Information About BGP
The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is an exterior gateway protocol used to set up an interdomain routing system that guarantees the loop-free exchange of routing information between autonomous systems. Autonomous systems are made up of routers that operate under the same administration and that run Interior Gateway Protocols (IGPs), such as RIP or OSPF, within their boundaries and that interconnect by using an Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP). BGP Version 4 is the standard EGP for interdomain routing in the Internet. The protocol is defined in RFCs 1163, 1267, and 1771. You can find detailed information about BGP in Internet Routing Architectures, published by Cisco Press, and in the “Configuring BGP” chapter in the Cisco IP and IP Routing Configuration Guide.
For details about BGP commands and keywords, see the “IP Routing Protocols” part of the Cisco IOS IP Command Reference, Volume 2 of 3: Routing Protocols .
BGP Network Topology
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:
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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.
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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.
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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 Device 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.
Nonstop Forwarding Awareness
The BGP NSF Awareness feature is supported for IPv4 in the Network Advantage license.. 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 Device 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.
Information About BGP Routing
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 Policy Changes
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.
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When soft reset generates inbound updates from a neighbor, it is called dynamic inbound soft reset.
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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.
Type of Reset |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
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Hard reset |
No memory overhead |
The prefixes in the BGP, IP, and FIB tables provided by the neighbor are lost. Not recommended. |
Outbound soft reset |
No configuration, no storing of routing table updates |
Does not reset inbound routing table updates. |
Dynamic inbound soft reset |
Does not clear the BGP session and cache Does not require storing of routing table updates and has no memory overhead |
Both BGP routers must support the route refresh capability (in Cisco IOS Release 12.1 and later). |
BGP Decision Attributes
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:
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Prefer the route that was originated by BGP running on the local router.
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Prefer the route with the shortest AS path.
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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.
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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.
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Prefer the external (EBGP) path over the internal (IBGP) path.
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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).
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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.
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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.
Route Maps
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.
BGP Filtering
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.
Prefix List for BGP Filtering
You can use prefix lists as an alternative to access lists in many BGP route filtering commands, including the neighbor distribute-list router configuration command. The advantages of using prefix lists include performance improvements in loading and lookup of large lists, incremental update support, easier CLI configuration, and greater flexibility.
Filtering by a prefix list involves matching the prefixes of routes with those listed in the prefix list, as when matching access lists. When there is a match, the route is used. Whether a prefix is permitted or denied is based upon these rules:
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An empty prefix list permits all prefixes.
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An implicit deny is assumed if a given prefix does not match any entries in a prefix list.
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When multiple entries of a prefix list match a given prefix, the sequence number of a prefix list entry identifies the entry with the lowest sequence number.
By default, sequence numbers are generated automatically and incremented in units of five. If you disable the automatic generation of sequence numbers, you must specify the sequence number for each entry. You can specify sequence values in any increment. If you specify increments of one, you cannot insert additional entries into the list; if you choose very large increments, you might run out of values.
BGP Community Filtering
One way that BGP controls the distribution of routing information based on the value of the COMMUNITIES attribute. The attribute is a way to groups destinations into communities and to apply routing decisions based on the communities. This method simplifies configuration of a BGP speaker to control distribution of routing information.
A community is a group of destinations that share some common attribute. Each destination can belong to multiple communities. AS administrators can define to which communities a destination belongs. By default, all destinations belong to the general Internet community. The community is identified by the COMMUNITIES attribute, an optional, transitive, global attribute in the numerical range from 1 to 4294967200. These are some predefined, well-known communities:
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internet —Advertise this route to the Internet community. All routers belong to it.
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no-export —Do not advertise this route to EBGP peers.
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no-advertise —Do not advertise this route to any peer (internal or external).
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local-as —Do not advertise this route to peers outside the local autonomous system.
Based on the community, you can control which routing information to accept, prefer, or distribute to other neighbors. A BGP speaker can set, append, or modify the community of a route when learning, advertising, or redistributing routes. When routes are aggregated, the resulting aggregate has a COMMUNITIES attribute that contains all communities from all the initial routes.
You can use community lists to create groups of communities to use in a match clause of a route map. As with an access list, a series of community lists can be created. Statements are checked until a match is found. As soon as one statement is satisfied, the test is concluded.
To set the COMMUNITIES attribute and match clauses based on communities, see the match community-list and set community route-map configuration commands in the “Using Route Maps to Redistribute Routing Information” section.
BGP Neighbors and Peer Groups
Often many BGP neighbors are configured with the same update policies (that is, the same outbound route maps, distribute lists, filter lists, update source, and so on). Neighbors with the same update policies can be grouped into peer groups to simplify configuration and to make updating more efficient. When you have configured many peers, we recommend this approach.
To configure a BGP peer group, you create the peer group, assign options to the peer group, and add neighbors as peer group members. You configure the peer group by using the neighbor router configuration commands. By default, peer group members inherit all the configuration options of the peer group, including the remote-as (if configured), version, update-source, out-route-map, out-filter-list, out-dist-list, minimum-advertisement-interval, and next-hop-self. All peer group members also inherit changes made to the peer group. Members can also be configured to override the options that do not affect outbound updates.
Aggregate Routes
Classless interdomain routing (CIDR) enables you to create aggregate routes (or supernets) to minimize the size of routing tables. You can configure aggregate routes in BGP either by redistributing an aggregate route into BGP or by creating an aggregate entry in the BGP routing table. An aggregate address is added to the BGP table when there is at least one more specific entry in the BGP table.
Routing Domain Confederations
One way to reduce the IBGP mesh is to divide an autonomous system into multiple subautonomous systems and to group them into a single confederation that appears as a single autonomous system. Each autonomous system is fully meshed within itself and has a few connections to other autonomous systems in the same confederation. Even though the peers in different autonomous systems have EBGP sessions, they exchange routing information as if they were IBGP peers. Specifically, the next hop, MED, and local preference information is preserved. You can then use a single IGP for all of the autonomous systems.
BGP Route Reflectors
BGP requires that all of the IBGP speakers be fully meshed. When a router receives a route from an external neighbor, it must advertise it to all internal neighbors. To prevent a routing information loop, all IBPG speakers must be connected. The internal neighbors do not send routes learned from internal neighbors to other internal neighbors.
With route reflectors, all IBGP speakers need not be fully meshed because another method is used to pass learned routes to neighbors. When you configure an internal BGP peer to be a route reflector, it is responsible for passing IBGP learned routes to a set of IBGP neighbors. The internal peers of the route reflector are divided into two groups: client peers and nonclient peers (all the other routers in the autonomous system). A route reflector reflects routes between these two groups. The route reflector and its client peers form a cluster. The nonclient peers must be fully meshed with each other, but the client peers need not be fully meshed. The clients in the cluster do not communicate with IBGP speakers outside their cluster.
When the route reflector receives an advertised route, it takes one of these actions, depending on the neighbor:
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A route from an external BGP speaker is advertised to all clients and nonclient peers.
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A route from a nonclient peer is advertised to all clients.
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A route from a client is advertised to all clients and nonclient peers. Hence, the clients need not be fully meshed.
Usually a cluster of clients have a single route reflector, and the cluster is identified by the route reflector router ID. To increase redundancy and to avoid a single point of failure, a cluster might have more than one route reflector. In this case, all route reflectors in the cluster must be configured with the same 4-byte cluster ID so that a route reflector can recognize updates from route reflectors in the same cluster. All the route reflectors serving a cluster should be fully meshed and should have identical sets of client and nonclient peers.
Route Dampening
Route flap dampening is a BGP feature designed to minimize the propagation of flapping routes across an internetwork. A route is considered to be flapping when it is repeatedly available, then unavailable, then available, then unavailable, and so on. When route dampening is enabled, a numeric penalty value is assigned to a route when it flaps. When a route’s accumulated penalties reach a configurable limit, BGP suppresses advertisements of the route, even if the route is running. The reuse limit is a configurable value that is compared with the penalty. If the penalty is less than the reuse limit, a suppressed route that is up is advertised again.
Dampening is not applied to routes that are learned by IBGP. This policy prevents the IBGP peers from having a higher penalty for routes external to the AS.
More BGP Information
For detailed descriptions of BGP configuration, see the “Configuring BGP” chapter in the “IP Routing Protocols” part of the Cisco IOS IP Configuration Guide, Release 12.4. For details about specific commands, see the Cisco IOS IP Command Reference, Volume 2 of 3: Routing Protocols, Release 12.4.