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+Network Working Group                                          P. Traina
+Request for Comments: 1965                                 cisco Systems
+Category: Experimental                                         June 1996
+
+
+                Autonomous System Confederations for BGP
+
+Status of this Memo
+
+   This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
+   community.  This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any
+   kind.  Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
+   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
+
+Abstract
+
+   Border Gateway Protocol [1] is an inter-autonomous system routing
+   protocol designed for TCP/IP networks.
+
+   This document describes an extension to BGP which may be used to
+   create a confederation of autonomous systems which is represented as
+   one single autonomous system to BGP peers external to the
+   confederation.
+
+   The intention of this extension is to aid in policy administration
+   and reduce the management complexity of maintaining a large
+   autonomous system.
+
+   The extension this document describes is widely deployed in the
+   Internet today.
+
+Introduction
+
+   It may be useful to subdivide autonomous systems with a very large
+   number of BGP speakers into smaller domains for purposes of
+   controlling routing policy via information contained in the BGP
+   AS_PATH attribute.  For example, one may chose to consider all BGP
+   speakers in a geographic region as a single entity.
+
+   In addition to improvements in routing policy control, current
+   techniques for deploying BGP among speakers in the same autonomous
+   system establish a full mesh of TCP connections among all speakers
+   for the purpose of exchanging exterior routing information.  In
+   autonomous systems the number of intra-domain connections that need
+   to be maintained by each border router can become significant.
+
+   Subdividing a large autonomous system allows a significant reduction
+   in the total number of intra-domain BGP connections, as the
+
+
+
+Traina                        Experimental                      [Page 1]
+
+RFC 1965               AS Confederations for BGP               June 1996
+
+
+   connectivity requirements simplify to the model used for inter-domain
+   connections.
+
+   Unfortunately subdividing an autonomous system may increase the
+   complexity of policy routing based on AS_PATH information for all
+   members of the Internet.  Additionally, this division increases the
+   maintenance overhead of coordinating external peering when the
+   internal topology of this collection of autonomous systems is
+   modified.
+
+   Finally, dividing a large AS may unnecessarily increase the length of
+   the sequence portions of the AS_PATH attribute.  Several common BGP
+   implementations can use the number of "hops" required to reach a
+   given destination as part of the path selection criteria.  While this
+   is not an optimal method of determining route preference, given the
+   lack of other in-band information, it provides a reasonable default
+   behavior which is widely used across the Internet.  Therefore,
+   division of an autonomous system into separate systems may adversely
+   affect optimal routing of packets through the Internet.
+
+   However, there is usually no need to expose the internal topology of
+   this divided autonomous system,  which means it is possible to regard
+   a collection of autonomous systems under a common administration as a
+   single entity or autonomous system when viewed from outside the
+   confines of the confederation of autonomous systems itself.
+
+Terms and Definitions
+
+   AS Confederation
+      A collection of autonomous systems advertised as a single AS
+      number to BGP speakers that are not members of the confederation.
+
+   AS Confederation Identifier
+      An externally visible autonomous system number that identifies the
+      confederation as a whole.
+
+   Member-AS
+      An autonomous system that is contained in a given AS
+      confederation.
+
+Overview
+
+   IDRP[2] has the concept of a routing domain confederation.  An IDRP
+   routing domain confederation appears to IDRP speakers external to the
+   confederation as a single administrative entity.  This extension is
+   based upon that work.
+
+
+
+
+
+Traina                        Experimental                      [Page 2]
+
+RFC 1965               AS Confederations for BGP               June 1996
+
+
+   In IDRP, routing domain confederations may be nested within each
+   other or disjoint portions of still larger confederations.  The
+   algorithm BGP defines for additions to the AS_PATH attribute imposes
+   an additional restriction that AS confederations must be strictly
+   hierarchical in nature.
+
+AS_CONFED segment type extension
+
+   Currently, BGP specifies that the AS_PATH attribute is a well-known
+   mandatory attribute that is composed of a sequence of AS path
+   segments.  Each AS path segment is represented by a type/length/value
+   triple.
+
+   In [1], the path segment type is a 1-octet long field with the two
+   following values defined:
+
+             Value     Segment Type
+
+             1         AS_SET: unordered set of ASs a route in the
+                              UPDATE message has traversed
+
+             2         AS_SEQUENCE: ordered set of ASs a route in
+                              the UPDATE message has traversed
+
+   This document reserves two additional segment types:
+
+             3         AS_CONFED_SET: unordered set of ASs in the local
+                              confederation that the UPDATE message
+                              has traversed
+
+             4         AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE: ordered set of ASs in the
+                              local confederation that the UPDATE
+                              message has traversed
+
+Operation
+
+   A member of a BGP confederation will use its confederation identifier
+   in all transactions with peers that are not members of its
+   confederation.  This confederation identifier is considered to be the
+   "externally visible" AS number and this number is used in OPEN
+   messages and advertised in the AS_PATH attribute.
+
+   A member of a BGP confederation will use its routing domain
+   identifier (the internally visible AS number) in all transactions
+   with peers that are members of the same confederation as the given
+   router.
+
+
+
+
+
+Traina                        Experimental                      [Page 3]
+
+RFC 1965               AS Confederations for BGP               June 1996
+
+
+   A BGP speaker receiving an AS_PATH attribute containing a
+   confederation ID matching its own confederation shall treat the path
+   in the same fashion as if it had received a path containing its own
+   AS number.
+
+AS_PATH modification rules
+
+   Section 5.1.2 of [1] is replaced with the following text.
+
+   When a BGP speaker propagates a route which it has learned from
+   another BGP speaker's UPDATE message, it shall modify the route's
+   AS_PATH attribute based on the location of the BGP speaker to which
+   the route will be sent:
+
+      a) When a given BGP speaker advertises the route to another BGP
+      speaker located in its own autonomous system, the advertising
+      speaker shall not modify the AS_PATH attribute associated with
+      the route.
+
+      b) When a given BGP speaker advertises the route to a BGP
+      speaker located in a neighboring autonomous system that is a
+      member of the local autonomous system confederation, then the
+      advertising speaker shall update the AS_PATH attribute as
+      follows:
+
+         1) if the first path segment of the AS_PATH is of type
+         AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE, the local system shall prepend its own AS
+         number as the last element of the sequence (put it in the
+         leftmost position).
+
+         2) if the first path segment of the AS_PATH is not of type
+         AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE the local system shall prepend a new path
+         segment of type AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE to the AS_PATH, including
+         its own confederation identifier in that segment.
+
+      c) When a given BGP speaker advertises the route to a BGP
+      speaker located in a neighboring autonomous system that is not a
+      member of the current routing domain confederation, then the
+      advertising speaker shall update the AS_PATH attribute as
+      follows:
+
+         1) if the first path segment of the AS_PATH is of type
+         AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE, that segment and any immediately
+         following segments of the type AS_CONFED_SET are removed from
+         the AS_PATH attribute, leaving the sanitized AS_PATH
+         attribute to be operated on by steps 2, or 3.
+
+
+
+
+
+Traina                        Experimental                      [Page 4]
+
+RFC 1965               AS Confederations for BGP               June 1996
+
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+         2) if the first path segment of the remaining AS_PATH is of
+         type AS_SEQUENCE, the local system shall prepend its own
+         confederation identifier as the last element of the sequence
+         (put it in the leftmost position).
+
+         3) if there are no path segments following the removal of the
+         first AS_CONFED_SET/AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE segments, or if the
+         first path segment of the remaining AS_PATH is of type AS_SET
+         the local system shall prepend a new path segment of type
+         AS_SEQUENCE to the AS_PATH, including its own confederation
+         identifier in that segment.
+
+   When a BGP speaker originates a route:
+
+      a) the originating speaker shall include an empty AS_PATH
+      attribute in all UPDATE messages sent to BGP speakers located in
+      its own autonomous system. (An empty AS_PATH attribute is one
+      whose length field contains the value zero).
+
+      b) the originating speaker shall include its own AS number in an
+      AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE segment of the AS_PATH attribute of all
+      UPDATE messages sent to BGP speakers located in neighboring
+      autonomous systems that are members of the local confederation.
+      (In this case, the AS number of the originating speaker's member
+      autonomous system number will be the only entry in the AS_PATH
+      attribute).
+
+      c) the originating speaker shall include its own confederation
+      identifier in a AS_SEQUENCE segment of the AS_PATH attribute of
+      all UPDATE messages sent to BGP speakers located in neighboring
+      autonomous systems that are not members of the local
+      confederation. (In this case, the confederation identifier of
+      the originating speaker's member confederation will be the only
+      entry in the AS_PATH attribute).
+
+Common Administration Issues
+
+   It is reasonable for member ASs of a confederation to share a common
+   administration and IGP information for the entire confederation.
+
+   It shall be legal for a BGP speaker to advertise an unchanged
+   NEXT_HOP and MULTI_EXIT_DISCRIMINATOR attribute to peers in a
+   neighboring AS within the same confederation.  In addition, the
+   restriction against sending the LOCAL_PREFERENCE attribute to peers
+   in a neighboring AS within the same confederation is removed.  Path
+   selection criteria for information received from members inside a
+   confederation may follow the same rules used for information received
+   from members inside the same autonomous system.
+
+
+
+Traina                        Experimental                      [Page 5]
+
+RFC 1965               AS Confederations for BGP               June 1996
+
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+Compatibility
+
+   All BGP speakers participating in a confederation must recognize the
+   AS_CONFED_SET and AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE segment type extensions to the
+   AS_PATH attribute.
+
+   Any BGP speaker not supporting these extensions will generate a
+   notification message specifying an "UPDATE Message Error" and a sub-
+   code of "Malformed AS_PATH".
+
+   This compatibility issue implies that all BGP speakers participating
+   in a confederation must support BGP confederations,  however BGP
+   speakers outside the confederation need not support these extensions.
+
+Compatibility Discussion
+
+   We considered the use of a distinct, optional, transitive attribute
+   to carry AS confederation information as opposed to specifying new
+   types in the existing AS path attribute.  This would relax the
+   requirement that all BGP speakers participating in a confederation to
+   allow the use of legacy units provided they have no external (i.e.
+   neither inter-AS nor intra-confederation) connectivity.
+
+   At the time of this writing, an implementation of this extension as
+   documented is widely deployed throughout the Internet,  therefore the
+   value of any change that is incompatible with this document must be
+   weighed against the benefit gained from a relaxation of this
+   restriction.
+
+References
+
+   [1] Rekhter, Y., and T. Li, "A Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)",
+       RFC 1771, March 1995.
+
+   [2] Kunzinger, C. Editor, "Inter-Domain Routing Protocol", ISO/IEC
+       10747, October 1993.
+
+Security Considerations
+
+   Security issues are not discussed in this memo.
+
+Acknowledgments
+
+   Ravi Chandra and Yakov Rekhter reviewed this document and provided
+   constructive and valuable comments.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Traina                        Experimental                      [Page 6]
+
+RFC 1965               AS Confederations for BGP               June 1996
+
+
+Author's Address
+
+   Paul Traina
+   cisco Systems, Inc.
+   170 W. Tasman Dr.
+   San Jose, CA 95134
+
+   EMail: pst@cisco.com
+
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+Traina                        Experimental                      [Page 7]
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