Version Capability for BGP
draft-abraitis-bgp-version-capability-01

Abstract

In this document, we introduce a new BGP capability that allows the advertisement of a BGP speaker's version.

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Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Specification of Requirements
• 3. Version Capability
• 4. Operation
• 5. IANA Considerations
• 6. Security Considerations
• 7. References
• 7.1. Normative References
• 7.2. Informative References
• Author's Address

1. Introduction

In modern data center designs, we tend to have conventional hosts participating in the routing process. And the fleet of hosts has different versions of routing daemon. This means that troubleshooting is a crucial part to quickly identify the root cause. This document introduces new BGP capability to advertise the version of routing daemon.

2. Specification of Requirements

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

3. Version Capability

The Version Capability is a new BGP capability [RFC5492].

                +--------------------------------+
                |    Version Length (1 octet)    |
                +--------------------------------+
                |      Version (variable)        |
                +--------------------------------+
            

Figure 1

Version Length:

• The number of characters in the Version

Version:

• The Version encoded via UTF-8

4. Operation

The Version capability SHOULD only be used for displaying the version of a speaker in order to make troubleshooting easier. You have a bunch of routers with a number of upstreams each. All of them are with a different operating system and routing daemon installed. Assuming that a specific feature is not working or a bug which is not fixed in an appropriate version, would allow us to quickly identify the pattern which versions are affected. Below is an example of implementation in [FRRouting] how it looks like with version advertised by a BGP sender:

:~# vtysh -c 'show ip bgp neighbors 192.168.0.1 json' \
> | jq '."192.168.0.1".neighborCapabilities.versions'
{
  "advertisedVersion": "FRRouting 7.2-dev-MyOwnFRRVersion",
  "receivedVersion": "FRRouting 7.2-dev-MyOwnFRRVersion-gc68bb14"
}
            

Figure 2

5. IANA Considerations

IANA is requested to assign a capability number for the Version Capability in this document from the BGP Capabilities Codes registry.

6. Security Considerations

All drafts are required to have a security considerations section. See RFC 3552 for a guide.

7. References

7.1. Normative References

7.2. Informative References

Author's Address