Posts

How to deploy a BGP route generator? | Containerlab | ExaBGP

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Hi all! The blog post is sort of "How to ...?" Introduction Some time ago I needed to prepare a lab environment where I should have to simulate a huge amount of BGP updates between routers.  How can we arrange that? The main thing is how to  generate a lot of BGP updates? As I see we have two ways: VM with network OS from classic vendors (Cisco, Juniper, Nokia); Linux BGP daemon Sure, BGP daemons are more scalable and suitable for lab purposes. And a lot of companies use them in production (in most cases as BGP RR). Of course, I knew about different Linux BGP daemons but didn't have experience with them. This time I followed the next simple workflow in the tech world  - d on't know something? Let's Googling! (don't use this way in the production environment - firstly, read tech books, user guides, RFC, etc :) ) This way I've found all that I need: 1) BGP daemon. I decided to use ExaBGP 2) Route generator. It's a simple python script route-smash  that

Segment Routing | Control and Data plane review

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Hi all! Today I’m going to talk about Segment Routing, especially SR-MPLS. Exactly the best source of theoretical information is RFC. But Segment Routing is a huge topic and it's difficult to sort things out. I will provide basic concepts of SR-MPLS and we will go through basic control plane and data plane tasks of SR. A good network engineer always tries to optimize network, operation tools and workflow. And I’m sure, engineers who develop Segment Routing concepts follow the same idea. Why do I think so? Look SR-MPLS short facts: SR is an alternative of main label distribution protocols - LDP and RSVP. SR decreases control plane entities because it’s a part of IGP protocols (IS-IS or OSPF) SR uses stateless paradigm unlike RSVP (It helps to reduce CPU consumption) Let’s investigate basic SR concepts. Segment and routing. Take the first definition. What is a "segment"? What types of segments do we have?  Segments are instructions. Head-end encodes t hese instructions

Nokia Lab | LAB 8 RSVP-TE Resiliency |

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Hello! Today I'm going to lab one of my favorite topic - RSVP-TE Resiliency. It's a real pleasure to see how different methods of network resiliency can make your network more stable and reliable.  Please check  my first lab  for input information. Topology example Lab tasks and questions: Preparing create LSP to_R6 on R1 (parameters: "totally loose" path, cspf) create LSP to_R1 on R6 (parameters: "totally loose" path, cspf) create Epipe service between CPE1 and CPE6. It helps to compare convergency time in the different cases. I use Virtual PC nodes as CPE devices and simple ping as a tool. It's not a production-ready tool suite, but it's relevant for the education lab. ( Depend on your CPE devices, but I recommend use rapid ping or adjust send/receive timers. Results will be more clearly) configure BFD (I use TX/RX equal 100ms): on L3 interfaces on OSPF interfaces on RSVP interfaces configure IP addresses on CPE check IP connectivity between CPE S