Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Sections: BGP4 - An Overview The Community Attribute Brief Overview of BGP Routing Instability Route Flap Damping Internet Service Providers - The Tier Hierarchy BGP Security Threats Some Terms References
BGP4 - An Overview
BGP Attributes
Well-known Mandatory Attributes Next Hop AS Path Origin Well-known Discretionary Attributes Local Preference (32 bits) Atomic Aggregate Optional Transitive Attributes Aggregator Community Optional Non-transitive Attributes MED - 'Multi Exit Discriminator' or 'Metric' (32 bits)
BGP States
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Idle Connect Active OpenSent OpenConfirm Established (BGP session)
2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
in IGP still be considered for best path selection Cisco only: 'Cisco Weight', only relevant locally, higher values are better 'Local Preference', propagated only among IBGP peers, higher values are better (inverse value to 'pref' in an AUT-NUM object) 'Originated Locally', i.e. network or aggregate command in router configuration AS Path/Sequence Length (shorter preferred) 'Origin' code, i>e>? 'MED', advertised to EBGP peers, used only within AS, not propagated to other ASes, lower values are better (note implications of 'Always-compare-MED' and 'Deterministic' MED) EBGP is preferred over IBGP, better to choose directly connected EBGP peers than sending packet through local AS 'IGP Metric', choose closest egress point out of local AS Oldest route, sign of stability (can be disabled) Lowest Router ID, i.e. highest IP on router's interfaces (loopback preferred) Shortest cluster-ID Lowest IP used in neighbor statement
Keep in mind that synchronisation and administrative distance, preferences related to how a route is learnt by the router, determines whether the selected path is injected into the IP forwarding table. It is this table that is used by the router to determine the next hop of actual packets.
Usage of Communities
Route Tagging
Type of Peer: customer, peer, upstream via private peering or public IXP Geographic Location Interconnection Point Traffic Engineering No announcements to specified peers AS Prepending Setting local preference
Labovitz et al have constructed a well-known taxonomy for analyzing BGP routing instabilities: WAdiff Explicit withdrawal followed by an announcement that replaces the original path. Reflects legitimate forwarding instabilities. AAdiff Implicit withdrawal, where the original AS_PATH is replaced. Reflects legitimate forwarding instabilities. WAdup Explicit withdrawal followed by an announcement that reinstates the same AS_PATH. Could either be legitimate or pathological. AAdup Two sequential announcements, implying an implicit withdrawal that replaces the original AS_PATH with the same one again. Could either be legitimate updates related to policy changes or pathological. WWdup Repeated pathological, duplicate withdrawals.
NOTE: Routes are the same if they have the same AS_Path and NEXT_HOP.
Preventive Actions
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Route flap damping/dampening Techniques that allow resetting sessions without tearing them down, e.g. RFC2918 Keep some state of recently sent messages to peers Implementing Route Servers Proper aggregation
Aggregation cannot always be optimal due to multihoming practices and provider-independent address space.
Route-flap Damping
There are two approaches according to the recommendations in RIPE-229: "Progressive" approach: Start with suppressing 4th flap /24 or longer prefix length: Max = Min 60 minutes /22, /23: Max 45 minutes, Min 30 minutes Others: Max 30 minutes, Min 10 minutes "Flat & Gentle" approach: Start with suppressing 4th flap Suppress route: Max 30 minutes, Min 10 minutes Always exclude Golden Networks (e.g. root name servers and G-TLD name servers) from dampening. Why does RIPE-229 recommend suppressing routes from the fourth flap? 1. IOS upgrade and reload 2. Failed IOS upgrade & reload 3. Old working IOS image again Hypothetically, dampening will not be enforced if the scenario above occurs.
etc.
Tier 2 Providers
Tier 2 providers purchase upstream transit to the world's Internet routes from one or more tier 1 ISPs, which in turn makes their IP networks a sub-set of those tier 1 networks. To minimize the amount of traffic that needs to tranverse the tier 1's network ($$$), the tier 2 ISPs will set up peerings with each other, either over private links or at Internet Exchange Points (IXP). Think of 'Regional Networks' (thousands) in a certain part of the world, eg national telecoms and their competitors. In theory, tier 3 providers buy transit from tier 2 ISPs and so on. However, this model is becoming increasingly vague as the Internet structure becomes more and more mesh-like. For instance, an ISP may have bought transit from both a tier 1 and tier 2 provider, while having peering agreements with a tier 2 and a tier 3. Today, the term 'tier' is primarily used to differentiate between tier 1 providers that do not need to buy transit due to peerings with other tier 1 ISPs and the rest, ie tier 2 and below.
Some terms:
BGP Storm: Excessive updates impact the router's CPU and memory, usually at the Internet's periphery, that leads to keep-alives being dropped and BGP sessions going down. This behaviour propagates throughout the Internet causing a BGP update "storm". EBGP-multihop
BGP assumes that neighbor is NOT directly connected (TTL=255 by default, normally TTL=0). Internet Weather: End-to-End connectivity issues that are noticed by Internet end-users. Route Flaps: Withdrawal followed by an announcement. There is a distinction between "Route Oscilliations", which are periodic, and "Route Flaps", that are not. Route Server: 'Route Reflector' for EBGP peers, often used at IXPs to solve n^2-related configuration issues.
References:
"CS 268: Lecture 8 (Routing Behavior in the Internet)", Ion Stoica, University of California, Berkeley, February 8, 2001 "A survey of the utilization of bgp communities", draft-quoitin-bgp-comm-survey-00.txt, B. Quoitin and O. Bonaventure, Internet draft, work in progress, February 2002. "Cisco ISP Essentials", Barry Raveendran Greene & Philip Smith, CiscoPress, 2002 "Internet Routing Instability", Craig Labovitz, G. Robert Malan & Farnam Jahanian, University of Michigan, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Ripe-229: "RIPE Routing-WG Recommendations for Coordinated Route-flap Damping Parameters", Christian Panigl, Joachim Schmitz, Philip Smith & Cristina Vistoli, October 22, 2001 "Routing TCP/IP, Volume Two", Jeff Doyle & Jennifer DeHaven Carroll, CiscoPress, 2001 "The Basics of BGP Routing and its Performance in Today's Internet", Nina Taft, Sprint, Advanced Technology Labs, California, May 2001 "Route Flap Damping Exacerbates Internet Routing Convergence", Zhuoqing Morley Mao, Ramesh Govindan, George Varghese & Randy H. Katz, August 2002