Skip to main content

BGP Interview Questions and Answers [CCNP]



Explain Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) ?
Border Gateway Protocol advertises, learns and chooses the best paths inside the global Internet. When two ISPs connect, they typically use BGP to exchange routing information. Enterprises also sometimes uses BGP to exchange routing information with ISPs, allowing the Enterprise routers to learn Internet routes. when we have multiple Internet connections and we want to influence some packets to take one path and some packets to take another we use BGP.

Can Routers on different subnet become BGP neighbors?
BGP does not require neighbors to be attached to the same subnet. Instead, BGP routers use a TCP connection between the routers to pass BGP messages allowing neighboring routers to be on the same or different subnet.

What TCP port number BGP use for connection?
BGP uses TCP port 179 for the connection.

Difference between eBGP and iBGP neighbor?
In iBGP, neighborship is formed between routers within the same AS (autonomous system) whereas in eBGP, neighborship is formed between routers within different AS.

What Administrative Distance BGP uses for iBGP & eBGP ?
AD for iBGP = 200, AD for eBGP = 20.

Explain Loop prevention mechanism in BGP?
BGP uses two mechanism to prevent loops:-
1. When a router learns routes from an iBGP peer, that router does not advertise the same routes to another iBGP peer.
2. By using AS_PATH - When advertising to an eBGP peer, a BGP router adds its own ASN to the AS_PATH. If a BGP router receives an update and the route advertisement lists an AS_PATH with its own ASN, the router ignores that route.
Note - A BGP router does not add its ASN when advertising to an iBGP peer.

Do we need to follow 3 way handshake process to establish BGP communication?
Yes

What is the difference between hard reset and soft reset in BGP?
In case of hard reset the local router brings down the neighborship, brings down the underlying TCP connection and all the BGP table entries learned from that neighbor are removed.  #clear ip bgp * command is used for hard reset.
In case of soft reset, the router does not bring down the BGP neighborship or the underlying TCP connection. However, the local router resends outgoing Updates and reprocesses incoming Updates adjusting the BGP table based on the current configuration. #clear ip bgp * soft command is used for soft reset.

What are different BGP Message Types?
1. Open - It is Used to establish a neighbor relationship and exchange parameters, including autonomous system number and authentication values.
2. Keepalive - It is  Sent periodically to maintain the neighbor relationship. If the Keepalive message is not received within the negotiated Hold timer than BGP neighborship will be turned down.
3. Update - It exchanges Path Attributes and the associated prefix/length (NLRI) that use those attributes.
4. Notification - It is Used to report BGP error. It results in a reset of neighbor relationship.

Explain various states of BGP?
1. Idle - The BGP process is either administratively down or waiting for the the next retry attempt.
2. Connect - The BGP process is waiting for the TCP connection to be completed. If it is successful, it will continue to the OpenSent state. In case it fails, it will continue to the Active state.
3. Active - BGP will try another TCP three-way handshake to establish a connection with the remote BGP neighbor. If it is successful, it will move to the OpenSent state.
4. Opensent - The TCP connection exists, and a BGP Open message has been sent to the peer, but the matching Open message has not yet been received from the other router.
5. Openconfirm - An Open message has been both sent to and received from the other router.
Next step is to receive a BGP Keepalive message (to confirm that all neighbor-related parameters match) or a BGP Notification message (to learn that there is some mismatch in neighbor parameters).
6. Established - All neighbor parameters matched, the neighbor relationship has been established and the peers can now exchange Update messages

Explain BGP Path Attributes?
BGP supports a wide variety of Path Attributes. BGP use these path attributes to examine the competing BGP paths (routes) in  BGP table to choose the best path(route).
1. Next Hop - It lists the next-hop IP address used to reach a prefix. If Next hop is reachable? If no route to reach Next Hop, router cannot use this route.
2. Weight - It is a numeric value set by a router when receiving updates to influence the route for a prefix. It is not advertised to any BGP peers. Bigger is preferred
3. Local Preference - It is a numeric value set and communicated within a single AS for the purpose of choosing best route for all routers in that AS to reach a certain network. Bigger is preferred
4. Locally injected routes - Locally injected routes (routes injected using network command) are better than iBGP/eBGP learned.
5. AS Path - It is the number of ASNs in the AS Path. Smaller is preferred.
6. Origin - Preferred I over E & E over ?. It implies that the route was injected into BGP as I (IGP), E (EGP) or ? (incomplete information).
7. Multi-Exit Discriminator (MED) - Allows an AS to tell a neighboring AS the best path to forward packets
into the first AS. Smaller is preferred.
8. Neighbor type - eBGP is preferred over iBGP.
9. IGP metric  - Route with nearest IGP neighbor (lowest IGP metric) is preferred.
10. eBGP route - Oldest (longest known) route is preferred.
11. Neighbor Router ID - Lowest is preferred.
12. Neighbor IP address - Lowest is preferred.
Trick to Remember -  N  WLLA  OMNI

Explain BGP Weight attribute?
The weight attribute is a Cisco proprietary attribute that is used in the path selection process when there is more than one route to the same destination. A path with the Higher weight value is preferred. The default value for weight is 0. The weight attribute is local to the router and is not propagated to any BGP peers. Weight attribute is set by a router when receiving Updates influencing that one router’s route for a prefix.

Explain BGP Local preference?
Local preference is an indication to the AS about which path has preference to exit the AS in order to reach a certain network. A path with a higher local preference is preferred more. By default value for local preference is 100 and can be changed manually. Unlike the weight attribute, which is only relevant to the local router, local preference attribute is communicated throughout a single AS for the purpose of influencing the choice of best path to exit the AS.

Explain BGP MED?
The purpose of MED is to influence how other autonomous systems enters into your AS to reach a certain prefix. BGP MED is an attribute which is not propagated throughout the whole network but just to adjacent AS. The lower the MED the more the path will be preferred.

What is Recursive Lookup?
The router looks up the BGP route and the next hop to reach a destination in the remote AS. Then the router looks up the route to reach the next hop. In this way router has to perform lookup twice to reach to a destination, this process is called recursive lookup.

What is route reflector and why it is required?
In BGP, route learned from an iBGP neighbor will not be advertised to another iBGP neighbor. To overcome this situation route reflector is used. It acts as a route reflector server and makes IBGP neighbors as route reflector clients enabling route advertisements between them.

What is the difference between Local Preference and MED?
The Local Preference attribute is to influence your own AS how to get or exit to another AS.
MED is to influence other AS how to enter your own AS.

What is the command to administratively disable BGP neighborship?
# neighbor neighbor-ip shutdown

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to Upgrade Software on Cisco 5508/5520 HA WLC

The process to upgrade a Cisco Wireless Lan Controller is quite straightforward but there are a few things you need to be aware of which can minimise the downtime for your wireless network. This guide will go through the process to upgrade a pair of 5508 WLC’s configured in HA setup and connected back to back with RP port. Here is the Topology: Upgrade Software on Cisco 5508/5520 WLC – Steps The first step is to upload the new image to the controller. This process does nothing to your live network and only uploads the image to the controller. Download the image from  cisco.com  and store in a known location on your laptop. For the purpose of this guide I am using 8.0.121.0 .Don't forget to check compatible matrix for your AP Models.  You will need a TFTP server running, I am using TFTPD32 running locally on my laptop. You can also use FTP or SFTP server to transfer the image.  Copy the new image into your tftp directory and go to the GUI on your controller

How to upgrade software on a Cisco 3850 Switch | Recover Password | Configuration Backup | Restore Configuration

This short post will show you how to upgrade the software on a single Cisco 3850 switch or a 3850 stack, using TFTP and USB. The process is very easy but it is a bit different than the usual software image of previous switches i.e 3750 etc. The main difference is the Cisco 3850 switch run IOS-XE so you have to copy the .bin file to the flash on the switch and then install the software on the switch. Download the required image from cisco.com Begin the install Reboot the switch Step 1 copy the new image to the 3850 3850-SW1# copy tftp flash Address or name of remote host []? 10.1.1.100 Source filename []? cat3k_caa-universalk9.SPA.03.03.01.SE.150-1.EZ1.bin Destination filename [cat3k_caa-universalk9.SPA.03.03.01.SE.150-1.EZ1.bin]? Accessing tftp://10.1.1.250/cat3k_caa-universalk9.SPA.03.03.01.SE.150-1.EZ1.bin… Loading cat3k_caa-universalk9.SPA.03.03.01.SE.150-1.EZ1.bin from 10.251.226.253 (via Port-channel1): !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RSTP and MST Interview Questions and Answers[CCNP]

What are the Port Roles in RSTP? 1. Root port - It is the port on the switch that has the best root path cost to the root bridge. This is identical to 802.1D. 2. Designated port - The switch port on a network segment that has the best root path cost to the root. 3. Alternate port - A port that has an alternative path to the root, different from the path the root port takes. This path is less desirable than that of the root port. 4. Backup port - A port that provides a redundant (but less desirable) connection to a segment where another switch port already connects. If that common segment is lost, the switch might or might not have a path back to the root. What are different port states in RSTP? 1. Discarding - Incoming frames simply are dropped; no MAC addresses are learned.This state combines the 802.1D Disabled, Blocking, and Listening states. 2. Learning - Incoming frames are dropped, but MAC addresses are learned. 3. Forwarding - Incoming frames are forwa