BGP Peering Sessions

Understanding External BGP Peering Sessions

To establish point-to-point connections between peer autonomous systems (ASs), you configure a BGP session on each interface of a point-to-point link. Generally, such sessions are made at network exit points with neighboring hosts outside the AS. Figure 1 shows an example of a BGP peering session.

Figure 1: BGP Peering Session

In Figure 1, Router A is a gateway router for AS 3, and Router B is a gateway router for AS 10. For traffic internal to either AS, an interior gateway protocol (IGP) is used (OSPF, for instance). To route traffic between peer ASs, a BGP session is used.

You arrange BGP routing devices into groups of peers. Different peer groups can have different group types, AS numbers, and route reflector cluster identifiers.

To define a BGP group that recognizes only the specified BGP systems as peers, statically configure all the system’s peers by including one or more neighbor statements. The peer neighbor’s address can be either an IPv6 or IPv4 address.

As the number of external BGP (EBGP) groups increases, the ability to support a large number of BGP sessions might become a scaling issue. The preferred way to configure a large number of BGP neighbors is to configure a few groups consisting of multiple neighbors per group. Supporting fewer EBGP groups generally scales better than supporting a large number of EBGP groups. This becomes more evident in the case of hundreds of EBGP groups when compared with a few EBGP groups with multiple peers in each group.

After the BGP peers are established, non-BGP routes are not automatically advertised by the BGP peers. At each BGP-enabled device, policy configuration is required to export the local, static, or IGP-learned routes into the BGP RIB and then advertise them as BGP routes to the other peers. BGP's advertisement policy, by default, does not advertise any non-BGP routes (such as local routes) to peers.

Example: Configuring External BGP Point-to-Point Peer Sessions

• Requirements

• Overview

• Configuration

• Verification

Requirements

Before you begin, if the default BGP policy is not adequate for your network, configure routing policies to filter incoming BGP routes and to advertise BGP routes.

Overview

Figure 2 shows a network with BGP peer sessions. In the sample network, Device E in AS 17 has BGP peer sessions to a group of peers called external-peers. Peers A, B, and C reside in AS 22 and have IP addresses 10.10.10.2, 10.10.10.6, and 10.10.10.10. Peer D resides in AS 79, at IP address 10.21.7.2. This example shows the configuration on Device E.

Figure 2: Typical Network with BGP Peer Sessions

Configuration

CLI Quick Configuration

To quickly configure this example, copy the following commands, paste them into a text file, remove any line breaks, change any details necessary to match your network configuration, and then copy and paste the commands into the CLI at the [edit] hierarchy level.

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Configure the interfaces to Peers A, B, C, and D.
2. Set the autonomous system (AS) number.
3. Create the BGP group, and add the external neighbor addresses.
4. Specify the autonomous system (AS) number of the external AS.
5. Add Peer D, and set the AS number at the individual neighbor level.

   The neighbor configuration overrides the group configuration. So, while peer-as 22 is set for all the other neighbors in the group, peer-as 79 is set for neighbor 10.21.7.2.
6. Set the peer type to external BGP (EBGP).

Results

From configuration mode, confirm your configuration by entering the show interfaces, show protocols, and show routing-options commands. If the output does not display the intended configuration, repeat the instructions in this example to correct the configuration.

If you are done configuring the device, enter commit from configuration mode.

Verification

• Verifying BGP Neighbors

• Verifying BGP Groups

• Verifying BGP Summary Information

Verifying BGP Neighbors

Purpose

Verify that BGP is running on configured interfaces and that the BGP session is active for each neighbor address.

Action

From operational mode, run the show bgp neighbor command.

Verifying BGP Groups

Purpose

Verify that the BGP groups are configured correctly.

Action

From operational mode, run the show bgp group command.

Verifying BGP Summary Information

Purpose

Verify that the BGP configuration is correct.

Action

From operational mode, run the show bgp summary command.

Example: Configuring External BGP on Logical Systems with IPv6 Interfaces

• Requirements

• Overview

• Configuration

• Verification

Requirements

In this example, no special configuration beyond device initialization is required.

Overview

Junos OS supports EBGP peer sessions by means of IPv6 addresses. An IPv6 peer session can be configured when an IPv6 address is specified in the neighbor statement. This example uses EUI-64 to generate IPv6 addresses that are automatically applied to the interfaces. An EUI-64 address is an IPv6 address that uses the IEEE EUI-64 format for the interface identifier portion of the address (the last 64 bits).

After your interfaces are up, you can use the show interfaces terse command to view the EUI-64-generated IPv6 addresses on the interfaces. You must use these generated addresses in the BGP neighbor statements. This example demonstrates the full end-to-end procedure.

In this example, Frame Relay interface encapsulation is applied to the logical tunnel (lt) interfaces. This is a requirement because only Frame Relay encapsulation is supported when IPv6 addresses are configured on the lt interfaces.

Figure 3 shows a network with BGP peer sessions. In the sample network, Router R1 has five logical systems configured. Device E in autonomous system (AS) 17 has BGP peer sessions to a group of peers called external-peers. Peers A, B, and C reside in AS 22. This example shows the step-by-step configuration on Logical System A and Logical System E.

Figure 3: Typical Network with BGP Peer Sessions

Configuration

CLI Quick Configuration

To quickly configure this example, copy the following commands, paste them into a text file, remove any line breaks, change any details necessary to match your network configuration, copy and paste the commands into the CLI at the [edit] hierarchy level, and then enter commit from configuration mode.

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Run the show interfaces terse command to verify that the physical router has a logical tunnel (lt) interface.
   user@R1> show interfaces terse
2. On Logical System A, configure the interface encapsulation, peer-unit number, and DLCI to reach Logical System E.
3. On Logical System A, configure the network address for the link to Peer E, and configure a loopback interface.
4. On Logical System E, configure the interface encapsulation, peer-unit number, and DLCI to reach Logical System A.
5. On Logical System E, configure the network address for the link to Peer A, and configure a loopback interface.
6. Run the show interfaces terse command to see the IPv6 addresses that are generated by EUI-64.

   The 2001 addresses are used in this example in the BGP neighbor statements.

   Note

   The fe80 addresses are link-local addresses and are not used in this example.

   user@R1:A> show interfaces terse
   user@R1:E> show interfaces terse
7. Repeat the interface configuration on the other logical systems.

Configuring the External BGP Sessions

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. On Logical System A, create the BGP group, and add the external neighbor address.
2. On Logical System E, create the BGP group, and add the external neighbor address.
3. On Logical System A, specify the autonomous system (AS) number of the external AS.
4. On Logical System E, specify the autonomous system (AS) number of the external AS.
5. On Logical System A, set the peer type to EBGP.
6. On Logical System E, set the peer type to EBGP.
7. On Logical System A, set the autonomous system (AS) number and router ID.
8. On Logical System E, set the AS number and router ID.
9. Repeat these steps for Peers A, B, C, and D.

Results

From configuration mode, confirm your configuration by entering the show logical-systems command. If the output does not display the intended configuration, repeat the instructions in this example to correct the configuration.

If you are done configuring the device, enter commit from configuration mode.

Verification

• Verifying BGP Neighbors

• Verifying BGP Groups

• Verifying BGP Summary Information

• Checking the Routing Table

Verifying BGP Neighbors

Purpose

Verify that BGP is running on configured interfaces and that the BGP session is active for each neighbor address.

Action

From operational mode, run the show bgp neighbor command.

Meaning

IPv6 unicast network layer reachability information (NLRI) is being exchanged between the neighbors.

Verifying BGP Groups

Purpose

Verify that the BGP groups are configured correctly.

Action

From operational mode, run the show bgp group command.

Meaning

The group type is external, and the group has four peers.

Verifying BGP Summary Information

Purpose

Verify that the BGP peer relationships are established.

Action

From operational mode, run the show bgp summary command.

Meaning

The Down peers: 0 output shows that the BGP peers are in the established state.

Checking the Routing Table

Purpose

Verify that the inet6.0 routing table is populated with local and direct routes.

Action

From operational mode, run the show route command.

Meaning

The inet6.0 routing table contains local and direct routes. To populate the routing table with other types of routes, you must configure routing policies.

Understanding Internal BGP Peering Sessions

When two BGP-enabled devices are in the same autonomous system (AS), the BGP session is called an internal BGP session, or IBGP session. BGP uses the same message types on IBGP and external BGP (EBGP) sessions, but the rules for when to send each message and how to interpret each message differ slightly. For this reason, some people refer to IBGP and EBGP as two separate protocols.

Figure 4: Internal and External BGP

In Figure 4, Device Jackson, Device Memphis, and Device Biloxi have IBGP peer sessions with each other. Likewise, Device Miami and Device Atlanta have IBGP peer sessions between each other.

The purpose of IBGP is to provide a means by which EBGP route advertisements can be forwarded throughout the network. In theory, to accomplish this task you could redistribute all of your EBGP routes into an interior gateway protocol (IGP), such as OSPF or IS-IS. This, however, is not recommended in a production environment because of the large number of EBGP routes in the Internet and because of the way that IGPs operate. In short, with that many routes the IGP churns or crashes.

Generally, the loopback interface (lo0) is used to establish connections between IBGP peers. The loopback interface is always up as long as the device is operating. If there is a route to the loopback address, the IBGP peering session stays up. If a physical interface address is used instead and that interface goes up and down, the IBGP peering session also goes up and down. Thus the loopback interface provides fault tolerance in case the physical interface or the link goes down, if the device has link redundancy.

While IBGP neighbors do not need to be directly connected, they do need to be fully meshed. In this case, fully meshed means that each device is logically connected to every other device through neighbor peer relationships. The neighbor statement creates the mesh. Because of the full mesh requirement of IBGP, you must configure individual peering sessions between all IBGP devices in the AS. The full mesh need not be physical links. Rather, the configuration on each routing device must create a full mesh of peer sessions (using multiple neighbor statements).

To understand the full-mesh requirement, consider that an IBGP-learned route cannot be readvertised to another IBGP peer. The reason for preventing the readvertisement of IBGP routes and requiring the full mesh is to avoid routing loops within an AS. The AS path attribute is the means by which BGP routing devices avoid loops. The path information is examined for the local AS number only when the route is received from an EBGP peer. Because the attribute is only modified across AS boundaries, this system works well. However, the fact that the attribute is only modified across AS boundaries presents an issue inside the AS. For example, suppose that routing devices A, B, and C are all in the same AS. Device A receives a route from an EBGP peer and sends the route to Device B, which installs it as the active route. The route is then sent to Device C, which installs it locally and sends it back to Device A. If Device A installs the route, a loop is formed within the AS. The routing devices are not able to detect the loop because the AS path attribute is not modified during these advertisements. Therefore, the BGP protocol designers decided that the only assurance of never forming a routing loop was to prevent an IBGP peer from advertising an IBGP-learned route within the AS. For route reachability, the IBGP peers are fully meshed.

IBGP supports multihop connections, so IBGP neighbors can be located anywhere within the AS and often do not share a link. A recursive route lookup resolves the loopback peering address to an IP forwarding next hop. The lookup service is provided by static routes or an IGP such as OSPF, or BGP routes.

Example: Configuring Internal BGP Peer Sessions

• Requirements

• Overview

• Configuration

• Verification

Requirements

No special configuration beyond device initialization is required before you configure this example.

Overview

In this example, you configure internal BGP (IBGP) peer sessions. The loopback interface (lo0) is used to establish connections between IBGP peers. The loopback interface is always up as long as the device is operating. If there is a route to the loopback address, the IBGP peer session stays up. If a physical interface address is used instead and that interface goes up and down, the IBGP peer session also goes up and down. Thus, if the device has link redundancy, the loopback interface provides fault tolerance in case the physical interface or one of the links goes down.

When a device peers with a remote device’s loopback interface address, the local device expects BGP update messages to come from (be sourced by) the remote device’s loopback interface address. The local-address statement enables you to specify the source information in BGP update messages. If you omit the local-address statement, the expected source of BGP update messages is based on the device’s source address selection rules, which normally results in the egress interface address being the expected source of update messages. When this happens, the peer session is not established because a mismatch exists between the expected source address (the egress interface of the peer) and the actual source (the loopback interface of the peer). To make sure that the expected source address matches the actual source address, specify the loopback interface address in the local-address statement.

Because IBGP supports multihop connections, IBGP neighbors can be located anywhere within the autonomous system (AS) and often do not share a link. A recursive route lookup resolves the loopback peer address to an IP forwarding next hop. In this example, this service is provided by OSPF. Although interior gateway protocol (IGP) neighbors do not need to be directly connected, they do need to be fully meshed. In this case, fully meshed means that each device is logically connected to every other device through neighbor peer relationships. The neighbor statement creates the mesh.

After the BGP peers are established, local routes are not automatically advertised by the BGP peers. At each BGP-enabled device, policy configuration is required to export the local, static, or IGP-learned routes into the BGP routing information base (RIB) and then advertise them as BGP routes to the other peers. BGP's advertisement policy, by default, does not advertise any non-BGP routes (such as local routes) to peers.

In the sample network, the devices in AS 17 are fully meshed in the group internal-peers. The devices have loopback addresses 192.168.6.5, 192.163.6.4, and 192.168.40.4.

Figure 5 shows a typical network with internal peer sessions.

Figure 5: Typical Network with IBGP Sessions

Configuration

• Configuring Device A

• Configuring Device B

• Configuring Device C

CLI Quick Configuration

To quickly configure this example, copy the following commands, paste them into a text file, remove any line breaks, change any details necessary to match your network configuration, and then copy and paste the commands into the CLI at the [edit] hierarchy level.

Configuring Device A

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Configure the interfaces.
2. Configure BGP.

   The neighbor statements are included for both Device B and Device C, even though Device A is not directly connected to Device C.
3. Configure OSPF.
4. Configure a policy that accepts direct routes.

   Other useful options for this scenario might be to accept routes learned through OSPF or local routes.
5. Configure the router ID and the AS number.

Results

From configuration mode, confirm your configuration by entering the show interfaces, show policy-options, show protocols, and show routing-options commands. If the output does not display the intended configuration, repeat the instructions in this example to correct the configuration.

If you are done configuring the device, enter commit from configuration mode.

Configuring Device B

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Configure the interfaces.
2. Configure BGP.

   The neighbor statements are included for both Device B and Device C, even though Device A is not directly connected to Device C.
3. Configure OSPF.
4. Configure a policy that accepts direct routes.

   Other useful options for this scenario might be to accept routes learned through OSPF or local routes.
5. Configure the router ID and the AS number.

Results

From configuration mode, confirm your configuration by entering the show interfaces, show policy-options, show protocols, and show routing-options commands. If the output does not display the intended configuration, repeat the instructions in this example to correct the configuration.

If you are done configuring the device, enter commit from configuration mode.

Configuring Device C

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Configure the interfaces.
2. Configure BGP.

   The neighbor statements are included for both Device B and Device C, even though Device A is not directly connected to Device C.
3. Configure OSPF.
4. Configure a policy that accepts direct routes.

   Other useful options for this scenario might be to accept routes learned through OSPF or local routes.
5. Configure the router ID and the AS number.

Results

From configuration mode, confirm your configuration by entering the show interfaces, show policy-options, show protocols, and show routing-options commands. If the output does not display the intended configuration, repeat the instructions in this example to correct the configuration.

If you are done configuring the device, enter commit from configuration mode.

Verification

• Verifying BGP Neighbors

• Verifying BGP Groups

• Verifying BGP Summary Information

• Verifying That BGP Routes Are Installed in the Routing Table

Verifying BGP Neighbors

Purpose

Verify that BGP is running on configured interfaces and that the BGP session is active for each neighbor address.

Action

From operational mode, enter the show bgp neighbor command.

Verifying BGP Groups

Purpose

Verify that the BGP groups are configured correctly.

Action

From operational mode, enter the show bgp group command.

Verifying BGP Summary Information

Purpose

Verify that the BGP configuration is correct.

Action

From operational mode, enter the show bgp summary command.

Verifying That BGP Routes Are Installed in the Routing Table

Purpose

Verify that the export policy configuration is causing the BGP routes to be installed in the routing tables of the peers.

Action

From operational mode, enter the show route protocol bgp command.

Example: Configuring Internal BGP Peering Sessions on Logical Systems

• Requirements

• Overview

• Configuration

• Verification

Requirements

In this example, no special configuration beyond device initialization is required.

Overview

In this example, you configure internal BGP (IBGP) peering sessions.

In the sample network, the devices in AS 17 are fully meshed in the group internal-peers. The devices have loopback addresses 192.168.6.5, 192.163.6.4, and 192.168.40.4.

Figure 6 shows a typical network with internal peer sessions.

Figure 6: Typical Network with IBGP Sessions

Configuration

CLI Quick Configuration

To quickly configure this example, copy the following commands, paste them into a text file, remove any line breaks, change any details necessary to match your network configuration, and then copy and paste the commands into the CLI at the [edit] hierarchy level.

Device A

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Configure the interfaces.
2. Configure BGP.

   On Logical System A, the neighbor statements are included for both Device B and Device C, even though Logical System A is not directly connected to Device C.
3. Configure OSPF.
4. Configure a policy that accepts direct routes.

   Other useful options for this scenario might be to accept routes learned through OSPF or local routes.
5. Configure the router ID and the autonomous system (AS) number.

Results

From configuration mode, confirm your configuration by entering the show logical-systems command. If the output does not display the intended configuration, repeat the configuration instructions in this example to correct it.

If you are done configuring the device, enter commit from configuration mode.

Verification

• Verifying BGP Neighbors

• Verifying BGP Groups

• Verifying BGP Summary Information

• Verifying That BGP Routes Are Installed in the Routing Table

Verifying BGP Neighbors

Purpose

Verify that BGP is running on configured interfaces and that the BGP session is active for each neighbor address.

Action

From the operational mode, enter the show bgp neighbor command.

Verifying BGP Groups

Purpose

Verify that the BGP groups are configured correctly.

Action

From the operational mode, enter the show bgp group command.

Verifying BGP Summary Information

Purpose

Verify that the BGP configuration is correct.

Action

From the operational mode, enter the show bgp summary command.

Verifying That BGP Routes Are Installed in the Routing Table

Purpose

Verify that the export policy configuration is working.

Action

From the operational mode, enter the show route protocol bgp command.

Overview: Configure Multiple Single-Hop EBGP Sessions on Different Links Using the Same Link-Local Address (IPv6)

In complex networks such as Data Center or Cloud, link-local addresses are widely used due to the high number of links and nodes. Being able to deploy multiple single-hop BGP sessions for Juniper devices using link-local addresses is a significant advantage.

Starting in Junos OS Release 20.4R1, you can enable single-hop EBGP sessions on different links over multiple directly connected peers that use the same IPv6 link-local address. You are no longer required to have unique peer addresses for Juniper devices for every EBGP session.

Example: Configure Multiple Single-Hop EBGP Sessions on Different Links Using the Same IPv6 Link-Local Address

• Requirements

• Overview

• Configuration

• Verification

Requirements

• 2 MX Series routers

• Junos OS Release 20.4R1 or later version

Overview

Prior to Junos OS Release 20.4R1, you could configure BGP peers with link-local addresses but you could not configure multiple BGP peers to use the same link-local address on different interfaces. Starting in Junos OS 20.4R1, you can enable multiple single-hop EBGP sessions on different links using the same link-local address.

Topology

Configuration

• Configure Single-Hop EBGP Sessions on Multiple Links Using the Same IPv6 Link-Local Address

• Results

CLI Quick Configuration

R1

R2

Configure Single-Hop EBGP Sessions on Multiple Links Using the Same IPv6 Link-Local Address

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Configure basic set up, including vlan-tagging, vlan-id, loopback and IPv6 link-local addresses for R1 and R2.

   You can configure multiple units on a single interface as follows:

   R1

   R2

2. Configure routing options to enable BGP on R1 and R2.

   R1

   R2

3. Configure EBGP on the multiple links on R1 and R2 using the same link-local IPv6 addresses in the set protocols bgp group group neighbor peeraddress%localinterface.unit format:

   R1

   R2

4. Enter commit from the configuration mode.

Results

Verify your configuration by checking the below configurations from devices as follows:

Here’s how you can verify configurations on R1 device:

user@R1# show interfaces

user@R1# show protocols

user@R1# show routing-options

Verification

• Verify EBGP Link-local Support

Verify EBGP Link-local Support

Purpose

Use the show bgp summary command to verify the EBGP sessions created on the devices with the same link-local address through different interfaces.

Action

Meaning

The output indicates that 2 EBGP sessions are established with the same IPv6 link-local address (fe80::20) of R2 through the 2 configured local-interfaces of R1 (ge-0/0/1.1 and ge-0/0/1.2).