Once upon a time, far far away, there were the old Bird developers
discussing what direction of route flow shall be called import and
export. They decided to say "import to protocol" and "export to table"
when speaking about a protocol. When speaking about a table, they
spoke about "importing to table" and "exporting to protocol".
The latter terminology was adopted in configuration, then also the
bird CLI in commit ea2ae6dd0 started to use it (in year 2009). Now
it's 2018 and the terminology is the latter. Import is from protocol to
table, export is from table to protocol. Anyway, there was still an
import_control hook which executed right before route export.
One thing is funny. There are two commits in April 1999 with just two
minutes between them. The older announces the final settlement
on config terminology, the newer uses the other definition. Let's see
their commit messages as the git-log tool shows them (the newer first):
commit 9e0e485e50
Author: Martin Mares <mj@ucw.cz>
Date: Mon Apr 5 20:17:59 1999 +0000
Added some new protocol hooks (look at the comments for better explanation):
make_tmp_attrs Convert inline attributes to ea_list
store_tmp_attrs Convert ea_list to inline attributes
import_control Pre-import decisions
commit 5056c559c4
Author: Martin Mares <mj@ucw.cz>
Date: Mon Apr 5 20:15:31 1999 +0000
Changed syntax of attaching filters to protocols to hopefully the final
version:
EXPORT <filter-spec> for outbound routes (i.e., those announced
by BIRD to the rest of the world).
IMPORT <filter-spec> for inbound routes (i.e., those imported
by BIRD from the rest of the world).
where <filter-spec> is one of:
ALL pass all routes
NONE drop all routes
FILTER <name> use named filter
FILTER { <filter> } use explicitly defined filter
For all protocols, the default is IMPORT ALL, EXPORT NONE. This includes
the kernel protocol, so that you need to add EXPORT ALL to get the previous
configuration of kernel syncer (as usually, see doc/bird.conf.example for
a bird.conf example :)).
Let's say RIP to this almost 19-years-old inconsistency. For now, if you
import a route, it is always from protocol to table. If you export a
route, it is always from table to protocol.
And they lived happily ever after.
The new MRT protocol is responsible for periodic RIB table dumps in the
MRT format (RFC 6396). Also the existing code for BGP4MP MRT dumps is
refactored and splitted between BGP to MRT protocols, will be more
integrated into MRT in the future.
Example:
protocol mrt {
table "*";
filename "%N_%F_%T.mrt";
period 60;
}
It is partially based on the old MRT code from Pavel Tvrdik.
We currently cannot assing local labels, but we can still be LSP egress
router. Therefore when we announce labeled route with local next-hop, we
should announce implicit-NULL label instead of rejecting it completely.
RFC 3107 was bit vague with regard to labeled withdrawals, RFC 8277
clarified that. The old code was incompatible with some implementations,
namely with Juniper.
Thanks to Vadim Fedorenko for the original patch.
This is a fundamental change of an original (1999) concept of route
processing inside BIRD. During import/export, there was a temporary
ea_list created which was to be used instead of the another one inside
the route itself.
This led to some confusion, quirks, and strange filter code that handled
extended route attributes. Dropping it now.
The protocol interface has changed in an uniform way -- the
`struct ea_list *attrs` argument has been removed from store_tmp_attrs(),
import_control(), rt_notify() and get_route_info().
The old timer interface is still kept, but implemented by new timers. The
plan is to switch from the old inteface to the new interface, then clean
it up.
The patch implements BGP Administrative Shutdown Communication (RFC 8203)
allowing BGP operators to pass messages related to BGP session
administrative shutdown/restart. It handles both transmit and receive of
shutdown messages. Messages are logged and may be displayed by show
protocol all command.
Thanks to Job Snijders for the basic patch.
Add basic VRF (virtual routing and forwarding) support. Protocols can be
associated with VRFs, such protocols will be restricted to interfaces
assigned to the VRF (as reported by Linux kernel) and will use sockets
bound to the VRF. E.g., different multihop BGP instances can use diffent
kernel routing tables to handle BGP TCP connections.
The VRF support is preliminary, currently there are several limitations:
- Recent Linux kernels (4.11) do not handle correctly sockets bound
to interaces that are part of VRF, so most protocols other than multihop
BGP do not work. This will be fixed by future kernel versions.
- Neighbor cache ignores VRFs. Breaks config with the same prefix on
local interfaces in different VRFs. Not much problem as single hop
protocols do not work anyways.
- Olock code ignores VRFs. Breaks config with multiple BGP peers with the
same IP address in different VRFs.
- Incoming BGP connections are not dispatched according to VRFs.
Breaks config with multiple BGP peers with the same IP address in
different VRFs. Perhaps we would need some kernel API to read VRF of
incoming connection? Or probably use multiple listening sockets in
int-new branch.
- We should handle master VRF interface up/down events and perhaps
disable associated protocols when VRF goes down. Or at least disable
associated interfaces.
- Also we should check if the master iface is really VRF iface and
not some other kind of master iface.
- BFD session request dispatch should be aware of VRFs.
- Perhaps kernel protocol should read default kernel table ID from VRF
iface so it is not necessary to configure it.
- Perhaps we should have per-VRF default table.
Covers IPv4/VPNv4 routes with IPv6 next hop (RFC 5549), IPv6 routes with
IPv4 next hop (RFC 4798) and VPNv6 routes with IPv4 next hop (RFC 4659).
Unfortunately it also makes next hop hooks more messy.
Each BGP channel now could have two IGP tables, one for IPv4 next hops,
the other for IPv6 next hops.
Basic support for SAFI 4 and 128 (MPLS labeled IP and VPN) for IPv4 and
IPv6. Should work for route reflector, but does not properly handle
originating routes with next hop self.
Based on patches from Jan Matejka.
