Communications

BGP uses TCP on port 179 for communication between neighbours. RIP and OSPF either run directly on top of IP or use UDP.

A BGP header consists of;

  • A 16-bit marker set all ‘1’s

  • A 2-byte length field (19-4096) indicating the total length of the message

  • A type field; there are several different types, originally four.

Type
Description

1

Open

2

Update

3

Notification

4

Keep-alive

  1. Both sides of a BGP session begin with an open message, including the BGP version, routers AS number and IP address.

  2. Updates are used to list new or withdrawn routes. They use a format called Network Layer Reachability Information or NLRI.

  3. Notifications are generally sent to indicate errors.

When you register your AS, you are required to declare information about your AS in a Routing Registry (RR). These records are in a format specified by Routing Policy Specification Language (RPSL) defined in RFC 2622arrow-up-right.

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