Chapter 2. Introduction to BGP

Now that you have a firm understanding of the key issues surrounding inter-domain routing from Chapter 1, “Inter-Domain Routing Concepts,” it is time to begin tackling BGP. This chapter covers the basic operation of BGP, including its message types, how the messages are used, and the format of the messages. You also learn about the various basic attributes BGP can associate with a route and how it uses these attributes to choose a best path. Finally, this chapter shows you how to configure and troubleshoot BGP peering sessions.

Who Needs BGP?

If you answer “yes” to all four of the following questions, you need BGP:

Are you connecting to another routing domain?

Are you connecting to a domain under a separate ...

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