BGP Route Filtering Concepts

Route filtering selectively identifies routes that are advertised or received from neighbor routers.
Route filtering may be used to manipulate traffic flows, reduce memory utilization, or improve
security.

1. Prefix-Based Filtering:

• Scenario: You have a network where you want to block traffic to a specific set of IP
addresses, say a range associated with a known malicious host.

• Solution: Configure prefix-based filtering to deny routes with prefixes corresponding

to the malicious IP range. For example, if the malicious IP range is 192.0.2.0/24, you
would configure your router to reject routes with this prefix.

Configuration

router bgp <your_AS_number>

neighbor <neighbor_IP_address> prefix-list malicious-prefixes in

ip prefix-list malicious-prefixes seq 10 deny 192.0.2.0/24

ip prefix-list malicious-prefixes seq 20 permit any

2. AS Path Filtering:

• Scenario: You're a network provider and want to avoid routes that traverse certain
ASes known for congestion or unreliability.

• Solution: Implement AS path filtering to block routes that include ASes you want to
avoid. For instance, if AS 65001 is known for congestion, configure your router to
reject routes containing AS 65001 in their AS path.

Configuration

router bgp <your_AS_number>

neighbor <neighbor_IP_address> filter-list 1 in

ip as-path access-list 1 deny _65001_

ip as-path access-list 1 permit .*

3. Community-Based Filtering:

• Scenario: You're a service provider and want to prioritize routes from premium
customers over regular customers.

• Solution: Use BGP communities to tag routes from premium customers and regular
customers differently. Then, configure your routers to prefer routes tagged with the
premium customer community over others.
 Configuration

router bgp <your_AS_number>

neighbor <neighbor_IP_address> route-map customer-priority in

route-map customer-priority permit 10

match community 100:1

set local-preference 200

route-map customer-priority permit 20

match community 100:2

set local-preference 100

route-map customer-priority deny 30

4. Route Maps:

• Scenario: You want to permit routes only from a specific set of prefixes and deny all
others.

• Solution: Create a route map that matches the desired prefixes and denies all other
routes. For example, you might permit routes from 10.0.0.0/8 and 192.168.0.0/16
while denying all other prefixes.

Configuration

router bgp <your_AS_number>

neighbor <neighbor_IP_address> route-map permit-only in

ip prefix-list permit-prefixes seq 10 permit 10.0.0.0/8

ip prefix-list permit-prefixes seq 20 permit 192.168.0.0/16

route-map permit-only permit 10

match ip address prefix-list permit-prefixes

route-map permit-only deny 20

5. Prefix Lists and AS Path Lists:

• Scenario: You want to permit routes from your internal networks while blocking
routes from external sources.
 • Solution: Create a prefix list containing the prefixes of your internal networks and use
it to permit routes from those networks while denying routes from external sources.

Configuration

router bgp <your_AS_number>

neighbor <neighbor_IP_address> prefix-list prefix-list-name in

ip prefix-list internal-prefixes seq 10 permit 10.0.0.0/8

ip prefix-list internal-prefixes seq 20 permit 192.168.0.0/16

6. Regular Expressions:

• Scenario: You want to match AS paths with specific patterns, such as AS paths
starting with AS 6500.

• Solution: Use regular expressions to define a pattern for AS paths starting with AS
6500, then configure your router to permit or deny routes matching this pattern
accordingly.

Configuration

router bgp <your_AS_number>

neighbor <neighbor_IP_address> filter-list 101 in

ip as-path access-list 101 permit ^6500_

This configuration allows only routes with AS paths starting with 6500.

7. Filtering based on Attributes:

• Scenario: You have multiple paths to the same destination and want to prefer routes
with a lower MED (Multi-Exit Discriminator) value.

• Solution: Configure your router to prioritize routes with lower MED values over others.
This ensures that traffic is directed through the paths with better metrics.

Configuration

router bgp <your_AS_number>

neighbor <neighbor_IP_address> weight 500

In this example, the weight attribute is set to 500 for routes received from the
specified neighbor, making them more preferable compared to routes received from
other neighbors.
BGP Path Selection

Description: BGP is a path-vector routing protocol that uses various attributes to determine the best
path to reach a destination network. When multiple paths exist to the same destination, BGP
employs a set of predefined rules to select the optimal path, known as the BGP path selection
process.

Scenario: Consider a scenario where your network has multiple connections to the internet via
different ISPs. You want to ensure that outgoing traffic follows the most optimal path based on factors
like path length, AS path, origin type, and various BGP attributes.

Solution: BGP path selection follows a defined sequence of steps to choose the best path among
multiple available paths. The selection process considers several attributes in a specific order. The
path with the highest priority attribute is chosen as the best path. If multiple paths have the same
attribute value, subsequent attributes are considered until a definitive best path is determined.

BGP Path Selection Criteria (in order of priority):

1. Weight: Locally assigned value by the network administrator. The path with the highest
weight is preferred.

2. Local Preference: Indication of the preferred exit point for outgoing traffic within the local
AS. Higher local preference values are preferred.

3. AS Path Length: Shortest AS path to reach the destination. Paths with fewer AS hops are
preferred.

4. Origin Type: Preference given to routes with a more reliable origin type. The order of
preference is IGP (Interior Gateway Protocol) > EGP (Exterior Gateway Protocol) >
Incomplete.

5. Multi-Exit Discriminator (MED): Used to influence incoming traffic from neighboring ASes.
Lower MED values are preferred.

6. External vs. Internal BGP: Prefer routes learned via eBGP (External BGP) over iBGP (Internal
BGP) if all other attributes are equal.

7. IGP Metric to Next-Hop: Preference given to the path with the lowest IGP metric
(Administrative Distance) to reach the next-hop router.

8. BGP Router ID: Router with the lowest BGP router ID is preferred.

9. Cluster List Length: Shorter cluster lists are preferred for iBGP route reflection scenarios.

10. Peer IP Address: Prefer the path from the peer with the lowest IP address.
Configuration Example:

router bgp <your_AS_number>

neighbor <neighbor_IP_address> weight 500

neighbor <neighbor_IP_address> route-map local-pref in

route-map local-pref permit 10

match ip address 10

set local-preference 200

In this example, the router assigns a weight of 500 to routes received from the specified neighbor,
making them preferable. Additionally, a route map is applied inbound on the neighbor to set a higher
local preference (200) for routes matching the specified IP address (access-list 10).