University “Politehnica” of Bucharest

Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications

and Information Technology

Evaluating the features of the BGP protocol within an

emulated network.

Diploma Thesis
submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the master’s degree in
the domain Electronics and Telecommunications, masters study program
Advanced Wireless Communications

Thesis Advisor(s) Student,

Ș.L. Dr. Ing. Şerban Georgică OBREJA Ing. CHIRA M. Carmen Alexandra
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................................................3

CHAPTER III: PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION............................................................4
3.1. EMULATING A NETWORK.....................................................................................................................4
3.2. CONFIGURING AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS ........................................................................................5
3.3. ROUTE ADVERTISING ............................................................................................................................7
3.4. ADDRESS-FAMILY ....................................................................................................................................8
3.5. ROUTE REDISTRIBUTION .....................................................................................................................9
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................................. 11
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1. - Designed network ................................................................................................................................4

Figure 3.2. - Loopback interface creation.................................................................................................................5
Figure 3.3. - BGP implementatios using AS............................................................................................................6
Figure 3.4. - BGP-ADJCHANGE neighbor up message ..........................................................................................6
Figure 3.5. - "Show ip bgp summary" command output ..........................................................................................6
Figure 3.6. - Advertising a network ..........................................................................................................................7
Figure 3.7. - IP route verification on R3 ...................................................................................................................7
Figure 3.8. - Ping output from R3 to RR ..................................................................................................................8
Figure 3.9. - Address-family configuration ..............................................................................................................8
Figure 3.10. - Redistribute connected command ......................................................................................................9
Figure 3.11. - R3 IP table....................................................................................................................................... 10
Figure 3.12. - Connection check from R3 to R4.................................................................................................... 10
 CHAPTER III: PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION
AND EVALUATION

3.1. EMULATING A NETWORK

The first and most important step of the thesis is to create and emulate a network that satisfies all the
requirements and that implements as many features as possible of BGP Protocol. Thus, the following
network was designed.

1 Figure 3.1. - Designed network

The network has 10 routers, divided into 6 Autonomous Systems (AS) (50, 100, 150, 160, 250, 260).
Two of these routers are the main routers, namely RR and BRR, which is the backup router of RR. There
are four Provider End routers, namely R3, r4, R7 and R8, and four Customer End routers (R5, R6, R9,
R10). On the left side of Figure 3.1. is a table containing all the IP addresses for each used interface of
all the routers.
BGP will be configured on all the network devices according to their AS number, neighbors and other
important characteristics. Route reflectors will be implemented on the two backbone routers RR and
BRR, policy maps, router maps and access lists will be implemented on the CE routers and, to emulate
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a tier three network, a tunnel simulating an Internet connection will be implemented on the link between
RR and R3.

3.2. CONFIGURING AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS

First of all, each router will have a Loopback interface with an IP address stemming from their name and
number. For example, RR will have 1.1.1.1, BRR will have 2.2.2.2, R3 will have 3.3.3.3 and so on. This
will serve as an identification ID of each router. To implement it we’ll use the following commands

interface loopback 0
ip address <ip_address> <subnet_maask> .

2 Figure 3.2. - Loopback interface creation

Afterwards, we can begin to create the AS. The creation of ASes takes two important parameters: the AS
number, which is arbitrary chosen by the network administrator and can be any number, not necessarily
having any meaning, and the neighboring AS that we want to use. Routers must “be told” which are their
neighbors in order to recognize them and communicate with them. This practice also prevents cyber
attacks. The commands used for this are

conf t
router bgp <as_number>
neighbor <ip_address_neighbor> remote-as <neighbour_as_number> .

Something to keep in mind is that when configuring an AS we must pay attention to give the correct
number of the neighbor, as to avoid a faulty configuration.

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 3 Figure 3.3. - BGP implementatios using AS

The configurations on routers RR, BRR and R4 are identical, whereas the commands for router R3 is
complementary with the previous ones. After all the neighbors are configures, we received a “BGP –
ADJCHANGE – neighbor up” message, informing us that the routers now recognize their neighbors, as
seen in Figure 3.4.

4 Figure 3.4. - BGP-ADJCHANGE neighbor up message

Another way to check if the configurations are made correctly and if the routers recognize one another
is by running the show ip bgp summary command. This displays information about the BGP on current
router such as identifier and AS number, and information about the neighbors.

5 Figure 3.5. - "Show ip bgp summary" command output

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3.3. ROUTE ADVERTISING

Next, we must decide which network are advertised via BGP. This means that the main router, RR, will
inform its neighbors about the routes that he allows access to. For the purposes of this demonstration
we’ll advertise the Loopback interface created previously. To do this we use the command network
ip_address within the BGP configuration mode. To verify it, we use sh ip bgp which outputs the
advertised routes.

6 Figure 3.6. - Advertising a network

If we check the IP routes on R3, we notice that the network 1.1.1.0/24 is advertised using BGP, which
means that our configuration work.

7 Figure 3.7. - IP route verification on R3

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When trying to ping from R3 to RR we have a 100% success rate, as seen in Figure 3.8.

8 Figure 3.8. - Ping output from R3 to RR

3.4. ADDRESS-FAMILY

The address-family in the BGP configuration allows you to define a specific behavior of BGP with
regards to many supported Layer3 protocols: IPv4 networks for unicast, multicast
The BGP treats all these address families individually, as if it has been configured in a separate instance
for each of them. These individual instances do not leak one into each other (even if they are of the same
basic type). This way, you can configure a single BGP process to maintain several databases of different
networks.
The BGP, as a multiprotocol routing protocol, can carry different types of routing information in a single
BGP session. That means, however, that for each of these network types, you need to somehow tell the
BGP which neighbors also support the same protocol type, which routes to inject, how are the individual
networks going to be filtered or their attributes modified, and so on. That is done in the address-family
context.
To configure it, the following commands are used, as seen in Figure 3.9.
address-family <family> <type>
network <ip_address> mask <subnet_mask>

9 Figure 3.9. - Address-family configuration

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3.5. ROUTE REDISTRIBUTION

On of the most important properties of BGP is route redistribution. By using this, the neighbors of one
router can have access to all the routes it has, may they be directly connected or static. For example, in
Figure 3.10. the redistribute connected command was used, thus allowing router R3 to have access to all
the directly connected routes of RR or BRR. This way, we can easily reac R4 from R3 without
configuring static routers on all four routers, thus simplyfying the work of network administrators.

10 Figure 3.10. - Redistribute connected command

Now, if we take a look at R3’s routing table, we notice that it’s been updated with all the directly
connected routes of RR and BRR and that they are learned through BGP.
Finally, as seen in Figure 3.12, we can try and ping R4 from R3 and have a successful connection. There
are two ping instances due to the fact that we’ve configured both routes from R3 to R4: one via RR on
interface g0/0 and one via BRR on interface g1/0, thus ensuring a redundant network. If one route fails,
the other route will suffice.

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 11 Figure 3.11. - R3 IP table

12 Figure 3.12. - Connection check from R3 to R4

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] “Cisco BGP-4 Command and Configuration handbook” by Ph.D, CCIE William R. Parkhurst, April
2001

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