bgpd.pl

File Release Notes and Changelog

Release Name: bgpd.pl-0.03

Notes:
bgpd.pl
Version 0.03, June 21th 2001
Copyright (C)2001 Steven Hessing
steven@xs4all.nl

bgpd.pl is a partial implementation of the BGP protocol (RFC1771) written in
perl. It has been designed as a library to be used in other applications
(such as my upcoming content distribution software suite) and as tool to
monitor BGP routing updates.

bgpd.pl is NOT written to be used as a BGP router in an operational network,
in fact is has no support to propogate routing information because there is
no code to send BGP UPDATE messages. bgpd.pl also does not touch the routing
table of the host it runs on.

CHANGES:
- more memory efficient (still 88MB for full routing table)!
- Is now implemented as a module. With just 4 lines of code you can add BGP
  functionality to your program! (see bgpd.pl for an example)
- supports a configuration file
- SIGUSR1 provides a dump of the routing table
- SIGUSR2 provides a dump of the neighbors
- bugfix: local-prefs handling in  iBGP sessions
- bugfix: routes were being aggregated a bit too much automagically

LIMITATIONS:
With the constraints described in the above text, the software supports the
following RFCs to the extend indicated:
RFC1771 - Border Gateway Protocol version 4
  adj-RIB-out not maintained, no outgoing BGP UPDATE messages, BGP TCP sessions
  are not initiated. No Finite State Machine support.
RFC1863 - BGP Route Server
  Route Server client behaviour is supported.
RFC1997 - BGP Communities attribute
  supported
RFC2385 - Protection of BGP Sessions via the TCP MD5 Signature Option
  not supported
RFC2439 - BGP Route Flap Damping
  not supported, not needed because we don't send out UPDATES
RFC2545 - Use of BGP-4 Multiprotocol Extensions for IPv6 Inter-Domain Routing
  not supported
RFC2547 - BGP/MPLS VPNs
  not supported
RFC2796 - BGP Route reflection
  supported
RFC2842 - Capabilities Advertisement with BGP-4
  We don't follow this RFC when a neighbor doesn't support a capability that
  we do. We keep announcing the same set of capabilities.
RFC2858 - Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP-4
  almost no support. We recognise the RFC2842-capability announcement
RFC2918 - Route refresh capability for BGP-4
  supported
RFC3065 - Autonomous System Confederations for BGP
  supported

The following RFC drafts are not yet supported:
draft-ietf-id-bgp4-12
draft-ietf-id-route-filter-03
draft-ietf-id-restart-00
draft-ietf-id-as4bytes-01
draft-ietf-id-route-oscillation-00

Multiprotocol support:
Although the MP capability is accepted and announced in the BGP OPEN message,
all MP path attributes in BGP UPDATE messages are silently ignored. There is
no support for the MPLS/BGP VPN application or IPv6. This is planned for
future releases.

DOWNLOAD:
bgpd.pl has its own project on sourceforge.net:
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/bgpd/

INSTALLATION:
- download and install Net::Patricia from
         http://net.doit.wisc.edu/~plonka/Net-Patricia/
- cd <parent-dir>; tar zxvf bgpd.pl-0.03.tar.gz

CONFIGURATION:
There is a `bgpd.conf' configuration file. It accepts three types of commands:
  router bgp <as>                     # this is your own AS number
  router-id <a.b.c.d>                 # The ip address of your BGP router
                                      # the default is the address retuned by
                                      # gethostbyname()
  neighbor <a.b.c.d> remote-as <as>   # IP address & AS of neighbor

USAGE:
- cd into the bgpd.pl-0.03 directory
- `su' to root
- ./bgpd.pl [--log [syslog|file|stdout] ] [ --daemon] [--debug [level] ]
                [ --config <config file> ]
- There are many debugging levels, read the `LOGGING' file. If you enable full
  logging then prepare for a lot of logging information! For a full BGP table
  you'll get log file that will easily grow beyond 100MB

- set up a BGP session from your router to the host on which you run bgpd.pl
  If you use a private AS then don't forget to enable eBGP multihop on your
  router, if necessary. If you prefer to use iBGP then I would suggest
  configuring your router as a route reflector for this BGP connection.
- if you have specified `file' or `stdout' for logging then you can send
  the bgpd.pl process a kill -USR1 to get a dump of the routing table or
  -USR2 to get a dump of the state of the BGP neighbors

MAILING-LIST:
You can subscribe to bgpd-users-request@lists.sourceforge.net, put in the
body of the message the word `subscribe'

SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS:
- connecting this alpha-stage software which has undergone limited testing
  to your production network can result in considerable damage to your
  network! Use this software at your own risk!
- this software runs as root because it needs to connect to the TCP/BGP port.
  The code does not switch back to a regular UID yet. It opens a logfile
  for writing in the current working directory under the name bgpd.log. Make
  sure that this is not a (sym-) link!

INTEROPERABILITY:
- bgpd.pl has succesfully maintained BGP sessions with:
  - Zebra 0.91A
  - Cisco IOS ios 12.0(14)S2 running on a Cisco 7206
- It has not been tested yet with multiple BGP sessions. The local-RIB
route selection has thus not been tested.


Changes:
RELEASE bgpd.pl-0.03 released on June 21th 2001

beta4:
- get rid of logging.pm, have logging functions in BGP and Neighbor modules

beta3:
- create BGP::Neighbor module, there is now a BGP::Neighbor object
- create BGP module, there is now a BGP object
- made PathAttribute module, there is now a PathAttribute object

beta2:
- oob'd %conf (although it is not an object yet),
  two new elements:$conf{adjRIBin} & $conf{localRIB}
- added configuration file support. Neighbors need to be defined in this file
  otherwise incoming BGP sessions are not accepted.
- the routing table dump is now generated after a USR1 signal vs the HUP signal
- an overview of the configured BGP sessions can be generated with SIGUSR2
- fixed a bug where route aggregation was going a bit too automagically :-)

beta1:
- prefixes in adj-RIB-in now reference a Path Attribute hash. This
  hash is referenced by multiple prefixes if these prefixes are send in one
  BGP UPDATE message. This should significantly reduce memory consumption.

RELEASE bgpd.pl-0.02 releases on May 2nd 2001

- fixed LOCAL_PREF handling for BGP UPDATE messages
  (bug report by Matthias Cramer <cramer@dolphins.ch>)

RELEASE bgpd.pl-0.01 released on April 23rd 2001