Introduction to BGP

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 Border Gateway Protocol
• A Routing Protocol used to exchange routing information
between different networks
– Exterior gateway protocol
• Described in RFC4271
– RFC4276 gives an implementation report on BGP
– RFC4277 describes operational experiences using BGP
• The Autonomous System is the cornerstone of BGP
– It is used to uniquely identify networks with a common routing policy

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 BGP
• Path Vector Protocol
• Incremental Updates
• Many options for policy enforcement
• Classless Inter Domain Routing (CIDR)
• Widely used for Internet backbone
• Autonomous systems

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 Path Vector Protocol
• BGP is classified as a path vector routing
protocol (see RFC 1322)
– A path vector protocol defines a route as a pairing
between a destination and the attributes of the
path to that destination.

12.6.126.0/24 207.126.96.43 1021 0 6461 7018 6337 11268 i

AS Path

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 Path Vector Protocol

AS11268
AS6337

AS7018

AS500

AS6461

AS600
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 Definitions
• Transit – carrying traffic across a network,
usually for a fee
• Peering – exchanging routing information and
traffic
• Default – where to send traffic when there is
no explicit match in the routing table

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 Default Free Zone

The default free zone is made

up of Internet routers which
have explicit routing
information about the rest of
the Internet, and therefore do
not need to use a default route
NB: is not related to where an
ISP is in the hierarchy
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 Peering and Transit example

provider A

Backbone IXP-East
IXP-West Provider D

provider B

provider C
• A and B can peer, but need transit
arrangements with D to get packets
to/from C

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 Autonomous System (AS)

AS 100

• Collection of networks with same routing policy

• Single routing protocol
• Usually under single ownership, trust and administrative
control
• Identified by a unique 32-bit integer (ASN)
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 Autonomous System Number (ASN)
• Two ranges
– 0-65535 (original 16-bit range)
– 65536-4294967295 (32-bit range – RFC4893)
• Usage:
– 0 and 65535 (reserved)
– 1-64495 (public Internet)
– 64496-64511 (documentation – RFC5398)
– 64512-65534 (private use only)
– 23456 (represent 32-bit range in 16-bit
world)
– 65536-65551 (documentation – RFC5398)
– 65552-4294967295 (public Internet)
• 32-bit range representation specified in RFC5396
– Defines asplain (traditional format) as standard notation
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 Autonomous System Number (ASN)
• ASNs are distributed by the Regional Internet Registries
– They are also available from upstream ISPs who are members of one
of the RIRs
• Current 16-bit ASN allocations up to 61439 have been made
to the RIRs
– Around 41200 are visible on the Internet
• Each RIR has also received a block of 32-bit ASNs
– Out of 2800 assignments, around 2400 are visible on the Internet
• See www.iana.org/assignments/as-numbers

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 Configuring BGP in Cisco IOS
• This command enables BGP in Cisco IOS:
router bgp 100
• For ASNs > 65535, the AS number can be entered in either
plain or dot notation:
router bgp 131076
or
router bgp 2.4
• IOS will display ASNs in plain notation by default
– Dot notation is optional:
router bgp 2.4
bgp asnotation dot

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 BGP Basics
Peering

A C

AS 100 AS 101

B D

E
• Runs over TCP – port 179
• Path vector protocol AS 102
• Incremental updates
• “Internal” & “External” BGP
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 Demarcation Zone (DMZ)
A C
DMZ
AS 100 Network AS 101
B D

AS 102

• DMZ is the link or network shared between ASes

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 BGP General Operation
• Learns multiple paths via internal and external
BGP speakers
• Picks the best path and installs it in the
routing table (RIB)
• Best path is sent to external BGP neighbours
• Policies are applied by influencing the best
path selection

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 Constructing the Forwarding Table
• BGP in process
– receives path information from peers
– results of BGP path selection placed in the BGP table
– best path flagged
• BGP out process
– announces best path information to peers
• Best path stored in Routing Table (RIB)
• Best paths in the RIB are installed in forwarding table (FIB) if:
– prefix and prefix length are unique
– lowest protocol distance

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 Constructing the Forwarding Table

discarded
BGP in
in
process accepted
everything

bgp BGP routing

peer table table

best paths
BGP out forwarding
out table
process

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 eBGP & iBGP
• BGP used internally (iBGP) and externally
(eBGP)
• iBGP used to carry
– Some/all Internet prefixes across ISP backbone
– ISP s customer prefixes
• eBGP used to
– Exchange prefixes with other ASes
– Implement routing policy

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 BGP/IGP model used in ISP networks
• Model representation

eBGP eBGP eBGP

iBGP iBGP iBGP iBGP

IGP IGP IGP IGP

AS1 AS2 AS3 AS4

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 External BGP Peering (eBGP)

AS 100 AS 101
C

• Between BGP speakers in different AS

• Should be directly connected
• Never run an IGP between eBGP peers
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 Configuring External BGP

ip address on
ethernet interface
Router A in AS100

interface ethernet 5/0

ip address 102.102.10.2 255.255.255.240
! Local ASN
router bgp 100
network 100.100.8.0 mask 255.255.252.0
neighbor 102.102.10.1 remote-as 101 Remote ASN
neighbor 102.102.10.1 prefix-list RouterC in
neighbor 102.102.10.1 prefix-list RouterC out
!
ip address of Router Inbound and
C ethernet interface outbound filters
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 Configuring External BGP

ip address on
ethernet interface
Router C in AS101

interface ethernet 1/0/0

ip address 102.102.10.1 255.255.255.240
! Local ASN
router bgp 101
network 100.100.64.0 mask 255.255.248.0
neighbor 102.102.10.2 remote-as 100 Remote ASN
neighbor 102.102.10.2 prefix-list RouterA in
neighbor 102.102.10.2 prefix-list RouterA out
!
ip address of Router Inbound and
A ethernet interface outbound filters
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 Internal BGP (iBGP)
• BGP peer within the same AS
• Not required to be directly connected
– IGP takes care of inter-BGP speaker connectivity
• iBGP speakers must be fully meshed:
– They originate connected networks
– They pass on prefixes learned from outside the
ASN
– They do not pass on prefixes learned from other
iBGP speakers

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 Internal BGP Peering (iBGP)

AS 100
B
A
C

• Topology independent
• Each iBGP speaker must peer with every other iBGP speaker
in the AS
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Peering between Loopback Interfaces

AS 100

C
A

• Peer with loop-back interface

– Loop-back interface does not go down – ever!
• Do not want iBGP session to depend on state of a single
interface or the physical topology
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 Configuring Internal BGP

ip address on
loopback interface
Router A in AS100

interface loopback 0
ip address 105.3.7.1 255.255.255.255
!
router bgp 100 Local ASN
network 100.100.1.0
neighbor 105.3.7.2 remote-as 100 Local ASN
neighbor 105.3.7.2 update-source loopback0
neighbor 105.3.7.3 remote-as 100
neighbor 105.3.7.3 update-source loopback0
!
ip address of Router
B loopback interface
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 Configuring Internal BGP

ip address on
loopback interface
Router B in AS100

interface loopback 0
ip address 105.3.7.2 255.255.255.255
!
router bgp 100 Local ASN
network 100.100.1.0
neighbor 105.3.7.1 remote-as 100 Local ASN
neighbor 105.3.7.1 update-source loopback0
neighbor 105.3.7.3 remote-as 100
neighbor 105.3.7.3 update-source loopback0
!
ip address of Router
A loopback interface
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 Inserting prefixes into BGP
• Two ways to insert prefixes into BGP
– redistribute static
– network command

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 Inserting prefixes into BGP –
redistribute static
• Configuration Example:
router bgp 100
redistribute static
ip route 102.10.32.0 255.255.254.0 serial0

• Static route must exist before redistribute

command will work
• Forces origin to be incomplete
• Care required!

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 Inserting prefixes into BGP –
redistribute static
• Care required with redistribute!
– redistribute <routing-protocol>
means everything in the <routing-protocol> will be
transferred into the current routing protocol
– Will not scale if uncontrolled
– Best avoided if at all possible
– redistribute normally used with route-
maps and under tight administrative control

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 Inserting prefixes into BGP –
network command
• Configuration Example
router bgp 100
network 102.10.32.0 mask 255.255.254.0
ip route 102.10.32.0 255.255.254.0 serial0

• A matching route must exist in the routing

table before the network is announced
• Forces origin to be IGP

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 Configuring Aggregation
• Three ways to configure route aggregation
– redistribute static
– aggregate-address
– network command

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 Configuring Aggregation
• Configuration Example:
router bgp 100
redistribute static
ip route 102.10.0.0 255.255.0.0 null0 250

• static route to null0 is called a pull up

route
– packets only sent here if there is no more specific
match in the routing table
– distance of 250 ensures this is last resort static
– care required – see previously!
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 Configuring Aggregation –
Network Command
• Configuration Example
router bgp 100
network 102.10.0.0 mask 255.255.0.0
ip route 102.10.0.0 255.255.0.0 null0 250

• A matching route must exist in the routing

table before the network is announced
• Easiest and best way of generating an
aggregate

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 Configuring Aggregation –
aggregate-address command
• Configuration Example:
router bgp 100
network 102.10.32.0 mask 255.255.252.0
aggregate-address 102.10.0.0 255.255.0.0 [summary-only]
• Requires more specific prefix in BGP table before aggregate is
announced
• summary-only keyword
– Optional keyword which ensures that only the summary is announced if a
more specific prefix exists in the routing table
 Summary
BGP neighbour status
Router6>sh ip bgp sum
BGP router identifier 10.0.15.246, local AS number 10
BGP table version is 16, main routing table version 16
7 network entries using 819 bytes of memory
14 path entries using 728 bytes of memory
2/1 BGP path/bestpath attribute entries using 248 bytes of memory
0 BGP route-map cache entries using 0 bytes of memory
0 BGP filter-list cache entries using 0 bytes of memory
BGP using 1795 total bytes of memory
BGP activity 7/0 prefixes, 14/0 paths, scan interval 60 secs

Neighbor V AS MsgRcvd MsgSent TblVer InQ OutQ Up/Down State/PfxRcd

10.0.15.241 4 10 9 8 16 0 0 00:04:47 2
10.0.15.242 4 10 6 5 16 0 0 00:01:43 2
10.0.15.243 4 10 9 8 16 0 0 00:04:49 2
...

BGP Version Updates sent Updates waiting

and received 36
 Summary
BGP Table
Router6>sh ip bgp
BGP table version is 30, local router ID is 10.0.15.246
Status codes: s suppressed, d damped, h history, * valid, > best, i -
internal,
r RIB-failure, S Stale
Origin codes: i - IGP, e - EGP, ? - incomplete

Network Next Hop Metric LocPrf Weight Path

*>i10.0.0.0/26 10.0.15.241 0 100 0 i
*>i10.0.0.64/26 10.0.15.242 0 100 0 i
*>i10.0.0.128/26 10.0.15.243 0 100 0 i
*>i10.0.0.192/26 10.0.15.244 0 100 0 i
*>i10.0.1.0/26 10.0.15.245 0 100 0 i
*> 10.0.1.64/26 0.0.0.0 0 32768 i
*>i10.0.1.128/26 10.0.15.247 0 100 0 i
*>i10.0.1.192/26 10.0.15.248 0 100 0 i
...
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 Summary
• BGP4 – path vector protocol
• iBGP versus eBGP
• stable iBGP – peer with loopbacks
• announcing prefixes & aggregates

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Acknowledgement and Attribution
This presentation contains content and information
originally developed and maintained by the following
organisation(s)/individual(s) and provided for the
African Union AXIS Project

Cisco ISP/IXP Workshops

Philip Smith: - [email protected]

www.apnic.net
Introduction to BGP

End

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