Rayhaan JaufeerallyandClaude Opus 5.5
dc275f99d7
The documentation moves from READMEs into a site in docs/: getting started, a user guide, operations, a reference, and development pages, written in the style of network vendors' documentation (docs/STYLE.md). bin/bgp/README.md and docs/RFCs.md are folded into it. - A theme of its own in the International Typographic Style, in blues, with self-hosted Inter and JetBrains Mono, search over Zola's index, dark mode, and no resources loaded from other hosts. - Example configurations in docs/examples/, shown on the pages and checked with `bgp --check` in CI. - A test that fails when a field of config.proto is missing from the configuration reference. - A CI job that builds the site; Zola fails on broken links and anchors. - A hardened systemd unit, tried under systemd with kernel routes on. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Ferrix BGP
An implementation of the Border Gateway Protocol, which is used to exchange routing and control plane information between Autonomous Systems.
The aim of this project is to provide a modern, high performance, secure, programmatic and customizable software package that can be useful to network operators, researchers, and people interested in Internet.
Current status
The daemon establishes BGP sessions with configured neighbors, evaluates received routes against import policy, validates them with the RPKI (route origin validation and ASPA), selects the best path for each prefix, and, on Linux, installs it in the kernel. It advertises the routes that it originates and, to neighbors configured for it, the best paths learned from other neighbors, as BGP roles (RFC 9234) and communities permit.
Ferrix has not been deployed in a production network.
Unsupported Features
- Route reflection, per-client best path selection for route servers, and ADD-PATH for advertised routes
- TCP-AO, TCP MD5, and GTSM
- Graceful restart, BFD, and configuration changes without a restart
- Recursive resolution of next hops that are not directly connected
Layout
| Crate | What is in it |
|---|---|
crates/primitives |
Prefixes, address families, parsing helpers |
crates/packet |
The wire format: messages, attributes, capabilities |
crates/rib |
The routing table, best route selection, the journal of changes |
crates/rpki |
The RTR client; origin validation and ASPA path verification |
crates/fib |
The best routes in the Linux kernel, over netlink |
crates/server |
Sessions, the state machine, policy, configuration |
crates/web |
The status page, HTTP API and metrics |
bin/bgp |
The daemon |
Documentation
The documentation is a website built from docs/ with
Zola:
zola --root docs serve # http://127.0.0.1:1111
- Overview and quick start
- User guide: BGP neighbors, import policy, BGP roles, RPKI, kernel route installation, route advertisement, configuration examples
- Deployment and monitoring
- Reference: configuration, HTTP API, metrics, supported standards
- Architecture and testing
Development
CI runs these on every push, and fails on any warning:
cargo fmt --all -- --check
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test --workspace
RUSTDOCFLAGS="-D warnings" cargo doc --workspace --no-deps --document-private-items
zola --root docs build
It also runs the tests that need a real Linux kernel
(scripts/kernel-tests.sh) and the lab with FRR, BIRD and Routinator
(scripts/interop/lab.sh); scripts/linux-vm.sh runs either from macOS.
Lints are configured once, under [workspace.lints] in the root Cargo.toml.
unsafe code is forbidden throughout.
cargo test includes property tests: generated messages must survive being
written and read back, and no input, however damaged, may make a parser
panic. They take about a second; for a longer hunt:
PROPTEST_CASES=1000000 cargo test --release -p bgp-packet --test properties
Coverage-guided fuzz targets for the same parsers are in fuzz/; see
fuzz/README.md. CI runs each of them for a minute.
License
Apache License 2.0; see LICENSE.