Internet Exchange BGP Route Server Operations
RFC 7948

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                       N. Hilliard
Request for Comments: 7948                                          INEX
Category: Informational                                      E. Jasinska
ISSN: 2070-1721                                               BigWave IT
                                                               R. Raszuk
                                                            Bloomberg LP
                                                               N. Bakker
                                                Akamai Technologies B.V.
                                                          September 2016

             Internet Exchange BGP Route Server Operations

Abstract

   The popularity of Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) brings new
   challenges to interconnecting networks.  While bilateral External BGP
   (EBGP) sessions between exchange participants were historically the
   most common means of exchanging reachability information over an IXP,
   the overhead associated with this interconnection method causes
   serious operational and administrative scaling problems for IXP
   participants.

   Multilateral interconnection using Internet route servers can
   dramatically reduce the administrative and operational overhead
   associated with connecting to IXPs; in some cases, route servers are
   used by IXP participants as their preferred means of exchanging
   routing information.

   This document describes operational considerations for multilateral
   interconnections at IXPs.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7948.

Hilliard, et al.              Informational                     [Page 1]
RFC 7948             IXP BGP Route Server Operations      September 2016

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2016 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.1.  Notational Conventions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Bilateral BGP Sessions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Multilateral Interconnection  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Operational Considerations for Route Server Installations . .   6
     4.1.  Path Hiding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     4.2.  Route Server Scaling  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       4.2.1.  Tackling Scaling Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
         4.2.1.1.  View Merging and Decomposition  . . . . . . . . .   7
         4.2.1.2.  Destination Splitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
         4.2.1.3.  NEXT_HOP Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     4.3.  Prefix Leakage Mitigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     4.4.  Route Server Redundancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     4.5.  AS_PATH Consistency Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     4.6.  Export Routing Policies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
       4.6.1.  BGP Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
       4.6.2.  Internet Routing Registries . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
       4.6.3.  Client-Accessible Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     4.7.  Layer 2 Reachability Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     4.8.  BGP NEXT_HOP Hijacking  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     4.9.  BGP Operations and Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
   6.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     6.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     6.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15