CCIE Training

Abstract

This publication briefly covers the use of 3rd party next-hops in OSPF, RIP, EIGRP and BGP routing protocols. Common concepts are introduced and protocol-specific implementations are discussed. Basic understanding of the routing protocol function is required before reading this blog post.

Overview

Third-party next-hop concept appears only to distance vector protocol, or in the parts of the link-state protocols that exhibit distance-vector behavior. The idea is that a distance-vector update carries explicit next-hop value, which is used by receiving side, as opposed to the “implicit” next-hop calculated as the sending router’s address – the source address in the IP header carrying the routing update. Such “explicit” next-hop is called “third-party” next-hop IP address, allowing for pointing to a different next-hop, other than advertising router. Intitively, this is only possible if the advertising and receiving router are on a shared segment, but the “shared segment” concept could be generalized and abstracted. Every popular distance-vector protocols support third party next-hop – RIPv2, EIGRP, OSPF and BGP all carry explicit next-hop value. Look at the figure below – it illustrates the situation where two different distance-vector protocols are running on the shared segment, but none of them runs on all routers attached to the segment. The protocols “overlap” at a “pivotal” router and redistribution is used to provide inter-protocol route exchange.

Per the default distance-vector protocol behavior, traffic from one routing domain going into another has cross the “pivotal” router, the router where the two domains overlap (R3 in our case) – as opposed to going directly to the closes next-hop on the shared segment. The reason for this is that there is no direct “native” update exchange between the hops running different routing protocols. In situations like this, it is beneficial to rewrite the next-hop IP address to point toward the “optimum” exit point, using the “pivotal” router’s knowledge of both routing protocols.

OSPF is somewhat special with respect to the 3rd party next-hop implementation. It supports third-party next-hop in Type-5/7 LSAs (External Routing Information LSA and NSSA External LSA). These LSAs are processed in “distance-vector manner” by every receiving router. By default, the LSA is assumed to advertise the external prefix “connected” to the advertising router. However, if the FA is non-zero, the address in this field is used to calculate the forwarding information, as opposed to default forwarding toward the advertising router. Forwarding Address is always present in Type-7 LSAs, for the reason illustrated on the figure below:

Since there could be multiple ABRs in NSSA area, only one is elected to perform 7-to-5 LSA translation – otherwise the routing information will loop back in the area, unless manual filtering implemented in the ABRs (which is prone to errors). Translating ABR is elected based on the highest Router-ID, and may not be on the optimum path toward the advertising ASBR. Therefore, the forwarding address should prompt the more optimum path, based on the inter-area routing information.

EIGRP

We start with the scenario where we redistribute RIP into EIGRP.

Notice that EIGRP will not insert the third-party next-hop until you apply the command no ip next-hop-self eigrp on R3’s connection to the shared segment. Look at the routing table output prior to applying the no ip next-hop-self eigrp command.

R1#show  ip route eigrp 
     140.1.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 2 subnets, 2 masks
D EX    140.1.2.2/32
           [170/2560002816] via 140.1.123.3, 00:00:27, FastEthernet0/0

After the command has been applied to R3’s interface:

R1#show  ip route eigrp
     140.1.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 2 subnets, 2 masks
D EX    140.1.2.2/32
           [170/2560002816] via 140.1.123.2, 00:00:04, FastEthernet0/0

The same behavior is observed when redistributing OSPF into EIGRP, but not when redistributing BGP. For some reason, BGP’s next-hop is not copied into EIGRP, e.g. in the example below, EIGRP will NOT insert the BGP’s next-hop into updates. Notice that you may enable or disable the third-party next-hop behavior in EIGRP using the interface-level command ip next-hop-self eigrp.

RIP

RIP passes the third-party next-hop from OSPF, BGP or EIGRP. For instance, assume EIGRP redistribution into RIP. You have to turn on the no ip split-horizon on R3’s Ethernet connection to get this to work:

R2#show ip route rip 
     140.1.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 3 subnets, 2 masks
R       140.1.1.1/32 [120/1] via 140.1.123.1, 00:00:17, FastEthernet0/0

Notice the following RIP debugging output, which lists the third-party next-hop:

RIP: received v2 update from 140.1.123.3 on FastEthernet0/0
     140.1.1.1/32 via 140.1.123.1 in 1 hops
     140.1.123.0/24 via 0.0.0.0 in 1 hops

Surprisingly, there is NO need to enable the command no ip split-horizon on the interface when redistributing BGP or OSPF routes into RIP. Seem like only EIGRP to RIP redistribution requires that. Keep in mind, however, that split-horizon is OFF by default on physical frame-relay interfaces. Here is a sample output of redistributing BGP into RIP using the third-party next-hop:

R3#show ip route bgp 
     140.1.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 3 subnets, 2 masks
B       140.1.2.2/32 [20/0] via 140.1.123.2, 00:22:13
R3#

R1#show ip route rip 
     140.1.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 3 subnets, 2 masks
R       140.1.2.2/32 [120/1] via 140.1.123.2, 00:00:09, FastEthernet0/0

RIP’s third-party next-hop behavior is fully automatic. You cannot disable or enable it, like you do in EIGRP.

OSPF

Similarly to RIP, OSPF has no problems picking up the third-party next-hop from BGP, EIGRP or RIP. Here is how it would look like (guess which protocol is redistributed into OSPF, based solely on the commands output):

R1#sh ip route ospf 
     140.1.0.0/16 is variably subnetted, 3 subnets, 2 masks
O E2    140.1.2.2/32 [110/1] via 140.1.123.2, 00:34:59, FastEthernet0/0

R1#show ip ospf database external 

            OSPF Router with ID (140.1.1.1) (Process ID 1)

                Type-5 AS External Link States

  Routing Bit Set on this LSA
  LS age: 131
  Options: (No TOS-capability, DC)
  LS Type: AS External Link
  Link State ID: 140.1.2.2 (External Network Number )
  Advertising Router: 140.1.123.3
  LS Seq Number: 80000002
  Checksum: 0xF749
  Length: 36
  Network Mask: /32
        Metric Type: 2 (Larger than any link state path)
        TOS: 0
        Metric: 1
        Forward Address: 140.1.123.2
        External Route Tag: 200

If you’re still guessing, the external protocol is BGP, as could have been seen observing the automatic External Route Tag – OSPF set’s it to the last AS# found in the AS_PATH.

There are special conditions to be met by OSPF for the FA address to be used. First, the interface where the third party next-hop resides should be advertised into OSPF using the network command. Secondly, this interface should not be passive in OSPF and should not have network type point-to-point or point-to-multipoint. Violating any of these conditions will stop OSPF from using the FA in type-5 LSA created for external routes. Violating any of these conditions prevents third-party next-hop installation in the external LSAs.

OSPF is special in one other respect. Distance vector-protocols such as RIP or EIGRP modify the next-hop as soon as they pass the routing information to other devices. That is, the third party next-hop is not maintained through the RIP or EIGRP domain. Contrary to these, OSPF LSAs are flooded within their scope with the FA unmodified. This creates interesting problem: if the FA address is not reachable in the receiving router’s routing table, the external information found in type 7/5 LSA is not used. This situation is discussed in the blog post “OSPF Filtering using FA Address”.

BGP

When you redistribute any protocol into BGP, the system correctly sets the third-party next-hop in the local BGP table. Look at the diagram below, where EIGRP prefixes are being redistributed into BGP AS 300:

R3’s BGP process installs R1 Loopback0 prefix into the BGP table with the next-hop value of R1’s address, not “0.0.0.0” like it would be for locally advertised routes. You will observe the same behavior if you inject EIGRP prefixes into BGP using the network command.

R3#sh ip bgp
BGP table version is 9, local router ID is 140.1.123.3
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
*> 140.1.1.1/32     140.1.123.1         156160         32768 ?

Furthermore, BGP is supposed to change the next-hop to self when advertising prefixes over eBGP peering sessions. However, when all peers share the same segment, the prefixes re-advertised over the shared segment do not have their next-hop changed. See the diagram below:

Here R1 advertises prefix 140.1.1.1/24 to R3 and R3 re-advertises it back to R2 over the same segment. Unless non-physical interfaces are used to form the BGP sessions (e.g. Loopbacks), the next-hop received from R1 is not changed when passing it down to R2. This implements the default third-party next-hop preservation over eBGP sessions. Look at the sample output for the configuration illustrated above: R1 receives R2’s prefix with unmodified next-hop.

R1#show ip bgp 
BGP table version is 3, local router ID is 140.1.1.1
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
*> 140.1.1.1/32     0.0.0.0                  0         32768 i
*> 140.1.2.2/32     140.1.123.2                            0 300 200 i

There is a way to disable this default behavior in BGP. A logical assumption would be that using the command neighbor X.X.X.X next-hop-self would work, and it does indeed, in the recent IOS versions. The older IOS, such as 12.2T did not have this command working for eBGP sessions, and your option would have been using a route-map with set ip next-hop command. The route-map method may still be handy, if you want insert totally “bogus” IP next-hop from the shared segment – receiving BGP speaker will accept any IP address that is on the same segment. That is not something you would do in the production environment too often, but definitely an interesting idea for lab practicing. One good use in production is changing the BGP next-hop to an HSRP virtual IP address, to provide physical BGP speaker redundancy. Here is a sample code for setting an explicit next-hop in BGP update:

router bgp 300
 neighbor 140.1.123.1 remote-as 100
 neighbor 140.1.123.1 route-map BGP_NEXT_HOP out
!
route-map BGP_NEXT_HOP permit 10
 set ip next-hop 140.1.123.100

Summary

All popular distance-vector protocols support third-party next-hop insertion. This mechanism is useful on multi-access segments, in situations when you want pass optimum path information between routers belonging to different routing protocols. We illustrated that RIP implements this function automatically, and does not allow any tuning. On the other hand, EIGRP supports third-party next-hop passing from any protocol, other than BGP, and you may turn this function on/off on per-interface basis. Furthermore, OSPF’s special feature is propagation of the third-party next-hop within an area/autonomous system, unlike the distance-vector protocols that reset the next-hop at every hop (considering AS a being a “single-hop” for BGP). Thanks to that feature, OSPF offers interesting possibility to filter external routing information by blocking FA prefix from the routing tables. Finally, BGP gives most flexibility when it comes to the IP next-hop manipulation, allowing for changing it to any value.

Further Reading

Common Routing Problem with OSPF Forwarding Address
OSPF Prefix Filtering Using Forwarding Address
BGP Redundancy using HSRP

In the first part of this series, we subdivided the processes of EIGRP into four discrete steps, and detailed troubleshooting the first two. This is taken from the 5-Day CCNP bootcamp:

• Discovery of neighbors
• Exchange of topology information
• Best path selection
• Neighbor and topology table maintenance

Let us now discuss path selection and maintenance troubleshooting.

We should all remember that we can view the topology table of EIGRP with the command show ip eigrp topology. Here we can see the successor routes (these are the best routes that are placed in the routing table) and we can see the second best routes, the feasible successor routes. These feasible successor routes are the key to the lightening fast convergence that EIGRP can offer us. When a speaker loses its successor, it can quickly install a feasible successor route in its place.

We need to remember the important rule of feasible successors. The advertised distance of the proposed feasible successor must be less than the feasible distance of the current successor route. This is actually a loop prevention mechanism.

Another big gotcha when it comes to path selection in EIGRP is the configuration of variance to unequal cost load balance. I can remember fighting with this in an INE practice lab long ago when I was preparing for the exam. Something I had no idea of back then…in order to be considered for the unequal load balancing, the alternate paths must be feasible successors! Older editions of CCNP courses never thought to tell us that little nugget!

We should be careful when modifying bandwidth to effect path selection. Cisco gave us delay for this purpose. Modifying the bandwidth can starve EIGRP updates of bandwidth to use. Remember, by default, EIGRP will only use 50% of an interface’s bandwidth. We can control this with the command ip bandwidth percent eigrp.

For table maintenance, show ip eigrp topology is critical. Note that in this table, passive is what we want to see. Active indicates there is not a feasible successor and neighbors are being queried for an alternative path. SIA log messages indicate a Stuck in Active issue. Here the router is not receiving a reply to queries. The most common reasons this can occur:

• Bad link
• Congested link
• The query scope if too big (too many routers involved)
• Excessive redundancy is built into the network
• The router CPU is overloaded
• There is a shortage of memory on the router
• There are software defects

When it comes to table maintenance, another excellent troubleshooting command is show ip eigrp topology summary. This command displays the total number of routes in the topology table and the total number of queries the router is waiting on responses for. It also shows a quiescent interface field that shows which interface have no outstanding packets to be sent or acknowledged.

Some of our favorite EIGRP verification commands:

• show ip route eigrp
• show ip protocol
• show ip eigrp neighbor
• show ip eigrp topology
• show ip eigrp topology all-links
• show ip eigrp topology summary
• debug eigrp packet hello
• debug eigrp packet query reply

This CCNA/CCNP level post clarifies some facts about Bandwidth and Delay in the EIGRP composite metric calculation.

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