Configuring BGP On Cisco Routers: Student Guide

BGP
Configuring BGP on
Cisco Routers
Volume 1
Version 3.2
Student Guide
Text Part Number: 97-2305-01

Copyright © 2005, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
Volume 1
Course Introduction 1
Overview 1
Learner Skills and Knowledge 2
Course Goal and Objectives 3
Course Flow 4
Additional References 5
Cisco Glossary of Terms 5
Your Training Curriculum 6
BGP Overview 1-1
Overview 1-1
Module Objectives 1-1
Introducing BGP 1-3
Overview 1-3
Objectives 1-3
Interdomain Routing 1-4
Example: Why External Routing Protocols? 1-6
BGP Characteristics 1-8
Single-Homed Customers 1-12
Multihomed Customers 1-14
Transit Autonomous Systems 1-16
BGP Limitations 1-17
Summary 1-18
Understanding BGP Path Attributes 1-19
Overview 1-19
Objectives 1-19
BGP Path Attributes 1-20
Well-Known BGP Attributes 1-21
Optional BGP Attributes 1-24
AS-Path Attribute 1-26
Example: AS-Path Attribute 1-27
Next-Hop Attribute 1-28
Example: Next-Hop Attribute 1-29
Summary 1-32
Establishing BGP Sessions 1-33
Overview 1-33
Objectives 1-33
BGP Neighbor Discovery 1-34
Example: BGP Neighbor Discovery 1-35
Establishing a BGP Session 1-37
BGP Keepalives 1-40
Example: Keepalive Value 1-41
MD5 Authentication 1-42
Summary 1-43
Processing BGP Routes 1-45
Overview 1-45
Objectives 1-45
Receiving Routing Updates 1-46
Building the BGP Table 1-48
BGP Route Selection Criteria 1-49
Example: BGP Route Selection Criteria 1-51
BGP Route Propagation 1-52
Building the IP Routing Table 1-53
Advertising Local Networks 1-54
Example: Advertising Local Networks 1-55
Automatic Summarization 1-57
Example: Automatic Summarization 1-58
Summary 1-60
Configuring Basic BGP 1-61
Overview 1-61
Objectives 1-61
BGP Routing Process 1-62
router bgp 1-62
Configuring External Neighbors 1-63
neighbor remote-as 1-63
neighbor description 1-64
neighbor shutdown 1-65
Configuring BGP Timers 1-66
timers bgp 1-66
neighbor timers 1-67
Configuring MD5 Authentication 1-68
neighbor password 1-68
Announcing Networks in BGP 1-69
Example: Announcing Networks in BGP 1-72
Redistributing Routes into BGP 1-73
redistribute (IP) 1-74
distribute-list out (IP) 1-76
Configuring Classless BGP 1-78
network (BGP) 1-79
Example: Configuring Classless BGP 1-80
Aggregating BGP Networks 1-81
aggregate-address 1-82
Example: Aggregation 1-84
BGP Conditional Route Injection 1-87
bgp inject-map exist-map 1-88
BGP Support for TTL Security Check 1-89
neighbor ttl-security 1-90
Multihomed Customer Problem 1-91
Summary 1-93
Monitoring and Troubleshooting BGP 1-95
Overview 1-95
Objectives 1-95
Monitoring Overall BGP Routing 1-96
show ip bgp summary 1-97
Monitoring BGP Neighbors 1-98
show ip bgp neighbors 1-98
Monitoring the BGP Table 1-100
show ip bgp 1-100
Debugging BGP 1-103
BGP Session Startup Problems 1-106
BGP Neighbor Not Reachable 1-107
Example: BGP Neighbor Not Reachable 1-109
BGP Neighbor Not Configured 1-110
Example: BGP Neighbor Not Configured 1-111
BGP AS Number Mismatch 1-112
Example: BGP AS Number Mismatch 1-113
Summary 1-114
ii Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers (BGP) v3.2 © 2005, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Module Summary 1-115
References 1-116
Module Self-Check 1-117
Module Self-Check Answer Key 1-126
BGP Transit Autonomous Systems 2-1
Overview 2-1
Working with a Transit AS 2-3
Overview 2-3
Objectives 2-3
Transit AS Tasks 2-4
External Route Propagation 2-5
Internal Route Propagation 2-6
Packet Forwarding in an AS 2-7
Core Router IBGP Requirements in a Transit AS 2-8
Summary 2-9
Interacting with IBGP and EBGP in a Transit AS 2-11
Overview 2-11
Objectives 2-11
AS-Path Processing in IBGP 2-12
Multipath Load Sharing in BGP 2-13
maximum-paths ibgp 2-14
BGP Split Horizon 2-16
IBGP Full Mesh 2-17
Example: IBGP Full Mesh 2-18
IBGP Neighbors 2-19
IBGP Next-Hop Processing 2-21
Transit Network Using External Next Hops 2-23
Transit Network Using Edge Routers as Next Hops 2-25
neighbor next-hop-self 2-26
Example: Transit Network Using Edge Routers as Next Hops 2-27
Differences Between EBGP and IBGP Sessions 2-28
Example: Differences Between EBGP and IBGP Sessions 2-29
Summary 2-30
Forwarding Packets in a Transit AS 2-33
Overview 2-33
Objectives 2-33
Packet Forwarding in a Transit AS 2-34
Recursive Lookup in Cisco IOS Software 2-36
Routing Protocols in a Transit AS 2-38
BGP and IGP Interaction 2-40
Problems with BGP and IGP Interaction 2-42
Summary 2-43
Configuring a Transit AS 2-45
Overview 2-45
Objectives 2-45
Configuring IBGP Neighbors 2-46
neighbor remote-as 2-46
neighbor description 2-47
Configuring IBGP Sessions Between Loopback Interfaces 2-48
neighbor update-source 2-49
Configuring BGP Synchronization 2-50
synchronization 2-50
© 2005, Cisco Systems, Inc. Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers (BGP) v3.2 iii
Changing the Administrative Distance of BGP Routes 2-51
distance bgp 2-51
Scalability Limitations of IBGP-Based Transit Backbones 2-53
Summary 2-54
Monitoring and Troubleshooting IBGP in a Transit AS 2-55
Overview 2-55
Objectives 2-55
Monitoring IBGP 2-56
show ip bgp neighbors 2-56
show ip bgp 2-57
Example: Monitoring IBGP 2-58
Common IBGP Problems 2-60
Troubleshooting IBGP Session Startup Issues 2-61
Troubleshooting IBGP Route Selection Issues 2-64
Troubleshooting IBGP Synchronization Issues 2-65
Summary 2-66
Module Summary 2-67
References 2-68
Route Selection Using Policy Controls 3-1
Overview 3-1
Using Multihomed BGP Networks 3-3
Overview 3-3
Objectives 3-3
Business Requirements for Multihomed BGP Networks 3-4
Technical Requirements for Multihomed BGP Networks 3-5
BGP Route Selection Without BGP Policies 3-6
Example: BGP Route Selection Without BGP Policies 3-7
Multihomed Customer Routing Policies 3-8
Influencing BGP Route Selection 3-9
BGP Filters 3-11
Summary 3-14
Employing AS-Path Filters 3-15
Overview 3-15
Objectives 3-15
AS-Path Filtering Scenarios 3-16
AS-Path Regular Expressions 3-18
String Matching 3-19
Example: String Matching 3-26
Applying AS-Path Filters 3-29
Configuring BGP AS-Path Filters 3-30
ip as-path access-list 3-30
neighbor filter-list 3-31
Monitoring AS-Path Filters 3-33
show ip bgp regexp 3-35
show ip bgp filter-list 3-36
Summary 3-37
iv Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers (BGP) v3.2 © 2005, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Filtering with Prefix-Lists 3-39
Overview 3-39
Objectives 3-39
Requirements for Prefix-Based Filters 3-40
Prefix-Lists vs. IP Access-Lists 3-41
Configuring Prefix-Lists 3-44
ip prefix-list 3-44
Example: Configuring Prefix-Lists 3-48
BGP Filters Implementation 3-49
Implementing Prefix-Lists in the BGP Process 3-50
neighbor prefix-list 3-51
distribute-list out 3-52
Example: Filtering Customer Prefixes 3-53
Example: Filtering Peer Prefixes 3-54
Modifying Prefix-Lists 3-55
Monitoring Prefix-Lists 3-56
show ip prefix-list 3-56
Summary 3-60
Using Outbound Route Filtering 3-61
Overview 3-61
Objectives 3-61
Outbound Route Filtering 3-62
Example: Inbound vs. Outbound Filtering 3-63
BGP Prefix-Based Outbound Route Filtering 3-64
Example: BGP Prefix-Based Outbound Route Filtering 3-65
Outbound Route Filter Message 3-66
Configuring Outbound Route Filtering 3-69
neighbor orf prefix-list 3-69
Using Outbound Route Filtering 3-72
Monitoring Outbound Route Filtering 3-73
Summary 3-74
Applying Route-Maps as BGP Filters 3-75
Overview 3-75
Objectives 3-75
Route-Map Overview 3-76
BGP Route-Map Policy List Support 3-80
ip policy-list 3-81
match policy-list 3-81
show ip policy-list 3-82
Configuring Policy-List Examples 3-82
Configuring Route-Maps to Reference Policy-List Examples 3-83
Verifying BGP Route-Map Policy List Support 3-83
BGP Route-Map Continue 3-85
Route-Map Operation Without Continue Clauses 3-85
Route-Map Operation with Continue Clauses 3-86
continue 3-87
show route-map 3-87
BGP Route-Map Continue Clause Example Configuration 3-88
BGP Route-Map Continue Clause Verification Example 3-89
Prefix-List Use in Route-Maps 3-90
match ip address 3-90
match ip next-hop 3-91
match ip route-source 3-91
BGP Filters 3-93
Using Route-Maps as BGP Filters 3-94
Monitoring Route-Maps 3-96
Summary 3-100
© 2005, Cisco Systems, Inc. Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers (BGP) v3.2 v
Implementing Changes in BGP Policy 3-101
Overview 3-101
Objectives 3-102
Traditional Filtering Limitations 3-103
BGP Soft Reconfiguration 3-105
Example: Soft Reconfiguration and Memory Use 3-106
Cisco IOS Commands for Soft Reconfiguration 3-107
neighbor soft-reconfiguration 3-107
clear ip bgp 3-108
Monitoring Soft Reconfiguration 3-110
BGP Soft Reset Enhancement 3-111
Route Refresh 3-113
Example: Route Refresh 3-116
Using Route Refresh 3-117
clear ip bgp 3-117
Monitoring Route Refresh 3-118
Why Use Route-Maps as BGP Filters? 3-121
Summary 3-122
Module Summary 3-125
References 3-126
vi Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers (BGP) v3.2 © 2005, Cisco Systems, Inc.
BGP
Course Introduction
Overview
Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers (BGP) v3.2 provides students with in-depth knowledge of
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), the routing protocol that is one of the underlying foundations
of the Internet and New World technologies such as Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS).
This curriculum covers the theory of BGP, configuration of BGP on Cisco IOS routers, detailed
troubleshooting information, and hands-on exercises that provide learners with the skills that
they need to configure and troubleshoot BGP networks in customer environments. Different
service solutions in the curriculum cover BGP network design issues and usage rules for
various BGP features, preparing learners to design and implement efficient, optimal, and
trouble-free BGP networks.
Learner Skills and Knowledge
This subtopic lists the skills and knowledge that learners must possess to benefit fully from the
course. The subtopic also includes recommended Cisco learning offerings that learners should
complete in order to benefit fully from this course.
Learner Skills and Knowledge
• Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI) course or

equivalent
© 2005 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. BGP v3.2—3
2 Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers (BGP) v3.2 © 2005, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Course Goal and Objectives
This topic describes the course goal and objectives.
Course Goal
“To provide learners with in-depth

knowledge of BGP”
Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers (BGP) v3.2
Upon completing this course, you will be able to meet these objectives:
Configure, monitor, and troubleshoot basic BGP to enable interdomain routing in a network
scenario with multiple domains
Use BGP policy controls to influence the route selection process with minimal impact on
BGP route processing in a network scenario where you must support connections to
multiple ISPs
Use BGP attributes to influence the route selection process in a network scenario where
you must support multiple connections
Implement the correct BGP configuration to successfully connect the customer network to
the Internet in a network scenario where you must support multiple connections
Enable the provider network to behave as a transit AS in a typical service provider network
with multiple BGP connections to other autonomous systems
Identify common BGP scaling issues and enable route reflection and confederations as
possible solutions to these issues in a typical service provider network with multiple BGP
connections to other autonomous systems
Use available BGP tools and features to optimize the scalability of the BGP routing
protocol in a typical BGP network
© 2005, Cisco Systems, Inc. Course Introduction 3

Course Flow
This topic presents the suggested flow of the course materials.
Course Flow
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5

Course Module 2: BGP Module 4: Module 6:
Introduction Transit Route Selection Scaling Service
Autonomous Module 3: Using Attributes Provider
A Systems Route Selection Labs Networks Labs
Module 1: Using Policy
M BGP Overview Module 2: Controls Labs
Module 5:
Customer-to- Module 7:
BGP Transit
Provider Optimizing
Autonomous
Connectivity BGP Scalability
Systems Lab
with BGP
Lunch
Module 1: Module 5: Module 7:
BGP Overview Customer-to- Optimizing
(Cont.) Module 3: Provider BGP Scalability
Module 4:
Route Selection Connectivity Labs
P Using Policy
Route Selection
with BGP (Cont.)
Using Attributes
M Module 1: Controls
Module 6:
BGP Overview Scaling Service
Labs Provider
Networks
The schedule reflects the recommended structure for this course. This structure allows enough
time for the instructor to present the course information and for you to work through the lab
activities. The exact timing of the subject materials and labs depends on the pace of your
specific class.
Additional References
This topic presents the Cisco icons and symbols used in this course, as well as information on
where to find additional technical references.
Cisco Icons and Symbols
Network
Router PIX Firewall Cloud,
White
Network
Workgroup
100BASE-TX Cloud,
Switch:
Hub Standard
Color/Subdued
Color
Terminal PC
Server
Cisco Glossary of Terms

For additional information on Cisco terminology, refer to the Cisco Internetworking Terms and
Acronyms glossary of terms at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ita/index.htm.

Your Training Curriculum
This topic presents the training curriculum for this course.
Cisco Certifications
You are encouraged to join the Cisco Certification Community, a discussion forum open to
anyone holding a valid Cisco Career Certification (such as Cisco CCIE®, CCNA®, CCDA®,
CCNP®, CCDP®, CCIP™, or CCSP®). It provides a gathering place for Cisco-certified
professionals to share questions, suggestions, and information about Cisco Career Certification
programs and other certification-related topics. For more information, visit
http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/le2/le37/le8/learning_certification_type_home.html
Cisco Career Certifications: Service
Provider Internetworking
Expand Your Professional Options

and Advance Your Career
Professional-level recognition in service provider internetworking
Required Recommended Training Through

Expert Exam Cisco Learning Partners
CCIE BSCI Building Scalable Cisco
Internetworks (BSCI)
Professional BGP Configuring BGP on

Cisco Routers (BGP)
CCIP
QOS Implementing Cisco
Quality of Service (QoS)
Associate
MPLS Implementing Cisco
MPLS (MPLS)
CCNA
Service Provider
Internetworking http://www.cisco.com/go/certifications
Cisco Career Certifications: Service

Provider Internetworking (Cont.)
Expand Your Professional Options

and Advance Your Career
Professional-level recognition in service provider internetworking

Another option:
Required Recommended Training Through
Expert Exam Cisco Learning Partners
CCIE Composite
Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI)
and Building Cisco Multilayer Switched
Networks (BCMSN)
Professional QOS Implementing Cisco Quality of Service (QoS)
CCIP
Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers (BGP) and
BGP + MPLS Implementing Cisco MPLS (MPLS)
Associate
CCNA
Service Provider http://www.cisco.com/go/certifications
Internetworking

Module 1
BGP Overview
Overview
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is an interdomain (interautonomous system) routing protocol
that is used to exchange routing information for the Internet. BGP, by design, is a very robust
and scalable routing protocol. Because BGP is deployed as an interdomain routing protocol, it
has many rich features that allow administrators to implement a variety of routing policies. This
module covers basic BGP technology, details BGP session establishment and routing
information exchange, and describes basic Cisco IOS configuration and troubleshooting tasks.
Module Objectives
Upon completing this module, you will be able to configure, monitor, and troubleshoot basic
BGP to enable interdomain routing in a network scenario with multiple domains. This ability
includes being able to meet these objectives:
Identify appropriate BGP usage and limitations
List BGP path attributes and the functionality of each attribute
Describe the concept of BGP neighbors and neighbor session establishment procedures
Describe BGP route processing
Configure a router for BGP
Perform the steps to correct basic BGP configuration and session errors
1-2 Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers (BGP) v3.2 © 2005, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Lesson 1
Introducing BGP
Overview
The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a very robust and scalable routing protocol, which is
demonstrated by the fact that it is the routing protocol that is used on the Internet. Service
providers and customer networks, such as universities and corporations, usually use an Interior
Gateway Protocol (IGP) such as Routing Information Protocol (RIP), Enhanced Interior
Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), or Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) for the exchange of
routing information within their networks. Any communication between these IGPs and the
Internet or between service providers will be accomplished through BGP. This lesson
introduces basic BGP characteristics and features.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to identify appropriate BGP use and limitations.
This ability includes being able to meet these objectives:
Describe interdomain routing in relation to the design goals of interdomain routing
protocols
List the basic characteristics of BGP
Identify when a single-homed customer should use BGP as an interdomain routing protocol
Describe when BGP is appropriate for the multihomed customer
Describe the use of BGP in a transit autonomous backbone
List some of the limitations of BGP
Interdomain Routing
This topic describes interdomain routing in relation to the design goals of interdomain routing
protocols.
Interdomain Routing
• An AS is a collection of networks under a single technical

administration.
• An IGP is run inside an AS, resulting in optimum intra-AS
routing.
• An EGP is run between autonomous systems to enable
routing policies and improve security.
© 2005 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. BGP v3.2—1-3
When talking to people who are involved with Internet routing, network administrators
commonly use the terms “autonomous system,” “interdomain routing,” “interior routing
protocol,” and “exterior routing protocol.” These terms, which may be confusing for a novice,
are defined as follows:
An autonomous system (AS) is a collection of networks under a single technical
administration. Other definitions refer to a collection of routers or IP prefixes, but in the
end they are all essentially the same thing. The important principle is the technical
administration, which means sharing the same routing protocol and routing policy. Legal
and administrative ownership of the routers does not matter with autonomous systems.
Autonomous systems are identified by AS numbers. AS numbers are 16-bit, unsigned
integers ranging from 1 to 65535. Public AS numbers (1 to 64511) are assigned and
managed by an Internet registry. A range of private AS numbers (64512 to 65535) has been
reserved for customers that need an AS number to run BGP in their private networks.
Interdomain routing is routing between autonomous systems. It is usually based on a set of
policies, not just the technical characteristics of the underlying infrastructure.
Exterior routing protocols (BGP being the only exterior routing protocol that is used today)
are protocols that have the right set of functions to support various interdomain routing
policies. Such protocols are contrary to interior routing protocols (for example, OSPF, RIP,
or EIGRP), which focus only on finding the optimum (usually fastest) route between two
points, without respect to routing policies.
Design Goals for Interdomain Routing
Scalability
• The Internet has more than 140,000 routes and is still
growing.
Secure routing information exchange
• Routers from another AS cannot be trusted.
• Tight filters are required; authentication is desirable.
Support for routing policies
• Routing between autonomous systems might not always
follow the optimum path.
The design goals for any interdomain routing protocol include the following:
Scalability: An interdomain routing protocol has to be able to support Internet routing,
which consists of more than 140,000 routes.
Secure information exchange: Because the routers from other autonomous systems
cannot be trusted, tight filters on routing updates and router authentication are desirable
features.
Support for routing policies: Routing between autonomous systems might not always
follow the optimum path, and exterior routing protocols have to support a wide range of
customer requirements.
© 2005, Cisco Systems, Inc. BGP Overview 1-5

Example: Why External Routing Protocols?
The example illustrates the need for an interdomain routing protocol. It depicts two companies
that are connected to the Internet via leased lines of differing speeds.
Why External Routing Protocols?
Q: Assuming standard IGP route selection rules, how will the

traffic between AS 1 and AS 20 flow?
Q: Will AS 2 allow this traffic?
Q: How would you solve this problem with OSPF or EIGRP?
In routing protocols other than BGP, routing decisions are normally made to take advantage of
the highest bandwidth available. Doing so would make traffic between AS 1 and AS 20 flow
via AS 2. This situation is not desirable for AS 2, because it would allow the users in Company
A to generate traffic on the Internet access line that was purchased and paid for by Company B.
Company B is unlikely to allow traffic from Company A to reach the Internet using the
Company B access line. Company B, in fact, could create an access-list blocking all IP packets
from AS 1 from being transmitted on the 2-Mbps serial line from Company B to the Internet.
That action would create a black hole because Company A would send its packets to Company
B and then Company B would drop them.
To avoid this situation, Company B must make sure that the packets from Company A that are
destined for the Internet are never sent to Company B. Also, Company B must make sure that
packets from the Internet that are destined for Company A are never sent using the Internet
access line to Company B. Company B could implement a routing policy that indicates that
AS 2 will receive reachability information from AS 1 for its own use but that AS 2 will not
forward that particular information to the Internet. Also, AS 2 will receive reachability
information about the Internet from its Internet service provider (ISP) but will never forward
that information to AS 1. Only networks local to AS 2 will be sent to AS 1.
The result of this routing policy would be that AS 1 sees all networks within AS 2 as reachable
over the 2-Mbps link that directly connects AS 1 with AS 2. The routers in AS 1 will not see
the rest of the Internet as reachable through AS 2. Therefore, AS 1 forwards packets toward the
Internet directly over the 64-kbps link.
Also, the IP networks in AS 1 will appear reachable by AS 2 over the 2-Mbps link, which
directly connects AS 1 with AS 2. However, the ISP will not receive that reachability
information from AS 2; it will receive it only from AS 1. Therefore, traffic from the Internet to
Company A will be transmitted over the 64-kbps link.
This routing policy is easy to implement when network administrators are using BGP but
impossible to implement with any other routing protocol. EIGRP, for example, can do route
filtering only on individual IP subnets, not on all prefixes belonging to an AS. Link-state
protocols, such as OSPF, cannot do powerful route filtering at all. BGP can do this routing
based on AS numbers, which makes it possible to scale BGP over the Internet.

BGP Characteristics
This topic lists the basic characteristics of BGP.
BGP Characteristics
BGP is a distance vector protocol with

enhancements:
• Reliable updates
• Triggered updates only
• Rich metrics (called path attributes)
Designed to scale to huge internetworks
BGP is a distance vector protocol. This means that BGP will announce to its neighbors those IP
networks that it can reach itself. The receivers of that information will say, “If that AS can
reach those networks, then I can reach them via the AS.”
If two different paths are available to reach the same IP subnet, then the shortest path is used.
This determination requires a mechanism capable of measuring the distance. All distance vector
protocols have such mechanisms, called “metrics.” BGP contains a very sophisticated method
of computing the shortest path by using attributes that are attached to the reachable IP subnet.
BGP sends routing updates to its neighbors by using a reliable transport. This technique means
that the sender of the information always knows that the receiver has actually received the
information. As a result, there is no need for periodic updates or routing information refreshes.
In BGP, only information that has changed is transmitted.
The reliable information exchange, combined with the batching of routing updates that is also
performed by BGP, allows BGP to scale to large, Internet-sized networks.
BGP Characteristics (Cont.)
Reliable updates
• TCP used as transport protocol
• No periodic updates
• Periodic keepalives to verify TCP connectivity
• Triggered updates batched and rate-limited
– Every 5 seconds for internal peer
– Every 30 seconds for external peer
The reliable transport mechanism that is used by BGP is standard TCP. BGP is an application
protocol that uses both the TCP and IP protocols for reliable connections.
Because BGP uses a reliable transport, the sender knows that the receiver has actually received
the transmitted information. This capability makes periodic updates unnecessary.
A router that has received reachability information from a BGP peer must be sure that the peer
router is still there. Otherwise, the router could route traffic toward a next-hop router that is no
longer available, causing the IP packets to be lost in a black hole. TCP does not provide the
service to signal that the TCP peer has been lost, unless some application data is actually
transmitted between the peers. In an idle state, where there is no need for BGP to update its
peer, the peer could be unreachable without TCP detecting it. Therefore, BGP takes care of
detecting the presence of neighbors by periodically sending small BGP keepalive packets to
them. These packets are considered application data by TCP and therefore must be transmitted
reliably. According to the BGP specification, the peer router also must reply with a BGP
keepalive packet.
When BGP was created, a key design goal was to be able to handle enormous amounts of
routing information in very large and complex networks. In this environment, many links could
go up and down (flapping), causing topology changes, which must be considered by the routing
protocol. But low convergence time and quick responses to topology changes require fast
updates and high CPU power to process both incoming and outgoing updates. The larger the
network, the more updates per second can be expected if immediate response is required. The
presence of too many updates in large networks can jeopardize network scalability.
The designers of BGP decided that scalability was a more important issue than low
convergence time, so BGP was designed to batch updates. Any changes that are received within
the batch interval time are saved. At the end of the interval, only the remaining result is
forwarded in an outgoing update. If a network flaps several times during the batch interval,
only the state at the end of the interval is sent in an update. The batching feature avoids an
uncontrolled flood of updates all over the Internet because the number of updates is limited by
the batching procedure.

Protocol development considerations

• BGP was designed to perform well in the following areas:
– Interdomain routing applications
– Huge internetworks with large routing tables
– Environments that require complex routing policies
• Some design tradeoffs were made:
– BGP uses TCP for reliable transport—
CPU-intensive
– Scalability is the top priority—slower convergence
The designers of the BGP protocol have succeeded in creating a highly scalable routing
protocol, which can forward reachability information between autonomous systems (also
known as routing domains). The designers had to consider an environment with an enormous
number of reachable networks and complex routing policies that were driven by commercial
rather than technical considerations.
TCP, a well-known and widely proven protocol, was chosen as the transport mechanism. That
decision kept BGP simple, but it increased the CPU resource requirements for routers running
BGP. The point-to-point nature of TCP also introduces a slight increase in network traffic,
because any update that should be sent to many receivers has to be multiplied into several
copies, which are then transmitted on individual TCP sessions to the receivers.
Whenever there was a design choice between fast convergence and scalability, scalability was
the top priority. The batching of updates and the relatively low frequency of keepalive packets
are examples of designers placing convergence time second to scalability.
Note BGP convergence times can be modified with the configuration of nondefault values for BGP
scan and advertisement timers. Refer to the “Optimizing BGP Scalability” module for more
information on tuning BGP convergence.
Common BGP uses

• Customers connected to more than one service provider
• Service provider networks (transit autonomous systems)
• Service providers exchanging traffic at an exchange point
(CIX, GIX, NAP, …)
• Network cores of large-enterprise customers
The figure shows typical scenarios in which BGP is usable. These scenarios include the
following:
Customers connected to more than one service provider.
ISP networks themselves acting as transit systems and forwarding external traffic.
Exchange points, which can be defined by the network access point (NAP) between region
and core. International exchange points can be defined by either Commercial Internet
eXchange (CIX) or Global Internet eXchange (GIX) points.
Very large enterprises using BGP as their core routing protocol.

Single-Homed Customers
This topic identifies when a single-homed customer should use BGP as an interdomain routing
protocol.
Single-Homed Customers
Large customer or small ISP connecting to the Internet
The figure shows a customer network connected to the Internet using a single ISP, but such a
scenario is generally not the case when BGP is used. Normal Internet access to a single ISP
does not require BGP; static routes are more commonly used to handle this situation. Small
ISPs buying Internet connectivity from other ISPs use this type of connectivity more often,
especially if they want to start their business the proper way—by using their own AS number
and having their own address space.
Use Guidelines? Single-Homed Customers
Use BGP between the customer and the service

provider in these situations:
• Customers multihomed to the same service provider
• Customers that need dynamic routing protocol with the
service provider to detect failures
– Hint: Use private AS number for these customers.
• Smaller ISPs that need to originate their routes in the Internet
Use static routes in all other cases:
• Static routes always simpler than BGP
Under certain conditions, BGP must be configured between the customer and the service
provider. For example, BGP is needed when customers are multihomed to the same service
provider (that is, the customer networks have multiple links connecting them with the service
provider network) and require dynamic routing protocol interaction with the service provider to
detect link failures. Private AS numbers (AS numbers above 64512) are usually implemented in
BGP configurations for these customers.
Customers that plan to connect to more than one ISP, and small ISPs that plan to have multiple
Internet connections in the future, usually use BGP with their service provider. They use this
option even when they have a single link with the service provider in order to be prepared for
future upgrades.
In all other cases, using static routes from the service provider toward the customer and using a
default static route from the customer toward the service provider is the preferred method of
provider-to-customer routing in the Internet.

Multihomed Customers
This topic describes when BGP is appropriate for the multihomed customer. BGP use
guidelines for multihoming are also discussed.
Multihomed Customers
Customer connecting to more than one service provider
The figure illustrates a customer network that is connected to two different ISPs, requiring the
use of BGP for full redundancy.
The customer must have its own officially assigned AS number. The customer is also
responsible for announcing its own IP networks to both ISPs. Both ISPs forward all routes
received from the Internet to the customer network. The customer should avoid forwarding any
routing information received from one ISP to the other. Otherwise, the customer becomes a
transit provider between the two ISPs. This is a situation that most customers like to avoid
because it creates a resource drain on routers and network links.
Full redundancy is achieved in this setup. If either of the two access links fails, the reachability
information that was previously transmitted on the now-failed link is withdrawn. But BGP
reachability information is still announced by the customer router over the remaining link.
Thus, the ISP still sees all networks within the customer AS as reachable but only over the
remaining path. Also, received routes from the Internet are withdrawn when the link fails, but
routes received over the remaining link are not affected. Thus, the Internet, including the ISP to
which the direct connection has failed, is still reachable over the remaining link.
This design can also handle other problems. A case where both access links are available, but
the connection between one of the ISPs and the rest of the Internet is lost, works as follows:
The ISP that has a problem reaching the rest of the Internet withdraws all those routes and tells
the customer AS that it can no longer reach the Internet. But the networks local to the ISP with
the Internet reachability problem are still reachable by the customer, so those routes are not
withdrawn. The networks in the customer AS are still reachable by the ISP in trouble, but that
ISP can no longer forward the announcement to the rest of the Internet. The rest of the Internet
will, however, see the customer networks as reachable over the path to the other ISP, which is
fully functional.
User Guidelines? Multihomed Customers
• BGP is almost mandatory for multihomed customers.

• Multihomed customers have to use public AS numbers.
• Multihomed customers should use a provider-independent
address space.
The following use guidelines apply to multihomed customers:

Although there are designs where BGP could be avoided, most multihomed customers need
to use BGP with their service providers.
Multihomed customers must have their own AS numbers, and it is recommended to use a
public AS number.
Multihomed customers should use a provider-independent address space, which is allocated
to them directly by an Internet registry.

Transit Autonomous Systems
This topic describes the use of BGP in a transit autonomous backbone.
Transit Autonomous Systems
Using BGP to exchange routes is mandatory for transit

autonomous systems (provider networks carrying customer
traffic).
BGP is most commonly implemented in service provider networks to ensure connectivity

between customers and the rest of the Internet. An ISP might exchange BGP updates with the
customers or use static routing toward them. That ISP also connects to other ISPs and is
required to forward the routes that are received from customers to the rest of the Internet, as
well as in the other direction. As a result, user data traffic starts to flow between the customers
and the rest of the Internet. Such a network, providing transit services to traffic that is
originated in other networks, is called a “transit autonomous system,” or “transit AS.” A transit
AS is an AS that exchanges BGP routing information with other autonomous systems and
forwards information received from one AS to another AS.
When routing information is forwarded, the receiver will see an available path to a destination
and start transmitting user data toward the destination using that path. The transit AS must be
prepared to relay the user data, as explained later in this course.
ISP networks can sometimes have dedicated peer-to-peer connections, using, for example,
packet over SONET (POS). These connections are sometimes called private peering. ISPs also
interconnect at exchange points. Technically, an exchange point is just a multiaccess subnet: a
LAN (for example, a Gigabit Ethernet or Fast Ethernet switch), a Dynamic Packet Transport
(DPT) ring, or an ATM switch. Many ISPs can connect to an exchange point and establish BGP
sessions.
The benefit of an exchange point is that it is highly scalable. There is no need for additional
physical interfaces in the ISP border router when a new ISP is launched. If the already
established ISPs want to, they can open a BGP session with the new ISP. When this session is
opened, they start to exchange routing information and then user data traffic over the exchange
point.
BGP Limitations
This topic lists some of the limitations of BGP.
BGP Limitations
BGP and associated tools cannot express all routing

policies.
• You cannot influence the routing policies of downstream
autonomous systems.
“BGP does not enable one AS to send traffic

to a neighbor AS intending that the traffic
take a different route from that taken by traffic
originating in the neighbor AS.”
RFC 1771
BGP-enabled routers make forwarding decisions based on the destination IP address only; the
source IP address does not affect the decision. If an AS acts as a transit AS for other
autonomous systems, the IP packets that are created and transmitted from the other autonomous
systems are not treated differently from the IP packets that are created and transmitted from the
local AS. If the local AS has decided that the best path to reach a certain destination is via a
specific next-hop router, then it will route all user data traffic toward the final destination via
that specific next-hop router. The local AS makes its decision based on destination address
only, regardless of which IP host has sourced the IP packets.

Summary
This topic summarizes the key points discussed in this lesson.
Summary
• BGP has the right set of functions to support the various

interdomain routing policies. Contrary to BGP, interior
routing protocols focus only on finding the optimum (usually
fastest) route between two points, without respect to routing
policies.
• BGP is an enhanced distance vector protocol with reliable
transport provided by TCP, a rich set of metrics called BGP
path attributes, and scalability features such as batched
updates that make it suitable for very large networks.
• Customers that plan to connect to more than one ISP, and
small ISPs that plan to have multiple Internet connections in
the future, usually use BGP with their service provider.
Summary (Cont.)
• Although there are designs where BGP could be avoided,

most multihomed customers use BGP with their service
providers.
• A transit AS is an AS that exchanges BGP routing
information with other autonomous systems and forwards
information received from one AS to another AS.
• BGP is bound by IP hop-by-hop, destination-only routing.
Routing policies that deviate from this model cannot be
implemented with BGP.
Lesson 2
Understanding BGP Path

Attributes
Overview
To aid routers in calculating the best route to select when multiple paths to a particular
destination exist, routes that are learned via Border Gateway Protocol ( BGP) have properties
that are associated with them. These properties are referred to as BGP path attributes. An
understanding of how BGP path attributes influence route selection is required to design robust
BGP networks.
This lesson introduces BGP path attributes and their purpose. The lesson also discusses
classifications that are used to describe attributes and the properties of each classification. The
functionality of the autonomous system (AS) path and next-hop attributes are also explained in
detail in this lesson.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to list BGP path attributes and the functionality
of each attribute. This ability includes being able to meet these objectives:
Describe the concept of BGP path attributes
Explain the difference between mandatory and discretionary well-known BGP attributes
Explain the difference between nontransitive and transitive optional BGP attributes
Describe the functionality of the AS-path attribute
Describe the functionality of the next-hop attribute
BGP Path Attributes
This topic describes the concept of BGP path attributes.
BGP Path Attributes
• BGP metrics are called path attributes.

• BGP attributes are categorized as “well-known” and
“optional.”
• Well-known attributes must be recognized by all
compliant implementations.
• Optional attributes are recognized only by some
implementations (could be private); expected not to be
recognized by all.
Each BGP update consists of one or more IP subnets and a set of attributes that are attached to
them. Some of the attributes are required to be recognized by all BGP implementations. Those
attributes are called “well-known BGP attributes.”
Attributes that are not well-known are called “optional.” These could be attributes that are
specified in a later extension of BGP or even in private vendor extensions that are not
documented in a standard document.
Well-Known BGP Attributes
This topic describes the differences between mandatory and discretionary well-known BGP
attributes.
Well-Known BGP Attributes
Well-known attributes are divided into mandatory and

discretionary.
• Mandatory well-known attributes must be present in all
update messages.
• Discretionary well-known attributes are optional; they could
be present in update messages.
• All well-known attributes are propagated to other neighbors.
There is a small set of three specific well-known attributes that are required to be present on
every update. These are the next-hop, AS-path, and origin attributes and are referred to as
“mandatory well-known attributes.”
Other well-known attributes may or may not be present, depending on the circumstances under
which the updates are sent and the desired routing policy. The well-known attributes that could
be present, but are not required, are called “discretionary well-known attributes.”
When a router receives a BGP update, it analyzes the attached attributes and compares them
with the attributes that were attached to the same IP subnet when it was received from a
different source. The router then makes a decision about which source indicates the best path to
the particular IP subnet. The best route is propagated, along with its well-known attributes, to
other BGP-speaking neighbors.

Mandatory Well-Known BGP Attributes
• Origin
– The origin of a BGP route
• i Route originated in an IGP
• e Route originated in EGP
• ? Route was redistributed into BGP
• AS-path
– Sequence of AS numbers through which the network is
accessible
• Next-hop
– IP address of the next-hop router
The three mandatory well-known attributes are origin, AS-path, and next-hop:
Origin: When a router first originates a route in BGP, it sets the origin attribute. If
information about an IP subnet is injected using the network command or via aggregation
(route summarization within BGP), the origin attribute is set to “i” for Interior Gateway
Protocol (IGP). If information about an IP subnet is injected using redistribution, the origin
attribute is set to “?” for unknown or incomplete information (these two words have the
same meaning). The origin code “e” was used when the Internet was migrating from
exterior gateway protocol (EGP) to BGP and is now obsolete.
AS-path: The egress router modifies the AS-path attribute every time information about a
particular IP subnet passes over an AS border. When a router first originates a route in
BGP, the AS-path attribute is empty. Each time that the route crosses an AS boundary, the
transmitting AS prepends its own AS number to appear first in the AS path. You can track
the sequence of autonomous systems through which the route has passed by using the
AS-path attribute.
Next-hop: The router also modifies the next-hop attribute as the route passes through the
network. This attribute indicates the IP address of the next-hop router—the router to which
the receiving router should forward the IP packets toward to reach the destination that is
advertised in the routing update.
Discretionary Well-Known BGP Attributes
• Local preference
– Used for consistent routing policy within AS
• Atomic aggregate
– Informs the neighbor AS that the originating router
aggregated routes
Discretionary well-known attributes must be supported by all BGP implementations but do not
have to be present in all BGP updates. Routers use discretionary well-known attributes only
when those functions are required. The following are descriptions of these two attributes:
Local preference: Local preference is used in the route selection process. This attribute is
carried within an AS only. The router prefers a route with a high local preference value to a
route with a low value. By default, routes that are received from a peer AS are tagged with
the local preference set to a value of 100 before they are entered into the local AS. If this
value is changed through BGP configuration, the BGP selection process is influenced.
Because all routers within the AS get the attribute along with the route, a consistent routing
decision is made throughout the AS.
Atomic aggregate: The atomic aggregate attribute is attached to a route that is created as a
result of route summarization (called “aggregation” in BGP). This attribute signals that
information that was present in the original routing updates may have been lost when the
updates were summarized into a single entry.

Optional BGP Attributes
This topic explains the difference between nontransitive and transitive optional BGP attributes.
Optional BGP Attributes
Optional BGP attributes are transitive or nontransitive.

• Transitive optional attributes
– Propagated to other neighbors if not recognized; partial bit set to
indicate that the attribute was not recognized
• Nontransitive optional attributes
– Discarded if not recognized
Recognized optional attributes are propagated to

other neighbors based on their meaning (not
constrained by transitive bit).
When a router receives an update that contains an optional attribute, the router checks to see
whether its implementation recognizes the particular attribute. If it does, then the router should
know how to handle it and whether to propagate it.
If the router does not recognize the attribute, the BGP implementation should look for the
transitive bit in the attribute code. Some attributes, although not recognized by the router, might
still be helpful to upstream routers and should be propagated. These attributes (called
“transitive optional attributes”) are propagated even when they are not recognized. If a router
propagates an unknown transitive optional attribute, it sets an additional bit in the attribute
header, called the “partial bit,” to indicate that at least one of the routers in the path did not
recognize the meaning of a transitive optional attribute.
Other attributes, called “nontransitive optional attributes,” might be of no value to upstream

routers if a router earlier in the path does not recognize them. Routers that do not recognize
these attributes drop them.
Optional BGP Attributes (Cont.)
Nontransitive attributes
• Multi-exit discriminator
– Used to discriminate between multiple entry points to a single
AS
Transitive attributes
• Aggregator
– Specifies IP address and AS number of the router that performed
route aggregation
• Community
– Used for route tagging
One of the nontransitive optional attributes is the multi-exit discriminator (MED) attribute,
which also influences the BGP route selection process. Whenever there are several links
between two adjacent autonomous systems, one AS can use the MED attribute to tell another
AS to prefer one of the links for specific destinations.
Transitive optional attributes include the following:

Aggregator: Identifies the AS and the router within that AS that created a route
summarization, or aggregate.
Community: A numerical value that can be attached to certain routes as they pass a
specific point in the network. The community value can later be examined by other routers
at different points in the network for filtering or route selection purposes. BGP
configuration may cause routes with a specific community value to be treated differently
than others.

AS-Path Attribute
This topic describes the functionality of the BGP AS-path attribute.
AS-Path Attribute
• The AS-path attribute is empty when a local route is

inserted in the BGP table.
• The AS number of the sender is prepended to the AS-
path attribute when the routing update crosses AS
boundary.
• The receiver of BGP routing information can use the
AS-path attribute to determine through which AS the
information has passed.
• An AS that receives routing information with its own
AS number in the AS path silently ignores the
information.
The AS-path attribute is modified by an edge router every time information about a particular
IP subnet passes over an AS border. When a router first originates a route in BGP, the AS-path
attribute is empty. The local AS number is prepended to the AS path each time that the route
crosses an AS boundary. There are several consequences of this behavior:
When you examine BGP routes, the AS path can be interpreted as the sequence of
autonomous systems that must be passed through to reach the indicated network. The AS
that originally injected the route into BGP is always found at the rightmost end of the AS
path.
It is easy to distinguish local routes from routes that have been received from other
autonomous systems—BGP routes with an empty AS path were injected into BGP from
within the local AS.
The AS-path attribute is also used to avoid routing loops. When a router receives a BGP
update, it checks the AS-path attribute and looks for its own AS number. If that number is
found in the AS path, then the route has already crossed the local AS and the router is now
faced with a routing information loop. To avoid this situation, the route is silently ignored.
Example: AS-Path Attribute
The figure shows how BGP loop prevention works.
AS-Path Attribute Example
The network 10.0.0.0/8 is local to AS 123. The router in AS 123 injects the route 10.0.0.0/8
into BGP with an empty AS-path attribute.
When the routing update about network 10.0.0.0/8 is sent by the edge router in AS 123 to
AS 21, the AS number 123 is prepended to the empty AS path, resulting in an AS path
consisting of only 123. The sending router does the prepending as part of the outgoing BGP
update processing. While the route is still within AS 123, the AS-path entry for AS 123 does
not appear in the AS path.
The router in AS 21 propagates the information about the network 10.0.0.0/8 to AS 37. Because
it is sending the BGP update to AS 37, it prepends its own AS number to the AS path, resulting
in an AS path consisting of the sequence of 21 123.
AS 37 also propagates the received route to AS 123. To avoid a routing loop, where AS 123
might try to reach its own network (10.0.0.0/8) via AS 37, BGP has a built-in mechanism that
causes the router in AS 123 to drop the incoming update as soon as it finds its own AS (123), in
the AS path. No error will be signaled, because nothing is really wrong. It is merely the
procedure that is used by BGP to avoid a routing information loop.

Next-Hop Attribute
This topic describes the functionality of the next-hop attribute in BGP.
Next-Hop Attribute
• Indicates the next-hop IP address used for packet

forwarding
• Usually set to the IP address of the sending External
Border Gateway Protocol (EBGP) router
• Can be set to a third-party IP address to optimize
routing
The BGP next-hop attribute identifies the IP address that a router should use to forward packets
toward the destination that is announced in a BGP routing update. In most cases, the sending
router sets the next-hop attribute to its own IP address. There are cases, however, where the
next-hop IP address points to a third router.
Example: Next-Hop Attribute
The figure shows the usual next-hop processing.
Next-Hop Attribute Example
Next-Hop Processing
• Next-hop attribute is usually set to the IP address of the sending router.

The processing is as follows:

1. RTR-B announces network 21.0.0.0/8 to RTR-A. The outgoing IP address of RTR-B (the
address that is used to establish the BGP TCP session) is used as the BGP next hop.
2. RTR-A receives the routing update and installs it in its BGP table and routing table. Should
RTR-A need to forward packets toward network 21.0.0.0/8, it would send those packets
toward the IP address 10.0.0.1 (RTR-B).
3. When RTR-A propagates the information about 21.0.0.0/8 to RTR-C, it sets the BGP
next-hop attribute to its own IP address.

Next-Hop Processing
on Shared Media
• If the receiving BGP router is in the same subnet as the current next-hop address,
the next-hop address remains unchanged to optimize packet forwarding.
The next-hop processing changes if the BGP routers connect to a shared subnet. In the figure
here, if RTR-A announces the network 21.0.0.0/8 to RTR-C with the BGP next-hop address set
to RTR-A, the packets from AS 37 toward network 21.0.0.0/8 will have to cross the shared
LAN twice. RTR-A thus sends the routing update toward RTR-C with the BGP next-hop
address unchanged (still pointing toward RTR-B), allowing optimal data transfer across the
shared LAN.
Note More formally, the BGP next-hop rule states that if the current BGP next hop is in the same
IP subnet as the receiving router, the next-hop address is not changed; otherwise, the
next-hop attribute is changed to the IP address of the sending router.
Next-Hop Processing
on NBMA Network
• BGP next-hop processing can break connectivity with improper network

designs over partially meshed WAN networks.
BGP next-hop processing results in optimum data transfer over shared media (for example, a
LAN subnet). In partially meshed networks (such as Frame Relay), BGP next-hop processing
can break IP connectivity. Consider, for example, the network diagram in the figure: RTR-A
sends a routing update about network 21.0.0.0/8 to RTR-C with RTR-B set to the next-hop
address (as they are all in the same subnet). Because there is no direct connection (virtual
circuit) between RTR-C and RTR-B but RTR-C still tries to send packets directly toward
RTR-B, the connectivity between AS 37 and AS 21 is broken.
There are two ways to solve the connectivity loss that is introduced by this design:
Use the subinterfaces on RTR-A to make sure that RTR-B and RTR-C are in different
subnets (and BGP next-hop processing would ensure that RTR-A is the BGP next hop in
the outgoing BGP updates).
Disable the BGP next-hop processing on RTR-A in an existing multipoint Frame Relay
design that shares a common subnet. (This option is strongly discouraged in normal BGP
design because routing problems should be solved with a proper network design of point-
to-point subinterfaces.)

Summary
Summary
• BGP metrics attached to a BGP route are called “path

attributes.”
• Some path attributes are well-known and should be recognized
by every BGP implementation. Some of the well-known
attributes are mandatory and have to be present in every BGP
update. These are the AS-path, next-hop, and origin attributes.
Other well-known attributes are discretionary.
• Attributes that are not required to be recognized by every BGP
implementation are called “optional.” These attributes could be
transitive (propagated if not recognized) or nontransitive
(dropped).
Summary (Cont.)
• The AS-path attribute lists the autonomous systems that the

routing update has already crossed. This attribute is used for
BGP loop detection and BGP route selection.
• The next-hop attribute specifies the IP address that is to be
used for packet forwarding. The next hop is usually set to the
IP address of the BGP router sending the update.
Lesson 3
Establishing BGP Sessions
Overview
Understanding the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) neighbor session establishment process is a
key component to understanding the fundamental operation of the BGP protocol. It also forms a
knowledge base for later lessons, including configuring basic BGP.
BGP is an exterior gateway protocol (EGP) that has been designed for scalability and policy
control. As a result, BGP requires neighboring routers to be explicitly configured before BGP
routing updates can be sent between them. This situation differs from Interior Gateway
Protocols (IGPs) such as Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) and Open
Shortest Path First (OSPF), that discover neighbors through the use of a broadcast packet or a
hello protocol. In this lesson, BGP neighbor session establishment procedures are discussed.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to describe the concept of BGP neighbors and
neighbor session establishment procedures. This ability includes being able to meet these
objectives:
Explain how BGP discovers neighbors
Describe the BGP session establishment process
Describe the role of the BGP keepalive in session establishment and maintenance
Explain how optional MD5 authentication can protect sessions between BGP peers
BGP Neighbor Discovery
This topic explains how the BGP routing protocol discovers neighbors.
BGP Neighbor Discovery
• BGP neighbors are not discovered; they must be configured

manually.
• Configuration must be done on both sides of the connection.
• Both routers will attempt to connect to the other with a TCP
session on port number 179.
• Only the session with the higher router-ID remains after the
connection attempt.
• The source IP address of incoming connection attempts is
verified against a list of configured neighbors.
Unlike other routing protocols, BGP has no means of automatically detecting neighbors. The
BGP protocol is carried in a TCP session, which must be opened from one router to the other.
To do so, the router attempting to open the session must be manually configured with neighbor
information indicating to which IP address to direct its connection attempts.
The router that receives the incoming connection attempts does not answer them if the attempts
are not from one of the configured neighbors. The IP source address of the connection attempt
packet (TCP SYN packet) is verified against the list of IP addresses that the router itself would
direct its connection attempts to.
To succeed in the connection attempts, both routers must be configured to reach each other. A
side effect of this situation is that they will both attempt to connect. This side effect adds
robustness to the session establishment process, but it also introduces the risk that two BGP
sessions will be established between a pair of BGP routers.
Two routers should have only a single BGP session between them. The router-ID values that
are exchanged when the BGP session is established allow the BGP routers to detect when two
parallel sessions exist. Only the session that was initiated by the router with the numerically
higher router-ID will be retained. The other session is dropped.
A router may not open a BGP session to itself. If the configured neighbor IP address is, in fact,
an IP address of the local router, the router recognizes the problem and tears down the session.
The router-ID is also used for this verification.
Example: BGP Neighbor Discovery
This example illustrates a small BGP network.
BGP Neighbor Discovery (Cont.)
Small BGP Network
The network displayed in the figure serves as the sample network to generate printouts in the
following examples.

BGP Neighbor Discovery (Cont.)
Initially, all BGP sessions to the neighbors are idle.
The show ip bgp summary command gives an overview of the BGP status. Each configured
neighbor is listed in the output of the command. The IP address to which the connection
attempts are directed is also displayed, along with the BGP version number, the remote AS
number, some counter values, the status of the session, and how long ago the session changed
state.
The “Idle” state indicates that the router is currently not attempting any connection
establishments.
The various states for a BGP connection are Idle, Active, OpenSent, OpenConfirm, and
Established.
Establishing a BGP Session
This topic describes the BGP session establishment process.
Establishing a BGP Session

• A TCP session is established when the neighbor becomes
reachable.
• BGP Open messages are exchanged.
Before any connection attempt is made, the BGP peer relation must have left the Idle state and
entered the Active state. For a BGP session between two routers in different autonomous
systems, this status results when the IP address of the remote router becomes reachable on a
directly connected interface.
The debug output shows how the router creates a socket data structure and binds it to its local
IP address 2.3.4.6 and a high port number 11003. Then the router sends a TCP SYN packet to
the configured peer router IP address of 2.3.4.5 and the well-known destination port 179. The
connection attempt succeeds, and the TCP session is then ready to transfer the BGP
information.
The first BGP information sent is the BGP Open message. The BGP session then goes from the
Active state to the OpenSent state while waiting for the other router to respond. If the peer
router accepts the parameters in the Open message, it responds with its own Open message.
When the local router receives this message, the state goes from OpenSent to OpenConfirm.
The local router then verifies the peer router parameters in its Open message. If they are
accepted, a keepalive packet is sent to signal this acceptance. The state is then “Established.”

Establishing a BGP Session (Cont.)
The BGP Open message contains the following:

• BGP version number
• AS number of the local router
• Holdtime
• BGP router identifier
• Optional parameters
The parameters in the BGP Open message are as follows:

Version number: The suggested version number. The highest common version that both
routers support is used. Most BGP implementations today use BGP version 4 (BGP4).
AS number: The AS number of the local router. The peer router verifies this information.
If it is not the AS number that is expected, the BGP session is torn down.
Holdtime: The number of seconds that may elapse between reception of successive BGP
messages. If the time is exceeded, the peer is considered dead. The two routers agree to use
the lowest suggested value. When the session is established, both routers use keepalive
messages to make sure that the hold timer does not expire. A suggested hold-timer value of
0 indicates that the timer never expires and no keepalives should be sent.
BGP identifier: A number uniquely identifying the router. The Cisco router uses one of its
IP addresses for this number, the router-ID. The router-ID is selected as the numerically
highest IP address of any loopback interface. If there is no loopback interface, the router
uses the highest IP address of any interface that is up at the time of the start of the BGP
process.
Optional parameters: Type, length, value (TLV) encoded. An example of optional
parameters is session authentication.
Establishing a BGP Session (Cont.)
BGP neighbors? steady state

• All neighbors shall be up (no state information).
When the BGP sessions are in the Established state, routing information exchange can take
place. The show ip bgp summary command output here indicates that a session is established
by not displaying any information at all in the “State” column.
The counter values show how many messages have been received and sent in the session.
“InQ” shows how many messages have been received but not yet processed. A high InQ
number indicates lack of CPU resources to process the input. “OutQ” shows how many
outgoing messages are queued. A high OutQ number indicates lack of bandwidth to transmit
the outgoing messages or CPU overload of the other router.
“TblVer” (table version) is used by the BGP router to track the changes that need to be sent to
the neighbors. There is a major table version number for the local BGP table. The table version
number is displayed on the first line of output from this show command. There is also one table
version number maintained for each of the neighbors of the BGP router; this number is
displayed on the information line of the neighbors.
Whenever a BGP router enters a change into its BGP table, the major table version number is
incremented and the changed route is tagged with this number. When the time comes to update
a specific neighbor, the router scans the BGP table, and all changes that it finds where the
version number is between the neighbor version and the current table version are sent to the
BGP neighbor in a single BGP routing update. After the entire table is scanned and all changes
have been sent to the neighbor, the table version number of the neighbor is set to the highest
value of the routes being sent.
A table version of a neighbor that is lower than the major table version indicates that the
neighbor is not yet fully updated. The update interval for a neighbor in another AS is normally
30 seconds (the default value of the BGP advertisement timer).
In addition to the information about all sessions to all neighbors, the output also shows the
amount of memory that is being used for the BGP data structures.

BGP Keepalives
This topic describes the role of the BGP keepalive in session establishment and maintenance.
BGP Keepalives
• A TCP-based BGP session does not provide any

means of verifying BGP neighbor presence:
– Except when sending BGP traffic
• BGP needs an additional mechanism:
– Keepalive BGP messages provide verification of neighbor
existence.
– Keepalive messages are sent every 60 seconds.
TCP-based BGP sessions do not provide any means of verifying the presence of a BGP
neighbor. After BGP has established the TCP session, the only method of verifying neighbor
presence is to actually send BGP traffic. BGP traffic is sent over the TCP session with
acknowledgments (ACKs), and is therefore reliable. Successfully sending BGP traffic confirms
the existence of a BGP neighbor.
However, there are often long periods of time when no BGP traffic is sent between neighbors.
During those periods, TCP implements no mechanism to check for the existence of the
configured neighbor. BGP neighbors could therefore easily be disconnected during times of
session inactivity. This situation would lead to incorrect routing information on the other side
of the BGP session.
To avoid routing packets to a router that is no longer there, BGP needs an additional
mechanism to make sure that a neighbor exists. BGP sends special keepalive messages during
every keepalive interval to inform its peer of its presence. By default, this interval is every 60
seconds. If no BGP traffic is received within the selected holdtime interval, the BGP router
sends a BGP notification message to the inactive peer and tears down the BGP session between
them. The default BGP holdtime value is 180 seconds.
When changing the default values of keepalive and holdtime intervals, you must take care not
to configure too big a keepalive interval in comparison to the holdtime. Too big a difference
could result in resetting of the BGP session after only one keepalive message has been missed,
making a network unstable. The suggested ratio of keepalive-to-holdtime interval is 1:3.
BGP Keepalives (Cont.)
• Keepalive interval value is not communicated in

the BGP Open message.
• Keepalive value is selected as follows:
– Configured value, if local holdtime is used
– Configured value, if holdtime of neighbor is used and
keepalive < (holdtime / 3)
– Smaller integer in relation to (holdtime / 3), if holdtime of
neighbor is used and keepalive > (holdtime / 3)
As opposed to the holdtime interval, BGP peers do not communicate the keepalive interval in
the Open message. The selection of a keepalive interval is therefore based on the selected
holdtime value. The selected holdtime value that is used by both peers is the smaller of both
configured values.
The BGP process selects the keepalive interval value using the following steps:
Step 1 If the locally configured value of holdtime is selected (being the lower of two), the
peers use the locally used keepalive interval.
Step 2 If the holdtime interval of the neighbor is selected, and the locally configured
keepalive interval is less than a third of the holdtime interval, the peers use the
locally configured keepalive.
Step 3 If the holdtime interval of the neighbor is selected, and the locally configured
keepalive interval is more than a third of the holdtime interval, the peers use the
smaller integer value in relation to (holdtime / 3).
Example: Keepalive Value

If the selected holdtime equals 17 seconds and the configured keepalive equals 10 seconds, the
(holdtime / 3) rule will be used to select the keepalive value. Therefore, (17 / 3) = 5.67, and the
keepalive value used by BGP will equal 5 seconds.

MD5 Authentication
This topic explains how Message Digest 5 (MD5) authentication protects a BGP neighbor
session.
MD5 Authentication
• BGP peers may optionally use MD5 TCP

authentication using a shared secret.
• Both routers must be configured with the same
password (MD5 shared secret).
• Each TCP segment is verified.
Authentication between BGP neighbors can be negotiated between BGP-speaking routers using
optional parameters in the Open message. If you are using MD5 authentication, every TCP
segment on the BGP session will be transmitted to the configured neighbor along with a
checksum. The checksum is calculated together with a secret known by the two routers using
the MD5 algorithm. The common secret is never transmitted on the network. If the receiver,
which is using the same common secret, calculates the same checksum from the TCP segment,
then the receiver can be pretty sure that the information is transmitted from the correct source
and the information has not been altered.
Authentication of BGP sessions is a vital tool to avoid denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
Summary
Summary
• With interior routing protocols, adjacent routers are

usually discovered through a dedicated hello protocol. In
BGP, neighbors must be manually configured to increase
routing protocol security.
• BGP neighbors, once configured, establish a TCP session
and exchange the BGP Open message, which contains the
parameters that each BGP router proposes to use.
• BGP keepalives are used by the router to provide
verification of the existence of a configured BGP neighbor.
• MD5 authentication can be configured on a BGP
session to help prevent spoofing, DoS attacks, or
man-in-the-middle attacks.

Lesson 4
Processing BGP Routes
Overview
Route processing is fundamental to the operation of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).
Knowledge of the BGP route selection process, route propagation, and how the BGP and IP
routing tables are built is key to properly configuring BGP and troubleshooting BGP routing
issues.
This lesson explains the details of processing IP routing information in BGP. It describes how a
router builds the BGP routing table, how BGP selects the best route, and how BGP routes are
propagated to other BGP neighbors. The lesson also discusses how a router builds the IP
routing table when it is using BGP.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to describe BGP route processing. This ability
Describe BGP routing updates
Explain how a router builds BGP tables
Describe the route selection process in BGP
Explain how a router propagates BGP routes to other BGP neighbors
Explain how a router builds an IP routing table when it is using BGP
Explain how BGP advertises local networks
Describe the role of automatic summarization in BGP route processing
Receiving Routing Updates
This topic describes BGP routing updates.
Receiving Routing Updates
Small BGP Network
The network displayed in the figure serves as the sample network for generating printouts in the
following examples.
Receiving Routing Updates (Cont.)
Information from the BGP tables is exchanged after adjacency

establishment.
After a BGP session is established, routing updates start to arrive. Each BGP routing update
consists of one or more entries (routes). Each route is described according to the IP address and
subnet mask, along with any number of attributes. The next-hop, autonomous system (AS)-
path, and origin attributes must always be present. Other BGP attributes are optionally present.
The debug output shows how information about network 37.0.0.0/8 is received from neighbor
2.3.4.5. The neighbor indicates that IP packets to destination IP addresses in network 37.0.0.0/8
can be forwarded to the next-hop address 2.3.4.5. The AS path 21 37 indicates that the final
destination is in AS 37 but the packets have to pass through AS 21 to get there. The metric is
the multi-exit discriminator (MED) value.
Network 21.0.0.0/8 also has the next-hop address of 2.3.4.5, but the AS path of 21 indicates
that that network is inside the directly connected AS 21.
Network 1.0.0.0/8 is denied. The reason is not obvious from the debug output, but the network
topology information indicates that network 1.0.0.0 is local to (inside) AS 123. AS 123 has
advertised the network to AS 37, which propagates to AS 21 and returns to AS 123. This
information loop is detected by the content in the AS-path attribute. The receiving router
detects its own AS number in the AS path and silently discards (denies) the route.

Building the BGP Table
This topic explains how a router that is enabled for BGP builds a BGP routing table.
Building the BGP Table
All inbound updates are placed into the BGP table.
All routes that are received from a neighbor are saved in the router memory. Therefore, there is
no need to retransmit or refresh any unchanged information.
When there is more than one way to reach a particular network, the local router selects one of
those as the best. If that alternative is later lost because the neighboring router withdraws the
route (or the neighboring router is no longer reachable), the remaining alternatives are still
stored in memory and a new alternative is selected as the best without involving other BGP
routers.
The show ip bgp router command gives an overview of all routing information received from
all neighbors. The command displays basic information about each route on a single line. The
output is sorted—alternatives to reach the same network are displayed on consecutive lines.
The network number is displayed only on the first lines indicating the same network. The
network column is left blank on the consecutive lines indicating alternatives to reach the same
network.
The router selects only one of the alternatives as the best path toward the destination. This
alternative is indicated with the “>” sign.
BGP Route Selection Criteria
This topic describes the route selection process in BGP.
BGP Route Selection Criteria
• Exclude routes with inaccessible next hop

• Prefer highest weight (local to router)
• Prefer highest local preference (global within AS)
• Prefer routes that the router originated
• Prefer shortest AS path (only length is compared)
• Prefer lowest origin code (IGP < EGP < Incomplete)
• Prefer lowest MED
• Prefer external (EBGP) paths over internal (IBGP)
• For IBGP paths, prefer path through closest IGP neighbor
• For EBGP paths, prefer oldest (most stable) path
• Prefer paths from router with the lowest BGP router-ID
When a router has more than one alternative route to reach the same IP subnet (network and
mask), the router has to select one of the routes as best in its default mode of operation. To
make this selection, the router uses the BGP attributes that are attached to the various updates.
The selection criteria are checked in the order that is indicated in the following steps. The first
of the checks that indicates a difference is used, and no further testing is done.
Step 1 The router checks whether the next-hop attribute indicates an IP address that is
reachable according to the current routing table. It is not necessary to have a direct
connection to the next hop. It can very well be several router hops away and the
route to it learned by the Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP). If the next hop is not
reachable, the router does not consider the BGP route as a candidate to become
selected as the best.
Step 2 The router prefers the route with the higher weight. The weight is not carried with
the updates; it is a value that is assigned to the route by the local router and
considered only within the router itself.
Step 3 If the local preference attributes are different, the route with the highest value is
selected as best.
Step 4 If one of the routes is injected into the BGP table by the local router, the local router
prefers it to any routes that it receives from other BGP routers.
Step 5 At this point, the lengths of the AS paths are compared (the content is not checked;
only the number of autonomous systems in each AS path is counted). The route with
the shortest length is selected.

Step 6 If the AS-path lengths are the same, the origin code is checked. BGP will prefer the
path with the lowest origin type: IGP is lower than exterior gateway protocol (EGP),
and EGP is lower than Incomplete.
Step 7 The router next compares MED values but only if it receives the updates from the
same neighboring AS. Routes with a lower MED are preferred.
Step 8 At this point it is clear that the destination network is outside the local AS and that
there is not much difference among the alternatives. Because the IP packets to the
destination network must leave the AS, it is better that they do so as quickly as
possible. If any of the alternatives are received from a BGP peer in another AS, that
alternative is preferred.
Step 9 If the router receives all alternatives from peer routers in the local AS, each of them
will indicate an exit point, and the closest exit is used. Distance to the exit point is
calculated by comparing the IGP costs against the BGP next hops, as indicated in the
routing table.
Step 10 If the router receives all alternatives from External Border Gateway Protocol
(EBGP) neighbors, the most stable path (the oldest path) is preferred.
Step 11 If the router still cannot differentiate among the routes, it nevertheless has to make a
decision and select the best route. It checks the BGP sessions on which it received
the updates and chooses the route that was received on the session for which the peer
router has the lowest BGP router-ID.
The router makes the final test only after it has made all other checks and determined that all
alternative routes are equally good.
Example: BGP Route Selection Criteria
In this example, the router in AS 123 can reach network 21.0.0.0/8 via two paths.
BGP Route Selection Criteria (Cont.)
The best routes to the destination networks are selected

from the BGP table.
The first path is via neighbor 3.4.5.6 in AS 37 and then to AS 21, and the second path is
straight to AS 21 through neighbor 2.3.4.5. In this example, the weight is set to 100 for the path
via AS 37, and the other alternative path does not have a weight set. Thus, when checked
against BGP path selection rules, the route via AS 37 is selected as the best because it has a
higher weight attribute.
Likewise, network 37.0.0.0/8 is reached via AS 37 because the weight indicates that it is the
best route.

BGP Route Propagation
This topic explains how a router propagates BGP routes to other BGP neighbors.
BGP Route Propagation
The best BGP routes are propagated to BGP

neighbors.
A local router propagates only the route that it selected as best to the neighbors. However, the
router never sends a route back on the same BGP session upon which it was received. On the
contrary, when it selects a neighbor as the best next hop, the router makes sure that the
neighbor is not pointing back to the local router; it accomplishes this task by “poisoning” the
route (marking the route unreachable) and sending a withdraw message to that neighbor.
The router conducts route poisoning to avoid a potential routing loop problem in which a
neighbor router selected as the best next hop might rely on the local router as the best next hop.
The process of preventing routing information from being sent back to the source of
information is called “split horizon.”
Building the IP Routing Table
This topic describes the process of building an IP routing table from the BGP table and from
other sources of routing information, such as IGPs.
Building the IP Routing Table
The best BGP routes are copied into the IP routing

table based on administrative distance.
The route in the BGP table that BGP selects as the best is a candidate for installation in the IP
forwarding, or routing, table.
Before a route can be installed, the router has to check whether there is any other routing
protocol that has information about the same subnet (network and mask). If the subnet is known
via different sources, the router uses the administrative distance (AD) to determine which
source to use. AD is a rating of the trustworthiness of a routing information source. AD is often
expressed as a numerical value between 0 and 255. The higher the value, the lower the
trustworthiness rating. In this case, the router will install the route with the lowest AD.
The output from the show ip route command indicates which routes in the routing table were
installed using the BGP information. Those routes are denoted with the letter “B.” The AD is
shown in the command output as the first number within the brackets.
In this example, networks 21.0.0.0/8 and 37.0.0.0/8 are both reachable via 3.4.5.6. After the
router has installed the routes in the routing table, user data traffic starts to be forwarded.

Advertising Local Networks
This topic explains how BGP advertises local networks.
Advertising Local Networks
• The BGP router process keeps a list of local networks

(defined with the network command or through
redistribution).
• The BGP process periodically scans the IP routing table and
inserts or revokes routes from the BGP routing table based
on their presence in the IP routing table.
The BGP routing process can inject new routes into the BGP table. A router will propagate
newly injected routes to neighboring BGP peers if it selects them as best, giving neighboring
autonomous systems information about networks that are reachable in the local AS. This
process is called advertising, originating, or announcing local routes.
The BGP process can inject local routes in two different ways:
A list of networks is configured on the router under the BGP router process using the
network configuration command. The networks listed are candidates for being injected.
Networks are injected only if they appear in the routing table. In the case where the IGP
that is used within the AS finds a valid path to them, the routes will be in the routing table.
Routes that are learned by another routing protocol are redistributed. The IGP that is used
with the AS can also act as a source of routing information about local networks.
Example: Advertising Local Networks
In this example, network 1.0.0.0/8 is directly connected to interface Loopback0.
Advertising Local Networks (Cont.)
The BGP route is revoked after the network is

removed from the routing table.
The route to 1.0.0.0/8 was previously installed in the BGP table because it was listed with a
network statement and it was in the routing table as directly connected. When the Loopback0
interface goes down, the router removes the directly connected route from its routing table.
Because the route no longer exists in the routing table, it must also be removed from the BGP
table.
Because there has been a change in the BGP table, the BGP neighbors must be informed. The
router sends a BGP update message to both neighbors indicating that network 1.0.0.0/8 is now
unreachable.

Advertising Local Networks (Cont.)
The BGP route is advertised after the network

appears in the routing table.
In this example, network 1.0.0.0/8 is listed with a network statement in the BGP process.
However, the network was not in the routing table of the router, so the network was not injected
into its BGP table.
Later, the Loopback0 interface comes back up again. This reappearance means that the network
1.0.0.0/8 is now in the routing table as a directly connected route. As a result, the router once
again injects the 1.0.0.0/8 network into its BGP table and subsequently updates its configured
neighbors.
Automatic Summarization
This topic describes the role of automatic summarization in BGP route processing.
Automatic Summarization
• Automatic summarization is enabled by default.

• Enable automatic summarization when:
– Summarization of IGP-to-BGP redistributed routes to
major network boundary required
– Using classful network command to summarize subnets to
a major network boundary
• Disable automatic summarization when:
– Summarization on IGP-to-BGP redistribution not desired
– Using classless variant of the network command
When a BGP router is configured to locally announce routes into BGP, the behavior of the
network command varies depending on whether automatic summarization is enabled or
disabled. When automatic summarization is enabled, BGP summarizes the locally originated
BGP networks (network x.x.x.x) to their classful boundaries. Automatic summarization is
enabled by default in BGP.
When a subnet exists in the routing table and the following three conditions are satisfied, then
any subnet (component route) of that classful network in the local routing table will prompt
BGP to install the classful network into the BGP table:
A classful network statement for that network exists in the routing table.
A classful mask has been configured on that network statement.
Automatic summarization is enabled.
When automatic summarization is disabled, the routes that are introduced locally into the BGP
table are not summarized to their classful boundaries.
The behavior of the redistribution procedure in BGP is also influenced by the configuration of
automatic summarization on the router. When enabled, all redistributed subnets will be
summarized to their classful boundaries in the BGP table. When disabled, all redistributed
subnets will be present in their original form in the BGP table.
Enable automatic summarization in BGP when the summarization of subnets to their classful
boundaries will not introduce flawed information into the BGP table. In other words, leave
automatic summarization enabled only when you are using a fully assigned classful network
matching the network that was summarized in BGP.

Whenever possible, use the classless variant of the network command, specifying the subnet
mask length of the network. When you are redistributing networks into BGP, the preferred
method is to disable automatic summarization. Disabling automatic summarization ensures that
correct information is inserted into the BGP table of the router.
Example: Automatic Summarization

In this example, one subnet and one host route of the major class C network 197.1.1.0/24
(197.1.1.64/27 and 197.1.1.49/32) exist in the routing table.
Automatic Summarization (Cont.)
One subnet and one host route for 197.1.1.0 exist in the routing table.
Automatic summarization is enabled for BGP.
BGP has been configured to locally announce 197.1.1.0.
Classful network summary is inserted into BGP table.

When you are inserting networks into the BGP table with the classful network command and
automatic summarization is disabled, no insertion into the BGP table will occur unless an exact
match exists in the IP routing table (meaning that a classful network has to be present in the IP
routing table).
When automatic summarization is enabled, the major network command will summarize all
subnets in the IP routing table to their major network boundary.
There is a classful network command, and automatic summarization is enabled for BGP. This
setup results in the insertion of a classful network summary into the BGP table, instead of
separate subnets.
Subnet 197.1.1.64/27 and host route 197.1.1.49/32 were summarized during insertion into the
BGP table to the classful network 197.1.1.0/24. This action occurred because a classful
network command and automatic summarization were configured on the router. If automatic
summarization were disabled, no insertion into the BGP table would occur at all.
The locally sourced summary has all the attributes of a locally sourced BGP route (next hop =
0.0.0.0, weight = 32768, empty AS-path list), and is marked as having an IGP origin (being
sourced with the network command).
Automatic Summarization (Cont.)
One subnet and two host routes for 172.16.0.0 exist in the routing table.
Automatic summarization is enabled for BGP.
BGP has been configured to redistribute Open Shortest Path First
(OSPF) into BGP.
Classful network summary is inserted into BGP table.

In this example, automatic summarization is enabled, resulting in the summarization of

redistributed subnets to their classful boundaries. Subnet 172.16.1.0/30 and the two host routes
172.16.0.2/32 and 172.16.0.3/32 will be summarized into the single class B network
172.16.0.0/16. The network 172.16.0.0/16 is a locally sourced summary with all the attributes
of a locally sourced BGP route (next hop = 0.0.0.0, weight = 32768, empty AS-path list). The
origin of the route is marked as incomplete because the route is sourced through redistribution.
If automatic summarization were disabled, more specific routes would be present in the BGP
table instead of the summary prefix 172.16.0.0/16.

Summary
Summary
• After BGP sessions are established between BGP routers,

they can start exchanging routing updates.
• All updates that are received from BGP neighbors are stored
in the BGP table, regardless of whether they are used.
• The route selection process takes into account various BGP
attributes that are attached to the route, as well as local
decisions (indicated with weights).
• Only the best BGP routes are propagated to other BGP
routers.
Summary (Cont.)
• Only the best BGP routes are installed in the local IP routing
table.
• Every BGP router can also originate the routes in BGP. The
routes to be originated are entered manually in the BGP
routing process or redistributed into BGP from an IGP.
• Automatic summarization is enabled by default in BGP.
Lesson 5
Configuring Basic BGP
Overview
Basic Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) configuration is critical to any successful BGP
implementation. Network administrators use the Cisco IOS commands that are included in this
lesson in all BGP implementations. Thorough knowledge of the commands in this lesson is
therefore crucial to ensuring a successful implementation using BGP.
This lesson introduces the Cisco IOS commands that are required to configure a router for basic
BGP operation. Included are the commands that are used to enable the BGP routing protocol
process, establish neighbors, and advertise local routes. This lesson concludes with basic
commands that network administrators can use to monitor the BGP configuration.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to configure a router for BGP. This ability
Identify the Cisco IOS command that is required to configure the BGP routing process
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to configure external BGP neighbors
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to configure the basic timers that are
used in BGP
Identify the Cisco IOS command that is required to configure MD5 authentication for BGP
Identify the commands that are required to announce local networks in BGP
Describe BGP route redistribution, including the commands that are required to configure
BGP route redistribution
Describe the classless behavior of BGP and identify the Cisco IOS command that is
required to configure BGP for classless operation
Describe BGP route aggregation, including the Cisco IOS commands that are required to
configure basic BGP route aggregation
Describe the BGP Conditional Route Injection feature
Describe the BGP Support for TTL Security Check feature
Determine when BGP route aggregation is not appropriate in multihomed topologies
BGP Routing Process
This topic describes the command that is required to initially configure the BGP routing
process on a Cisco IOS router.
BGP Routing Process
router(config)#
router bgp as-number
• Starts BGP routing.

• Get your AS number from American Registry for Internet
Numbers (www.arin.net) or Réseaux IP Européens
(www.ripe.net).
• Use private AS numbers (64512–65535) if you run BGP in a
private network.
• Only one BGP routing process per router is allowed.
router bgp
To configure the BGP routing process, use the router bgp global configuration command.
router bgp as-number
To remove a routing process, use the no form of this command.

no router bgp as-number
Syntax Description
Parameter Description
as-number Number of an autonomous system (AS) that identifies the router

to other BGP routers and tags the routing information that is
passed along
This command starts the BGP routing process in the router. There can be, at most, one BGP
process in a router. It must be assigned the local AS number.
The AS number is a 16-bit unsigned integer. It must uniquely identify the AS among all routers
that are exchanging BGP routing information, either directly or indirectly. This requirement
means that the AS numbers must be unique when BGP information is exchanged with the
Internet.
The AS number can be a public AS number (ranging from 1 to 64511) that is assigned by an
Internet registry (American Registry for Internet Numbers [ARIN]: www.arin.net or Réseaux
IP Européens [RIPE]: www.ripe.net), or a private AS number (ranging from 64512 to 65535).
Private AS numbers are never propagated onto the public Internet.
Configuring External Neighbors
This topic describes the commands that are required to configure external BGP neighbors on a
Cisco router.
Configuring External Neighbors
router(config-router)#
neighbor ip-address remote-as as-number
• Defines an external neighbor.

• External neighbor has to be reachable over directly connected
subnet.
neighbor ip-address description neighbor description
• Assigns a description to an external neighbor.
BGP does not automatically discover neighbors. They have to be explicitly configured. The
local router will try to connect to the indicated IP address and also accept incoming connection
attempts from the indicated IP address.
The first attribute that you must configure with a new neighbor is the remote AS number in
which the neighbor is taking part. When the TCP session is established between BGP routers,
the configured remote AS number is verified by each router with the exchange of BGP Open
messages.
You may optionally configure other attributes with the neighbor. Do this on successive
configuration lines, referring to the same neighbor IP address but indicating different attributes.
With the neighbor description command, a description (text string) can be entered that
describes the neighbor.
neighbor remote-as
To add an entry to the BGP neighbor table, use the neighbor remote-as router configuration
command.
neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} remote-as number
To remove an entry from the table, use the no form of this command.
no neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} remote-as number

Syntax Description
ip-address IP address of neighbor
peer-group-name Name of a BGP peer group
number AS to which the neighbor belongs
neighbor description
To associate a description with a neighbor, use the neighbor description router configuration
command.
neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} description text
To remove the description, use the no form of this command.

no neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} description text
Syntax Description
text Text (up to 80 characters) that describes the neighbor
Configuring External Neighbors (Cont.)
To temporarily disable a BGP neighbor:

neighbor ip-address shutdown
• Disables communication with a BGP neighbor

• Use scenarios:
– Debugging and troubleshooting
– Shutdown of the neighbor during extensive modification
of routing policies to prevent inconsistent routing data
neighbor shutdown
To disable a neighbor, use the neighbor shutdown router configuration command.
neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} shutdown
To re-enable the neighbor or peer group, use the no form of this command.
no neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} shutdown
Syntax Description

Configuring BGP Timers
This topic describes the commands that are required to modify the default keepalive and
holdtime timers in BGP for the BGP process or for the TCP session between BGP neighbors.
Configuring BGP Timers
timers bgp keepalive holdtime
• Changes the default values of BGP timers per BGP process.

• Only the holdtime value is communicated in the BGP Open
message.
• Smallest configured holdtime value on BGP peers is used by
both peers.
neighbor [ ip-address|peer group name ] timers keepalive holdtime
• Changes the default values of BGP timers per specific neighbor

or peer group.
• Overrides the bgp settings of the timers.
Changing the BGP default holdtime and keepalive timers is usually not recommended. The
defaults (keepalive: 60 seconds; holdtime: 180 seconds) should work fine in most situations. If
for any reason a faster BGP response to a peer down event is needed (for example, in scenarios
where multiple paths toward destinations are available), the neighbor timers on the router can
be reduced. This reduction will result in a faster detection of a lost peer and faster switching to
the alternate path in the BGP table, thus improving convergence.
A BGP router with an expired holdtime (no BGP traffic was received within the holdtime
interval) sends a notification to its BGP peer, notifying it as to the reason for closing the
session. The BGP router on which the holdtime has expired moves the inactive peer into the
Idle state. After a certain time interval, determined by auto-enable and connection timers, a
BGP router again tries to reconnect to the previously disconnected BGP peer and will also
accept connection attempts from that peer.
timers bgp
To adjust BGP network timers, use the timers bgp router configuration command.
timers bgp keepalive holdtime
To reset the BGP timing defaults, use the no form of this command.
no timers bgp keepalive holdtime
Syntax Description
keepalive Frequency (in seconds) with which the Cisco IOS software sends
keepalive messages to its peer.
The default is 60 seconds.
holdtime Interval (in seconds) after not receiving a keepalive message that
the software declares a peer dead.
neighbor timers
To set the timers for a specific BGP peer or peer group, use the neighbor timers router
configuration command. This command overrides the values that have been set by the timers
bgp command.
neighbor [ip-address | peer-group-name] timers keepalive holdtime
To clear the timers for a specific BGP peer or peer group, use the no form of this command.
no neighbor [ip-address | peer-group-name] timers keepalive holdtime
Syntax Description
ip-address IP address of neighbor.
peer-group-name Name of a BGP peer group.
keepalive Frequency (in seconds) with which the Cisco IOS software sends
keepalive messages to its peer.
holdtime Interval (in seconds) after not receiving a keepalive message that
the software declares a peer dead.

Configuring MD5 Authentication
This topic describes the command that is required to configure Message Digest 5 (MD5)
authentication on a session between BGP neighbors.
Configuring MD5 Authentication
neighbor ip-address password string
• Enables MD5 authentication on a specific BGP session.

• Password string on both routers must match.
neighbor password
To enable MD5 authentication on a TCP connection between two BGP peers, use the neighbor
password router configuration command.
neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} password string
To disable this function, use the no form of this command.

no neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} password
Syntax Description
ip-address IP address of neighbor.
string Case-sensitive password of up to 80 characters.
The first character cannot be a number. The string can contain

any alphanumeric characters, including spaces. You cannot
specify a password in the format “number-space-anything.” The
space after the number causes problems.
Announcing Networks in BGP
This topic describes the Cisco IOS commands that are required to announce local networks to
other BGP neighbors.
Announcing Networks in BGP
Only administratively defined networks are

announced in BGP.
• Manually configure networks to be announced.
• Use redistribution from IGP.
• Use aggregation to announce summary prefixes.
Before any local routing information can be injected by a router into its BGP table for
advertising to other BGP routers, some basic configuration is required.
There are two ways to do this configuration:

List the network numbers that are candidates to be advertised using the network
configuration command. If any of the listed networks are reachable by the local router,
according to its routing table, then the network is injected as a route into the BGP table.
Redistribute routing information that has been learned by other routing protocols into the
BGP table. You can use the Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) that is used within the AS.
Any route that is known by the local IGP can be injected into the BGP table using route
redistribution between the IGP and BGP on the local router.
A router can also introduce new routing information into the BGP table by summarizing routes
already there. This activity is called route aggregation and also requires configuration.
Any route that is introduced by the router into the BGP table will appear as a new route. The
AS-path attribute for such a route will be empty, indicating a local route. The AS path changes
later as the route passes AS boundaries.

Announcing Networks in BGP (Cont.)
(no) auto-summary
• Enables or disables summarization of networks prior to

insertion into the BGP table:
– Locally inserted networks (using the network command)
– Redistributed routes
• Enabled by default
When the router is configured to locally announce routes into BGP, the behavior of the
network command varies depending on whether automatic summarization is enabled or
disabled. When automatic summarization is enabled, the command summarizes locally
originated BGP networks to their classful boundaries. By default, automatic summarization is
enabled for BGP.
When a subnet exists in the routing table and the following three conditions are satisfied, then
any subnet (component route) of that classful network in the local routing table will prompt
BGP to install the classful network into the BGP table:
A classful network statement for that network exists in the routing table.
When automatic summarization is disabled, the routes that are introduced locally into the BGP
table are not summarized to their classful boundaries.
The BGP auto-summary command is also responsible for the behavior of the redistribution
procedure in BGP. When the command is enabled, all redistributed subnets will be summarized
to their classful boundaries in the BGP table. When it is disabled, all redistributed subnets will
be present in their original form in the BGP table.
To manually define a major network:

network major-network-number
• Allows advertising of major networks into BGP.

• At least one of the subnets must be present in the routing table.
• Behavior is dependent on the presence of the
auto-summary command.
• The meaning of the network command in BGP is completely
different from any other routing protocol.
To specify the networks to be advertised by the BGP routing process, use the network router
configuration command. To remove an entry, use the no form of this command.
Note The meaning of the network command in BGP is radically different from the meaning of the
command in other routing protocols. In all other routing protocols, the network command
indicates interfaces over which the routing protocol will be run. In BGP, it indicates only
which routes should be injected into the BGP table on the local router. Also, BGP never runs
over individual interfaces; it is run over TCP sessions with manually configured neighbors.
The network command with no mask option uses the classful approach to insert a major
network into the BGP table. At least one subnet of the specified major network needs to be
present in the IP routing table to allow BGP to start announcing the major network as a BGP
route. If automatic summarization is disabled, an exact match is required.

network major-network-number route-map route-map-name
• The addition of the route-map option allows network parameters

to be modified before you enter them into the BGP table.
• The route-map option can be used for the following:
– Changing the weight value of a locally sourced route
– Tagging sourced routes with BGP communities
– Setting the local preference for a specific network
– Changing the value of the MED for a specific network
When the router is configured to insert routes into the BGP table, the default attributes of
locally sourced routes can be modified with the inclusion of the route-map option in the basic
network command.
The attached route-map can change the following attributes of locally sourced networks with
the network command:
Weight (default value = 32768): The weight attribute is a special Cisco attribute that is
used in the path selection process when there is more than one route to the same
destination. Because weight is considered before local preference in BGP route selection,
locally sourced routes are always preferred, unless the weight value is modified.
Community (default value = nonexistent): Used for tagging routes at their source.
Local preference (default value = 100): Used for AS-wide BGP best-path selection.
Multi-exit discriminator (MED) (default value = 0): Used for return-path selection in
topologies where multiple exit points to the same neighbor AS exist.
Example: Announcing Networks in BGP

If a subnet existing in the routing table is 75.75.75.0/24, and network 75.0.0.0 is configured
under the router bgp command (assuming that automatic summarization is enabled), BGP will
introduce the classful network 75.0.0.0/8 in the BGP table. If the following three conditions are
not all met, then BGP will not install any entry in the BGP table unless there is an exact match
in the IP routing table:
A classful network statement for the network exists in the routing table.
Redistributing Routes into BGP
This topic describes route redistribution in BGP and identifies the Cisco IOS commands that
are required to configure BGP route redistribution.
Redistributing Routes into BGP
• Easier than listing networks in BGP process in large

networks.
• Redistributed routes carry origin attribute “incomplete.”
• Always filter redistributed routes to prevent route leaking.
• Avoid in service provider environments.
There are two alternatives for injecting local routes into the BGP table: list them using the
network command or redistribute them. Listing the routes gives you total control over
networks that could possibly be advertised by BGP. This option is very desirable for
multihomed customers or Internet service providers (ISPs). On the other hand, this approach
requires a lot of configuration commands that could be hard to maintain.
If there are a lot of networks to be advertised, and BGP is used primarily to achieve scalability,
not routing security (for example, in enterprise networks), it could be easier to let the local IGP
find the routes and then redistribute them into BGP. However, this approach introduces the risk
that the IGP may find some networks that are not supposed to be advertised. Private network
numbers, such as network 10.0.0.0/8, are often used within an AS for various reasons but must
never be advertised out to the Internet. Careful filtering must be done to prevent unintentional
advertising.
When the router injects a route that is listed with a network command into its BGP table, the
origin code is set to “IGP.” If the route is injected into the BGP table through redistribution, the
origin code is set to “unknown/incomplete.”

Redistributing Routes into BGP (Cont.)
Simple IGP-to-BGP redistribution

• Configure redistribution in BGP process.
• Configure route-filter using distribute-list.
• Caveat:
– BGP routes originated through redistribution have
incomplete origin.
Routes redistributed into BGP will carry the origin attribute “incomplete.” In most cases this
situation does not jeopardize BGP functionality. It could pose a problem if the route selection
process has to decide on the best route toward a particular destination based on the MED
attribute. In the case of receiving two routes, one with the “IGP” origin (inserted with the
network command), and another one with the “incomplete” origin, the first route would always
be selected, no matter what value the MED attribute is set to (according to the BGP route
selection rules).
redistribute (IP)
To redistribute routes from one routing process into another routing process, use the
redistribute router configuration command.
redistribute protocol [process-id] {level-1 | level-1-2 | level-2} [metric metric-value]
[match {internal | external 1 | external 2}] [tag tag-value] [route-map map-tag] [weight
weight] [subnets]
To disable redistribution, use the no form of this command.

no redistribute protocol [process-id] {level-1 | level-1-2 | level-2} [metric metric-value]
[match {internal | external 1 | external 2}] [tag tag-value] [route-map map-tag] [weight
weight] [subnets]
Syntax Description
protocol Source protocol from which routes are being redistributed.
It can be one of the following keywords: bgp, isis, ospf, eigrp,

rip.
process-id (Optional) For bgp, egp, or eigrp, this is an AS number, which is

a 16-bit decimal number.
For isis, this is an optional tag that defines a meaningful name for
a routing process. You can specify only one Intermediate
System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS) process per router.
Creating a name for a routing process means that you use names
when configuring routing.
For ospf, this is an appropriate Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)

process ID from which routes are to be redistributed. This ID
identifies the routing process. This value takes the form of a
nonzero decimal number.
For rip, no process ID value is needed.
level-1 For IS.
level-1-2 For IS.
level-2 For IS.
metric metric-value (Optional) Metric that is used for the redistributed route.
If a value is not specified for this option, and no value is specified,

the default metric is used.
match {internal | (Optional) For OSPF, the criterion by which OSPF routes are
external 1 | external redistributed into other routing processes.
2}
It can be one of the following:
■ internal: Routes that are internal to a specific AS.
■ external 1: Routes that are external to the AS but are

imported into OSPF as a type 1 external route.
■ external 2: Routes that are external to the AS but are
imported into OSPF as a type 2 external route.
route-map (Optional) The route-map should be interrogated to filter the

importation of routes from this source routing protocol to the
current routing protocol. If not specified, all routes are
redistributed. If this keyword is specified, but no route-map tags
are listed, no routes will be imported.
map-tag (Optional) Identifier of a configured route-map.
weight weight (Optional) Network weight when you are redistributing into BGP.
An integer from 0 to 65535.
subnets Indicates that not only networks with a natural mask should be
redistributed but also subnets.

distribute-list out (IP)
To suppress networks from being advertised in updates, use the distribute-list out router
configuration command with routing-process specified.
distribute-list {access-list-number | access-list-name} out [interface-name | routing-
process | autonomous-system-number]
To cancel this function, use the no form of this command.

no distribute-list {access-list-number | access-list-name} out [interface-name | routing-
process | autonomous-system-number]
The access-list referred to by the distribute-list command permits the routes that should be
redistributed.
Redistributing Routes into BGP (Cont.)
Redistribution using route-maps

• Origin can be set to “IGP” with a route-map.
• Other BGP path attributes can also be set:
– Metric
– Next-hop
– Community
Route-maps can be configured on the router to filter updates and modify various attributes. A
configured route-map can be applied to routes being redistributed from the IGP.
Only the routes permitted by the route-map will be redistributed. Using the set command in the
route-map, you can modify specific path attributes that are attached to the redistributed routes.
Thus, only selected routes will be advertised, and they will have the desired attribute values.
The route-map must be given a name. This name is a case-sensitive string, which is used when
you are referring to the route-map. Any string could be used, but a meaningful name is
suggested.
Use the route-map global configuration command and the match and set route-map
configuration commands to define the conditions for redistributing routes. Each repetition of
the route-map command has a list of match and set commands that are associated with it. The
match commands specify the match criteria—the conditions under which redistribution is
allowed for the current route-map command. The set commands specify the set actions—the
particular redistribution actions to perform if the criteria enforced by the match commands are
met.
When you are passing routes through a route-map, it can have several parts. Any route that
does not match at least one match clause relating to a route-map command will be ignored;
that is, the route will not be advertised. If you want to modify only some data, you must
configure a second route-map section with an explicit match specified.

Configuring Classless BGP
This topic describes the classless behavior of BGP and the command that is required to
advertise a classless BGP supernet prefix.
Configuring Classless BGP
• BGP4 supports CIDR.

• Any BGP router can advertise individual networks or
supernets (prefixes).
• Prefix notation is used with BGP instead of subnet masks.
– 192.168.0.0/16 = 192.168.0.0 255.255.0.0
BGP version 4 (BGP4) is a classless protocol, meaning that its routing updates include the IP
address and the subnet mask. The combination of the IP address and the subnet mask is called
an IP prefix. An IP prefix can be a subnet, a major network, or a supernet.
BGP uses prefix notation (address/number of bits) to display IP prefixes. The number following
the slash (/) in the 192.168.0.0/16 notation in the figure refers to the number of bits in the
subnet mask being set to 1. The subnet mask 255.255.0.0 starts with 16 consecutive bits set to
1, and the rest of the bits set to 0.
As another example, the subnet 172.16.1.0 with mask 255.255.255.0 can be written using the
prefix notation as 172.16.1.0/24.
When classless prefix notation is used, an old class A network, for example, 10.0.0.0, with the
natural mask, is written as 10.0.0.0/8. A class B network, 172.17.0.0 with natural mask, is
written as 172.17.0.0/16, and a class C network, 192.168.1.0 with natural mask, is written as
192.168.1.0/24.
Configuring Classless BGP (Cont.)
To manually announce a classless prefix in BGP:

network ip-prefix-address mask subnet-mask
• Configures a classless prefix to be advertised

into BGP.
• The prefix must exactly match an entry in the IP routing table.
• Use a static route to null 0 to create a matching prefix in the IP
routing table.
To advertise classless networks into BGP (a subnet or a supernet), you can use the network
command with the mask keyword and the subnet mask specified. When an exact match is not
found in the IP routing table (for example, when you are creating a summary or when you are
advertising only a part of your address space), a matching prefix has to be manually configured
on the router in the form of a static route pointing to the null 0 interface; otherwise, the
advertisement will not succeed.
network (BGP)
To specify the networks to be advertised by the BGP routing process, use the network router
configuration command.
network network-number [mask network-mask]
To remove an entry, use the no form of this command.

no network network-number [mask network-mask]
Syntax Description
network-number Network that BGP will advertise
mask (Optional)
network-mask (Optional) Network mask address
If the keyword mask and the subnet mask are omitted, the network is assumed to have its
natural mask according to the network class. In this case, the route will still be injected into the
BGP table on the router if there is any subnet of the major network that is reachable according
to the routing table.

If the network mask is specified, the behavior changes slightly, and it is required that an exact
match of network number and subnet mask appear in the routing table before the route is
injected into the BGP table.
Example: Configuring Classless BGP

In this example, the IP address space 192.168.0.0/16 is assigned to a service provider, and the
service provider would like that address space to be constantly advertised by BGP.
Configuring Classless BGP (Cont.)
To advertise a supernet prefix:

• Advertise prefix 192.168.0.0/16 assigned to the Internet service
provider.
The network command with the mask option tells BGP that 192.168.0.0/16 is a candidate for
being advertised. The mask keyword and the mask 255.255.0.0 are required because the mask
is not the natural one. However, before the candidate route is actually advertised, the router
checks the routing table for an exact match (both network number and mask). It will always be
found because there is a static route for it. This static route points to the null interface, which is
always available.
The conclusion is that 192.168.0.0/16 will always be advertised by this router. All other BGP
routers will use this information and forward any IP packets with the destination IP address in
the interval 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255 (inclusive) in the direction of this router. When
those packets arrive, the router, in this example, must have more explicit routes to the different
parts of the 192.168.0.0/16 address range. This need could be answered by the IGP, which is
not shown in the configuration example.
If, however, an IP packet arrives with a destination address to which this router does not have a
more explicit route, the static route will route the packet to the null interface, where it is
dropped. This routing is a safety precaution that will prevent a routing loop, which might occur
when route summaries are used in combination with default routing. If, for example, a packet
arrives from the Internet to a subnet of 192.168.0.0/16, which is currently not reachable, the
packet might otherwise follow the default route toward the Internet because there is no more
explicit route. Of course, the packet would immediately be routed back again, and a routing
loop would occur.
Aggregating BGP Networks
This topic describes route summarization in BGP. It also lists the configuration commands that
are required to configure summary routes in BGP.
Aggregating BGP Networks
Summarization is called “aggregation”

in BGP.
• Aggregation creates summary routes (called “aggregates”)
from networks already in BGP table.
• Individual networks can be announced or suppressed.
When the BGP table is already populated with routes that should be summarized, you must
configure a router to do so. The summarization of BGP routes is called “aggregation.”
Use aggregation when a group of more specific routes has been injected into the BGP table at
one stage but can be summarized at a later stage. The routes to be summarized could be IGP
routes that have been redistributed into BGP. Before BGP advertises these routes to the rest of
the network, an aggregation of the subnets into a larger announcement would be appropriate.
In some networks, more specific routes are injected into the BGP table by some routers, and
aggregation is done in another router or even in another AS. This is called “proxy aggregation.”
When a router is configured to do aggregation, you must configure the route summary. If any
route that is already in the BGP table is within the range that is indicated by the summary, then
the summary route is also injected into the BGP table on the route and advertised to other
routers. This action creates more information in the BGP table. To get any benefits from the
aggregation, you must suppress the more specific routes that are covered by the route summary.
This suppression is an option to the aggregate configuration command.
When you suppress the more specific routes through configuration, they are still present in the
BGP table of the router doing the aggregation. However, because the routes are marked as
suppressed, they are never advertised to any other router.

Aggregating BGP Networks (Cont.)
aggregate-address address-prefix mask
• Specify aggregation range in BGP routing process.

• The aggregate will be announced if there is at least one network
in the specified range in the BGP table.
• Individual networks will still be announced in outgoing BGP
updates.
In this configuration command syntax, where the keyword summary-only is not used, both the
route summary and the more specific routes will be advertised. This approach is generally not
desirable. Therefore, suppression of individual routes, described next, is used in most cases.
aggregate-address
To create an aggregate entry in a BGP routing table, use the aggregate-address router
aggregate-address address mask [as-set] [summary-only] [suppress-map map-
name][advertise-map map-name] [attribute-map map-name]

no aggregate-address address mask [as-set] [summary-only] [suppress-map map-
name][advertise-map map-name] [attribute-map map-name]
Syntax Description
address Aggregate address
mask Aggregate mask
summary-only (Optional) Suppresses more specific routes
Aggregating BGP Networks (Cont.)
An alternative method to configure aggregation:

aggregate-address address-prefix mask summary-only
• Configure aggregation of BGP routes.

• Advertise only the aggregate and not the individual networks.
Benefits:
• Smaller BGP routing tables
• More stable internetworks (less route flapping)
Drawback:
• Problems with multihomed customers
When the summary-only option is used, only the route summary will be advertised, not the
more specific routes.
One of the benefits of this approach is that the rest of the routers will receive only one route
instead of many more specific routes. It eases the burden on the other routers by reducing the
amount of memory that is required to hold the BGP table.
Another benefit is that route flapping is reduced. The router doing the aggregation continues
advertising the aggregate as long as there is at least one specific route within the range still
available. If one of the more specific routes is lost but at least one remains, the aggregate itself
is not lost. The flap of the more specific route is not visible to the rest of the network. This
approach reduces the number of updates necessary and the CPU power that is required to
process them.
However, all route summarization in any routing protocol causes a loss of granularity (that is,
lack of more detailed network or subnet visibility). Suboptimal routing could be introduced
when redundant paths are available to reach a group of networks that are advertised by a single
route summary. Some of the networks could be more reachable via one of the paths, while
others may be more reachable another way. From outside the immediate network, multiple
paths may not be visible because only summary routes are advertised. Therefore, there is a risk
that the least optimal path will be chosen.

Example: Aggregation
This example illustrates a classless BGP sample configuration.
Aggregation Example
Classless BGP sample configuration

• Advertise prefix 192.168.0.0/20.
• Aggregate networks in 192.168.16.0/20 and announce individual
networks.
• Aggregate networks in 192.168.32.0/20 and suppress individual
network announcements.
The configuration example in the figure shows three different ways of advertising a route
summary:
The prefix 192.168.0.0/20 is always advertised. It is injected into the BGP table as a
summary. The network statement makes it a candidate for being advertised. Because the
mask is specified, an exact match in the routing table is a required condition before the
route is injected into the BGP table. The matching route is inserted in the IP routing table
by the static IP route statement to the null 0 interface.
The prefix 192.168.16.0/20 is conditionally advertised. It is injected into the BGP table
whenever there is a more specific route within the route summary range that is already in
the BGP table. However, the more specific route is still advertised.
The prefix 192.168.32.0/20 is also conditionally advertised. It is injected into the BGP table
whenever there is a more specific route within the route summary range that is already in
the BGP table. However, any more specific routes are suppressed and not advertised to any
neighbors.
Aggregation Example (Cont.)
Viewing the BGP table
The show ip bgp command prints the BGP table. As shown in the figure, all three prefixes are
injected:
The prefix 192.168.0.0/20 is always injected.
The prefix 192.168.16.0/20 is injected because there is at least one more specific route
within the summary range. In this case, both 192.168.16.0/24 and 192.168.17.0/24 are
within the range. Nothing is changed with the more specific routes, so they are still
advertised.
The prefix 192.168.32.0/20 is injected because there is at least one more specific route
within the summary range. In this case, both 192.168.32.0/24 and 192.168.33.0/24 are
within the range. The more specific routes are marked as suppressed using the lowercase
letter “s.” The “s” means that they are still present and available in the BGP table of the
router, but they are not advertised on any BGP session.
Note Because the prefixes 192.168.16.0/24, 192.168.17.0/24, 192.168.32.0/24, and

192.168.33.0/24 all have natural masks as applied to class C networks, the prefix length is
not displayed in the show ip bgp printout. The network mask is, however, stored in the BGP
table and sent on any BGP update.

Aggregation Example (Cont.)
Debugging BGP updates
The debug output shows the BGP updates that have been sent to a neighbor. All three route
summary prefixes, 192.168.0.0/20, 192.168.16.0/20, and 192.168.32.0/20, are included in the
updates. Also, the nonsuppressed more explicit routes, 192.168.16.0/24 and 192.168.17.0/24,
are included in the update. However, the suppressed more explicit routes, 192.168.32.0/24 and
192.168.33.0/24, are never sent as updates on the BGP session.
BGP Conditional Route Injection
This topic describes the BGP Conditional Route Injection feature.
BGP Conditional Route Injection
• Provides means to originate a prefix into a BGP routing table

without the corresponding match
• Allows more specific routes to be generated based on
administrative policy or traffic engineering information to
provide more specific control over the forwarding of packets
to these more specific routes, which are injected into the
BGP routing table only if the configured conditions
are met
• Improves accuracy of common route aggregation by
conditionally injecting or replacing less specific prefixes with
more specific prefixes
Routes that are advertised through the BGP are commonly aggregated to minimize the number
of routes that are used and reduce the size of global routing tables. However, common route
aggregation can obscure more specific routing information that is more accurate but not
necessary to forward packets to their destinations. Routing accuracy is obscured by common
route aggregation because a prefix that represents multiple addresses or hosts over a large
topological area cannot be accurately reflected in a single route. Cisco IOS software provides
several methods by which you can originate a prefix into BGP. The methods include
redistribution and using the network or aggregate-address command. These methods assume
the existence of more specific routing information (matching the route to be originated) in
either the routing table or the BGP table.
The BGP Conditional Route Injection feature allows you to originate a prefix into a BGP
routing table without the corresponding match. This feature allows more specific routes to be
generated based on administrative policy or traffic engineering information to provide more
specific control over the forwarding of packets to these more specific routes, which are injected
into the BGP routing table only if the configured conditions are met. Enabling this feature
allows you to improve the accuracy of common route aggregation by conditionally injecting or
replacing less specific prefixes with more specific prefixes. Only prefixes that are equal to or
more specific than the original prefix may be injected.
The BGP Conditional Route Injection feature is enabled with the bgp inject-map exist-map
command. This command uses two route maps (inject-map and exist-map) to install one (or
more than one) more specific prefix into a BGP routing table. The exist-map specifies the
prefixes that the BGP speaker will track. The inject-map defines the prefixes that will be
created and installed into the local BGP table.

bgp inject-map exist-map
To inject a more specific route into a BGP routing table, use the bgp inject-map exist-map
command in address family or router configuration mode.
bgp inject-map {inject-map-name} exist-map {exist-map-name}[copy-attributes]

No bgp inject-map {inject-map-name} exist-map {exist-map-name}[copy-attributes]
Syntax Description
inject-map-name Defines the prefixes that will be created and installed into the
local BGP table
exist-map-name Specifies the prefix that the BGP speaker will track
copy-attributes (Optional) Configures the injected route to inherit the attributes of

the aggregate route
This configuration example configures conditional route injection for the inject-map named
ORIGINATE and the exist-map named LEARNED_PATH:
router bgp 109
bgp inject-map ORIGINATE exist-map LEARNED_PATH
!
route-map LEARNED_PATH permit 10
match ip address prefix-list ROUTE
match ip route-source prefix-list ROUTE_SOURCE
!
route-map ORIGINATE permit 10
set ip address prefix-list ORIGINATED_ROUTES
set community 14616:555 additive
!
ip prefix-list ROUTE permit 10.1.1.0/24
!
ip prefix-list ORIGINATED_ROUTES permit 10.1.1.0/25
ip prefix-list ORIGINATED_ROUTES permit 10.1.1.128/25
!
ip prefix-list ROUTE_SOURCE permit 10.2.1.1/32
BGP Support for TTL Security Check
This topic describes the BGP Support for TTL Security Check feature.
BGP Support for TTL Security Check
• Lightweight security mechanism to protect EBGP peering

sessions from CPU utilization-based attacks
• Protects the EBGP peering session by comparing the value
in the TTL field of received IP packets against a hop count
that is configured locally for each EBGP peering session
• Supports both directly connected peering sessions and
multihop EBGP peering sessions
The BGP Support for TTL Security Check feature introduces a lightweight security mechanism
to protect External Border Gateway Protocol (EBGP) peering sessions from CPU utilization-
based attacks. These types of attacks are typically brute-force denial of service (DoS) attacks
that attempt to disable the network by flooding the network with IP packets that contain forged
source and destination IP addresses. This feature protects the EBGP peering session by
comparing the value in the Time to Live (TTL) field of received IP packets against a hop count
that is configured locally for each EBGP peering session. If the value in the TTL field of the
incoming IP packet is greater than or equal to the locally configured value, the IP packet is
accepted and processed normally. If the TTL value in the IP packet is less than the locally
configured value, the packet is silently discarded and no Internet Control Message Protocol
(ICMP) message is generated. This is designed behavior; a response to a forged packet is
unnecessary.
Accurately forging the TTL count in an IP packet is generally considered to be impossible. It is

possible to forge the TTL field in an IP packet header. However, accurately forging a packet to
match the TTL count from a trusted peer is not possible unless the network to which the trusted
peer belongs has been compromised.
This feature supports both directly connected peering sessions and multihop EBGP peering
sessions. The BGP peering session is not affected by incoming packets that contain invalid TTL
values. The BGP peering session remains open, and the router silently discards the invalid
packet. The BGP session, however, can still expire if keepalive packets are not received before
the session timer expires.
The BGP Support for TTL Security Check feature should be configured on each participating
router. It provides an effective and easy-to-deploy solution to protect EBGP peering sessions

from CPU utilization-based attacks. When this feature is enabled, a host cannot attack a BGP
session if the host is not a member of the local or remote BGP network or if the host is not
directly connected to a network segment between the local and remote BGP networks. This
solution greatly reduces the effectiveness of DoS attacks against a BGP AS.
neighbor ttl-security
To secure a BGP peering session and to configure the maximum number of hops that separate
two EBGP peers, use the neighbor ttl-security command in address-family or router
configuration mode.
neighbor neighbor-address ttl-security hops hop-count

no neighbor neighbor-address ttl-security hops hop-count
Syntax Description
neighbor address IP address of the neighbor.
hops hop-count Maximum number of hops that can separate the EBGP peer from
the local router.
The value for the hop-count argument is a number from 1 to 254.
Multihomed Customer Problem
This topic describes a situation in which route aggregation in BGP is not appropriate.
Multihomed Customer Problem
• Customer prefers primary provider, using alternate only as

backup.
• Primary provider advertises the aggregate.
• Alternate provider advertises individual network.
In this example, the primary provider is doing aggregation of 192.1.0.0/16 before sending it to
the rest of the network. This situation means that the primary provider is also doing proxy
aggregation for the route 192.1.1.0/24 that is advertised by the multihomed customer. The rest
of the Internet will not see the route 192.1.1.0/24 via the primary provider.
The multihomed customer also advertises 192.1.1.0/24 to the alternate provider. In this case,
the provider does not do any aggregation of any routes starting with 192.1 (and should not do
so). This situation means that the alternate provider will propagate 192.1.1.0/24 to the rest of
the Internet.

Multihomed Customer Problem (Cont.)
• Customer prefers primary provider, using alternate only as

backup.
• Primary provider advertises the aggregate.
• Alternate provider advertises individual network.
The rest of the Internet now sees overlapping routes. It sees 192.1.1.0/24 as reachable via the
alternate provider and 192.1.0.0/16 as reachable via the primary provider. These two routes are
treated as different routes. They are not compared with each other in a route selection process
because they indicate different destinations. Because the router views them as different
destinations, both routes will be injected into the routing table.
If a packet arrives with a destination address in the 192.1.1.0/24 network, the rest of the
Internet will follow the “longest matching prefix” rule and forward the packet to the alternate
provider.
To avoid this issue, the primary provider must turn off aggregation. If the primary provider
does so, the rest of the Internet will see 192.1.1.0/24 both ways. And, because exactly the same
route (network and mask) is reachable in two ways, route selection processing starts.
Depending on the attribute values, the rest of the Internet could be advised to use the primary
provider instead of the alternate one.
However, turning off aggregation will also cause the primary provider to advertise all routes
within the aggregate, and all benefits of aggregation will be lost.
Summary
Summary
• The BGP process in a Cisco router is started with the

router bgp command.
• The neighbor remote-as router configuration command adds an
entry to the BGP neighbor table, the neighbor description router
configuration command associates a description with a
neighbor, and the neighbor shutdown router configuration
command disables a neighbor.
• The BGP keepalive and holdtime timers can be changed for the
BGP process (using the timers bgp router configuration
command) or on a per-neighbor basis (using the neighbor timers
router configuration command).
• MD5 authentication can be used to secure a connection
between two BGP neighbors. The neighbor password router
configuration command enables MD5 authentication on a TCP
connection between two BGP peers.
Summary (Cont.)
• Local networks are announced in BGP by listing them with

the network command or by redistributing them with the
redistribute command. The network command can be used to
announce any IP prefix. If you use the classless version of the
network command, a matching route has to reside in the IP
routing table.
• If there are a lot of networks to be advertised, and BGP is
used primarily to achieve scalability, it may be easier to let
the local IGP find the routes and then redistribute them into
BGP. To redistribute routes from one routing process into
another routing process, use the redistribute router
• BGP4 supports CIDR, and any BGP router can advertise
individual networks or supernets (prefixes). To specify the
networks to be advertised by the BGP routing process, use
the network router configuration command.

Summary (Cont.)
• There are cases where routes that are already in the BGP table have to
be summarized. This process is called “aggregation” in BGP and is
configured with the aggregate-address command.
• The BGP conditional route injection feature provides a means to
originate a prefix into a BGP routing table without the corresponding
match, allowing more specific routes to be generated based on
administrative policy or traffic engineering information to provide
more specific control over the forwarding of packets to these more
specific routes.
• The BGP Support for TTL Security Check feature introduces a
lightweight security mechanism to protect EBGP peering sessions
from CPU utilization-based attacks; a host cannot attack a BGP
session if the host is not a member of the local or remote BGP network
or if the host is not directly connected to a network segment between
the local and remote BGP networks.
• BGP route aggregation is not appropriate in multihomed topologies.
Lesson 6
Monitoring and
Troubleshooting BGP
Overview
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) monitoring commands are important to ensuring that basic
BGP configurations are operating correctly. If basic BGP configurations are not functioning as
expected, BGP troubleshooting skills are critical to successful problem resolution.
This lesson introduces the Cisco IOS commands that are available for monitoring and
troubleshooting basic BGP configurations. The commands that are required to monitor the
status of BGP, neighbor connections, and the BGP table are discussed. The lesson also
discusses techniques for troubleshooting the most common BGP session startup issues.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to perform the steps to correct basic BGP
configuration and session errors. This ability includes being able to meet these objectives:
Identify the Cisco IOS command that is required to monitor the overall status of the BGP
routing process
Identify the Cisco IOS command that is required to monitor BGP neighbors
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to monitor the BGP table
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to perform basic BGP debugging
List common BGP session startup problems
Troubleshoot basic BGP session startup problems when the neighbor is not reachable
Troubleshoot basic BGP session startup problems when the neighbor is not configured
Troubleshoot basic BGP session startup problems when an AS number mismatch exists
Monitoring Overall BGP Routing
This topic describes the command that is used to monitor the overall status of the BGP routing
protocol process.
Monitoring Overall BGP Routing
router>
show ip bgp summary
• Displays BGP memory use, and displays BGP neighbors and the
state of communication with them
This command is very useful when you are troubleshooting BGP. The output in the figure
provides a short summary of the status of the BGP process in the router.
The first section of the output describes the BGP table and its content:
The BGP table version is the version number of the local BGP table. This number is
increased every time that the table is changed.
The main routing table version shows the last version of the BGP database that was
injected into the main routing table.
The subsequent lines of text indicate the amount of memory that has been allocated to hold
the table. These lines of text display how many networks are known and how many
different paths and attribute values are associated with them.
The second section of the output is a table in which the current neighbor statuses are shown.
There is one line of text for each neighbor that has been configured. The columns are as
follows:
IP address of the neighbor as configured in the local router
BGP version number that is used by the router when communicating with the neighbor
Autonomous system (AS) number of the remote neighbor
Number of messages and updates that have been received from the neighbor since the
session was established
Number of messages and updates that have been sent to the neighbor since the session was
established
Version number of the local BGP table that has been included in the most recent update to
the neighbor
Number of messages that are waiting to be processed in the incoming queue from this
neighbor
Number of messages that are waiting in the outgoing queue for transmission to the
neighbor
How long the neighbor has been in the current state and the name of the current state (the
state “Established” is not printed out, so no state name indicates “Established”)
You can use this information to verify that BGP sessions are up and established. If they are not,
you will have to further investigate the BGP configuration to locate the problem. You can also
verify the IP address and AS number of the configured BGP neighbor with the show ip bgp
summary command.
If the session state is “Established,” the number of messages that have been sent and received,
as displayed in the output of the show ip bgp summary command, can indicate BGP stability.
Use the command a few times, with a time interval between the printouts, and calculate how
many messages have been exchanged during that period.
A large number of messages in the incoming queue indicates a lack of CPU resources in the
local router. A large number of messages in the outgoing queue indicates a lack of bandwidth to
the remote router or a lack of CPU resources in the remote router.
show ip bgp summary

To display the status of all BGP connections, use the show ip bgp summary EXEC command.
show ip bgp summary
This command has no arguments or keywords.

Monitoring BGP Neighbors
This topic describes the Cisco IOS command that is used to monitor BGP neighbors.
Monitoring BGP Neighbors
router>
show ip bgp neighbors ip-address
• Displays detailed neighbor information
You can use this command for two different purposes. The general purpose, as shown in the
figure, is to get information about the TCP session and the BGP parameters of the session. All
BGP session parameters are displayed. In addition, TCP timers and counters are also displayed.
The other use is not shown in this example. If any of the optional qualifiers referring to routes
or paths are given, the BGP routing information that was sent or received on this session is
displayed. This feature is useful when you are troubleshooting path selection.
show ip bgp neighbors

To display information about the TCP and BGP connections to neighbors, use the show ip bgp
neighbors EXEC command.
show ip bgp neighbors [address] [received-routes | routes | advertised-routes | {paths
regular-expression} | dampened-routes]
Syntax Description
address (Optional) Address of the neighbor whose routes you have

learned from.
If you omit this argument, all neighbors are displayed.
received-routes (Optional) Displays all received routes (both accepted and

rejected) from the specified neighbor.
routes (Optional) Displays all routes that are received and accepted.
This is a subset of the output from the received-routes keyword.
advertised-routes (Optional) Displays all the routes that the router has advertised to
the neighbor.
paths regular- (Optional) Regular expression that is used to match the paths
expression received.
dampened-routes (Optional) Displays the dampened routes to the neighbor at the

IP address specified.

Monitoring the BGP Table
This topic describes the Cisco IOS commands that are used to monitor the BGP routing table.
Monitoring the BGP Table
router>
show ip bgp
• Displays all routes in the BGP table in summary format
In most cases, when the show ip bgp command is given without optional qualifiers, the entire
BGP table is displayed. An abbreviated list of information about each route is displayed, one
line per prefix. The output is sorted in network number order. Therefore, if the BGP table
contains more than one route to the same network, the routes are displayed on successive lines.
The network number is printed on the first of these lines only. The following lines, which refer
to the same network, have the network number field left blank.
Some, but not all, of the BGP attributes that are associated with the route are displayed on the
line. Next-hop, multi-exit discriminator (MED) (displayed as “Metric”), local preference, and
weight each have their own columns. The AS-path attribute is displayed as the sequence of AS
numbers in the “Path” column. Immediately following the AS path, but not part of the AS-path
attribute, the origin attribute is displayed. The lowercase letter “i” means Interior Gateway
Protocol (IGP), “e” means exterior gateway protocol (EGP), and “?” means incomplete or
unknown.
The BGP path selection process selects one of the available routes to each of the networks as
the best. This route are pointed out by the character “>” in the left column.
show ip bgp
To display entries in the BGP routing table, use the show ip bgp EXEC command.
show ip bgp [network] [network-mask] [longer-prefixes]
Syntax Description
network (Optional) Network number, which is entered to display a

particular network in the BGP routing table
network-mask (Optional) Displays all BGP routes matching the address and
mask pair
longer-prefixes (Optional) Displays the network and its more specific networks or
prefixes.

Monitoring the BGP Table (Cont.)
router>
show ip bgp ip-prefix [mask subnet-mask]
• Displays detailed information about all paths for a single prefix
If more information and the complete set of BGP attributes are required, the show ip bgp
command should be entered with the network number on the command line. This command
displays all relevant BGP information about that specific network.
In this example, the information about network 11.0.0.0 is displayed. There are two routes to
11.0.0.0. One is received from neighbor 1.2.0.1 and the other from 1.1.0.1.
The BGP route selection process has selected the route via 1.2.0.1 as the best. This is thus the
route that BGP will try to install in the routing table. Installation of routes in the routing table is
made based on the administrative distance (AD).
Debugging BGP
This topic describes the Cisco IOS commands that are used to perform debugging of basic BGP
configurations.
Debugging BGP
router#
debug ip tcp transactions
• Displays all TCP transactions (start of session, session errors,

etc.)
router#
debug ip bgp events
• Displays significant BGP events (neighbor state transitions,

update runs)
If a BGP session stays in the Active state, where it is actively sending connection attempts to
the neighbor, debug ip tcp transactions can provide valuable information about failed
connection attempts. All TCP transactions in the router are displayed on the console as they
happen. The network administrator can then determine whether the TCP session is being
established, and, if not, what the probable cause of the problem might be.
If the TCP session succeeds but is torn down within a short period of time, you might find the
reason if you use debug ip bgp events. All BGP events will be displayed on the console as
they happen if this debug command is enabled.

Debugging BGP (Cont.)
router#
debug ip bgp keepalives
• Debugs BGP keepalive packets
router#
debug ip bgp updates
• Displays all incoming or outgoing BGP updates

• Use with caution
In a stable state with no network topology changes, no BGP updates are sent between
neighboring routers. When a BGP session has been idle for some time, the BGP protocol will
exchange keepalive packets between BGP neighbors. The keepalive timer has a default value of
60 seconds.
Use the debug ip bgp keepalives command to get a printout on the console for every keepalive
packet that is sent or received. Successful keepalive exchanges indicate that the session is
working and is in a stable state.
If no keepalives have been sent or received, the session might still be working. The reason for
not seeing any keepalives would be that the session is never idle long enough.
Use the debug ip bgp updates command to get a printout on the console for every update
message that is sent or received. The successful exchange of updates indicates that the session
is working and is not in the Idle state.
In a large network, updates are sent and received in large volumes. Starting the debug ip bgp
updates command might cause extensive output on the console. In some cases, the CPU
resources that are used to generate those outputs are so great that few CPU resources remain to
actually forward traffic. In a case with very busy BGP sessions, it is actually possible to set the
router in a condition where all CPU resources are consumed with the debugging printouts.
Debugging BGP (Cont.)
router#
debug ip bgp updates acl
• Displays all incoming or outgoing BGP updates for routes

matching an IP access-list
router#
debug ip bgp ip-address updates [acl]
• Displays all BGP updates received from or sent to a BGP

neighbor (optionally matching an IP access-list)
To avoid debug printouts for every update that is sent or received, you can create and associate
an access-list with the debug command. When you use this command, the console displays
only the updates that refer to a network number that is permitted by the access-list. The
command is extremely useful in a live network with busy BGP sessions where the
troubleshooter is interested only in updates for specific networks.
Indicating a specific neighbor can even further restrict the debugging. The console displays
only the updates on the session with the indicated neighbor. Optionally, you can combine this
debug command with an access-list.

BGP Session Startup Problems
This topic describes the most common session startup issues that you can experience when
configuring basic BGP.
BGP Session Startup Problems
Common BGP session startup symptoms:

• BGP neighbors do not become active.
• BGP neighbor is active, but the session is never established.
• BGP neighbor oscillates between idle and active.
There are a number of common BGP session startup symptoms:

A BGP neighbor never becomes active.
A BGP neighbor is active, but the BGP session is not established.
The BGP neighbor state oscillates between Idle and Active.
BGP Neighbor Not Reachable
This topic describes basic BGP troubleshooting for BGP session startup problems where the
neighbor is not reachable.
BGP Neighbor Not Reachable
Symptom:
• BGP neighbors do not become active.
– show ip bgp neighbors displays the neighbor state as Idle
for several minutes.
Diagnosis:
• Neighbor is not directly connected.
Verification:
• Verify with show ip route.
BGP sessions to a router in another AS should normally run across directly connected
interfaces (routers that share a common IP subnet). You must configure neighboring routers to
reach each other using the IP address belonging to this shared subnet so that no other routing
protocol is required to set up the BGP session.
If a router is configured with a BGP neighbor that is in another AS but not directly connected,
the session will stay in the Idle state. The router will not even attempt to set up the session.
The normal way to fix this problem is to change the neighbor reference so that it is referred by
an IP address that is directly connected. However, in some odd cases, the neighbor is
intentionally reachable using an interface that is not directly connected. In that rare case, the
local router must have routing information on how to reach that address. Also, you must
configure the BGP session with the ebgp-multihop option.
If the session goes into the Active state, the router will attempt to establish the session. If
session establishment is unsuccessful, you will have to troubleshoot the problem. The debug ip
tcp transactions command will display the connect attempts.

BGP Neighbor Not Reachable (Cont.)
Symptom:
• BGP neighbor is active; session is not established.
– debug ip tcp transactions display shows that
the TCP SYN packet is not answered with a
SYN-ACK packet.
Diagnosis:
• Neighbor is not reachable.
Verification:
• Verify connectivity with ping.
• Check for the presence of an access-list.
TCP session establishment starts with the router sending a TCP SYN packet. If the TCP SYN
packet is never answered, the remote router might be dead or not reachable. Try to use the ping
command and verify the existence of the remote router and the IP packet exchange between the
local and remote router.
Example: BGP Neighbor Not Reachable
In this example, the remote BGP router is not available.
BGP Neighbor Not Reachable (Cont.)
The sending router never receives the reply to the SYN packet and aborts the TCP session in
approximately 45 seconds (changing the state from synsent to closed).

BGP Neighbor Not Configured
This topic describes basic BGP troubleshooting for BGP session startup problems where the
neighbor is not configured.
BGP Neighbor Not Configured
Symptom:
• BGP neighbor is active; session is not established.
– debug ip tcp transactions display shows that the
TCP SYN packet is answered with an RST packet.
Diagnosis:
• This router is not configured as the BGP neighbor on the
neighboring router.
Verification:
• Check IP addresses of BGP neighbors with show ip bgp
summary on the neighboring router.
If the TCP SYN packet is answered with a TCP RST packet, the remote router is alive and
reachable but is not willing to grant the connection attempt. The reason for this refusal may be
that BGP has not been fully configured on the remote router or that the source IP address that is
used by the local router in the connection attempt is not in the list of valid neighbors for the
remote router.
Example: BGP Neighbor Not Configured
In this example, the remote router is not configured for BGP or there was a mismatch in the
neighbor IP addresses.
BGP Neighbor Not Configured (Cont.)
The remote router responds with an RST packet as soon as it receives the initial SYN packet,
terminating the BGP session.

BGP AS Number Mismatch
This topic describes basic BGP troubleshooting for BGP session startup problems where the AS
numbers are not properly configured.
BGP AS Number Mismatch
Symptom:
• BGP neighbor oscillates between Active and Idle.
– debug ip tcp transactions displays the TCP session being
established and torn down immediately.
Diagnosis:
• There is an AS number mismatch between BGP neighbors.
Verification:
• Verify the AS numbers configured for neighboring routers
using the show ip bgp summary on both routers.
If the TCP session is established using the specified three-way handshake of SYN, SYN-ACK,
and ACK, but the router drops the session after a short packet exchange, the BGP parameters
are mismatched. Make sure that the remote AS that is configured on the router matches the
local AS that is configured on the neighbor. If the AS numbers do not match, the router drops
the session after exchanging BGP Open messages.
Example: BGP AS Number Mismatch
This example illustrates a mismatch in an AS number.
BGP AS Number Mismatch (Cont.)
Whenever there is a mismatch in AS numbers (or any other BGP parameters that are necessary
for proper BGP operation), the BGP session is terminated with a BGP notification, and the TCP
session is terminated as well.

Summary
Summary
• The show ip bgp summary command displays the overall

status of BGP and shows configured neighbors and their
state.
• You can use the show ip bgp neighbors command to get more
in-depth information about a specific BGP neighbor.
• All entries in the BGP table can be displayed with the show ip
bgp command. You can also use show ip bgp to display an
extended printout about a specific route in the BGP table.
• You can use the debug ip tcp transactions command to
troubleshoot BGP session establishment problems. The
command debug ip bgp events displays significant BGP
events, while debug ip bgp updates displays the routing
information being exchanged between BGP neighbors.
Summary (Cont.)
• Three common BGP session startup symptoms are that BGP

neighbors never become active, that the BGP neighbor is
active but the BGP session is not established, and that the
BGP neighbor state oscillates between idle and active.
• If a router is configured with a BGP neighbor that is in
another AS but not directly connected, the session stays in
the Idle state.
• If a BGP neighbor is unreachable, no reply is sent for the TCP
SYN packet, causing the session to time out.
• If the TCP session is established using the three-way
handshake (SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK), but the session is
dropped after a short packet exchange, BGP parameters are
mismatched.
Module Summary
This topic summarizes the key points discussed in this module.
Module Summary
• BGP has reliable transport provided by TCP, a rich set of

metrics called BGP path attributes, and scalability features
such as batched updates that make it suitable for very large
networks.
• Configured BGP neighbors establish a TCP session and
exchange the BGP Open message, which contains the
parameters that each BGP router proposes to use.
• Some path attributes are well-known and should be
recognized by every BGP implementation. Some of the
well-known attributes, such as AS-path, next-hop, and
origin, are mandatory and have to be present in every BGP
update.
Module Summary (Cont.)
• The route selection process takes into account various

BGP attributes that are attached to the route, as well as
local decisions.
• When you are configuring BGP neighbors, you will
enable the BGP routing protocol process, establish
neighbors, and advertise local routes.
• To ensure that basic BGP configurations are operating
correctly, there are a number of Cisco IOS commands to
monitor the status of BGP, neighbor connections, and
the BGP table, as well as to troubleshoot the most
common BGP session startup issues.

This module presented an overview of BGP, a very robust and scalable routing protocol. The
first lesson covered the uses of BGP and its limitations. The second lesson moved to describing
the concept of BGP neighbors and the procedures for establishing neighbor sessions. Then, the
third lesson listed BGP path attributes and their functionality. The fourth lesson described
interdomain route processing. When you had the foundation of a general understanding of
BGP, the fifth lesson explained how to configure it. The module ended with a lesson that
identified the steps to monitor the operation of BGP and correct basic configuration errors.
References
For additional information, refer to these resources:
Cisco Systems, Inc. Border Gateway Protocol.
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ito_doc/bgp.htm.
Cisco Systems, Inc. Configuring BGP.
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios121/121cgcr/ip_c/ipcprt2/1c
dbgp.htm.
Cisco Systems, Inc. Using the Border Gateway Protocol for Interdomain Routing.
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ics/icsbgp4.htm.
Module Self-Check
Use the questions here to review what you learned in this module. The correct answers and
solutions are found in the Module Self-Check Answer Key.
Q1) Which three items are BGP enhancements to traditional distance vector routing
protocols? (Choose three.) (Source: Introducing BGP)
A) reliable updates
B) use of triggered updates only
C) enhanced security
D) rich metrics
E) route summarization
F) snapshot updates
Q2) Which protocol facilitates reliable update capabilities in BGP? (Source: Introducing
BGP)
A) TCP
B) UDP
C) HSRP
D) ICMP
Q3) What are three characteristics of an AS? (Choose three.) (Source: Introducing BGP)
A) uses IGPs for intradomain routing
B) uses EGPs for interdomain routing
C) is a collection of networks under a common administrative authority
D) consists of a group of network domains
E) automatically summarizes addresses
F) regulated by the IETF
Q4) Which three scenarios are common scenarios where BGP is used? (Choose three.)
(Source: Introducing BGP)
A) a customer with a connection to multiple service providers
B) service provider networks acting as transit systems and forwarding external
traffic through their network
C) a single-site customer intranet with complex administrative policies between
departments
D) as the core routing protocol in very large enterprise networks
E) as the routing protocol in an IS-IS backbone area
F) as the core routing protocol in an SNA network
Q5) What are three recommended BGP use guidelines for multihomed customer networks?
(Choose three.) (Source: Introducing BGP)
A) Most multihomed customers should use BGP with their service providers.
B) Most multihomed customers should forward routing information that is
received from one provider to the other provider.
C) The multihomed customer must have its own public AS number.
D) Multihomed customers should use a provider-independent, public address
space.
E) The multihomed customer may use and advertise RFC 1918 addresses.
F) Multihomed customers should use the AS number of their primary ISP.

Q6) What is a limitation of the BGP routing protocol? (Source: Introducing BGP)
A) You cannot use BGP to implement hop-by-hop routing policy controls.
B) You cannot use BGP to influence the routing policy in a downstream AS.
C) BGP cannot control forwarding of packets based on their destination address.
D) BGP cannot scale to very large networks with more than 110,000 routes.
Q7) Which three statements are true of BGP mandatory well-known attributes?
(Choose three.) (Source: Understanding BGP Path Attributes)
A) They must be present in all BGP updates.
B) All BGP-compliant implementations must recognize them.
C) All BGP-compliant routers must adhere to policies specified in mandatory
attributes.
D) All well-known attributes are propagated to other neighbors.
E) They must be present in some BGP updates.
Q8) Which three attributes are BGP mandatory well-known attributes? (Choose three.)
(Source: Understanding BGP Path Attributes)
A) next-hop
B) weight
C) AS-path
D) origin
E) MED
F) local preference
Q9) Which three possible values are assigned to the BGP origin attribute? (Choose three.)
A) IGP
B) EGP
C) unknown
D) internal
E) external
F) MED
Q10) Which nontransitive optional BGP attribute is useful in assisting with the route
selection process when multiple links to another AS exist? (Source: Understanding
BGP Path Attributes)
A) next-hop
B) local preference
C) MED
D) AS-path
Q11) In which two ways can the BGP next-hop attribute be modified? (Choose two.)
A) If the next-hop attribute is in the same IP subnet as the receiving router, the
attribute is unchanged; otherwise, it is set to the IP address of the sending
router.
B) The next-hop attribute is always set to the IP address of the sending router.
C) The next-hop attribute is modified only when BGP packets exit an AS.
D) The BGP next-hop attribute is modified only when BGP packets traverse point-
to-point links.
Q12) Which three statements regarding the BGP AS-path attribute are true? (Choose three.)
A) The local AS number is prepended to the AS path each time that the route
crosses an AS boundary.
B) The AS that originally injected the route into BGP is always found at the
rightmost end of the AS path.
C) The AS-path attribute can be used to avoid routing loops.
D) BGP routes with an empty AS path were injected into BGP from outside the
local AS.
E) The local AS number is appended to the end of the AS path each time that the
route crosses an AS boundary.
F) The AS that originally injected the route into BGP is always found at the
leftmost end of the AS path.
Q13) What is indicated by a state of “Idle” in the output of the show ip bgp summary
command? (Source: Establishing BGP Sessions)
A) The router is currently not attempting to establish a connection with a
neighbor.
B) The connection to the configured neighbor has timed out.
C) The connection to a BGP neighbor has been established, and no errors have
been received on the connection.
D) The connection to a BGP neighbor has been established, and no packets have
been sent.
Q14) What happens if two TCP connection attempts between configured BGP neighbors
succeed? (Source: Establishing BGP Sessions)
A) Both connections will be terminated, and the neighbors will re-establish a
neighbor relationship.
B) One connection will be maintained as primary and the other as backup.
C) One of the two connections will be torn down.
D) The router with the lower router-ID will determine if the second connection is
torn down or used as a backup TCP connection.
Q15) Given the following BGP session states:
1. OpenConfirm
2. Established
3. Idle
4. OpenSent
5. Active
What is their order of progression during the creation of a successful neighbor session?
(Source: Establishing BGP Sessions)
A) 5, 1, 4, 2, 3
B) 3, 4, 1, 5, 2
C) 5, 4, 1, 3, 2
D) 3, 5, 4, 1, 2

Q16) What does the field “TblVer” indicate in the output of the show ip bgp summary
command? (Source: Establishing BGP Sessions)
A) the current version of BGP in use by the router
B) the number of route prefixes that are contained in the BGP update of the router
C) BGP messages that have been received from that neighbor
D) the last version of the BGP database that was sent to that neighbor
Q17) What occurs when you use MD5 between two BGP neighbors? (Source: Establishing
BGP Sessions)
A) Every packet is encrypted with MD5.
B) The IP header is encrypted using MD5.
C) An MD5 checksum is calculated and sent with each packet so that its source
can be verified.
D) A username and password are embedded in an IP datagram that is matched to a
username and password on the remote neighbor.
Q18) What does a router that is running BGP do with a BGP update that contains its own AS
path? (Source: Processing BGP Routes)
A) The router checks to see whether the information that is contained in the update
is better than its current information. If it is, it will update its BGP table.
B) The router accepts the route update.
C) The router silently discards (denies) the route.
D) The router returns an error to the router that sent the update.
Q19) How many alternate paths to a single destination will a BGP router maintain in the
BGP table? (Source: Processing BGP Routes)
A) The router will maintain only the best path to the destination.
B) The router will maintain two paths, the best path and a backup route.
C) The BGP table will hold up to four routes by default and a maximum of six
configurable routes.
D) The BGP table will store all valid, advertised routes to the destination in the
BGP table.
Q20) When a router has more than one alternative route to reach the same IP subnet (network
and mask), the router has to select one of them as best in its default mode of operation
Match the following steps to the correct step in the process. (Source: Processing BGP
Routes)
A) The router compares MED values, but only if it receives the updates from the
same neighboring AS. Routes with a lower MED are preferred.
B) The router checks whether the next-hop attribute indicates an IP address that is
reachable according to the current routing table. If the next hop is not
reachable, the router does not consider the BGP route as a candidate to become
selected as the best. (Source: Processing BGP Routes)
C) The router prefers the route with the higher weight.
D) If the local preference attributes are different, the route with the highest value
is selected as best.
E) The lengths of the AS paths are compared (the content is not checked; only the
number of autonomous systems in each AS path is counted). The route with the
shortest length is selected.
F) If one of the routes is injected into the BGP table by the local router, the local
router prefers it to any routes that it receives from other BGP routers.
G) If the AS-path lengths are the same, the origin code is checked. BGP prefers
the path with the lowest origin type: IGP is lower than EGP, and EGP is lower
than Incomplete.
_____ 1. Step 1
_____ 2. Step 2
_____ 3. Step 3
_____ 4. Step 4
_____ 5. Step 5
_____ 6. Step 6
_____ 7. Step 7
Q21) What are two ways in which local networks are advertised into the BGP routing
protocol process? (Choose two.) (Source: Processing BGP Routes)
A) automatically, after a BGP neighbor session is established
B) manually, with the network command
C) through redistribution into the BGP process
D) by advertising them to the BGP table on the router after Cisco Discovery
Protocol discovers connected networks
Q22) What are two situations when is it appropriate to disable automatic summarization in
BGP? (Choose two.) (Source: Processing BGP Routes)
A) when BGP neighbors are not configured to advertise aggregate routes to
upstream providers
B) when the classless variant of the network command is used
C) when you are using a classless IGP in the AS
D) when the effects of automatic summarization of IGP-to-BGP redistribution are
not desired

Q23) What is the AD of BGP routes in the IP routing table that were learned from BGP
neighbors in a different AS? (Source: Processing BGP Routes)
A) 1
B) 20
C) 90
D) 120
Q24) Which three BGP attributes are displayed for each route in the BGP table when you are
using the show ip bgp command? (Choose three.) (Source: Processing BGP Routes)
A) weight
B) communities
C) origin
D) AS-path
Q25) What is the valid AS number range for a BGP process on a Cisco router? (Source:
Configuring Basic BGP)
A) 1 to 256
B) 1 to 32768
C) 1 to 65535
D) 1 to 131072
Q26) Which two parameters must you configure with the neighbor command to establish a
BGP session with an external neighbor? (Choose two.) (Source: Configuring Basic
BGP)
A) neighbor IP address
B) subnet mask of the IP network
C) remote AS number
D) local AS number
E) description of the neighbor
Q27) What is the best method to temporarily disable a BGP neighbor session? (Source:
A) remove the neighbor command from the BGP router process
B) remove the BGP router process from the configuration
C) terminate the neighbor connection with the neighbor shutdown command
D) disconnect the neighbor by initiating a router reload
Q28) Which two of the following statements about configuring BGP timers are accurate?
(Choose two.) (Source: Configuring Basic BGP)
A) Changing the BGP default holdtime and keepalive timers is usually not
recommended.
B) The neighbor timers command sets the timers for a specific BGP peer or peer
group.
C) The timers bgp command sets the timers for a specific BGP peer or peer
group.
D) Holdtime indicates the frequency (in seconds) with which the Cisco IOS
software sends messages to its peer.
Q29) Which two of the following are characteristics of the string component of the neighbor
{ip-address | peer-group-name} password string command? (Choose two.) (Source:
A) can contain any alphanumeric characters, including spaces
B) case-sensitive password of up to 100 characters
C) first character can be a number
D) cannot specify a password in the format “number-space-anything”
Q30) Which three steps must you complete to advertise a classless prefix into BGP?
(Choose three.) (Source: Configuring Basic BGP)
A) configure the prefix with the network command
B) specify the mask keyword with the locally advertised route
C) configure the redistribute connected command under the BGP router process
D) use a static route pointing to null 0 that matches the prefix
Q31) Which origin code is carried with routes that are redistributed into BGP? (Source:
A) internal
B) external
C) unknown
D) incomplete
Q32) Which two of the following statements about the classless behavior of BGP are
correct? (Choose two.) (Source: Configuring Basic BGP)
A) When an exact match is not found in the IP routing table a matching prefix is
automatically configured on the router.
B) In the network ip-prefix-address mask subnet-mask command, the prefix
does not have to match an entry in the IP routing table
C) To advertise classless networks into BGP (a subnet or a supernet), you can use
the network command with the mask keyword and the subnet mask specified.
D) If the keyword mask and the subnet mask are omitted, the network is assumed
to have its natural mask according to the network class.
Q33) What are two benefits of using route aggregation in BGP? (Choose two.) (Source:
A) It ensures that even if aggregate networks are down, the aggregate is
advertised, which eliminates black holes.
B) It reduces the amount of memory that is used in the router to store the BGP
table.
C) It reduces route flapping and its effects on router CPU resources.
D) BGP attribute granularity is maintained, which ensures optimal path selection.
Q34) Which two of the following are characteristics of the BGP Conditional Route Injection
feature? (Choose two.) (Source: Configuring Basic BGP)
A) allows you to originate a prefix into a BGP routing table without the
corresponding match
B) enabled with the bgp inject-map exist-map command
C) allows conditional injecting or replacing more specific prefixes with less
specific prefixes
D) allows origination of a prefix into a BGP routing table only with the
corresponding match

Q35) Which two of the following are characteristics of the BGP Support for TTL Security
Check feature? (Choose two.) (Source: Configuring Basic BGP)
A) should be configured on only one participating router
B) prevents BGP sessions from expiring even if keepalive packets are not received
before the session timer expires
C) protects the EBGP peering session by comparing the value in the TTL field of
received IP packets against a hop count that is configured locally for each
EBGP peering session.
D) supports both directly connected peering sessions and multihop EBGP peering
sessions
Q36) Which two of the following are functions of the show ip bgp summary command?
(Choose two.) (Source: Monitoring and Troubleshooting BGP)
A) displays BGP memory use
B) displays BGP neighbors and status of communication with them
C) locates problems in BGP sessions that are up and established
D) displays the BGP routing table
Q37) Which command do you use to display detailed BGP neighbor information? (Source:
Monitoring and Troubleshooting BGP)
A) show ip bgp summary
B) show ip bgp
C) show ip bgp neighbors address
D) show ip bgp detail
Q38) Which two of the following statements about the show ip bgp command that is used to
monitor the BGP routing table are accurate? (Choose two.) (Source: Monitoring and
Troubleshooting BGP)
A) The show ip bgp command shows an abbreviated list of information about
each route, displaying one line per prefix.
B) The show ip bgp command shows a full list of information about each route,
displaying one line per prefix.
C) All of the BGP attributes that are associated with the route are displayed on the
line.
D) If the BGP table contains more than one route to the same network, the routes
are displayed on successive lines of the command output.
Q39) Which debug command should you enable to troubleshoot BGP session startup issues
where the TCP connection never succeeds? (Source: Monitoring and Troubleshooting
BGP)
A) ip bgp updates
B) ip packets
C) ip bgp keepalives
D) ip tcp transactions
Q40) What are the three most common session startup issues that you can experience when
configuring basic BGP? (Choose three.) (Source: Monitoring and Troubleshooting
BGP)
A) BGP neighbors do not become active.
B) BGP routing loops cause black holes.
C) A BGP neighbor is active, but the BGP session is not established.
D) The BGP neighbor state oscillates between Idle and Active.
E) The BGP session is active, but the neighbor cannot be reached.
F) BGP keepalives experience intermittent failures.
Q41) What is the most common reason for a BGP session not leaving the Idle state? (Source:
Monitoring and Troubleshooting BGP)
A) The TCP port for the connection is not configured.
B) The external neighbor is not directly connected.
C) The TCP SYN packet is answered with an RST packet.
D) The neighbors have been configured with the same AS number.
Q42) What will result from attempting to open a BGP connection with a neighbor that has
not been properly configured for BGP? (Source: Monitoring and Troubleshooting
BGP)
A) The BGP session will remain in the Idle state.
B) The neighbor session will be established, and the session startup parameters
will be negotiated over the TCP session.
C) The BGP session will be immediately terminated with a TCP RST packet.
D) The BGP session will become “stuck in Active state.”
Q43) When a BGP neighbor oscillates between Active and Idle, what is the likely diagnosis?
(Source: Monitoring and Troubleshooting BGP)
A) There are mismatched keepalive intervals.
B) There is an AS number mismatch between BGP neighbors.
C) One router is not configured as the BGP neighbor on the neighboring router.
D) The BGP neighbor is not reachable.

Module Self-Check Answer Key
Q1) A, B, D
Q2) A
Q3) A, B, C
Q4) A, B, D
Q5) A, C, D
Q6) B
Q7) A, B, D
Q8) A, C, D
Q9) A, B, C
Q10) C
Q11) A, B
Q12) A, B, C
Q13) A
Q14) C
Q15) D
Q16) D
Q17) C
Q18) C
Q19) D
Q20) A-7, B-1, C-2, D-3, E-5, F-4, G-6
Q21) B, C
Q22) B, D
Q23) B
Q24) A, C, D
Q25) C
Q26) A, C
Q27) C
Q28) A, B
Q29) A, D
Q30) A, B, D
Q31) D
Q32) C, D
Q33) B, C
Q34) A, B
Q35) C, D
Q36) A, B
Q37) C
Q38) B, D
Q39) D
Q40) A, C, D
Q41) B
Q42) C
Q43) B
Module 2
BGP Transit Autonomous

Systems
Overview
This module is one of the focal points of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) curriculum: a
discussion of BGP issues in a transit autonomous system (AS). The module covers basic BGP
transit AS issues, ranging from synchronization between an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP)
and BGP to Internal Border Gateway Protocol (IBGP) full-mesh and next-hop requirements.
Module Objectives
Upon completing this module, you will be able to use BGP policy controls to influence the
BGP route selection process in a network scenario in which you must support connections to
multiple ISPs. This ability includes being able to meet these objectives:
Describe the function of a transit AS and the need for IBGP
Describe the interaction in a transit AS between EBGP and IBGP in relation to relevant
attributes
Describe the function of an IGP in forwarding packets through an AS
Configure an AS to act as a transit backbone in a BGP network
Verify proper operation of a configured BGP transit network by performing the steps
necessary to correct basic IBGP configuration errors
Lesson 1
Working with a Transit AS
Overview
All transit autonomous systems are required to carry traffic originating from or destined for
locations outside of that autonomous system (AS). For the transit AS to meet this requirement,
a degree of interaction and coordination between Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and the
Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) that is used by that particular AS is necessary. Such a
configuration requires special care to ensure consistency of routing information throughout the
AS.
The topology of the Internet can be viewed as a series of connections between stub networks,
multihomed networks, and transit autonomous systems. A multihomed AS containing more
than one connection to the outside world and allowing traffic not originating in that AS to
travel through it is a transit AS. This lesson introduces the concept of the multihomed transit
AS and how BGP exchanges routing information inside the AS and between neighboring
autonomous systems. It also explains the requirement for Internal Border Gateway Protocol
(IBGP) within the multihomed transit AS.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to describe the function of a transit AS and the
need for IBGP. This ability includes being able to meet these objectives:
List the functions of a transit AS
Describe external route propagation between autonomous systems in a BGP network
Describe internal route propagation within a BGP AS
Explain how transiting packets are forwarded inside a transit AS
Explain the need for deploying IBGP on all core routers
Transit AS Tasks
This topic describes the functions of a transit AS.
Transit AS Tasks
• Propagate routes between remote autonomous systems

• Route packets between remote networks
Routers in a transit AS have to perform two tasks:

Receive routing information updates about reachable networks from neighboring
autonomous systems, propagate the information through their own AS, and send it to other
neighboring autonomous systems.
Forward IP packets that they have received from a neighboring AS through their own AS to
a downstream neighboring AS. The routers in the transit AS perform this task using the
routing information that they have received as part of the first task.
External Route Propagation
This topic describes external route propagation between autonomous systems in a BGP
network.
External Route Propagation
Two autonomous systems usually exchange routing information about reachable networks
using BGP. There is currently no alternative routing protocol that has the scalability and
security characteristics of BGP.
In the figure, the BGP session between R-12 and RTR-A is called an External Border Gateway
Protocol (EBGP) session because R-12 and RTR-A are in different autonomous systems.
BGP routing information updates consist of the network address, subnet mask, and any number
of BGP attributes. No other routing protocol provides the same richness of route attributes as
BGP. Translating BGP route attribute information into any other protocol would likely cause a
loss of information. Therefore, the EBGP information that RTR-A receives is not translated; it
is just forwarded to other BGP-speaking routers (RTR-D in the figure) within the AS.
Likewise, RTR-D has BGP information and can propagate it to R-14 in AS 14 over the EBGP
session.
EBGP sessions are, in general, established between directly connected neighbors. BGP-
speaking routers, therefore, need no additional routing information to establish a session.
© 2005, Cisco Systems, Inc. BGP Transit Autonomous Systems 2-5

Internal Route Propagation
This topic describes internal route propagation within a BGP AS.
Internal Route Propagation
In this example, the BGP session between RTR-A and RTR-D, which are both in the same AS,
is an IBGP session.
IBGP sessions are, in general, established between distant routers in the same AS. These
routers need additional routing information to establish the session, because there is no
requirement that IBGP neighbors be directly connected. This information typically comes from
the IGP, which is running within the AS independently of BGP.
Packet Forwarding in an AS
This topic describes how transiting packets are forwarded inside a transit AS.
Packet Forwarding in an AS
In this example, after AS 14 has received the routing information about reachable networks
inside AS 12, IP packets can start to flow (in the figure, from AS 14 toward AS 12). R-14, the
egress router in AS 14, forwards IP packets with destinations in AS 12 toward RTR-D,
according to information received through EBGP.
RTR-D now uses the IBGP information that it received from RTR-A and forwards the packets
in the direction of RTR-A, which in this case means via RTR-C.
When the IP packets reach RTR-C, the router checks its routing table for a matching entry, but
it fails to find one. The packet is dropped because the destination network is unreachable from
the perspective of RTR-C.
This situation is, of course, unacceptable. To prevent dropped packets resulting from
unreachable networks, RTR-C must also have routing information about the networks
reachable inside AS 12. The same information that RTR-D received from RTR-A over the
IBGP session must be propagated to RTR-C.
Note RTR-B has the same network reachability requirements as RTR-C, because RTR-D could
forward the packets via RTR-B as well as via RTR-C.

Core Router IBGP Requirements in a Transit AS
This topic describes the need for deploying IBGP on all core routers.
Core Router IBGP Requirements in a

Transit AS
• All core routers must have all external routes.

• Core routers must receive BGP routes.
– Redistribution of BGP routes into IGP is not scalable.
– Default routing is not applicable in transit
AS core.
Within a transit AS, all routers that are in a theoretical transit path between external
destinations should have information about all external routes that are received from any
neighboring AS. If a single router on a transit path does not have this information, there is
always a possibility that an IP packet that is received from a neighboring AS will not be able to
be forwarded by that router through the transit AS. The router lacking routing information
about the final destination of the IP packet drops it into what effectively becomes a black hole.
The only feasible way for the router to distribute all external routing information is by using
IBGP. Redistribution of the EBGP routes into an IGP is not viable because no IGP can carry
the volume of information that BGP currently carries in the Internet.
Note The risk of losing information during redistribution of EBGP routes into an IGP is not the
reason why BGP is used to update intermediate routers in the transit path instead of an IGP.
Redistribution into an IGP is not used because of the scalability issues that would arise from
doing so.
Default routing or a gateway of last resort cannot be used by routers within the transit path
when transit services are provided to other autonomous systems. If some routes were to be
filtered out and the default route used instead, full routing flexibility would be lost. The transit
AS would not be able to forward packets to all destinations at all times. In fact, routing loops
and black holes might be easily introduced.
Summary
Summary
• Routers in a transit AS receive routing information updates

from neighboring autonomous systems, propagate the
information through their own AS, and send it to other
neighboring autonomous systems.
• Two autonomous systems usually exchange routing
information over an EBGP session.
• A BGP session between two routers in the same AS is called
an IBGP session.
• For packets to be properly forwarded in a transit AS, all
routers must have external routing information.
• The only feasible method of distributing external routing
information to all routers in the transit AS is through IBGP.

Lesson 2
Interacting with IBGP and

EBGP in a Transit AS
Overview
Configuring a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) network in a transit services configuration
requires special care to ensure consistency of routing information throughout the autonomous
system (AS). Understanding the interaction between External Border Gateway Protocol
(EBGP) and Internal Border Gateway Protocol (IBGP) is crucial to successfully configuring
and troubleshooting the transit autonomous network.
This lesson introduces the requirements of IBGP and describes how routers residing in the
transit AS process the next-hop attribute. Changes to the normal processing of the next-hop
attribute are also described in this lesson. The lesson concludes with a comparison between
EBGP and IBGP.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to describe the interaction in a transit AS
between EBGP and IBGP in relation to relevant attributes. This ability includes being able to
meet these objectives:
Describe AS-path processing in IBGP
Describe BGP multipath load sharing
Explain the need for BGP split horizon
Explain the need for a full-mesh topology between IBGP routers and the implications of
that need
List the benefits of establishing IBGP neighbor sessions using loopback interfaces
Describe next-hop processing in IBGP
Explain why all EBGP peers must be reachable by all BGP-speaking routers within the AS
Describe how to configure edge routers to announce themselves as the next hop in IBGP
updates
Describe the differences between EBGP and IBGP sessions
AS-Path Processing in IBGP
This topic describes AS-path processing in IBGP.
AS-Path Processing in IBGP
All BGP routing updates carry the mandatory well-known attribute AS-path, which lists the
autonomous systems that the routing update has already crossed.
When a router originates a BGP prefix (network X in this example), the AS path is empty.
Whenever a BGP prefix is announced over an EBGP session, the AS number of the router that
is sending the information is prepended to the AS path. In the example, R-12 inserts “12” in the
AS path before forwarding the routing update to RTR-A.
The AS path is not changed when the BGP prefix is propagated across IBGP sessions because
the routing update has not crossed an AS boundary. In the figure, RTR-A forwards the
information over an IBGP session to RTR-D with the AS path unchanged. The AS-path
information about network X will be the same in all routers within AS 42, because all the
routers are updated using IBGP sessions from RTR-A.
When RTR-D forwards the information about network X to R-14, RTR-D prepends its own AS
number (42) to the AS path. Thus, R-14 receives the routing information about network X with
an AS-path attribute of “42 12.”
Multipath Load Sharing in BGP
This topic describes multipath load sharing in BGP.
Multipath Load Sharing in BGP
When a BGP-speaking router with no local policy configured receives Network Layer
Reachability Information (NLRI) from multiple IBGP sources for the same destination, the
router chooses one IBGP path as the best path. The best path is then installed in the IP routing
table of the router. For example, the figure illustrates that with three paths to AS 200, router 2
determines that one of the paths to AS 200 is the best path and uses only this path to reach AS
200.
The IBGP multipath load-sharing feature enables the BGP-speaking router to select multiple
IBGP paths as the best paths to a destination. The best paths, or multipaths, are then installed in
the IP routing table of the router.

Multipath Load Sharing in BGP (Cont.)
For example, on router 2 in the figure, the paths to routers 3, 4, and 5 are configured as
multipaths and can be used to reach AS 200, equally sharing the load to AS 200.
For multiple paths to the same destination to be considered as multipaths, the following criteria
must be met:
All attributes must be the same. The attributes include weight, local preference, AS path
(entire attribute and not just length), origin code, multi-exit discriminator (MED), and IGP
distance.
The next hop router for each multipath must be different.
Even if the criteria are met and multiple paths are considered multipaths, the BGP-speaking
router still designates one of the multipaths as the best path and advertises this best path to its
neighbors.
Configuring multiple IBGP best paths enables a router to evenly share the traffic destined for a
particular site.
maximum-paths ibgp
To control the maximum number of parallel internal BGP routes that can be installed in a
routing table, use the maximum-paths ibgp command in router configuration mode.
maximum-paths ibgp maximum-number
To disable this feature, use the no form of this command.

no maximum-paths ibgp
Syntax Description
maximum-number A number from 1 to 6.
The maximum number of parallel routes that an IP routing

protocol installs in a routing table.

BGP Split Horizon
This topic explains the need for BGP split horizon as a mechanism to prevent routing loops.
BGP Split Horizon
Result: Full mesh of IBGP sessions is required for proper

IBGP update propagation.
All routers within an AS must make routing decisions in a consistent way. They must have
access to the same routing information with the same attributes in order to come to the same
conclusion about which exit point of the AS to use. In other words, the BGP attributes should
not be changed within the AS.
The AS-path attribute is not changed over an IBGP session, because the BGP update has not
crossed the AS boundary. However, the AS-path attribute is the primary means of detecting
routing information loops—a BGP router that encounters its own AS in the AS path of an
incoming BGP update silently ignores the information. Because the AS path is modified by
BGP-speaking routers only on EBGP sessions, this loop-preventing mechanism is useful
between autonomous systems only, not within them.
Routing information loops within the AS are prevented by IBGP split horizon—routing
information that is received through an IBGP session is never forwarded to another IBGP
neighbor, only toward EBGP neighbors. Because of BGP split horizon, no router can relay
IBGP information within the AS—all routers must be directly updated from the border router
that received the EBGP update.
IBGP Full Mesh
This topic describes the need for a full-mesh topology between IBGP routers and the
implications of this need.
IBGP Full Mesh
• Full mesh of IBGP sessions has to be established between all BGP-speaking

routers in the AS for proper IBGP route propagation.
• The IBGP full mesh is a logical mesh of TCP sessions only; physical full mesh
is not required.
Because every router on the transit path within the AS must have routing information about all
external networks that are received by any of the border routers, RTR-B and RTR-C must lave
IBGP sessions to all border routers. This level of communication is not enough, though,
because any of the internal routers could also create new BGP routing information (for
example, originate a customer network). These updates must also reach all the routers within
the AS. The conclusion is that all BGP routers within an AS must have IBGP sessions with
every other BGP router in the AS, resulting in a full mesh of BGP sessions between BGP-
speaking routers in an AS.
In the network shown in the figure, RTR-A must have IBGP sessions with RTR-B, RTR-C, and
RTR-D to propagate routes that are received from AS 12 to all routers within AS 42. Similarly,
RTR-D must have IBGP sessions with RTR-A, RTR-B, and RTR-C to be able to propagate
routes that are received from AS 14 to all routers within AS 42.
Note The IBGP session between RTR-B and RTR-C is not strictly necessary for proper forwarding
of IP packets between external destinations. It does become mandatory if RTR-B or RTR-C
starts to originate BGP networks. To prevent potential future connectivity issues, it is a good
practice to establish a full mesh of IBGP sessions regardless of whether they are needed at
the time of network deployment or not.
The IGP that runs within AS 42 provides enough information to any BGP router within AS 42
to send IP packets to any other router in the AS. Having enough router reachability information
makes it possible to establish IBGP sessions between routers even though they are not
physically connected. The IBGP full mesh is a logical full mesh of TCP sessions and will run
on an arbitrary physical topology.

Example: IBGP Full Mesh
The figure illustrates IBGP split-horizon and IBGP full-mesh principles in a sample network.
IBGP Full Mesh Example
R-12 is sending an update to RTR-A over an EBGP session. Updates that are received on an
EBGP session should be forwarded on all other IBGP sessions, so RTR-A updates RTR-B,
RTR-C, and RTR-D. All routers within AS 42 are updated directly by RTR-A.
RTR-B and RTR-C are prevented from forwarding the update that they received from RTR-A
because of BGP split horizon.
RTR-D, which received the information on an IBGP session, is prevented from updating
RTR-B and RTR-C because of the same split-horizon rule. But RTR-D will update R-14 over
an EBGP session.
IBGP Neighbors
This topic lists the benefits of establishing IBGP neighbor sessions using loopback interfaces.
IBGP Neighbors
• Because of IBGP full-mesh requirements, IBGP neighbors are

usually not directly connected.
• Which interfaces should be chosen as the source and
destination addresses of IBGP TCP sessions?
In the figure, the transit AS 42 has a redundant physical topology. The IGP provides
reachability information for all routers and networks within AS 42, allowing all routers in the
AS to establish IBGP sessions to all other routers, even if the routers are not directly connected.
If the IBGP session between RTR-A and RTR-D was established using IP addresses that
belong to the physical WAN interfaces, the IBGP session would go down if either of the WAN
interfaces went down. As a result, the router would tear down the TCP session that is used for
BGP between the routers because the IP address of an interface that is in the down state is
invalid. Subsequently, all IP packets that are received with a destination address pointing to that
interface will also be dropped.
Network designers must be careful during the network design and implementation phase that
those IBGP sessions remain established for as long as the two BGP routers have any usable
path between them.

IBGP Neighbors (Cont.)
Always run IBGP sessions between loopback

interfaces.
• IBGP sessions can always be established, even if some
physical interfaces are down.
• IBGP sessions are stable—physical interface failure will not
tear down IBGP sessions.
• There is no BGP recovery after a failure inside the transit AS.
– The configured IGP will re-establish the path between
loopback interfaces.
– IBGP sessions are not affected.
The best choice when you are configuring IBGP sessions is to establish each session between
loopback interfaces on each BGP router.
To establish BGP connectivity between the loopback interfaces, the IP addresses of these
interfaces have to be reachable by both routers. It is important that the IGP carry information
about the subnets that are assigned to each loopback interface so that the interfaces are
reachable by all BGP routers in the AS.
The IBGP sessions that are established between loopback interfaces have increased stability.
These sessions will not go down if a single physical interface goes down. As long as the IGP
can find any path between the two routers, the IBGP session will remain up. BGP will not
notice that the IGP has changed the traffic path between the two routers.
Note Because BGP sessions run over TCP, they can survive even a short loss of connectivity
between BGP routers with no impact to the BGP routing protocol. The only requirement
placed on the IGP is that the network must converge before the BGP keepalive timer
expires.
IBGP Next-Hop Processing
This topic describes how the next-hop attribute is processed in IBGP.
IBGP Next-Hop Processing
Every BGP update carries the mandatory well-known attribute next-hop, which specifies the IP
address that should be used by the router as the forwarding next hop for packets sent toward the
announced destination address. In most cases, the next hop is set to the IP address that the
sending router is using as its source IP address for EBGP sessions. The receiving BGP router
will use the information and route IP packets toward the announced destination via the
indicated next hop, which is normally directly connected.
The next-hop attribute is not changed on IBGP updates, meaning that when the border router
forwards the BGP update on IBGP sessions, the next-hop address is still set to the IP address of
the far end of the EBGP session. Therefore, the receiver of IBGP updates will see the next-hop
information indicating a destination that is not directly connected. To resolve this problem, the
router will check its routing table and see if and how it can reach the next-hop address. The
router can then route IP packets with destination addresses matching the network in the BGP
update in the same direction as it would have routed an IP packet with a destination address
equal to the IP address stated in the next-hop attribute. This process is known as recursive
routing.
In the figure, R-12 sends a BGP update about network X. Because it is sending this update over
an EBGP session to RTR-A, the next-hop attribute is set to the IP address that is used at the
R-12 side of the EBGP session, 1.0.0.1.
RTR-A can use this information and route packets to network X by forwarding them to R-12.
RTR-A also forwards the BGP update over all its IBGP sessions. It does not change the next-
hop attribute, so RTR-B, RTR-C, and RTR-D get information that they can reach network X by
forwarding packets to 1.0.0.1. But that IP address is not directly connected, so the routers must

look in their routing tables to see if and how they can reach 1.0.0.1. If the recursive route
lookup is successful, each router can then route packets to network X in the same direction as it
would route packets to 1.0.0.1.
RTR-D also forwards the BGP update about network X to R-14. The connection between these
routers is an EBGP session, meaning that RTR-D sets the next-hop attribute to its own IP
address, 3.0.0.2, which is used by RTR-D on the EBGP session toward R-14.
Transit Network Using External Next Hops
This topic describes why all EBGP peers must be reachable by all BGP-speaking routers within
the transit AS.
Transit Network Using

External Next Hops
• All EBGP peers must be reachable by all

BGP-speaking routers within the AS.
• EBGP next hops shall be announced using
the IGP.
– Redistribute connected interfaces into the IGP at the edge
routers.
or
– Include links to EBGP neighbors into the IGP and
configure them as passive interfaces.
All BGP-speaking routers within the AS get information about external networks with the next-
hop attribute, which is set to the far end of the EBGP sessions reaching the border routers of the
AS.
Routers use a recursive routing mechanism when they determine how to forward IP packets
toward external destinations. When BGP routes are used in the routing table, the router checks
how it would have reached the next-hop address, and it installs the BGP route with the same
forwarding indication as for the route that is used to reach the next-hop IP address.
To get the recursive routing to work, the router must resolve all possible next-hop references
that use information in the routing table, which is already there. The IGP that is used within the
AS must carry this information.
One way of making the IGP carry the information that is necessary to resolve the BGP next-
hop addresses is to make sure that all the border routers, which contain the EBGP sessions,
redistribute connected subnets into the IGP using the redistribute connected routing protocol
configuration command. Because EBGP sessions are established between routers using a
directly connected interface, the far end of the EBGP sessions is an IP address within the
directly connected subnet. By redistributing the connected interfaces into the IGP, the border
routers allow next-hop references to be resolvable by all routers within the AS.
External subnets that are redistributed into the IGP might appear as external IGP routes,
depending on what IGP is configured within the AS. There are several scalability issues that are
associated with external routes in some routing protocols. For example, Open Shortest Path
First (OSPF) carries each external subnet in a separate link-state advertisement (LSA) object. If

route redistribution is not desirable for any reason, an alternative method is to include the
subnet on which the EBGP session is running in the IGP configuration using the network
command. To prevent the border router from exchanging IGP routing with the border router of
the other AS, you must configure the interface as a passive interface. Failure to do so could
cause the two autonomous systems to exchange routes using the IGP. In that case, all benefits
of having separate autonomous systems would be lost.
Transit Network Using Edge Routers as Next
Hops
This topic describes how to configure edge routers to announce themselves as the next hop in
IBGP updates.
Transit Network Using Edge

Routers as Next Hops
• Alternate design: Next-hop processing is modified at the edge

routers.
– Edge routers announce themselves as the next hop in IBGP
updates.
– No redistribution of external subnets is necessary.
– This design might result in suboptimal routing if multiple paths
to a neighboring AS exist.
• Use default next-hop processing if at all possible.
The next-hop attribute is usually not modified by an IBGP peer when the BGP update is
propagated across IBGP sessions. However, you could configure the BGP router to have a
different behavior and set its IP address as the next-hop address even when the BGP updates
are sent across IBGP sessions (emulating behavior on EBGP sessions). If you do configure an
IBGP router to emulate the behavior of EBGP sessions on the IBGP sessions of the border
routers, the BGP updates that are received on the EBGP sessions will be forwarded on the
IBGP sessions and the next-hop attribute will be set to the IP address that is used on the local
side of the IBGP session. The original next hop, set by the far end of the EBGP session, will be
lost.
The receiver of the IBGP information will do recursive routing in the normal way. But the next-
hop address that is used will be the IP address of the far end of the IBGP session, because the
border router has changed it. The IP address of the far-end IBGP peer is always known in the
routing table; otherwise, the IBGP session would not have been established. There is no need
for the receiver of the IBGP information to have knowledge of how to reach the far end of the
EBGP session, because that IP address is no longer set as the next hop.

Routers as Next Hops (Cont.)
neighbor ip-address next-hop-self
• Changes next-hop processing at edge routers

• Bypasses the BGP next-hop processing and announces the
local IP address as the BGP next hop in outgoing updates sent
to the specified neighbor
• Has to be set on all IBGP neighbors to fully bypass IBGP next-
hop processing
neighbor next-hop-self
To configure the router as the next hop for a BGP-speaking neighbor or peer group, use the
neighbor next-hop-self router configuration command.
neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} next-hop-self
To disable this feature, use the no form of this command.

no neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} next-hop-self
Syntax Description
ip-address IP address of the BGP-speaking neighbor
Example: Transit Network Using Edge Routers as Next Hops
In the figure, the next-hop-self configuration has been used on all IBGP sessions.

Routers as Next Hops Example
The next-hop attribute is normally not changed on IBGP updates. When the border router
forwards the incoming EBGP update over an outgoing IBGP session, the border router changes
the next-hop address to the IP address that is used as the source address of the IBGP session.
The receiver of IBGP updates will see next-hop information that indicates a destination, which
might not be directly connected. To resolve this problem, it will check its routing table and see
if and how the next-hop address can be reached. Then it will route IP packets with destination
addresses that match the network in the BGP update in the same direction as it would have
routed an IP packet with the destination address equal to the IP address in the next-hop
attribute. In this case, it is obvious that the next-hop address can be reached, because the IBGP
session would not have been established otherwise.
In the figure, R-12 sends a BGP update about network X. Because it is sending a BGP update
over an EBGP session to RTR-A, the next-hop attribute is set to the IP address that is used at
the R-12 side of the EBGP session, 1.0.0.1. RTR-A can use this information and route packets
to network X by forwarding them to R-12.
RTR-A also forwards the BGP update on all its IBGP sessions. It changes the next-hop
attribute to the IP address of its own loopback interface, so RTR-B, RTR-C, and RTR-D will
get information that they can reach network X by forwarding packets to 2.0.0.7. But that
address is not directly connected. The routers will inspect the routing table to see if and how
they can reach 2.0.0.7. They can then route packets to network X in the same direction that they
would use to route packets to 2.0.0.7.
RTR-D also forwards the BGP update about network X to R-14. This is an EBGP session,
which means that RTR-D will set the next-hop attribute to its own IP address that is used on
that EBGP session, 3.0.0.2.

Differences Between EBGP and IBGP Sessions
This topic describes the differences between EBGP and IBGP sessions.
Differences Between EBGP and

IBGP Sessions
• No BGP attributes are changed in IBGP updates.

• Because of BGP split horizon, routes learned from an IBGP
peer are not advertised to other IBGP peers.
• Local preference is propagated only over IBGP sessions.
• EBGP peers are directly connected; IBGP peers are usually
distant.
• Route selection rules slightly prefer EBGP routes.
Both EBGP and IBGP sessions forward BGP updates; however, they do it in slightly different
ways:
The router does not change BGP attributes when an update is sent across an IBGP session,
unless next-hop-self is configured. When a BGP-speaking router sends an update across an
EBGP session, the next-hop attribute is always set and the AS number of the router is
prepended to the AS-path attribute.
IBGP uses split horizon to prevent routing information loops. EBGP does not use split
horizon and instead uses the AS path to detect loops. In both cases, a router forwards only
the best route and never sends a route back on the session from which it was received. But
IBGP split-horizon rules also prohibit a router from forwarding any information that is
received on an IBGP session to another IBGP session.
IBGP border routers remove the local preference attribute from a BGP route before the
BGP update is sent over an EBGP session. This difference means that the local preference
attribute is distributed on IBGP sessions only.
Two routers with an EBGP session between them normally establish the session using the
IP addresses from a common, shared subnet. Using the shared subnet to establish the
session guarantees that the two routers can exchange IP packets without any IGP running
between them. Also, recursive routing will always succeed because the next-hop address is
reachable using a directly connected route.
IBGP sessions are normally established between all routers in the AS in a full mesh. But all
routers in an AS might not have physical connections to every other router within the AS.
Because IBGP sessions are established between routers using IP addresses of different
subnets, an IGP must be running within the AS in order to establish IBGP sessions.
BGP route selection rules slightly favor EBGP routes over equivalent IBGP routes.
Example: Differences Between EBGP and IBGP Sessions
This example illustrates the preference of the EBGP route.
Differences Between EBGP and

IBGP Sessions Example
• Whenever identical routes are received from IBGP and EBGP peers,
the route from the EBGP peer is preferred.
One of the default goals of transit packet forwarding is to propagate the transit packet toward
the downstream AS as soon as possible. A border router that receives otherwise equivalent
routes to the same destination over both an EBGP session and an IBGP session will prefer the
information that is received through the EBGP session.
Note Equivalent routes are routes that have equal BGP path attributes used in the BGP route
selection rules (weight, local preference, AS-path length, origin, MED).
In the figure, the upper router in AS 42 receives BGP updates about network 10.0.0.0/8 over
two different paths. One update is received over the EBGP session to AS 12. The other update
is received over the IBGP session to the lower router in AS 42. All essential attributes are the
same, so route selection cannot be made easily.
The upper router in AS 42 realizes that IP packets with destination addresses within network
10.0.0.0/8 should sooner rather than later leave AS 42. It is better to make them leave the AS
right away. So the update that was received on the EBGP session is preferred over the update
that was received on the IBGP session.

Summary
Summary
• All BGP routing updates carry the mandatory well-known attribute

AS-path, which lists the autonomous systems that the routing
update has already crossed. The AS-path attribute is not changed
when the BGP prefix is propagated across IBGP sessions.
• The IBGP multipath load sharing feature enables the BGP speaking
router to select multiple IBGP paths as the best paths to a
destination. The best paths, or multipaths, are then installed in the
IP routing table of the router.
• Routing information loops within the AS are prevented by IBGP split
horizon—routing information that is received through an IBGP
session is never forwarded to another IBGP neighbor, only toward
EBGP neighbors.
• All BGP routers within an AS must have IBGP sessions with every
other BGP router in the AS, resulting in a full mesh of BGP
sessions.
Summary (Cont.)
• For recursive routing to work, a router must resolve all

possible next-hop references that use information in the
routing table. The IGP that is used in the AS must carry this
information.
• For stability, the best choice when you are configuring IBGP
sessions is to establish the session between loopback
interfaces of BGP routers.
• The next-hop attribute is typically set to the IP address that
the sending router is using as its source IP address for an
EBGP session. Recursive routing is done to resolve the next
hop inside an AS because the next-hop attribute is not
changed on IBGP updates.
Summary (Cont.)
• You can configure an edge router to set its IP address as the

next-hop address even when the BGP updates are sent
across IBGP sessions. As a result, there is no need for the
receiver of the IBGP information to know how to reach the far
end of the EBGP session, because that IP address is no
longer set as the next hop.
• Both EBGP and IBGP sessions forward BGP updates but in
slightly different ways. BGP attributes are not changed when
an update is sent across an IBGP session unless next-hop-self
is configured.

Lesson 3
Forwarding Packets in a
Transit AS
Overview
A transit autonomous system (AS) requires interaction between External Border Gateway
Protocol (EBGP) and Internal Border Gateway Protocol (IBGP) and between IBGP and an
Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) in the transit AS. This lesson describes packet forwarding
through a transit AS and discusses the requirements for successful packet forwarding, such as
recursive route lookup and an IGP in the transit AS. This lesson concludes with a discussion of
the interaction between IBGP and an IGP running within the transit AS.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to describe the function of an IGP in forwarding
packets through an AS. This ability includes being able to meet these objectives:
Describe packet forwarding in a transit AS
Explain how recursive lookup functions in Cisco IOS software
Explain the need for an IGP in a transit backbone that is running BGP on all routers
Describe interactions between BGP and IGP in a transit AS
Explain the potential problems that might arise from BGP and IGP interaction
Packet Forwarding in a Transit AS
This topic describes packet forwarding in a transit AS.
Packet Forwarding in a Transit AS
All core routers need external routers for proper packet

forwarding.
• Redistributing can overload IGP resources.
• IBGP is preferred for scalability.
When Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) updates have propagated through the transit AS to all
neighboring autonomous systems, the IP traffic can start to flow.
In the figure, Router R-14 forwards to RTR-D IP packets with the destination address matching
a network in AS 12. RTR-D checks its routing table and finds that there is a BGP route for that
destination. The BGP route has a next-hop reference, which points to the far end of the EBGP
session between R-12 and RTR-A. So RTR-D once again checks the routing table and finds
that it should forward the packet to RTR-C in this case.
Thus, RTR-C receives the IP packet with a destination address indicating a host within AS 12.
To be able to forward this packet, RTR-C must have a matching route in its routing table. A
default route or gateway of last resort is not appropriate because in the next instant RTR-C
could receive another packet, coming from the other direction and destined for AS 14.
The conclusion is that both RTR-C and RTR-B, to handle all possible cases, must have routing
information to all the external networks that RTR-A and RTR-D have. The only scalable way
of providing routers with this information is to update RTR-C and RTR-B with IBGP from both
RTR-A and RTR-D.
In theory, the external information that is received by RTR-A and RTR-D could be
redistributed by these ingress routers into the IGP in use within the transit AS. However, no
IGP can handle the volume of information that BGP can. So there would always be a risk that
the IGP would break because of information overload, causing a total network meltdown in the
AS. The volume of routing information that is carried by BGP in the contemporary Internet
long ago passed the limits of what it is possible to carry in any IGP.
Packet Forwarding in a Transit AS (Cont.)
• Routes learned via BGP do not have an outgoing interface associated
with them in the routing table.
• Recursive lookup is performed to forward IP packets toward external
destinations.
A BGP route is installed in the IP routing table of a router only if the IP address in the next-hop
attribute is reachable according to the information already in the routing table. The installed
BGP route contains a reference to that next-hop address. So, the network will be reachable via
an IP address, which may or may not be directly connected. Because there is no clear reference
to a physical interface, the BGP route is installed in the IP routing table without any
information about outgoing interface.
The router must evaluate the recursive reference to the BGP next hop sooner or later in order to
allow packet forwarding toward external destinations. The point in time when the recursive
reference is resolved depends on the IP switching mechanism that is used by the router. At the
latest, the router performs the recursive route lookup when an IP packet with a destination
address that matches the BGP route should be forwarded. The router determines which
outgoing interface should be used and which Layer 2 address to assign (if applicable). The
router creates a cache entry so that successive IP packets to the same destination can be routed
using the same outgoing interface and Layer 2 address.

Recursive Lookup in Cisco IOS Software
This topic describes how recursive lookup functions in Cisco IOS software.
Recursive Lookup in Cisco IOS Software
The figure presents the steps in the recursive lookup process in Cisco IOS software. The router
has received a BGP update about network 10.0.0.0/8. It was associated with an AS-path
attribute set to 42 13, a next-hop attribute set to the IP address 1.2.3.4, and a community value
37:12. Some other attributes were also carried with the update.
Because the next-hop address 1.2.3.4 is reachable according to the routing table, the BGP route
is also installed in the routing table. Network number, subnet mask, and next-hop attributes are
inherited from the BGP table. No outgoing interface is assigned.
When an IP packet with a destination in network 10.0.0.0 is received, the router searches the
routing table and finds the installed BGP route. The router takes the indicated next-hop address
1.2.3.4 and searches the routing table again. It now finds a match with the Open Shortest Path
First (OSPF) route to subnet 1.2.3.0/24. The 1.2.3.0/24 route has an outgoing interface set to
interface Ethernet 0 and a next hop set to 1.5.4.1, meaning that packets that are destined for
network 10.0.0.0 should be forwarded via 1.5.4.1, which is directly reachable over Ethernet 0.
The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) table is used to find the MAC address for IP address
1.5.4.1. The MAC address is used to forward the IP packet to network 10.0.0.0 out the Ethernet
0 interface. The MAC header is stored in the cache for successive packets to network 10.0.0.0.
Note The example illustrates the recursive lookup performed when the router uses cache-based
IP switching mechanisms (for example, fast switching or optimum switching).
Recursive Lookup in Cisco IOS
Software (Cont.)
• Traditional Cisco IOS software switching mechanisms

perform recursive lookup when forwarding the first packet.
– Fast switching, optimum switching.
• CEF precomputes the routing table.
– All recursive lookups are performed while the routing
table is built.
Traditional Cisco IOS switching mechanisms used the traffic-driven, cache-based switching
approach. Both fast switching and optimum switching populate the IP switching cache on
demand, meaning that before any IP packets are forwarded, the cache is empty. After the first
packet to a specific destination arrives, all routing table lookups are done, including recursive
lookup in the case of a BGP route. The result of the lookup is cached for later use when
successive packets for the same destination arrive. The process is repeated for every specific
destination.
Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) prebuilds a complete IP forwarding table, called the
Forwarding Information Base (FIB), that is based on the IP routing table. After the router
installs a routing entry into its routing table, incoming routing information updates trigger the
recursive lookup, and the outgoing interface and the actual physical next hop of the route are
determined. MAC address resolution and MAC header generation are still traffic-driven and
stored in the cache.

Routing Protocols in a Transit AS
This topic describes the need for an IGP in a transit backbone that is running BGP on all
routers.
Routing Protocols in a Transit AS
With IBGP running on all core routers, is an IGP still needed in the
core?
• An IGP is needed to resolve BGP next hops and perform
fast convergence after a failure in the core network.
Some network designers base their network design on the wrong assumption that an internal
routing protocol is not needed in a transit AS where all routers run BGP. However, the internal
routing protocol is still needed inside an AS for two reasons:
To provide routing information that is needed to establish the IBGP sessions
To resolve next-hop references (recursive routing)
For example, when RTR-D in the figure receives an IP packet with the destination in AS 12, it
does a recursive lookup to find the outgoing interface to be used for packet forwarding. It
performs the recursive lookup based on IGP information. If there is suddenly an internal
problem within AS 42, and the next-hop address is reachable a different way, the IGP
determines this fact. The IGP route to the next-hop network is changed by the router because of
newly received IGP route information, and all cache entries that rely on the old information are
invalidated. The next recursive lookup that RTR-D performs will indicate a different outgoing
interface than before the problem occurred.
During the IGP convergence process, the BGP routing is not affected. The only routing updates
that are exchanged during the transit AS convergence are IGP updates describing how to reach
internal destinations (including the far ends of the EBGP sessions).
The packet forwarding to external destinations thus benefits from the high-speed convergence
that is offered by the IGP. The faster the IGP determines that it should use an alternate path
within the AS to reach the next-hop address, the faster it will re-establish IP connectivity
toward external destinations.
The conclusion is that an IGP is still needed inside a transit AS, and the network will work
better if it is an IGP with fast convergence.
Routing Protocols in a Transit AS (Cont.)
• Core routers need to run BGP and an IGP.

• BGP carries all external routes.
• The IGP propagates BGP next hops and other core
subnets only.
• All customer routes are also carried in BGP.
– Reduces IGP topology database
– Removes customer-caused route flaps from IGP; IGP
becomes more stable
Both BGP and the configured IGP should be configured on all core routers inside the transit
AS. The IGP should carry as little information as possible—ideally only the links within the
core network, the loopback interfaces, and the external subnets that are used in EBGP sessions
with neighboring autonomous systems. This information is enough to establish IBGP sessions
and resolve next-hop addresses. The IGP will also work better if it carries less routing
information.
No routes external to the transit AS should ever be redistributed by any router from BGP into
the IGP. All external routes should be in BGP only.
In autonomous systems that provide customer connectivity (not only transit service), it is also
highly recommended that the customer networks be carried in BGP to reduce the amount of
information in the IGP and increase IGP stability.

BGP and IGP Interaction
This topic describes the interaction between BGP and IGP in a transit AS.
BGP and IGP Interaction
Ideally, there will be no interaction between BGP and

the IGP.
• BGP carries external and customer routes.
• The IGP carries only core subnets.
• The IGP is not affected by external route flaps.
• BGP is not affected by failures internal to the network as
long as the BGP next hop remains reachable.
• The only link between BGP and the IGP should be the
recursive lookup.
Ideally, BGP and the IGP carry two different sets of routing information. BGP carries the
routes that are received from other autonomous systems and the routes that belong to the local
AS and should be announced to other autonomous systems. The IGP carries only enough
information to establish IBGP sessions and resolve the EBGP next-hop addresses via the IGP
routing tables.
The IGP will provide reachability toward the BGP next-hop addresses only if it is not disturbed
by external updates from other autonomous systems.
BGP should take care of the external information. As long as the IGP finds a usable way to the
BGP next hops, the BGP does not need to do any recalculation because of internal problems
within the AS.
BGP and IGP Interaction (Cont.)
Sometimes, BGP and the IGP will propagate the same

route.
• Usually stems from bad network design.
• In this case, routes are determined in EBGP/IGP/IBGP order
based on administrative distances of the routes.
Routing Protocol Default Administrative

Distance
EBGP 20
IGP 90 – 170
IBGP 200
Sometimes the interaction between BGP and the IGP is not ideal, for a number of reasons,
including bad network design. In the worst case, the same networks might be carried in both the
IGP and BGP. For example, the subnets connecting the AS with neighboring autonomous
systems have to be announced via the IGP to enable next-hop resolution but may also be
announced via BGP by the remote AS or the local AS. In any case, information about the same
IP prefix will appear in both the IGP and the BGP data structures.
When the router installs routing information into the routing table, it checks to see whether
there are several sources of information for a particular IP prefix. If so, the router installs the
information that it determines is most reliable. The administrative distance (AD) determines
which source to use.
BGP considers both EBGP and IBGP routes in the BGP selection process. BGP will therefore
never try to install both an EBGP route and an IBGP route for the same destination.
Comparison between ADs will thus occur only when two different protocols carry the same
destination network.
If BGP selects an EBGP route as the best route for a given destination network, it will try to
install that route with a very low AD, meaning that routes that are learned via EBGP have a
high likelihood of being installed in the routing table.
If BGP selects an IBGP route as the best, it will try to install it with a high AD, meaning that
routes that are learned via IBGP have a low likelihood of being installed in the routing table.
All IGPs, such as Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), OSPF, Intermediate
System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS), and so on, have a medium likelihood of being installed.
The ADs for IGPs fall between the ADs of EBGP and IBGP.
Note The reason for giving EBGP a low default AD is because EBGP indicates routes external to
the local AS. IP packets with destination addresses to those networks should leave the AS
sooner rather than later. It is, in most cases, better that they leave the AS right away.

Problems with BGP and IGP Interaction
This topic describes the potential problems that might arise from BGP and IGP interaction.
Problems with BGP and IGP Interaction
If an IGP route is learned through EBGP, the EBGP

route will take precedence.
• Potential causes include bad network design, routing
problems, or denial-of-service attack.
• Protect IGP routes with inbound prefix-list filters at AS
edges.
• Routers should never accept information about local subnets
from an external source.
If routing information about the same IP prefix is learned via both EBGP and an IGP, the router
will use the EBGP information. If an external AS is feeding the local AS with EBGP routes that
actually should be local, routers within the AS will erroneously forward IP packets that are
destined to those local networks out of the local AS.
There are several potential reasons for this behavior; the most common is that the remote AS is
improperly configured or there is a denial-of-service (DoS) attack. To protect a local AS from
this undesired behavior, network administrators should install inbound filters on all EBGP
sessions to filter incoming routes and reject routing information about networks that are
actually local to the AS.
Summary
Summary
• All core routers need external routers for proper packet

forwarding.
• A recursive lookup is performed in BGP to resolve the
forwarding path reference of the next-hop attribute.
• Packet forwarding to external destinations benefits from the
high-speed convergence offered by an IGP; therefore, an IGP
is still needed inside a transit AS.
• The IGP should provide reachability toward BGP next-hop
addresses only if they are not disturbed by external updates
from other autonomous systems (those are handled by BGP).
• IP packets could be erroneously forwarded out of the local
AS if an external AS accidentally (or by intent: DoS) feeds the
local AS with EBGP routes that should be local.

Lesson 4
Configuring a Transit AS
Overview
Specifying an autonomous system (AS) as a transit backbone introduces specific requirements
in the design, scaling, and configuration of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). This lesson
introduces the configuration requirements of Internal Border Gateway Protocol (IBGP) to
implement a transit AS. Configuration details of IBGP are discussed in this lesson, including
IBGP neighbor configuration, using loopback interfaces for IBGP neighbors, disabling BGP
synchronization, and modifying the default administrative distances (ADs) of BGP. This lesson
concludes with a discussion of the scalability concerns of BGP in the transit backbone.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to configure an AS to act as a transit backbone in
a BGP network. This ability includes being able to meet these objectives:
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to configure IBGP neighbors in an AS
Identify the Cisco IOS command that is required to configure IBGP sessions between
loopback interfaces in a common AS
Identify the Cisco IOS command that is required to configure BGP synchronization to
ensure successful IBGP operation of the transit AS
Identify the Cisco IOS command that is required to change the AD of BGP routes
List the scalability limitations of IBGP-based backbones
Configuring IBGP Neighbors
This topic describes the Cisco IOS commands that are required to configure IBGP neighbors in
an AS.
Configuring IBGP Neighbors
neighbor ip-address remote-as as-number
• This command configures a BGP neighbor.

• The AS number configured determines whether the session is
an EBGP session (neighbor AS is different from local AS) or
IBGP session (same AS number).
neighbor ip-address description text
• Attaches optional description to a neighbor
Configuring an IBGP neighbor involves two simple steps:

Configure a BGP neighbor, specifying the same AS number.
Attach a description to the neighbor to help in documentation and troubleshooting efforts
(optional).
neighbor remote-as
To add an entry to the BGP neighbor table, use the neighbor remote-as router configuration
command.
neighbor [ip-address | peer-group-name] remote-as as-number
To remove an entry from the table, use the no form of this command.
no neighbor [ip-address | peer-group-name] remote-as as-number
Syntax Description
ip-address Neighbor IP address
as-number AS to which the neighbor belongs
neighbor description
To associate a description with a neighbor, use the neighbor description router configuration
command.
neighbor [ip-address | peer-group-name]description text
To remove the description, use the no form of this command.

no neighbor [ip-address | peer-group-name] description text
Syntax Description
text Text (up to 80 characters) that describes the neighbor

Configuring IBGP Sessions Between Loopback
Interfaces
This topic describes the Cisco IOS command that is required to configure IBGP sessions
between loopback interfaces on routers in a common AS.
Configuring IBGP Sessions Between

Loopback Interfaces
neighbor ip-address update-source interface
• This command configures the source interface for the TCP

session that carries BGP traffic.
• For IBGP sessions, the source interface is a loopback address.
• The source address configured on one peering router must
match the destination address configured on the other—a BGP
session will not start otherwise.
• Make sure that your loopback interfaces are announced in the
backbone IGP.
When a BGP session is established between two routers, both routers attempt to set up the TCP
connection by sending TCP SYN packets to each other. If both succeed, one of the sessions is
brought down so that only one remains. The TCP packets have a destination IP address that is
configured with the neighbor command. But they must also have a source IP address assigned.
If no update source is configured, the router sets the source IP address of the outgoing TCP
session to the IP address of the outgoing physical interface.
When a TCP SYN packet with the BGP well-known port number arrives at the peer router, the
receiver checks to determine if the connection attempt is coming from one of the configured
peers. If the source IP address is not in the list of configured neighbors, the receiver denies the
connection attempt.
As a general rule, IBGP sessions should be established between loopback interfaces of BGP-
speaking routers. The destination IP address that is configured in the neighbor statement should
therefore be the IP address of the loopback interface of the peer router. But the local router
must also make sure that the source address of the outgoing TCP connection attempt is the IP
address that the peer router has listed. Configuring BGP neighbors using neighbor update-
source ensures that the source address of the outgoing TCP connection is correct by referring to
the interface that has the correct IP address. Normally, this interface is the loopback interface of
the local router.
neighbor update-source
To instruct Cisco IOS software to allow IBGP sessions to use any operational interface for TCP
connections, use the neighbor update-source router configuration command.
neighbor [ip-address | peer-group-name] update-source interface
To restore the interface assignment to the closest interface, which is called the “best local
address,” use the no form of this command.
no neighbor [ip-address | peer-group-name] update-source interface
Syntax Description
interface Loopback interface

Configuring BGP Synchronization
This topic describes the Cisco IOS command that is required to configure BGP synchronization
to ensure successful IBGP operation of a transit AS.
Configuring BGP Synchronization
no synchronization
• This command disables synchronization between BGP and an

IGP.
• Modern transit autonomous systems do not need
synchronization because they do not rely on redistribution of
BGP routes into an IGP.
• BGP synchronization has to be disabled in modern transit AS
designs on all BGP routers.
The BGP synchronization rule states that if an AS provides transit service to another AS, BGP
should not advertise a route until all of the routers within the AS have learned about the route
via an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP). Network designers used synchronization in older
transit AS designs that relied on BGP route redistribution into the IGP. Modern AS designs do
not rely on this feature anymore because the number of routes carried in the Internet exceeds
the scalability range of any known IGP. Redistribution into the IGP is thus no longer
applicable, and you must disable the synchronization feature for your transit AS to work.
synchronization
To enable the Cisco IOS software to advertise a network route without waiting for the IGP (that
is, to disable synchronization between BGP and your IGP), use the no form of the
synchronization command. Note that in Cisco IOS Software Release 12.2(8)T and later, the
default changed to disable synchronization.
no synchronization
This command has no arguments or keywords.
Changing the Administrative Distance of BGP
Routes
This topic describes the Cisco IOS command that is required to change the AD of BGP routes.
Changing the Administrative

Distance of BGP Routes
distance bgp external internal local
• This command sets the AD for EBGP, IBGP, and local routes.
• This change applies only to routes received after the command
has been entered (similar to filters).
• Defaults: EBGP routes have a distance of 20; IBGP and local
routes have a distance of 200.
• The defaults are usually correct; do not change them.
distance bgp
To allow the use of external, internal, and local ADs that could be a better route to a node, use
the distance bgp router configuration command.
distance bgp external-distance internal-distance local-distance
To return to the default values, use the no form of this command.

no distance bgp external-distance internal-distance local-distance

Syntax Description
external-distance AD for BGP external routes.
External routes are routes for which the best path is learned from
a neighbor external to the AS. Acceptable values are from 1 to
255. The default is 20. Routes with a distance of 255 are not
installed in the routing table.
internal-distance AD for BGP internal routes.
Internal routes are routes that are learned from another BGP
entity within the same AS. Acceptable values are from 1 to 255.
The default is 200. Routes with a distance of 255 are not installed
in the routing table.
local-distance AD for BGP local routes.
Local routes are the networks that are listed with a network
router configuration command, often as back doors (BGP back
door makes the IGP route the preferred route) for that router or
for networks that are being redistributed from another protocol.
Acceptable values are from 1 to 255. The default is 200. Routes
with a distance of 255 are not installed in the routing table.
Scalability Limitations of IBGP-Based Transit
Backbones
This topic describes the scalability limitations of IBGP-based backbones.
Scalability Limitations of IBGP-Based

Transit Backbones
Transit backbone requires IBGP full mesh between

all core routers.
• Large number of TCP sessions
• Unnecessary, duplicate routing traffic
There are two scalability solutions:
• Route reflectors
• BGP confederations
IBGP split-horizon rules, as documented in previous lessons, mandate an IBGP connection

between every border router and every other BGP router in an AS.
The general design rule in IBGP design is to have a full mesh of IBGP sessions. But, a full
mesh of IBGP sessions among n number of routers would require (n * (n – 1)) / 2 IBGP
sessions. For example, a full mesh between 10 routers would require (10 * 9) / 2 = 45 IBGP
sessions.
Because every IBGP session on a router uses a separate TCP session, an update that must be
sent by the router to all IBGP peers must be sent on each of the TCP sessions. If a router is
attached to the rest of the network over just a single link, this single link has to carry all TCP/IP
packets for all IBGP sessions. This situation results in duplication of the update over the single
link.
Two solutions are available:

The route reflector solution modifies the IBGP split-horizon rules and allows a particular
router to forward (under certain conditions) incoming IBGP updates to a select group of
IBGP neighbors. The router performing this function is the “route reflector.”
The BGP confederations solution introduces the concept of a number of smaller
autonomous systems within the original AS. These smaller autonomous systems exchange
BGP updates among themselves using intraconfederation EBGP sessions.

Summary
Summary
• To configure an IBGP neighbor, use the neighbor command, specifying a

remote AS number matching the AS number of the local router.
• When you configure IBGP sessions between loopback interfaces, the
interfaces must be announced in the backbone IGP. Configuring BGP
neighbors using the neighbor update-source command ensures that the
source address of the outgoing TCP connection is correct by referring
to the interface that has the correct IP address.
• You should disable BGP synchronization in all modern transit AS
designs on all BGP routers by using the no form of the synchronization
command.
• Although you can change the administrative distances of BGP routes
by using the distance bgp router configuration command, you typically
should not change the default settings for EBGP (20) and IBGP (200).
• The full-mesh IBGP requirement in the transit AS creates scalability
issues in the number of TCP sessions and unnecessary, duplicate
routing traffic. IBGP scalability solutions to these issues exist.
Lesson 5
Monitoring and
Troubleshooting IBGP in a
Transit AS
Overview
Introduction of a transit backbone into a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) network can create
unique troubleshooting challenges. This lesson introduces Internal Border Gateway Protocol
(IBGP) monitoring commands and troubleshooting techniques for solving the most common
IBGP problems that you might encounter in a transit backbone. Common problems with IBGP,
as discussed in this lesson, occur when IBGP sessions do not reach the Established state, when
routing information that is received via IBGP is never selected, and when the best BGP route is
never installed in the routing table.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to verify proper operation of a configured BGP
transit network by performing the steps necessary to correct basic IBGP configuration errors.
This ability includes being able to meet these objectives:
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to monitor IBGP operation
Describe common IBGP configuration problems
Explain how to troubleshoot IBGP session startup issues
Explain how to troubleshoot IBGP route selection issues
Explain how to troubleshoot IBGP synchronization issues
Monitoring IBGP
This topic describes the Cisco IOS commands that are required to monitor IBGP operation.
Monitoring IBGP
router>
• Displays whether a neighbor is an IBGP neighbor
router>
show ip bgp
• Uses a special marker (i) for IBGP routes
router>
show ip bgp prefix
• Displays whether the prefix is an IBGP route

To display information about the TCP and BGP connections to neighbors, use the show ip bgp
neighbors EXEC command.
show ip bgp neighbors [ip-address] [received-routes | routes | advertised-routes | {paths
regular-expression} | dampened-routes]
Syntax Description
ip-address (Optional) Address of the neighbor to display neighbor

information about.
If you omit this argument, all neighbors are displayed.
received-routes (Optional) Displays all received routes (both accepted and

rejected) from the specified neighbor.
routes (Optional) Displays all routes that are received and accepted.
The display output when you are using this keyword is a subset
of the output from the received-routes keyword.
advertised-routes (Optional) Displays all the routes that the router has advertised to
the neighbor.
paths regular- (Optional) Regular expression that the router uses to match the
expression paths that are received.
dampened-routes (Optional) Displays the dampened routes to the neighbor at the

IP address that is specified.
show ip bgp
To display entries in the BGP routing table, use the show ip bgp EXEC command.
show ip bgp [network] [network-mask] [longer-prefixes]
Syntax Description
network (Optional) Network number that is entered to display a particular

network in the BGP routing table
network-mask (Optional) Displays all BGP routes that match the address-mask
pair
longer-prefixes (Optional) Displays the route and more specific routes

Example: Monitoring IBGP
This example shows the commands to monitor IBGP.
Monitoring IBGP (Cont.)
The show ip bgp neighbors command displays whether a router is running an IBGP (internal)
or External Border Gateway Protocol (EBGP) (external) session with a BGP neighbor. The
indication is given by the “internal link” phrase (highlighted in the second line of the figure).
Monitoring IBGP (Cont.)
The show ip bgp prefix command displays whether a BGP route was received from an IBGP
(internal) or EBGP (external) neighbor. The indication is given by the word “internal” that is
displayed in the last line of the printout (highlighted in the last line of the figure).

Common IBGP Problems
This topic describes configuration problems that are common to IBGP implementations.
Common IBGP Problems
• IBGP sessions will not start.

• IBGP route is in the BGP table but is not selected.
• IBGP route is selected but is not entered in the routing
table.
Troubleshooting the BGP configuration of a transit AS can be cumbersome, because there are a
number of common pitfalls that you might encounter. Three of the most common problems are
the following:
IBGP sessions do not reach the Established state.
Routing information that is received via IBGP is never selected.
The best BGP route is never installed in the routing table.
Troubleshooting IBGP Session Startup Issues
This topic describes how to troubleshoot IBGP session startup issues.
Troubleshooting IBGP Session Startup

Issues
Symptom:
• IBGP session does not start.
Diagnosis:
• IBGP session is run between loopbacks, and update-source
keyword is missing.
Verification:
• Use debug ip tcp transactions. You should see BGP sessions
coming from unexpected IP addresses.
A common mistake when you are configuring IBGP sessions is to forget the neighbor update-
source loopback 0 configuration command.
When you are configuring IBGP neighbors on the router, it is easy to remember to make a
correct reference to the loopback interface of the remote router. But it is equally important to
make sure that the correct source IP address of the outgoing TCP session is set. The peer router
will not accept the session if the incoming source address does not match the peer router list of
IBGP neighbors.
To verify that this issue is causing the problem, use the debug ip tcp transactions command.
The output of the debug ip tcp transactions command should display TCP SYN packets
coming from unexpected IP addresses on the receiving router and TCP sessions being reset
with TCP RST packets on the sending (misconfigured) router.

Issues (Cont.)
Symptom:
Diagnosis:
• Loopback interfaces are not reachable.
Verification:
• Do extended ping between loopback addresses to verify
reachability.
An IBGP session between two routers can be established from the loopback interface of one
router to the loopback interface of the other router only if the two routers can exchange IP
packets using those addresses as source and destination. This exchange is possible only if the
Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) carries the subnets that are assigned to each of the loopback
interfaces.
When you are verifying reachability with the ping command, make sure that the ping packets
are sourced from the loopback interface. Use an extended ping and explicitly refer to the IP
address of the loopback interface to ensure that packets are sourced from the loopback
interface.
Issues (Cont.)
Symptom:
Diagnosis:
• Packet filters prevent establishment of BGP sessions.
Verification:
• Use debug ip tcp transactions and debug ip icmp to see whether
the initial TCP SYN packets are rejected.
Packet filters can stop the BGP sessions. The path between the two BGP peer routers must be
free from filters blocking the BGP traffic.
BGP runs on the well-known TCP port 179. Both routers will make connection attempts to that
destination port. They will use a high-numbered TCP port as source. It is enough that one of the
connection attempts succeeds. But for better performance during recovery from network
failure, both attempts should have the possibility of succeeding. If both attempts do succeed,
one of the connections will be brought down.

Troubleshooting IBGP Route Selection Issues
This topic describes how to troubleshoot IBGP route selection issues.
Troubleshooting IBGP Route Selection

Issues
Symptom:
• An IBGP route is in the BGP table but is never selected as the
best route.
Diagnosis:
• The BGP next hop is not reachable.
Verification:
• Use show ip bgp prefix to find the BGP next hop.
• Use show ip route to verify next-hop reachability.
A BGP update can be used by the router to reach network destinations only if the next-hop
address specified in the BGP update is reachable. A BGP update that refers to a next hop that is
currently not reachable according to the routing table will be saved in the BGP table, but it
cannot be installed by the router into its routing table. If the next-hop address later becomes
reachable, the BGP route will become a candidate route that could be used by that router for
packet forwarding to that destination.
To verify the next-hop reachability, check the BGP route in the BGP table by using the show ip
bgp prefix command. The next hop is referred to as “inaccessible” if it is not currently
reachable according to the routing table.
A common mistake is to forget to let the IGP announce the reachability of subnets that
physically connect the local autonomous system (AS) with a neighboring AS. These subnets
are used by the router to establish the EBGP session, and the next hop that is received in an
incoming BGP update will be the far end of the EBGP session. If all routers in the local AS do
not have a path to that subnet, the next-hop address will be inaccessible.
You can prevent this problem by including the subnet that links the transit AS to neighboring
autonomous systems in the IGP by using either the redistribute connected command or the
network and passive-interface configuration commands.
Troubleshooting IBGP Synchronization Issues
This topic describes how to troubleshoot IBGP synchronization issues.
Troubleshooting IBGP Synchronization

Issues
Symptom:
• An IBGP route is selected as the best route but not entered
into the IP routing table.
Diagnosis:
• BGP synchronization is not disabled.
Verification:
• Disable BGP synchronization, clear the BGP sessions, and
re-examine the IP routing table after the BGP table becomes
stable.
In old BGP designs, redistribution between BGP and an IGP was common practice, and these
protocols had to be synchronized to ensure proper packet forwarding. In modern designs,
redistribution is no longer used and synchronization has to be turned off. However, the default
value is to have synchronization enabled.
Routers with BGP synchronization enabled will not be able to install IBGP routes in the routing
table or propagate them to other EBGP neighbors.
You can fix this problem by configuring no synchronization in the router BGP configuration.

Summary
Summary
• You can use the show ip bgp neighbors and show ip bgp prefix
commands to monitor IBGP operation.
• Common IBGP configuration problems include IBGP
sessions that do not reach the Established state, routing
information that is received via IBGP that is never selected,
and the best BGP route never being installed in the routing
table.
• There are a number of problems that can occur during IGBP
session startup. You can use debug ip tcp transactions to see
BGP sessions coming from unexpected IP addresses, use an
extended ping and explicitly refer to the IP address of the
loopback interface to ensure that packets are sourced from
the loopback interface, or use debug ip tcp transactions and
debug ip icmp to see whether the initial TCP SYN packets are
rejected.
Summary (Cont.)
• It is important to include the subnet linking the transit AS to

an external AS in the IGP to prevent the BGP next hop from
being unreachable. To verify next-hop reachability, check the
BGP route in the BGP table by using the show ip bgp prefix
command.
• Routers with BGP synchronization enabled will not be able to
install IBGP routes in the routing table or propagate them to
other EBGP neighbors. Configure no synchronization in the
router BGP configuration to solve this problem.
Module Summary
Module Summary
• Because all transit autonomous systems are required to carry traffic

originating from or destined to locations outside of that AS, a
degree of interaction and coordination between BGP and the IGP is
necessary, and special care should be taken to ensure consistency
of routing information throughout the AS.
• Both EBGP and IBGP sessions forward BGP updates, but they do it
in slightly different ways.
• An IGP is still needed inside a transit AS. The high-speed
convergence offered by an IGP helps in the packet forwarding to
external destinations.
• Configuring in a transit AS involves configuring IBGP neighbors,
BGP synchronization, and IBGP sessions between loopback
interfaces.
• The three common IBGP configuration problems concern session
startup, route selection, and synchronization, and there are specific
commands and procedures that can be used to solve those
problems.
This module discussed BGP issues in a transit AS. The first lesson introduced the requirements
of IBGP and described processing the next-hop attribute with the routers that reside in the
transit AS. The next lesson explained the interaction between EBGP and IBGP. The following
lesson described the function of an IGP in forwarding packets through an AS. Configuring the
AS as a transit backbone was discussed in the next lesson. The final lesson presented IBGP
monitoring commands and troubleshooting techniques to solve the most common IGBP
problems in a transit backbone.

References
Cisco Systems, Inc. BGP Case Studies.
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/459/bgp-toc.html.
Cisco Systems, Inc. Using the Border Gateway Protocol for Interdomain Routing.
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ics/icsbgp4.htm.
Cisco Systems, Inc. Troubleshooting TCP/IP. “Troubleshooting IP Connectivity and
Routing Problems.”
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/itg_v1/tr1907.htm#xtocid27.
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios122/122cgcr/fipr_c/ipcprt2/1
cfbgp.htm.
Cisco Systems, Inc. Cisco IOS IP Routing Configuration Guide, Release 12.2
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/products/sw/iosswrel/ps1835/products_configuration_
guide_book09186a0080087fa9.html.
Module Self-Check
Q1) Why is IBGP a mandatory component of a transit AS? (Source: Working with a Transit
AS)
A) It is the only feasible way to ensure that all routers in the AS have consistent
external routing information.
B) It eliminates the scalability issues of running an IGP within the transit AS.
C) Running IBGP on all routers is the only way to satisfy the filtering
requirements of the transit AS.
D) An IGP is not capable of handling the potential routing loops in the transit AS.
Q2) How is EBGP used in a transit AS? (Source: Working with a Transit AS)
A) as a means of transporting customer routes across the transit backbone
B) to exchange routes between different autonomous systems and the transit AS
C) to enhance scalability by transporting IGP routes for the transit AS
D) as a means of injecting local routes into the transit backbone
Q3) Why is redistributing BGP routes into an IGP for use in a transit backbone NOT
recommended? (Source: Working with a Transit AS)
A) Redistribution removes all BGP attributes that are needed to ensure optimal
routing within the transit AS.
B) An IGP cannot enforce complex administrative policies and route selection
rules.
C) IGPs cannot scale to the demands that are presented by the number of routes on
the Internet.
D) IGPs are not stable when faced with a flapping network.
Q4) What are the two key functions of a transit AS? (Choose two.) (Source: Working with a
Transit AS)
A) to filter out routes that do not belong to customers of the service provider
B) to provide Internet connectivity to customers of the service provider
C) to propagate routes between remote autonomous systems
D) to route packets between remote networks
Q5) How are BGP routes sent across the transit backbone? (Source: Working with a Transit
AS)
A) by redistributing BGP into an IGP and then back into BGP
B) through the use of IBGP
C) by establishing EBGP sessions between all routers in the transit backbone
D) by redistributing connected routes at the edge of the transit backbone
Q6) Which two statements are true regarding the AS-path attribute as it relates to IBGP?
(Choose two.) (Source: Interacting with IBGP and EBGP in a Transit AS)
A) Each router in the AS appends its AS number to the AS path on outgoing BGP
updates.
B) The AS path inside an AS will be empty for routes originating inside a
neighboring AS.
C) The AS-path attribute is not used to detect routing loops inside an AS.
D) The AS-path attribute is not modified within the AS.

Q7) What is the primary function of the IBGP multipath load-sharing feature? (Source:
Interacting with IBGP and EBGP in a Transit AS)
A) to choose one IBGP path as the best path to a destination
B) to choose multiple IBGP paths as the best paths to a destination
C) to designate one path as the best path and advertise this best path to its
neighbors.
D) to enable a router to handle all the traffic destined for a particular site
Q8) Which of the following statements about a BGP split horizon is accurate? (Source:
A) Because of the BGP split horizon, any router can relay IBGP information
within the AS.
B) BGP split horizon is useful only within autonomous systems.
C) Routing information loops within the AS are prevented by an IBGP split
horizon.
D) With a BGP split horizon, routing information that is received through an
IBGP session is forwarded to another IBGP neighbor.
Q9) Why is it recommended that loopback interfaces be used to form IBGP neighbor
sessions? (Source: Interacting with IBGP and EBGP in a Transit AS)
A) reduces router memory resource requirements
B) reduces router CPU resource requirements
C) ensures IBGP session stability
D) is more secure than using the physical interface
Q10) How is the BGP next-hop attribute processed over an IBGP connection? (Source:
A) The next-hop address is set to the address of the receiving router.
B) The next-hop address is not modified over the IBGP session.
C) The next-hop address is set to the IP address of the nearest EBGP peer.
D) The next-hop attribute is set to the IP address of the nearest EBGP peer; if no
external AS connection has been configured, the next hop is set to the default
gateway that is configured on the router.
Q11) Which two statements are true of the full-mesh requirement in IBGP? (Choose two.)
(Source: Interacting with IBGP and EBGP in a Transit AS)
A) The IBGP mesh must be a logical full mesh.
B) A physical full mesh must be maintained within the IBGP AS.
C) Because of BGP split horizon, no router can relay IBGP information within the
AS.
D) All routers within the AS must be directly connected to ensure correct delivery
of BGP routing information.
Q12) Which three statements regarding the next-hop-self configuration in BGP are true?
(Choose three.) (Source: Interacting with IBGP and EBGP in a Transit AS)
A) Changing the next-hop attribute might cause suboptimal routing.
B) The configuration changes how the next-hop attribute is processed at edge
routers.
C) The configuration announces the local IP address as the BGP next hop in
outgoing updates that are sent to the specified neighbor.
D) The configuration removes the requirement for the IGP to carry reachability
information for intra-AS destinations.
Q13) Why must all EBGP peers be reachable by all BGP-speaking routers within the transit
AS? (Source: Interacting with IBGP and EBGP in a Transit AS)
A) BGP-speaking routers in a transit AS use the next-hop-self attribute to find
their EBGP neighbors.
B) EBGP peers in a transit AS use the length of the AS path to decide which BGP
route to install in the routing table.
C) When BGP routes are used in the routing table, the router checks how it would
have reached the next-hop address, and it installs the BGP route with the same
forwarding indication as for the route that is used to reach the next-hop IP
address.
D) All BGP peers do not need to speak to each other within a transit AS.
Q14) Which command is used to configure the router as the next hop for a BGP-speaking
neighbor or peer group? (Source: Interacting with IBGP and EBGP in a Transit AS)
A) neighbor description
B) neighbor remote as
C) maximum-paths ibgp
D) neighbor next-hop-sf
Q15) What are three differences between IBGP and EBGP sessions? (Choose three.)
(Source: Interacting with IBGP and EBGP in a Transit AS)
A) Route selection rules slightly prefer IBGP routes.
B) Routes that are learned from IBGP peers are not advertised to other IBGP
peers.
C) EBGP peers are directly connected, and IBGP peers are usually distant.
D) By default, no BGP attributes are changed in IBGP updates.
Q16) What are two reasons why you must run IBGP on all routers within a transit backbone?
(Choose two.) (Source: Forwarding Packets in a Transit AS)
A) so routers can properly forward packets toward all external destinations
B) to ensure that a full mesh exists among all routers in the AS
C) to allow routers to properly process the BGP next-hop attribute
D) because IGPs cannot scale large enough to handle redistribution of BGP routes
Q17) If a transit backbone has IBGP running on all routers, what are two reasons why it is
still necessary to use an IGP? (Choose two.) (Source: Forwarding Packets in a Transit
AS)
A) to provide routing information that is needed to establish the IBGP sessions
B) to resolve next-hop references that are used in recursive routing
C) so that BGP routes can be properly transported through the AS
D) to provide user workstations with a network default gateway
Q18) What is the AD of the following protocols? (Fill in the blanks.) (Source: Forwarding
Packets in a Transit AS)
A) IBGP _______
B) EBGP _______
C) OSPF _______
D) IS-IS _______
E) RIP _______

Q19) What are two reasons why the AD is an important consideration for BGP network
design? (Choose two.) (Source: Forwarding Packets in a Transit AS)
A) The AD affects how routes are selected for use in the IP routing table.
B) The AD controls how routing information is entered into the BGP table.
C) If a route is advertised by both an IGP and through EBGP, the router will
prefer the external route.
D) The AD is not a large concern to BGP design, because the router will always
choose the route that is advertised by the protocol that is best suited to reach
the destination.
Q20) With regard to recursive route lookups, what are two ways in which CEF is different
from traditional Cisco IOS switching mechanisms such as route caching?
(Choose two.) (Source: Forwarding Packets in a Transit AS)
A) Traditional Cisco IOS switching mechanisms wait for the first packet to arrive
before recursive lookup can take place.
B) New entries in the IP routing table will trigger a recursive lookup in traditional
Cisco IOS switching mechanisms.
C) CEF prebuilds a complete IP forwarding table based on the IP routing table.
D) CEF will build a FIB directly from the entries in the BGP table before any
BGP packets arrive at the router.
Q21) When you are configuring the BGP neighbor session, what differentiates an EBGP
neighbor from an IBGP neighbor? (Source: Configuring a Transit AS)
A) The keyword internal is at the end of the neighbor command.
B) IBGP neighbors will have the same AS number specified.
C) A description for the internal or external neighbor must be attached with the
neighbor description command.
D) Directly connected neighbors will automatically form an EBGP session.
Q22) Which two steps are required when you use a loopback interface for IBGP peering
sessions? (Choose two.) (Source: Configuring a Transit AS)
A) Ensure that the loopback interfaces are reachable through an IGP.
B) Ensure that the two neighbors are directly attached.
C) Verify that each router has multiple physically redundant paths.
D) Configure a neighbor statement with the update-source command.
Q23) Why is it important to disable BGP synchronization in a transit backbone? (Source:
Configuring a Transit AS)
A) IGPs can support the routing requirements of full Internet routing, and hence
synchronization is no longer necessary.
B) Because BGP redistribution into an IGP is no longer practical, enabling the
synchronization feature is no longer applicable.
C) Synchronization requires all BGP transit routes to be explicitly mapped to an
exit point, creating too much administrative overhead.
D) Synchronization requires BGP attributes to be properly mapped to IGP metrics
for BGP routing across the transit backbone to function properly, creating too
much overhead.
Q24) What are two negative ramifications of the full-mesh requirement that is imposed by
IBGP? (Choose two.) (Source: Configuring a Transit AS)
A) administrative difficulty of applying an AS-wide routing policy
B) requirement to use next-hop-self for proper routing to external destinations
C) large number of TCP sessions
D) unnecessary duplication of routing traffic
Q25) What are two scalability tools that you can use to overcome the full-mesh requirement
for IBGP sessions? (Choose two.) (Source: Configuring a Transit AS)
A) confederations
B) floating static routes
C) route reflectors
D) disabling BGP synchronization
Q26) Which Cisco IOS show command indicates that a BGP route is an IBGP route?
(Source: Monitoring and Troubleshooting IBGP in a Transit AS)
A) show ip route
B) show ip route bgp
C) show ip bgp
D) show ip bgp internal
Q27) Which three of the following are the most common BGP implementation problems?
(Choose three.) (Source: Monitoring and Troubleshooting IBGP in a Transit AS)
A) IBGP sessions do not reach the Established state.
B) TCP window size is set incorrectly.
C) Routing information that is received via IBGP is never selected.
D) The best BGP route is never installed in the routing table.
Q28) What are three common situations that prevent IBGP sessions from starting? (Choose
three.) (Source: Monitoring and Troubleshooting IBGP in a Transit AS)
A) The IBGP session has been configured to peer to a loopback interface, but
update-source has not been configured on the neighbor.
B) An access-list filter is blocking access to TCP port 179.
C) The IBGP session has been configured to peer to a loopback interface, but the
loopback interface has not been administratively enabled with the no
shutdown command.
D) The IBGP session has been configured to peer to a loopback interface, but the
interfaces are not reachable via the IGP.
Q29) Which common issue could prevent IBGP best routes from being inserted into the IP
routing table? (Source: Monitoring and Troubleshooting IBGP in a Transit AS)
A) failure to disable BGP synchronization
B) failure to disable BGP split horizon
C) lack of a route to the BGP next hop for the IGP
D) failure to inject a default route into the IGP

Q30) Which two of the following statements about solving IBGP synchronization problems
are accurate? (Choose two.) (Source: Monitoring and Troubleshooting IBGP in a
Transit AS)
A) Routers with BGP synchronization enabled will be able to install IBGP routes
in the routing table and propagate them to other EBGP neighbors.
B) Routers with BGP synchronization enabled will not be able to install IBGP
routes in the routing table or propagate them to other EBGP neighbors.
C) The default value is to have synchronization enabled.
D) The default value is to have synchronization disabled.
Q1) A
Q2) B
Q3) C
Q4) C, D
Q5) B
Q6) C, D
Q7) B
Q8) C
Q9) C
Q10) B
Q11) A, C
Q12) A, B, C
Q13) C
Q14) D
Q15) B, C, D
Q16) A, D
Q17) A, B
Q18) A-200
B -20
C- 110
D -115
E -120
Q19) A, C
Q20) A, C
Q21) B
Q22) A, D
Q23) B
Q24) C, D
Q25) A, C
Q26) C
Q27) A, C, D
Q28) A, B, D
Q29) A
Q30) B, C

Module 3
Route Selection Using Policy

Controls
Overview
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) enables traffic in Internet backbones to determine an optimal
path to its destination across networks comprising more than one autonomous system (AS).
Routes that are learned via BGP have properties that are associated with them that aid BGP in
determining the best route to a particular destination. There are many instances in which the
default BGP route selection does not match administrative or business policies. Likewise,
redundant network designs often require enterprises to run BGP when they are connected to
more than one Internet service provider (ISP). In these situations, full BGP routing tables and
default BGP route selection are not desirable.
This module provides information on how to connect Internet customers to multiple service
providers. It introduces the need for filtering BGP updates and changing BGP route selection
policies. In addition, this module describes different Cisco IOS mechanisms (AS-path filters,
prefix-lists, route-maps) available for BGP route filtering.
Module Objectives
Upon completing this module, you will be able to use BGP attributes to influence the route
selection process in a network scenario where you must support multiple connections. This
ability includes being able to meet these objectives:
Describe the need for influencing BGP route selection in a customer scenario where
connections to multiple ISPs must be supported
Successfully configure BGP to influence route selection using AS-path filters in a customer
scenario where connections to multiple ISPs must be supported
Successfully configure BGP to influence route selection using prefix-list filters in a
customer scenario where connections to multiple ISPs must be supported
Use outbound route filtering to minimize the impact of BGP routing updates on router
resources in an operational BGP network
Correctly configure BGP to influence route selection using route-maps in a typical BGP
network
Configure the soft reconfiguration feature to minimize the impact of expediting BGP policy
updates in a typical BGP network
Lesson 1
Using Multihomed BGP

Networks
Overview
In some circumstances, it is important to have multiple paths to an Internet service provider
(ISP). There are business and technical reasons to configure a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
network in a multihomed configuration. Mission-critical applications often call for redundant
network designs. When access to applications is provided over the Internet, enterprises
typically use multihomed BGP networks to achieve their goals of high availability.
Full BGP routing tables and default BGP route selection might ordinarily be considered as
desirable characteristics for a network. However, the overhead of full BGP routing tables is not
warranted in these situations. Furthermore, the default route selection in BGP often does not
match the business and technical requirements for multihomed enterprise networks that use
BGP. This lesson discusses these business and technical issues and the requirement to use
filters to influence route selection and to apply a routing policy.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to describe the need for influencing BGP route
selection in a customer scenario where connections to multiple ISPs must be supported. This
ability includes being able to meet these objectives:
List the business requirements for multihomed BGP networks in service provider
environments
Describe the technical requirements for multihomed BGP networks in service provider
environments
Explain the need for BGP policies that influence route selection in a multihomed BGP
network
Describe typical routing policies for multihomed BGP customers
Explain the need to influence BGP route selection in a service provider environment
Explain the need for BGP filters in a service provider environment
Business Requirements for Multihomed BGP
Networks
This topic describes the business requirements for multihomed BGP networks in service
provider environments.
Business Requirements for Multihomed

BGP Networks
• Some customers need redundant Internet access for their

mission-critical applications.
• Full redundancy is achieved only by connecting to two
independent service providers.
Companies with web servers (or similar servers) offering mission-critical business services
over the Internet often like to have their networks redundantly connected to the Internet. When
the companies calculate the expected loss of business because of an unexpected disconnection
from the Internet, they may conclude that having two connections to the Internet is profitable.
In such cases the company may consider being a customer to two different ISPs or having two
separate connections to one ISP.
With two connections to one single ISP, BGP is usually not required. This solution provides
backup for link failure and router failure. However, this solution does not provide backup for
problems in the network of the ISP or the connection of the ISP to the rest of the Internet.
Full redundancy is achieved only by connecting to two independent ISPs. If one of the ISP
networks loses its connection to the rest of the Internet, the customer will still reach the rest of
the Internet via the other service provider. At the same time, the customer will still reach those
users directly connected to the failing ISP via its direct connection.
Technical Requirements for Multihomed BGP
Networks
This topic describes the technical requirements for multihomed BGP networks in service
provider environments.
Technical Requirements for Multihomed

BGP Networks
• Multihomed customers have to run BGP with their ISPs.

• Multihomed customers usually need a public AS number and
provider-independent address space.
The multihomed customer network must exchange BGP information with both ISP networks.
Dynamic routing is required for full redundancy, and BGP is the only protocol available that
can be used in this scenario.
The customer must, in most cases, have its own public autonomous system (AS) number and
announce its own IP networks to both ISPs. The ISPs will propagate customer announcements
to the rest of the Internet, and the customer will be seen as reachable via both ISP networks.
The customer network also receives full Internet routing from both ISPs. This capability gives
the customer network the opportunity to choose the best connection at that time to reach any
destination on the Internet.
Most customers are not multihomed. They do not exchange BGP with their ISP. Instead, they
use default routing to the ISP, and the ISP does static routing to the customer. ISPs use this fact
to optimize the number of prefixes that they announce into the Internet. IP network numbers are
usually assigned to customers from a range of IP networks that are delegated to the ISP. This
situation means, in the ideal case, that all customers that are connected to one single ISP can
have their IP networks summarized in a few BGP updates.
In the multihomed scenario, however, the ISP cannot benefit from IP network number
assignment from the delegated range. The customer is connected to two different ISPs, and it is
not obvious from which provider-assigned address space it should get the IP addresses. The
best solution is to do the assignment from a range completely independent of the providers, a
provider-independent address space.
© 2005, Cisco Systems, Inc. Route Selection Using Policy Controls 3-5
BGP Route Selection Without BGP Policies
This topic describes the need for BGP policies that influence route selection in a multihomed
BGP network.
BGP Route Selection Without BGP Policies
• Customer configures two BGP sessions and announces its

address space.
The simple approach illustrated in the figure may be the source of many problems. By simply
starting BGP sessions with both ISPs, and announcing the customer’s networks to both ISPs,
that customer could experience difficulties as a result of the default behaviors of BGP. The
following example illustrates problems that may occur in this environment.
Example: BGP Route Selection Without BGP Policies
This is an example of a multihomed customer with AS 123.
BGP Route Selection Without BGP

Policies (Cont.)
• The BGP routes are selected based on AS-path length.

• The default BGP route selection does not always result in
optimum routing.
The multihomed customer is connected to two ISPs: AS 37 and AS 21. The two ISPs are
interconnected, and both are also connected to AS 40.
The customer receives all routes from both service providers, giving redundancy. The default
BGP route selection prefers the shortest AS path. If the AS-path lengths are equal, BGP prefers
the most stable route, or the route that is received from the peer with the lower router-ID.
In many cases, however, this route is not the most optimal way to reach all destinations. For
example, the bandwidth that is available to reach the ISPs has not been taken into
consideration. To change the route selection behavior, some BGP parameters must be
configured to support more complex routing policies.
Multihomed Customer Routing Policies
This topic lists typical routing policies for multihomed BGP customers.
Multihomed Customer Routing Policies
Multihomed customers could require a number of

routing policies, for example:
• One provider is primary; the other is backup.
• Traffic to direct customers of the ISPs goes direct; all other
traffic goes through the primary provider.
• All traffic to a particular part of the world goes through one ISP.
• Traffic toward a specific destination goes through only one of
the ISPs.
Depending on the circumstances, here are the different polices that a multihomed customer
might require:
One of the two ISPs can be considered the primary connection. This distinction can be the
result of available bandwidth or commercial agreements. However, although one of the
ISPs is considered the primary connection, some users may have direct connections to the
secondary ISP. Therefore, going via the primary ISP to reach users that are connected to
the secondary ISP may be suboptimal.
Destinations in one part of the world may be reached more optimally via one of the ISPs,
rather than via the other, because the two ISPs may have different infrastructures and
peering agreements with other ISPs.
It is virtually impossible to establish a routing policy that gives optimal routing to every
destination on the Internet. Optimization can be done only with the most common destinations
in mind. This situation can result in specific rules on how to reach specific destination networks
or the AS.
Influencing BGP Route Selection
This topic describes the need to influence BGP route selection in a service provider
environment.
Influencing BGP Route Selection
• Internet traffic always flows over primary ISP.

• Routes received from primary ISP should be preferred over
routes received from backup ISP.
• A route selection tool is needed in BGP weights or local
preference.
When one of the two ISPs is designated as a primary ISP and the other as a backup, BGP
attributes must be configured as a means of influencing BGP route selection rules. If both ISP
connections terminate in one single customer router, all routes that are received from the
primary ISP can be assigned a BGP weight. A higher weight indicates a more preferred path.
However, the weight value is local to one router. The weight value is not shared between
routers. If one ISP connection terminates in one of the customer routers and the other ISP
connection terminates in another, the two customer routers must agree on which link to use.
Using local preference instead of weight can do this. All routes that are received from the
primary ISP over the primary link are assigned a local preference value, which is higher than
the default value of 100. The customer router that receives the routes from the primary ISP
completes the assignment and communicates the information to the other routers within the AS
of the customer.
The result of using either weight or local preference is that the AS of the customer reaches all
its destinations on the Internet via the primary link as long as it is available and reaches those
destinations within the AS of the secondary ISP. In the case of link failure or failures within the
network of the primary ISP, some of the routes, or all of the routes, will no longer be received
over the primary link. In that case, the AS of the customer no longer sees those destinations as
reachable over the primary link. The only remaining choice is the backup link. Therefore, the
backup link is used by the customer network only to reach destinations that are not reachable
over the primary link.
Influencing BGP Route Selection (Cont.)
• Internet traffic flows over primary ISP; traffic to

customers of backup ISP goes direct.
• Route selection has to be performed based on AS
numbers in the AS path.
In most cases, it is optimal to reach other customers connected to the backup ISP via the
backup link, compared with reaching them via the primary link.
The routing policy described previously, where routes are blindly preferred if they are received
on the primary link, can easily be modified to use the backup link for destinations in the AS of
the backup ISP. On the router, filtering tools can be configured to select routing information
that is based on the content in the AS-path attribute. Those routes, with an AS-path attribute
matching specific selection criteria, can be assigned an even higher weight or local preference.
This approach results in a routing policy that gives precedence to reaching destinations within
the AS of the primary ISP and within all autonomous systems upstream of the primary ISP over
the primary link. Destinations within the AS of the backup ISP receive precedence over the
backup link.
BGP Filters
This topic describes the need for BGP filters in a service provider environment.
BGP Filters? Transit Traffic Issue
• Customers could become a transit AS for the service providers.

• Requirement: Do not propagate provider routes to other
providers.
When BGP has selected the best path, the information is advertised by the router to all
neighboring autonomous systems, except for the session that it was received on (called “BGP
split-horizon functionality,” which prevents near-range routing loops). This situation causes the
customer AS to become a transit AS between the two ISPs, and should be avoided.
Most customers do not intend to create transit traffic between ISP networks. The access lines to
the ISPs are not suited to carry this volume of traffic, and the customer certainly does not want
to have its bandwidth consumed by transit traffic.
The solution to this problem is to filter outgoing information to both ISPs. Filtering of routing
information is performed based on the content of the AS-path attribute that is assigned to every
BGP route. Only routes having an AS-path attribute that indicates that they are sourced by the
AS of the customer are allowed to be sent to either of the two ISPs.
BGP Filters? Routing Update Reliability
Issue
• Customers running BGP could announce any route to the

service providers.
• Requirement: Service providers have to filter IP prefixes in
incoming updates.
Without some sort of filtering, BGP routing information that is created by the AS of the
customer can potentially be propagated all over the Internet. In this way, the customer can
inject erroneous information into the Internet routing tables.
Customers are much less experienced in avoiding these kinds of problems than are service
providers. There is much more risk of errors being introduced when a customer is assigned its
own AS and uses BGP with the ISP, as compared with the single-homed scenario in which the
ISP has sole responsibility to announce BGP routes to the rest of the Internet.
Almost all of the Internet problems that a customer can cause by improperly configuring its
BGP can be stopped by the ISP. The ISP should filter all incoming information from the
customer and accept only what is supposed to arrive. The ISP should discard anything outside
strict limits. In this way, the ISP prevents the propagation of erroneous information to the rest
of the Internet.
The ISP can maintain a list of the IP network numbers that the customer is announcing and
filter out any other route. If this approach is not possible because of the volume of those lists,
the ISP should at least be able to filter out the most obvious erroneous announcements.
Note Private addresses, according to RFC 1918, should never be announced to the Internet.
BGP Filters? Return Traffic Issue
• Customers can influence only their outgoing traffic, not the

return traffic.
• Return traffic can take any path—backup ISP
must also perform proper route selection.
The customer can easily define a policy about how to send outgoing IP packets on the correct
link. It is much harder to influence the neighboring AS about how to direct the IP packets
coming into the customer network.
A customer that creates a routing policy in which one of the two ISPs is always preferred may
see that the return traffic is arriving on what the customer thought was the backup link. This
situation means that the customer has configured the weight or local preference to make sure
that all outgoing traffic is leaving the customer AS over the primary link, but the backup ISP
does not have any such configuration. Therefore, return traffic enters the customer AS by using
the shortest AS path as its selection criterion.
The best way to solve this problem is for the customer to ask the backup ISP to change its
routing policy. The change should cause the backup ISP to prefer reaching the customer AS via
the AS of the primary ISP. The backup ISP must implement this change in its own AS.
Note Sometimes the backup ISP administrator might be reluctant to change the configuration for
a single customer. In this case, the customer should use another BGP feature, the AS-path
prepending tool, to influence the selection of the primary or backup link by lengthening the
AS path of routes that are sent to the backup provider.
Summary
Summary
• Some customers need redundant Internet access for their

mission-critical applications and address this need by having
two separate connections to one ISP or implementing a
multihomed configuration (connecting to two different Internet
service providers).
• The multihomed customer network must exchange BGP
information with both ISP networks. Dynamic routing is
required for full redundancy, and BGP is the only protocol
available that can be used in this scenario.
• An approach to multihoming that is too simple can be a source
of problems. Starting BGP sessions and announcing customer
networks to multiple ISPs by using the default behavior of BGP
may not result in optimal routing.
Summary (Cont.)
• Depending on the circumstances, a multihomed customer

may require different polices, such as one of the two ISPs
being considered the primary connection or reaching
destinations in one part of the world more optimally via one
of the ISPs. Optimization should be done with the most
common destinations in mind, resulting in specific rules on
how to reach specific destination networks or the AS.
• In BGP route selection, a routing policy may be created that
gives precedence to reaching destinations within the AS of
the primary ISP and all upstream autonomous systems over
the primary link and reaching destinations within the AS of
the backup ISP over the backup link.
• When BGP has selected the best path and the information
has been propagated to all neighboring autonomous
systems, the customer AS may become a transit AS between
the two ISPs. The customer must avoid this situation by using
BGP filters.
Lesson 2
Employing AS-Path Filters
Overview
In network implementations that require connections to multiple Internet service providers
(ISPs), network operators typically use autonomous system (AS)-path filters to influence
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) route selection. It is important for a network administrator to
understand the syntax of an AS-path regular expression and how string-matching operators
function when they are using AS-path regular expressions to match BGP routes.
BGP allows connectivity between multiple ISPs for redundancy and scalability. Service
providers employ AS-path filters to remedy the problems that are associated with the various
connectivity methods that are used within BGP. This lesson explains the methods that are used
to implement BGP AS-path filters.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to successfully configure BGP to influence route
selection using AS-path filters in a customer scenario in which connections to multiple ISPs
must be supported. This ability includes being able to meet these objectives:
Identify network scenarios in which you must support connections to multiple ISPs and in
which AS-path filters can be used to influence route selection
Describe the function of an AS-path regular expression
Explain how string-matching operators function when you are using AS-path regular
expressions to match BGP routes
Identify where you can apply an AS-path filter when configuring a router to influence route
selection
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to configure AS-path filters to influence
route selection
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to monitor the operation of configured
AS-path filters
AS-Path Filtering Scenarios
This topic identifies network scenarios that require connections to multiple ISPs where route
selection must be influenced with AS-path filters.
AS-Path Filtering Scenarios
• Several scenarios require BGP route filtering based on AS

path.
– Announce only local routes to the ISP—AS path needs to be
empty
– Select routes based on a specific AS number in the AS path
– Accept routes for specific AS only from some BGP neighbors
• AS-path filters use regular expressions.
Several scenarios require filtering and selection of routing information, based on the content of
the AS-path attribute. Each BGP route must have an AS-path attribute. It is a well-known
mandatory attribute and must therefore be present in each BGP update.
Using selection criteria that are based on the AS-path attribute, a router can identify a set of
specific routes from the total set of routes that it receives. Those routes where the AS-path
contents match the criteria are selected. Routes that do not match the criteria are not selected.
The AS path is a sequence of numbers. Each number indicates an AS. When a route is sourced
by means of a network command in a BGP process or redistribution into a BGP process, the
AS-path attribute is created and left empty. Each time the route is advertised by an egress router
to another AS, the AS-path attribute is modified by the egress router, which prepends its AS
number to the AS-path attribute.
While a newly sourced route is still within the AS in which it was created, the AS path is
empty. When the AS has a requirement to filter out all but the routes that are local to itself
before sending them to a neighboring AS, the AS will permit sending of the routes with the
empty AS path and will deny all others.
Routers can also filter incoming routes based on their AS-path attributes. Some destination
autonomous systems should not be received from a certain neighbor. Therefore, the routes
matching that AS in the AS path can be filtered on the receiving router in case they are
accidentally sent.
Selection based on the AS path is also a tool that you can use when changing the weight or
local preference attributes for some destination autonomous systems but not for others.
When routers filter BGP updates based on the content of the AS-path attribute, they use regular
expressions. Regular expressions are commonly found in the UNIX environment and also in
some Microsoft Windows-based applications. Regular expressions are a string-matching tool.
A regular expression consists of a string of characters. Some of these characters have special
meanings, such as functioning as wildcards and operators, and some of these characters simply
mean themselves, for example, A to Z, a to z, or 0 to 9. A regular expression is said to match a
string if the ordinary characters and the applied meaning of the special operator characters can
be translated into the matched string. When a regular expression matches, the selection test is
said to be true. If it does not match, the test is false.
AS-Path Regular Expressions
This topic describes the function of an AS-path regular expression.
AS-Path Regular Expressions
27 31 23 317 223
AS-path converted to string
|27 31 23 317 223|

String matched with regexp
ip as-path access-list 1 permit 31
The AS-path attribute carried with all BGP routes in a BGP update is a very compact binary
encoding of a sequence of integer numbers; it is not a sequence that can be tested by using a
regular expression.
Cisco IOS software internally translates the binary encoding into a character string. Each AS
number in the sequence is converted into a string using decimal representation. The space
character separates each AS number in the AS-path attribute. The router applies the regular
expression test to this internally created character string.
Characters in a regular expression that are not assigned a specific operation match themselves.
The regular expression “31” matches all occurrences of the character “3” followed by the
character “1” in the AS path. In this example, “31” matches at two occurrences. One
occurrence is sufficient to make the test true. No occurrence means that the test failed.
String Matching
This topic describes how string matching functions when you are using AS-path regular
expressions to match BGP routes.
String Matching? Regular Expressions
A string of characters in a regular expression matches any

equivalent substring in the AS path.
How many times does 31 match?

|213 317 2316 31|
Answer:
|213 317 2316 31|
The regular expression “31” will match any occurrence of “3” followed by “1” regardless of the
characters immediately preceding the “3” and immediately following the “1”. Therefore, “31”
will match an occurrence of “3” and “1” in the middle of an AS number.
The regular expression “31” matches the AS-path string “213 317 2316 31” three times,
because “31” matches a part of “317”, “2316”, and “31”.
String Matching? Alternatives
Expression expr1|expr2 matches the string if either

subexpression matches the string.
How many times does 21|31 match?

|213 317 2316 31|
Answer:
|213 317 2316 31|
The character “|” (vertical bar) has a special meaning. It is an operator that means “or.” The
regular expression “21|31” matches the sequence of “2” followed by “1” or the sequence of “3”
followed by “1”. Therefore, this sample regular expression will match a two-character
sequence: the “21” or the “31”.
The regular expression “21|31” matches the AS-path string “213 317 2316 31” four times,
because “21” matches a part of “213” and “31” matches a part of both “317” and “2316” and
also “31”.
String Matching? Ranges and Wildcard
Characters
A range of characters matches any single character in the

range.
Examples: [1234] or [1-4]
Dot (.) matches any single character
How many times does [1-3].[34] match?

|213 317 2316 31|
Answer:
|213 317 2316 31|
|213 317 2316 31|
The pair of brackets “[” and “]” has a special meaning. Brackets surround a set of characters of
which any one matches. The set of characters is either expressed as the list of the matches (for
example, “[1234]”) or the sequence with the starting character, a hyphen, and the ending
character (for example, “[1-4]”). Both examples match one single character, which must be any
one in the set of the four characters “1”, “2”, “3”, and “4”.
The character “.” (a dot) matches any single character. Small regular expressions can be
combined into a larger expression. Such a combination is matching if all of the parts match one
after the other. The sample regular expression “[1-3].[34]” matches a sequence of three
characters, of which the first must be either “1”, “2”, or “3”, the second character can be any
character, and the third must be either “3” or “4”.
Note The space character delimiting two AS numbers is just a character. The dot (“.”) for example,
matches this character.
The regular expression “[1-3].[34]” matches the AS-path string “213 317 2316 31” twice.
Initially, it matches “213”. The leading “[1-3]” matches the leading “2”. The dot, which
matches any character, matches the “1”, and “[34]” matches the trailing “3”. Secondly, the
regular expression also matches in “213 317 2316 31”. This is a little harder to see, because the
dot (“.”) matches the space character between “213” and “317”.
String Matching? Matching Delimiters
^ Matches beginning of string

$ Matches end of string
_ Matches any delimiter (beginning, end, white
space, tab, comma)
How many times does ^21, 31$, _31_ match?

|213 317 218 31 731|
Answer:
|213 317 218 31 731|
A character string must have a start and an end. The character with the special meaning “^”
matches the beginning of a string. Because all strings have a beginning, the “^” character
matches all strings. However, the “^” character is used to position the part of the regular
expression that follows. The character following the “^” character must be the first character of
the string; otherwise, that character would not match the beginning of the string.
The special character “$” is used analogously, but it means the end of the string. The character
preceding the “$” must be the last character in the string; otherwise, the “$” does not match the
end of the string.
The underscore (“_”) matches any delimiter. The space character between two AS numbers is
an example of a delimiter. The beginning of the string and the end of the string are also
considered delimiters. Other delimiters are the tab and the comma (“,”). The underscore (“_”) is
used to ensure that the desired AS number is found in an AS-path string but not as part of some
other AS number. For example, the regular expression “31” will match the AS number string
“317”, but the regular expression “_31_” will not. Both “31” and “_31_” will match the AS
number string “31”.
The regular expression “^21” can match the AS-path string “213 317 218 31 731” only one
time because there is only one beginning of the string. The regular expression “^21” matches
only if the string starts with the sequence “21”, which it does.
The regular expression “31$” can match the AS-path string “213 317 218 31 731” only one
time because there is only one end of the string. The regular expression “31$” matches only if
the string ends with the sequence “31”, which it does.
The regular expression “_31_” can, in theory, match an AS-path string several times. However,
in this case, when matched against the string “213 317 218 31 731”, the regular expression
“_31_” matches only the AS number “31” in the AS path.
String Matching? Grouping
Parentheses can be used to group smaller regular

expressions into larger expressions.
How many times does (213|218)_31 match?

|213 317 1218 316 31|
Answer:
|213 317 1218 316 31|
Complicated expressions must sometimes be grouped with parentheses, “(“and”)”. This feature
can be useful when you are searching for a sequence of two or more AS numbers of which the
first can match any of the specific autonomous systems (in this example, “213” or “218”), but
the last must be a specific AS (“31” in this example). If the parentheses were not used here, the
expression would match either the single AS “213” or the sequence of the two (218 31).
The regular expression “(213|218)_31” matches the AS-path string “213 317 1218 316 31”
twice. The first match is “213 317 1218 316 31”; the second match is “213 317 1218 316 31”.
String Matching? Special Characters
\ To use the special characters as single-character

patterns, remove the special meaning by preceding each
character with a backslash (\).
How do you match AS 213 in the beginning of the

string? |(213 317) 1218 316 31|
Answer:
^\(213_
Sometimes the target string that you are trying to match with a regular expression contains
some of the characters that also have special meanings in the regular expression. To match
these characters in the target string, use the backslash (“\”) together with the character in the
regular expression.
Note This type of regular expression syntax is used for matching AS-path strings inside a BGP
confederation. A confederation is used to eliminate the scaling problem of full-mesh Internal
Border Gateway Protocol (IBGP) by splitting the AS into smaller regional autonomous
systems. The example shows that 213 and 317 were part of a confederation by its use of “(“
and “)”. Confederations are explained further in the “Scaling Service Provider Networks”
module.
String Matching? Repeating Operators
* Matches zero or more atoms

? Matches zero or one atom
+ Matches one or more atoms
An atom is a single character or a grouping.
How do you match AS sequences “23 45” and

“23 78 45” in a single regular expression?
Answer:
_23(_78)?_45_
The special characters, star (asterisk), “*”, question mark, “?”, and plus, “+”, all apply
repetition of the expression that immediately precedes them.
The star (asterisk), “*”, means that the expression that immediately precedes it is repeated zero
or more times. This means that the expression may not be there, but it may also be there any
number of times. The expression “1*” will match a sequence of no characters or a sequence of
any number of the character “1”.
A question mark (“?”) means that the expression that immediately precedes it is repeated zero
or one time. This means that the expression may not be there, but it may also be there once. The
expression “1?” will match a sequence of no characters or the single character “1”.
The plus sign (“+”) means that the expression that immediately precedes it is repeated one or
more times. This means that the expression must be there at least once. The expression “1+”
will match a sequence of one or more of the character “1”.
Example: String Matching
This example shows a sample of regular expressions.
String Matching? Sample Regular

Expressions
_100_ Going through AS 100

^100$ Directly connected to AS 100
_100$ Originated in AS 100
^100_. Networks behind AS 100
^ [0-9]+$ AS paths one AS long
^([0-9]+)(_\1)*$ Prepending performed in neighboring
originating AS
^$ Networks originated in local AS
.* Matches everything
Regular expressions can be arbitrarily complex. However, most searching is accomplished

using regular expressions similar to those in these examples:
If you are searching for all routes that have AS 100 in their AS paths, the regular
expression to use is “_100_”.
If you are searching for all routes that are sourced in your directly connected neighboring
AS 100, the regular expression to use is “^100$”. Use an expression with both a carat (“^”)
and dollar sign (“$”) present when you are searching for an exact match.
If you are searching for all routes that are sourced in AS 100, but that AS is not necessarily
a directly connected neighboring AS, the regular expression to use is “_100$”. The dollar
sign (“$”) indicates that the AS path must end with AS 100. This is an indication that the
route was sourced in AS 100. The underscore (“_”) is used to make sure that it is AS 100 at
the end of the string and not, for example, AS 2100.
If you are searching for all the routes that are reachable behind AS 100, the regular
expression to use is “^100_.”. The carat (“^”) indicates that the AS path must start with AS
100. The underscore (“_”) is used to make sure that this number is not matching with, for
example, AS 1001. The dot (“.”) is used to indicate that the AS path does not end with AS
100, and that there must be something following AS 100.
If you are searching for all routes that are sourced in any AS directly neighboring your AS,
the regular expression to use is “^[0-9]+$”. The “[0-9]” part means any digit. The plus sign
(“+”) repetition character means one or more times. Therefore, the combination “[0-9]+”
means a sequence of one or more of digits. The carat (“^”) and dollar sign (“$”) mean the
beginning and the end of the string. Therefore, the string may consist only of a sequence of
one or more digits.
If you are searching for all routes that are sourced in any AS directly neighboring your AS,
and possibly performing AS-path prepending (multiplication of a directly connected AS
number), the regular expression to use is “^([0-9]+)(_\1)*$”. The expression in the first set
of parentheses matches any AS number. The parentheses store the value of the matched
AS, and this value is then recalled by the second part of the regular expression, including a
variable. The variable “\1” is put into parentheses for the purpose of the multiplier operator
“*”, meaning that this part can match any number of successive occurrences of the same
AS number that was matched by the “[0-9]+” expression. For example, this regular
expression matches AS paths “99 99 99”, “200”, “101 101”, or “5 5 5 5 5”, but it does not
match the AS path “101 99”.
The combination “^$” means an empty string and is used when you are searching for all
routes that are sourced in the local AS.
Sometimes a search is made to select a few specific routes and do something special with
them, while the rest of the routes will be handled in a different way. To search for all
routes, regardless of the content of their AS-path attribute, use the regular expression “.*”.
The dot (“.”) matches any single character. The repetition character, star (asterisk), “*”,
means that the match should be repeated zero or more times. Thus, the combination (“.*”)
matches any string.
Commonly Used Characters in Expressions
. Any single character, including a space

* Zero or more sequence of pattern
+ One or more sequence of pattern
? Zero or one occurrence of pattern
^ Beginning of string
$ End of string
_ Match any delimiter (including beginning, end, space,
tab, comma)
\ Remove special meaning of character that follows
[] Match one character in a range
| Logical OR
The figure lists the most commonly used characters in expressions.
Applying AS-Path Filters
This topic identifies where you can apply an AS-path filter when configuring a router to
influence route selection.
Applying AS-Path Filters
AS-path filters that are configured on a router select those routes that are allowed. Routes that
are selected behave as described here:
The selected routes enter the local BGP table when the selection is applied on the incoming
routes from a neighbor; routes that are not selected are silently dropped.
The selected routes are transmitted to the neighbor when the selection is applied on the
outgoing routes to the neighbor; routes that are not selected are used locally but are never
sent to the neighbor.
Configuring BGP AS-Path Filters
This topic identifies the commands that you can use to configure AS-path filters to influence
route selection.
Configuring BGP AS-Path Filters
router(config)#
ip as-path access-list number {permit|deny} regexp
• Configures AS-path access-list
neighbor ip-address filter-list as-path-filter {in|out}
• Configures inbound or outbound AS-path filter for specified

BGP neighbor
An AS-path filter is created by an AS-path access-list. This access-list is applied to a set of

routes from which to select a subset. Routes that are permitted by the access-list are included in
the subset, and those that are denied are not included. As in all access-lists, the candidate to be
permitted or denied membership in the subset is tested against all the lines in the access-list, in
the order in which the list is configured. The first match indicates “permit” or “deny,” as
specified. If the end of the access-list is reached without any explicit match, the candidate is
implicitly denied.
The test by the AS-path access-list is performed by using regular expressions that are applied
on the AS-path attribute of the route.
The access-list can, for example, be applied on the routes received from, or those sent to, a
specific BGP neighbor.
ip as-path access-list
To define a BGP AS-path access-list, use the ip as-path access-list global configuration
command.
ip as-path access-list access-list-number {permit | deny} as-regular-expression
To disable use of the access-list, use the no form of this command.

no ip as-path access-list access-list-number {permit | deny} as-regular-expression
Syntax Description
access-list-number Integer from 1 to 199 that indicates the regular expression

access-list number.
permit Permits access for matching conditions.
deny Denies access to matching conditions.
as-regular-expression AS in the access-list using a regular expression (See the

“Regular Expressions” appendix in the Cisco IOS Dial Services
Command Reference for information about forming regular
expressions.)
neighbor filter-list
To set up a BGP filter, use the neighbor filter-list router configuration command.
neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} filter-list access-list-number {in | out}

no neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} filter-list access-list-number {in | out}
Syntax Description
ip-address IP address of the neighbor.
access-list-number Number of an AS path access-list. Define this access-list with the

ip as-path access-list command.
in Access-list to incoming routes.
out Access-list to outgoing routes.
Configuring BGP AS-Path Filters (Cont.)
Multihomed customers do not want to act as a transit AS between their service providers. The
customer avoids this situation by not transmitting all its routes to its service providers. The
service providers send IP packets to the customer only if the IP packets have destination
addresses that match one of the routes that the customer has sent by BGP to the service
provider. By making sure that only locally sourced routes are sent, the customer avoids
receiving IP packets for destinations outside its own AS.
Within the customer AS, the locally sourced routes have empty AS paths. The empty string is
matched by the regular expression “^$”. The command ip as-path access-list 1 permits only
the routes that are locally sourced and implicitly denies the rest. By applying this filter-list on
outgoing information to all neighbors, the customer will announce local routes only.
Monitoring AS-Path Filters
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS commands that are required to monitor the operation of
configured AS-path filters.
Monitoring AS-Path Filters

router#
show ip as-path-access-list [filter list]
• Displays one or all filter-lists
router#
show ip bgp regexp regular-expression
• Displays all routes in the BGP table permitted by the

specified AS-path access-list
router#
show ip bgp filter-list access-list-number
• Displays all routes in the BGP table matching regular-

expression in one or all filter-lists
The Cisco IOS commands that are most frequently used to monitor the operation of configured
AS-path filters include show ip as-path-access-list, show ip bgp regexp, and show ip bgp
filter-list.
The show ip as-path-access-list Command
• Displaying configured filters:
The show ip as-path-access-list command displays a specific access-list or all AS-path access-
lists in the router.
The show ip bgp regexp Command
• Routes matched by an expression:
Because regular expressions sometimes get complex, thorough testing of them is required. The
show ip bgp regexp command displays all routes currently in the BGP table that have an
AS-path attribute that matches the typed-in regular expression. Use the show ip bgp regexp
command to test a regular expression that is typed in on the command line. The result is a
printout on the screen of all those routes currently in the BGP table that had an AS-path
attribute matching the typed-in regular expression.
In the example figure (which shows BGP confederations, a scalability feature), you wish to find
all BGP confederation routes from AS number 65002. To search for this character in the
beginning of the string, use the character “\”, the backslash. The regular expression “^\(65002”
matches all the routes that are received from the intra-confederation AS number 65002.
show ip bgp regexp

To display routes that match an AS-path regular expression, use the show ip bgp regexp
privileged EXEC command.
show ip bgp regexp regular-expression
Syntax Description
regular-expression Regular expression to match the BGP AS paths
The show ip bgp filter-list Command
• Routes matched by a filter-list:
An AS-path access-list is even more complex because it is a combination of several regular

expressions. There is one expression on each access-list line. Use the show ip bgp filter-list
command to test the entire AS-path access-list. The result is a printout on the screen of all the
routes currently in the BGP table that had an AS-path attribute permitted by the access-list.
The AS-path access-list number 25 in the example figure consists of one single line. It permits
the routes that have an AS-path attribute containing the AS number 42 somewhere in their AS
paths. All other routes are implicitly denied. The show ip bgp filter-list command displays all
the routes currently in the BGP table that are permitted by AS-path access-list 25. As a result of
configuring BGP confederations, the AS path contains some AS numbers enclosed in
parentheses. BGP confederations and their usage are explained in the “Scaling Service Provider
Networks” module.
show ip bgp filter-list

To display routes that conform to a specified filter-list, use the show ip bgp filter-list
privileged EXEC command.
show ip bgp filter-list access-list-number
Syntax Description
access-list-number Integer from 1 to 199 that indicates the regular expression

access-list number
Summary
Summary
• Several scenarios require BGP route filtering based on AS

path, including announcing only local routes to the ISP (AS
path needs to be empty), selecting routes based on a specific
AS number in the AS path, and accepting routes for a
specific AS only from some BGP neighbors. By applying
specific selection criteria to the contents of the AS-path
attribute, routers can select a subset of routes from the total
set of routes that are received.
• Cisco IOS software internally translates the AS-path
encoding, which is carried with all BGP routes into a
character string. This string is then tested against the regular
expression.
• String matching operates when you are using AS-path
regular expressions to match BGP routes.
Summary (Cont.)
• You can use AS-path filters to select those routes that will be
allowed.
• An AS-path filter is created by an AS-path access-list, which
is applied to a set of routes from which to select a subset.
The ip as-path access-list global configuration command
defines a BGP AS-path access-list, and the neighbor filter-list
router configuration command sets up a BGP filter.
• There are a number of Cisco IOS commands that are required
to monitor the operation of configured AS-path filters,
including show ip as-path-access-list, show ip bgp regexp, and
show ip bgp filter-list.
Lesson 3
Filtering with Prefix-Lists
Overview
Where multiple paths between a customer and an Internet service provider (ISP) exist, there is a
requirement to filter certain information during Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) updates to
influence route selection or to enforce an administrative policy. To meet this requirement, you
must use filters. Using prefix-lists is typically easier than using standard IP access-lists and
provides performance benefits. It is important to understand the commands to apply filtering of
inbound or outbound updates with prefix-lists and where they should be applied.
This lesson discusses the requirement for using prefix-based filters in customer
implementations where connections to multiple ISPs must be supported and describes the
advantages of prefix-lists over IP access-lists. The commands to apply filtering of inbound or
outbound updates with prefix-lists and to configure prefix-list filters are discussed, and also
where network administrators should apply them.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to successfully configure BGP to influence route
selection using prefix-list filters in a customer scenario in which connections to multiple ISPs
must be supported. This ability includes being able to meet these objectives:
Identify the requirement for prefix-based filters in network implementations where multiple
connections between a customer and ISPs exist
List the advantages of prefix-lists versus IP access-lists
Identify the Cisco IOS command that is required to configure prefix-list filters
Describe where you can implement prefix-lists in a BGP network
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to apply filtering of inbound or
outbound updates with prefix-lists
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to modify configured prefix-list filters
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to monitor the operation of configured
prefix-list filters
Requirements for Prefix-Based Filters
This topic identifies the requirement for prefix-based filters in network implementations where
multiple connections between a customer and ISPs exist.
Requirements for Prefix-Based Filters
• Service providers have to filter customer updates to ensure that

the customers announce only their assigned address space.
Customers with multihomed networks are responsible for announcing their own networks using
BGP. Typically, customers are not as experienced with BGP as service providers, and therefore
problems are more likely to occur. A service provider with a multihomed customer must take
precautions not to accept, use, or forward any erroneous routing information that is received
from the customer.
The customer is assigned a set of IP network numbers that it should announce. If the customer
announces any additional networks, something is wrong. The customer may have forgotten not
to act as a transit autonomous system (AS) and may have started propagating routes that it has
received from the other service provider. Or, the customer may have accidentally started to
announce its private address space, which the customer may use for address links, loopback
interfaces, or other devices that should never access the Internet.
To avoid problems, the service provider can apply an IP prefix filter on the incoming
information from the customer. The service provider will accept only network numbers
permitted by an access-list or prefix-list.
Prefix-Lists vs. IP Access-Lists
This topic lists the advantages of prefix-lists versus IP access-lists.
Prefix-Lists vs. IP Access-Lists
Traditional prefix filters

• Traditional IP prefix filters were implemented with IP access-
lists configured with the distribute-list command.
• IP access-lists used as route filters have several drawbacks:
– Subnet mask cannot be easily matched.
– Access-lists are evaluated sequentially for every IP prefix in the
routing update.
– Access-lists are hard to edit.
– Extended access-lists can be cumbersome to configure.
Traditionally, the filtering of IP network numbers has been accomplished using an access-list.
The access-list is then bound to either the incoming or outgoing information of a neighbor by
the neighbor distribute-list command. A BGP update about a network number that is
permitted by the access-list will be accepted, and those denied will be dropped.
However, standard access-lists do not support the testing of the subnet masks. If the access-list
permits 10.0.0.0/16, it would also permit 10.0.0.0/8.
Extended access-lists can do testing on both an IP network number and a subnet mask, but the
syntax is cumbersome.
Finally, access-lists are difficult to edit. The router automatically adds new access-list entries to
the end of the list. Because the router evaluates the list sequentially, and the first match results
in a “permit” or “deny” statement, the order of the lines in the access-list is of utmost
importance. The inability to add a line in the middle of a list has been an administrative burden.
Prefix-Lists vs. IP Access-Lists (Cont.)
Prefix-lists
• New route-filtering mechanism
• Significant performance improvement on long filters
– Inside Cisco IOS software, the prefix-list is a tree structure and is
not scanned sequentially.
• Support for incremental updates
– Individual entries in prefix-lists can be inserted or deleted.
• More user-friendly CLI
– The CLI for using access-lists to filter BGP updates is difficult to
understand and use, because it uses the packet-filtering format.
• Greater flexibility; can match on subnet masks
The ip prefix-list configuration command has several benefits compared to using the access-
list command. The intended use of prefix-lists is limited to route filtering, whereas access-lists
were initially intended for packet filtering, which was then extended to filter routes.
The prefix-list is internally transformed into a tree structure, with each branching of the tree
serving as a test. Cisco IOS software determines a verdict of either “permit” or “deny” much
faster this way, compared to sequentially interpreting an access-list.
The configuration command-line interface (CLI) that you use when configuring the ip prefix-
list command provides the ability to assign a line number to each line of the prefix-list. The
router uses this number to sort the entries in the prefix-list. If the lines are initially assigned line
numbers, with some spacing in between them, administrators can insert additional lines at a
later time. Individual lines can also be removed without removing the entire list.
Routers match network numbers in a routing update against the prefix-list, using as many bits
as indicated. For example, a prefix-list can be specified to be 10.0.0.0/16, which will match
10.0.0.0 routes but not 10.1.0.0 routes.
Optionally, the prefix-list can also specify the size of the subnet mask. In addition, the prefix-
list can indicate that the subnet mask must be in a specified range.
Prefix-Lists vs. IP Access-Lists (Cont.)
• Key access-list features are preserved.

– Filtering using “permit” or “deny”
– Order dependency (first match wins)
– Security-focused: no match means “deny”
• The matching mechanism has changed.
– Matches routes in a part of address space with subnet
mask longer or shorter than a set number
The prefix-list shares several similarities with the access-list. It can consist of any number of
lines, each of which indicates a test and a result. The router can interpret the lines in the
specified order, although this process is optimized in the Cisco IOS software. When a router
evaluates a route against the prefix-list, the first line that matches results in either a “permit” or
“deny.” If none of the lines in the list match, the result is “implicitly deny.”
Testing is done using prefixes. The indicated number of bits in the prefix is compared with the
same number of bits in the network number in the update. If the bits match, testing continues
with an examination of the number of bits set in the subnet mask. The prefix-list line can
indicate a range within which the number must fall to pass the test. If no range is indicated, the
subnet mask must match the prefix size.
Configuring Prefix-Lists
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS command that is required to configure prefix-list filters.
Configuring Prefix-Lists
router(config)#
ip prefix-list list-name [seq seq] {permit|deny}
network/len [ge value] [le value]
• Prefix-lists have names and sequence numbers (like route-
maps).
• An entry with no le or ge parameter matches exactly the
specified prefix.
• An entry with an le or ge parameter matches any route within the
address space of address/prefix with prefix longer or equal to ge
value and shorter than or equal to le value.
ip prefix-list
To create an entry in a prefix-list, use the ip prefix-list global configuration command.
ip prefix-list list-name [seq seq-value] {permit | deny} network/len [ge ge-value] [le le-
value]
To delete the entry, use the no form of this command.

no ip prefix-list list-name [seq seq-value] {permit | deny} network/len [ge ge-value] [le
le-value]
Syntax Description
list-name Name of a prefix
seq (Optional) Applies the sequence number to the prefix
seq-value (Optional) Specifies the sequence number for the prefix
permit Permits access for matching conditions
deny Denies access to matching conditions
network/len (Mandatory) The network number and length (in bits) of the
subnet mask
ge (Optional) Applies the ge-value to the range specified
ge-value (Optional) Specifies the lesser value of a range (the "from" portion
of the range description)
le (Optional) Applies the le-value to the range specified
le-value (Optional) Specifies the greater value of a range (the "to" portion
of the range description)
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. In this case, the entry with the
smallest sequence number is considered to be the “real” match.
Note You can specify sequence values for prefix-list entries in any increments that you want (the
automatically generated numbers are increased in units of 5). If you specify the sequence
values in increments of 1, you will not be able to insert additional entries into the prefix-list. If
you choose very large increments, you could run out of sequence values.
You can use the parameters ge and le to specify the range of the prefix length to be matched for
prefixes that are more specific than network/len. The exact match is assumed when neither ge
nor le is specified. The range is assumed to be from ge-value to 32 only if the ge attribute is
specified. The range is assumed to be from len to le-value only if the le attribute is specified.
Configuring Prefix-Lists (Cont.)
Prefix-list matching rules

• Prefix-list entries with no ge or le option match only the
specified route.
– Similar to IP access-lists with no wildcard bits
– Matching also considers subnet mask
Which of the following routes will be matched by:

ip prefix-list MyList permit 192.168.0.0/16?
3192.168.0.0/16 X 192.168.0.0/20 X 192.168.2.0/24
Prefix-list entries without the ge or le option match only the route with the specified IP address
and subnet mask. In the example here, the prefix-list entry permit 192.168.0.0/16 will not
match the route 192.168.2.0/24 because of the mismatch in the IP address. It will also not
match the route 192.168.0.0/20 because of the mismatch in the subnet mask.
• A prefix-list entry with ge or le option matches any prefix within

specified address space where the subnet mask falls within
specified limits.
Which of the following routes will be matched by:
ip prefix-list MyList permit 192.168.0.0/16 le 20?
3192.168.0.0/16 3192.168.17.0/20 X192.168.2.0/24

ip prefix-list MyList permit 192.168.0.0/16 ge 18?
X 192.168.0.0/16 3192.168.17.0/20 3192.168.2.0/24

Prefix-list entries with the ge or le option specified match any prefix within the address space
that is specified by the network/len parameter, as long as the subnet mask length of the route
falls within the range that is specified by the le and ge parameters.
In the first example in the figure, the route 192.168.2.0/24 is not matched by prefix-list entry
permit 192.168.0.0/16 even though the IP address falls within the specified address range,
because the subnet mask is too long.
In the second example, the route 192.168.0.0/16 is not matched by prefix-list entry permit
192.168.0.0/18 because the subnet mask is too short.
Example: Configuring Prefix-Lists
The figure contains some commonly used prefix-list examples.
What will be matched by:

a) ip prefix-list A permit 0.0.0.0/0 ge 32
b) ip prefix-list B permit 128.0.0.0/2 ge 17
c) ip prefix-list C permit 0.0.0.0/0 le 32
d) ip prefix-list D permit 0.0.0.0/0
e) ip prefix-list E permit 0.0.0.0/1 le 24
a) All host routes

b) Any subnet in class B address space
c) All routes
d) Just the default route
e) Any prefix in class A address space covering at least 256
addresses
In the figure, all host routes will be matched by prefix-list A permit 0.0.0./0 ge 32, while any
subnet in a class B address space will be matched by prefix-list B permit 128.0.0.0/2 ge 17.
Prefix-list C permit 0.0.0.0/0 le 32 will match all routes, but only the default route will be
matched by prefix-list D permit 0.0.0.0/0. Finally, any prefix in a class A address space that
covers at least 256 addresses will be matched to prefix-list E permit 0.0.0.0/1 le 24.
BGP Filters Implementation
This topic describes where you can implement prefix-lists in a BGP network.
BGP Filters Implementation
You can optionally apply filter-lists and prefix-lists on either incoming or outgoing neighbors
in any combination. Both the incoming prefix-list and the incoming filter-list must permit the
routes that are received from a neighbor before they are accepted into the BGP table. Outgoing
routes must pass both the outgoing filter-list and the outgoing prefix-list before being
transmitted to the neighbor.
When a router is configured to redistribute routing information from an Interior Gateway

Protocol (IGP) into BGP, the routes must successfully pass any prefix-list or access-list that is
applied to the redistribution before a route is injected into the BGP table.
Implementing Prefix-Lists in the BGP Process
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS commands that are required to apply prefix-lists for filtering
inbound or outbound updates.
Implementing Prefix-Lists in the

BGP Process
neighbor {ip-address|peer-group-name} prefix-list prefix-listname
{in|out}
• Filters inbound or outbound BGP routing updates for a

configured neighbor session
distribute-list prefix-list prefix-list out routing-process
• Filters routes redistributed from specified routing process into

BGP
You can use prefix-lists to filter incoming or outgoing BGP updates to neighbors. You can also
use prefix-lists to filter routes that are being redistributed into the BGP process from other
routing protocols.
neighbor prefix-list
To distribute BGP neighbor information as specified in a prefix-list, use the neighbor prefix-
list router configuration command.
neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} prefix-list prefix-listname {in | out}
To remove an entry, use the no form of this command.

no neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} prefix-list prefix-listname {in | out}
Syntax Description
prefix-listname Name of a prefix-list
in Access-list is applied to incoming advertisements to that neighbor
out Access-list is applied to outgoing advertisements from that

neighbor
Note A BGP peer group is a group of BGP neighbors with the same update policies. Route-maps,
distribute-lists, filter-lists, and so on usually set update policies. Instead of defining the same
policies for each separate neighbor, a peer group name is configured on the router, and
these policies are assigned to the peer group. BGP peer groups are discussed in a later
module.
distribute-list out
To suppress networks from being advertised in updates, use the distribute-list out router
distribute-list {access-list-number | name | prefix-list prefix-listname} out [interface-
name | routing-process | autonomous-system-number]

no distribute-list {access-list-number | name | prefix-list prefix-listname} out [interface-
name | routing-process | autonomous-system-number]
Syntax Description
access-list-number | Standard IP access-list number or name.

name
The list defines which networks are to be received and which are
to be suppressed in routing updates.
prefix-listname Name of a prefix-list.
The list defines which networks are to be received and which are
to be suppressed in routing updates, based upon matching of the
network prefix to the prefixes in the list.
out Applies the access-list to outgoing routing updates.
interface-name (Optional) Name of a particular interface.
routing-process (Optional) Name of a particular routing process, or the keyword

static or connected.
autonomous-system- (Optional) AS number.

number
Note Although you can use the neighbor prefix-list router configuration command as an
alternative to the neighbor distribute-list command, do not use both the neighbor prefix-
list and neighbor distribute-list command filtering for the same neighbor in any given
direction. These two commands are mutually exclusive, and only one command (neighbor
prefix-list or neighbor distribute-list) can be applied for each inbound or outbound
direction.
Example: Filtering Customer Prefixes
The figure illustrates filtering customer prefixes.
Prefix-List Example:
Filtering Customer Prefixes
• Requirement: The customer will announce

prefixes only from assigned address space
(172.16.0.0/16), with subnet masks no longer
than /24.
In this example, a multihomed customer has been assigned the address space 172.16.0.0/16.
The customer may subnet this address space but may not announce subnets smaller than a
subnet mask of 255.255.255.0. Larger subnets are accepted. If the customer has subnetted the
network into smaller subnets, it must summarize the routing information about those subnets
into at least /24 prefixes before announcing them.
The primary ISP implements a prefix-list named Cust-A to perform the filtering of incoming
information from the multihomed customer. The prefix-list permits all routes that are received
from the customer that have 172.16 in the first 16 bits and have a subnet mask of 24 bits or less.
Any other routes from the customer are denied and silently ignored.
Example: Filtering Peer Prefixes
The figure illustrates filtering peer prefixes.
Prefix-List Example:
Filtering Peer Prefixes
• Requirement: The ISP will not accept routes

with subnet masks longer than /24; subnet
masks from class B address space will be no
longer than /20.
In this example, the primary ISP will not accept any route from the customer that indicates a
subnet smaller than a 255.255.255.0 subnet mask. The class B network, however, must not be
subnetted into subnets smaller than a 255.255.240.0 subnet mask.
The primary ISP implements this route by using a prefix-list named Peer. The first line in the
prefix-list checks whether it is a class B network. Remember that a class B address always has
the binary sequence 10 as the first 2 bits in the first byte. The second line matches any prefix.
When the primary ISP receives a route from the customer, it compares the route with both
lines. If the route is a class B network, both lines match. Testing continues with checking the
subnet mask. An upper bound is explicitly indicated, giving a maximum prefix length of 20
bits.
If the received route is not a class B network, only the second line matches. In this case, the
subnet mask length must be greater than or equal to 0 and less than or equal to 24, providing a
route less explicit than a /24 prefix.
Modifying Prefix-Lists
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS commands that are required to modify configured prefix-list
filters.
Modifying Prefix-Lists
router#
show ip prefix-list list-name [detail|summary]
• Displays the prefix-list and the sequence numbers
router(config)#
no ip prefix-list seq seq condition
• Erases the line with the specified sequence number from the
prefix-list
router(config)#
ip prefix-list seq seq condition
• Inserts the line into the prefix-list at the specified point
Lines in a prefix-list are assigned sequence numbers. These assignments significantly improve
the manageability of the list. These sequence number assignments provide the opportunity to
remove a specific line, and, if spacing between the sequence numbers allows, they provide the
ability to insert a line between two existing lines.
To display a currently configured prefix-list and its sequence numbers, use the show ip prefix-
list command with the detail keyword.
You can specify sequence values for prefix-list entries in any increments that you want (the
automatically generated numbers are increased in units of 5). If you specify the sequence values
in increments of 1, you will not be able to insert additional entries into the prefix-list. If you
choose very large increments, you could run out of sequence values.
Monitoring Prefix-Lists
This topic lists the Cisco IOS commands that are required to monitor the operation of
configured prefix-list filters.
Monitoring Prefix-Lists
router#
show ip prefix-list [detail | summary] prefix-list-name
[network/length] [seq sequence-number] [longer] [first-
match]
• To display information about a prefix-list or prefix-list entries
router#
show ip bgp prefix-list prefix-list-name
• Displays all routes in the BGP table matching the prefix-list

• Used for easier monitoring of a desired network prefix group in
the BGP table
show ip prefix-list
To display information about a prefix-list or prefix-list entries, use the show ip prefix-list
EXEC command.
show ip prefix-list [detail | summary] name [network/len] [seq seq-num] [longer] [first-
match]
Syntax Description
detail | summary (Optional) Displays detailed or summarized information about all

prefix-lists
name (Optional) The name of a specific prefix-list
network/len (Optional) The network number and length (in bits) of the network
mask
seq (Optional) Applies the sequence number to the prefix-list entry
seq-num The sequence number of the prefix
longer Displays all entries of a prefix that are more specific than the
given network/len
first-match Displays the entry of a prefix that matches the given network/len
The show ip bgp prefix-list command displays selected routes from a BGP routing table based
on the contents of a prefix-list. Use this command for selective filtering of BGP table output on
Cisco IOS devices on the basis of network prefix groups.
To perform prefix-list-based BGP table filtering, follow these steps:
Step 1 Configure a prefix-list that permits ranges of networks meant to be displayed in the
BGP table output.
Step 2 Include a reference to a configured prefix-list in the show ip bgp prefix-list

command.
Note The support for prefix-list BGP table filtering was added in Cisco IOS Software Release
12.2(11)T and 12.0(14)ST.
Monitoring Prefix-Lists (Cont.)
In this example, the show ip prefix-list command has been issued with the detail keyword. The
output of the command displays detailed information about configured prefix-lists, including
sequence numbers, the prefix-list entries, and the number of times that each entry has been
matched by a corresponding prefix.
Monitoring Prefix-Lists (Cont.)
This example shows a simple prefix-list-based filtering of the BGP table. The prefix-list filter
permits all networks with the first octet equal to 10 and any length of a subnet mask (le 32). In
the show ip bgp prefix-list command output, only the networks permitted by the prefix-list
filter are displayed.
Summary
Summary
• Customers with multihomed networks are responsible for

announcing their own networks using BGP, and service
providers with multihomed customers must take precautions
not to accept, use, or forward any erroneous routing
information that is received from their customers.
• Prefix-lists have a number of advantages over access-lists,
including faster “permit” or “deny” determinations and
easier CLI editing.
• Prefix-lists are configured using the ip prefix-list global
• Filter-lists and prefix-lists can be optionally applied on either
incoming or outgoing neighbors in any combination.
Summary (Cont.)
• Prefix-lists can filter incoming or outgoing BGP updates to

neighbors and filter routes that are being redistributed into
the BGP process from other routing protocols. Use the
neighbor prefix-list router configuration command to distribute
BGP neighbor information as specified in a prefix-list.
• Certain Cisco IOS commands (such as the show ip prefix-list
command) are used to modify configured prefix-list filters.
• To display or monitor statistics about a prefix-list or prefix-
list entries, you can use the show ip prefix-list EXEC
command.
Lesson 4
Using Outbound Route

Filtering
Overview
An outbound route filter (ORF) is an additional mechanism that is used to minimize the number
of updates that are requested from a neighbor, which reduces link bandwidth consumption and
CPU use when a router requests a route refresh. An ORF also allows filtering of information
that external networks should not receive (such as RFC 1918 information). Understanding how
to monitor outbound route filtering capabilities is also important because a Border Gateway
Protocol (BGP) neighbor that supports specific ORF capabilities will report those capabilities
to a monitoring neighbor and can then send a filter of the supported type to the neighbor.
This lesson discusses the function of outbound route filtering in a BGP network. The format
and function of ORF messages are discussed, as well as the commands that enable ORF
negotiations and the activation of an ORF prefix-list. The commands that are used to trigger a
route refresh are also detailed. Finally, there is a discussion on how to monitor the operations of
a configured ORF in a BGP network.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to use outbound route filtering to minimize the
impact of BGP routing updates on router resources in an operational BGP network. This ability
Describe the function of outbound route filtering in a BGP network
Describe the function of prefix-based outbound route filtering
Describe the format and function of an ORF message
Identify the Cisco IOS command that is required to enable ORF negotiations and activate
an ORF prefix-list
Identify the Cisco IOS command that is used to trigger a route refresh
Identify the Cisco IOS command that is required to monitor the operation of a configured
ORF
Outbound Route Filtering
This topic describes the function of outbound route filtering in a BGP network.
• The purpose of outbound route filtering is to reduce the

amount of BGP traffic and CPU use needed to process
routing updates.
• Routers exchange inbound filter configurations, which are
used as outbound filters on neighboring routers.
• Filters are described in ORF entries.
• ORF entries are part of the route refresh message.
Outbound route filtering is a prefix-based BGP feature that is enabled through the
advertisement of ORF capabilities to peer routers integrated in Cisco IOS Software Release
12.2(4)T. The advertisement of the ORF capability indicates that a BGP-speaking router will
accept a prefix-list from a neighbor and apply the prefix-list to locally configured ORFs (if any
exist). When this capability is enabled, the BGP speaker can install an inbound prefix-list filter
to the remote peer as an outbound filter, which reduces unwanted routing updates.
The standard route refresh message contains the Address Family Information (AFI) for which
the refresh is needed. Outbound route filtering is an additional mechanism that is used to
minimize the number of updates that are requested from a neighbor.
This mechanism reduces link bandwidth consumption and CPU use when a router requests a
route refresh. Filters that should be used by routers with the route refresh are described in ORF
entries that are part of the route refresh message.
You can configure the ORF feature with send, receive, or send and receive capabilities. The
local peer advertises the ORF capability in send mode. The remote peer receives the ORF
capability in receive mode and applies the filter as outbound policy. The local and remote peers
exchange updates to maintain the ORF for each router. Peer routers exchange updates
depending on the ORF prefix-list capability that is advertised. The remote peer starts sending
updates to the local peer after it receives a route refresh request or an ORF prefix-list with an
immediate status.
Example: Inbound vs. Outbound Filtering
The figure illustrates the comparison between standard inbound filtering and outbound route
filtering.
Inbound vs. Outbound Filtering
Outbound route filtering can limit the number of unwanted routing updates, which will reduce
the amount of resources that are required for routing update generation and processing. This
feature also reduces the amount of resources that are required to receive and discard routes that
would otherwise be filtered out by the receiving router if the ORF feature were not available.
The example shows two scenarios:

The first example shows that 100,000 routes are sent to a neighbor, and the input filter
permits only 100 of these routes.
The second example shows how a route refresh with a filter is sent to the neighbor. The
neighbor then uses the filter before sending the updates. This way, only 100 updates are
sent.
BGP Prefix-Based Outbound Route Filtering
This topic describes the function of BGP prefix-based outbound route filtering.
BGP Prefix-Based Outbound

Route Filtering
• Uses BGP ORF send and receive capabilities to minimize the

number of BGP updates that are sent between BGP peers
• Helps to reduce the amount of system resources required for
generating and processing routing updates by filtering out
unwanted routing updates at the source
• Limits the number of unwanted routing updates, which will
reduce the amount of resources required for routing update
generation and processing
• Reduces the amount of resources required to receive and
discard routes that would otherwise be filtered out
The BGP prefix-based outbound route filtering feature uses BGP ORF send and receive
capabilities to minimize the number of BGP updates that are sent between BGP peers.
Configuring this feature can help reduce the amount of system resources required for
generating and processing routing updates by filtering out unwanted routing updates at the
source.
The BGP prefix-based outbound route filtering feature is enabled through the advertisement of
ORF capabilities to peer routers. The advertisement of the ORF capability indicates that a BGP
speaker will accept a prefix-list from a neighbor and apply the prefix-list to locally configured
ORFs (if any exist). When this capability is enabled, the BGP speaker can install the inbound
prefix-list filter to the remote peer as an outbound filter, which reduces unwanted routing
updates.
The BGP prefix-based outbound route filtering feature can be configured with send, receive, or
send and receive ORF capabilities. The local peer advertises the ORF capability in send mode.
The remote peer receives the ORF capability in receive mode and applies the filter as an
outbound policy. The local and remote peers exchange updates to maintain the ORF on each
router. Updates are exchanged between peer routers by address family depending on the ORF
prefix-list capability that is advertised. The remote peer starts sending updates to the local peer
after a route refresh has been configured with the clear ip bgp command or after an ORF
prefix-list with immediate status is processed. The BGP speaker will continue to apply the
inbound prefix-list to received updates after the speaker pushes the inbound prefix-list to the
remote peer.
Example: BGP Prefix-Based Outbound Route Filtering
The figure provides an example of the function of BGP prefix-based outbound route filtering.
Sample: BGP Prefix-Based

Router-A Configuration (Sender)
router bgp 100

address-family ipv4 unicast
neighbor 172.16.1.2 remote-as 200
neighbor 172.16.1.2 ebgp-multihop
neighbor 172.16.1.2 capability orf prefix-list send
!
ip prefix-list FILTER seq 10 permit 192.168.1.0/24
Router-B Configuration (Receiver)
router bgp 200

address-family ipv4 unicast
neighbor 10.1.1.1 ebgp-multihop 255
neighbor 10.1.1.1 capability orf prefix-list receive
Rtra# clear ip bgp 192.168.1.2 in prefix-filter
In the example, an ORF has been configured on Router-A (10.1.1.1) to advertise the filter to
Router-B (172.16.1.2). An IP prefix-list named FILTER is created to specify the
192.168.1.0/24 subnet for outbound route filtering. The ORF send capability is configured on
Router-A so that Router-A can advertise the ORF to Router-B.
Router-B is configured to advertise the ORF receive capability to Router-A. Router-B will
install the ORF, defined in the FILTER prefix-list, after the ORF capabilities have been
exchanged. An inbound soft reset is initiated on Router-B at the end of this configuration to
activate the ORF.
Outbound Route Filter Message
This topic describes the format and function of the ORF message.
Outbound Route Filter Message
ORF format
• An ORF message consists of the following fields:
– AFI/SAFI
– ORF type
– When to refresh
– List of ORF entries
• ORF entries depend on the ORF type.
• The ORF capability needs to be negotiated for every
supported ORF type.
An ORF message contains the following information:

AFI and Subsequent Address Family Information (SAFI) for which the filter should be
used
ORF type, which identifies the type of filter
When to refresh (immediate or deferred refresh)
List of ORF entries where the actual filter is defined
You can use the AFI/SAFI component of the ORF message to provide a coarse level of
granular control by limiting the ORF to only the routes whose Network Layer Reachability
Information (NLRI) matches the configured AFI/SAFI component.
The ORF capability has to be negotiated by the router for each ORF type that is supported in
the ORF message.
Outbound Route Filter Message (Cont.)
ORF types:
• NLRI (ORF type = 1)
– Filters based on the prefix
• Communities (ORF type = 2)
– Filters based on standard BGP community attributes
• Extended communities (ORF type = 3)
– Filters based on extended BGP community attributes
• Prefix-list (ORF type = 128)
– Filters based on Cisco implementation of prefix filtering
The value contained in the ORF type determines the content that is contained in the ORF
message.
Currently, ORF type 0 is reserved, ORF types 1 to 127 are assigned by the Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority (IANA), and ORF types 128 to 255 are vendor-specific (and not assigned
by the IANA). Commonly used ORF types are as follows:
ORF type 1 is used to filter based on the NLRI.
ORF type 2 is used to filter based on standard BGP community attributes.
ORF type 3 is used to filter based on extended BGP community attributes.
ORF type 128 is used to filter based on the Cisco proprietary implementation of prefix
filtering (prefix-lists).
Outbound Route Filter Message (Cont.)
AFI/SAFI is IPv4 unicast.

ORF type is NLRI:
• Action: ADD, DELETE, or DELETE ALL
• Match: PERMIT or DENY
• Scope: EXACT or REFINE
• NLRI: Prefix
• When: IMMEDIATE or DEFER
The content of the ORF value is determined by the ORF-type setting. An ORF type of NLRI-
based filtering (type 1) uses the following actions:
ADD: Adds a line to a prefix-list filter on the remote peer
DELETE: Removes a line from a filter that was previously installed on a remote peer
DELETE ALL: Removes all previously installed filters on the remote peer
For each filter entry, there is a match component that specifies either PERMIT or DENY. A
PERMIT asks the peer to send updates with routes that match the set of entries as specified in
the ORF. DENY specifies that the remote peer should not send updates for the entries matching
those specified in the ORF.
For prefixes specified with a match component of PERMIT, the remote peer is asked to pass a
prefix with a scope of EXACT (an exact match) or REFINE (its subnets).
Also contained within the ORF message is the when-to-refresh field. A router can set this field
to IMMEDIATE (asking the remote peer to refresh as soon as it has finished processing the
ORF message) or DEFER (asking the remote peer to wait until it receives a subsequent route
refresh message with the same AFI/SAFI).
Configuring Outbound Route Filtering
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS command that is required to enable ORF negotiations and
activate an ORF prefix-list.
neighbor ip-address capability orf prefix-list
[receive|send|both]
• This command enables negotiation of prefix-list ORF

capability during session setup.
• The ORF-capable BGP speaker will install ORFs per
neighbor.
• Option:
- “Both” allows sending and receiving of
prefix-lists.
- “Send” allows only sending of prefix-lists.
- “Receive” allows only receiving of prefix-lists.
Cisco routers support the uploading of their prefix-lists to a neighbor. You need to use the
neighbor ip-address capability orf prefix-list receive command to advertise this capability,
and you need to use neighbor ip-address capability orf prefix-list send command to upload
the inbound prefix filter to the neighbor. The uploaded filter is then used on the neighboring
router after a statically configured outbound prefix-list (if it exists) is applied.
The neighbor ip-address capability orf prefix-list command enables the negotiation of the
prefix-list ORF capability during BGP session setup. The prefix-list-based ORF (ORF type =
128) is the only ORF type that Cisco IOS software supports.
neighbor orf prefix-list

To advertise ORF capabilities to a peer router, use the neighbor orf prefix-list command in
address family or router configuration mode.
neighbor {ip-address} [capability] orf prefix-list [receive | send | both]
To disable ORF capabilities, use the no form of this command.

no neighbor {ip-address} [capability] orf prefix-list [receive | send | both]
Syntax Description
ip-address The IP address of the neighbor router
capability (Optional) Informs the specified neighbor that this router has ORF
capabilities
receive (Optional) Enables the ORF prefix-list capability in receive mode
send (Optional) Enables the ORF prefix-list capability in send mode
both (Optional) Enables the ORF prefix-list capability in both receive

and send modes
(Cont.)
• The command capability orf prefix-list send on one router requires

capability orf prefix-list receive on a neighboring router.
The example shows the configuration of two routers where one router has uploaded an input
prefix-list to the neighbor to be used as an output filter.
The following configuration steps are necessary to enable outbound route filtering:
Step 1 Enable negotiation of outbound filtering based on prefix-lists.
Step 2 Attach an input prefix-list to a neighbor.
Step 3 Enable sending of input prefix-list to the neighbor.
Using Outbound Route Filtering
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS command that is used to trigger a route refresh message.
Using Outbound Route Filtering
router#
clear ip bgp neighbor in [prefix-filter]
• This command triggers a route refresh message.

• This command includes a prefix-list in the route refresh
message if configured and supported on both ends.
• The prefix-list is sent at session setup.
• Use the prefix-filter option to refresh the remote filter.
Use the clear ip bgp neighbor command with the prefix-filter keyword to push out the
existing ORF prefix-list so that a new route refresh will be received from a neighbor. The
neighbor will use the ORF prefix-list that was previously negotiated.
You need to use the clear ip bgp neighbor command only when the filter has been modified
because the neighbor will store the filter for subsequent route refresh requests. The neighbor
will then use the filter on all updates toward the router that originated the filter.
Note You should enter the in keyword when you are using the clear ip bgp neighbor command
because inbound route refresh is desired; only the inbound prefix-list filter is pushed to the
neighbor and used by the neighbor in the outbound direction.
The router will ignore the prefix-filter keyword if ORF capability has not been received or the
send capability has not been enabled.
When the clear ip bgp neighbor command is used without the prefix-filter keyword, a normal
route refresh is performed. You should always use the prefix-filter keyword when ORF
inbound routing policy changes occur.
Monitoring Outbound Route Filtering
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS command that is required to monitor the operation of an
ORF that you have configured and activated.
Monitoring Outbound Route Filtering
router#
show ip bgp neighbors neighbor
• Verifies the supported capabilities
Use the show ip bgp neighbors neighbor command to display the supported capabilities.
If the neighbor supports a certain ORF capability, it is shown as “advertised, received” and a
filter of the supported type can be sent by that router to its neighbor.
The example output from the show ip bgp neighbors command shows that neighbor 5.0.0.1 is
configured with the prefix-based ORF feature in both send and receive modes. ORF capabilities
negotiation has been completed and is displayed per address family. The ORF type that has
been negotiated by this router with its peer is 128 (Cisco proprietary, prefix-list-based).
Summary
Summary
• Outbound route filtering is a mechanism that is used to

minimize the number of updates that are requested from a
neighbor.
• The BGP prefix-based outbound route filtering feature uses BGP
ORF send and receive capabilities to minimize the number of
BGP updates that are sent between BGP peers. Configuring this
feature can help reduce the amount of system resources
required for generating and processing routing updates by
filtering out unwanted routing updates at the source.
• The ORF message contains the information that is used to
determine which updates will be passed. The format of an ORF
message includes AFI and SAFI for which the filter should be
used; ORF type, which identifies the type of filter; when to
refresh (immediate or deferred refresh); and a list of ORF entries
where the actual filter is defined.
Summary (Cont.)
• The neighbor ip-address capability orf prefix-list command with

the send and receive keywords enables ORF negotiations
and activates an ORF prefix-list.
• Use the clear ip bgp neighbor command to trigger a BGP route
refresh.
• With the show ip bgp neighbors command, neighbor-
supported ORF capabilities are displayed as “advertised,
received,” and a filter of the supported type can be sent to
the neighbor.
Lesson 5
Applying Route-Maps as BGP

Filters
Overview
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a powerful routing protocol that supports a wide variety of
administrative policy controls and route selection features. Many complex filtering goals and
administrative policies cannot be achieved by using only single-purpose filtering methods or by
compounding multiple filtering methods together. Route-maps provide a method to perform a
variety of compound, complex filtering operations within a single tool. Understanding the
operation and use of route-maps is a critical component in the successful implementation of any
large-scale BGP deployment.
This lesson describes route-maps and how you can use them for BGP filtering. Included in this
lesson are the commands that are required to use route-maps with prefix-lists and discussion of
how to use them as BGP filters and how to monitor previously configured route-maps.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to use outbound route filtering to minimize the
impact of BGP routing updates on router resources in an operational BGP network. This ability
Describe the high-level function of a route-map
Describe the function of the BGP Route-Map Policy List Support feature
Describe the function of the BGP Route-Map Continue feature
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to configure a route-map to match
against a prefix-list
Identify where you can apply route-maps as route filters in a BGP network
Identify the Cisco IOS command that is required to enable a route-map as a BGP route
filter
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to monitor the operation of a configured
route-map that is used as a BGP filter
Route-Map Overview
This topic describes the high-level function of a route-map.
Route-Map Overview
Route-maps are very complex access-lists:

• Access-lists have lines.
Ð Route-maps contain statements.
• Access-lists use addresses and masks.
Ð Route-maps use match conditions.
• With access-lists, there is an access-list number.
Ð With route-maps, there is a route-map name.
• Statements in route-maps are numbered.
– You can insert and delete statements in a route-map.
– You can edit match conditions in a statement.
• Route-map statements can modify matched routes with “set”
options.
A route-map is a filter, and what is denied by the route-map is dropped. Additionally, you can
use the route-map to modify attributes of the permitted routes.
Route-maps are similar to access-lists. Both have a set of tests to be performed, and several
tests can be done in sequence. The first match produces the result of either “permit” or “deny.”
An access-list has a number of lines, each indicating a testing condition. The route-map is more
complex than the access-list. The route-map consists of several groups of configuration lines;
each group is called a statement. The statement has a sequence number that provides the
opportunity to remove or modify an explicit statement without removing the entire route-map.
There is also an opportunity to add a new statement between two existing statements.
Each route-map statement starts with a configuration line indicating the name of the route-map,
the sequence number, and whether the result should be permitted or denied if the testing
matches. The statement then continues, following configuration lines with the match clauses.
Matching can be done in several ways: testing on the prefix, the autonomous system (AS) path,
or some other attribute. The statement concludes with optional “set” statements, where
attributes may be modified or set.
Route-Map Overview (Cont.)
• The default statement action is “permit.”

• A route not matched by any statement is dropped.
• “Permit all” is achieved by specifying “permit” without a
“match” clause.
• Match conditions in one statement are ANDed together.
• The first matching statement permits or denies the route.
A route-map consists of several statements. Each statement starts with the route-map
configuration line, on which the name of the route-map must be indicated. A good practice is to
always indicate the permit or deny keyword followed by a sequence number.
The matching clauses for the statements are listed on the match lines following the route-map
line. There may be several match lines, each referring to a different test to be performed. All
tests must be passed for the statement to be matched. If any of the match line tests fails, the
next route-map statement is tried. Statements are tried in sequence number order. If there are no
more statements in the route-map, the result is, implicitly, “deny.”
If all of the match clauses succeed, there is a match for the statement and the indicated result is
used. If the result is to deny, the route is then silently ignored. If the result is to permit, the
route is accepted and the set clauses are applied. The set clauses allow one or more attributes to
be changed or set to specific values before the route is accepted.
• Route-map conditions are specified in the match statement.

• Route-maps can match on:
– Network number and subnet mask matched with an IP prefix-list
– Route originator
– BGP next-hop address
– BGP origin
– Tag attached to IGP route
– AS-path
– BGP community attached to BGP route
– IGP route type (internal/external …)
Each route-map statement can have several match clauses, and each match clause is given its
own configuration line. The match clause refers to the tests to be made on the candidate route.
Tests of the candidate route can be based on the following criteria:
IP network numbers and subnet masks, by referring to a prefix-list or access-list that will be
applied on the route
Route originator, by referring to a prefix-list or access-list that will be applied on the value
of the originator BGP attribute
Next hop, by referring to a prefix-list or access-list that will be applied on the value of the
next-hop BGP attribute
Origin code, by testing the value of the origin BGP attribute
Tag value that is attached to an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) route—used only when
redistribution from an IGP into BGP occurs
AS path, by referring to an AS-path access-list that will be applied on the value of the AS-
path BGP attribute
Community, by referring to a community-list that will be applied on the value of the
Community BGP attribute
IGP route type, by testing if the IGP route is internal or external—used only when
redistribution from an IGP to BGP occurs
• Route-maps can also change the attributes of BGP routes.

• Route-maps can set:
– Origin
– BGP next-hop
– Weight
– BGP community
– Local preference
– MED
Each route-map statement may have several set clauses. Each set clause is applied to the route
when the route-map statement permits the route. With a route-map, the following can be set:
Origin BGP attribute
Next-hop BGP attribute
Weight
Community BGP attribute
Local preference BGP attribute
Multi-exit discriminator (MED) BGP attribute, by setting the metric
BGP Route-Map Policy List Support
This topic describes the function of the BGP Route-Map Policy List Support feature.
BGP Route-Map Policy List Support
• Adds the capability for a network operator to group

route-map match clauses into named lists called policy-lists
• Simplifies the configuration of BGP routing policy in
medium-size and large networks—network operator can
preconfigure policy lists with groups of match clauses and
then reference these policy lists within different route maps
• Eliminates need to manually reconfigure each recurring
group of match clauses that occur in multiple route-map
entries
The BGP Route-Map Policy List Support feature introduces new functionality to BGP route
maps, allowing a network operator to group route-map match clauses into named lists called
policy-lists. A policy-list functions like a macro.
When a policy-list is referenced in a route-map, all of the match clauses are evaluated and
processed as if they had been configured directly in the route-map. The BGP Route-Map Policy
List Support feature simplifies the configuration of BGP routing policy in medium-size and
large networks because a network operator can preconfigure policy-lists with groups of match
clauses and then reference these policy-lists within different route-maps. The network operator
no longer needs to manually reconfigure each recurring group of match clauses in multiple
route-map entries.
A policy-list is like a route-map that contains only match clauses. The policy-list is created and
then referenced within a route-map. There are no changes to match clause semantics and route-
map functions. Match clauses are configured in policy-lists with permit and deny statements.
The route-map evaluates and processes each match clause and permits or denies routes based
on the configuration. AND and OR semantics in the route-map function the same way for
policy-lists that they do for match and set clauses. There are some commands that are related to
the BGP Route-Map Policy List Support feature: the ip policy-list command, the match
policy-list command, and the show ip policy-list command.
BGP Route-Map Policy List Support (Cont.)
router#
ip policy-list policy-list-name {permit | deny}
• Creates a BGP policy-list
router#
match policy-list policy-list-name
• Configures a route map to evaluate and process a BGP

policy-list in a route map
router#
show ip policy-list policy-list-name
• Displays one or all filter lists
ip policy-list
To create a BGP policy-list, use the ip policy-list command in policy-map configuration mode.
ip policy-list policy-list-name {permit | deny}
To remove a policy-list, use the no form of this command

no ip policy-list policy-list-name
Syntax Description
policy-list-name Name of the configured policy-list
permit Permits access for matching conditions
deny Denies access to matching conditions
match policy-list
To configure a route-map to evaluate and process a BGP policy-list in a route-map, use the
match policy-list command in route-map configuration mode.
match policy-list policy-list-name
To remove a path list entry, use the no form of this command.

no match policy-list policy-list-name
Syntax Description
show ip policy-list
To display information about a configured policy-list and policy-list entries, use the show ip
policy-list command in user EXEC mode.
show ip policy-list policy-list-name
Syntax Description
Configuring Policy-List Examples

The following configuration example creates a BGP policy-list that permits matches on the AS
path and multi-exit discriminator (MED) of a router:
Router(config)# ip policy-list POLICY-LIST-NAME-1 permit
Router(config-policy-list)# match as-path 1
Router(config-policy-list)# match metric 10
Router(config-policy-list)# end
The following configuration example creates a BGP policy-list that permits matches on the
specified BGP community and the next hop of a router:
Router(config)# ip policy-list POLICY-LIST-NAME-2 permit
Router(config-policy-list)# match community 20
Router(config-policy-list)# ip community-list 20 permit 20:1
The following configuration example creates a BGP policy-list that denies matches on the
specified BGP community and the next hop of a router:
Router(config)# ip policy-list POLICY-LIST-NAME-3 deny
Router(config-policy-list)# match community 20
Configuring Route-Maps to Reference Policy-List Examples
The configuration examples in this section create BGP route-maps that reference BGP policy-
lists with the route-map route-map configuration command.
The following configuration example creates a route-map that references policy-lists and
separate match and set clauses in the same configuration. This example uses AND semantics
between POLICY-LIST-NAME-1 and POLICY-LIST-NAME-2.
Router(config)# route-map MAP-NAME-1 10
Router(config-route-map)# match ip-address 1
Router(config-route-map)# match policy-list POLICY-LIST-NAME-1
Router(config-route-map)# match policy-list POLICY-LIST-NAME-2
Router(config-route-map)# set community 10:1
Router(config-route-map)# set local-preference 140
Router(config-route-map)# end
The following configuration example creates a route-map that references policy-lists and
separate match and set clauses in the same configuration. This example uses OR semantics
between POLICY-LIST-NAME-3 and POLICY-LIST-NAME-4.
Router(config)# route-map MAP-NAME-2 10
Router(config-route-map)# match policy-list POLICY-LIST-NAME-3 POLICY-
LIST-NAME-4
Router(config-route-map)# set community 10:1
Router(config-route-map)# set local-preference 140
Router(config-route-map)# end
Verifying BGP Route-Map Policy List Support

To verify that a policy-list has been created, use the show ip policy-list command. The output
of this command displays the policy-list name and configured match clauses. The following
sample output is similar to the output that will be displayed:
Router# show ip policy-list
policy-list POLICY-LIST-NAME-1 permit
Match clauses:
metric 20
policy-list POLICY-LIST-NAME-2 permit
Match clauses:
as-path (as-path filter): 1
Note A policy-list name can be specified when the show ip policy-list command is entered. This
option can be useful for filtering the output of this command and verifying a single policy-list.
To verify that a route-map has been created and a policy-list is referenced, use the show route-
map command. The output of this command displays the route-map name and policy-lists that
are referenced by the configured route-maps. The following sample output is similar to the
output that will be displayed:
Router# show route-map
route-map ROUTE-MAP-NAME-1, deny, sequence 10
Match clauses:
Set clauses:
Policy routing matches: 0 packets, 0 bytes
route-map ROUTE-MAP-NAME-1, permit, sequence 10
Match clauses:
IP Policy lists:
POLICY-LIST-NAME-1
Set clauses:
BGP Route-Map Continue
This topic describes the continue clause used in BGP route-map configuration.
BGP Route-Map Continue
• Introduces the continue clause to BGP route-map

configuration, providing more programmable policy
configuration and route filtering
• Provides the ability to execute additional entries in a route-
map after an entry is executed with successful match and set
clauses
• Allows configuration and organization of more modular
policy definitions to reduce the number of policy
configurations that are repeated within the same route-map
• Allows modularization of network policy configuration so
that repeated policy definitions can be reduced within the
same route-map
The BGP Route-Map Continue feature introduces the continue clause to BGP route-map
configuration. The continue clause provides more programmable policy configuration and route
filtering. It introduces the ability to execute additional entries in a route-map after an entry is
executed with successful match and set clauses. Continue clauses allow you to configure and
organize more modular policy definitions to reduce the number of policy configurations that are
repeated within the same route-map.
Continue clauses provide a programmable method to organize and control the flow of a route-
map. Route-map configuration was linear before this feature was introduced. Continue clauses
also allow you to modularize network policy configuration so that repeated policy definitions
can be reduced within the same route-map.
Route-Map Operation Without Continue Clauses

A route-map evaluates match clauses until a successful match occurs. After the match occurs,
the route-map stops evaluating match clauses and starts executing set clauses, in the order in
which they were configured. If a successful match does not occur, the route-map “falls
through” and evaluates the next sequence number of the route-map until all configured route-
map entries have been evaluated or a successful match occurs. Each route-map sequence is
tagged with a sequence number to identify the entry. Route-map entries are evaluated in order,
starting with the lowest sequence number and ending with the highest sequence number. If the
route-map contains only set clauses, the set clauses are executed automatically, and the route-
map does not evaluate any other route-map entries.
Route-Map Operation with Continue Clauses
When a continue clause is configured, the route-map continues to evaluate and execute match
clauses in the specified route-map entry after a successful match occurs. The continue clause
can be configured to go to (or jump to) a specific route-map entry by specifying the sequence
number, or if a sequence number is not specified, to go to the next sequence number. This
behavior is called an “implied continue.” If a match clause exists, the continue clause is
executed only if a match occurs. If no successful matches occur, the continue clause is ignored.
If a match clause does not exist in the route-map entry but a continue clause does, the continue
clause is automatically executed and goes to the specified route-map entry. If a match clause
exists in a route-map entry, the continue clause is executed only when a successful match
occurs. When a successful match occurs and a continue clause exists, the route-map executes
the set clauses and then goes to the specified route-map entry. If the next route-map contains a
continue clause, the route-map executes the continue clause if a successful match occurs. If a
continue clause does not exist in the next route-map, the route-map is evaluated normally. If a
continue clause exists in the next route-map but a match does not occur, the route-map does not
continue and falls through to the next sequence number, if one exists.
Note A continue clause can be executed, without a successful match, if a route-map entry does
not contain a match clause.
BGP Route-Map Continue (Cont.)
router#
continue sequence-number
• Configures a route-map to go to a route-map entry with a

higher sequence number
router#
show route-map [map-name]
• Displays configured route-maps
You will use two commands with the BGP Route-Map Continue feature, the continue
command and the show route-map command.
continue
To configure a route-map to go to a route-map entry with a higher sequence number, use the
continue command in route-map configuration mode.
continue sequence-number
To remove a continue clause from a route-map, use the no form of this command.
no continue
Syntax Description
sequence-number (Optional) Route-map sequence number.
If a route-map sequence number is not specified when configuring a continue

clause, the continue clause continues to the route-map entry with the next
sequence number. This behavior is referred to as an "implied continue."
show route-map
To display configured route-maps, use the show route-map command in EXEC mode.
show route-map [map-name]
Syntax Description
map-name (Optional) Name of a specific route-map
BGP Route-Map Continue Clause Example Configuration

The following example shows continue clause configuration in a route-map sequence.
The first continue clause in route-map entry 10 indicates that the route map will go to route-
map entry 30 if a successful match occurs. If a match does not occur, the route map will fall
through to route-map entry 20. If a successful match occurs in route-map entry 20, the set
action will be executed and the route map will not evaluate any additional route-map entries.
If a successful match does not occur in route-map entry 20, the route map will fall through to
route-map entry 30. This sequence does not contain a match clause, so the set clause will be
automatically executed and the continue clause will go to the next route-map entry because a
sequence number is not specified.
If there are no successful matches, the route-map will fall through to route-map entry 30 and
execute the set clause, and route-map entry 40 will not be evaluated.
route-map ROUTE-MAP-NAME permit 10
match ip address 1
match metric 10
set as-path prepend 10
continue 30
!
match ip address 2
match metric 20
set as-path prepend 10 10
!
set as-path prepend 10 10 10
continue
!
match community 10:1
set local-preference 104
BGP Route-Map Continue Clause Verification Example
To verify the configuration of continue clauses, use the show route-map command. The output
of this command displays configured route-maps, match, set, and continue clauses. The
following sample output is similar to the output that will be displayed:
Router# show route-map
route-map ROUTE-MAP-NAME, permit, sequence 10
Match clauses:
ip address (access-lists): 1
metric 10
Continue: sequence 40
Set clauses:
as-path prepend 10
Match clauses:
ip address (access-lists): 2
metric 20
Set clauses:
as-path prepend 10 10
Match clauses:
Continue: to next entry 40
Set clauses:
as-path prepend 10 10 10
Match clauses:
community (community-list filter): 10:1
Set clauses:
local-preference 104
route-map LOCAL-POLICY-MAP, permit, sequence 10
Match clauses:
Set clauses:
community 655370
Prefix-List Use in Route-Maps
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS commands that are required to configure a route-map to
match against a prefix-list.
Prefix-List Use in Route-Maps

router(config-route-map)#
match ip address prefix-list list-name
• Uses prefix-list to match routes in route-map match condition
router(config -route-map)#
match ip next-hop prefix-list list-name
• Matches routes where the next hop matches the conditions in

the prefix-list
router(config -route-map)#
match ip route-source prefix-list list-name
• Matches routes received from BGP peer that matches the

prefix-list
match ip address
To distribute any routes that have a destination network number address that is permitted by a
standard access-list, an extended access-list, or a prefix-list, or to perform policy routing on
packets, use the match ip address command in route-map configuration mode.
match ip address {access-list-number [access-list-number... | access-list-name...] | access-
list-name [access-list-number...| access-list-name] | prefix-list prefix-list-name [prefix-list-
name...]}
To remove the match ip address entry, use the no form of this command.
no match ip address {access-list-number [access-list-number... | access-list-name...] |
access-list-name [access-list-number...| access-list-name] | prefix-list prefix-list-name
[prefix-list-name...]}
Syntax Description
access-list-number... Number of a standard or extended access-list.
It can be an integer from 1 to 199. The ellipsis indicates that

multiple values can be entered.
access-list-name... Name of a standard or extended access-list.
It can be an integer from 1 to 199. The ellipsis indicates that

multiple values can be entered.
prefix-list Distributes routes based on a prefix-list.
prefix-list-name... Name of a specific prefix-list.
The ellipsis indicates that multiple values can be entered.
match ip next-hop
To redistribute any routes that have a next-hop router address passed by one of the access-lists
specified, use the match ip next-hop command in route-map configuration mode.
match ip next-hop {access-list-number | access-list-name}[...access-list-number |
...access-list-name]
To remove the next hop entry, use the no form of this command.
no match ip next-hop {access-list-number | access-list-name}[...access-list-number |
Syntax Description
access-list-number Number of a standard or extended access-list.
It can be an integer from 1 to 199.
access-list-name Name of a standard or extended access-list.
match ip route-source
To redistribute routes that have been advertised by routers and access servers at the address
specified by the access-lists, use the match ip route-source command in route-map
configuration mode.
match ip route-source {access-list-number | access-list-name}[...access-list-number |
To remove the route-source entry, use the no form of this command.

no match ip route-source {access-list-number | access-list-name}[...access-list-number |
Syntax Description
access-list-number Number of a standard or extended access-list.
access-list-name Name of a standard or extended access-list.
BGP Filters
This topic identifies where you can apply route-maps as route filters in a BGP network.
BGP Filters
You can optionally apply filter-lists, prefix-lists, and route-maps to either incoming or outgoing
information or any combination of the two. The incoming prefix-list, the incoming filter-list,
and the incoming route-map must all permit the routes that are received from a neighbor before
being accepted into the BGP table. Outgoing routes must pass the outgoing filter-list, the
outgoing prefix-list, and the outgoing route-map before being transmitted to the neighbor.
When a router is configured to redistribute routing information from an IGP into BGP, the
routes must successfully pass any prefix-list or route-map that is applied to the redistribution
before a route is injected into the BGP table.
Using Route-Maps as BGP Filters
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS command that is required to enable a route-map as a BGP
route filter.
Using Route-Maps as BGP Filters
neighbor ip-address route-map name [in | out]
• This command applies a route-map to incoming or outgoing

BGP updates.
• Prefixes not permitted by the route-map are discarded.
• Route-maps can also change BGP attributes in incoming or
outgoing updates.
• Route-maps, filter-lists, and prefix-lists are evaluated in
sequence (effectively ANDed together).
You can apply a route-map on incoming or outgoing routing information for a neighbor. The
routing information must be permitted by the route-map in order to be accepted. If there is no
statement in the route-map explicitly permitting a route, then the route will be implicitly denied
and dropped.
The permitted routes may have their attributes set or changed by the set clauses in the route-
map. Setting attributes on routes is useful when you are influencing route selection. Some
routes can be permitted by one of the statements in the route-map and have their attributes
changed. Another statement in the route-map could permit other routes and not have their
attributes altered. When route selection is performed, the attribute values indicate that one route
is preferred over the other.
Using Route-Maps as BGP Filters (Cont.)
• Requirement: The customer will accept

only a default route and use the primary
link for outbound traffic.
In this example, the customer will accept only a default route and use the primary link that is
connected to AS 387 for outbound traffic.
Monitoring Route-Maps
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS commands that are required to monitor the operation of a
configured route-map that is used as a BGP filter.
Monitoring Route-Maps
Use the show ip bgp command to display the configured route-map characteristics.
The example shows that only default routes are entered into the BGP table. The default route
from the primary link has been selected by BGP as the “best” route. The BGP route selection
rules have been modified based on the configuration of the BGP weight attribute in the route-
map. As part of that configuration, the weight of the primary link has been set to 150 and the
weight of the backup link has been set to 100.
Because BGP path selection prefers the highest weight, the router uses the primary link as the
outgoing path.
Monitoring Route-Maps (Cont.)
Here you see that all routes except for the default route are being filtered out of the BGP update
(denied). The default route is installed in the route table.
router#
show ip bgp route-map route-map-name
• Displays all routes in BGP table matching the route-map
• Used for filtering the show ip bgp output on basis of BGP path
attributes:
– Community
– Local preference
– Weight
– Origin
– Next-hop
• Can also filter based on prefixes
• Allows powerful combined filtering
You can also use route-maps for selective and powerful filtering of the BGP table. The show ip
bgp route-map command displays selected routes from a BGP routing table based on the
contents of a route-map.
A route-map can match the routes on the basis of BGP path attributes (local preference,
community, weight, origin, next-hop) or prefix-lists and access-lists (matching IP prefixes).
The power of route-map filtering lies in the possibility of combining different filters (for
example, filtering on community, prefix, and next-hop values).
Note Support for route-map filtering was added in Cisco IOS Software Release 12.2(11)T and
12.0(14)ST.
• Networks matched by the route-map are displayed.
In this example, a customer is using a simple route-map to filter the BGP table. By using the
show ip bgp route-map command, the customer can display the filtered BGP table. The
customer router configuration from which this output is collected is shown here for reference:
router bgp 213
neighbor 1.2.3.4 route-map filter in
neighbor 3.4.5.6 route-map filter in
!
route-map filter permit 10
match ip address prefix-list defonly
match as-path 10
set weight 150
!
route-map filter permit 20
match ip address prefix-list defonly
set weight 100
!
ip as-path access-list 10 permit _387$
ip prefix-list defonly seq 10 permit 0.0.0.0/0
The route-map “filter” matches incoming networks from two service providers. For all routes
that are sent by the primary provider (AS 387), the local router accepts the default route only,
and it is marked as the preferred route with a weight of 150. Only a default route is accepted
from the backup provider, and its weight metric has been set to 100.
The customer then applies the route-map to the output of the show ip bgp route-map
command, and only the networks that conform to the AS-path and prefix-list filters are
displayed (network 0.0.0.0/0 in the example).
Summary
Summary
• A route-map is a filter that has the ability to drop denied

routes as well as modify attributes of the permitted routes.
• The BGP Route-Map Policy List Support feature introduces
new functionality to BGP route-maps, adding the ability for a
network operator to group route-map match clauses into
named lists called policy-lists.
• The BGP Route-Map Continue feature introduces the
continue clause to BGP route-map configuration. Continue
clauses provide a programmable method to organize and
control the flow of a route-map.
Summary (Cont.)
• You can configure a route-map to match against a prefix-list

by using the match ip address, match ip next-hop, and match ip
route-source commands.
• Filter-lists, prefix-lists, and route-maps can optionally all be
applied on either incoming or outgoing information in any
combination.
• A route-map can be applied on incoming or outgoing routing
information to or from a neighbor, but the routing information
must be permitted by the route-map in order to be accepted.
• Monitoring route-maps is possible using the show ip bgp and
debug ip bgp update commands.
Lesson 6
Implementing Changes in BGP

Policy
Overview
Because of the huge volumes of routing information that Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is
capable of handling, traditional routing update methods are not feasible. Routing policies for a
BGP neighbor may include filtering mechanisms such as route-maps, distribute-lists, prefix-
lists, and autonomous system (AS)-path filter-lists. Each of these filters may impact inbound or
outbound routing table updates.
Whenever there is an administrative change in routing policy, the BGP session must be reset
before the new policy can take effect. To accomplish this task, there are two types of reset: hard
reset and soft reset. Clearing a BGP session using a hard reset invalidates the cache and results
in a negative impact on the operation of networks, because the information in the cache
becomes unavailable. A soft reset is recommended because it allows routing tables to be
reconfigured and activated without clearing the BGP session.
This lesson discusses routing updates in a BGP environment and the traditional methods of
forcing BGP route updates after changes in a filter policy. The function and benefits of soft
reconfiguration and route refresh are also discussed. The lesson also presents the commands
that are required to perform a soft reconfiguration and route refresh and explains how to
monitor and troubleshoot these features.
Objectives
Upon completing this lesson, you will be able to configure the soft reconfiguration feature to
minimize the impact of expediting BGP policy updates in a typical BGP network. This ability
Identify the limitations of the traditional methods of forcing BGP route updates after
changing a filter policy
Describe the function of the soft reconfiguration feature
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to configure and perform a soft
reconfiguration
Identify the Cisco IOS tools that are available to monitor the operation of a soft
reconfiguration
Describe the function of the BGP Soft Reset Enhancement feature
Describe the function and benefits of the route refresh function
Identify the Cisco IOS command that is required to trigger a route refresh
Identify the Cisco IOS commands that are required to monitor route refresh operation
Explain the benefit of using route-maps as BGP filters
Traditional Filtering Limitations
This topic identifies the limitations of traditional methods when you are forcing BGP route
updates after changing filter policies.
Traditional Filtering Limitations
• All filters apply only to new incoming and outgoing

updates.
• To change outbound routing policy, you have to
resend BGP updates to your neighbors.
• To change inbound routing policy, you have to force
your neighbor to resend the updates to you.
• The traditional mechanism is to clear BGP sessions.
BGP can potentially handle huge volumes of routing information. But when network
administrators change configuration lines in filters or route-maps, the router cannot go through
the huge table of BGP information and calculate which entry is no longer valid in the local
table. Nor can the router determine which route or routes, already advertised, should be
withdrawn from a neighbor. There is an obvious risk that the first configuration change will be
immediately followed by a second, which would cause the whole process to start all over again.
To avoid such a problem, Cisco IOS software applies changes only on the updates that are
received or transmitted after the configuration change has been performed. This approach
means that the new routing policy, enforced by the new filters, is applied only on routes that are
received or sent after the change. If network administrators would like to apply the policy
change on all routes, they have to force the router to let all routes pass through the new filter.
If the filter is applied to outgoing information, the router has to resend the entire BGP table
through the new filter. If the filter is applied to incoming information, the router needs its
neighbor to resend its entire BGP table so that it passes through the new filters.
Traditionally, to accomplish these goals, network administrators have torn down the affected
BGP sessions after completing a configuration change. After the sessions are down, all
information that is received on those sessions is invalidated and removed from the BGP table.
Also, the remote neighbor will detect a session down state, and it likewise will invalidate the
routes that are received on the session. After a period of 30 to 60 seconds, the sessions are
re-established automatically and the entire BGP table is exchanged again, but through the new
filters. This process, however, disrupts packet forwarding.
Traditional Limitations of Clearing
the BGP Session
router#
clear ip bgp {* | ip-address | peer-group-name}
• This command tears down the BGP session with all neighbors, a
specific neighbor, or all neighbors in a peer group.
• All BGP routes are lost after the session is torn down;
connectivity through the BGP neighbor is lost.
• A new session is re-established within 30 to 60 seconds.
• A full routing update is exchanged once the session is re-
established, resulting in enforcement of new routing policy.
• Processing the full Internet routing table can take a long time.
• Clearing the BGP session is a very disruptive way to implement
routing policies.
The EXEC command clear ip bgp tears down one or several BGP sessions. The BGP sessions
are terminated, and the TCP connections closed. The neighbors go into the Idle state and stay
there for approximately 30 seconds. Next, the neighbor session goes into the Active state, and
the sessions are re-established.
You can implement the clear ip bgp command with the * (asterisk) argument, which applies to
all sessions, or you can make a reference to a specific session or group of sessions to tear down.
When the session is down, all routes that are received over the session by both routers are
invalidated. When the session is once again in the Established state, all BGP routes have to be
resent by both peers and pass through the new filters, which enforces the new policy.
Exchanging the complete Internet routing table takes time, bandwidth, and CPU resources. IP
packet forwarding to and from the neighbor is down for several minutes. Also, revoking and
reannouncing the routes will be registered by the rest of the Internet as a flap for each route.
BGP Soft Reconfiguration
This topic describes the function of the soft reconfiguration feature.
BGP Soft Reconfiguration
• Soft reconfiguration was introduced in Cisco IOS Software

Release 11.2 to facilitate nondisruptive changes in BGP
routing policies.
• Outbound soft reconfiguration resends the complete BGP
table.
– Always enabled, not configurable
• Inbound soft reconfiguration stores the complete BGP table
of your neighbor in router memory.
With Cisco IOS Software Release 11.2 came the introduction of the soft reconfiguration
feature. Soft reconfiguration provides the ability to run all routes through the filters without
tearing down the sessions. Outbound soft reconfiguration was easy to implement because it is a
simple resending of all routes in the local BGP table. Inbound soft reconfiguration was more
complicated because a copy of all the routes that are received from a neighbor is required. The
copy of the routes that are received from the neighbor is saved independently of the BGP table,
before any filters are applied. Whenever the incoming filters are changed, a replay of
everything that has been received from the neighbor takes place without involving the
neighbor. The major drawback of this approach is the amount of memory that is required to
hold the copy.
Example: Soft Reconfiguration and Memory Use
This example shows the impact of soft reconfiguration on an Internet service provider (ISP)
router with three upstream neighbors sending full Internet routing information.
Soft Reconfiguration and Memory Use
Each neighbor is sending 100,000 prefixes. The router stores each set in a dedicated per-
neighbor BGP table. All 300,000 paths will then appear in the main BGP table if there is no
filtering. The router will then choose the best path for each prefix and put it into the routing
table. If Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF) switching is enabled, the router will store another
copy in the Forwarding Information Base (FIB) table.
This solution obviously does not scale in terms of the number of neighbors and prefixes.
Cisco IOS Commands for Soft Reconfiguration
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS commands that are required to configure and perform a soft
reconfiguration.
Inbound Soft Reconfiguration

Cisco IOS Commands
neighbor ip-address soft-reconfiguration inbound
When you configure the soft-reconfiguration inbound command for a neighbor, the router
stores all routes that are received from that neighbor as an extra copy in memory. This copy is
taken before any filtering is applied by the router to routes that it receives.
This process is not enabled by default because it may consume large volumes of memory.
neighbor soft-reconfiguration
To configure Cisco IOS software to start storing updates, use the neighbor soft-
reconfiguration router configuration command.
neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} soft-reconfiguration inbound
To not store received updates, use the no form of this command.

no neighbor {ip-address | peer-group-name} soft-reconfiguration inbound
Syntax Description
ip-address IP address of the BGP-speaking neighbor
inbound (Optional) Keyword that indicates that the update to be stored is

an incoming update
Inbound Soft Reconfiguration
Cisco IOS Commands (Cont.)
router#
clear ip bgp ip-address soft in
When the network administrator has completed the changes to filters and route-maps that are
applied on incoming information (changes that will implement a new routing policy), the clear
ip bgp ip-address soft in command is executed on the router in privileged EXEC mode. After
the command has been entered, the router will not tear the session down. Instead, the router
resends the saved copy of the received routing information through the new filters, and the
result is stored in the local BGP table.
clear ip bgp
To reset a BGP connection using BGP soft reconfiguration, use the clear ip bgp EXEC
command at the system prompt.
clear ip bgp {* | address | peer-group-name} [soft [in | out]]
Syntax Description
* Resets all current BGP sessions.
address Resets only the identified BGP neighbor.
peer-group-name Resets the specified BGP peer group.
soft (Optional) Soft reset. Does not reset the session.
in | out (Optional) Triggers inbound or outbound soft reconfiguration.
If the in or out option is not specified, both inbound and outbound

soft reset are triggered.
Outbound Soft Reconfiguration
Cisco IOS Commands
router#
clear ip bgp ip-address soft out
When the network administrator has completed the changes to filters and route-maps that are
applied on the outgoing information (changes that will implement a new routing policy), the
clear ip bgp ip-address soft out command is executed on the router in privileged EXEC mode.
After the command has been entered, the router will not tear the session down. Instead, the
table version number of the neighbor is reset to 0. When the next update interval for the
neighbor arrives, the local router will go through the entire BGP table and find that all the
routes need to be sent to the neighbor because they all have a table version number higher
than 0.
This process causes all the BGP routes to be resent through the new filters.
Monitoring Soft Reconfiguration
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS tools that are available to monitor the operation of a soft
reconfiguration.
Monitoring Soft Reconfiguration
The show ip bgp command is used to display the local BGP table. You can check the entries
that have been propagated to a specific neighbor with the show ip bgp neighbor ip-address
advertised command. It displays the subset of the local BGP table that has passed the split-
horizon check and all outgoing filters for the neighbor.
You can check incoming information that is received from a neighbor with the show ip bgp
neighbor ip-address routes command. It displays which of the routes in the local BGP table
were received (and accepted) from the indicated neighbor. Only routes that are passed by the
incoming filter for the neighbor are displayed.
If the soft-reconfiguration inbound feature is enabled for a neighbor, the information that is
saved in the extra copy outside the filters is displayed using the show ip bgp neighbor ip-
address received command.
These commands are useful when you are troubleshooting the routing policy. You can compare
routes outside the incoming filters with what was actually accepted into the BGP table from a
neighbor. In addition, routes that are transmitted and advertised to a neighbor can be compared
to what is inside the outgoing filters in the local BGP table.
BGP Soft Reset Enhancement
This topic describes the function of the BGP Soft Reset Enhancement feature.
BGP Soft Reset Enhancement
• Provides automatic support for dynamic soft reset of

inbound BGP routing table updates that is not dependent
upon stored routing table update information
• Requires no preconfiguration (as with the neighbor soft-
reconfiguration command)
• Requires much less memory than the previous soft reset
method for inbound routing table updates
Whenever there is a change in the routing policy, the BGP session must be cleared, or reset, for
the new policy to take effect. There are two types of reset, hard reset and soft reset. Clearing a
BGP session using a hard reset invalidates the cache and results in a negative impact on the
operation of networks as the information in the cache becomes unavailable. Soft reset is
recommended because it allows routing tables to be reconfigured and activated without clearing
the BGP session. Soft reset is done on a per-neighbor basis. There are two types of soft reset:
Dynamic inbound soft reset: When soft reset is used to generate inbound updates from a
neighbor
Outbound soft reset: When soft reset is used to send a new set of updates to a neighbor
Previously, to perform a soft reset for inbound routing table updates, the neighbor soft-
reconfiguration command directed the Cisco IOS software in the local BGP router to store all
received (inbound) routing policy updates without modification. This method is memory-
intensive and not recommended unless absolutely necessary. (Outbound updates have never
required the extra memory and are not affected by this feature.)
The BGP Soft Reset Enhancement feature, however, provides automatic support for dynamic
soft reset of inbound BGP routing table updates that is not dependent on stored routing table
update information. The new method requires no preconfiguration (as with the neighbor soft-
reconfiguration command) and requires much less memory than the previous soft reset
method for inbound routing table updates.
There are a number of benefits to the BGP Soft Reset Enhancement feature:
Allows dynamic route refresh requests: This feature provides a way to initiate
nondisruptive routing policy changes by allowing the dynamic exchange of route refresh
requests between BGP routers, and the subsequent readvertisement of the respective
outbound routing tables.
Requires no preconfiguration: Because support for the soft reset using the route refresh
capability is included in this release of the Cisco IOS software, no further router
configuration is required. You can initiate a soft inbound reset using only the clear ip bgp
in command.
Requires no additional memory resources: Unlike a soft reset using the stored inbound
routing table updates provided by the neighbor soft-reconfiguration command, when both
BGP peers support the route refresh capability, inbound routing table updates are not stored
in the local BGP router. The soft reset requests are exchanged dynamically, and no
additional memory is required.
Provides flexibility: There are now two available methods for inbound soft reset; the older
method, using stored inbound routing table updates, and the method provided by this
feature, using dynamic exchange of update information.
When the routing policy of a BGP neighbor changes, the session must be reset (cleared) for the
changes to take effect. Because resetting a BGP session can be disruptive to networks, a soft
reset method is recommended for reconfiguring the routing table. Previously, in order to
reconfigure the inbound routing table, both the local BGP router and the BGP peer first needed
to be configured to store incoming routing policy updates using the neighbor soft-
reconfiguration command. Additional resources, particularly memory, were required to store
the inbound routing table updates. The clear ip bgp command could then initiate the soft reset,
which generated a new set of inbound routing table updates using the stored information.
The BGP Soft Reset Enhancement feature provides an additional method for soft reset that
allows the dynamic exchange of route refresh requests and routing information between BGP
routers and the subsequent readvertisement of the respective outbound routing table. Soft reset
using the route refresh capability does not require preconfiguration and consumes no additional
memory resources.
To use this new method, both BGP peers must support the soft route refresh capability, which
is advertised in the Open message sent when a peer sends its routing table update. Any router
running BGP with this software release automatically supports the route refresh capability.
Routers running earlier Cisco IOS software releases do not support the route refresh capability
and must use the older soft reset method. If the soft reset fails, you can still clear the BGP
session, but it will have a negative impact on network operations and should be used only as a
last resort.
Note Outbound resets have never required preconfiguration or storing of routing table updates
and remain unchanged by the BGP Soft Reset Enhancement feature.
Route Refresh
This topic describes the function and benefits of the route refresh function.
Route Refresh
• Route refresh is a new BGP capability.

• It is used to request a neighbor to resend routing
information.
• It is typically used after configuration changes to update the
BGP table (route-map, distribute-list, prefix-list, filter-list,
weight, local preference, MED, and so on).
• The traditional way of accomplishing this function is to clear
the BGP session.
Route refresh is one of the new capabilities of BGP. Routers use the route refresh feature to
request a neighbor to resend all the routing information when it is needed.
There are several ways of refreshing the routing information from a neighbor:
Clearing the neighbor relationship
Soft-clearing the neighbor relationship (if soft reconfiguration is enabled for this specific
neighbor)
Using route refresh (if the neighbor supports this capability)
Note To use soft reset without preconfiguration, both BGP peers must support the soft route
refresh capability, which is advertised in the Open message that is sent when the peers
establish a TCP session. Routers that run Cisco IOS software releases earlier than Release
12.1 do not support the route refresh capability and must clear the BGP session using the
neighbor soft-reconfiguration command.
Route Refresh (Cont.)
• Inbound soft reconfiguration consumes memory on the

receiving router.
– It is needed only because there is no mechanism in
standard BGP to request retransmission of BGP routes.
• BGP route refresh is an optional BGP capability that allows a
BGP router to request retransmission of BGP routes from a
neighbor.
The soft-reconfiguration inbound feature consumes large volumes of memory in the Internet
environment. The number of routes that can be received from a peer router on the Internet is so
large that it is not feasible to store an extra copy.
The only reason for making the extra copy is to be able to replay the data through the new
routing policy without tearing down the session and re-establishing it.
What is needed is a mechanism to ask the neighbor router to do a “clear soft outbound.” If this
were possible, the extra copy would not be needed. The neighboring router, of course, has its
own copy in its BGP table, which it could resend to the local router whenever it is signaled to
do so.
There is no such mechanism in standard BGP, but there is an optional BGP capability that
allows one router to request a refresh from its neighbor: route refresh.
The table compares the various methods of BGP session reset, stating the advantages and
disadvantages of each.
Type of Reset Advantages Disadvantages
Hard reset No memory overhead. The prefixes in the BGP, IP, and FIB
tables that are provided by the
neighbor are lost.
Not recommended.
Outbound soft reset No configuration, no storing of Does not reset inbound routing table
routing table updates. updates.
Dynamic inbound soft Does not clear the BGP session Both BGP routers must support the
reset or cache. route refresh capability (Cisco IOS
Software Release 12.1 and later
Does not require storing of routing releases).
table updates, and has no
memory overhead.
Configured inbound soft Can be used when both BGP Requires preconfiguration.
reset (uses the neighbor routers do not support the
soft-reconfiguration automatic route refresh capability. Stores all received (inbound) routing
command) policy updates without modification,
and is thus memory-intensive.
Recommended only when absolutely

necessary.
Example: Route Refresh
The example shows the steps in a route refresh.
Route Refresh (Cont.)
Step 1 - Route refresh is negotiated when the BGP session is established.

Step 2 - Inbound routing policy is changed on RTR-B.
Step 3 - Operator requests inbound route refresh.
Step 4 - RTR-B sends route refresh message to RTR-A.
Step 5 - RTR-A resends all BGP routes to RTR-B.
The ability to use the route refresh feature must be negotiated by the router when the BGP
session is first established. The local router keeps a record that the capability is available with
the neighbor. There is no need to keep a copy of the routing information that is received from
the neighbor if it has the ability to refresh.
After reconfiguring the filters and route-maps that will implement a new routing policy, a
network administrator can issue the clear ip bgp ip-address soft in command in the local
router. The router checks whether the route refresh capability is available, and if it is, requests a
resend of the BGP table of the neighbor instead of replaying its own copy.
Using Route Refresh
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS command that is required to perform a route refresh.
Using Route Refresh
router#
clear ip bgp {* | ip-address | peer-group-name } in
• Sends a route refresh message to the neighbor or neighbors

• Only works if the neighbor has previously advertised the
route refresh capability
Use the clear ip bgp * in command to send a route refresh message to all neighbors or clear ip
bgp ip-address in to send a route refresh message to a specific neighbor.
You need not use the soft keyword, because soft reset is automatically assumed when the route
refresh capability is supported.
clear ip bgp
To reset a BGP connection with BGP soft reconfiguration, use the clear ip bgp privileged
EXEC command at the system prompt.
clear ip bgp {* | ip-address | peer-group-name} [soft [in | out]]
Syntax Description
* Resets all current BGP sessions.
ip-address Resets only the identified BGP neighbor.
peer-group-name Resets the specified BGP peer group.
soft (Optional) Soft reset. Does not reset the session.
in | out (Optional) Triggers inbound or outbound soft reconfiguration.
If the in or out option is not specified, both inbound and outbound

soft reset are triggered.
Monitoring Route Refresh
This topic identifies the Cisco IOS commands that are required to monitor route refresh
operation.
Monitoring Route Refresh
router#
show ip bgp neighbor neighbor
• Verifies the support for route refresh capability
Use the show ip bgp neighbor command to see whether the neighbor supports the route refresh
message.
Note The printout of the show ip bgp neighbor command varies among Cisco IOS releases. The
printout in the figure here was generated by Cisco IOS Software Release 12.0(1)S and
represents a manual configuration of soft reset.
Monitoring Route Refresh (Cont.)
Debug output after BGP session reset
Use debug ip bgp to display the negotiation of capabilities. Debugging displays received
capabilities.
The example shows that a neighbor is advertising both old-style and standard (new-style) route
refresh. After the session has been established, an initial standard route refresh message is sent
by the router for the address family 1/1 (IP version 4 [IPv4] unicast).
Monitoring Route Refresh (Cont.)
Debug output after route refresh
Debugging also shows a route refresh message being sent to a neighbor after the network
administrator issues the clear ip bgp ip-address in command from privileged EXEC mode.
Why Use Route-Maps as BGP Filters?
This topic identifies the need to use route-maps to influence route selection in a BGP network.
Why Use Route-Maps as BGP Filters?
• Some scenarios require complex filters.

– Filters on IP prefixes coming from specific AS number
– Filters on other BGP attributes
• In some cases, network administrators even need to modify
BGP attributes.
• Route-maps provide a solution to both requirements.
Network administrators cannot achieve certain complex filtering goals by using a prefix-list
only or by using an AS-path filter-list only. Using both of these filters simultaneously means
that a route must be permitted by both to be accepted. Sometimes the goal is to permit a
specific prefix if it is received with a specific AS-path and to deny it otherwise.
Combinations of tests can be implemented using route-maps. A route-map is a powerful

filtering tool that can also modify routing information. Different attributes can have their values
set or changed by the route-map.
Summary
Summary
• Because of the huge volumes of routing information that

BGP is capable of handling and the effects of a mass routing
update, BGP cannot use traditional routing update methods.
• Soft reconfiguration provides the possibility to run all routes
through filters without tearing down the sessions.
• The Cisco IOS commands that are required to configure and
perform a soft reconfiguration include the neighbor soft-
reconfiguration router configuration command, which
configures Cisco IOS software to start storing updates and
the clear ip bgp EXEC command, which resets a BGP
connection using BGP soft reconfiguration.
Summary (Cont.)
• The Cisco IOS tools that are available to monitor the

operation of a soft reconfiguration include the show ip bgp
command, which displays the local BGP table, the show ip
bgp neighbor ip-address routes command, which checks
incoming information that is received from a neighbor, and
the show ip bgp neighbor ip-address received command, which
displays the information that is saved in the extra copy
outside the filters.
• The BGP Soft Reset Enhancement feature provides
automatic support for dynamic soft reset of inbound BGP
routing table updates that is not dependent upon stored
routing table update information. This method requires no
preconfiguration and needs much less memory than the
previous soft reset method for inbound routing table
updates.
Summary (Cont.)
• Route refresh is a new BGP capability that is used to request

a neighbor to resend routing information after configuration
changes.
• The clear ip bgp ip-address soft in command sends a route
refresh message to the neighboring router and executes if
the neighbor has previously advertised the route refresh
capability.
• To verify that a neighbor supports route refresh, you can use
the show ip bgp neighbor command. To display the negotiation
process, you can use the debug ip bgp command.
• Network administrators cannot achieve certain complex
filtering goals by using a prefix-list only or by using an AS-
path filter list only. A route-map is a powerful filtering tool
that can also modify routing information.
Module Summary
Module Summary
• The multihomed customer network must exchange BGP

information with both ISP networks. Dynamic routing is
required for full redundancy, and BGP is the only protocol
available that can be used in this scenario.
• An AS-path filter is created by an AS-path access-list. The
access-list is applied to a set of routes from which to subset
can be selected.
• Use prefix-lists to filter incoming or outgoing BGP updates to
neighbors and to filter routes that are being redistributed into
the BGP process from other routing protocols.
Module Summary (Cont.)
• Outbound route filtering is a mechanism that is used to

minimize the number of updates that are requested from a
neighbor.
• Route-maps provide a method to perform a variety of
compound, complex filtering operations (such as
dropping denied routes and modifying attributes of the
permitted routes) within a single tool.
• Soft reconfiguration provides the ability to run all routes
through filters without tearing down the sessions.
This module discussed BGP route filtering and BGP route selection policies. The module
described multihomed BGP networks and identified the need for BGP route selection. This
module also addressed configuring BGP to influence route selection by using AS-path filters,
prefix-list filters, and route-maps. Outbound route filtering was also explained. In addition,
details about soft reconfiguration and route refresh were provided.
References
Cisco Systems, Inc. Sample Configuration for BGP with Two Different Service Providers
(Multihoming). http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/459/27.html.
Cisco Systems, Inc. Using Regular Expressions in BGP.
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/459/26.html.
Cisco Systems, Inc. BGP Case Studies (see “BGP Case Studies 3” section).
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/459/bgp-toc.html.
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios120/12cgcr/np1_c/1cprt1/1c
bgp.htm#xtocid15.
Cisco Systems, Inc. BGP Prefix-Based Outbound Route Filtering.
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios122/122newft/122t/122t11/ft
11borf.htm.
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Network Working Group. Cooperative Route
Filtering Capability for BGP-4.
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-idr-route-filter-12.txt
Cisco Systems, Inc. BGP Case Studies (see “BGP Case Studies 1” section).
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/459/bgp-toc.html#routemaps.
Cisco Systems, Inc. Compatible Systems Setup Guides: BGP Configuration Guide.
http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/707/cscsupport/setup_guides/bgp.html#bgpRouteMap.
Cisco Systems, Inc. BGP Soft Reset Enhancement.
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios120/120newft/120t/120t7/sft
rst.htm.
Module Self-Check
Q1) What are two reasons why a customer would want to connect to two ISPs?
(Choose two.) (Source: Using Multihomed BGP Networks)
A) to expand capacity for Internet traffic
B) to better protect confidential information as it travels through the Internet
C) to provide redundancy to mission-critical services that are offered over the
Internet
D) to efficiently route Internet traffic to two different divisions within the
company
Q2) What are the two technical requirements for multihomed customers? (Choose two.)
(Source: Using Multihomed BGP Networks)
A) The ISPs must assign a range of IP network numbers to the customer.
B) The customer network must exchange BGP information with each ISP
network.
C) In most cases, the customer must have its own public AS number.
D) The customer network must not use AS-path filters.
Q3) Which of the following statements best illustrates the importance of BGP policies that
influence route selection in a multihomed BGP network? (Source: Using Multihomed
BGP Networks)
A) The default BGP route selection does not always result in optimum routing.
B) The default BGP route selection always results in optimum routing.
C) After the route selection behavior has been set, it cannot be changed.
D) The customer receives all routes from both service providers, giving
redundancy; therefore, BGP policies are not necessary.
Q4) Which three of the following are potential customer routing policies? (Choose three.)
(Source: Using Multihomed BGP Networks)
A) One service provider is designated as primary, and the other is a backup.
B) Traffic is load-balanced across both ISP networks.
C) Traffic toward a specific destination goes through only one of the ISPs.
D) Traffic to direct customers of the ISPs goes direct; all other traffic goes through
the primary ISP.
E) The two ISPs may have similar peering agreements with other ISPs.
F) The ISPs use default routing to the customer, and the customer uses static
routing to the ISP (or ISPs).
Q5) Which statement about the need to influence BGP route selection in a service provider
environment is accurate? (Source: Using Multihomed BGP Networks)
A) If both ISP connections terminate in one single customer router, only some
routes that are received from the primary ISP can be assigned a BGP weight.
B) In most cases, it is more optimal to reach other customers connected to the
backup ISP via the backup link, compared with reaching them via the primary
link.
C) All routes that are received from the primary ISP over the primary link are
assigned a local preference value, which is lower than the default value of 100.
D) When one ISP connection terminates in one single customer router, all routes
that are received from that ISP are assigned a BGP weight.
Q6) Which two potential multihomed network issues can be prevented with IP prefix
filters? (Choose two.) (Source: Using Multihomed BGP Networks)
A) the propagation of private AS numbers
B) the propagation of private addresses that are used in the network
C) the propagation of unreachable next-hop addresses
D) the propagation of more specific prefixes from an address range
Q7) Which three goals represent appropriate reasons to apply AS-path filters? (Choose
three.) (Source: Employing AS-Path Filters)
A) to ensure that only locally originated routes are announced
B) to limit routes that are advertised from IBGP neighbors
C) to select a subset of all routes based on their originating AS
D) to limit neighbor route updates to specific AS-originated routes
E) to ensure that all destination autonomous systems should be received from a
specified neighbor
F) to change the weight or local preference attributes for all destination
autonomous systems
Q8) Which AS path is matched by the regular expression “72$”? (Source: Employing AS-
Path Filters)
A) 213 72 218 31 727
B) 27 317 271 50 72
C) 315 27 723 19 91
D) 72 591 368 20 87
Q9) What is the difference between the regular expressions “_100_” and “_100$”? (Source:
Employing AS-Path Filters)
A) The first expression refers to routes that have the substring “100” in their AS
paths; the second expression refers only to routes that are directly connected to
AS 100.
B) The first expression refers to routes that have the substring “100” in their AS
paths; the second expression refers only to routes that originated in AS 100.
C) The first expression refers to routes that go through AS 100; the second
expression refers to routes that originated in AS 100.
D) The first expression refers to routes that are directly connected to AS 100; the
second expression refers to routes that originated in AS 100.
Q10) How do you match AS paths that contain exactly two single-digit AS numbers?
(Source: Employing AS-Path Filters)
A) use the expression “**”
B) use the expression “..”
C) use the expression “[0-9]_[0-9]”
D) use the expression “^[0-9]_[0-9]$”
Q11) Which three steps are required to apply a new inbound routing policy to a neighbor?
(Choose three.) (Source: Employing AS-Path Filters)
A) Define an AS-path access-list.
B) Attach the AS-path filter to inbound or outbound updates for a specific BGP
neighbor.
C) Send incoming and outgoing AS-path filters to the BGP neighbor.
D) Force the updates to go through the new filter.
Q12) How can you test your regular expression? (Source: Employing AS-Path Filters)
A) show ip bgp access-list command
B) show ip bgp filter command
C) show ip bgp regexp command
D) show ip bgp summary command
Q13) What are two reasons that a multihomed customer needs prefix-lists? (Choose two.)
(Source: Filtering with Prefix-Lists)
A) to ensure that only valid IP prefixes are announced to the ISPs
B) to set a limit on the number of prefixes that can be accepted from the ISPs
C) to prevent the customer from receiving its own IP prefixes from the ISP
D) to verify that the customer has received full Internet route tables
Q14) Which three of the following choices are advantages of prefix-lists over access-lists?
(Choose three.) (Source: Filtering with Prefix-Lists)
A) significant performance improvement on long filters
B) support for incremental updates
C) ability to consist of any number of lines, each of which indicates a test and a
result
D) flexibility
E) more complex command-line interface
F) sequential scanning of prefix-lists within Cisco IOS software
Q15) When you define prefix-lists, what are two reasons to use sequence numbers? (Choose
two.) (Source: Filtering with Prefix-Lists)
A) to reference the associated access-list for the prefix-list entry
B) to provide a means of linking an AS-path filter-list to the prefix-list
C) to provide an execution order for prefix-list entries
D) to provide a means of inserting or deleting list entries
Q16) Which of the following statements is accurate about the ge and le parameters in the ip
prefix-list global configuration command required to configure prefix-list filters?
A) No match is assumed when neither ge nor le is specified.
B) The range is assumed to be from ge-value to 142 only if the ge attribute is
specified.
C) The range is assumed to be from len to 32 only if the le attribute is specified.
D) An exact match is assumed when neither ge nor le is specified.
Q17) Which of the following statements about implementing prefix-lists in a BGP network is
accurate? (Source: Filtering with Prefix-Lists)
A) You can optionally apply filter-lists and prefix-lists on either incoming or
outgoing neighbors in any combination.
B) You can optionally apply filter-lists and prefix-lists only on outgoing neighbors
in any combination.
C) Either the incoming prefix-list or the incoming filter-list must permit the routes
that are received from a neighbor before they are accepted into the BGP table.
D) Outgoing routes must pass the outgoing prefix-list before being transmitted to
the neighbor.
Q18) How can you apply the same prefix-list to multiple BGP neighbors on a router?
A) by configuring a neighbor prefix-list statement for each BGP peer
B) by configuring a neighbor distribute-list statement for each neighbor
C) by using the BGP peer-group option with the neighbor statement
D) by configuring the prefix-list as a global filter under the BGP routing process
Q19) How can you use the show ip prefix-list command to display the prefix-list entry that
matches a specific prefix and length? (Source: Filtering with Prefix-Lists)
A) not a feature of the show ip prefix-list command
B) by specifying the detail keyword
C) with the longer keyword to display all matches except those with more specific
entries
D) by specifying the first-match keyword
Q20) Which of the following best describes the capabilities of the proprietary ORF type that
is supported on Cisco routers? (Source: Using Outbound Route Filtering)
A) standard BGP communities filtering
B) extended BGP communities filtering
C) AS-path filtering
D) prefix-list filtering
Q21) What are two key benefits to using outbound route filtering? (Choose two.) (Source:
Using Outbound Route Filtering)
A) conserves CPU cycles
B) improves security
C) reduces bandwidth that is used by unnecessary routing updates
D) increases neighbor availability
Q22) Which two of the following statements about BGP prefix-based outbound route
filtering are accurate? (Choose two.) (Source: Using Outbound Route Filtering)
A) uses BGP ORF send and receive capabilities to minimize the number of BGP
updates that are sent between BGP peers
B) can limit the number of unwanted routing updates
C) increases the amount of resources required to receive and discard routes that
would otherwise be filtered out
D) can be used to increase the amount of processing on a router that is not
accepting full routes from a service provider network
Q23) How should you configure the neighbor capability orf prefix-list command on a
router that is applying a prefix-list filter as an outbound route policy? (Source: Using
Outbound Route Filtering)
A) send
B) receive
C) both
D) prefix-filter
Q24) What are two methods of determining that a router has ORF capabilities exchange
configured? (Choose two.) (Source: Using Outbound Route Filtering)
A) show running-config | begin bgp command
B) show ip bgp negotiate command
C) show ip bgp neighbors command
D) show ip prefix-list command
Q25) What are two prerequisites before you can configure ORF prefix-list functionality?
(Choose two.) (Source: Using Outbound Route Filtering)
A) A route refresh must be sent using the clear ip bgp command.
B) A BGP peering session between the ORF routers must be up and running.
C) ORF capabilities must be enabled on both routers.
D) You must configure a prefix-list filter on the receiving router.
Q26) Which of the following statements about the function of a route-map is accurate?
(Source: Applying Route-Maps as BGP Filters)
A) A route-map cannot be used to modify attributes of the permitted routes.
B) A route-map is a filter that uses a series of match conditions, and that which is
denied by the route-map is dropped.
C) A route-map is less complex than the access-list.
D) Each route-map statement starts with a series of match clauses.
Q27) Which three of the following statements are accurate about the BGP Route-Map Policy
List Support feature? (Choose three.) (Source: Applying Route-Maps as BGP Filters)
A) The BGP Route-Map Policy List Support feature allows a network operator to
group route-map match clauses into named lists called policy-lists.
B) The network operator manually reconfigures each recurring group of match
clauses that occur in multiple route-map entries.
C) The AND and OR semantics in the route-map function differently for policy-
lists than for match and set clauses.
D) To create a BGP policy-list, use the ip policy-list command in policy-map
configuration mode.
E) To configure a route-map to evaluate and process a BGP policy-list in a route-
map, use the match policy-list command in route-map configuration mode.
F) To display information about a configured policy-list and policy-list entries,
use the show ip policy-list command in route-map configuration mode.
Q28) Which two of the following are functions of the BGP Route-Map Continue feature?
(Choose two.) (Source: Applying Route-Maps as BGP Filters)
A) provides the ability to pause if a sequence number is not specified
B) provides the capability to execute additional entries in a route-map after an
entry is executed with successful match and set clauses
C) allows modularization of network policy configuration so that repeated policy
definitions can be expanded within the same route-map
D) allows configuration and organization of more modular policy definitions to
reduce the number of policy configurations that are repeated within the same
route-map
Q29) Which of the following commands is used to distribute any routes that have a
destination network number address that is permitted by a standard access-list, an
extended access-list, or a prefix-list, or to perform policy routing on packets? (Source:
Applying Route-Maps as BGP Filters)
A) match ip next-hop
B) match ip route-source
C) match ip address
D) show ip bgp route-map
Q30) How do you implement a “permit all” statement when you are using route-maps?
(Source: Applying Route-Maps as BGP Filters)
A) By default, a route-map has an “implicit permit any” statement if no match is
found.
B) You must configure a route-map with a “permit” parameter and no match
clause.
C) You must configure a route-map with a “deny” parameter and a “deny none”
clause.
D) You must configure a route-map with a “permit any” match clause.
Q31) What happens to incoming BGP updates that do not match any route-map match
clauses? (Source: Applying Route-Maps as BGP Filters)
A) They are entered into the BGP table.
B) They are entered into the BGP table and marked with a weight of 32768.
C) They are not accepted by the router or entered into the BGP table.
D) They are entered into the BGP table if a matching route exists in the IP routing
table.
Q32) Which three BGP attributes can you set using route-maps? (Choose three.) (Source:
A) MED
B) path origin
C) administrative distance
D) weight metric
E) next-hop
F) atomic aggregate
Q33) What are two reasons for using route-map sequence numbers? (Choose two.) (Source:
A) to allow insertion or deletion of route-map entries
B) to order the execution sequence of route-map match clauses
C) to provide an ordered execution sequence for the route-map
D) to map between prefix-list statements and route-map match clauses
Q34) Why is clearing a BGP session a disruptive change in routing policy? (Source:
Implementing Changes in BGP Policy)
A) Clearing a BGP session takes a long time and can disrupt packet forwarding.
B) You cannot recover information that is sent while the BGP session is being
cleared.
C) You cannot automatically re-establish sessions that are torn down during the
clearing operation.
D) You cannot selectively tear down BGP sessions; you must clear sessions with
all neighbors.
Q35) What is the impact of inbound soft reconfiguration? (Source: Implementing Changes in
BGP Policy)
A) It clears the session after you reconfigure the new routing policy.
B) It creates a copy of all routes that are received from a neighbor after the filters
are applied.
C) It requires extra memory to hold a copy of all routes that are received from the
neighbor.
D) It resets the table version number of the neighbor to 0.
Q36) Which two steps must you complete to use inbound soft configuration functionality?
(Choose two.) (Source: Implementing Changes in BGP Policy)
A) Clear the BGP session inbound on the local router.
B) Clear the BGP session outbound on the remote router.
C) Configure the local neighbor with the soft-reconfiguration in command.
D) Configure the remote neighbor with the soft-reconfiguration out command.
Q37) Match the functions to the tools used to monitor the operation of a soft reconfiguration.
(Source: Implementing Changes in BGP Policy)
A) display which of the routes in the local BGP table were received (and accepted)
from the indicated neighbor
B) check the entries that have been propagated to a specific neighbor
C) display the information that is saved in the extra copy outside the filters
_____ 1. show ip bgp neighbor ip-address received command
_____ 2. show ip bgp neighbor ip-address advertised command
_____ 3. show ip bgp neighbor ip-address routes command
Q38) Which two of the following are functions of the BGP Soft Reset Enhancement feature?
(Choose two.) (Source: Implementing Changes in BGP Policy)
A) allows dynamic route refresh requests
B) requires no preconfiguration
C) provides newer method for inbound soft reset that uses stored inbound routing
table updates
D) uses expanded memory
Q39) Which of the following statements about the command that is required to perform a
route refresh is accurate? (Source: Implementing Changes in BGP Policy)
A) You will use the clear ip bgp * in command to send a route refresh message to
all neighbors.
B) You will use the clear ip bgp ip-address in command to send a route refresh
message to all neighbors.
C) You must use the soft keyword with the clear ip bgp command because soft
reset is not automatically assumed when the route refresh capability is
supported.
D) The clear ip bgp command works even if the neighbor has not previously
advertised the route refresh capability.
Q40) What are two situations in which you would prefer inbound soft reconfiguration to
route refresh? (Choose two.) (Source: Implementing Changes in BGP Policy)
A) when there is insufficient memory to hold a copy of the BGP table of the
neighbor
B) when a route refresh fails
C) when you wish to troubleshoot filters and use the show ip bgp neighbor
command with the received-routes option
D) when the neighboring router does not support the route refresh capability
Q41) How do you determine whether a BGP neighbor supports route refresh? (Source:
Implementing Changes in BGP Policy)
A) A flag in the BGP table indicates the presence of route refresh capability.
B) The show ip bgp neighbor command indicates whether the option is
supported.
C) Initiate the debug ip bgp negotiation command to see whether the router has
completed a route refresh capabilities exchange.
D) Execute the clear ip bgp * command. Command-line BGP status messages
will indicate route refresh support capabilities.
Q42) Which of the following statements about using route-maps as filters is accurate?
(Source: Implementing Changes in BGP Policy)
A) Network administrators can achieve certain complex filtering goals by using a
prefix-list only or by using an AS-path filter list only; therefore, route-maps are
not necessarily a good solution.
B) Combinations of tests cannot be implemented using route-maps; therefore, in
some cases, an AS-path filter list is preferred.
C) Route-maps have less capability for filtering than access-lists.
D) Route-maps provide both complex filters and a way to modify BGP attributes.
Q1) A, C
Q2) B, C
Q3) A
Q4) A, C, D
Q5) B
Q6) B, D
Q7) A, C, D
Q8) B
Q9) C
Q10) D
Q11) A, B, D
Q12) C
Q13) A, C
Q14) A, B, D
Q15) C, D
Q16) D
Q17) A
Q18) C
Q19) D
Q20) D
Q21) A, C
Q22) A, B
Q23) B
Q24) A, C
Q25) B, C
Q26) B
Q27) A, D, E
Q28) B, D
Q29) C
Q30) B
Q31) C
Q32) A, D, E
Q33) A, C
Q34) A
Q35) C
Q36) A, C
Q37) 1-C
2-B
3-A
Q38) A, B
Q39) A
Q40) C, D
Q41) B
Q42) D

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BGP

Text Part Number: 97-2305-01

Cisco Systems Learning

Learner Skills and Knowledge

• Building Scalable Cisco Internetworks (BSCI) course or

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“To provide learners with in-depth

Configuring BGP on Cisco Routers (BGP) v3.2

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Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5

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Cisco Glossary of Terms

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Expand Your Professional Options

Required Recommended Training Through

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Professional-level recognition in service provider internetworking

Professional QOS Implementing Cisco Quality of Service (QoS)

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• An AS is a collection of networks under a single technical

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Why External Routing Protocols?

Q: Assuming standard IGP route selection rules, how will the

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BGP is a distance vector protocol with

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Protocol development considerations

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Common BGP uses

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Large customer or small ISP connecting to the Internet

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Use BGP between the customer and the service

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• BGP is almost mandatory for multihomed customers.

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The following use guidelines apply to multihomed customers:

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Transit Autonomous Systems

Using BGP to exchange routes is mandatory for transit

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BGP is most commonly implemented in service provider networks to ensure connectivity

BGP and associated tools cannot express all routing

“BGP does not enable one AS to send traffic

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