Routing Configuration Guide, Cisco IOS XE Fuji 16.9.x (Catalyst 3850 Switches)
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- Configuring Bidirectional Forwarding Detection
- Configuring MSDP
- Configuring IP Unicast Routing
- Configuring Generic Routing Encapsulation(GRE) Tunnel IP Source and Destination VRF Membership
- Configuring RIP
- Configuring OSPF
- Configuring EIGRP
- Configuring BGP
- Implementing Multiprotocol BGP for IPv6
- Configuring IS-IS
- Configuring Multi-VRF CE
- Configuring Protocol-Independent Features
Book Title
Routing Configuration Guide, Cisco IOS XE Fuji 16.9.x (Catalyst 3850 Switches)
Configuring BGP
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Results
Chapter: Configuring BGP
- Configuring BGP
- Information About BGP
- BGP Network Topology
- Nonstop Forwarding Awareness
- Information About BGP Routing
- Routing Policy Changes
- BGP Decision Attributes
- Route Maps
- BGP Filtering
- Prefix List for BGP Filtering
- BGP Community Filtering
- BGP Neighbors and Peer Groups
- Aggregate Routes
- Routing Domain Confederations
- BGP Route Reflectors
- Route Dampening
- More BGP Information
- Default BGP Configuration
- Enabling BGP Routing
- Managing Routing Policy Changes
- Configuring BGP Decision Attributes
- Configuring BGP Filtering with Route Maps
- Configuring BGP Filtering by Neighbor
- Configuring BGP Filtering by Access Lists and Neighbors
- Configuring Prefix Lists for BGP Filtering
- Configuring BGP Community Filtering
- Configuring BGP Neighbors and Peer Groups
- Configuring Aggregate Addresses in a Routing Table
- Configuring Routing Domain Confederations
- Configuring BGP Route Reflectors
- Configuring Route Dampening
Configuring BGP
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:
- 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 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 . 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.
- 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.
Table 1. Advantages and Disadvantages of Hard and Soft Resets
