BGP - Maximum-path - hidden command

Two is better than one -- More is better or is it? Well I guess we can ruminate on semantics but I think we would rather see how we can implement equal cost multi-path (ECMP) routing using eBGP. By default BGP only installs THE BEST PATH after going through the BGP Bestpath selection algorithm (Cisco).

Consider the simple topology and let's dive in.

Complete config can be found here.

BGP - Configuring mBGP (Multicast BGP)

Do you influence or do you manipulate people to get what you want? What exactly is the difference? I mean in the end, you end up getting what you want right? Wrong, The difference lies in loyalty, if you influence someone then you get them to want to do what you want them to do. If you coerce or manipulate you may achieve short term success, however in the long term you will loose their trust and they will perceive you as someone who violated their trust rather than a leader. Therefore a great leader will influence others to achieve long term success. Although, sometimes you have no choice but to manipulate, for example my wife wants to influence me to do the dishes. Well that's just not going to happen -- she's never going to convince me that I want to do dishes, so she settles for manipulation :). Now that we've gotten my daily tidbit out of the way let's get into the topic at hand which is -- mBGP (Multicast BGP) not to be confused with Multi-protocol BGP which is used by MPLS, IPv6 etc.

Imagine you have Unicast Servers and Multicast Sources on the same network. Furthermore, imagine that you have 2 paths to reach that network, however you want to separate Unicast and Multicast traffic between different paths. How can we achieve this? Well there are a couple of options.

One, we can add static mroutes downstream or you could run mBGP and since the title of this blogtorial is configuring mBGP we'll choose the latter option. 

Consider this simple topology and let's get started. 

Complete configs can be found here.

BGP - Neighbor Allowas-in

My apologies -- It's been a while since I have posted, although I been pondering upon a few topics. I have been extremely busy with work, family, studies... -- Yes that's right I am going for my M.S in C.S :). In any case, enough about my boring personal life and excuses lets get into this action packed blogtorial. Here is a simple problem that I ran into the other night. I get a call from my colleague asking me if I would take a look and see why the routes from an eBGP neighbor are not being put into the routing table. After a couple of minutes of troubleshooting I pin-pointed the issue to a BGP loop prevention mechanism "called AS_Path: If you see your own AS in an update, drop it". Fortunately, there is a way to get around this in case we need to.

RFC 1771 

Section 9.3 states "If the local AS appears in the AS path of the new route being considered, then that new route cannot be viewed as better than any other route.  If such a route were ever used, a routing loop    would result."


To illustrate this in action, let's follow this simple topology.

Complete configurations can be found here.