New crate bgp-fib. It follows the routing table's best routes and keeps
the kernel's routing table the same, and learns the machine's interfaces
and addresses from the kernel, which is what says whether a next hop can
be reached.
- netlink: the rtnetlink messages used (routes, addresses, links, errors),
as bytes and back. No I/O; property tested and fuzzed.
- interfaces: what is directly reachable, and from which interface.
- plan: what to ask the kernel for, given the best routes and what the
kernel has. No I/O; tested against a model kernel.
- kernel (Linux only): the sockets and the task. Requests go in batches;
routes of ours found at startup are kept if still right and removed if
not; a change of interfaces has every route worked out again; a clean
stop removes our routes.
Only routes marked proto bgp with the configured table and metric are
ever touched. A best route is installed if its next hop is a neighbor;
next hops further away are not resolved through other routes yet, and
such prefixes are counted and shown instead.
Configured with `kernel { table metric }`; off by default. The daemon
needs CAP_NET_ADMIN and stops if the kernel refuses it. On shutdown it
closes sessions and then removes its routes.
/api/kernel and the status page show installed, unresolved and refused
counts, the last error and the interfaces; five bgp_kernel_* metrics.
Testing: scripts/kernel-tests.sh runs, in network namespaces of their
own and with only the capabilities the daemon needs, the installer
against `ip route`, the daemon with a peer, and two daemons that route
for each other with pings across over IPv4 and IPv6.
scripts/linux-vm.sh runs that, or anything else, in a Lima VM from
macOS. CI runs the kernel tests and fuzzes the netlink decoder.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
9.7 KiB
RFCs
Tracks which RFCs are implemented, partially implemented, or only represented in the wire format layer.
Legend
- ✅ Implemented — functional end-to-end
- 🟡 Wire format only — parsed and serialised correctly, but not yet acted on
- ❌ Not implemented
Core BGP
RFC 4271 — A Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4271
The base protocol specification.
| Section | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|
| §4.1 | Message framing (marker, length, type) | ✅ |
| §4.2 | OPEN message | ✅ |
| §4.3 | UPDATE message (path attributes, NLRI, withdrawn routes) | ✅ |
| §4.4 | KEEPALIVE message | ✅ |
| §4.5 | NOTIFICATION message (all error codes and subcodes) | ✅ |
| §8 | FSM — passive (inbound) side: OpenSent → OpenConfirm → Established | ✅ |
| §8 | FSM — active (outbound) side: dial configured peers, exponential retry | ✅ |
| §6.2 | Bad Peer AS check against configured ASN | ✅ |
| §6.7 / RFC 4486 | Cease / Administrative Shutdown sent to every peer on SIGINT or SIGTERM | ✅ |
| §6.8 | Connection collision detection (BGP Identifier comparison, Cease / Connection Collision Resolution) | ✅ |
| §8.1.1 | Optional CollisionDetectEstablishedState (collision_detect_established_state) |
✅ |
| §6.2 | Bad BGP Identifier check (peer using our identifier, or 0.0.0.0) | ✅ |
| §9 | Decision process / best-path selection | ✅ |
| §9.1.2 | Best routes installed for forwarding (Linux kernel, over netlink), where the next hop is directly connected | ✅ |
| §9.1.2.1 | Routes with an unresolvable next hop excluded from selection; next hops resolved through other routes | ❌ (such a route can be chosen, and is then not installed) |
| §9 | Adj-RIB-In (per-peer table of received routes) | ✅ |
| §9 | Locally originated routes, advertised to all established peers | ✅ |
| §9 | Loc-RIB / Adj-RIB-Out for routes learned from peers (re-advertisement) | ❌ |
| §9.2 | Hold timer reset on any received message (not only KEEPALIVE) | ✅ |
Capability and Session Extensions
RFC 6793 — BGP Support for Four-Octet Autonomous System (AS) Number Space
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6793
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
AS_TRANS (23456) sentinel |
✅ |
FourByteAsn capability advertisement and parsing |
✅ |
4-byte AS_PATH segment encoding/decoding via ParserContext |
✅ |
| 4-byte ASN negotiation in FSM | ✅ |
RFC 9072 — Extended Optional Parameters Length for BGP OPEN Message
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9072
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Parsing extended-length OPEN (0xFF sentinel) | ✅ |
| Serialising extended-length OPEN when options exceed 255 bytes | ✅ |
RFC 2918 — Route Refresh Capability for BGP-4
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2918
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
RouteRefresh capability advertisement |
✅ |
ROUTE-REFRESH message type (5) framing |
✅ |
| AFI/SAFI payload parsing | ❌ |
| Acting on received ROUTE-REFRESH (re-advertising all local routes, regardless of the AFI/SAFI asked for) | ✅ |
RFC 7313 — Enhanced Route Refresh Capability for BGP-4
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7313
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
EnhancedRouteRefresh capability wire format |
🟡 |
RFC 4724 — Graceful Restart Mechanism for BGP
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4724
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
GracefulRestart capability wire format |
🟡 |
| Restart state and forwarding preserved across sessions | ❌ |
RFC 9494 — Long-Lived Graceful Restart for BGP
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9494
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
LongLivedGracefulRestart capability wire format |
🟡 |
RFC 8654 — Extended Message Support for BGP
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8654
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
ExtendedMessage capability wire format |
🟡 |
Raising BGP_MAX_MSG_LEN to 65535 when negotiated |
❌ |
Multiprotocol and NLRI
RFC 2858 — Multiprotocol Extensions for BGP-4
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2858
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
MultiProtocol capability advertisement (IPv4 and IPv6 unicast) |
✅ |
MP_REACH_NLRI path attribute (parse, serialise) |
✅ |
MP_UNREACH_NLRI path attribute (parse, serialise) |
✅ |
| IPv4 and IPv6 next-hop encoding | ✅ |
RFC 8950 — Advertising IPv4 Network Layer Reachability Information (NLRI) with an IPv6 Next Hop
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8950
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
ExtendedNextHop capability wire format |
🟡 |
Path Attributes and Communities
RFC 1997 — BGP Communities Attribute
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc1997
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
COMMUNITIES path attribute (parse, serialise) |
✅ |
| Attach to locally originated routes | ✅ |
RFC 4360 — BGP Extended Communities Attribute
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4360
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
EXTENDED_COMMUNITIES path attribute (parse, serialise) |
✅ |
| AS-specific, IPv4-address-specific, opaque, route-target, route-origin subtypes | ✅ |
RFC 8092 — BGP Large Communities Attribute
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8092
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
LARGE_COMMUNITIES path attribute (parse, serialise) |
✅ |
| Attach to locally originated routes | ✅ |
Other Capabilities (Wire Format Only)
The following capabilities are parsed and serialised correctly but have no functional behaviour implemented beyond that.
| RFC | Capability | Status |
|---|---|---|
| RFC 5291 | Outbound Route Filtering (ORF) | 🟡 |
| RFC 8205 | BGPsec | 🟡 |
Error Handling
RFC 9687 — BGP Send Hold Timer
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9687
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
SendHoldTimer error code (8) defined |
✅ |
| Send hold timer enforcement (a write that makes no progress ends the session) | ✅ |
Route Security
RFC 6811 — BGP Prefix Origin Validation
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6811
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Validation states (valid, invalid, not found) for routes from external peers | ✅ |
Invalid routes refused, per peer (accept_rpki_invalid to take them) |
✅ |
| Routes revalidated when the VRPs change, in both directions | ✅ |
| Validation of routes from internal peers and of originated routes | ❌ |
| Validity as a step of route selection (RFC 8097 communities) | ❌ |
draft-ietf-sidrops-aspa-verification — BGP AS_PATH Verification Based on ASPA
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-sidrops-aspa-verification/
Implemented from version 24 of the draft.
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Upstream verification (routes from customers, peers, route servers and route server clients) | ✅ |
| Downstream verification (routes from providers) | ✅ |
Per-peer role (role); paths of peers without one are not verified |
✅ |
Invalid paths refused, per peer (accept_aspa_invalid to take them) |
✅ |
| Routes revalidated when the ASPAs change, in both directions | ✅ |
| Paths with an AS_SET invalid | ✅ |
| Verification on export | ❌ (learned routes are not exported yet) |
RFC 9234 — Route Leak Prevention and Detection Using Roles in UPDATE and OPEN Messages
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9234
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
BGP Role capability sent for peers with a configured role |
✅ |
| Role Mismatch (OPEN Message Error, subcode 11) when the peer's role does not pair with ours, or it sends differing roles | ✅ |
Strict mode (require_role) |
✅ |
| Only to Customer attribute: parse, serialise, treat-as-withdraw when malformed | ✅ |
| Ingress: marked routes from customers, route server clients and (unless marked by the peer itself) peers refused | ✅ |
| Ingress: routes from providers, peers and route servers marked | ✅ |
| Egress: originated routes to customers, peers and route server clients marked | ✅ |
| Egress: marked routes not sent to providers, peers or route servers | ❌ (learned routes are not exported yet) |
RFC 8210 — The RPKI to Router Protocol, Version 1 (RFC 6810, version 0; draft-ietf-sidrops-8210bis, version 2)
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8210
Version 2 is implemented from version 23 of the draft.
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Reset and serial queries, notifies, cache reset, incremental updates | ✅ |
| Refresh, retry and expire intervals; data dropped when it expires | ✅ |
| Version 2, with fallback to 1 and 0; several caches with failover | ✅ |
| ASPA PDU (version 2) | ✅ |
| Error Reports sent to the cache | ✅ |
| Version 2's ordering of PDUs enforced on what a cache sends | ❌ (any order is taken) |
| Transport over plain TCP | ✅ |
| Transport over SSH, TLS, TCP-MD5 or TCP-AO | ❌ |
| Router keys (BGPsec) | 🟡 read and ignored |
RFC 7911 — Advertisement of Multiple Paths in BGP (ADD-PATH)
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7911
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Capability negotiation per family and direction | ✅ |
| Receiving several routes for a prefix | ✅ |
| Sending several routes for a prefix | ❌ (path identifiers are sent; one route each) |
RFC 4271 §9.1.2 / RFC 4486 / operational practice — import policy
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Own AS in path refused (loop detection) | ✅ |
| Bogon prefixes and AS numbers, prefix length bounds, first-AS check | ✅ |
| Per-peer prefix and origin AS allow-lists | ✅ |
| Maximum prefixes with Cease / Maximum Number of Prefixes Reached and hold-down | ✅ |