Configuring BGP

The NetScaler appliance supports BGP (RFC 4271). The features of BGP on the NetScaler are:

• The NetScaler advertises routes to BGP peers.
• The NetScaler injects host routes to virtual IP addresses (VIPs), as determined by the health of the underlying virtual servers.
• The NetScaler generates configuration files for running BGP on the secondary node after failover in an HA configuration.
• This protocol supports IPv6 route exchanges.
• As-Override Support in Border Gateway Protocol

After enabling BGP, you need to configure advertisement of BGP routes. For troubleshooting, you can limit BGP propagation. You can display BGP settings to verify the configuration.

Prerequisites for IPv6 BGP

Before you begin configuring IPv6 BGP, do the following:

• Make sure that you understand the IPv6 BGP protocol.
• Install the IPv6PT license on the NetScaler appliance.
• After installing the IPv6PT license, enable the IPv6 feature.

Enabling and Disabling BGP

To enable or disable BGP, you must use either the NetScaler command line or the NetScaler GUI. When BGP is enabled, the NetScaler appliance starts the BGP process. When BGP is disabled, the appliance stops the BGP process.

To enable or disable BGP routing by using the NetScaler command line:

At the command prompt, type one of the following commands:

• enable ns feature BGP

• disable ns feature BGP

To enable or disable BGP routing by using the NetScaler GUI:

1. Navigate to System > Settings, in Modes and Features group, click Change advanced features.
2. Select or clear the BGP Routing option.

Advertising IPv4 Routes

You can configure the NetScaler appliance to advertise host routes to VIPs and to advertise routes to downstream networks.

To configure BGP to advertise IPv4 routes by using the VTYSH command line:

At the command prompt, type the following commands, in the order shown:

Example:

>VTYSH
NS# configure terminal
NS(config)# router BGP 5
NS(config-router)# Neighbor a1bc::102 remote-as 100
NS(config-router)# Address-family ipv4
NS(config-router-af)# Neighbor 10.102.29.170 activate
NS(config-router)# redistribute kernel
NS(config-router)# redistribute static

Advertising IPv6 BGP Routes

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) enables an upstream router to load balance traffic between two identical virtual servers hosted on two standalone NetScaler appliances. Route advertising enables an upstream router to track network entities located behind the NetScaler.

To configure BGP to advertise IPv6 routes by using the VTYSH command line:

At the command prompt, type the following commands, in the order shown:

Example:

>VTYSH
NS# configure terminal
NS(config)# router BGP 5
NS(config-router)# Neighbor a1bc::102 remote-as 100
NS(config-router)# Address-family ipv6
NS(config-router-af)# Neighbor a1bc::102 activate
NS(config-router)# redistribute kernel
NS(config-router)# redistribute static

Verifying the BGP Configuration

You can use VTYSH to display BGP settings.

To view the BGP settings using the VTYSH command line

At the command prompt, type:

VTYSH
You are now in the VTYSH command prompt. An output similar to the following appears:
NS170#
At the VTYSH command prompt, type:
NS170# sh ip BGP
NS170# sh BGP
NS170# sh ip BGP neighbors
NS170# sh ip BGP summary
NS170# sh ip BGP route-map <map-tag>

As-Override Support in Border Gateway Protocol

As a part of BGP loop prevention functionality, if a router receives a BGP packet containing the router’s Autonomous System Number (ASN) in the Autonomous Systems (AS) path, the router drops the packet. The assumption is that the packet originated from the router and has reached the place from where it originated.

If an enterprise has several sites with a same ASN, BGP loop prevention causes the sites with an identical ASN to not get linked by another ASN. Routing updates (BGP packets) are dropped when another site receives them.

To solve this issue, BGP AS-Override functionality has been added to the ZebOS BGP routing module of the NetScaler.

With AS-Override enabled for a peer device, when the NetScaler appliance receives a BGP packet for forwarding to the peer, and the ASN of the packet matches that of the peer, the appliance replaces the ASN of the BGP packet with its own ASN number before forwarding the packet.

You can enable AS-Override for a specific neighbor or a group of neighbors (peer group) by using the VTYSH command line.

To configure BGP AS-Override for a IPv4 neighbor by using the VTYSH command line:

    > VTYSH NS# configure terminal
    NS(config)# router BGP 200
    NS(config-router)# Neighbor 192.0.2.100 remote-as 100
    NS(config-router)# Neighbor 10.102.29.100 as-override

To configure BGP AS-Override for a IPv4 BGP peer group by using the VTYSH command line:

    > VTYSH NS# configure terminal
    NS(config)# router BGP 200
    NS(config-router)# neighbor external-peers-1 peer-group
    NS(config-router)# neighbor 192.0.2.101 peer-group external-peers-1
    NS(config-router)# neighbor 192.0.2.102 peer-group external-peers-1
    NS(config-router)# neighbor 192.0.2.103 peer-group external-peers-1
    NS(config-router)# Neighbor external-peers-1 remote-as 100
    NS(config-router)# Neighbor external-peers-1 as-override

To configure BGP AS-Override for an IPv6 neighbor by using the VTYSH command line:

    > VTYSH NS# configure terminal
    NS(config)# router BGP 200
    NS(config-router)# Neighbor a1bc::102 remote-as 100
    NS(config-router)# Neighbor a1bc::102 as-override
    NS(config-router)# Address-family ipv6
    NS(config-router-af)# Neighbor a1bc::102 activate
    NS(config-router)# Neighbor a1bc::102 as-override

To configure BGP AS-Override for IPv6 peer group by using the VTYSH command line:

    > VTYSH NS# configure terminal
    NS(config)# router BGP 200
    NS(config-router)# neighbor external-peers-2 peer-group
    NS(config-router)# neighbor 2001::1 peer-group external-peers-2
    NS(config-router)# neighbor 2001::2 peer-group external-peers-2
    NS(config-router)# Neighbor external-peers-2 remote-as 100
    NS(config-router)# Neighbor external-peers-2 as-override
    NS(config-router)# Address-family ipv6
    NS(config-router-af)# Neighbor external-peers-2 activate
    NS(config-router)# Neighbor external-peers-2 as-override

Graceful Restart

In a non-INC high availability (HA) setup in which a routing protocol is configured, after a failover, routing protocols are converged and routes between the new primary node and the adjacent neighbor routers are learned. Route learning take some time to complete. During this time, forwarding of packets is delayed, network performance might get disrupted, and packets might get dropped. Graceful restart enables an HA setup during a failover to direct its adjacent routers to not remove the old primary node’s learned routes from their routing databases. Using the old primary node’s routing information, the new primary node and the adjacent routers immediately start forwarding packets, without disrupting network performance.

Configuring Graceful Restart for BGP

To configure graceful restart for BGP by using the VTYSH command line, at the command prompt, type the following commands, in the order shown:

Configuring Graceful Restart for IPv6 BGP

In a non-INC high availability (HA) setup in which a routing protocol is configured, after a failover, routing protocols are converged and routes between the new primary node and the adjacent neighbor routers are learned. Route learning take some time to complete. During this time, forwarding of packets is delayed, network performance might get disrupted, and packets might get dropped.

Graceful restart enables an HA setup during a failover to direct its adjacent routers to not remove the old primary node’s learned routes from their routing databases. Using the old primary node’s routing information, the new primary node and the adjacent routers immediately start forwarding packets, without disrupting network performance.

To configure graceful restart for IPv6 BGP by using the VTYSH command line, at the command prompt, type the following commands, in the order shown: