BGP Route Reflectors

Hopefully you recall that when running iBGP, a full mesh is required between all iBGP speaking peers within an autonomous system (AS). This can quickly lead to a huge number of peerings and the associated management overhead as we add more iBGP speakers. The total number of peerings needed to satisfy the full mesh requirement is illustrated by the following formula, where n is the number of iBGP speakers:
n(n-1)/2

Thus:

5 routers = 10 peerings 10 routers = 45 peerings 25 routers = 300 peerings

Would you want to manage all that? Me either. Enter route reflectors. Route reflectors are one solution for keeping all of this under control. Route reflectors ease the full-mesh limitation and allows one router to advertise, or reflect, iBGP learned routes to other iBGP speakers. This has the end result of reducing the number of iBGP peers within our AS. Heres the topology well be working with:

In this scenario, well be running OSPF as our IGP and all routers will run iBGP and are members of AS 65000. R3 will serve as our route reflector, and all other routers only need to establish a BGP peering with R3. On R1 and R2 well advertised the networks represented by the loopback0 interfaces as well. Lets get basic connectivity established.
R1# configure terminal R1(config)# interface serial 0/1 R1(config-if)# ip address 198.18.13.1 255.255.255.0 R1(config-if)# no shutdown R2# configure terminal R2(config)# interface serial 0/1 R2(config-if)# ip address 198.18.23.2 255.255.255.0 R2(config-if)# no shutdown R3# configure terminal R3(config)# interface serial 1/2 R3(config-if)# clock rate 128000 R3(config-if)# ip address 198.18.13.3 255.255.255.0 R3(config-if)# no shutdown R3(config-if)# interface serial 1/3 R3(config-if)# clock rate 128000 R3(config-if)# ip address 198.18.23.3 255.255.255.0 R3(config-if)# no shutdown R3(config-if)# interface serial 1/0 R3(config-if)# encapsulation frame-relay R3(config-if)# no shutdown R3(config-if)# interface serial 1/0.34 point-to-point R3(config-subif)# frame-relay interface-dlci 304 R3(config-fr-dlci)# ip address 198.18.34.3 255.255.255.0 R3(config-subif)# interface serial 1/0.35 point-to-point R3(config-subif)# frame-relay interface-dlci 305 R3(config-fr-dlci)# ip address 198.18.35.3 255.255.255.0 R4# configure terminal R4(config)# interface serial 0/0 R4(config-if)# encapsulation frame-relay R4(config-if)# no shutdown R4(config-if)# interface serial 0/0.34 point-to-point R4(config-subif)# frame-relay interface-dlci 403 R4(config-fr-dlci)# ip address 198.18.34.4 255.255.255.0 R5# configure terminal R5(config)# interface serial 0/0 R5(config-if)# encapsulation frame-relay R5(config-if)# no shutdown R5(config-if)# interface serial 0/0.35 point-to-point R5(config-subif)# frame-relay interface-dlci 503 R5(config-fr-dlci)# ip address 198.18.35.5 255.255.255.0

At this point, make sure you can ping all routers from R3 and vice versa. Go ahead and configure the loopback interfaces on R1 and R2.
R1(config-if)# R1(config-if)# R2(config-if)# R2(config-if)# interface loopback 0 ip address 198.18.111.1 255.255.255.255 interface loopback 0 ip address 198.18.222.2 255.255.255.255

Lets configure our IGP, OSPF. Well keep it simple since our focus is on BGP. On R3, R4, and R5 configure OSPF process ID 1 and advertise all networks, e.g.:
! on R3, R4, and R5 router ospf 1 network 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 area 0

On R1 and R2, well just run OSPF on the links to R3 (were saving our loopbacks for BGP).
R1(config-if)# router ospf R1(config-router)# network R2(config-if)# router ospf R2(config-router)# network 1 198.18.13.1 0.0.0.0 area 0 1 198.18.23.2 0.0.0.0 area 0

Make sure youre seeing all advertised routes on all routers. When it comes to configuring BGP, the only place we have to do anything different is on the route reflector itself. Lets go ahead and configure R1, R2, R4, and R5 for a BGP peering to R3. On R1 and R2, well advertise the IP addresses of the loopback 0 interfaces into BGP as well.
R1(config-router)# R1(config-router)# R1(config-router)# R2(config-router)# R2(config-router)# R2(config-router)# R4(config-router)# R4(config-router)# R5(config-router)# R5(config-router)# router bgp 65000 neighbor 198.18.13.3 network 198.18.111.1 router bgp 65000 neighbor 198.18.23.3 network 198.18.222.2 router bgp 65000 neighbor 198.18.34.3 router bgp 65000 neighbor 198.18.35.3 remote-as 65000 mask 255.255.255.255 remote-as 65000 mask 255.255.255.255 remote-as 65000 remote-as 65000

Next, we simply have to configure BGP on R3. Well use the route-reflector-client option to the neighbor command to let R3 know that the other routers should be considered as route reflector clients (intuitive, huh!?). In this case, R3 will reflect advertisements from one client to the others. Hence, the advertisements from R1 and R2 (for their loopback 0 interfaces) will be reflected to the other routers. Well be able to verify this by looking at the BGP tables on R4 and R5.
R3(config-router)# R3(config-router)# R3(config-router)# R3(config-router)# R3(config-router)# R3(config-router)# R3(config-router)# R3(config-router)# R3(config-router)# router bgp 65000 neighbor 198.18.13.1 neighbor 198.18.13.1 neighbor 198.18.23.2 neighbor 198.18.23.2 neighbor 198.18.34.4 neighbor 198.18.34.4 neighbor 198.18.35.5 neighbor 198.18.35.5 remote-as 65000 route-reflector-client remote-as 65000 route-reflector-client remote-as 65000 route-reflector-client remote-as 65000 route-reflector-client

Wait a moment for all the BGP sessions to come up (remember, BGP is sloooooow) then take a look at the BGP tables on R4 and R5.
R4(config-router)# do show ip bgp | begin Network Network Next Hop Metric LocPrf Weight Path

*>i198.18.111.1/32 198.18.13.1 0 100 0 i *>i198.18.222.2/32 198.18.23.2 0 100 0 i R5(config-router)# do show ip bgp | begin Network Network Next Hop Metric LocPrf Weight Path *>i198.18.111.1/32 198.18.13.1 0 100 0 i *>i198.18.222.2/32 198.18.23.2 0 100 0 i

Thats all there is to it! Weve taken what normally would take a total of 10 BGP sessions and accomplished the same thing with just four. Later, well talk about BGP confederations, another technique for reducing the iBGP mesh (mess). Related posts: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Advertising a default route over BGP Cisco BGP bug crashes 12.4(23) No, You Route the Packet! Configuring BGP maximum-prefix Configuring OSPF Authentication (Dynamips)