BGP questions

Sage2k

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 25, 2002
Messages
1,551
I'm on some cisco gear (6509)

If i do a "show ip bgp summary" and the bgp peer is showing the state as "active" does that mean theres at least some communication going on in the bgp handshake but its failing for some reason? Or is it possible to be at the active state and have zero packets reach the other side?

I've read that if its at the active state, it could possible be due to some tcp issue such as port 179 being filtered.

One thing I do know is that a traceroute to the remote end takes a different route than a traceroute from the remote end to us. Kinda odd, but should BGP still work as long as the packets reach their destination?

My next step would be to debug the bgp process, but theres no rush so I haven't been able to get to it yet.
 
Are you advertising routes?

active != established

Have you ever done anything with BGP before?
 
in BGP, active is bad; it means it is actively trying to establish a connection, but can't.

Generally speaking, eBGP (external BGP) requires the other side to be one-hop away, as a security mechanism; this could definitely cause you problems (unless the BGP config for the peer specifies it is ebgp-multihop)
 
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in BGP, active is bad; it means it is actively trying to establish a connection, but can't.

Generally speaking, eBGP (external BGP) requires the other side to be one-hop away, as a security mechanism; this could definitely cause you problems.

Not with eBGP multihop.

post your BGP config and topology and we shall examine.
 
As Fint said, BGP in ACTIVE, means the device is activly looking to establish a connection with its peer.

As well as your BGP configuration from both devices, could you also post a diagram to so we can see how the devices are connected?
 
Sorry I hadn't replied sooner. This is for my new job, and I'm just learning all this stuff.

Yes, this was eBgp and multihop was enabled.

Problem ended up being a bad static route to the next hop, someone had readdressed the other side a few months ago...
also the MD5 password was wrong on the remote end.
 
Sorry I hadn't replied sooner. This is for my new job, and I'm just learning all this stuff.

Yes, this was eBgp and multihop was enabled.

Problem ended up being a bad static route to the next hop, someone had readdressed the other side a few months ago...
also the MD5 password was wrong on the remote end.

So this is resolved?
 
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