Routers and Layer 3 switches can route packets in these ways:

• By using default routing

• By using preprogrammed static routes for the traffic

• By dynamically calculating routes by using a routing protocol

Default routing refers to sending traffic with a destination unknown to the router to a default outlet or destination.

Static unicast routing forwards packets from predetermined ports through a single path into and out of a network. Static routing is secure and uses little bandwidth, but does not automatically respond to changes in the network, such as link failures, and therefore, might result in unreachable destinations. As networks grow, static routing becomes a labor-intensive liability.

Switches running the LAN base feature set support 16 user-configured static routes, in addition to any default routes used for the management interface. The LAN base image supports static routing only on SVIs.

Dynamic routing protocols are used by routers to dynamically calculate the best route for forwarding traffic. There are two types of dynamic routing protocols:

• Routers using distance-vector protocols maintain routing tables with distance values of networked resources, and periodically pass these tables to their neighbors. Distance-vector protocols use one or a series of metrics for calculating the best routes. These protocols are easy to configure and use.

• Routers using link-state protocols maintain a complex database of network topology, based on the exchange of link-state advertisements (LSAs) between routers. LSAs are triggered by an event in the network, which speeds up the convergence time or time required to respond to these changes. Link-state protocols respond quickly to topology changes, but require greater bandwidth and more resources than distance-vector protocols.

Distance-vector protocols supported by the switch are Routing Information Protocol (RIP), which uses a single distance metric (cost) to determine the best path and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which adds a path vector mechanism. The switch also supports the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) link-state protocol and Enhanced IGRP (EIGRP), which adds some link-state routing features to traditional Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP) to improve efficiency.

Note

On a switch or switch stack, the supported protocols are determined by the software running on the active switch. If the active switch is running the IP base feature set, only default routing, static routing and RIP are supported. If the switch is running the LAN base feature set, you can configure 16 static routes on SVIs. All other routing protocols require the IP services feature set.

A switch stack appears to the network as a single switch, regardless of which switch in the stack is connected to a routing peer.

The active switch performs these functions:

• It initializes and configures the routing protocols.

• It sends routing protocol messages and updates to other routers.

• It processes routing protocol messages and updates received from peer routers.

• It generates, maintains, and distributes the distributed Cisco Express Forwarding (dCEF) database to all stack members. The routes are programmed on all switches in the stack bases on this database.

• The MAC address of the active switch is used as the router MAC address for the whole stack, and all outside devices use this address to send IP packets to the stack.

• All IP packets that require software forwarding or processing go through the CPU of the active switch.

Stack members perform these functions:

• They act as routing standby switches, ready to take over in case they are elected as the new active switch if the active switch fails.

• They program the routes into hardware.

If a active switch fails, the stack detects that the active switch is down and elects one of the stack members to be the new active switch. During this period, except for a momentary interruption, the hardware continues to forward packets with no active protocols.

However, even though the switch stack maintains the hardware identification after a failure, the routing protocols on the router neighbors might flap during the brief interruption before the active switch restarts. Routing protocols such as OSPF and EIGRP need to recognize neighbor transitions. The router uses two levels of nonstop forwarding (NSF) to detect a switchover, to continue forwarding network traffic, and to recover route information from peer devices:

• NSF-aware routers tolerate neighboring router failures. After the neighbor router restarts, an NSF-aware router supplies information about its state and route adjacencies on request.

• NSF-capable routers support NSF. When they detect a active switch change, they rebuild routing information from NSF-aware or NSF-capable neighbors and do not wait for a restart.

The switch stack supports NSF-capable routing for OSPF and EIGRP.

Upon election, the new active switch performs these functions:

• It starts generating, receiving, and processing routing updates.

• It builds routing tables, generates the CEF database, and distributes it to stack members.

• It uses its MAC address as the router MAC address. To notify its network peers of the new MAC address, it periodically (every few seconds for 5 minutes) sends a gratuitous ARP reply with the new router MAC address.

  Note

  If you configure the persistent MAC address feature on the stack and the active switch changes, the stack MAC address does not change for the configured time period. If the previous active switch rejoins the stack as a member switch during that time period, the stack MAC address remains the MAC address of the previous active switch.

• It attempts to determine the reachability of every proxy ARP entry by sending an ARP request to the proxy ARP IP address and receiving an ARP reply. For each reachable proxy ARP IP address, it generates a gratuitous ARP reply with the new router MAC address. This process is repeated for 5 minutes after a new active switch election.

  Note

  When a active switch is running the IP services feature set, the stack can run all supported protocols, including Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), and Enhanced IGRP (EIGRP) . If the active switch fails and the new elected active switch is running the IP base or LAN base feature set, these protocols will no longer run in the stack.

  Caution

  Partitioning of the switch stack into two or more stacks might lead to undesirable behavior in the network.

If the switch is reloaded, then all the ports on that switch go down and there is a loss of traffic for the interfaces involved in routing, despite NSF/SSO capability.

By default, classless routing behavior is enabled on the Switch when it is configured to route. With classless routing, if a router receives packets for a subnet of a network with no default route, the router forwards the packet to the best supernet route. A supernet consists of contiguous blocks of Class C address spaces used to simulate a single, larger address space and is designed to relieve the pressure on the rapidly depleting Class B address space.

In the figure, classless routing is enabled. When the host sends a packet to 120.20.4.1, instead of discarding the packet, the router forwards it to the best supernet route. If you disable classless routing and a router receives packets destined for a subnet of a network with no network default route, the router discards the packet.

In the figure , the router in network 128.20.0.0 is connected to subnets 128.20.1.0, 128.20.2.0, and 128.20.3.0. If the host sends a packet to 120.20.4.1, because there is no network default route, the router discards the packet.

To prevent the Switch from forwarding packets destined for unrecognized subnets to the best supernet route possible, you can disable classless routing behavior.

You can control interface-specific handling of IP by using address resolution. A device using IP can have both a local address or MAC address, which uniquely defines the device on its local segment or LAN, and a network address, which identifies the network to which the device belongs.

Note	In a switch stack, network communication uses a single MAC address and the IP address of the stack.

The local address or MAC address is known as a data link address because it is contained in the data link layer (Layer 2) section of the packet header and is read by data link (Layer 2) devices. To communicate with a device on Ethernet, the software must learn the MAC address of the device. The process of learning the MAC address from an IP address is called address resolution . The process of learning the IP address from the MAC address is called reverse address resolution .

The Switch can use these forms of address resolution:

• Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is used to associate IP address with MAC addresses. Taking an IP address as input, ARP learns the associated MAC address and then stores the IP address/MAC address association in an ARP cache for rapid retrieval. Then the IP datagram is encapsulated in a link-layer frame and sent over the network. Encapsulation of IP datagrams and ARP requests or replies on IEEE 802 networks other than Ethernet is specified by the Subnetwork Access Protocol (SNAP).

• Proxy ARP helps hosts with no routing tables learn the MAC addresses of hosts on other networks or subnets. If the Switch (router) receives an ARP request for a host that is not on the same interface as the ARP request sender, and if the router has all of its routes to the host through other interfaces, it generates a proxy ARP packet giving its own local data link address. The host that sent the ARP request then sends its packets to the router, which forwards them to the intended host.

The Switch also uses the Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP), which functions the same as ARP does, except that the RARP packets request an IP address instead of a local MAC address. Using RARP requires a RARP server on the same network segment as the router interface. Use the ip rarp-server address interface configuration command to identify the server.

For more information on RARP, see the Cisco IOS Configuration Fundamentals Configuration Guide

Proxy ARP, the most common method for learning about other routes, enables an Ethernet host with no routing information to communicate with hosts on other networks or subnets. The host assumes that all hosts are on the same local Ethernet and that they can use ARP to learn their MAC addresses. If a Switch receives an ARP request for a host that is not on the same network as the sender, the Switch evaluates whether it has the best route to that host. If it does, it sends an ARP reply packet with its own Ethernet MAC address, and the host that sent the request sends the packet to the Switch, which forwards it to the intended host. Proxy ARP treats all networks as if they are local and performs ARP requests for every IP address.

Router discovery allows the Switch to dynamically learn about routes to other networks using ICMP router discovery protocol (IRDP). IRDP allows hosts to locate routers. When operating as a client, the Switch generates router discovery packets. When operating as a host, the Switch receives router discovery packets. The Switch can also listen to Routing Information Protocol (RIP) routing updates and use this information to infer locations of routers. The Switch does not actually store the routing tables sent by routing devices; it merely keeps track of which systems are sending the data. The advantage of using IRDP is that it allows each router to specify both a priority and the time after which a device is assumed to be down if no further packets are received.

Each device discovered becomes a candidate for the default router, and a new highest-priority router is selected when a higher priority router is discovered, when the current default router is declared down, or when a TCP connection is about to time out because of excessive retransmissions.

After configuring an IP interface address, you can enable routing and configure one or more routing protocols, or you can configure the way the Switch responds to network broadcasts. A broadcast is a data packet destined for all hosts on a physical network. The Switch supports two kinds of broadcasting:

• A directed broadcast packet is sent to a specific network or series of networks. A directed broadcast address includes the network or subnet fields.

• A flooded broadcast packet is sent to every network.

  Note	You can also limit broadcast, unicast, and multicast traffic on Layer 2 interfaces by using the storm-control interface configuration command to set traffic suppression levels.

Routers provide some protection from broadcast storms by limiting their extent to the local cable. Bridges (including intelligent bridges), because they are Layer 2 devices, forward broadcasts to all network segments, thus propagating broadcast storms. The best solution to the broadcast storm problem is to use a single broadcast address scheme on a network. In most modern IP implementations, you can set the address to be used as the broadcast address. Many implementations, including the one in the Switch, support several addressing schemes for forwarding broadcast messages.

You can allow IP broadcasts to be flooded throughout your internetwork in a controlled fashion by using the database created by the bridging STP. Using this feature also prevents loops. To support this capability, bridging must be configured on each interface that is to participate in the flooding. If bridging is not configured on an interface, it still can receive broadcasts. However, the interface never forwards broadcasts it receives, and the router never uses that interface to send broadcasts received on a different interface.

Packets that are forwarded to a single network address using the IP helper-address mechanism can be flooded. Only one copy of the packet is sent on each network segment.

To be considered for flooding, packets must meet these criteria. (Note that these are the same conditions used to consider packet forwarding using IP helper addresses.)

• The packet must be a MAC-level broadcast.

• The packet must be an IP-level broadcast.

• The packet must be a TFTP, DNS, Time, NetBIOS, ND, or BOOTP packet, or a UDP specified by the ip forward-protocol udp global configuration command.

• The time-to-live (TTL) value of the packet must be at least two.

A flooded UDP datagram is given the destination address specified with the ip broadcast-address interface configuration command on the output interface. The destination address can be set to any address. Thus, the destination address might change as the datagram propagates through the network. The source address is never changed. The TTL value is decremented.

When a flooded UDP datagram is sent out an interface (and the destination address possibly changed), the datagram is handed to the normal IP output routines and is, therefore, subject to access lists, if they are present on the output interface.

In the Switch, the majority of packets are forwarded in hardware; most packets do not go through the Switch CPU. For those packets that do go to the CPU, you can speed up spanning tree-based UDP flooding by a factor of about four to five times by using turbo-flooding. This feature is supported over Ethernet interfaces configured for ARP encapsulation.

Routers connected to broadcast-type IP networks and using distance-vector routing protocols normally use the split-horizon mechanism to reduce the possibility of routing loops. Split horizon blocks information about routes from being advertised by a router on any interface from which that information originated. This feature usually optimizes communication among multiple routers, especially when links are broken.

The Switch or switch stack supports two levels of nonstop forwarding (NSF):

• OSPF NSF Awareness

• OSPF NSF Capability

You can optionally configure several OSPF area parameters. These parameters include authentication for password-based protection against unauthorized access to an area, stub areas, and not-so-stubby-areas (NSSAs). Stub areas are areas into which information on external routes is not sent. Instead, the area border router (ABR) generates a default external route into the stub area for destinations outside the autonomous system (AS). An NSSA does not flood all LSAs from the core into the area, but can import AS external routes within the area by redistribution.

Route summarization is the consolidation of advertised addresses into a single summary route to be advertised by other areas. If network numbers are contiguous, you can use the area range router configuration command to configure the ABR to advertise a summary route that covers all networks in the range.

You can optionally configure other OSPF parameters in router configuration mode.

• Route summarization: When redistributing routes from other protocols. Each route is advertised individually in an external LSA. To help decrease the size of the OSPF link state database, you can use the summary-address router configuration command to advertise a single router for all the redistributed routes included in a specified network address and mask.

• Virtual links: In OSPF, all areas must be connected to a backbone area. You can establish a virtual link in case of a backbone-continuity break by configuring two Area Border Routers as endpoints of a virtual link. Configuration information includes the identity of the other virtual endpoint (the other ABR) and the nonbackbone link that the two routers have in common (the transit area). Virtual links cannot be configured through a stub area.

• Default route: When you specifically configure redistribution of routes into an OSPF routing domain, the route automatically becomes an autonomous system boundary router (ASBR). You can force the ASBR to generate a default route into the OSPF routing domain.

• Domain Name Server (DNS) names for use in all OSPF show privileged EXEC command displays makes it easier to identify a router than displaying it by router ID or neighbor ID.

• Default Metrics: OSPF calculates the OSPF metric for an interface according to the bandwidth of the interface. The metric is calculated as ref-bw divided by bandwidth, where ref is 10 by default, and bandwidth (bw ) is specified by the bandwidth interface configuration command. For multiple links with high bandwidth, you can specify a larger number to differentiate the cost on those links.

• Administrative distance is a rating of the trustworthiness of a routing information source, an integer between 0 and 255, with a higher value meaning a lower trust rating. An administrative distance of 255 means the routing information source cannot be trusted at all and should be ignored. OSPF uses three different administrative distances: routes within an area (interarea), routes to another area (interarea), and routes from another routing domain learned through redistribution (external). You can change any of the distance values.

• Passive interfaces: Because interfaces between two devices on an Ethernet represent only one network segment, to prevent OSPF from sending hello packets for the sending interface, you must configure the sending device to be a passive interface. Both devices can identify each other through the hello packet for the receiving interface.

• Route calculation timers: You can configure the delay time between when OSPF receives a topology change and when it starts the shortest path first (SPF) calculation and the hold time between two SPF calculations.

• Log neighbor changes: You can configure the router to send a syslog message when an OSPF neighbor state changes, providing a high-level view of changes in the router.

The OSPF LSA group pacing feature allows the router to group OSPF LSAs and pace the refreshing, check-summing, and aging functions for more efficient router use. This feature is enabled by default with a 4-minute default pacing interval, and you will not usually need to modify this parameter. The optimum group pacing interval is inversely proportional to the number of LSAs the router is refreshing, check-summing, and aging. For example, if you have approximately 10,000 LSAs in the database, decreasing the pacing interval would benefit you. If you have a very small database (40 to 100 LSAs), increasing the pacing interval to 10 to 20 minutes might benefit you slightly.

OSPF uses the highest IP address configured on the interfaces as its router ID. If this interface is down or removed, the OSPF process must recalculate a new router ID and resend all its routing information out its interfaces. If a loopback interface is configured with an IP address, OSPF uses this IP address as its router ID, even if other interfaces have higher IP addresses. Because loopback interfaces never fail, this provides greater stability. OSPF automatically prefers a loopback interface over other interfaces, and it chooses the highest IP address among all loopback interfaces.

EIGRP offers these features:

• Fast convergence.

• Incremental updates when the state of a destination changes, instead of sending the entire contents of the routing table, minimizing the bandwidth required for EIGRP packets.

• Less CPU usage because full update packets need not be processed each time they are received.

• Protocol-independent neighbor discovery mechanism to learn about neighboring routers.

• Variable-length subnet masks (VLSMs).

• Arbitrary route summarization.

• EIGRP scales to large networks.

EIGRP has these four basic components:

• Neighbor discovery and recovery is the process that routers use to dynamically learn of other routers on their directly attached networks. Routers must also discover when their neighbors become unreachable or inoperative. Neighbor discovery and recovery is achieved with low overhead by periodically sending small hello packets. As long as hello packets are received, the Cisco IOS software can learn that a neighbor is alive and functioning. When this status is determined, the neighboring routers can exchange routing information.

• The reliable transport protocol is responsible for guaranteed, ordered delivery of EIGRP packets to all neighbors. It supports intermixed transmission of multicast and unicast packets. Some EIGRP packets must be sent reliably, and others need not be. For efficiency, reliability is provided only when necessary. For example, on a multiaccess network that has multicast capabilities (such as Ethernet), it is not necessary to send hellos reliably to all neighbors individually. Therefore, EIGRP sends a single multicast hello with an indication in the packet informing the receivers that the packet need not be acknowledged. Other types of packets (such as updates) require acknowledgment, which is shown in the packet. The reliable transport has a provision to send multicast packets quickly when there are unacknowledged packets pending. Doing so helps ensure that convergence time remains low in the presence of varying speed links.

• The DUAL finite state machine embodies the decision process for all route computations. It tracks all routes advertised by all neighbors. DUAL uses the distance information (known as a metric) to select efficient, loop-free paths. DUAL selects routes to be inserted into a routing table based on feasible successors. A successor is a neighboring router used for packet forwarding that has a least-cost path to a destination that is guaranteed not to be part of a routing loop. When there are no feasible successors, but there are neighbors advertising the destination, a recomputation must occur. This is the process whereby a new successor is determined. The amount of time it takes to recompute the route affects the convergence time. Recomputation is processor-intensive; it is advantageous to avoid recomputation if it is not necessary. When a topology change occurs, DUAL tests for feasible successors. If there are feasible successors, it uses any it finds to avoid unnecessary recomputation.

• The protocol-dependent modules are responsible for network layer protocol-specific tasks. An example is the IP EIGRP module, which is responsible for sending and receiving EIGRP packets that are encapsulated in IP. It is also responsible for parsing EIGRP packets and informing DUAL of the new information received. EIGRP asks DUAL to make routing decisions, but the results are stored in the IP routing table. EIGRP is also responsible for redistributing routes learned by other IP routing protocols.

  Note	To enable EIGRP, the Switch or stack master must be running the IP services feature set.

The Switch stack supports two levels of EIGRP nonstop forwarding:

• EIGRP NSF Awareness

• EIGRP NSF Capability

The EIGRP stub routing feature, available in all feature sets, reduces resource utilization by moving routed traffic closer to the end user.

Note

The IP Base feature set contains EIGRP stub routing capability, which only advertises connected or summary routes from the routing tables to other Switches in the network. The Switch uses EIGRP stub routing at the access layer to eliminate the need for other types of routing advertisements. For enhanced capability and complete EIGRP routing, the Switch must be running the IP Base feature set. On a Switch running the IP base feature set, if you try to configure multi-VRF-CE and EIGRP stub routing at the same time, the configuration is not allowed. IPv6 EIGRP stub routing is not supported with the IP base feature set.

In a network using EIGRP stub routing, the only allowable route for IP traffic to the user is through a Switch that is configured with EIGRP stub routing. The Switch sends the routed traffic to interfaces that are configured as user interfaces or are connected to other devices.

When using EIGRP stub routing, you need to configure the distribution and remote routers to use EIGRP and to configure only the Switch as a stub. Only specified routes are propagated from the Switch. The Switch responds to all queries for summaries, connected routes, and routing updates.

Any neighbor that receives a packet informing it of the stub status does not query the stub router for any routes, and a router that has a stub peer does not query that peer. The stub router depends on the distribution router to send the proper updates to all peers.

In the figure given below, Switch B is configured as an EIGRP stub router. Switches A and C are connected to the rest of the WAN. Switch B advertises connected, static, redistribution, and summary routes to Switch A and C. Switch B does not advertise any routes learned from Switch A (and the reverse).

For more information about EIGRP stub routing, see “Configuring EIGRP Stub Routing” section of the Cisco IOS IP Configuration Guide, Volume 2 of 3: Routing Protocols.

Routers that belong to the same autonomous system (AS) and that exchange BGP updates run internal BGP (IBGP), and routers that belong to different autonomous systems and that exchange BGP updates run external BGP (EBGP). Most configuration commands are the same for configuring EBGP and IBGP. The difference is that the routing updates are exchanged either between autonomous systems (EBGP) or within an AS (IBGP). The figure given below shows a network that is running both EBGP and IBGP.

Before exchanging information with an external AS, BGP ensures that networks within the AS can be reached by defining internal BGP peering among routers within the AS and by redistributing BGP routing information to IGPs that run within the AS, such as IGRP and OSPF.

Routers that run a BGP routing process are often referred to as BGP speakers. BGP uses the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) as its transport protocol (specifically port 179). Two BGP speakers that have a TCP connection to each other for exchanging routing information are known as peers or neighbors. In the above figure, Routers A and B are BGP peers, as are Routers B and C and Routers C and D. The routing information is a series of AS numbers that describe the full path to the destination network. BGP uses this information to construct a loop-free map of autonomous systems.

The network has these characteristics:

• Routers A and B are running EBGP, and Routers B and C are running IBGP. Note that the EBGP peers are directly connected and that the IBGP peers are not. As long as there is an IGP running that allows the two neighbors to reach one another, IBGP peers do not have to be directly connected.

• All BGP speakers within an AS must establish a peer relationship with each other. That is, the BGP speakers within an AS must be fully meshed logically. BGP4 provides two techniques that reduce the requirement for a logical full mesh: confederations and route reflectors.

• AS 200 is a transit AS for AS 100 and AS 300—that is, AS 200 is used to transfer packets between AS 100 and AS 300.

BGP peers initially exchange their full BGP routing tables and then send only incremental updates. BGP peers also exchange keepalive messages (to ensure that the connection is up) and notification messages (in response to errors or special conditions).

In BGP, each route consists of a network number, a list of autonomous systems that information has passed through (the autonomous system path), and a list of other path attributes. The primary function of a BGP system is to exchange network reachability information, including information about the list of AS paths, with other BGP systems. This information can be used to determine AS connectivity, to prune routing loops, and to enforce AS-level policy decisions.

A router or Switch running Cisco IOS does not select or use an IBGP route unless it has a route available to the next-hop router and it has received synchronization from an IGP (unless IGP synchronization is disabled). When multiple routes are available, BGP bases its path selection on attribute values. See the “Configuring BGP Decision Attributes” section for information about BGP attributes.

BGP Version 4 supports classless interdomain routing (CIDR) so you can reduce the size of your routing tables by creating aggregate routes, resulting in supernets. CIDR eliminates the concept of network classes within BGP and supports the advertising of IP prefixes.

The BGP NSF Awareness feature is supported for IPv4 in the IP services feature set. To enable this feature with BGP routing, you need to enable Graceful Restart. When the neighboring router is NSF-capable, and this feature is enabled, the Layer 3 Switch continues to forward packets from the neighboring router during the interval between the primary Route Processor (RP) in a router failing and the backup RP taking over, or while the primary RP is manually reloaded for a nondisruptive software upgrade.

For more information, see the “BGP Nonstop Forwarding (NSF) Awareness” section of the Cisco IOS IP Routing Protocols Configuration Guide, Release 12.4.

To enable BGP routing, you establish a BGP routing process and define the local network. Because BGP must completely recognize the relationships with its neighbors, you must also specify a BGP neighbor.

BGP supports two kinds of neighbors: internal and external. Internal neighbors are in the same AS; external neighbors are in different autonomous systems. External neighbors are usually adjacent to each other and share a subnet, but internal neighbors can be anywhere in the same AS.

The switch supports the use of private AS numbers, usually assigned by service providers and given to systems whose routes are not advertised to external neighbors. The private AS numbers are from 64512 to 65535. You can configure external neighbors to remove private AS numbers from the AS path by using the neighbor remove-private-as router configuration command. Then when an update is passed to an external neighbor, if the AS path includes private AS numbers, these numbers are dropped.

If your AS will be passing traffic through it from another AS to a third AS, it is important to be consistent about the routes it advertises. If BGP advertised a route before all routers in the network had learned about the route through the IGP, the AS might receive traffic that some routers could not yet route. To prevent this from happening, BGP must wait until the IGP has propagated information across the AS so that BGP is synchronized with the IGP. Synchronization is enabled by default. If your AS does not pass traffic from one AS to another AS, or if all routers in your autonomous systems are running BGP, you can disable synchronization, which allows your network to carry fewer routes in the IGP and allows BGP to converge more quickly.

Routing policies for a peer include all the configurations that might affect inbound or outbound routing table updates. When you have defined two routers as BGP neighbors, they form a BGP connection and exchange routing information. If you later change a BGP filter, weight, distance, version, or timer, or make a similar configuration change, you must reset the BGP sessions so that the configuration changes take effect.

There are two types of reset, hard reset and soft reset. Cisco IOS Releases 12.1 and later support a soft reset without any prior configuration. To use a soft reset without preconfiguration, both BGP peers must support the soft route refresh capability, which is advertised in the OPEN message sent when the peers establish a TCP session. A soft reset allows the dynamic exchange of route refresh requests and routing information between BGP routers and the subsequent re-advertisement of the respective outbound routing table.

• When soft reset generates inbound updates from a neighbor, it is called dynamic inbound soft reset.

• When soft reset sends a set of updates to a neighbor, it is called outbound soft reset.

A soft inbound reset causes the new inbound policy to take effect. A soft outbound reset causes the new local outbound policy to take effect without resetting the BGP session. As a new set of updates is sent during outbound policy reset, a new inbound policy can also take effect.

The table given below lists the advantages and disadvantages hard reset and soft reset.

When a BGP speaker receives updates from multiple autonomous systems that describe different paths to the same destination, it must choose the single best path for reaching that destination. When chosen, the selected path is entered into the BGP routing table and propagated to its neighbors. The decision is based on the value of attributes that the update contains and other BGP-configurable factors.

When a BGP peer learns two EBGP paths for a prefix from a neighboring AS, it chooses the best path and inserts that path in the IP routing table. If BGP multipath support is enabled and the EBGP paths are learned from the same neighboring autonomous systems, instead of a single best path, multiple paths are installed in the IP routing table. Then, during packet switching, per-packet or per-destination 
load-balancing is performed among the multiple paths. The maximum-paths router configuration command controls the number of paths allowed.

These factors summarize the order in which BGP evaluates the attributes for choosing the best path:

1. If the path specifies a next hop that is inaccessible, drop the update. The BGP next-hop attribute, automatically determined by the software, is the IP address of the next hop that is going to be used to reach a destination. For EBGP, this is usually the IP address of the neighbor specified by the neighbor remote-as router configuration command. You can disable next-hop processing by using route maps or the neighbor next-hop-self router configuration command.

2. Prefer the path with the largest weight (a Cisco proprietary parameter). The weight attribute is local to the router and not propagated in routing updates. By default, the weight attribute is 32768 for paths that the router originates and zero for other paths. Routes with the largest weight are preferred. You can use access lists, route maps, or the neighbor weight router configuration command to set weights.

3. Prefer the route with the highest local preference. Local preference is part of the routing update and exchanged among routers in the same AS. The default value of the local preference attribute is 100. You can set local preference by using the bgp default local-preference router configuration command or by using a route map.

4. Prefer the route that was originated by BGP running on the local router.

5. Prefer the route with the shortest AS path.

6. Prefer the route with the lowest origin type. An interior route or IGP is lower than a route learned by EGP, and an EGP-learned route is lower than one of unknown origin or learned in another way.

7. Prefer the route with the lowest multi -exit discriminator (MED) metric attribute if the neighboring AS is the same for all routes considered. You can configure the MED by using route maps or by using the default-metric router configuration command. When an update is sent to an IBGP peer, the MED is included.

8. Prefer the external (EBGP) path over the internal (IBGP) path.

9. Prefer the route that can be reached through the closest IGP neighbor (the lowest IGP metric). This means that the router will prefer the shortest internal path within the AS to reach the destination (the shortest path to the BGP next-hop).

10. If the following conditions are all true, insert the route for this path into the IP routing table:

    Both the best route and this route are external.

    Both the best route and this route are from the same neighboring autonomous system.

    Maximum-paths is enabled.

11. If multipath is not enabled, prefer the route with the lowest IP address value for the BGP router ID. The router ID is usually the highest IP address on the router or the loopback (virtual) address, but might be implementation-specific.

Within BGP, route maps can be used to control and to modify routing information and to define the conditions by which routes are redistributed between routing domains. See the “Using Route Maps to Redistribute Routing Information” section for more information about route maps. Each route map has a name that identifies the route map (map tag ) and an optional sequence number.

You can filter BGP advertisements by using AS-path filters, such as the as-path access-list global configuration command and the neighbor filter-list router configuration command. You can also use access lists with the neighbor distribute-list router configuration command. Distribute-list filters are applied to network numbers. See the “Controlling Advertising and Processing in Routing Updates” section for information about the distribute-list command.

You can use route maps on a per-neighbor basis to filter updates and to modify various attributes. A route map can be applied to either inbound or outbound updates. Only the routes that pass the route map are sent or accepted in updates. On both inbound and outbound updates, matching is supported based on AS path, community, and network numbers. Autonomous system path matching requires the match as-path access-list route-map command, community based matching requires the match community-list route-map command, and network-based matching requires the ip access-list global configuration command.