BIRD User's Guide <author> Ondrej Filip <it/<feela@network.cz>/, Pavel Machek <it/<pavel@ucw.cz>/, Martin Mares <it/<mj@ucw.cz>/ </author> <abstract> This document contains user documentation for the BIRD Internet Routing Daemon project. </abstract>  <toc>  <sect>Introduction <sect1>What is BIRD <label id="intro"> The name `BIRD' is actually an acronym standing for `BIRD Internet Routing Daemon'. Let's take a closer look at the meaning of the name: <em/BIRD/: Well, we think we have already explained that. It's an acronym standing for `BIRD Internet Routing Daemon', you remember, don't you? :-) <em/Internet Routing/: It's a program (well, a daemon, as you are going to discover in a moment) which works as a dynamic router in an Internet type network (that is, in a network running either the IPv4 or the IPv6 protocol). Routers are devices which forward packets between interconnected networks in order to allow hosts not connected directly to the same local area network to communicate with each other. They also communicate with other routers in the Internet to discover the topology of the network which allows them to find optimal (in terms of some metric) rules for forwarding of packets (which will be called routes in the rest of this document) and to adapt to the changing conditions such as outages of network links, building of new connections and so on. Most of these routers are costly dedicated devices running obscure firmware which is hard to configure and not open to any changes. (But these costly dedicated beasts are a requirement for routing of many fast interfaces - PCclass machine can not keep up with more than 4 100Mbps interfaces) Fortunately, most operating systems of the UNIX family allow an ordinary computer to act as a router and forward packets belonging to the other hosts, but only according to a statically configured table. A <em/Routing Daemon/ is in UNIX terminology a non-interactive program running on background which does the dynamic part of Internet routing, that is it communicates with the other routers, calculates routing tables and sends them to the OS kernel which does the actual packet forwarding. There are other such routing daemons: routed (rip only), GateD <HTMLURL URL="http://www.gated.org/"> (non free) and Zebra <HTMLURL URL="http://www.zebra.org">, but their capabilities are limited and they are relatively hard to configure and maintain. BIRD is an Internet Routing Daemon designed to avoid all of these shortcomings, to support all the routing technology used in the today's Internet or planned to be used in near future and to have a clean extensible architecture allowing new routing protocols to be incorporated easily. Among other features, BIRD supports: <itemize> <item>both IPv4 and IPv6 protocols <item>multiple routing tables <item>the Border Gateway Protocol (BGPv4) <item>the Routing Interchange Protocol (RIPv2) <item>the Open Shortest Path First protocol (OSPFv2) <item>a virtual protocol for exchange of routes between internal routing tables <item>a command-line interface allowing on-line control and inspection of status of the daemon <item>soft reconfiguration (no need to use complex online commands to change the configuration, just edit the configuration file and notify BIRD to re-read it and it will smoothly switch to the new configuration, not disturbing routing protocols unless they are affected by the configuration changes) <item>powerful language for route filtering </itemize> BIRD has been developed at the Faculty of Math and Physics, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic as a student project. It can be freely distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. BIRD has been designed to work on all UNIX-like systems. It has been developed and tested under Linux 2.0 to 2.3, but porting to other systems (even non-UNIX ones) should be relatively easy due to its highly modular architecture. <sect1>About this documentation This documentation can have 4 forms: sgml (this is master copy), html, ASCII text and dvi/postscript (generated from sgml using sgmltools). You should always edit master copy. <sect1>About routing tables Bird has one or more routing tables, which may or may not be synchronized with kernel and which may or may not be synchronized with each other (see protocol pipe). Each routing table contains list of known routes. Each route consists of: <itemize> <item>network this route is for <item>preference of this route (taken from preference of protocol and possibly alterred by filters) <item>ip address of router who told us about this route <item>ip address of router we should use for packets routing using this route <item>other attributes common to all routes <item>dynamic attributes defined by protocols, which may or may not be present (typically protocol metric) </itemize> Routing table maintains more than one entry for network, but at most one entry for one network and one protocol. The entry with biggest preference is used for routing. If there are more entries with same preference and they are from same protocol, protocol decides (typically according to metrics). If not, internal ordering is used to decide. You can get list of route attributes in "Route attributes" section in filters. Filters can alter routes passed between routing tables and protocols. <sect1>Installing BIRD On recent UNIX (with GNU-compatible tools - BIRD relies on GCC extensions) system, installing BIRD should be as easy as: <code> ./configure make make install vi /usr/local/etc/bird.conf bird </code> You can use <tt>./configure --help</tt> to get list of configure options. Most important (and not easily guessed) option is <tt/--enable-ipv6/, which enables IpV6 support. You can pass several command-line options to bird: <descrip> <tag>-c <m/config name/</tag> use given config file instead of <file>bird.conf</file>. <tag>-d</tag> enable debugging. <tag>-D <m/filename for debug log/</tag> log debugging information to given file. <tag>-s <m/name of communication socket/</tag> use given filename for socket for communications with bird client, default is <file/bird.ctl/. </descrip> <sect>Configuration <sect1>Introduction BIRD is configured using text configuration file. At startup, BIRD reads <file/bird.conf/ (unless -c command line parameter is given). Configuration may be changed on user request: if you modify config file and then signal BIRD with SIGHUP, it will adjust to new config. Then there's BIRD client, which allows you to talk with BIRD in more extensive way than just telling it to reconfigure. BIRD writes messages about its work to log files or syslog (according to config). In config, everything on a line after <cf/#/ or inside <cf>/* */</cf> is a comment, whitespace is ignored, C-style comments <cf>/* comment */</cf> are also recognized. If there's variable number of options, they are grouped using <cf/{ }/ brackets. Each option is terminated by <cf/;/. Configuration is case sensitive. Really simple configuration file might look like this: It enables synchronization of routing tables with kernel, scans for new network interfaces every 10 seconds and runs RIP on all interfaces found. <code> protocol 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 rip { export all; import all; } </code> <sect1>Global options <descrip> <tag>log "<m/filename/"|syslog|stderr all|{ <m/list of classes/ }</tag> set logging of classes (either all or <cf/{ error, trace }/ etc.) into selected destination. Classes are: <cf/info/, <cf/warning/, <cf/error/, <cf/fatal/ for messages about local problems <cf/debug/ for debugging messages, <cf/trace/ when you want to know what happens on network, <cf/remote/ for messages about misbehavior of remote side, <cf/auth/ about authentication failures, <cf/bug/ for internal bugs of BIRD. You may specify more than one <cf/log/ line to log to multiple destinations. <tag>debug protocols all|off|{ states, routes, filters, interfaces, events, packets }</tag> sets global default of protocol debugging options. <tag>filter <m/name local variables/{ <m/commands/ }</tag> define filter. You can learn more about filters in next chapter. <tag>function <m/name (parameters) local variables/ { <m/commands/ }</tag> define function. You can learn more about functions in next chapter. <tag>protocol rip|ospf|bgp|... <m/[name]/ { <m>protocol options</m> }</tag> define protocol instance, called name (or called something like rip5 if you omit name). You can learn more about configuring protocols in their own chapters. You can run more than one instance of most protocols (like rip or bgp). <tag>define constant = (<m/expression/)|<m/number/</tag> define constant. You can use it later in every place you could use simple integer. <tag>router id <m/IPv4 address/</tag> set router id. Router id needs to be world-wide unique. It is usually one of router's IPv4 addresses. <tag>table <m/name/</tag> create new routing table. Default routing table is created implicitly, other routing tables have to be added by this command. <tag>eval <m/expr/</tag> evaluates given filter expression. It is used by us for testing. </descrip> <sect1>Protocol options Several options are per-protocol, but all protocols support them. They are described here. <descrip> <tag>preference <m/expr/</tag> sets preference of routes generated by this protocol. <tag>disabled</tag> disables given protocol. You can disable/enable protocol from command line interface without needing to touch config. Disabled protocol is not activated. <tag>debug <m/setting/</tag> this is similar to global debug setting, except that it only affects one protocol. Only messages in selected debugging categories will be written to logs. <tag>import <m/filter/</tag> filter can be either either <cf> { <m>filter commands</m> }</cf> or <cf>filter <m/name/</cf> or <cf/all/ or <cf/none/. Import filter works in direction from protocol to main routing table. All is shorthand for <cf/{ accept; }/ and none is shorthand for <cf/{ reject; }/. <tag>export <m/filter/</tag> This is similar to <cf>export</cf> keyword, except that it works in direction from main routing table to protocol. <tag>table <m/name/</tag> Connect this protocol to non-default table. </descrip> There are per-protocol options that give sense only with certain protocols. <descrip> <tag>passwords { password "<m/password/" from <m/time/ to <m/time/ passive <m/time/ id <m/num/ [...] }</tag> specifies passwords to be used with this protocol. Passive time is time from which password is not announced, but is recognized on reception. id is password id, as needed by certain protocols. <tag>interface "<m/mask/"|<m/prefix/ [ { <m/option/ ; [ ... ] } ]</tag> specifies, which interfaces this protocol is active at, and allows you to set options on interface-by-interface basis. Mask is specified in shell-like patters, thus <cf>interface "*" { mode broadcast; };</cf> will start given protocol on all interfaces, with <cf>mode broadcast;</cf> option. If first character of mask is <cf/-/, such interfaces are excluded. Masks are parsed left-to-right, thus <cf/interface "-eth0", "*";/ means all but ethernets. </descrip> <sect1>Client You can use command-line client <file>birdc</file> to talk with running BIRD. Communications is done using <file/bird.ctl/ unix domain socket (unless changed with <tt/-s/ option given to both server and client). Client can do simple actions such as enabling/disabling protocols, telling BIRD to show various information, telling it to show routing table filtered by any filter, or telling bird to reconfigure. Press <tt/?/ at any time to get online help. Option <tt/-v/ can be passed to client, telling it to dump numeric return codes. You do not neccessarily need to use BIRDC to talk to BIRD, your own application could do that, too -- format of communication between BIRD and BIRDC is stable (see programmer's documenation). <sect>Filters <sect1>Introduction BIRD contains rather simple programming language. (No, it can not yet read mail :-). There are two objects in this language: filters and functions. Filters are called by BIRD core when route is being passed between protocol and main routing table, and filters may call functions. Functions may call other functions, but recursion is not allowed. Filter language contains control structures such as if's and switches, but it allows no loops. Filters are interpreted. Filter using many features can be found in <file>filter/test.conf</file>. Filter basically gets the route, looks at its attributes and modifies some of them if it wishes. At the end, it decides, whether to pass change route through (using <cf/accept/), or whether to <cf/reject/ given route. Simple filter looks like this: <code> filter not_too_far int var; { if defined( rip_metric ) then var = rip_metric; else { var = 1; rip_metric = 1; } if rip_metric > 10 then reject "RIP metric is too big"; else accept "ok"; } </code> As you can see, filter has a header, list of local variables, and body. Header consists of <cf/filter/ keyword, followed by (unique) name of filter. List of local variables consists of pairs <cf><M>type name</M>;</cf>, where each pair defines one local variable. Body consists of <cf> { <M>statements</M> }</cf>. Each Statement is terminated by <cf/;/. You can group several statements into one by <cf>{ <M>statements</M> }</cf> construction, that is useful if you want to make bigger block of code conditional. Bird supports functions, so that you don't have to repeat same blocks of code over and over. Functions can have zero or more parameters, and can have local variables. They look like this: <code> function name () int local_variable; { local_variable = 5; } function with_parameters (int parameter) { print parameter; } </code> Unlike C, variables are declared after function line but before first {. You can not declare variables in nested blocks. Functions are called like in C: <cf>name(); with_parameters(5);</cf>. Function may return value using <cf>return <m/[expr]/</cf> syntax. Returning value exits from current function (this is similar to C). Filters are declared in similar way to functions, except they can not have explicit parameters. They get route table entry as implicit parameter. Route table entry is passed implicitly to any functions being called. Filter must terminate with either <cf/accept/ or <cf/reject/ statement. If there's runtime error in filter, route is rejected. Nice trick to debug filters is using <cf>show route filter <m/name/</cf> from command line client. Example session might look like: <code> pavel@bug:~/bird$ ./birdc -s bird.ctl BIRD 0.0.0 ready. bird> help No such command. bird> bird> show route 10.0.0.0/8 dev eth0 [direct1 23:21] (240) 195.113.30.2/32 dev tunl1 [direct1 23:21] (240) 127.0.0.0/8 dev lo [direct1 23:21] (240) bird> show route ? show route [<prefix>] [table <t>] [filter <f>] [all] [primary] [(import|protocol) ] [stats] Show routing table bird> show route filter { if 127.0.0.5 ~ net then accept; } 127.0.0.0/8 dev lo [direct1 23:21] (240) bird> </code> <sect1>Data types Each variable and each value has certain type. Unlike C, booleans, integers and enums are incompatible with each other (that is to prevent you from shooting in the foot). <descrip> <tag/bool/ this is boolean type, it can have only two values, <cf/true/ and <cf/false/. Boolean is not compatible with integer and is the only type you can use in if statements. <tag/int/ this is common integer, you can expect it to store signed values from -2000000000 to +2000000000. Overflows are not checked. <tag/pair/ this is pair of two short integers. Each component can have values from 0 to 65535. Constant of this type is written as <cf/(1234,5678)/. <tag/string/ this is string of characters. There are no ways to modify strings in filters. You can pass them between functions, assign to variable of type string, print such variables, but you can not concatenate two strings (for example). String constants are written as <cf/"This is a string constant"/. <tag/ip/ this type can hold single ip address. Depending on compile-time configuration of BIRD you are using, it can be IPv4 or IPv6 address. IPv4 addresses are written (as you would expect) as <cf/1.2.3.4/. You can apply special operator <cf>.mask(<M>num</M>)</cf> on values of type ip. It masks out all but first <cf><M>num</M></cf> bits from ip address. So <cf/1.2.3.4.mask(8) = 1.0.0.0/ is true. <tag/prefix/ this type can hold ip address and prefix length. Prefixes are written as <cf><M>ipaddress</M>/<M>pxlen</M></cf>, or <cf><m>ipaddress</m>/<m>netmask</m></cf> There are two special operators on prefix: <cf/.ip/, which separates ip address from the pair, and <cf/.len/, which separates prefix len from the pair. So <cf>1.2.0.0/16.pxlen = 16</cf> is true. <tag/int|ip|prefix|pair|enum set/ filters know four types of sets. Sets are similar to strings: you can pass them around but you can not modify them. Constant of type <cf>set int</cf> looks like <cf> [ 1, 2, 5..7 ]</cf>. As you can see, both simple values and ranges are permitted in sets. Sets of prefixes are special: you can specify which prefix lengths should match them by using <cf>[ 1.0.0.0/8+, 2.0.0.0/8-, 3.0.0.0/8{5,6} ]</cf>. 3.0.0.0/8{5,6} matches prefixes 3.X.X.X, whose prefix length is 5 to 6. 3.0.0.0/8+ is shorthand for 3.0.0.0/{0,8}, 3.0.0.0/8- is shorthand for 3.0.0.0/{0,7}. For example, <tt>1.2.0.0/16 ~ [ 1.0.0.0/8{ 15 , 17 } ]</tt> is true, but <tt>1.0.0.0/8 ~ [ 1.0.0.0/8- ]</tt> is false. <tag/enum/ enumeration types are halfway-internal in the BIRD. You can't define your own variable of enumeration type, but some route attributes are of enumeration type. Enumeration types are incompatible with each other, again, for your protection. <tag/bgppath/ bgp path is list of autonomous systems. You can't write constant of this type. <tag/bgpmask/ bgp mask is mask used for matching bgp paths (using <cf>path ~ / 2 3 5 ? / syntax </cf>). Matching is done using shell-like pattern: <cf/?/ means "any number of any autonomous systems". Pattern for single unknown autonomous system is not supported. (We did not want to use * because then it becomes too easy to write <cf>/*</cf> which is start of comment.) For example, <tt>/ 4 3 2 1 / ~ / ? 4 3 ? /</tt> is true, but <tt>/ 4 3 2 1 / ~ / ? 4 5 ? /</tt> is false. <tag/clist/ community list. This is similar to set of pairs, except that unlike other sets, it can be modified. You can't write constant of this type. </descrip> <sect1>Operations Filter language supports common integer operations <cf>(+,-,*,/)</cf>, parentheses <cf/(a*(b+c))/, comparison <cf/(a=b, a!=b, a<b, a>=b)/. Special operators include <cf/˜/ for "in" operation. In operation can be used on element and set of that elements, or on ip and prefix, or on prefix and prefix or on bgppath and bgpmask or on pair and clist. Its result is true if element is in given set or if ip address is inside given prefix. Operator <cf/=/ is used to assign value to variable. Logical operations include unary not (<cf/!/), and (<cf/&&/) and or (<cf/||/>). <sect1>Control structures Filters support two control structures: if/then/else and case. Syntax of if/then/else is <cf>if <M>expression</M> then <M>command</M>; else <M>command</M>;</cf> and you can use <cf>{ <M>command_1</M>; <M>command_2</M>; <M>...</M> }</cf> instead of one or both commands. <cf>else</cf> clause may be omitted. <cf>case</cf> is similar to case from Pascal. Syntax is <cf>case <m/expr/ { else | <m/num_or_prefix [ .. num_or_prefix]/ : <m/statement/ ; [ ... ] }</cf>. Expression after <cf>case</cf> can be of any type that can be on the left side of ˜ operator, and anything that could be member of set is allowed before <cf/:/. Multiple commands are allowed without <cf/{}/ grouping and break is implicit before each case. If argument matches neither of <cf/:/ clauses, <cf/else:/ clause is used. (Case is actually implemented as set matching, internally.) Here is example that uses if and case structures: <code> case arg1 { 2: print "two"; print "I can do more commands without {}"; 3 .. 5: print "three to five"; else: print "something else"; } if 1234 = i then printn "."; else { print "not 1234"; print "You need {} around multiple commands"; } </code> <sect1>Route attributes Filter is implicitly passed route, and it can access its attributes, just like it accesses variables. Access to undefined attribute results in runtime error; you can check if attribute is defined using <cf>defined( <m>attribute</m> )</cf> syntax. <descrip> <tag/<m/prefix/ net/ network this route is talking about. (See section about routing tables) <tag/<m/int/ preference/ preference of this route. (See section about routing tables) <tag/<m/ip/ from/ who told me about this route. <tag/<m/ip/ gw/ what is next hop packets routed using this route should be forwarded to. <tag/<m/enum/ source/ what protocol told me about this route. This can have values such as <cf/RTS_RIP/ or <cf/RTS_OSPF_EXT/. <tag/<m/enum/ scope/ <tag/<m/enum/ cast/ <tag/<m/enum/ dest/ </descrip> Plus, there are protocol-specific attributes, which are described in protocol sections. <sect1>Utility functions There are few functions you might find convenient to use: <descrip> <tag>accept</tag> accept this route <tag>reject</tag> reject this route <tag>return <m/expr/</tag> return given value from function, function ends at this point. <tag>print|printn <m/expr/ [ <m/, expr .../ ]</tag> prints given expressions, useful mainly while debugging filters. Printn variant does not go to new line. <tag>quitbird</tag> terminates bird. Useful while debugging filter interpreter. </descrip> <sect>Protocols <sect1>BGP The Border Gateway Protocol is the routing protocol used for backbone level routing in the today's Internet. Contrary to other protocols, its convergence doesn't rely on all routers following the same rules for route selection, making it possible to implement any routing policy at any router in the network, the only restriction being that if a router advertises a route, it must accept and forward packets according to it. BGP works in terms of autonomous systems (often abbreviated as AS). Each AS is a part of the network with common management and common routing policy. Routers within each AS usually communicate using either a interior routing protocol (such as OSPF or RIP) or an interior variant of BGP (called iBGP). Boundary routers at the border of the AS communicate with their peers in the neighboring AS'es via exterior BGP (eBGP). Each BGP router sends to its neighbors updates of the parts of its routing table it wishes to export, along with complete path information (a list of AS'es the packet will travel through if it uses that particular route) in order to avoid routing loops. BIRD supports all requirements of the BGP4 standard as defined in RFC 1771<htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1771.txt"> including several enhancements from the latest draft<htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-idr-bgp4-09.txt">. It also supports the community attributes as per RFC 1997<htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1997.txt">, capability negotiation defined in RFC 2842<htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2842.txt">, For IPv6, it uses the standard multiprotocol extensions defined in RFC 2283<htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2283.txt"> including changes described in the latest draft <htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-idr-bgp4-multiprotocol-v2-05.txt"> and applied to IPv6 according to RFC 2545<htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2545.txt">. <sect2>Route selection rules BGP doesn't have any simple metric, so the rules for selection of an optimal route among multiple BGP routes with the same preference are a bit more complex and are implemented according to the following algorithm. First it uses the first rule, if there are more "best" routes, then it uses the second rule to choose among them and so on. <itemize> <item>Prefer route with the highest local preference attribute. <item>Prefer route with the shortest AS path. <item>Prefer IGP origin over EGP and EGP over incomplete. <item>Prefer the lowest value of the Multiple Exit Discriminator. <item>Prefer internal routes over external routes. <item>Prefer route with the lowest value of router ID of the advertising router. </itemize> <sect2>Configuration Each instance of the BGP corresponds to one neighboring router. This allows to set routing policy and all other parameters differently for each neighbor using the following protocol parameters: <descrip> <tag>local as <m/number/</tag> Define which AS we are part of. (Note that contrary to other IP routers, BIRD is able to act as a router located in multiple AS'es simultaneously, but in such cases you need to tweak the BGP paths manually in the filters to get consistent behavior.) This parameter is mandatory. <tag>neighbor <m/ip/ as <m/number/</tag> Define neighboring router this instance will be talking to and what AS it's located in. Unless you use the <cf/multihop/ clause, it must be directly connected to one of your router's interfaces. This parameter is mandatory. <tag>multihop <m/number/ via <m/ip/</tag> Configure multihop BGP to a neighbor which is connected at most <m/number/ hops far and to which we should route via our direct neighbor with address <m/ip/. Default: switched off. <tag>next hop self</tag> Avoid calculation of the Next Hop attribute and always advertise our own source address (see below) as a next hop. This needs to be used only occasionally to circumvent misconfigurations of other routers. Default: disabled. <tag>source address <m/ip/</tag> Define local address we should use for next hop calculation. Default: the address of the local end of the interface our neighbor is connected to. <tag>disable after error <m/switch/</tag> When an error is encountered (either locally or by the other side), disable the instance automatically and wait for an administrator to solve the problem manually. Default: off. <tag>hold time <m/number/</tag> Time in seconds to wait for a keepalive message from the other side before considering the connection stale. Default: depends on agreement with the neighboring router, we prefer 240 seconds if the other side is willing to accept it. <tag>startup hold time <m/number/</tag> Value of the hold timer used before the routers have a chance to exchange OPEN messages and agree on the real value. Default: 240 seconds. <tag>keepalive time <m/number/</tag> Delay in seconds between sending of two consecutive keepalive messages. Default: One third of the hold time. <tag>connect retry time <m/number/</tag> Time in seconds to wait before retrying a failed connect attempt. Default: 120 seconds. <tag>start delay time <m/number/</tag> Delay in seconds between protocol startup and first attempt to connect. Default: 5 seconds. <tag>error wait time <m/number/, <m/number/</tag> Minimum and maximum delay in seconds between protocol failure (either local or reported by the peer) and automatic startup. Doesn't apply when <cf/disable after error/ is configured. If consecutive errors happen, the delay is increased exponentially until it reaches the maximum. Default: 60, 300. <tag>error forget time <m/number/</tag> Maximum time in seconds between two protocol failures to treat them as a error sequence which makes the <cf/error wait time/ increase exponentially. Default: 300 seconds. <tag>path metric <m/switch/</tag> Enable comparison of path lengths when deciding which BGP route is the best one. Default: on. <tag>default bgp_med <m/number/</tag> Value of the Multiple Exit Discriminator to be used during route selection when the MED attribute is missing. Default: infinite. <tag>default bgp_local_pref <m/number/</tag> Value of the Local Preference to be used during route selection when the Local Preference attribute is missing. Default: 0. </descrip> <sect2>Attributes BGP defines several route attributes. Some of them (those marked with `I' in the table below) are available on internal BGP connections only, some of them (marked with `O') are optional. <descrip> <tag>bgppath <cf/bgp_path/</tag> Sequence of AS numbers describing the AS path the packet will travel through when forwarded according to this route. On internal BGP connections it doesn't contain the number of the local AS. <tag>int <cf/bgp_local_pref/ [I]</tag> Local preference value used for selection among multiple BGP routes (see the selection rules above). It's used as an additional metric which is propagated through the whole local AS. <tag>int <cf/bgp_med/ [IO]</tag> The Multiple Exit Discriminator of the route which is an optional attribute which is often used within the local AS to reflect interior distances to various boundary routers. See the route selection rules above for exact semantics. <tag>enum <cf/bgp_origin/</tag> Origin of the route: either <cf/ORIGIN_IGP/, if the route has originated in interior routing protocol of an AS or <cf/ORIGIN_EGP/, if it's been imported from the <tt>EGP</tt> protocol (nowadays it seems to be obsolete) or <cf/ORIGIN_INCOMPLETE/, if the origin is unknown. <tag>ip <cf/bgp_next_hop/</tag> Next hop to be used for forwarding of packets to this destination. On internal BGP connections, it's an address of the originating router if it's inside the local AS or a boundary router the packet will leave the AS through if it's an exterior route, so each BGP speaker within the AS has a chance to use the shortest interior path possible to this point. <tag>void <cf/bgp_atomic_aggr/ [O]</tag> This is an optional attribute which carries no value, but which sole presence indicates that the route has been aggregated from multiple routes by some AS on the path from the originator.  <tag>clist <cf/bgp_community/ [O]</tag> List of community values associated with the route. Each such value is a pair (represented as a <cf/pair/ data type inside the filters) of 16-bit integers, the first of them containing a number of the AS which defines the community and the second one is a per-AS identifier. There are lots of uses of the community mechanism, but generally they are used to carry policy information like "don't export to USA peers". As each AS can define its own routing policy, it also has a complete freedom about which community attributes it defines and what their semantics will be. </descrip> <sect2>Example <code> protocol bgp { local as 65000; # Use a private AS number neighbor 62.168.0.130 as 5588; # Our neighbor multihop 20 via 62.168.0.13; # Which is connected indirectly export filter { # We use non-trivial export rules if source = RTS_STATIC then { # Export only static routes bgp_community.add((65000,5678)); # Assign our community if bgp_path ~ / 65000 / then # Artificially increase path length bgp_path.prepend(65000); # by prepending local AS number twice accept; } reject; }; import all; source address 62.168.0.1; # Use non-standard source address } </code> <sect1>Device The Device protocol is not a real routing protocol as it doesn't generate any routes and only serves as a module for getting information about network interfaces from the kernel. Except for very unusual circumstances, you probably should include this protocol in the configuration since almost all other protocol require network interfaces to be defined in order to work. The only configurable thing is interface scan time: <descrip> <tag>scan time <m/number/</tag> Time in seconds between two scans of the network interface list. On systems where we are notified about interface status changes asynchronously (such as newer versions of Linux), we need to scan the list only to avoid confusion by lost notifications, so the default time is set to a large value. </descrip> As the Device protocol doesn't generate any routes, it cannot have any attributes. Example configuration looks really simple: <code> protocol device { scan time 10; # Scan the interfaces often } </code> <sect1>Direct The Direct protocol is a simple generator of device routes for all the directly connected networks according to the list of interfaces provided by the kernel via the Device protocol. It's highly recommended to include this protocol in your configuration unless you want to use BIRD as a route server or a route reflector, that is on a machine which doesn't forward packets and only participates in distribution of routing information. Only configurable thing about direct is what interfaces it watches: <descrip> <tag>interface <m/pattern [, ...]/</tag> By default, the Direct protocol will generate device routes for all the interfaces available. If you want to restrict it to some subset of interfaces (for example if you're using multiple routing tables for policy routing and some of the policy domains don't contain all interfaces), just use this clause. </descrip> Direct device routes don't contain any specific attributes. Example config might look like this: <code> protocol direct { interface "-arc*", "*"; # Exclude the ARCnets } </code> <sect1>Kernel The Kernel protocol is not a real routing protocol. Instead of communicating with other routers in the network, it performs synchronization of BIRD's routing tables with OS kernel. Basically, it sends all routing table updates to the kernel and from time to time it scans the kernel tables to see whether some routes have disappeared (for example due to unnoticed up/down transition of an interface) or whether an `alien' route has been added by someone else. If your OS supports only a single routing table, you can configure only one instance of the Kernel protocol. If it supports multiple tables (in order to allow policy routing), you can run as many instances as you want, but each of them must be connected to a different BIRD routing table and to a different kernel table. <sect2>Configuration <descrip> <tag>persist <m/switch/</tag> Tell BIRD to leave all its routes in the routing tables when it exits (instead of cleaning them up). <tag>scan time <m/number/</tag> Time in seconds between two scans of the kernel routing table. <tag>learn <m/switch/</tag> Enable learning of routes added to the kernel routing tables by other routing daemons or by the system administrator. This is possible only on systems which support identification of route authorship. <tag>kernel table <m/number/</tag> Select which kernel table should this particular instance of the Kernel protocol work with. Available only on systems supporting multiple routing tables. </descrip> A simple configuration can look this way: <code> protocol kernel { import all; export all; } </code> Or for a system with two routing tables: <code> protocol kernel { # Primary routing table learn; # Learn alien routes from the kernel persist; # Don't remove routes on bird shutdown scan time 10; # Scan kernel routing table every 10 seconds import all; export all; } protocol kernel { # Secondary routing table table auxtable; kernel table 100; export all; } </code> The Kernel protocol doesn't define any route attributes. <sect1>OSPF <sect1>Pipe <sect2>Introduction The Pipe protocol serves as a link between two routing tables, allowing routes to be passed from a table declared as primary (i.e., the one the pipe is connected using the <cf/table/ configuration keyword) to the secondary one (declared using <cf/peer table/) and vice versa, depending on what's allowed by the filters. Export filters control export of routes from the primary table to the secondary one, import filters control the opposite direction. The primary use of multiple routing tables and the pipe protocol is for policy routing, where handling of a single packet doesn't depend only on its destination address, but also on its source address, source interface, protocol type and other similar parameters. In many systems (Linux 2.2 being a good example) the kernel allows to enforce routing policies by defining routing rules which choose one of several routing tables to be used for a packet according to its parameters. Setting of these rules is outside the scope of BIRD's work (you can use the <tt/ip/ command), but you can create several routing tables in BIRD, connect them to the kernel ones, use filters to control which routes appear in which tables and also you can employ the Pipe protocol to export a selected subset of one table in another one. <sect2>Configuration <descrip> <tag>peer table <m/table/</tag> Define secondary routing table to connect to. The primary one is selected by the <cf/table/ keyword. </descrip> <sect2>Attributes The Pipe protocol doesn't define any route attributes. <sect2>Example Let's consider a router which serves as a boundary router of two different autonomous systems, each of them connected to a subset of interfaces of the router, having its own exterior connectivity and wishing to use the other AS as a backup connectivity in case of outage of its own exterior line. Probably the simplest solution to this situation is to use two routing tables (we'll call them <cf/as1/ and <cf/as2/) and set up kernel routing rules, so that packets having arrived from interfaces belonging to the first AS will be routed according to <cf/as1/ and similarly for the second AS. Thus we have split our router to two logical routers, each one acting on its own routing table, having its own routing protocols on its own interfaces. In order to use the other AS's routes for backup purposes, we can pass the routes between the tables through a Pipe protocol while decreasing their preferences and correcting their BGP paths to reflect AS boundary crossing. <code> table as1; # Define the tables table as2; protocol kernel kern1 { # Synchronize them with the kernel table as1; kernel table 1; } protocol kernel kern2 { table as2; kernel table 2; } protocol bgp bgp1 { # The outside connections table as1; local as 1; neighbor 192.168.0.1 as 1001; export all; import all; } protocol bgp bgp2 { table as2; local as 2; neighbor 10.0.0.1 as 1002; export all; import all; } protocol pipe { # The Pipe table as1; peer table as2; export filter { if net ~ [ 1.0.0.0/8+] then { # Only AS1 networks if preference>10 then preference = preference-10; if source=RTS_BGP then bgp_path.prepend(1); accept; } reject; }; import filter { if net ~ [ 2.0.0.0/8+] then { # Only AS2 networks if preference>10 then preference = preference-10; if source=RTS_BGP then bgp_path.prepend(2); accept; } reject; }; } </code> <sect1>Rip <sect2>Introduction Rip protocol (sometimes called Rest In Pieces) is a simple protocol, where each router broadcasts distances to all networks it can reach. When router hears distance to other network, it increments it and broadcasts it back. Broadcasts are done in regular intervals. Therefore, if some network goes unreachable, routers keep telling each other that distance is old distance plus 1 (actually, plus interface metric, which is usually one). After some time, distance reaches infinity (that's 15 in rip) and all routers know that network is unreachable. Rip tries to minimize situations where counting to infinity is necessary, because it is slow. Due to infinity being 16, you can not use rip on networks where maximal distance is bigger than 15 hosts. You can read more about rip at <HTMLURL URL="http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/rip-charter.html">. Both IPv4 and IPv6 versions of rip are supported by BIRD, historical Ripv1 is currently not fully supported. Rip is very simple protocol, and it is not too good. Slow convergence, big network load and inability to handle bigger networks makes it pretty much obsolete in IPv4 world. (It is still usable on very small networks, through.) It is widely used in IPv6 world, because they are no good implementations of OSPFv3. <sect2>Configuration In addition to options generic to other protocols, rip supports following options: <descrip> <tag/authentication none|password|md5/ selects authentication method to use. None means that packets are not authenticated at all, password means that plaintext password is embedded into each packet, and md5 means that packets are authenticated using md5 cryptographic hash. If you set authentication to non-none, it is good idea to add <cf>passwords { }</cf> section. <tag>honor always|neighbor|never </tag>specifies, when should be requests for dumping routing table honored. (Always, when sent from host on directly connected network, or never.) Routing table updates are honored only from neighbors, that is not configurable. </descrip> There are two options that can be specified per-interface. First is <cf>metric</cf>, with default one. Second is <cf>mode multicast|broadcast|quiet|nolisten|version1</cf>, it selects mode for rip to work in. If nothing is specified, rip runs in multicast mode. <cf>version1</cf> is currently equivalent to <cf>broadcast</cf>, and it makes rip talk at broadcast address even through multicast mode is possible. <cf>quiet</cf> option means that rip will not transmit periodic messages onto this interface and <cf>nolisten</cf> means that rip will talk to this interface but not listen on it. Following options generally override specified behavior from RFC. If you use any of these options, BIRD will no longer be RFC-compatible, which means it will not be able to talk to anything other than equally misconfigured BIRD. I warned you. <descrip> <tag>port <M>number</M></tag> selects IP port to operate on, default 520. (This is useful when testing BIRD, if you set this to address >1024, you will not need to run bird with UID==0). <tag>infinity <M>number</M></tag> select value of infinity, default 16. Bigger values will make protocol convergence even slower. <tag>period <M>number</M> </tag>specifies number of seconds between periodic updates. Default is 30 seconds. Lower number will mean faster convergence but bigger network load. Do not use values lower than 10. <tag>timeout time <M>number</M> </tag>specifies how old route has to be to be considered unreachable. Default is 4*period. <tag>garbage time <M>number</M> </tag>specifies how old route has to be to be discarded. Default is 10*period. </descrip> <sect2>Attributes RIP defines two route attributes: <descrip> <tag>int <cf/rip_metric/</tag> RIP metric of the route (ranging from 0 to <cf/infinity/). When routes from different RIP instances are available and all of them have the same preference, BIRD prefers the route with lowest <cf/rip_metric/. <tag>int <cf/rip_tag/</tag> RIP route tag: a 16-bit number which can be used to carry additional information with the route (for example, an originating AS number in case of external routes). </descrip> <sect2>Example <code> protocol rip MyRIP_test { debug all; port 1520; period 10; garbage time 60; interface "eth0" { metric 3; mode multicast; } "eth1" { metric 2; mode broadcast; }; honor neighbor; authentication none; import filter { print "importing"; accept; }; export filter { print "exporting"; accept; }; } </code> <sect1>Static The Static protocol doesn't communicate with other routers in the network, but instead it allows you to define routes manually which is often used for specifying how to forward packets to parts of the network which don't use dynamic routing at all and also for defining sink routes (i.e., those telling to return packets as undeliverable if they are in your IP block, you don't have any specific destination for them and you don't want to send them out through the default route to prevent routing loops). There are three types of static routes: `classical' routes telling to forward packets to a neighboring router, device routes specifying forwarding to hosts on a directly connected network and special routes (sink, blackhole etc.) which specify a special action to be done instead of forwarding the packet. When the particular destination is not available (the interface is down or the next hop of the route is not a neighbor at the moment), Static just uninstalls the route from the table it is connected to and adds it again as soon as the destinations becomes adjacent again. The Static protocol has no configuration options. Instead, the definition of the protocol contains a list of static routes: <descrip> <tag>route <m/prefix/ via <m/ip/</tag> Static route through a neighboring router. <tag>route <m/prefix/ via <m/"interface"/</tag> Static device route through an interface to hosts on a directly connected network. <tag>route <m/prefix/ drop|reject|prohibit</tag> Special routes specifying to drop the packet, return it as unreachable or return it as administratively prohibited. </descrip> Static routes have no specific attributes. Example static config might look like this: <code> protocol static { table testable; # Connect to non-default routing table route 0.0.0.0/0 via 62.168.0.13; # Default route route 62.168.0.0/25 reject; # Sink route route 10.2.0.0/24 via "arc0"; # Secondary network } </code> <sect>Problems BIRD is relatively young system, and probably contains some bugs. You can report bugs at <HTML URL="fixme">, but before you do, please make sure you have read available documenation, make sure are running latest version (available at <HTML URL="fixme">), and that bug was not already reported by someone else (mailing list archives are at <HTML URL="fixme">). (Of course, patch which fixes the bug along with bug report is always welcome). If you want to join the development, join developer's mailing list by sending <tt/????/ to <HTML URL="fixme">. You can also get current sources from anoncvs at <HTML URL="fixme">. You can find this documentation online at <HTML URL="fixme">, main homepage of bird is <HTML URL="fixme">. When trying to understand, what is going on, Internet standards are relevant reading; you can get them from <HTML URL="fixme">. <it/Good luck!/ </article>