Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)

Bidirectional forwarding detection (BFD)

Bi-directional Forwarding Detection (BFD) is a protocol used to quickly locate hardware failures in the network. Routers running BFD communicate with each other, and if a timer runs out on a connection then that router is declared down. BFD then communicates this information to the routing protocol and the routing information is updated.

While BGP can detect route failures, BFD can be configured to detect these failures more quickly allowing faster responses and improved convergence. This can be balanced with the bandwidth BFD uses in its frequent route checking.

 

Configurable granularity

BFD can run on the entire FortiGate unit, selected interfaces, or on BGP for all configured interfaces. The hierarchy allows each lower level to override the upper level’s BFD setting. For example, if BFD was enabled for the FortiGate unit, it could be disabled only for a single interface or for BGP. For information about FortiGate- wide BFD options, see config system settings in the FortiGate CLI Reference.

BFD can only be configured through the CLI. The BGP commands related to BFD are:

config system {setting | interface}

set bfd {enable | disable | global} set bfd-desired-mix-tx <milliseconds> set bfd-detect-mult <multiplier>

set bfd-required-mix-rx <milliseconds>

set bfd-dont-enforce-src-port {enable | disable}

config router bgp config neighbor

edit <neighbor_address_ipv4>

set bfd {enable | disable}

end end

get router info bfd neighbor

execute router clear bfd session <src_ipv4> <dst_ipv4> <interface>

The config system commands allow you to configure whether BFD is enabled in a particular unit/vdom or individual interface, and how often the interface requires sending and receiving of BFD information.

The config router bgp commands allow you to set the addresses of the neighbor units that are also running BFD. Both units must be configured with BFD in order to make use of it.

 

Dualhomed BGP example

This is an example of a small network that uses BGP routing connections to two ISPs. This is a common configuration for companies that need redundant connections to the Internet for their business.

This configuration is for a small company connected to two ISPs. The company has one main office, the Head Office, and uses static routing for internal routing on that network.

Both ISPs use BGP routing, and connect to the Internet directly. They want the company to connect to the ISP networks using BGP. They also use graceful restart to prevent unneeded updates, and use smaller timer values to detect network failures faster.

As can be expected, the company wants to keep their BGP configuration relatively simple and easy to manage. The current configuration has only 3 routers to worry about — the 2 ISP border routers, and the FortiGate unit. This means the FortiGate unit will only have two neighbor routers to configure.

This configuration has the added benefit of being easy to expand if the Company wants to add a remote office in the future.

To keep the configuration simple, the Company is allowing only HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and DNS traffic out of the local network. This will allow employees access to the Internet and their web-mail.

This section includes the following topics:

  • Network layout and assumptions
  • Configuring the FortiGate unit
  • Configuring other networking devices
  • Testing this configuration

 

Why dual home?

Dual homing means having two separate independent connections to the Internet. Servers in this configuration have also been called bastion hosts and can include DNS servers which require multiple connections.

Benefits of dual homing can include:

  • Redundant Internet connection that essentially never fails
  • Faster connections through one ISP or the other for some destinations, such as other clients of those ISPs
  • Load balancing traffic to your Company network
  • Easier to enable more traffic through two connections than upgrading one connection to bigger bandwidth
  • Easier to create protection policies for different traffic through a specific ISP

Some companies require reliable Internet access at all times as part of their business. Consider a doctor operating remotely who has their Internet connection fail — the consequences could easily be life or death.

Dual homing is extra expense for the second ISP connection, and more work to configure and maintain the more complex network topology.


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6 thoughts on “Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)

  1. piccolo

    Hi Mike,
    if i configure the following on fortigate1:
    config router bgp
    set as 65000
    set router-id 10.2.2.254
    config neighbor
    edit “10.2.2.253”
    set next-hop-self enable
    set remote-as 65000
    set send-community6 disable
    next

    config redistribute “static”
    set status enable
    end

    fortigate2 should get the default route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 from fortigate1 as it is static ?

    how can i redistribute the default route(fortigate1) to fortigate2 ?

    thanks
    regards

    Reply
    1. Mike Post author

      There is a really good KB article that explains how to do this. You can find it here

      If you want to redistribute static routes you would enable the following

      config router bgp
      config redistribute static
      set status enable
      end
      end

      An example of the config would be like this

      config router prefix-list
      edit “only_dflt”
      config rule
      edit 1
      set prefix 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0
      unset ge
      unset le
      next
      end
      next
      end

      config router route-map
      edit “only_default_route”
      config rule
      edit 1
      set match-ip-address “only_dflt”
      next
      end
      next
      end

      config router bgp
      set as 2
      config neighbor
      edit 10.142.0.110
      set remote-as 1
      set route-map-in “only_default_route”
      next
      end

      set router-id 10.142.0.205
      end

      Let me know if this helped answer your question!

      Thanks!

      Reply
  2. kamal

    config router bgp
    set as 65041
    set router-id 162.53.156.138
    config neighbor
    edit “10.104.55.1”
    set ebgp-enforce-multihop enable
    set soft-reconfiguration enable
    set remote-as 64699
    set send-community6 disable
    next
    edit “10.104.55.2”
    set ebgp-enforce-multihop enable
    set soft-reconfiguration enable
    set remote-as 64699
    set send-community6 disable
    next

    i am trying to accomplish above but i can see only one neighbour is establish and other is in ACTIVE state…

    Reply

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