Problem:

How to configure IPv6 BGP Peering Sessions on Cisco IOS



Solution:

The future is closer than you think, are you ready?

Here is a little tutorial on configuring IPv6 BGP peering sessions on Cisco IOS.

First set the IP address on the interface, if this is a private peering session you can use a small network from your own PA block, on an exchange this IP address should be assigned by the exchange administrators.

Router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#int fa 0/0
Router(config-if)#ipv6 address 3ffe:1234:1234::1/64

Then, it can be an idea to nullroute the prefix you are going to announce, I think it is good practice because it will also effectively blackhole traffic destined to unexisting networks. This will be announced into BGP with the redistribute static configuration item.

Router#conf t
Router(config)#ipv6 route 3ffe:2000::/32 null 0

Now we create a prefix list that permits only this network, this is very important to avoid leaks of prefixes to your peers. This prefix list is going to be applied outbound on to the BGP peering.

Router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#ipv6 prefix-list announceAS65001-ipv6 seq 5 permit 3FFE:2000::/32
! better safe than sorry
Router(config)#ipv6 prefix-list announceAS65001-ipv6 seq 5000 deny ::/0 le 128

Now we are ready to configure the BGP peering session, this is just a simple example and most of these commands can be applied to peer groups, so that each configuration gets easier.

Router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
Router(config)#router bgp 65001
Router(config-router)#redistribute static
Router(config-router)#neighbor 3ffe:1234:1234::2 remote-as 65002
Router(config-router)#address-family ipv6 unicast
Router(config-router-af)#neighbor 3ffe:1234:1234::2 activate
Router(config-router-af)#neighbor 3ffe:1234:1234::2 soft-reconfiguration inbound
Router(config-router-af)#redistribute static
Router(config-router-af)#neighbor 3ffe:1234:1234::2 prefix-list announceAS65001-ipv6 out

This will redistribute the static nullroute we made earlier to the peer at 3ffe:1234:1324::2, and the peering session should be up by now.

I can verify it on the other end:

Router2#sh ip bgp ipv6 unicast
BGP table version is 8, local router ID is 10.0.0.1
Status codes: s suppressed, d damped, h history, * valid, > best, i – internal,
r RIB-failure, S Stale
Origin codes: i – IGP, e – EGP, ? – incomplete

Network Next Hop Metric LocPrf Weight Path
*> 3FFE:2000::/32 3FFE:1234:1234::1
0 0 65001 ?

As you can see, the network 3ffe:2000::/32 is now announced on this peering session, the route is sourced from AS65001. You can also get this on the summary:

Router2#sh ip bgp ipv6 unicast summary
BGP router identifier 10.0.0.1, local AS number 65002
BGP table version is 8, main routing table version 8
1 network entries using 152 bytes of memory
1 path entries using 76 bytes of memory
2/1 BGP path/bestpath attribute entries using 248 bytes of memory
1 BGP AS-PATH entries using 24 bytes of memory
0 BGP route-map cache entries using 0 bytes of memory
0 BGP filter-list cache entries using 0 bytes of memory
BGP using 500 total bytes of memory
BGP activity 2/1 prefixes, 4/3 paths, scan interval 60 secs

Neighbor V AS MsgRcvd MsgSent TblVer InQ OutQ Up/Down State/PfxRcd
3FFE:1234:1234::1
4 65001 26 23 8 0 0 00:05:54 1

If you want to see the prefixes announced to a peer or received from a peer. (This requires soft reconfiguration inbound configured on the peering session, neighbor 3ffe:1234:1234::2 soft-reconfiguration inbound in configuration.

Router2#sh ip bgp ipv6 unicast neighbors 3ffe:1234:1234::1 received-routes
BGP table version is 8, local router ID is 10.0.0.1
Status codes: s suppressed, d damped, h history, * valid, > best, i – internal,
r RIB-failure, S Stale
Origin codes: i – IGP, e – EGP, ? – incomplete

Network Next Hop Metric LocPrf Weight Path
*> 3FFE:2000::/32 3FFE:1234:1234::1
0 0 65001 ?

Total number of prefixes 1

The prefix 3ffe:2000::/32 is received from 3ffe:1234:1234::1.

Router#sh ip bgp ipv6 unicast neighbors 3ffe:1234:1234::2 advertised-routes
BGP table version is 3, local router ID is 10.0.0.2
Status codes: s suppressed, d damped, h history, * valid, > best, i – internal,
r RIB-failure, S Stale
Origin codes: i – IGP, e – EGP, ? – incomplete

Network Next Hop Metric LocPrf Weight Path
*> 3FFE:2000::/32 :: 0 32768 ?

Total number of prefixes 1

Voila, a better understanding and some real life examples of IPv6 BGP peering in Cisco IOS.