Arch Linux

Installing Dependencies

sudo pacman -Syu
sudo pacman -S \
   git autoconf automake libtool make cmake pcre readline texinfo \
   pkg-config pam json-c bison flex python-pytest \
   c-ares python systemd python2-ipaddress python-sphinx \
   systemd-libs net-snmp perl libcap

FRR depends on the relatively new libyang library to provide YANG/NETCONF support. Unfortunately, most distributions do not yet offer a libyang package from their repositories. Therefore we offer two options to install this library.

Option 1: Binary Install

The FRR project builds binary libyang packages, which we offer for download here.

Warning

libyang version 0.16.105 or newer is required to build FRR.

Note

The libyang development packages need to be installed in addition to the libyang core package in order to build FRR successfully. Make sure to download and install those from the link above alongside the binary packages.

Depending on your platform, you may also need to install the PCRE development package. Typically this is libpcre-dev or pcre-devel.

Note

For Debian-based systems, the official libyang package requires recent versions of swig (3.0.12) and debhelper (11) which are only available in Debian buster (10). However, libyang packages built on Debian buster can be installed on both Debian jessie (8) and Debian stretch (9), as well as various Ubuntu systems. The python3-yang package will not work, but the other packages (libyang-dev is the one needed for FRR) will.

Option 2: Source Install

Note

Ensure that the libyang build requirements are met before continuing. Usually this entails installing cmake and libpcre-dev or pcre-devel.

git clone https://github.com/CESNET/libyang.git
cd libyang
mkdir build; cd build
cmake -DENABLE_LYD_PRIV=ON -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=/usr \
      -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:String="Release" ..
make
sudo make install

When building libyang version 0.16.x it’s also necessary to pass the -DENABLE_CACHE=OFF parameter to cmake to work around a known bug in libyang.

Protobuf

sudo pacman -S protobuf-c

ZeroMQ

sudo pacman -S zeromq

Building & Installing FRR

Add FRR user and groups

sudo groupadd -r -g 92 frr
sudo groupadd -r -g 85 frrvty
sudo useradd --system -g frr --home-dir /var/run/frr/ \
-c "FRR suite" --shell /sbin/nologin frr
sudo usermod -a -G frrvty frr

Compile

Clone the FRR git repo and use the included configure script to configure FRR’s build time options to your liking. The full option listing can be obtained by running ./configure -h. The options shown below are examples.

Note

If your platform uses systemd, please make sure to add --enable-systemd=yes to your configure options.

git clone https://github.com/frrouting/frr.git frr
cd frr
./bootstrap.sh
./configure \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --includedir=\${prefix}/include \
    --enable-exampledir=\${prefix}/share/doc/frr/examples \
    --bindir=\${prefix}/bin \
    --sbindir=\${prefix}/lib/frr \
    --libdir=\${prefix}/lib/frr \
    --libexecdir=\${prefix}/lib/frr \
    --localstatedir=/var/run/frr \
    --sysconfdir=/etc/frr \
    --with-moduledir=\${prefix}/lib/frr/modules \
    --with-libyang-pluginsdir=\${prefix}/lib/frr/libyang_plugins \
    --enable-configfile-mask=0640 \
    --enable-logfile-mask=0640 \
    --enable-snmp=agentx \
    --enable-multipath=64 \
    --enable-user=frr \
    --enable-group=frr \
    --enable-vty-group=frrvty \
    --with-pkg-git-version \
    --with-pkg-extra-version=-MyOwnFRRVersion
make
sudo make install

Install FRR configuration files

sudo install -m 775 -o frr -g frr -d /var/log/frr
sudo install -m 775 -o frr -g frrvty -d /etc/frr
sudo install -m 640 -o frr -g frrvty tools/etc/frr/vtysh.conf /etc/frr/vtysh.conf
sudo install -m 640 -o frr -g frr tools/etc/frr/frr.conf /etc/frr/frr.conf
sudo install -m 640 -o frr -g frr tools/etc/frr/daemons.conf /etc/frr/daemons.conf
sudo install -m 640 -o frr -g frr tools/etc/frr/daemons /etc/frr/daemons

Tweak sysctls

Some sysctls need to be changed in order to enable IPv4/IPv6 forwarding and MPLS (if supported by your platform). If your platform does not support MPLS, skip the MPLS related configuration in this section.

Edit /etc/sysctl.conf [Create the file if it doesn’t exist] and append the following values (ignore the other settings):

# Enable packet forwarding for IPv4
net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

#  Enable packet forwarding for IPv6
net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1

Reboot or use sysctl -p to apply the same config to the running system.

Add MPLS kernel modules

To enable, add the following lines to /etc/modules-load.d/modules.conf:

# Load MPLS Kernel Modules
mpls_router
mpls_iptunnel

And load the kernel modules on the running system:

sudo modprobe mpls-router mpls-iptunnel

Enable MPLS Forwarding

Edit /etc/sysctl.conf and the following lines. Make sure to add a line equal to net.mpls.conf.eth0.input for each interface used with MPLS.

# Enable MPLS Label processing on all interfaces
net.mpls.conf.eth0.input=1
net.mpls.conf.eth1.input=1
net.mpls.conf.eth2.input=1
net.mpls.platform_labels=100000

Install service files

sudo install -m 644 tools/frr.service /etc/systemd/system/frr.service
sudo systemctl enable frr

Start FRR

systemctl start frr