of credit in the same CCR-U and
sends to PCRF.
Selecting a PCC Rule for Uplink IP Packets
If PCC is enabled, the PCEF selects the applicable PCC rule for each received uplink IP packet within an IP-CAN
session by evaluating the packet against uplink SDF filters of PCRF-provided or predefined active PCC rules of this IP-
CAN session in the order of the precedence of the PCC rules.
Important:
When a PCRF-provided PCC rule and a predefined PCC rule have the same precedence, the uplink
SDF filters of the PCRF-provided PCC rule is applied first.
When a packet matches an SDF filter, the packet matching process for that packet is completed, and the PCC rule for
that filter is applied. Uplink IP packets which do not match any PCC rule of the corresponding IP-CAN session are
discarded.
Selecting a PCC Rule for Downlink IP Packets
If PCC is enabled, the PCEF selects a PCC rule for each received downlink IP packet within an IP-CAN session by
evaluating the packet against downlink SDF filters of PCRF-provided or predefined active PCC rules of the IP-CAN
session in the order of precedence of the PCC rules.
