I am trying to learn more about BGP / IPv6, this is my goal:

Currently, for testing, I have a VM from a provider that gives me an /44 network

This is the current configuration on that VM:

router id <IP of VM>;

define OWNASN = 1234;

protocol device {
    scan time 10;
}

protocol direct {
    ipv6;
    interface "dummy*";
}

# templates
template bgp AS1234v6 {
   local as OWNASN;
   ipv6 {
      import all;
      export filter {
        if net = 2a0e:87c0:620::/44 then accept;
        reject;
      };
   };
   graceful restart on;
}

protocol bgp VM1 from AS1234v6 {
   neighbor <ipv6 of provider> as 1111;
   source address <ipv6 of VM>;
}

protocol bgp VM2 from AS1234v6 {
   description "test delegation";
   neighbor <public IP ov VM2> as OWNASN;
   source address <ipv6 of VM>;
}

If in that VM I add an alias to the main interface, something like:

ip -6 addr add 2a0e:87c0:620::1/64 dev eth0

I then can ping from any host to that address, so far all good, but now I would like to have 3 subnets:

• 2a0e:87c0:620:1::/64
• 2a0e:87c0:620:2::/64
• 2a0e:87c0:620:3::/64

For testing and keeping things easy, I am replacing the tunnel and pfsense from the picture above with another VM.

In that VM I installed also bird2 and I am using this configuration:

router id <public IP of VM>;

protocol device {
        scan time 10;
}

protocol direct {
        disabled;
}

protocol static my_routes {
        ipv6;
        route 2a0e:87c0:620:1::/64 reject;
}

filter export_my_routes {
        if proto = "my_routes" then {
                accept;
        }
        reject;
}

protocol bgp uplink0 {
        local as 1234;
        neighbor <public IP of VM1> as 1234;
        source address <public IPv6>;
        ipv6 {
                import all;
                export filter export_my_routes;
        };
        graceful restart on;
}

With this I manage to establish a session:

$ birdc s p
BIRD 2.0.8 ready.
Name       Proto      Table      State  Since         Info
device1    Device     ---        up     19:13:19.082
direct1    Direct     ---        down   19:13:19.082
my_routes  Static     master6    up     19:13:19.082
uplink0    BGP        ---        up     19:13:22.095  Established

But if I add an alias on this new VM, I can't ping to it, I get this error:

From 2001:1900:5:4::189 icmp_seq=356 Time exceeded: Hop limit

And on the main VM (the one from the provider) I see now in the logs:

Invalid NEXT_HOP attribute

Therefore need some help on how to advertise the networks from the internal router to the external one besides how to configure then the subnets in each device so that they could be routed? wondering what gateway to use? probably fe80::1%vtnet0 ?

Suppose the following network layout:

                         R1:                                   R2:
10.1.1.0/24 <--- 10.1.1.1, 192.168.1.1 <----------> 192.168.1.2, 10.1.2.1 ---> 10.1.2.0/24 

BIRD is installed on both R1 and R2. All information about the network topology is automatically given. It was my understanding that BIRD would automatically redistribute this information so that all stations can connect. But it does not seem as straight forward: R1 and R2 both automatically create "dynamic" routes for their respective subnets but they do not get handled automatically.

The device protocol does not import/export routes. The docs say about the direct protocol:

[...] Although there are some use cases that use the direct protocol (like abusing eBGP as an IGP routing protocol), in most cases it is not needed to have these device routes in BIRD routing table and to use the direct protocol. [...]

I thought the kernel protocol would automatically import these routes because they are part of the kernel routing table. But the documentation states:

Unfortunately, there is one thing that makes the routing table synchronization a bit more complicated. In the kernel routing table there are also device routes for directly connected networks. These routes are usually managed by OS itself (as a part of IP address configuration) and we don't want to touch that. They are completely ignored during the scan of the kernel tables and also the export of device routes from BIRD tables to kernel routing tables is restricted to prevent accidental interference.

So nobody (no protocol) wants to be responsible for distributing the very routes which would make the two networks connect. What's left is static but they I would need to recreate the whole connectivity of a router in the bird config file, something I thought OSPF over BIRD would do for me. Is this what I am supposed to do?

How should the config files for R1 and R2 look like?

router id 192.168.1.1;
protocol device {
  scan time 10;
}
protocol direct {
  interface "*"; # should I use this?
}
protocol kernel {
  learn;
  export all;
  import all;
  device routes true; # OR SHALL I USE THIS?
}
# I would like to avoid doing this:
#protocol static {
#  export all;
#  route 10.1.1.0/24 via 192.168.1.1;
#}
protocol ospf {
  import all;
  export all;
  area 0 {
    interface "eth0", "eth1" {
      cost 10; hello 10; transmit 2; wait 5; dead 40;
      type broadcast;
      authentication cryptographic;
      password "1234567890";
    };
  };
}

And:

router id 192.168.1.2;
protocol device {
  scan time 10;
}
protocol direct {
  interface "*"; # should I use this?
}
protocol kernel {
  learn;
  export all;
  import all;
  device routes true; # OR SHALL I USE THIS?
}
# I would like to avoid doing this:
#protocol static {
#  export all;
#  route 10.1.2.0/24 via 192.168.1.2;
#}
protocol ospf {
  import all;
  export all;
  area 0 {
    interface "eth0", "eth1" {
      cost 10; hello 10; transmit 2; wait 5; dead 40;
      type broadcast;
      authentication cryptographic;
      password "1234567890";
    };
  };
}

In all Chef examples that I've seen autoscaling works pretty easy - you provision something like DB host, then web servers. You can create as many webservers as you like - all of them are going to use the same DB host (no changes required).

But what if my recipe/node provisioning cookbook requires configuration changes on some other backend nodes? How I can do it with Chef? For example, I have existing BGP route reflector (bird), I provision new bird edge node and, as a dependency, I have to generate new iBGP peer config and reread config file on the BGP route reflector node.

What is the best practice? Should I use chef-push-jobs to push changes to BGP route-reflector nodes?

Introduction

I'm attempting to set up basic communication with the RIPv2 protocol between two hosts running the BIRD routing daemon.

I've got Host A with an interface enp0 that has address 10.0.1.50/24.
I've got another host Host B with an interface enp1 that has address 10.1.1.25/24. These interfaces are directly connected by cable. I can ping between both machines if I add a static route on both machines.

Configuration Files

I have the following bird.conf on Host A:

protocol kernel {
        learn;                  # Learn all alien routes from the kernel
        persist;                # Don't remove routes on bird shutdown
        scan time 20;           # Scan kernel routing table every 20 seconds
        export all;             # Default is export none
}

protocol device {
    scan time 10;           # Scan interfaces every 10 seconds
}

protocol direct {
        interface "enp0"
}

protocol rip MyRIP {    
    export all;
    import all;
    interface "enp0" { mode multicast;};
}

The bird.conf on Host B is identical except the enp0 is replaced with enp1

Initial Results

After starting the bird daemon on both hosts, I can do a tcpdump -ni enp0 -vv

13:21:41.943537 IP (tos 0xc0, ttl 1, id 4933, offset 0, flags [none], proto UDP (17), length 132)
    10.1.1.25.520 > 224.0.0.9.7742: [udp sum ok] UDP, length 104
13:21:41.943704 IP (tos 0xc0, ttl 1, id 150, offset 0, flags [none], proto UDP (17), length 272)
    10.0.1.50.520 > 224.0.0.9.7742: [bad udp cksum 0xec48 -> 0x1219!] UDP, length 244

I can hop inside the birdcl command-line and run show rip neighbors and get an empty table.

Making it work

If I set the addresses to be on the same subnet, I can run show rip neighbors and I can see 10.0.1.50 in my lists of neighbors.

Wrap-up

How can I get these routers to list each other as neighbors if the two ends of the link aren't on the same subnet?

I must have some sort of incorrect mental picture of how networks work, don't routers need talk to neighbors which aren't on the same subnet all the time?

I'm not hung up on a BIRD-specific answer.

We're currently using Quagga with Debian Linux to run a full table BGP router. The set-up has been dead simple up to now, but we've come to a point where I have to reconfigure the router quite a bit, and want to tighten things up.

I've never really understood Quagga, and always found its documentation to be lacking. It appears to be mimicking Cisco, of which I only have basic understanding.

BIRD has caught my eye recently. The couple of articles / presentations I found promote it as lightweight and more responsive under stress compared to Quagga. And it actually seems to have very decent documentation.

So I'd like to know:

• Who's running BIRD right now, and in what kind of set-up?
• How is it stability-wise? I've read about it running in a couple of sites in production.
• Let's say I don't care at all for a Cisco-feel to configuration. How is configuration, maintainance, monitoring, etc. of BIRD in general?
• And any other notable experiences you may have with it.