BGP Configuration Guide for Cisco 8000 Series Routers, Cisco IOS XR Releases

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Exclusion of label allocation for non-advertised routes

Updated: February 28, 2026

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Overview

Details label allocation exclusions by providing procedures to exclude label assignment for non-advertised routes, improving label efficiency and resource utilization in MPLS network operations.

Route Advertisement Control Using Community Attributes on PE-ASBRs

An exclusion of label allocation for non-advertised routes is a label management feature that

  • allows control of label allocation based on route advertisement status

  • enables assignment of labels only to routes that are advertised to BGP peers, and

  • prevents label allocation for routes that are not advertised.

  • This feature is configured on Provider Edge (PE) routers acting as autonomous system border routers (ASBRs).

    The community attribute is set to either no-advertise or no-export in route-policy configuration mode for routes that are not advertised to peers.

  • After applying the community attribute in the route policy, the router does not allocate a label to those routes.

Guidelines for applying BGP community attributes

Apply the BGP community attributes as follows:

  • Use no-advertise for both eBGP and iBGP routes.

  • Use no-export only for eBGP routes.

Table 1. Feature History Table

Feature Name

Release Information

Feature Description

Exclusion of Label Allocation for Non-Advertised Routes

 Release 25.1.1

Introduced in this release on: Fixed Systems (8700 [ASIC: K100])(select variants only*)

*This feature is supported on the Cisco 8712-MOD-M routers.

Exclusion of Label Allocation for Non-Advertised Routes

 Release 24.4.1

Introduced in this release on: Fixed Systems (8200 [ASIC: P100], 8700 [ASIC: P100])(select variants only*); Modular Systems (8800 [LC ASIC: P100])(select variants only*)

*This feature is supported on:

  • 88-LC1-36EH+A8:B12

  • 88-LC1-12TH24FH-E

  • 88-LC1-52Y8H-EM

  • 8212-48FH-M

  • 8711-32FH-M

Exclusion of Label Allocation for Non-Advertised Routes

 Release 7.10.1

We have enabled better label space management and hardware resource utilization by making MPLS label allocation more flexible. This flexibility means you can now assign these labels to only those routes that are advertised to their peer routes, ensuring better label space management and hardware resource utilization.

Prior to this release, label allocation was done regardless of whether the routes being advertised. This resulted in inefficient use of label space.

Exclude label allocation for non-advertised routes

Prevent label allocation to routes that are not advertised to any BGP peer by using the no-advertise community.

Use this task when you need to configure BGP on a Provider Edge (PE) router so that non-advertised routes do not receive labels.

Before you begin

  • Verify that BGP is already configured on the device.

  • Identify the BGP neighbors and address families that require this configuration.

  • Plan the route policies and community sets you need to implement.

\

Procedure

1.

Configure the community set for no-advertise.

Example:

Router(config)# community-set no-advertise
Router(config-comm)# no-advertise
Router(config-comm)# end-set
2.

Configure a route policy to set the no-advertise community.

Example:

Router(config)# route-policy set-no-advertise
Router(config-rpl)# set community no-advertise additive
Router(config-rpl)# end-policy
3.

Apply the route policy as an inbound policy to the BGP neighbor.

Example:

Router(config)# router bgp 1
Router(config-bgp)# neighbor 192.0.2.1
Router(config-bgp-nbr)# remote-as 1
Router(config-bgp-nbr)# update-source Loopback0
Router(config-bgp-nbr)# address-family ipv4 unicast
Router(config-bgp-nbr-af)# route-policy set-no-advertise in
Router(config-bgp-nbr-af)# route-policy pass_all out
Router(config-bgp-nbr-af)# commit
4.

Use the show bgp vpnv6 unicast rd command to verify if the community parameter is set to no-advertise.

Example:

Router# show bgp vpnv6 unicast rd 2001:DB8:0:ABCD::1
BGP routing table entry for 0:ABCD::1 Route Distinguisher: 2001:DB8
Versions:
  Process           bRIB/RIB  SendTblVer
  Speaker               19207        19207
Paths: (1 available, best #1, not advertised to any peer)
  Not advertised to any peer
  Path #1: Received by speaker 0
  Not advertised to any peer
  Local, (Received from a RR-client)
    192.0.2.254 from 192.0.2.1 (192.0.2.1)
      Received Label 16
      Origin IGP, metric 3, localpref 3, aigp metric 3, valid, internal, best, group-best, import-candidate, not-in-vrf
      Received Path ID 0, Local Path ID 1, version 19207
Community: 1:1 no-advertise 
      Extended community: Color:3333 RT:2001:DB8
      AIGP set by inbound policy metric
      Total AIGP metric 3