Introducing the Border Gateway Protocol

• BGPv4 most popular EGP in use today

• BGP does not require neighbors to be attached to the same subnet.
• Very commonly seen

• BGP uses a more complex process, using a variety of information

• Path Attributes

• BGP is used by ISP’s world wide

• Few Enterprises networks used BGP to exchange Routing information
 Introducing the Border Gateway Protocol

• BGP does establish a neighbor relationship before exchanging topology

information with neighbors
• BGP uses TCP port 179 to pass BGP messages to other routers
• Path Attributes defines information about a Path or route through the
Network
• If no Path Attributes have been configured BGP will use the AS_PATH when
choosing a route
 Comparing BGP too EIGRP and OSPF Logic
OSPF/EIGRP
Forms neighbor relationship before sending
routing information
Neighbors typically discovered using multicast
packets on connected subnets
Does not use TCP
Advertises prefix/length
Advertises metric information
Emphasis on fast convergence to the truly most
efficient route
Link state or Distance Vector logic
BGP
The same logic
Neighbors IP address is explicitly configured and
may not be on common subnet
Uses a TCP connection between neighbors (port
179)
Advertises prefixes/length, called NLRI
Advertises a variety of path attributes that BGP
uses instead of a metric to choose the best path
Emphasis on scalability; might not always choose
the most efficient route
Path-Vector Logic
 BGP AS Numbers Public and Private
Value or Range Description

0 Reserved

1 – 64,495 Assigned by IANA for PUBLIC use

64,496 – 64,511 Reserved for use in documentation

64,512 – 65,534 Private use

65,535 Reserved
 External and Internal BGP
Understanding the AS_PATH
Define iBGP and eBGP

• Simply put
• iBGP is when all routers are in the same AS
• eBGP is when all routers are in different AS
• So what is the difference
• iBGP routers will NOT update the AS_PATH on its advertisements
• eBGP routers will update the AS_PATH on its advertisements
 Requirements for becoming Neighbors

• Local Router ASN must match the neighboring router reference to that ASN with the
Neighbor remote-as ASN command
• BGP router Id’s must be unique
• You Could use BGP router-id #
• You could use highest loopback
• You could use highest IP address on any physical interface
• Sounds familiar

• Optional, authentication must pass if configured

 Understanding AS_PATH Logic
ASN 11

ISP1 ASN 1
192.168.100.0/24
AS_Path = 12,2,1 ASN 12

eBGP
C1

iBGP

192.168.100.0/24 ISP1-1 ISP1-2 C2

AS_Path = 12,2,1
192.168.100.0/24 eBGP
AS_Path = 12,2,3 192.168.100.0/24
AS_Path = 12,2 192.168.100.0/24
AS_Path = 12

eBGP eBGP

ISP3-1 ISP2-1

iBGP
192.168.100.0/24 iBGP
AS_Path = 12,2

eBGP
ISP3-2 ISP2-2

ISP3 ASN 3 ISP2 ASN 2

 Verifying The BGP Table
Show command for Verification
• Sh ip bgp summary
• Sh ip bgp neighbors
• Sh ip bgp neighbors 192.168.1.1
• Sh ip bgp route 172.16.0.0 255.255.0.0
• Debug ip bgp