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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
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+ <TITLE>BIRD User's Guide: Protocols</TITLE>
+ <LINK HREF="bird-7.html" REL=next>
+ <LINK HREF="bird-5.html" REL=previous>
+ <LINK HREF="bird.html#toc6" REL=contents>
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+<A HREF="bird-7.html">Next</A>
+<A HREF="bird-5.html">Previous</A>
+<A HREF="bird.html#toc6">Contents</A>
+<HR>
+<H2><A NAME="s6">6.</A> <A HREF="bird.html#toc6">Protocols</A></H2>
+
+<H2><A NAME="ss6.1">6.1</A> <A HREF="bird.html#toc6.1">BGP</A>
+</H2>
+
+<P>The Border Gateway Protocol is the routing protocol used for backbone
+level routing in the today's Internet. Contrary to the 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.
+<P>
+<P>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. It is identified by a unique 16-bit number
+(ASN). Routers within each AS usually exchange AS-internal routing
+information with each other using an interior gateway protocol (IGP,
+such as OSPF or RIP). Boundary routers at the border of
+the AS communicate global (inter-AS) network reachability information with
+their neighbors in the neighboring AS'es via exterior BGP (eBGP) and
+redistribute received information to other routers in the AS via
+interior BGP (iBGP).
+<P>
+<P>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 the particular
+route) in order to avoid routing loops.
+<P>
+<P>BIRD supports all requirements of the BGP4 standard as defined in
+RFC 4271
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4271.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4271.txt</A>
+It also supports the community attributes
+(RFC 1997
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1997.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1997.txt</A>),
+capability negotiation
+(RFC 3392
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3392.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3392.txt</A>),
+MD5 password authentication
+(RFC 2385
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2385.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2385.txt</A>),
+extended communities
+(RFC 4360
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4360.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4360.txt</A>),
+route reflectors
+(RFC 4456
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4456.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4456.txt</A>),
+multiprotocol extensions
+(RFC 4760
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4760.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4760.txt</A>),
+4B AS numbers
+(RFC 4893
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4893.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4893.txt</A>),
+and 4B AS numbers in extended communities
+(RFC 5668
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc5668.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc5668.txt</A>).
+<P>
+<P>For IPv6, it uses the standard multiprotocol extensions defined in
+RFC 2283
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2283.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2283.txt</A>
+including changes described in the
+latest draft
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-idr-bgp4-multiprotocol-v2-05.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-idr-bgp4-multiprotocol-v2-05.txt</A>
+and applied to IPv6 according to
+RFC 2545
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2545.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2545.txt</A>.
+<P>
+<H3>Route selection rules</H3>
+
+<P>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 they are implemented according to the following algorithm. It starts the first
+rule, if there are more "best" routes, then it uses the second rule to choose
+among them and so on.
+<P>
+<UL>
+<LI>Prefer route with the highest Local Preference attribute.</LI>
+<LI>Prefer route with the shortest AS path.</LI>
+<LI>Prefer IGP origin over EGP and EGP origin over incomplete.</LI>
+<LI>Prefer the lowest value of the Multiple Exit Discriminator.</LI>
+<LI>Prefer routes received via eBGP over ones received via iBGP.</LI>
+<LI>Prefer routes with lower internal distance to a boundary router.</LI>
+<LI>Prefer the route with the lowest value of router ID of the
+advertising router.</LI>
+</UL>
+<P>
+<H3>IGP routing table</H3>
+
+<P>BGP is mainly concerned with global network reachability and with
+routes to other autonomous systems. When such routes are redistributed
+to routers in the AS via BGP, they contain IP addresses of a boundary
+routers (in route attribute NEXT_HOP). BGP depends on existing IGP
+routing table with AS-internal routes to determine immediate next hops
+for routes and to know their internal distances to boundary routers
+for the purpose of BGP route selection. In BIRD, there is usually
+one routing table used for both IGP routes and BGP routes.
+<P>
+<H3>Configuration</H3>
+
+<P>Each instance of the BGP corresponds to one neighboring router.
+This allows to set routing policy and all the other parameters differently
+for each neighbor using the following configuration parameters:
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>local [<I>ip</I>] as <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>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.)
+Optional <CODE>ip</CODE> argument specifies a source address,
+equivalent to the <CODE>source address</CODE> option (see below).
+This parameter is mandatory.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>neighbor <I>ip</I> as <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>Define neighboring router
+this instance will be talking to and what AS it's located in. Unless
+you use the <CODE>multihop</CODE> clause, it must be directly connected to one
+of your router's interfaces. In case the neighbor is in the same AS
+as we are, we automatically switch to iBGP. This parameter is mandatory.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>multihop [<I>number</I>]</CODE><DD><P>Configure multihop BGP
+session to a neighbor that isn't directly connected.
+Accurately, this option should be used if the configured
+neighbor IP address does not match with any local network
+subnets. Such IP address have to be reachable through system
+routing table. For multihop BGP it is recommended to
+explicitly configure <CODE>source address</CODE> to have it
+stable. Optional <CODE>number</CODE> argument can be used to specify
+the number of hops (used for TTL). Note that the number of
+networks (edges) in a path is counted, i.e. if two BGP
+speakers are separated by one router, the number of hops is
+2. Default: switched off.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>source address <I>ip</I></CODE><DD><P>Define local address we
+should use for next hop calculation and as a source address
+for the BGP session. Default: the address of the local
+end of the interface our neighbor is connected to.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>next hop self</CODE><DD><P>Avoid calculation of the Next Hop
+attribute and always advertise our own source address as a
+next hop. This needs to be used only occasionally to
+circumvent misconfigurations of other routers. Default:
+disabled.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>next hop keep</CODE><DD><P>Forward the received Next Hop
+attribute even in situations where the local address should be
+used instead, like when the route is sent to an interface with
+a different subnet. Default: disabled.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>missing lladdr self|drop|ignore</CODE><DD><P>Next Hop attribute
+in BGP-IPv6 sometimes contains just the global IPv6 address,
+but sometimes it has to contain both global and link-local
+IPv6 addresses. This option specifies what to do if BIRD have
+to send both addresses but does not know link-local address.
+This situation might happen when routes from other protocols
+are exported to BGP, or when improper updates are received
+from BGP peers. <CODE>self</CODE> means that BIRD advertises its own
+local address instead. <CODE>drop</CODE> means that BIRD skips that
+prefixes and logs error. <CODE>ignore</CODE> means that BIRD ignores
+the problem and sends just the global address (and therefore
+forms improper BGP update). Default: <CODE>self</CODE>, unless BIRD
+is configured as a route server (option <CODE>rs client</CODE>), in
+that case default is <CODE>ignore</CODE>, because route servers usually
+do not forward packets themselves.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>gateway direct|recursive</CODE><DD><P>For received routes, their
+<CODE>gw</CODE> (immediate next hop) attribute is computed from
+received <CODE>bgp_next_hop</CODE> attribute. This option specifies
+how it is computed. Direct mode means that the IP address from
+<CODE>bgp_next_hop</CODE> is used if it is directly reachable,
+otherwise the neighbor IP address is used. Recursive mode
+means that the gateway is computed by an IGP routing table
+lookup for the IP address from <CODE>bgp_next_hop</CODE>. Recursive
+mode is the behavior specified by the BGP standard. Direct
+mode is simpler, does not require any routes in a routing
+table, and was used in older versions of BIRD, but does not
+handle well nontrivial iBGP setups and multihop. Recursive
+mode is incompatible with
+<A HREF="bird-2.html#dsc-sorted">sorted tables</A>. Default: <CODE>direct</CODE> for singlehop eBGP,
+<CODE>recursive</CODE> otherwise.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>igp table <I>name</I></CODE><DD><P>Specifies a table that is used
+as an IGP routing table. Default: the same as the table BGP is
+connected to.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>ttl security <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>Use GTSM (RFC 5082 - the
+generalized TTL security mechanism). GTSM protects against
+spoofed packets by ignoring received packets with a smaller
+than expected TTL. To work properly, GTSM have to be enabled
+on both sides of a BGP session. If both <CODE>ttl security</CODE> and
+<CODE>multihop</CODE> options are enabled, <CODE>multihop</CODE> option should
+specify proper hop value to compute expected TTL. Kernel
+support required: Linux: 2.6.34+ (IPv4), 2.6.35+ (IPv6), BSD:
+since long ago, IPv4 only. Note that full (ICMP protection,
+for example) RFC 5082 support is provided by Linux
+only. Default: disabled.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>password <I>string</I></CODE><DD><P>Use this password for MD5 authentication
+of BGP sessions. Default: no authentication. Password has to be set by
+external utility (e.g. setkey(8)) on BSD systems.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>passive <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>Standard BGP behavior is both
+initiating outgoing connections and accepting incoming
+connections. In passive mode, outgoing connections are not
+initiated. Default: off.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>rr client</CODE><DD><P>Be a route reflector and treat the neighbor as
+a route reflection client. Default: disabled.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>rr cluster id <I>IPv4 address</I></CODE><DD><P>Route reflectors use cluster id
+to avoid route reflection loops. When there is one route reflector in a cluster
+it usually uses its router id as a cluster id, but when there are more route
+reflectors in a cluster, these need to be configured (using this option) to
+use a common cluster id. Clients in a cluster need not know their cluster
+id and this option is not allowed for them. Default: the same as router id.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>rs client</CODE><DD><P>Be a route server and treat the neighbor
+as a route server client. A route server is used as a
+replacement for full mesh EBGP routing in Internet exchange
+points in a similar way to route reflectors used in IBGP routing.
+BIRD does not implement obsoleted RFC 1863, but uses ad-hoc implementation,
+which behaves like plain EBGP but reduces modifications to advertised route
+attributes to be transparent (for example does not prepend its AS number to
+AS PATH attribute and keeps MED attribute). Default: disabled.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>secondary <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>Usually, if an import filter
+rejects a selected route, no other route is propagated for
+that network. This option allows to try the next route in
+order until one that is accepted is found or all routes for
+that network are rejected. This can be used for route servers
+that need to propagate different tables to each client but do
+not want to have these tables explicitly (to conserve memory).
+This option requires that the connected routing table is
+<A HREF="bird-2.html#dsc-sorted">sorted</A>. Default: off.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>enable route refresh <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>When BGP speaker
+changes its import filter, it has to re-examine all routes
+received from its neighbor against the new filter. As these
+routes might not be available, there is a BGP protocol
+extension Route Refresh (specified in RFC 2918) that allows
+BGP speaker to request re-advertisement of all routes from its
+neighbor. This option specifies whether BIRD advertises this
+capability and accepts such requests. Even when disabled, BIRD
+can send route refresh requests. Default: on.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>interpret communities <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>RFC 1997 demands
+that BGP speaker should process well-known communities like
+no-export (65535, 65281) or no-advertise (65535, 65282). For
+example, received route carrying a no-adverise community
+should not be advertised to any of its neighbors. If this
+option is enabled (which is by default), BIRD has such
+behavior automatically (it is evaluated when a route is
+exported to the BGP protocol just before the export filter).
+Otherwise, this integrated processing of well-known
+communities is disabled. In that case, similar behavior can be
+implemented in the export filter. Default: on.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>enable as4 <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>BGP protocol was designed to use 2B AS numbers
+and was extended later to allow 4B AS number. BIRD supports 4B AS extension,
+but by disabling this option it can be persuaded not to advertise it and
+to maintain old-style sessions with its neighbors. This might be useful for
+circumventing bugs in neighbor's implementation of 4B AS extension.
+Even when disabled (off), BIRD behaves internally as AS4-aware BGP router.
+Default: on.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>capabilities <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>Use capability advertisement
+to advertise optional capabilities. This is standard behavior
+for newer BGP implementations, but there might be some older
+BGP implementations that reject such connection attempts.
+When disabled (off), features that request it (4B AS support)
+are also disabled. Default: on, with automatic fallback to
+off when received capability-related error.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>advertise ipv4 <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>Advertise IPv4 multiprotocol capability.
+This is not a correct behavior according to the strict interpretation
+of RFC 4760, but it is widespread and required by some BGP
+implementations (Cisco and Quagga). This option is relevant
+to IPv4 mode with enabled capability advertisement only. Default: on.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>route limit <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>The maximal number of routes
+that may be imported from the protocol. If the route limit is
+exceeded, the connection is closed with an error. Limit is currently implemented as
+<CODE>import limit <I>number</I> action restart</CODE>. This option is obsolete and it is
+replaced by
+<A HREF="bird-3.html#import-limit">import limit option</A>. Default: no limit.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>disable after error <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>When an error is encountered (either
+locally or by the other side), disable the instance automatically
+and wait for an administrator to fix the problem manually. Default: off.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>hold time <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>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.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>startup hold time <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>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.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>keepalive time <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>Delay in seconds between sending
+of two consecutive Keepalive messages. Default: One third of the hold time.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>connect retry time <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>Time in seconds to wait before
+retrying a failed attempt to connect. Default: 120 seconds.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>start delay time <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>Delay in seconds between protocol
+startup and the first attempt to connect. Default: 5 seconds.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>error wait time <I>number</I>,<I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>Minimum and maximum delay in seconds between a protocol
+failure (either local or reported by the peer) and automatic restart.
+Doesn't apply when <CODE>disable after error</CODE> is configured. If consecutive
+errors happen, the delay is increased exponentially until it reaches the maximum. Default: 60, 300.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>error forget time <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>Maximum time in seconds between two protocol
+failures to treat them as a error sequence which makes the <CODE>error wait time</CODE>
+increase exponentially. Default: 300 seconds.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>path metric <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>Enable comparison of path lengths
+when deciding which BGP route is the best one. Default: on.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>med metric <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>Enable comparison of MED
+attributes (during best route selection) even between routes
+received from different ASes. This may be useful if all MED
+attributes contain some consistent metric, perhaps enforced in
+import filters of AS boundary routers. If this option is
+disabled, MED attributes are compared only if routes are
+received from the same AS (which is the standard behavior).
+Default: off.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>deterministic med <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>BGP route selection
+algorithm is often viewed as a comparison between individual
+routes (e.g. if a new route appears and is better than the
+current best one, it is chosen as the new best one). But the
+proper route selection, as specified by RFC 4271, cannot be
+fully implemented in that way. The problem is mainly in
+handling the MED attribute. BIRD, by default, uses an
+simplification based on individual route comparison, which in
+some cases may lead to temporally dependent behavior (i.e. the
+selection is dependent on the order in which routes appeared).
+This option enables a different (and slower) algorithm
+implementing proper RFC 4271 route selection, which is
+deterministic. Alternative way how to get deterministic
+behavior is to use <CODE>med metric</CODE> option. This option is
+incompatible with
+<A HREF="bird-2.html#dsc-sorted">sorted tables</A>.
+Default: off.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>igp metric <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>Enable comparison of internal
+distances to boundary routers during best route selection. Default: on.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>prefer older <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>Standard route selection algorithm
+breaks ties by comparing router IDs. This changes the behavior
+to prefer older routes (when both are external and from different
+peer). For details, see RFC 5004. Default: off.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>default bgp_med <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>Value of the Multiple Exit
+Discriminator to be used during route selection when the MED attribute
+is missing. Default: 0.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>default bgp_local_pref <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>A default value
+for the Local Preference attribute. It is used when a new
+Local Preference attribute is attached to a route by the BGP
+protocol itself (for example, if a route is received through
+eBGP and therefore does not have such attribute). Default: 100
+(0 in pre-1.2.0 versions of BIRD).
+</DL>
+<P>
+<H3>Attributes</H3>
+
+<P>BGP defines several route attributes. Some of them (those marked with `<CODE>I</CODE>' in the
+table below) are available on internal BGP connections only, some of them (marked
+with `<CODE>O</CODE>') are optional.
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>bgppath <CODE>bgp_path</CODE></CODE><DD><P>Sequence of AS numbers describing the AS path
+the packet will travel through when forwarded according to the particular route.
+In case of internal BGP it doesn't contain the number of the local AS.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>int <CODE>bgp_local_pref</CODE> [I]</CODE><DD><P>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.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>int <CODE>bgp_med</CODE> [O]</CODE><DD><P>The Multiple Exit Discriminator of the route
+is an optional attribute which is used on external (inter-AS) links to
+convey to an adjacent AS the optimal entry point into the local AS.
+The received attribute is also propagated over internal BGP links.
+The attribute value is zeroed when a route is exported to an external BGP
+instance to ensure that the attribute received from a neighboring AS is
+not propagated to other neighboring ASes. A new value might be set in
+the export filter of an external BGP instance.
+See RFC 4451
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4451.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4451.txt</A>
+for further discussion of BGP MED attribute.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>enum <CODE>bgp_origin</CODE></CODE><DD><P>Origin of the route: either <CODE>ORIGIN_IGP</CODE>
+if the route has originated in an interior routing protocol or
+<CODE>ORIGIN_EGP</CODE> if it's been imported from the <CODE>EGP</CODE> protocol
+(nowadays it seems to be obsolete) or <CODE>ORIGIN_INCOMPLETE</CODE> if the origin
+is unknown.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>ip <CODE>bgp_next_hop</CODE></CODE><DD><P>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.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>void <CODE>bgp_atomic_aggr</CODE> [O]</CODE><DD><P>This is an optional attribute
+which carries no value, but the sole presence of which indicates that the route
+has been aggregated from multiple routes by some router on the path from
+the originator.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>clist <CODE>bgp_community</CODE> [O]</CODE><DD><P>List of community values associated
+with the route. Each such value is a pair (represented as a <CODE>pair</CODE> data
+type inside the filters) of 16-bit integers, the first of them containing the number of the AS which defines
+the community and the second one being 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 will their semantics be.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>eclist <CODE>bgp_ext_community</CODE> [O]</CODE><DD><P>List of extended community
+values associated with the route. Extended communities have similar usage
+as plain communities, but they have an extended range (to allow 4B ASNs)
+and a nontrivial structure with a type field. Individual community values are
+represented using an <CODE>ec</CODE> data type inside the filters.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>quad <CODE>bgp_originator_id</CODE> [I, O]</CODE><DD><P>This attribute is created by the
+route reflector when reflecting the route and contains the router ID of the
+originator of the route in the local AS.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>clist <CODE>bgp_cluster_list</CODE> [I, O]</CODE><DD><P>This attribute contains a list
+of cluster IDs of route reflectors. Each route reflector prepends its
+cluster ID when reflecting the route.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<H3>Example</H3>
+
+<P>
+<HR>
+<PRE>
+protocol bgp {
+ local as 65000; # Use a private AS number
+ neighbor 198.51.100.130 as 64496; # Our neighbor ...
+ multihop; # ... which is connected indirectly
+ export filter { # We use non-trivial export rules
+ if source = RTS_STATIC then { # Export only static routes
+ # Assign our community
+ bgp_community.add((65000,64501));
+ # Artificially increase path length
+ # by advertising local AS number twice
+ if bgp_path ~ [= 65000 =] then
+ bgp_path.prepend(65000);
+ accept;
+ }
+ reject;
+ };
+ import all;
+ source address 198.51.100.14; # Use a non-standard source address
+}
+</PRE>
+<HR>
+<P>
+<H2><A NAME="ss6.2">6.2</A> <A HREF="bird.html#toc6.2">Device</A>
+</H2>
+
+<P>The Device protocol is not a real routing protocol. It doesn't generate
+any routes and it only serves as a module for getting information about network
+interfaces from the kernel.
+<P>
+<P>Except for very unusual circumstances, you probably should include
+this protocol in the configuration since almost all other protocols
+require network interfaces to be defined for them to work with.
+<P>
+<H3>Configuration</H3>
+
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>scan time <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>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 in order to avoid confusion by lost
+notification messages, so the default time is set to a large value.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>primary [ "<I>mask</I>" ] <I>prefix</I></CODE><DD><P>If a network interface has more than one network address, BIRD
+has to choose one of them as a primary one. By default, BIRD
+chooses the lexicographically smallest address as the primary
+one.
+<P>This option allows to specify which network address should be
+chosen as a primary one. Network addresses that match
+<I>prefix</I> are preferred to non-matching addresses. If more
+<CODE>primary</CODE> options are used, the first one has the highest
+preference. If "<I>mask</I>" is specified, then such
+<CODE>primary</CODE> option is relevant only to matching network
+interfaces.
+<P>In all cases, an address marked by operating system as
+secondary cannot be chosen as the primary one.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<P>As the Device protocol doesn't generate any routes, it cannot have
+any attributes. Example configuration looks like this:
+<P>
+<P>
+<HR>
+<PRE>
+protocol device {
+ scan time 10; # Scan the interfaces often
+ primary "eth0" 192.168.1.1;
+ primary 192.168.0.0/16;
+}
+</PRE>
+<HR>
+<P>
+<H2><A NAME="ss6.3">6.3</A> <A HREF="bird.html#toc6.3">Direct</A>
+</H2>
+
+<P>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.
+<P>
+<P>The question is whether it is a good idea to have such device
+routes in BIRD routing table. OS kernel usually handles device routes
+for directly connected networks by itself so we don't need (and don't
+want) to export these routes to the kernel protocol. OSPF protocol
+creates device routes for its interfaces itself and BGP protocol is
+usually used for exporting aggregate routes. 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.
+<P>
+<P>There is one notable case when you definitely want to use the
+direct protocol -- running BIRD on BSD systems. Having high priority
+device routes for directly connected networks from the direct protocol
+protects kernel device routes from being overwritten or removed by IGP
+routes during some transient network conditions, because a lower
+priority IGP route for the same network is not exported to the kernel
+routing table. This is an issue on BSD systems only, as on Linux
+systems BIRD cannot change non-BIRD route in the kernel routing table.
+<P>
+<P>The only configurable thing about direct is what interfaces it watches:
+<P>
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>interface <I>pattern [, ...]</I></CODE><DD><P>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.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<P>Direct device routes don't contain any specific attributes.
+<P>
+<P>Example config might look like this:
+<P>
+<P>
+<HR>
+<PRE>
+protocol direct {
+ interface "-arc*", "*"; # Exclude the ARCnets
+}
+</PRE>
+<HR>
+<P>
+<H2><A NAME="ss6.4">6.4</A> <A HREF="bird.html#toc6.4">Kernel</A>
+</H2>
+
+<P>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 the 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 (depending on the
+<CODE>learn</CODE> switch, such routes are either ignored or accepted to our
+table).
+<P>
+<P>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. This restriction can be disabled using
+<CODE>device routes</CODE> switch.
+<P>
+<P>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; such an OS is for example
+Linux), 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.
+<P>
+<P>Because the kernel protocol is partially integrated with the
+connected routing table, there are two limitations - it is not
+possible to connect more kernel protocols to the same routing table
+and changing route destination/gateway in an export
+filter of a kernel protocol does not work. Both limitations can be
+overcome using another routing table and the pipe protocol.
+<P>
+<H3>Configuration</H3>
+
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>persist <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>Tell BIRD to leave all its routes in the
+routing tables when it exits (instead of cleaning them up).
+<DT><CODE>scan time <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>Time in seconds between two consecutive scans of the
+kernel routing table.
+<DT><CODE>learn <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>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.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>device routes <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>Enable export of device
+routes to the kernel routing table. By default, such routes
+are rejected (with the exception of explicitly configured
+device routes from the static protocol) regardless of the
+export filter to protect device routes in kernel routing table
+(managed by OS itself) from accidental overwriting or erasing.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>kernel table <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>Select which kernel table should
+this particular instance of the Kernel protocol work with. Available
+only on systems supporting multiple routing tables.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<H3>Attributes</H3>
+
+<P>The Kernel protocol defines several attributes. These attributes
+are translated to appropriate system (and OS-specific) route attributes.
+We support these attributes:
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>int <CODE>krt_source</CODE></CODE><DD><P>The original source of the imported
+kernel route. The value is system-dependent. On Linux, it is
+a value of the protocol field of the route. See
+/etc/iproute2/rt_protos for common values. On BSD, it is
+based on STATIC and PROTOx flags. The attribute is read-only.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>int <CODE>krt_metric</CODE></CODE><DD><P>The kernel metric of
+the route. When multiple same routes are in a kernel routing
+table, the Linux kernel chooses one with lower metric.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>ip <CODE>krt_prefsrc</CODE></CODE><DD><P>(Linux) The preferred source address.
+Used in source address selection for outgoing packets. Have to
+be one of IP addresses of the router.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>int <CODE>krt_realm</CODE></CODE><DD><P>(Linux) The realm of the route. Can be
+used for traffic classification.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<H3>Example</H3>
+
+<P>A simple configuration can look this way:
+<P>
+<P>
+<HR>
+<PRE>
+protocol kernel {
+ export all;
+}
+</PRE>
+<HR>
+<P>
+<P>Or for a system with two routing tables:
+<P>
+<P>
+<HR>
+<PRE>
+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;
+}
+</PRE>
+<HR>
+<P>
+<H2><A NAME="ss6.5">6.5</A> <A HREF="bird.html#toc6.5">OSPF</A>
+</H2>
+
+<H3>Introduction</H3>
+
+<P>Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is a quite complex interior gateway
+protocol. The current IPv4 version (OSPFv2) is defined in RFC
+2328
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2328.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2328.txt</A> and
+the current IPv6 version (OSPFv3) is defined in RFC 5340
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc5340.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc5340.txt</A> It's a link state
+(a.k.a. shortest path first) protocol -- each router maintains a
+database describing the autonomous system's topology. Each participating
+router has an identical copy of the database and all routers run the
+same algorithm calculating a shortest path tree with themselves as a
+root. OSPF chooses the least cost path as the best path.
+<P>
+<P>In OSPF, the autonomous system can be split to several areas in order
+to reduce the amount of resources consumed for exchanging the routing
+information and to protect the other areas from incorrect routing data.
+Topology of the area is hidden to the rest of the autonomous system.
+<P>
+<P>Another very important feature of OSPF is that
+it can keep routing information from other protocols (like Static or BGP)
+in its link state database as external routes. Each external route can
+be tagged by the advertising router, making it possible to pass additional
+information between routers on the boundary of the autonomous system.
+<P>
+<P>OSPF quickly detects topological changes in the autonomous system (such
+as router interface failures) and calculates new loop-free routes after a short
+period of convergence. Only a minimal amount of
+routing traffic is involved.
+<P>
+<P>Each router participating in OSPF routing periodically sends Hello messages
+to all its interfaces. This allows neighbors to be discovered dynamically.
+Then the neighbors exchange theirs parts of the link state database and keep it
+identical by flooding updates. The flooding process is reliable and ensures
+that each router detects all changes.
+<P>
+<H3>Configuration</H3>
+
+<P>In the main part of configuration, there can be multiple definitions of
+OSPF areas, each with a different id. These definitions includes many other
+switches and multiple definitions of interfaces. Definition of interface
+may contain many switches and constant definitions and list of neighbors
+on nonbroadcast networks.
+<P>
+<HR>
+<PRE>
+protocol ospf &lt;name&gt; {
+ rfc1583compat &lt;switch&gt;;
+ stub router &lt;switch&gt;;
+ tick &lt;num&gt;;
+ ecmp &lt;switch&gt; [limit &lt;num&gt;];
+ area &lt;id&gt; {
+ stub;
+ nssa;
+ summary &lt;switch&gt;;
+ default nssa &lt;switch&gt;;
+ default cost &lt;num&gt;;
+ default cost2 &lt;num&gt;;
+ translator &lt;switch&gt;;
+ translator stability &lt;num&gt;;
+
+ networks {
+ &lt;prefix&gt;;
+ &lt;prefix&gt; hidden;
+ }
+ external {
+ &lt;prefix&gt;;
+ &lt;prefix&gt; hidden;
+ &lt;prefix&gt; tag &lt;num&gt;;
+ }
+ stubnet &lt;prefix&gt;;
+ stubnet &lt;prefix&gt; {
+ hidden &lt;switch&gt;;
+ summary &lt;switch&gt;;
+ cost &lt;num&gt;;
+ }
+ interface &lt;interface pattern&gt; [instance &lt;num&gt;] {
+ cost &lt;num&gt;;
+ stub &lt;switch&gt;;
+ hello &lt;num&gt;;
+ poll &lt;num&gt;;
+ retransmit &lt;num&gt;;
+ priority &lt;num&gt;;
+ wait &lt;num&gt;;
+ dead count &lt;num&gt;;
+ dead &lt;num&gt;;
+ rx buffer [normal|large|&lt;num&gt;];
+ type [broadcast|bcast|pointopoint|ptp|
+ nonbroadcast|nbma|pointomultipoint|ptmp];
+ strict nonbroadcast &lt;switch&gt;;
+ real broadcast &lt;switch&gt;;
+ ptp netmask &lt;switch&gt;;
+ check link &lt;switch&gt;;
+ ecmp weight &lt;num&gt;;
+ ttl security [&lt;switch&gt;; | tx only]
+ tx class|dscp &lt;num&gt;;
+ tx priority &lt;num&gt;;
+ authentication [none|simple|cryptographic];
+ password "&lt;text&gt;";
+ password "&lt;text&gt;" {
+ id &lt;num&gt;;
+ generate from "&lt;date&gt;";
+ generate to "&lt;date&gt;";
+ accept from "&lt;date&gt;";
+ accept to "&lt;date&gt;";
+ };
+ neighbors {
+ &lt;ip&gt;;
+ &lt;ip&gt; eligible;
+ };
+ };
+ virtual link &lt;id&gt; [instance &lt;num&gt;] {
+ hello &lt;num&gt;;
+ retransmit &lt;num&gt;;
+ wait &lt;num&gt;;
+ dead count &lt;num&gt;;
+ dead &lt;num&gt;;
+ authentication [none|simple|cryptographic];
+ password "&lt;text&gt;";
+ };
+ };
+}
+</PRE>
+<HR>
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>rfc1583compat <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>This option controls compatibility of routing table
+calculation with RFC 1583
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1583.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1583.txt</A>. Default
+value is no.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>stub router <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>This option configures the router to be a stub router, i.e.,
+a router that participates in the OSPF topology but does not
+allow transit traffic. In OSPFv2, this is implemented by
+advertising maximum metric for outgoing links, as suggested
+by RFC 3137
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3137.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3137.txt</A>.
+In OSPFv3, the stub router behavior is announced by clearing
+the R-bit in the router LSA. Default value is no.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>tick <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>The routing table calculation and clean-up of areas' databases
+is not performed when a single link state
+change arrives. To lower the CPU utilization, it's processed later
+at periodical intervals of <I>num</I> seconds. The default value is 1.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>ecmp <I>switch</I> [limit <I>number</I>]</CODE><DD><P>This option specifies whether OSPF is allowed to generate
+ECMP (equal-cost multipath) routes. Such routes are used when
+there are several directions to the destination, each with
+the same (computed) cost. This option also allows to specify
+a limit on maximal number of nexthops in one route. By
+default, ECMP is disabled. If enabled, default value of the
+limit is 16.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>area <I>id</I></CODE><DD><P>This defines an OSPF area with given area ID (an integer or an IPv4
+address, similarly to a router ID). The most important area is
+the backbone (ID 0) to which every other area must be connected.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>stub</CODE><DD><P>This option configures the area to be a stub area. External
+routes are not flooded into stub areas. Also summary LSAs can be
+limited in stub areas (see option <CODE>summary</CODE>).
+By default, the area is not a stub area.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>nssa</CODE><DD><P>This option configures the area to be a NSSA (Not-So-Stubby
+Area). NSSA is a variant of a stub area which allows a
+limited way of external route propagation. Global external
+routes are not propagated into a NSSA, but an external route
+can be imported into NSSA as a (area-wide) NSSA-LSA (and
+possibly translated and/or aggregated on area boundary).
+By default, the area is not NSSA.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>summary <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>This option controls propagation of summary LSAs into stub or
+NSSA areas. If enabled, summary LSAs are propagated as usual,
+otherwise just the default summary route (0.0.0.0/0) is
+propagated (this is sometimes called totally stubby area). If
+a stub area has more area boundary routers, propagating
+summary LSAs could lead to more efficient routing at the cost
+of larger link state database. Default value is no.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>default nssa <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>When <CODE>summary</CODE> option is enabled, default summary route is
+no longer propagated to the NSSA. In that case, this option
+allows to originate default route as NSSA-LSA to the NSSA.
+Default value is no.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>default cost <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>This option controls the cost of a default route propagated to
+stub and NSSA areas. Default value is 1000.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>default cost2 <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>When a default route is originated as NSSA-LSA, its cost
+can use either type 1 or type 2 metric. This option allows
+to specify the cost of a default route in type 2 metric.
+By default, type 1 metric (option <CODE>default cost</CODE>) is used.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>translator <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>This option controls translation of NSSA-LSAs into external
+LSAs. By default, one translator per NSSA is automatically
+elected from area boundary routers. If enabled, this area
+boundary router would unconditionally translate all NSSA-LSAs
+regardless of translator election. Default value is no.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>translator stability <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>This option controls the translator stability interval (in
+seconds). When the new translator is elected, the old one
+keeps translating until the interval is over. Default value
+is 40.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>networks { <I>set</I> }</CODE><DD><P>Definition of area IP ranges. This is used in summary LSA origination.
+Hidden networks are not propagated into other areas.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>external { <I>set</I> }</CODE><DD><P>Definition of external area IP ranges for NSSAs. This is used
+for NSSA-LSA translation. Hidden networks are not translated
+into external LSAs. Networks can have configured route tag.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>stubnet <I>prefix</I> { <I>options</I> }</CODE><DD><P>Stub networks are networks that are not transit networks
+between OSPF routers. They are also propagated through an
+OSPF area as a part of a link state database. By default,
+BIRD generates a stub network record for each primary network
+address on each OSPF interface that does not have any OSPF
+neighbors, and also for each non-primary network address on
+each OSPF interface. This option allows to alter a set of
+stub networks propagated by this router.
+<P>Each instance of this option adds a stub network with given
+network prefix to the set of propagated stub network, unless
+option <CODE>hidden</CODE> is used. It also suppresses default stub
+networks for given network prefix. When option
+<CODE>summary</CODE> is used, also default stub networks that are
+subnetworks of given stub network are suppressed. This might
+be used, for example, to aggregate generated stub networks.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>interface <I>pattern</I> [instance <I>num</I>]</CODE><DD><P>Defines that the specified interfaces belong to the area being defined.
+See
+<A HREF="bird-3.html#dsc-iface">interface</A> common option for detailed description.
+In OSPFv3, you can specify instance ID for that interface
+description, so it is possible to have several instances of
+that interface with different options or even in different areas.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>virtual link <I>id</I> [instance <I>num</I>]</CODE><DD><P>Virtual link to router with the router id. Virtual link acts
+as a point-to-point interface belonging to backbone. The
+actual area is used as transport area. This item cannot be in
+the backbone. In OSPFv3, you could also use several virtual
+links to one destination with different instance IDs.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>cost <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>Specifies output cost (metric) of an interface. Default value is 10.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>stub <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>If set to interface it does not listen to any packet and does not send
+any hello. Default value is no.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>hello <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>Specifies interval in seconds between sending of Hello messages. Beware, all
+routers on the same network need to have the same hello interval.
+Default value is 10.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>poll <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>Specifies interval in seconds between sending of Hello messages for
+some neighbors on NBMA network. Default value is 20.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>retransmit <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>Specifies interval in seconds between retransmissions of unacknowledged updates.
+Default value is 5.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>priority <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>On every multiple access network (e.g., the Ethernet) Designed Router
+and Backup Designed router are elected. These routers have some
+special functions in the flooding process. Higher priority increases
+preferences in this election. Routers with priority 0 are not
+eligible. Default value is 1.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>wait <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>After start, router waits for the specified number of seconds between starting
+election and building adjacency. Default value is 40.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>dead count <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>When the router does not receive any messages from a neighbor in
+<I>dead count</I>*<I>hello</I> seconds, it will consider the neighbor down.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>dead <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>When the router does not receive any messages from a neighbor in
+<I>dead</I> seconds, it will consider the neighbor down. If both directives
+<I>dead count</I> and <I>dead</I> are used, <I>dead</I> has precendence.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>rx buffer <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>This sets the size of buffer used for receiving packets. The buffer should
+be bigger than maximal size of any packets. Value NORMAL (default)
+means 2*MTU, value LARGE means maximal allowed packet - 65535.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>type broadcast|bcast</CODE><DD><P>BIRD detects a type of a connected network automatically, but
+sometimes it's convenient to force use of a different type
+manually. On broadcast networks (like ethernet), flooding
+and Hello messages are sent using multicasts (a single packet
+for all the neighbors). A designated router is elected and it
+is responsible for synchronizing the link-state databases and
+originating network LSAs. This network type cannot be used on
+physically NBMA networks and on unnumbered networks (networks
+without proper IP prefix).
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>type pointopoint|ptp</CODE><DD><P>Point-to-point networks connect just 2 routers together. No
+election is performed and no network LSA is originated, which
+makes it simpler and faster to establish. This network type
+is useful not only for physically PtP ifaces (like PPP or
+tunnels), but also for broadcast networks used as PtP links.
+This network type cannot be used on physically NBMA networks.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>type nonbroadcast|nbma</CODE><DD><P>On NBMA networks, the packets are sent to each neighbor
+separately because of lack of multicast capabilities.
+Like on broadcast networks, a designated router is elected,
+which plays a central role in propagation of LSAs.
+This network type cannot be used on unnumbered networks.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>type pointomultipoint|ptmp</CODE><DD><P>This is another network type designed to handle NBMA
+networks. In this case the NBMA network is treated as a
+collection of PtP links. This is useful if not every pair of
+routers on the NBMA network has direct communication, or if
+the NBMA network is used as an (possibly unnumbered) PtP
+link.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>strict nonbroadcast <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>If set, don't send hello to any undefined neighbor. This switch
+is ignored on other than NBMA or PtMP networks. Default value is no.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>real broadcast <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>In <CODE>type broadcast</CODE> or <CODE>type ptp</CODE> network
+configuration, OSPF packets are sent as IP multicast
+packets. This option changes the behavior to using
+old-fashioned IP broadcast packets. This may be useful as a
+workaround if IP multicast for some reason does not work or
+does not work reliably. This is a non-standard option and
+probably is not interoperable with other OSPF
+implementations. Default value is no.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>ptp netmask <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>In <CODE>type ptp</CODE> network configurations, OSPFv2
+implementations should ignore received netmask field in hello
+packets and should send hello packets with zero netmask field
+on unnumbered PtP links. But some OSPFv2 implementations
+perform netmask checking even for PtP links. This option
+specifies whether real netmask will be used in hello packets
+on <CODE>type ptp</CODE> interfaces. You should ignore this option
+unless you meet some compatibility problems related to this
+issue. Default value is no for unnumbered PtP links, yes
+otherwise.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>check link <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>If set, a hardware link state (reported by OS) is taken into
+consideration. When a link disappears (e.g. an ethernet cable is
+unplugged), neighbors are immediately considered unreachable
+and only the address of the iface (instead of whole network
+prefix) is propagated. It is possible that some hardware
+drivers or platforms do not implement this feature. Default value is no.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>ttl security [<I>switch</I> | tx only]</CODE><DD><P>TTL security is a feature that protects routing protocols
+from remote spoofed packets by using TTL 255 instead of TTL 1
+for protocol packets destined to neighbors. Because TTL is
+decremented when packets are forwarded, it is non-trivial to
+spoof packets with TTL 255 from remote locations. Note that
+this option would interfere with OSPF virtual links.
+<P>If this option is enabled, the router will send OSPF packets
+with TTL 255 and drop received packets with TTL less than
+255. If this option si set to <CODE>tx only</CODE>, TTL 255 is used
+for sent packets, but is not checked for received
+packets. Default value is no.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>tx class|dscp|priority <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>These options specify the ToS/DiffServ/Traffic class/Priority
+of the outgoing OSPF packets. See
+<A HREF="bird-3.html#dsc-prio">tx class</A> common option for detailed description.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>ecmp weight <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>When ECMP (multipath) routes are allowed, this value specifies
+a relative weight used for nexthops going through the iface.
+Allowed values are 1-256. Default value is 1.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>authentication none</CODE><DD><P>No passwords are sent in OSPF packets. This is the default value.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>authentication simple</CODE><DD><P>Every packet carries 8 bytes of password. Received packets
+lacking this password are ignored. This authentication mechanism is
+very weak.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>authentication cryptographic</CODE><DD><P>16-byte long MD5 digest is appended to every packet. For the digest
+generation 16-byte long passwords are used. Those passwords are
+not sent via network, so this mechanism is quite secure.
+Packets can still be read by an attacker.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>password "<I>text</I>"</CODE><DD><P>An 8-byte or 16-byte password used for authentication.
+See
+<A HREF="bird-3.html#dsc-pass">password</A> common option for detailed description.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>neighbors { <I>set</I> } </CODE><DD><P>A set of neighbors to which Hello messages on NBMA or PtMP
+networks are to be sent. For NBMA networks, some of them
+could be marked as eligible. In OSPFv3, link-local addresses
+should be used, using global ones is possible, but it is
+nonstandard and might be problematic. And definitely,
+link-local and global addresses should not be mixed.
+<P>
+</DL>
+<P>
+<H3>Attributes</H3>
+
+<P>OSPF defines four route attributes. Each internal route has a <CODE>metric</CODE>.
+Metric is ranging from 1 to infinity (65535).
+External routes use <CODE>metric type 1</CODE> or <CODE>metric type 2</CODE>.
+A <CODE>metric of type 1</CODE> is comparable with internal <CODE>metric</CODE>, a
+<CODE>metric of type 2</CODE> is always longer
+than any <CODE>metric of type 1</CODE> or any <CODE>internal metric</CODE>.
+<CODE>Internal metric</CODE> or <CODE>metric of type 1</CODE> is stored in attribute
+<CODE>ospf_metric1</CODE>, <CODE>metric type 2</CODE> is stored in attribute <CODE>ospf_metric2</CODE>.
+If you specify both metrics only metric1 is used.
+<P>Each external route can also carry attribute <CODE>ospf_tag</CODE> which is a
+32-bit integer which is used when exporting routes to other protocols;
+otherwise, it doesn't affect routing inside the OSPF domain at all.
+The fourth attribute <CODE>ospf_router_id</CODE> is a router ID of the router
+advertising that route/network. This attribute is read-only. Default
+is <CODE>ospf_metric2 = 10000</CODE> and <CODE>ospf_tag = 0</CODE>.
+<P>
+<H3>Example</H3>
+
+<P>
+<P>
+<HR>
+<PRE>
+protocol ospf MyOSPF {
+ rfc1583compat yes;
+ tick 2;
+ export filter {
+ if source = RTS_BGP then {
+ ospf_metric1 = 100;
+ accept;
+ }
+ reject;
+ };
+ area 0.0.0.0 {
+ interface "eth*" {
+ cost 11;
+ hello 15;
+ priority 100;
+ retransmit 7;
+ authentication simple;
+ password "aaa";
+ };
+ interface "ppp*" {
+ cost 100;
+ authentication cryptographic;
+ password "abc" {
+ id 1;
+ generate to "22-04-2003 11:00:06";
+ accept from "17-01-2001 12:01:05";
+ };
+ password "def" {
+ id 2;
+ generate to "22-07-2005 17:03:21";
+ accept from "22-02-2001 11:34:06";
+ };
+ };
+ interface "arc0" {
+ cost 10;
+ stub yes;
+ };
+ interface "arc1";
+ };
+ area 120 {
+ stub yes;
+ networks {
+ 172.16.1.0/24;
+ 172.16.2.0/24 hidden;
+ }
+ interface "-arc0" , "arc*" {
+ type nonbroadcast;
+ authentication none;
+ strict nonbroadcast yes;
+ wait 120;
+ poll 40;
+ dead count 8;
+ neighbors {
+ 192.168.120.1 eligible;
+ 192.168.120.2;
+ 192.168.120.10;
+ };
+ };
+ };
+}
+</PRE>
+<HR>
+<P>
+<H2><A NAME="ss6.6">6.6</A> <A HREF="bird.html#toc6.6">Pipe</A>
+</H2>
+
+<H3>Introduction</H3>
+
+<P>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 to using the
+<CODE>table</CODE> configuration keyword) to the secondary one (declared using <CODE>peer table</CODE>)
+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.
+<P>
+<P>The Pipe protocol may work in the transparent mode mode or in the opaque mode.
+In the transparent mode, the Pipe protocol retransmits all routes from
+one table to the other table, retaining their original source and
+attributes. If import and export filters are set to accept, then both
+tables would have the same content. The transparent mode is the default mode.
+<P>
+<P>In the opaque mode, the Pipe protocol retransmits optimal route
+from one table to the other table in a similar way like other
+protocols send and receive routes. Retransmitted route will have the
+source set to the Pipe protocol, which may limit access to protocol
+specific route attributes. This mode is mainly for compatibility, it
+is not suggested for new configs. The mode can be changed by
+<CODE>mode</CODE> option.
+<P>
+<P>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 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
+(on Linux, you can use the <CODE>ip</CODE> 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 for exporting a selected subset of one table to
+another one.
+<P>
+<H3>Configuration</H3>
+
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>peer table <I>table</I></CODE><DD><P>Defines secondary routing table to connect to. The
+primary one is selected by the <CODE>table</CODE> keyword.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>mode opaque|transparent</CODE><DD><P>Specifies the mode for the pipe to work in. Default is transparent.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<H3>Attributes</H3>
+
+<P>The Pipe protocol doesn't define any route attributes.
+<P>
+<H3>Example</H3>
+
+<P>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.
+<P>
+<P>Probably the simplest solution to this situation is to use two routing tables (we'll
+call them <CODE>as1</CODE> and <CODE>as2</CODE>) and set up kernel routing rules, so that packets having
+arrived from interfaces belonging to the first AS will be routed according to <CODE>as1</CODE>
+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 the AS boundary crossing.
+<P>
+<HR>
+<PRE>
+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;
+ };
+}
+</PRE>
+<HR>
+<P>
+<H2><A NAME="ss6.7">6.7</A> <A HREF="bird.html#toc6.7">RAdv</A>
+</H2>
+
+<H3>Introduction</H3>
+
+<P>The RAdv protocol is an implementation of Router Advertisements,
+which are used in the IPv6 stateless autoconfiguration. IPv6 routers
+send (in irregular time intervals or as an answer to a request)
+advertisement packets to connected networks. These packets contain
+basic information about a local network (e.g. a list of network
+prefixes), which allows network hosts to autoconfigure network
+addresses and choose a default route. BIRD implements router behavior
+as defined in
+RFC 4861
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4861.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc4861.txt</A>
+and also the DNS extensions from
+RFC 6106
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc6106.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc6106.txt</A>.
+<P>
+<H3>Configuration</H3>
+
+<P>There are several classes of definitions in RAdv configuration --
+interface definitions, prefix definitions and DNS definitions:
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>interface <I>pattern [, ...]</I> { <I>options</I> }</CODE><DD><P>Interface definitions specify a set of interfaces on which the
+protocol is activated and contain interface specific options.
+See
+<A HREF="bird-3.html#dsc-iface">interface</A> common options for
+detailed description.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>prefix <I>prefix</I> { <I>options</I> }</CODE><DD><P>Prefix definitions allow to modify a list of advertised
+prefixes. By default, the advertised prefixes are the same as
+the network prefixes assigned to the interface. For each
+network prefix, the matching prefix definition is found and
+its options are used. If no matching prefix definition is
+found, the prefix is used with default options.
+<P>Prefix definitions can be either global or interface-specific.
+The second ones are part of interface options. The prefix
+definition matching is done in the first-match style, when
+interface-specific definitions are processed before global
+definitions. As expected, the prefix definition is matching if
+the network prefix is a subnet of the prefix in prefix
+definition.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>rdnss { <I>options</I> }</CODE><DD><P>RDNSS definitions allow to specify a list of advertised
+recursive DNS servers together with their options. As options
+are seldom necessary, there is also a short variant <CODE>rdnss
+<I>address</I></CODE> that just specifies one DNS server. Multiple
+definitions are cumulative. RDNSS definitions may also be
+interface-specific when used inside interface options. By
+default, interface uses both global and interface-specific
+options, but that can be changed by <CODE>rdnss local</CODE> option.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>dnssl { <I>options</I> }</CODE><DD><P>DNSSL definitions allow to specify a list of advertised DNS
+search domains together with their options. Like <CODE>rdnss</CODE>
+above, multiple definitions are cumulative, they can be used
+also as interface-specific options and there is a short
+variant <CODE>dnssl <I>domain</I></CODE> that just specifies one DNS
+search domain.
+<P>
+<A NAME="dsc-trigger"></A>
+<DT><CODE>trigger <I>prefix</I></CODE><DD><P>RAdv protocol could be configured to change its behavior based
+on availability of routes. When this option is used, the
+protocol waits in suppressed state until a <I>trigger route</I>
+(for the specified network) is exported to the protocol, the
+protocol also returnsd to suppressed state if the
+<I>trigger route</I> disappears. Note that route export depends
+on specified export filter, as usual. This option could be
+used, e.g., for handling failover in multihoming scenarios.
+<P>During suppressed state, router advertisements are generated,
+but with some fields zeroed. Exact behavior depends on which
+fields are zeroed, this can be configured by
+<CODE>sensitive</CODE> option for appropriate fields. By default, just
+<CODE>default lifetime</CODE> (also called <CODE>router lifetime</CODE>) is
+zeroed, which means hosts cannot use the router as a default
+router. <CODE>preferred lifetime</CODE> and <CODE>valid lifetime</CODE> could
+also be configured as <CODE>sensitive</CODE> for a prefix, which would
+cause autoconfigured IPs to be deprecated or even removed.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<P>Interface specific options:
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>max ra interval <I>expr</I></CODE><DD><P>Unsolicited router advertisements are sent in irregular time
+intervals. This option specifies the maximum length of these
+intervals, in seconds. Valid values are 4-1800. Default: 600
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>min ra interval <I>expr</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies the minimum length of that intervals, in
+seconds. Must be at least 3 and at most 3/4 * <CODE>max ra interval</CODE>.
+Default: about 1/3 * <CODE>max ra interval</CODE>.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>min delay <I>expr</I></CODE><DD><P>The minimum delay between two consecutive router advertisements,
+in seconds. Default: 3
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>managed <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies whether hosts should use DHCPv6 for
+IP address configuration. Default: no
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>other config <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies whether hosts should use DHCPv6 to
+receive other configuration information. Default: no
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>link mtu <I>expr</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies which value of MTU should be used by
+hosts. 0 means unspecified. Default: 0
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>reachable time <I>expr</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies the time (in milliseconds) how long
+hosts should assume a neighbor is reachable (from the last
+confirmation). Maximum is 3600000, 0 means unspecified.
+Default 0.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>retrans timer <I>expr</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies the time (in milliseconds) how long
+hosts should wait before retransmitting Neighbor Solicitation
+messages. 0 means unspecified. Default 0.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>current hop limit <I>expr</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies which value of Hop Limit should be used
+by hosts. Valid values are 0-255, 0 means unspecified. Default: 64
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>default lifetime <I>expr</I> [sensitive <I>switch</I>]</CODE><DD><P>This option specifies the time (in seconds) how long (after
+the receipt of RA) hosts may use the router as a default
+router. 0 means do not use as a default router. For
+<CODE>sensitive</CODE> option, see
+<A HREF="#dsc-trigger">trigger</A>.
+Default: 3 * <CODE>max ra interval</CODE>, <CODE>sensitive</CODE> yes.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>rdnss local <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>Use only local (interface-specific) RDNSS definitions for this
+interface. Otherwise, both global and local definitions are
+used. Could also be used to disable RDNSS for given interface
+if no local definitons are specified. Default: no.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>dnssl local <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>Use only local DNSSL definitions for this interface. See
+<CODE>rdnss local</CODE> option above. Default: no.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<P>
+<P>Prefix specific options:
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>skip <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>This option allows to specify that given prefix should not be
+advertised. This is useful for making exceptions from a
+default policy of advertising all prefixes. Note that for
+withdrawing an already advertised prefix it is more useful to
+advertise it with zero valid lifetime. Default: no
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>onlink <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies whether hosts may use the advertised
+prefix for onlink determination. Default: yes
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>autonomous <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies whether hosts may use the advertised
+prefix for stateless autoconfiguration. Default: yes
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>valid lifetime <I>expr</I> [sensitive <I>switch</I>]</CODE><DD><P>This option specifies the time (in seconds) how long (after
+the receipt of RA) the prefix information is valid, i.e.,
+autoconfigured IP addresses can be assigned and hosts with
+that IP addresses are considered directly reachable. 0 means
+the prefix is no longer valid. For <CODE>sensitive</CODE> option, see
+<A HREF="#dsc-trigger">trigger</A>. Default: 86400 (1 day), <CODE>sensitive</CODE> no.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>preferred lifetime <I>expr</I> [sensitive <I>switch</I>]</CODE><DD><P>This option specifies the time (in seconds) how long (after
+the receipt of RA) IP addresses generated from the prefix
+using stateless autoconfiguration remain preferred. For
+<CODE>sensitive</CODE> option, see
+<A HREF="#dsc-trigger">trigger</A>.
+Default: 14400 (4 hours), <CODE>sensitive</CODE> no.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<P>
+<P>RDNSS specific options:
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>ns <I>address</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies one recursive DNS server. Can be used
+multiple times for multiple servers. It is mandatory to have
+at least one <CODE>ns</CODE> option in <CODE>rdnss</CODE> definition.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>lifetime [mult] <I>expr</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies the time how long the RDNSS information
+may be used by clients after the receipt of RA. It is
+expressed either in seconds or (when <CODE>mult</CODE> is used) in
+multiples of <CODE>max ra interval</CODE>. Note that RDNSS information
+is also invalidated when <CODE>default lifetime</CODE> expires. 0
+means these addresses are no longer valid DNS servers.
+Default: 3 * <CODE>max ra interval</CODE>.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<P>
+<P>DNSSL specific options:
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>domain <I>address</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies one DNS search domain. Can be used
+multiple times for multiple domains. It is mandatory to have
+at least one <CODE>domain</CODE> option in <CODE>dnssl</CODE> definition.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>lifetime [mult] <I>expr</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies the time how long the DNSSL information
+may be used by clients after the receipt of RA. Details are
+the same as for RDNSS <CODE>lifetime</CODE> option above.
+Default: 3 * <CODE>max ra interval</CODE>.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<P>
+<H3>Example</H3>
+
+<P>
+<HR>
+<PRE>
+protocol radv {
+ interface "eth2" {
+ max ra interval 5; # Fast failover with more routers
+ managed yes; # Using DHCPv6 on eth2
+ prefix ::/0 {
+ autonomous off; # So do not autoconfigure any IP
+ };
+ };
+
+ interface "eth*"; # No need for any other options
+
+ prefix 2001:0DB8:1234::/48 {
+ preferred lifetime 0; # Deprecated address range
+ };
+
+ prefix 2001:0DB8:2000::/48 {
+ autonomous off; # Do not autoconfigure
+ };
+
+ rdnss 2001:0DB8:1234::10; # Short form of RDNSS
+
+ rdnss {
+ lifetime mult 10;
+ ns 2001:0DB8:1234::11;
+ ns 2001:0DB8:1234::12;
+ };
+
+ dnssl {
+ lifetime 3600;
+ domain "abc.com";
+ domain "xyz.com";
+ };
+}
+</PRE>
+<HR>
+<P>
+<H2><A NAME="ss6.8">6.8</A> <A HREF="bird.html#toc6.8">RIP</A>
+</H2>
+
+<H3>Introduction</H3>
+
+<P>The RIP protocol (also sometimes called Rest In Pieces) is a simple protocol, where each router broadcasts (to all its neighbors)
+distances to all networks it can reach. When a router hears distance to another 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 its distance is the original distance plus 1 (actually, plus
+interface metric, which is usually one). After some time, the 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't use
+RIP on networks where maximal distance is higher than 15 hosts. You can read more about RIP at
+<A HREF="http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/rip-charter.html">http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/rip-charter.html</A>. Both IPv4
+(RFC 1723
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1723.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1723.txt</A>)
+and IPv6 (RFC 2080
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2080.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2080.txt</A>) versions of RIP are supported by BIRD, historical RIPv1 (RFC 1058
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1058.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1058.txt</A>)is
+not currently supported. RIPv4 MD5 authentication (RFC 2082
+<A HREF="ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2082.txt">ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc2082.txt</A>) is supported.
+<P>
+<P>RIP is a very simple protocol, and it has a lot of shortcomings. Slow
+convergence, big network load and inability to handle larger networks
+makes it pretty much obsolete. (It is still usable on very small networks.)
+<P>
+<H3>Configuration</H3>
+
+<P>In addition to options common for all to other protocols, RIP supports the following ones:
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>authentication none|plaintext|md5</CODE><DD><P>selects authentication method to be used. <CODE>none</CODE> means that
+packets are not authenticated at all, <CODE>plaintext</CODE> means that a plaintext password is embedded
+into each packet, and <CODE>md5</CODE> means that packets are authenticated using a MD5 cryptographic
+hash. If you set authentication to not-none, it is a good idea to add <CODE>password</CODE>
+section. Default: none.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>honor always|neighbor|never </CODE><DD><P>specifies when should requests for dumping routing table
+be honored. (Always, when sent from a host on a directly connected
+network or never.) Routing table updates are honored only from
+neighbors, that is not configurable. Default: never.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<P>There are some options that can be specified per-interface:
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>metric <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>This option specifies the metric of the interface. Valid
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>mode multicast|broadcast|quiet|nolisten|version1</CODE><DD><P>This option selects the mode for RIP to work in. If nothing is
+specified, RIP runs in multicast mode. <CODE>version1</CODE> is
+currently equivalent to <CODE>broadcast</CODE>, and it makes RIP talk
+to a broadcast address even through multicast mode is
+possible. <CODE>quiet</CODE> option means that RIP will not transmit
+any periodic messages to this interface and <CODE>nolisten</CODE>
+means that RIP will send to this interface butnot listen to it.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>ttl security [<I>switch</I> | tx only]</CODE><DD><P>TTL security is a feature that protects routing protocols
+from remote spoofed packets by using TTL 255 instead of TTL 1
+for protocol packets destined to neighbors. Because TTL is
+decremented when packets are forwarded, it is non-trivial to
+spoof packets with TTL 255 from remote locations.
+<P>If this option is enabled, the router will send RIP packets
+with TTL 255 and drop received packets with TTL less than
+255. If this option si set to <CODE>tx only</CODE>, TTL 255 is used
+for sent packets, but is not checked for received
+packets. Such setting does not offer protection, but offers
+compatibility with neighbors regardless of whether they use
+ttl security.
+<P>Note that for RIPng, TTL security is a standard behavior
+(required by RFC 2080), but BIRD uses <CODE>tx only</CODE> by
+default, for compatibility with older versions. For IPv4 RIP,
+default value is no.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>tx class|dscp|priority <I>num</I></CODE><DD><P>These options specify the ToS/DiffServ/Traffic class/Priority
+of the outgoing RIP packets. See
+<A HREF="bird-3.html#dsc-prio">tx class</A> common option for detailed description.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<P>The following options generally override behavior specified in RFC. If you use any of these
+options, BIRD will no longer be RFC-compliant, which means it will not be able to talk to anything
+other than equally configured BIRD. I have warned you.
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>port <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>selects IP port to operate on, default 520. (This is useful when testing BIRD, if you
+set this to an address &gt;1024, you will not need to run bird with UID==0).
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>infinity <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>selects the value of infinity, default is 16. Bigger values will make protocol convergence
+even slower.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>period <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>specifies the number of seconds between periodic updates. Default is 30 seconds. A lower
+number will mean faster convergence but bigger network
+load. Do not use values lower than 12.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>timeout time <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>specifies how old route has to be to be considered unreachable. Default is 4*<CODE>period</CODE>.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>garbage time <I>number</I></CODE><DD><P>specifies how old route has to be to be discarded. Default is 10*<CODE>period</CODE>.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<H3>Attributes</H3>
+
+<P>RIP defines two route attributes:
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>int <CODE>rip_metric</CODE></CODE><DD><P>RIP metric of the route (ranging from 0 to <CODE>infinity</CODE>).
+When routes from different RIP instances are available and all of them have the same
+preference, BIRD prefers the route with lowest <CODE>rip_metric</CODE>.
+When importing a non-RIP route, the metric defaults to 5.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>int <CODE>rip_tag</CODE></CODE><DD><P>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). When importing a non-RIP route, the tag defaults to 0.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<H3>Example</H3>
+
+<P>
+<HR>
+<PRE>
+protocol rip MyRIP_test {
+ debug all;
+ port 1520;
+ period 12;
+ garbage time 60;
+ interface "eth0" { metric 3; mode multicast; };
+ interface "eth*" { metric 2; mode broadcast; };
+ honor neighbor;
+ authentication none;
+ import filter { print "importing"; accept; };
+ export filter { print "exporting"; accept; };
+}
+</PRE>
+<HR>
+<P>
+<H2><A NAME="ss6.9">6.9</A> <A HREF="bird.html#toc6.9">Static</A>
+</H2>
+
+<P>The Static protocol doesn't communicate with other routers in the network,
+but instead it allows you to define routes manually. This 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).
+<P>
+<P>There are five types of static routes: `classical' routes telling
+to forward packets to a neighboring router, multipath routes
+specifying several (possibly weighted) neighboring routers, device
+routes specifying forwarding to hosts on a directly connected network,
+recursive routes computing their nexthops by doing route table lookups
+for a given IP and special routes (sink, blackhole etc.) which specify
+a special action to be done instead of forwarding the packet.
+<P>
+<P>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 destination becomes adjacent again.
+<P>
+<P>The Static protocol does not have many configuration options. The
+definition of the protocol contains mainly a list of static routes:
+<P>
+<DL>
+<DT><CODE>route <I>prefix</I> via <I>ip</I></CODE><DD><P>Static route through
+a neighboring router.
+<DT><CODE>route <I>prefix</I> multipath via <I>ip</I> [weight <I>num</I>] [via ...]</CODE><DD><P>Static multipath route. Contains several nexthops (gateways), possibly
+with their weights.
+<DT><CODE>route <I>prefix</I> via <I>"interface"</I></CODE><DD><P>Static device
+route through an interface to hosts on a directly connected network.
+<DT><CODE>route <I>prefix</I> recursive <I>ip</I></CODE><DD><P>Static recursive route,
+its nexthop depends on a route table lookup for given IP address.
+<DT><CODE>route <I>prefix</I> blackhole|unreachable|prohibit</CODE><DD><P>Special routes
+specifying to silently drop the packet, return it as unreachable or return
+it as administratively prohibited. First two targets are also known
+as <CODE>drop</CODE> and <CODE>reject</CODE>.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>check link <I>switch</I></CODE><DD><P>If set, hardware link states of network interfaces are taken
+into consideration. When link disappears (e.g. ethernet cable
+is unplugged), static routes directing to that interface are
+removed. It is possible that some hardware drivers or
+platforms do not implement this feature. Default: off.
+<P>
+<DT><CODE>igp table <I>name</I></CODE><DD><P>Specifies a table that is used
+for route table lookups of recursive routes. Default: the
+same table as the protocol is connected to.
+</DL>
+<P>
+<P>Static routes have no specific attributes.
+<P>
+<P>Example static config might look like this:
+<P>
+<P>
+<HR>
+<PRE>
+protocol static {
+ table testable; # Connect to a non-default routing table
+ route 0.0.0.0/0 via 198.51.100.130; # Default route
+ route 10.0.0.0/8 multipath # Multipath route
+ via 198.51.100.10 weight 2
+ via 198.51.100.20
+ via 192.0.2.1;
+ route 203.0.113.0/24 unreachable; # Sink route
+ route 10.2.0.0/24 via "arc0"; # Secondary network
+}
+</PRE>
+<HR>
+<P>
+<HR>
+<A HREF="bird-7.html">Next</A>
+<A HREF="bird-5.html">Previous</A>
+<A HREF="bird.html#toc6">Contents</A>
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