What is BGP?

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the Internet's postal service. When someone places
a letter in a mailbox, the Postal Service processes it and determines the most efficient
way to send it to its intended destination. When someone sends data over the
Internet, BGP is in charge of analysing all of the possible paths for the data to take and
selecting the best one, which frequently involves hopping between autonomous
systems. BGP is the protocol that allows data to be routed across the Internet. For
example, the border gateway protocol is the protocol that allows a user in Singapore
to communicate swiftly and efficiently with origin servers in Argentina when they visit
a website.
The protocol can link any autonomous system's internetwork together utilising any
topology. The sole need is that each autonomous system should have at least one
BGP-capable router that is connected to the BGP router of at least one other
autonomous system. The primary purpose of BGP is to communicate network
reachability information with other BGP systems. Based on the information transmitted
between BGP routers, the Border Gateway Protocol creates an autonomous systems
graph.
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BGP Interview Questions for Freshers

1. What are the characteristics of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)?
Following are the characteristics of the Border Gateway Protocol:

 Configuration of Inter-Autonomous Systems: The Border Gateway Protocol's

primary function is to provide communication between two autonomous
systems.
 Next-Hop Paradigm is supported by the Border Gateway Protocol.
 Within the autonomous system, there is coordination among several BGP
speakers.
 Path Information: In addition to the reachable destination and next destination
pair, BGP advertisements offer path information.
 In the routing-decision algorithm of BGP, numerous attributes are used.
 External neighbours between various autonomous systems are communicated
via eBGP.
 Internal neighbours inside the same autonomous system use iBGP.
 It uses weight to alter the outward traffic routing from a single locally
configured router.
 Policy Support: The Border Gateway Protocol can implement policies that the
administrator can configure. A router running BGP, for example, can be set to
discriminate between routes known within the autonomous system and routes
known from outside the autonomous system.
 TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is used in conjunction with Border Gateway
Protocol.
 Border Gateway Protocol helps networks save bandwidth.
 Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) is supported by BGP.
 Security is also supported by BGP.

2. What port number is used by the border gateway protocol?

The Border Gateway Protocol uses the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) port
number 179.

3. Is it possible for routers on different subnets to become BGP

neighbours?

 BGP is frequently set up between two routers that are directly connected and belong
to distinct autonomous systems. BGP routers don't require their neighbours to be on
the same subnet. Instead, they employ a TCP connection between the routers to send
and receive BGP messages, allowing neighbouring routers to be on the same or
distinct subnets.
You can download a PDF version of Bgp Interview Questions.
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4. Is it possible to run two BGP processes on the same router?

No, you can't have two BGP processes running on the same router. This is because
BGP is an Exterior Gateway Protocol.

5. What do you understand by Routing Information Protocol (RIP) in the

context of networking?

The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is a dynamic routing protocol that finds the

optimum path between the source and destination networks by using hop count as a
routing metric. It is a distance-vector routing protocol with an AD value of 120 that
operates at the OSI application layer. The RIP protocol uses port 520. The number of
routers between the source and destination networks is referred to as the hop count.
The path with the fewest hops is deemed the best route to a network and is thus
entered into the routing table. The number of hops allowed in a path between source
and destination is limited by RIP, which eliminates routing loops. The maximum
number of hops allowed by RIP is 15, and a hop count of 16 is considered unreachable
by the network.
Following are the features of Routing Information Protocol (RIP):

 Network updates are exchanged on a regular basis.

 Routing information (updates) are always broadcast.
 Routing tables in their entirety are sent in updates.
 Routing information received from nearby routers is always trusted by routers.
This is also known as rumour routing.

6. Differentiate between internal Border Gateway Protocol (iBGP) and

external Border Gateway Protocol (eBGP).

 internal Border Gateway Protocol(iBGP): Inside autonomous systems, IBGP is

used. Its purpose is to feed data to your internal routers. For prefix learning, all
devices in the same autonomous system must form a full mesh topology or use
either Route reflectors or Confederation.
 external Border Gateway Protocol (eBGP): It is employed between
autonomous systems. It's used and deployed at the edge or border router,
which connects two or more autonomous systems together. It is the protocol
that allows networks from various organisations or the Internet to communicate
with one another.

The following table lists the differences between the internal Border Gateway Protocol
and the external Border Gateway Protocol:
internal Border Gateway Protocol (iBGP) external Border Gateway Protocol (eBGP)
It connects two BGP routers in a single It connects two BGP routers in separate
autonomous system. independent systems.
Its Administrative Distance is set to 200 by Its Administrative Distance is set to 20 by
default. default.
IBGP routes obtained from an IBGP peer EBGP routes can be published to EBGP and
can be broadcast to an EBGP peer but not IBGP peers when received from an EBGP
to another IBGP peer. peer.
It necessitates the use of full mesh It does not necessitate a complete mesh
topology. topology.
It's used between corporations or between
Within the same corporation, it's used.
corporations and Internet service providers.
For loop prevention, it employs BGP Split
It prevents loops by using an AS path.
Horizon.
TTL (Time To Live) = 255 is the default TTL (Time To Live) = 1 is the default setting
setting for peers.
Attributes such as local preference are
exchanged between IBGP peers.
The next hop remains constant when a
route is advertised to an IBGP peer.
for peers.
Attributes such as local preference are not
communicated between EBGP peers.
When a route is announced to an EBGP peer,
the local router becomes the next hop.

7. What do you understand about split horizon in the context of BGP?

Explain with an example.

Split Horizon: The split horizon is a  method employed by distance vector protocols

to prevent network routing loops. The underlying premise is straightforward: never
send routing information back in the same direction it came from. It is necessary to
have a split-horizon because distance vector protocols like Routing Information
Protocol (RIP) are prone to routing loops, which occur when a data packet is caught in
an unending loop and routed through the same routers over and over again. Split
horizon is frequently used in protocols to avoid loops. Different strategies are used to
prevent packet looping in other protocols, such as Open Shortest Path First. 
When split horizon is enabled, a router is prevented from advertising a route back to
the router from whence it learnt it. To put it another way, if a router receives routing
information from another router, the first router will not broadcast it back to the
second router, preventing routing loops.

Example: An example of three routers used to forward packets between networks is

shown in the diagram below. The R3 router transmits routing information about the
10.0.0.0/16 network to the R2 router in this simple architecture. This information is
received by the R2 router, which modifies its routing table and broadcasts it to the R1
router. The R1 router modifies its routing database when it receives this information.

The modified routing information allows the R1 router to send packets to the
10.0.0.0/16 network via the R2 and R3 routers. The R1 router will not be able to
advertise this network route back to the R2 router if a split horizon is enabled. If the R1
router does not have split-horizon enabled, it will broadcast the route to the R2 router,
which will update its routing table to reflect the network route available through the
R1 router.

The presence of the R1 route in the R2 routing database is not an issue in typical
operations because it is plainly a lot more expensive route than a direct R2-to-R3
connection. If the R2-to-R3 connection fails and the R2 router receives a packet from
R1 destined for the 10.0.0.0/16 network, the R2 router will return the packet to R1
because the router advertised a functional network path. However, based on its own
routing information, the R1 router will just return the packet to the R2 router, resulting
in a routing loop that will continue until the packet dies. The R1 router will not
advertise the network route to the R2 router if the split horizon is enabled, preventing
the routing loop.

8. What do you understand about poison reverse in the context of BGP?

Poison Reverse: The Poison Reverse algorithm is a widely used distance-vector

routing algorithm. To solve the count-to-infinity problem, poison reverse is used. To
put it another way, poison reverse is the inverse of the split horizon. Route
advertisements that would be muted by split horizon are instead advertised at a
distance of infinity with poison reverse. Poison reverse is a RIP (Routing Information
Protocol) technique. When path information becomes invalid, routers do not instantly
remove it from the routing database; instead, they broadcast a hop-count of 16, which
is an unreachable metric value. This increases the size of the routing table but aids in
the elimination of loops. It can break any loop between neighbouring routers right
away. The main notion of poison reverse is to ensure that a path does not return to
the same node if the network's cost has changed.

9. What do you understand by peers in the context of BGP? What is the

purpose of BGP peer groups?

BGP peers are two routers that have established a link for exchanging BGP
information. Such BGP peers provide routing information via TCP-based BGP sessions,
which are dependable, connection-oriented, and error-free protocols. 
The above image shows a BGP peering session between two BGP routers. We may
utilise peer groups to simplify BGP configuration and reduce the amount of updates
BGP has to produce. We can create a peer group with the neighbours and then apply
all of our setups to it.

10. Is authentication possible with BGP? If yes, explain how.

Yes. MD5 authentication is supported by BGP. BGP allows neighbours to authenticate
each other using MD5 and a shared password. It is set up with the following 
command neighbour {ip-address | peer-group-name}  password password in BGP
router setup mode. When authentication is enabled, BGP verifies the source of each
routing update and authenticates every TCP segment from its peer. Authentication is
required by most ISPs for their EBGP peers.

Peering works only if both routers have the same password and are configured for
authentication. When a router has a password configured for a neighbour but the
neighbour router does not, the console displays a message like this when the routers
try to create a BGP session.
 %TCP-6-BADAUTH: No MD5 digest from [peer's IP address]:11003 to
[local router's IP address]:179

Similarly, if the two routers are configured with different passwords, a message like
this will appear on the screen:
 %TCP-6-BADAUTH: Invalid MD5 digest from [peer's IP address]:11004 to [local
router's IP address]:179

11. In BGP, what is the order of preference?

The order of preference in BGP differs depending on whether the attributes are used
for inbound or outbound updates.

The following is the order of preference for inbound updates:

1. Route-map
2. Filter-list
3. Prefix-list
4. distribute-list

The following is the order of preference for outgoing updates:

1. Filter-list
2. Route-map | unsuppress-map
3. Advertise-map (conditional-advertisement)
4. Prefix-list
5. distribute-list.

12. What are the different types of Timers present in BGP?

Following are the different types of Timers present in BGP :

  Keep Alive Timer : This is the heartbeat timer, in which a local neighbour sends
a BGP heart-beat packet to a remote neighbour at regular intervals to check
reachability and availability. This interval is set to '30' seconds by default.
 Hold down Timer : This is the amount of time that the local neighbour must
wait before declaring the remote neighbour unavailable. This interval is set at
"90" seconds by default, which is '3' times the Keep-Alive Interval. In other
words, if a local neighbour misses three Keep-Alive packets in a row from a
remote neighbour, the local neighbour considers the remote neighbour
unavailable and changes the status of the neighbourship, as well as removing all
associated routes advertised by the neighbour from the routing table/BGP
table. Before and after the hold-down timer expires, the BGP neighbour status
changes. The hold down timer is set to 90 seconds by default, and after that, the
local neighbour moves through various stages like 'idle,' 'connect,' and 'active.'
The status changes to 'Idle' at first, then to 'Connect' after 5 seconds, and then
to 'Active' after 10 seconds.
 Advertisement Interval : The BGP Advertisement Interval is a timer that
determines how much time must pass between a route being advertised and
being removed from a BGP peer. For eBGP peers, the default is 30 seconds, and
for iBGP peers, it's 5 seconds. This can be modified on a per-neighbor basis.

13. Is it possible to utilise BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) instead of any

IGP (Interior Gateway Protocol)?

No, we can't use BGP instead of any IGP because BGP connects different autonomous
systems, whereas IGP works inside autonomous systems.

14. What are the various BGP Neighbor Adjacency States?

Before any routing information is transmitted, BGP establishes a neighbour adjacency

with other routers, similar to OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) or EIGRP (Enhanced
Interior Gateway routing Protocol). BGP, on the other hand, does not use broadcast or
multicast for BGP neighbour discovery; instead, neighbours are manually configured
and communicate over TCP/179.

Two BGP systems will go through a succession of BGP Neighbor Adjacency States
before becoming neighbours. They are as follows:
  Idle - The router initialises BGP resources. Attempts to establish a BGP incoming
connection are rejected. The BGP protocol establishes a TCP connection with
the peer.
 Connect - BGP waits for the three way handshake to finish. The OPEN message
is transmitted to the peer if it is successful, and BGP shifts to the OpenSent
state. If we are unsuccessful, we will return to the Active state. If the
ConnectRetry timeout expires, however, BGP will continue in this condition, with
the timer reset and a new three way handshake launched.
 Active - BGP returns to the Connect state after the ConnectRetry timeout is
reset.
 OpenSent - BGP waits for an OPEN message from its peer before sending it.
BGP enters the OpenConfirm state after receiving a message.
 OpenConfirm - BGP waits for a peer to send a keepalive message. BGP goes to
the Established state if a response is received before the timeout ends.
Otherwise, BGP switches to Idle mode.
 Established - Both peers exchange UPDATE messages once the connection is
established. If any of the UPDATE messages include an error, the BGP peer will
send a NOTIFICATION message and enter the Idle state.

15. What are the different types of attributes present in BGP?

Following are the different types of attributes present in bgp:

  Well-known mandatory: All BGP peers recognise it, it is forwarded to all peers,
and it is present in all Update messages. The following are some of the well-
known mandatory attributes :
o Next-hop
o Origin
o AS PATH
 Well-known discretionary: All routers recognise it, it's sent to all peers, and it's
optionally included in the Update message. The following are some of the well-
known discretionary attributes :
o Local Preference
o Atomic Aggregate
 Optional transitive: It's possible that BGP routers will recognise it and transmit
it on to BGP peers. When optional transitive qualities are not recognised, they
are denoted as partial. The following are examples of optional transitive
attributes:
o Aggregator
o Community
 Optional non-transitive: BGP routers may recognise it, but it is not forwarded
to peers. The following are some of the optional non-transitive attributes :
o Multi-exit discriminator (MED)
o Originator ID
o Cluster-ID

16. Mention some of the well known BGP metric’s attributes.

BGP path selection is based on the values of the following attributes:

 Weight
 Local Preference (highest local value will be preferred, default value is 100)
 Originate
 AS path length
 Origin code
 Multi-Exit Discriminator (MED)
 eBGP path over iBGP path
 Shortest IGP path to BGP next hop
 Oldest path
 Router ID
 Neighbor IP address.
17. What exactly do you mean by a route reflector in the context of
Border Gateway Protocol? Why is it necessary?

In BGP, a route reflector is a router which is capable of breaking the internal Border
Gateway Protocol (iBGP) loop avoidance rule. Under certain settings, a route reflector
can broadcast updates received from an iBGP peer to another iBGP peer.
By breaking the criterion and designing iBGP networks that scale quickly and cleanly,
route reflectors are employed to eliminate the full mesh requirement.

BGP Interview Questions for Experienced

18. Differentiate between Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and Border
Gateway Protocol (BGP).

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF): Open shortest path first (OSPF) is a link-state
routing protocol that uses its own shortest path first (SPF) algorithm to discover the
optimum path between the source and destination router. A link-state routing
protocol employs the idea of triggered updates, in which updates are only triggered
when a change in the learnt routing table is detected, as opposed to the distance-
vector routing protocol, in which the routing table is exchanged over a period of time.
Open shortest path first (OSPF) is an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP)  that tries to move
packets within a large autonomous system or routing domain. It's a network layer
protocol that uses AD value 110 and runs on protocol number 89. OSPF employs the
multicast address 224.0.0.5 for routine communication and 224.0.0.6 for updates to
designated routers (DRs) and backup designated routers (BDRs) (BDR).

Following are the differences between Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and Open
Shortest Path First (OSPF):
Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
Open Shortest Path First is a fast concurrency
BGP is a slow concurrency protocol.
protocol.
OSPF is a network topology or design that is
It uses a sort of mesh topology or design.
hierarchical.
Internal gateway protocol is another name for It is referred to as an external gateway
it. protocol.
OSPF is a simple protocol to set up. BGP implementation is challenging.
It connects to port 89. It works with port number 179.
Transmission control protocol is
The internet protocol is employed in OSPF.
employed in this.
OSPF is a type of Link State. BGP is a Vector State type.
The best path algorithm is employed in
The Dijkstra algorithm is employed in OSPF.
this case.
OSPF prioritises the quickest path over the BGP prefers the best path.
shortest path.

19. Differentiate between hard reset and soft reset in the context of
BGP.

Following are the differences between hard reset and soft reset in the context of BGP:

Basis Hard Reset Soft Reset

Goal The TCP session with the BGP
neighbour is killed by Hard Reset,
and it must be restarted. It
terminates the TCP connection
between the peers, re-establishes
the connection with a BGP open
message, and resumes normal
peer-to-peer message exchanges.
There are two types of soft resets:
1. Soft reset with Route refresh: A
soft reset with Route refresh allows
BGP peers to seek an update
without destroying the neighbour
relationship.
2. Soft-reconfiguration: Because the
 route-refresh request is not issued
to the BGP neighbour, soft-
reconfiguration stores a copy of
BGP routes sent in the BGP update
from our peer. 
Direction The direction of connection in hard The direction of connection in soft
reset can be both in and out. reset is either in or out.
Utilization of It necessitates more RAM because
It does not necessitate any
memory the router now stores two BGP
additional RAM to store another
tables for each neighbour instead of
table.
one.
Impact  The hard reset has the potential to Only those prefixes affected by the
drastically impair network policy change will be affected by the
connectivity soft reset.
Use Case When a soft reset fails to resolve
The soft technique is the most
the problem, a hard reset should be
popular and widely employed.
utilised as a final resort.
Prerequisite In soft reset with the Route refresh
There are no requirements for this functionality, both peers may be
activity. required to provide the Route
Refresh capability.
Rate Of Because processing the entire table
Convergence  takes a lengthy time, it necessitates Its convergence time is significantly
an extremely long convergence less than that of a hard reset.
time.
Commands
clear ip bgp {* | neighbor ip | peer- clear ip bgp {neighbor ip} soft out
Used
group} clear ip bgp {neighbor ip} soft in 

20. What do the various BGP Path Attributes mean?

BGP offers a variety of Path Attributes, which are used to compare competing BGP
pathways (routes) in the BGP table to identify the best possible path (route).

The following are some BGP Path Attributes:

  Next Hop: The Next Hop Path Attributes are used to list the IP address of the
prefix's next hop. It determines whether the Next Hop is achievable. The router
does not use this route if no other route can reach Next Hop.
 Weight: When you receive updates from a router, the weight Path Attributes is
a numeric value provided by the router to impact the route for a prefix. It is not
publicised among BGP peers, and a heavier weight is preferred.
 Local Preference: Local Preference is a numeric value set as well. It is conveyed
within a single autonomous system in order for all routers in that autonomous
system to determine the optimum route to a certain network. The higher the
value, the better.
 Routes injected locally: The routes injected with the network command are
known as locally injected routes. These are preferable to iBGP/eBGP.
 Multi-Exit Discriminator: The Multi-Exit Discriminator (MED) allows one
autonomous system to inform a neighbouring autonomous system about the
optimum path to take for packet forwarding. The smaller the better.
 AS Path: The number of ASNs (Autonomous System Number) in the AS Path is
specified by the AS Path. The smaller the better.

21. What do you understand about communities in the context of BGP?

A BGP community is a transitive, optional BGP property that is recognised and sent
between BGP peers. A BGP community is a tag that is appended to the BGP routes that
are exchanged between two BGP peers. A community is a 32-bit number that is
divided into two 16-bit sections. The first 16 bits indicate the community's AS number,
while the following 16 bits represent a unique number assigned by the AS. Because
each AS number is distinct, each community on the internet is similarly distinct. This
means that an AS with the ASN 9999 (or 0x270F in hex) can have communities ranging
from 0x270F0000 to 0x270FFFFF.

22. Explain the various types of communities used in BGP.

Following are the various types of communities used in BGP:

 No-Advertise Community

When a route is associated with a No-Advertise community, the BGP speaker will not
advertise the route to any internal or external BGP peers.

R1 does not advertise a No-Advertise Route (10.10.10.0/24) to peers R11, R12, and
R111 in the following example.
  Community with No Exports

When a No-Export community is associated with a route, the router will only advertise
the route to internal peers.

R1, R11, and R12 are not advertising a No-Export Route (10.10.10.0/24) to their
external peer, R111, as seen in the following example.
R1 will not advertise the route to R111 in this situation, just to R11 and R12, because
they are internal BGP peers. As a result, because R111 is an external BGP peer, R11 and
R12 will not advertise either route to it.

 Local AS Community 

There is an important regulation about internal BGP neighbours to avoid BGP routing
loops: an IBGP neighbour cannot advertise a route to another IBGP neighbour if it
obtained that route from another IBGP neighbour.
A Local AS Route (10.10.10.0/24) is not promoted between IBGP neighbours (R11 and
R111) within the local AS in the following example.

According to the criteria indicated above, R11 advertises the route to R22, but R22
does not advertise the path to R111. There are several options for getting the route to
R111, including constructing a full mesh of IBGP sessions between AS11 routers or
dividing the AS 11 into a sub-AS within a confederation.
Outside of AS11, no one knows what AS 1000 and AS1001 are. R111 can now receive
the 10.10.10.0/24 route even if it does not have full mesh BGP peering. Outside of the
sub-AS, the Local-AS community does not advertise routes.
  Graceful Shutdown Community

When a router's peer router is about to be purposely shut down, the Graceful
SHUTDOWN (65535:0) community is used to seamlessly shut down paths it could use.
Consider the following scenario: R111 is utilising R11 to access the 10.10.10.0/24
network, but R11 will be rebooted to be upgraded:
R111 replies by transferring traffic to R12 with minimum disruption when R11
announces this community:
  Extended Community 

An Extended community is an 8-byte value that is split into two parts:

 The first two bytes indicate the sort of community.

 The last six bytes provide information that is specific to the type of community.

There are three fields in an extended community: kind, administrator, and assigned
number (type:administrator:assigned-number). The administrator field can be an AS or
an IP address, depending on the value of the high-order byte in the Type field. MPLS-
VPN is the most well-known use for extended communities, as it uses two extended
communities:

 Route Target community: Determines which routers are capable of receiving a

given set of routes.
 Route Origin community: This group of routers is responsible for injecting a
specified set of routes into BGP.

A Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) table is a virtual routing table that can have its
own routing policies that are independent of the global routing table or other VRFs.
Essentially, you can connect numerous client sites and create a distinct routing table
(VRF) throughout the entire network exclusively for this customer, with routing policies
that differ from those of other customers.

 Route Target Community 

In MPLS VPN setups, the Route Target community is used to segregate two customers'
routing tables, as depicted in the diagram below:
VRF Customer RED is only present on R1 and R12, and VRF Customer BLUE is only
present on R11 and R22 in this scenario, but they may have been present on all four
routers.

When a route is exported from VRF Red using BGP, the route-target 100:100 is
assigned to the route. When the route reaches R12, the route from R1 is imported,
allowing the sites connected to R1 and R12 to communicate.

 Route Origin Community 

The route origin community is used in an MPLS VPN environment to identify where
routes originated from so that readvertisement back to that site is avoided.

When PE1 receives the route from CE1, it attaches the route origin community in
addition to the route-target that is linked to the route (through export).
The route reaches PE2, but PE2 does not inform CE2 because it is aware that it
originated at the location.

23. What do you mean by BGP Message Types? Explain the different
Message Types in BGP in detail.

The BGP Message types are used to create a neighbour relationship and exchange
parameters such as the autonomous system number and authentication values. A BGP
message is made up of two parts: a BGP header and data. The header format is the
same in all of the BGP messages. TCP is used to transmit BGP messages (port 179). The
length of the message ranges from 19 to 4096 octets. Each BGP message's header is
19 octets long and consists of three fields.

The types of BGP messages are listed below:

 Open : A BGP adjacency is established using the OPEN message. Before a BGP
peering is established, both parties negotiate session capabilities. The BGP
version number, ASN of the originating router, Hold Time, BGP Identifier, and
other optional characteristics that define the session capabilities are all included
in the OPEN message.
 Keepalive : To ensure that the neighbours are still alive, BGP does not rely on
the TCP connection status. Every one-third of the Hold Timer agreed upon
between the two BGP routers, keepalive messages are exchanged. Generally, the
default Hold Time for  devices is 180 seconds, so the default Keepalive interval
is 60 seconds. No Keepalive messages are delivered between BGP neighbours if
the Hold Time is set to zero.
 Update : The Update message can either advertise or remove previously
advertised routes, or it can do both. When advertising prefixes, the Update
message includes the Network Layer Reachability Information (NLRI), which
includes the prefix and related BGP PAs. Only the prefix is included in NLRIs that
have been withdrawn. To save needless bandwidth, a UPDATE message can be
used as a Keepalive.
 Notification : When a BGP session error is discovered, such as a hold timer
expiring, neighbour capabilities changing, or a BGP session reset is requested, a
Notification message is sent. The BGP connection is closed as a result of this.

24. Explain the Path selection criteria used in BGP.

BGP seeks to reduce the number of paths available to only one best path; it does not
load balance by default. To do so, it looks at the following path properties of any loop-
free, synchronised (if synchronisation is enabled) routes with an accessible next-hop:

 Pick the route that has the most weight.

 Choose the route with the highest local preference if weight is not specified.
 Choose routes that began with this router.
 Choose the Autonomous System path that is the shortest.
 Select the path with the lowest origin code (lowest is I next is e, and last is?).
 If the same Autonomous System advertises the available routes, choose the
path with the lowest MED.
 Opt for an EBGP route rather than an IBGP route.
 Choose the route that passes through the IGP neighbour with the lowest IGP
metric.
 Pick the oldest route.
 Choose the path that passes through the neighbour with the smallest router ID.
 Select the path that passes through the neighbour with the smallest IP address.

25. Differentiate between Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and Routing

Information Protocol (RIP).

Following are the differences between Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and Routing
Information Protocol (RIP) :
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Routing Information Protocol (RIP)
The Bellman Ford algorithm is used by Routing
It is based on the best-path algorithm.
Information Protocol.
In comparison to RIP, it is mostly It is primarily utilised by companies of a smaller
utilised for very large organisations size.
It's a protocol for connecting to an It is a dynamic routing protocol that is widely
external gateway. used in the business.
In RIP, areas, subareas, autonomous systems,
In BGP, the networks are divided into
and backbone areas are the different types of
two categories: areas and tables.
networks.
The metric is calculated in terms of Hop
The metric is calculated in terms of Bandwidth.
Count.
It is a hybrid type. It is a Vector State type.
There is no such limit on the number of
It allows for a total of 15 hops.
hops.
26. Differentiate between Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
(EIGRP) and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).

Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP): If two routers in the same
area exist, EIGRP is used to share information between them. It's also a complicated
protocol, but it's simple to set up and use in both small and big networks. It's also a
hybrid protocol, as it combines elements of both distance vector and link-state routing
protocols.

Following table lists the differences between Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing
Protocol (EIGRP) and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP):
Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
It is based on the best-path
In EIGRP, the Dual Distance Vector Algorithm is used.
algorithm.
In comparison to EIGRP, it is
It is primarily used by large organisations. mostly used for very large
organisations.
It is a hybrid type. It's a type of Vector State.
It outperforms EIGRP in terms of
It is a protocol for intelligent routing.
routing intelligence.
It is a protocol for connecting to
It is a protocol for internal gateways.
an external gateway.
It has administrative distances of 90 (internal) and 170 Its administrative distances are 20
(external). (internal) and 200 (external).

27. What do you understand about TTL Security in the context of BGP?
What is the need for TTL security in BGP?

When constructing an eBGP neighborship through a Service Provider Network, there is

a security risk of an attack from an unprotected Internet Service Provider domain to a
secured client environment. A disadvantage of eBGP multihop is that a DOS attack can
be carried out by spoofing legal packets towards a BGP router in large numbers.
TTL-Security is a method we employ to secure our eBGP session from DOS attacks like
this. Only eBGP sessions, not iBGP sessions, can employ the BGP TTL Security check.
Only one of TTL Security and eBGP multihop can be enabled to generate directly
linked or multihop peering sessions. A simple command can be used to configure the
TTL-Security feature against an eBGP neighbour:
neighbor TTL-security hops

By default, BGP sends packets with a TTL of 1 to external neighbours and accepts
packets with a TTL of 0 or higher from external neighbours (as measured after the local
router has decremented the TTL of the incoming packet).

By requiring BGP to originate packets with a TTL of 255, the TTL-Security modifies the
default behaviour of originating.

28. What are the different types of loop prevention mechanisms in BGP?

Following are the different ways of loop prevention mechanisms in BGP :

  A router does not advertise the same routes to another iBGP peer when one
iBGP peer specifies routes for it.
 When you use AS PATH, you can do the following: A BGP router adds its own
ASN to the AS PATH when we advertise to an eBGP peer. When a BGP router
receives an update and the route announcement includes an AS PATH with its
ASN, the route is ignored.

Conclusion:
In this article, we have covered the most frequently asked interview questions on
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). If you are preparing for a BGP interview, you can
expect questions from networking as well. Do not worry, we got you covered. To go
through the most frequently asked interview questions on networking, visit this link.