BGP#

Warning

This guide is provided as is. The eduVPN project provides no support for BGP.

If your network allows it, the IP ranges used by your vpn-server-node can be obtained through BGP. For this to work, you must know the following:

• neighbor IP-address of your routers (this may differ from the default gateway)
• local-address Your own IP-address
• router-id Your router ID, often this is your IPv4 address - also for IPv6 announces
• local-as AS number for your VPN setup (obtained from your institutions netops)
• peer-as AS number of your network

The netops must know the IP-address your vpn-server-node is using, and the subnets it will be requesting. Please note that many BGP implementations will refuse to issue subnets smaller than configured, unless explicitly allowed. If you need to be able to split your subnet, discuss this with your network operator.

DO NOT SET THIS UP BEFORE TALKING TO YOUR NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR FIRST

Install exaBGP#

On CentOS 7, you can do as follows:

yum install pip3
pip3 install exabgp

Make a systemd unit file

/etc/exabgp/exabgp.service#

[Unit]
Description=exabgp

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/exabgp -e /etc/exabgp/exabgp.env /etc/exabgp/exabgp.conf
User=nobody
PermissionsStartOnly=true
ExecStartPre=/bin/mkdir -p /run/exabgp
ExecStartPre=-/usr/bin/mkfifo /run/exabgp/exabgp.in /run/exabgp/exabgp.out
ExecStartPre=/bin/chmod 600 /run/exabgp/exabgp.in /run/exabgp/exabgp.out
ExecStartPre=/bin/chown nobody:nobody /run/exabgp /run/exabgp/exabgp.in /run/exabgp/exabgp.out

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Configuration#

Write a configuration file for exabgp; this file documents the routers and the AS numbers used.

Update router-id, peer-as, local-as, local-address and neighbor statements with your own.

/etc/exabgp/exabgp.conf#

template {
    neighbor v4 {
        router-id 192.0.2.100;
        peer-as 112;
        local-as 65355;
        group-updates;
        local-address 192.0.2.100;
        family {
            ipv4 unicast;
        }
    }
    neighbor v6 {
        router-id 192.0.2.100;
        peer-as 112;
        local-as 65355;
        group-updates;
        local-address 2001:db8::64;
        family {
            ipv6 unicast;
        }
    }
}
neighbor 192.0.2.2 {
    inherit v4;
}
neighbor 192.0.2.3 {
    inherit v4;
}
neighbor 2001:db8::2 {
    inherit v6;
}
neighbor 2001:db8::3 {
    inherit v6;
}
process recursor {
    run /usr/bin/python3 -m exabgp healthcheck --config /etc/exabgp/eduvpn.conf;
    encoder text;
}

/etc/exabgp/eduvpn.conf#

name = eduvpn
interval = 5
fast-interval = 1
ip = 192.0.2.128/25
ip = 2001:db8:80::/64
no-ip-setup
withdraw-on-down
command = true
pid = /var/run/exabgp/eduvpn.pid
silent

Then start exabgp

ln -s /etc/exabgp/exabgp.service /etc/systemd/system/exabgp.service
systemctl enable exabgp.service --now