Network Working Group                                          D. Haskin
Request For Comments: 1863                            Bay Networks, Inc.
Category: Experimental                                      October 1995


      A BGP/IDRP Route Server alternative to a full mesh routing

Status of this Memo

  This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
  community.  This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any
  kind.  Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

  This document describes the use and detailed design of Route Servers
  for dissemination of routing information among BGP/IDRP speaking
  routers.

  The intention of the proposed technique is to reduce overhead and
  management complexity of maintaining numerous direct BGP/IDRP
  sessions which otherwise might be required or desired among routers
  within a single routing domain as well as among routers in different
  domains that are connected to a common switched fabric (e.g. an ATM
  cloud).

1. Overview

  Current deployments of Exterior Routing protocols, such as the Border
  Gateway Protocol [BGP4] and the adaptation of the ISO Inter-Domain
  Routing Protocol [IDRP], require that all BGP/IDRP routers, which
  participate in inter-domain routing (border routers) and belong to
  the same routing domain, establish a full mesh connectivity with each
  other for purpose of exchanging routing information acquired from
  other routing domains. In large routing domains the number of intra-
  domain connections that needs to be maintained by each border route
  can be significant.

  In addition, it may be desired for a border router to establish
  routing sessions with all border routers in other domains which are
  reachable via a shared communication media. We refer to routers that
  are directly reachable via a shared media as adjacent routers.  Such
  direct peering allows a router to acquire "first hand" information
  about destinations which are directly reachable through adjacent
  routers and select the optimum direct paths to these destinations.
  Establishment of BGP/IDRP sessions among all adjacent border routers
  would result in a full mesh routing connectivity.  Unfortunately for



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  a switched media as ATM, SMDS or Frame Relay network which may
  inter-connect a large number of routers,  due to the number of
  connections that would be needed to maintain a full mesh direct
  peering between the routers,  makes this approach impractical.

  In order to alleviate the "full mesh" problem, this paper proposes to
  use IDRP/BGP Route Servers which would relay external routes with all
  of their attributes between client routers. The clients would
  maintain IDRP/BGP sessions only with the assigned route servers
  (sessions with more than one server would be needed if redundancy is
  desired).  All routes that are received from a client router would be
  propagated to other clients by the Route Server.  Since all external
  routes and their attributes are relayed unmodified between the client
  routers, the client routers would acquire the same routing
  information as they would via direct peering.  We refer to such
  arrangement as virtual peering.  Virtual peering allows client
  routers independently apply selection criteria to the acquired
  external routes according to their local policies as they would if a
  direct peering were established.

  The routing approach described in this paper assumes that border
  routers possess a mechanism to resolve the media access address of
  the next hop router for any route acquired from a virtual peer.

  It is fair to note that the approach presented in this paper only
  reduces the number of routing connection each border router needs to
  maintain. It does not reduce the volume of routing information that
  needs to maintained at each border router.

  Besides addressing the "full mesh" problems,  the proposal attempts
  to achieve the following goals:

  - to minimize BGP/IDRP changes that need to be implemented in client
    routers in order to inter-operate with route servers;

  - to provide for redundancy of distribution of routing information to
    route server clients;

  - to minimize the amount of routing updates that have to be sent to
    route server clients;

  - to provide load distribution between route servers;

  - to avoid an excessive complexity of the interactions between Route
    Servers themselves.






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2. Terms And Acronyms

  The following terms and acronyms are used in this paper:

 Routing Domain     -  a collection of routers with the same set of
                       routing policies.  For IPv4 it can be identified
                       with an Autonomous System Number, for IPv6
                       it can be identified with a Routing Domain
                       Identifier.

 Border Router (BR) -  a router that acquires external routes, i.e.
                       routes to internet points outside its routing
                       domain.

 Route Server (RS)  -  a process that collects routing information
                       from border routers and distributes this
                       information to 'client routers'.

 RS Client (RC)     -  a router than peers with an RS in order to
                       acquire routing information.  A server's client
                       can be a router or another route server.

 RS Cluster (RSC)   -  two or more of route servers that share the same
                       subset of clients.  A RS Cluster provides
                       redundancy of routing information to its
                       clients,  i.e. routing information is provided
                       to all RS Cluster clients as long as there is
                       at least one functional route server in the RS
                       Cluster.

 RCID             -    Cluster ID

3. RS Model

  In the proposed scheme a Route Server (RS) does not apply any
  selection criteria to the routes received from border routers for the
  purpose of distributing these routes to its clients.  All routes
  acquired from border routers or other Route Servers are relayed to
  the client border routers.

  There can be two classes of Route Servers: Route Servers that relay
  external routes between routers in a single routing domain and Route
  Servers that relay external routes between border routers in
  different routing domains.  The former are Intra-Domain Route Servers
  and the latter are Inter-Domain Route Servers.

  In the RS model proposed in this document there is no routing
  exchange between Intra-Domain Route Servers and Inter-Domain Route



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  Servers.  Routes that cross a domain boundary must always pass
  through a border router of such a domain which may apply
  administrative filters to such routes.

  Operations of Intra-Domain Route Servers and Inter-Domain Route
  Servers are identical.

  One or more Route Servers form an RS Cluster (RSC).  For redundancy's
  sake two or more RSs can be configured to operate in an RS Cluster.
  All route servers in an RSC share the same clients,  i.e. cluster
  clients establish connections to all route servers in such an RSC for
  the purpose of exchanging routing information. Each cluster is
  assigned an unique RSC Identifier (RCID) represented by a 2-octet
  unsigned integer.

  Clusters which provide virtual connectivity between their clients
  would be normally exchanging routing information among themselves so
  that all external routes are propagated to all participating clients.

  Though a Route Server Client (RC) can be associated with multiple
  RSC, it seems that there is no real advantage of doing so except for
  a short transition period to provide a graceful re-assignment from
  one RSC to another or, if for some reason, there are multiple RS
  groups that don't exchange routing information with each other.

  The inter-cluster route exchange can be accomplished by forming a
  full mesh routing adjacency between clusters.  In this approach,
  illustrated in the diagram below,  each RS in each RSC would maintain
  a routing connection with every RS in other RS clusters.  Only routes
  that are acquired from border routers are propagated to RSs in other
  RS clusters.

        BR11   BR12   BR1n     BR21  BR22  BR2n
          |     |  ... |        |     | ...  |
         -----------------     ------------------
         !  RS11  RS12   ! --- !  RS21    RS22  !
         -----------------     ------------------
              <RSC#1>  \           /    <RSC#2>
                        \         /
                      -----------------
                      !  RS31  RS32   !   <RSC#3>
                      -----------------
                        |     | ... |
                       BR31  BR32  BR3n

  Another way to propagate routing information between clusters would
  be to form a cluster hierarchy in which an RS in one cluster
  maintains sessions only with RSs in designated clusters.  In this



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  approach an RS must advertise all acquired routes to an RS in another
  cluster except the routes that are acquired from that cluster.
  Nevertheless,  it allows for minimizing the number of routing
  sessions which can be highly desirable in some network.  It is
  important for the hierarchical scheme that the inter-cluster route
  exchange links form a tree, i.e. there is only one route propagation
  path between any two clusters, otherwise routing loops may result.
  For detection and pruning of routing loops in a hierarchical cluster
  topology, it is advisable to include the "RCID Path" attribute (see
  4.3.4) in all routing updates sent between route servers. This
  attribute lists IDs of all clusters in the route propagation path.
  When a duplicate ID is detected in this attribute an offending route
  needs to be discarded.

  The diagram below which illustrates the hierarchical approach is
  created from the diagram above by removing the route exchange link
  between clusters 2 and 3.

        BR11   BR12   BR1n     BR21  BR22  BR2n
          |     |  ... |        |     | ...  |
         -----------------     ------------------
         !  RS11  RS12   ! --- !  RS21    RS22  !
         -----------------     ------------------
              <RSC#1>  \                <RSC#2>
                        \
                      -----------------
                      !  RS31  RS32   !   <RSC#3>
                      -----------------
                        |     | ... |
                       BR31  BR32  BR3n

  It seems that the only disadvantage of the hierarchical model, is the
  management headache of avoiding routing loops and redundant
  information flow by insuring that inter-cluster links always form a
  tree.  But more study is needed to fully evaluate the comparative
  merits of the full-mesh and hierarchical models.

  Since RSs in the same cluster maintain routing sessions with the same
  set of clients, it may seem that there is no need to exchange routing
  information between RSs in the same cluster. Nevertheless, such a
  route exchange may help to maintain identical routing databases in
  the servers during client acquisition periods and when a partial
  failure may affect some routing sessions.

  Route servers in the same RS cluster exchange control messages in
  attempt to subdivide the responsibilities of providing routing
  information to their clients.  In order to simplify the RS design,
  the RS messaging is implemented on top of exterior protocol which is



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  used by route servers for the routing information exchange.

4. Operation

4.1 ADVERTISER Path Attribute

  Route servers act as concentrators for routes acquired by border
  routers so that the border routers need to maintain routing
  connections with only one or two designated route servers.  Route
  Servers distribute routing information that is provided to them by
  the border routers to all their client.

  If routing information were relayed to RS clients in UPDATE messages
  with only those path attribute that are currently defined in the
  BGP-4/IDRP specification, the RS clients would not be able to
  associate external routes they receive with the border routers which
  submitted that routes to route servers. Such an association is
  necessary for making a correct route selection decision. Therefore,
  the new path attribute, ADVERTISER, is defined.

  The ADVERTISER is an optional non-transitive attribute that defines
  the identifying address of the border router which originally
  submitted the route to a router server in order for it to be relayed
  to other RS clients. Type Code of the ADVERTISER attribute is 255.
  This attribute must be included in every UPDATE message that is
  relayed by route servers and must be recognized by RS clients.

4.2 Route Client Operation

  An RS client establishes an BGP/IDRP connection to every route server
  in the RS cluster to which the route client is assigned.

  RS clients must be able to recognize the ADVERTISER path attribute
  that is included in all UPDATE messages received from route servers.
  Routes received in UPDATE messages from route servers are processed
  as if they were received directly from the border routers specified
  in the ADVERTISER attributes of the respective updates.

  If an RS client receives a route from a Intra-Domain Route Server, is
  assumed that the border router identified in the ADVERTISER attribute
  is located in the receiving client's own routing domain.

  If an RS client receives a route from a Inter-Domain Route Server,
  the locality of the border router identified in the ADVERTISER
  attribute can be determined from the BGP's AS_PATH attribute or
  IDRP's RD_PATH attribute respectively.





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  If no ADVERTISER attribute was included in an UPDATE message from a
  route server it is assumed that the route server itself is the
  advertiser of the corresponding route.

  If the NEXT_HOP path attribute of an UPDATE message lists an address
  of the receiving router itself, the route that is carried in such an
  update message must be declared unreachable.

  In addition, it is highly desirable, albeit not required,  to
  slightly modify the "standard" BGP/IDRP operation when acquiring
  routes from RSs:

   when a route is received from an RS and a route with the completely
   identical attributes has been previously acquired from another RS
   in the same cluster,  the previously acquired route should be
   replaced with the newly acquired route.  Such a route replacement
   should not trigger any route advertisement action on behalf of the
   route.

  RSs are designed to operate in such a way that eliminates the need to
  keep multiple copies of the same route by RS clients and minimizes
  the possibility of a route flap when the BGP/IDRP connection to one
  of the redundant route servers is lost.

  It is attempted to subdivide the route dissemination load between
  route servers such that only one RS provides routing updates to a
  given client.  But since, for avoiding an excessive complexity, the
  reconciliation algorithm does not eliminate completely the
  possibility of races, it is still possible that a client may receive
  updates from more than one route server.  Therefore, the client's
  ability to discard duplicate routes may reduce the need for a bigger
  routing database.

4.3 Route Server Operation

  A Route Server maintains BGP-4/IDRP sessions with its clients
  according to the respective BGP-4/IDRP specification with exception
  of protocol modifications outlined in this document.

  UPDATE messages sent by route servers have the same format and
  semantics as it respective BGP-4/IDRP counterparts but also carry the
  ADVERTISER path attribute which specifies the BGP Identifier of the
  border router that submitted the route advertised in the UPDATE
  message. In addition, if the hierarchical model is deployed to
  interconnect Route Server clusters, it is advisable to include the
  "RCID Path" attribute in all routing updates sent between route
  servers as described in 4.3.4.




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  When route servers exchange OPEN messages they include the Route
  Server protocol version (current version is 1) as well as Cluster IDs
  of their respective clusters in an Optional Parameter of the OPEN
  message. The value of Parameter Type for this parameter is 255. The
  length of the parameter data is 3 octets. The format of parameter
  data is shown below:

   +-----------------------+------------------------------------+
   | Version = 1 (1 octet) |      Cluster ID (2 octets)         |
   +-----------------------+------------------------------------+

  Also, route servers that belong to the same cluster send to each
  other LIST messages with lists of clients to which they're providing
  routing information.  In the LIST message an RS specifies the Router
  Identifier of each client to which that RS is providing routing
  updates. Since LIST messages are relatively small there is no need to
  add a processing complexity of generating incremental updates when a
  list changes; instead the complete list is sent when RSs need to be
  informed of the changes.  The format of the LIST message is presented
  in 4.3.1.

4.3.1 LIST Message Format

  The LIST message contains the fixed BGP/IDRP header that is followed
  with the fields shown below.  The type code in the fixed header of
  the LIST message is 255.

    +----------+----------+----------+----------+
    |        Client Identifying Address         | Repeated for each
    +-------------------------------------------+ informed client
  The number of Client Identifying Address" fields is not encoded
  explicitly,  but can be calculated as:

    (<LIST message Length> - <Header Length>) / <Address Length>,

  where <LIST message Length> is the value encoded in the fixed
  BGP/IDRP header, <Header Length> is the length of that header, and
  <Address Length> is 4 for IPv4 and 16 for IPv6.

4.3.2 External Route Acquisition And Advertisement

  A route server acquires external routes from RS clients that are also
  border routers.  A RS also may acquire external routes from other
  RSs.  Route servers relay all acquired routes unaltered to their
  clients.  No route selection is performed for purpose of route re-
  advertisement to RS clients.





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  While route servers receive and store routing data from all their
  client,  Routing Servers in the same cluster coordinate their route
  advertisement in the attempt to ensure that only one RS provides
  routing updates to a given client.  If an RS fails,  other Route
  Servers in the cluster take over the responsibility of providing
  routing updates to the clients that were previously served by the
  failed RS.  A route flap that can result from such switch-over can be
  eliminated by the configuring client's "Hold Time" of their BGP-
  4/IDRP sessions with the route servers to be larger than the switch-
  over time.  The switch-over time is determined by the Hold Time of
  BGP-4/IDRP sessions between the route servers in the cluster and the
  period that is needed for that route servers to reconcile their route
  advertisement responsibilities.  The reconciliation protocol is
  described in 4.3.3.

  The BGP-4/IDRP operations of route servers differs from the
  "standard" operation in the following ways:

  -    when receiving routes from another RS, the RS Client mode of
       operation is assumed, i.e., when a route with completely
       identical attributes has been previously acquired from an RS
       belonging to the same cluster as the RS that advertises the new
       route, the previously acquired route should be discarded and
       the newly acquired route should be accepted.  Such a route
       replacement should not trigger any route advertisement action
       on behalf of the route.

  -    all acquired routes are advertised to a client router except
       routes which were acquired from that client (no route echoing);

  -    if the hierarchical model of inter-cluster route exchange is
       used,  all acquired routes are advertised to an RS in another
       RSC except routes that are acquired from that RSC.  In the
       full-mesh model, only routes which are acquired from border
       routers are advertised to route servers in other clusters;

  -    if route servers in the same RS cluster are configured to
       exchange routing information,  only external routes that are
       acquired from border routers are advertised to route servers in
       the local cluster;

  -    the ADVERTISER path attribute is included in every UPDATE
       messages that is generated by RS.  This attribute must
       specify the identifying address of the border router from which
       information provided in UPDATE has been acquired.  All other
       routing attributes should be relayed to RS's peers unaltered.





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  -    when a route advertised by to an RS by a client becomes
       unreachable such a route needs to be declared unreachable to
       all other clients.  In order to withdraw a route,  the route
       server sends an UPDATE for that route to each client (except
       the client that this route was originally acquired) with the
       NEXT_HOP path attribute set to the address of the client to
       which this UPDATE is sent to.  The the ADVERTISER path attribute
       with the identifying address of the border router that
       originally advertised the withdrawn route must be also included
       in such an update message.

  -    if the hierarchical model is deployed to interconnect Route
       Server clusters,  it is advisable to include the RCID_PATH
       attribute in all routing updates sent between route servers as
       described in 4.3.4.  The RCID_PATH attribute is never included
       in UPDATE messages sent to border routers.

4.3.3 Intra-Cluster Coordination

  In order to coordinate route advertisement activities,  route servers
  which are members of the same RS cluster establish and maintain
  BGP/IDRP connections between themselves forming a full-mesh
  connectivity.  Normally, there is no need for more than two-three
  route servers in one cluster.

  Route servers belonging to the same cluster send to each other LIST
  messages with lists of clients to which they're providing routing
  information;  let's call such clients "informed clients".

  Each RS maintains a separate "informed client" list for each RS in
  the local cluster including itself.  All such lists are linked in an
  ascending order that is determined by the number of clients in each
  list; the order among the lists with the same number of clients is
  determined by comparing the identifying addresses of the
  corresponding RSs -- an RS in such a "same number of clients" subset
  is positioned after all RSs with the lower address.

  An RS can be in one of two RS coordination states: 'Initiation' and
  'Active'.

4.3.3.1 Initiation State

  This is the initial state of route server that is entered upon RS
  startup.  When the Initiation state is entered the 'InitiationTimer'
  is started.  The Initiation state transits to the Active state upon
  expiration of the 'InitiationTimer' or as soon as all configured
  BGP/IDRP connections to other route servers in the local RS Cluster
  are established and LIST messages from that route servers are



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  received.

  In the Initiation state an RS:

   o   tries to establish connections with other RSs in the local and
       remote clusters.

   o   accepts BGP/IDRP connections from client routers.

   o   receives and process BGP/IDRP updates but doesn't send any
       routing updates.

   o   stores "informed client" lists received from other RSs in the
       local cluster - a newly received list replaces the existing list
       for the same RS. If a LIST message is received from the route
       server in another RS cluster, it should be silently ignored.

   o   initializes an empty "informed client" list for its own clients.
   o   as soon as a BGP/IDRP connection to an RS in the same RS Cluster
       is established, transmits an empty LIST message to such an RS.

4.3.3.2 Active State

This state is entered upon expiration of the 'InitiationTimer' or as
soon as all configured BGP/IDRP connections to other route servers in
the local RS Cluster are established and LIST messages from that route
servers are received.

In the Active state an RS:

   o   continues attempts to establish connections with other route
       servers in the local and remote clusters;

   o   accepts new BGP/IDRP connections;

   o   transmits a LIST message to an RS in the local cluster as soon
       as an BGP/IDRP session with the RS is established and then
       whenever the local "informed client" list changes;

   o   receives and process BGP/IDRP updates;

   o   receives and processes "informed client" lists as described
       below:

       a) If a LIST message is received from the route server in
          another RS cluster, it should be silently ignored.





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       b) If a LIST message is received from a route server that
          belongs to the same RS Cluster,  the differences between
          the old and the new list are determined and the old "informed
          client" list for that RS is replaced by the list from the new
          message.  For each client that was in the old list but not in
          the new list it is checked whether the server has
          an established BGP/IDRP connection to that client and
          the client is not in any of the other "informed client"
          lists.  If both conditions are met,  the processing described
          for a new client takes place (see 4.3.3.3).

   o   for each new BGP/IDRP client (including connections established
       in Initiation state),  decides if that client should become an
       "informed client", i.e. whether routing updates are to be sent
       to the client or that client has been already taken care by
       another RS in the local cluster.  The decision process is
       described in the next section.

4.3.3.3 New Client Processing

  Whenever an RS acquires a new BGP/IDRP peer it scans through all
  "informed client" lists in order to determine if this peer has
  already been receiving routing updates from another RS in the local
  RS cluster.  If the identifying address of the peer is found in one
  of the list,  no routing updates are sent to that peer.

  If the peer's Router Id is not found,  the route server initiates a
  'DelayTimer' timer for that peer and the decision is postponed until
  that timer expires.  The delay value is calculated as followed:

     the RS determines the relative position of its own "informed
     client" list in the linked list of all "informed client" lists.
     If such position is expressed with a number, say N,  in the 1 to
     "maximum number of lists" range, then the delay value is set to
     (N-1)*<DelayGranularity>.

  Upon expiration of the DelayTimer,  the "informed client" lists are
  scanned once again to see if the corresponding peer has already been
  receiving routing updates from another RS in the local RS cluster.
  If the Router Id of the peer is found in one of the lists as a result
  of receiving a new LIST message, no routing updates are sent to that
  peer.  Otherwise,  the peer's Router ID is entered in the "informed
  client" list that belongs to the RS,  the transmission of the updated
  LIST message is immediately scheduled, and routing updates are sent
  to the client.

  The rational for the delay is to minimize races in the decision as
  which RS among route servers in the same RSC is going to provide



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  routing information to a given client.  The RS with least number of
  "informed clients" would have a shortest delay and is the most
  probable to win the race.  This helps to equalize the number of
  "informed clients" between RSc in a cluster.

  After an BGP/IDRP peer is placed in the "informed client" list, it is
  only removed from the list when the BGP/IDRP connection to this peer
  is lost.  While an RS client is in the list it is accurately updated
  with all routing changes.

4.3.3.5 Inter-RS Connection Failure

  If a route server loses a routing session with a route server in the
  same cluster,  it must consider taking the responsibilities of route
  advertisement to the clients that are in the "informed client" list
  of the remote route server of the failed session.

  For each such client it is checked whether the server has an
  established BGP/IDRP connection to that client and the client is not
  in any of the "informed client" lists of active RS.  If both
  conditions are true,  the processing described for a new client takes
  place (see 4.3.3.3).

  After advertisement responsibilities are reconciled the "informed
  client" list associated with the failed session should be discarded.

4.3.4 RCID_PATH Attribute

  The RCID_PATH is an optional non-transitive attribute that is
  composed of a sequence of RS Cluster Identifiers (RCID) that
  identifies the RS Cluster through which routing information carried
  in the UPDATE message has passed.  Type Code of the RCID_PATH
  attribute is 254.  The attribute value field contains one or more RS
  Cluster Identifiers, each encoded as a 2-octets long field.

  When a route server propagates a route which has been learned from
  nother Route Server's UPDATE message, the following is performed with
  respect to the the RCID_PATH attribute:

 -     if the destination of the route is not a route server, the
       RCID_PATH Attribute is excluded from the UPDATE message sent to
       that client.

 -     if the destination of the route is another route server that is
       located in the advertising server's own RS cluster,  the
       RCID_PATH attribute is sent unmodified.





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 -     if the destination of the route is a route server in a different
       RS cluster,  the advertising route server shall verify that the
       RCID of the destination speaker's cluster is not present in
       the RCID_PATH attribute associated with route.  If it does,
       the route shall not be advertised and an event indicating
       that a route loop was detected should be logged, otherwise
       the advertising router shall prepend its own RCID to the RCID
       sequence in the RCID_PATH attribute (put it in the leftmost
       position).

  When a route server propagates a route which has been learned from a
  border router to another route server then:

 -     if the destination of the route is a route server that is
       located in the advertising router's own RS cluster,  an empty
       RCID_PATH attribute shall be included in the UPDATE message
       (an empty RCID_PATH attribute is one whose length field contains
       the value zero).

 -     if the destination of the route is a route server in a different
       RS cluster,  the advertising route server shall include its own
       RCID in the RCID_PATH attribute.  In this case, the RCID of
       advertising route server will be the only entry in the RCID_PATH
       attribute.

4.3.5 NOTIFICATION Error Codes

  In addition to the error codes defined in the BGP-4/IDRP
  specification, the following error can be indicated in a NOTIFICATION
  message that is sent by a route server:

    255  LIST Message Error

  The following error subcodes can be associated with the LIST Message
  Error:

    1  - Bad Address.  This subcode indicates that a Client Identifying
         Address in the received LIST message does not represent
         a valid network layer address of a router interface.

  The following additional UPDATE error subcodes are also defined:

    255 - Invalid ADVERTISER Attribute.  This subcode indicates that
          a value of the ADVERTISER Attribute does not represent
          a valid network layer address of a router interface.






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4.3.7 Timers

  The InitiationTimer value of 5 minutes is suggested.

  In order to avoid route flaps during an RS switch-over, a value of
  DelayGranularity should be such so the maximum possible value of the
  DelayTimer (see 4.3.3.3) combined with the Hold Time of inter-RS
  connections would be shorter than two-third of the smallest Hold Time
  interval of all BGP/IDRP connections between the route servers and
  their clients (including RSs in other clusters).  So in a cluster
  with three RSs and the respective Hold Times of 30 and 90 seconds the
  DelayGranularity of 15 seconds would be a recommended value.

  For the same reason it is recommended that the Hold Time of BGP/IDRP
  connections between route servers in the same cluster is set to one-
  third of the smallest Hold Time of all BGP/IDRP connections between
  the route servers and their clients (including RSs in other
  clusters).  So, if the smallest Hold Time of BGP/IDRP sessions with
  clients is 90 seconds,  the recommended  value of the Hold Time of
  BGP/IDRP connections between route servers in that cluster would be
  30 seconds.

5. Route Server Discovery

  This document does not propose any mechanism for the dynamic RS
  discovery by RS clients or/and by other route servers.  It is assumed
  that at minimum a manual configuration will be provided in
  participating routers to achieve the needed connectivity.

7. Security Considerations

  Security issues are not discussed in this document.

8. Acknowledgment

  Some design concepts presented in this paper benefited from
  discussions with Tony Li (cisco Systems).

  Author likes to thank John Krawczyk (Bay Networks) and Susan Harris
  (Merit) for their review and valuable comments.

  Also, author would like to thank Yakov Rekhter (IBM) for the review
  of the earlier version of this document and constructive comments.

  Special thanks to Ray Chang (Bay Networks) whose experience in
  implementing the concepts presented in this document helped to refine
  the route server design.




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9. References

  [BGP4] Rekhter, Y., and T. Li, "A Border Gateway Protocol 4
         (BGP-4)", RFC 1771, T.J. Watson Research Center, IBM Corp.,
         cisco Systems, March 1995.

  [IDRP] Rekhter, Y., and P. Traina, "IDRP for IPv6", Work In Progress.

10. Author's Address

  Dimitry Haskin
  Bay Networks, Inc.
  2 Federal Street
  Billerica, MA 01821

  EMail: [email protected]



































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