Bidirectional Forwarding Detection

BFD stands for Bidirectional Forwarding Detection and it is described and extended by the following RFCs:

Currently, there are two implementations of the BFD commands in FRR:

  • PTM: an external daemon which implements BFD;
  • bfdd: a BFD implementation that is able to talk with remote peers;

This document will focus on the later implementation: bfdd.

Starting BFD

bfdd default configuration file is bfdd.conf. bfdd searches the current directory first then /etc/frr/bfdd.conf. All of bfdd’s command must be configured in bfdd.conf.

bfdd specific invocation options are described below. Common options may also be specified (Common Invocation Options).

--bfdctl <unix-socket>

Set the BFD daemon control socket location. If using a non-default socket location:

/usr/lib/frr/bfdd --bfdctl /tmp/bfdd.sock

The default UNIX socket location is:

#define BFDD_CONTROL_SOCKET “/var/run/frr/bfdd.sock”

BFDd Commands

bfd

Opens the BFD daemon configuration node.

peer <A.B.C.D|X:X::X:X> [{multihop|local-address <A.B.C.D|X:X::X:X>|interface IFNAME|vrf NAME}]

Creates and configures a new BFD peer to listen and talk to.

multihop tells the BFD daemon that we should expect packets with TTL less than 254 (because it will take more than one hop) and to listen on the multihop port (4784). When using multi-hop mode echo-mode will not work (see RFC 5883 section 3).

local-address provides a local address that we should bind our peer listener to and the address we should use to send the packets. This option is mandatory for IPv6.

interface selects which interface we should use. This option conflicts with vrf.

vrf selects which domain we want to use.

no peer <A.B.C.D|X:X::X:X>$peer [{multihop|local-address <A.B.C.D|X:X::X:X>$local|interface IFNAME$ifname|vrf NAME$vrfname}]

Stops and removes the selected peer.

show bfd peers [json]

Show all configured BFD peers information and current status.

show bfd peer <WORD$label|<A.B.C.D|X:X::X:X>$peer [{multihop|local-address <A.B.C.D|X:X::X:X>$local|interface IFNAME$ifname|vrf NAME$vrfname}]> [json]

Show status for a specific BFD peer.

Peer Configurations

detect-multiplier (2-255)

Configures the detection multiplier to determine packet loss. The remote transmission interval will be multiplied by this value to determine the connection loss detection timer. The default value is 3.

Example: when the local system has detect-multiplier 3 and the remote system has transmission interval 300, the local system will detect failures only after 900 milliseconds without receiving packets.

receive-interval (10-60000)

Configures the minimum interval that this system is capable of receiving control packets. The default value is 300 milliseconds.

transmit-interval (10-60000)

The minimum transmission interval (less jitter) that this system wants to use to send BFD control packets.

echo-interval (10-60000)

Configures the minimal echo receive transmission interval that this system is capable of handling.

[no] echo-mode

Enables or disables the echo transmission mode. This mode is disabled by default.

It is recommended that the transmission interval of control packets to be increased after enabling echo-mode to reduce bandwidth usage. For example: transmission-interval 2000.

Echo mode is not supported on multi-hop setups (see RFC 5883 section 3).

[no] shutdown

Enables or disables the peer. When the peer is disabled an ‘administrative down’ message is sent to the remote peer.

label WORD

Labels a peer with the provided word. This word can be referenced later on other daemons to refer to a specific peer.

BGP BFD Configuration

The following commands are available inside the BGP configuration node.

neighbor <A.B.C.D|X:X::X:X|WORD> bfd

Listen for BFD events registered on the same target as this BGP neighbor. When BFD peer goes down it immediately asks BGP to shutdown the connection with its neighbor and, when it goes back up, notify BGP to try to connect to it.

no neighbor <A.B.C.D|X:X::X:X|WORD> bfd

Removes any notification registration for this neighbor.

OSPF BFD Configuration

The following commands are available inside the interface configuration node.

ip ospf bfd

Listen for BFD events on peers created on the interface. Every time a new neighbor is found a BFD peer is created to monitor the link status for fast convergence.

no ip ospf bfd

Removes any notification registration for this interface peers.

OSPF6 BFD Configuration

The following commands are available inside the interface configuration node.

ipv6 ospf6 bfd

Listen for BFD events on peers created on the interface. Every time a new neighbor is found a BFD peer is created to monitor the link status for fast convergence.

no ipv6 ospf6 bfd

Removes any notification registration for this interface peers.

PIM BFD Configuration

The following commands are available inside the interface configuration node.

ip pim bfd

Listen for BFD events on peers created on the interface. Every time a new neighbor is found a BFD peer is created to monitor the link status for fast convergence.

no ip pim bfd

Removes any notification registration for this interface peers.

Configuration

Before applying bfdd rules to integrated daemons (like BGPd), we must create the corresponding peers inside the bfd configuration node.

Here is an example of BFD configuration:

bfd
 peer 192.168.0.1
   label home-peer
   no shutdown
 !
!
router bgp 65530
 neighbor 192.168.0.1 remote-as 65531
 neighbor 192.168.0.1 bfd
 neighbor 192.168.0.2 remote-as 65530
 neighbor 192.168.0.2 bfd
 neighbor 192.168.0.3 remote-as 65532
 neighbor 192.168.0.3 bfd
!

Peers can be identified by its address (use multihop when you need to specify a multi hop peer) or can be specified manually by a label.

Here are the available peer configurations:

bfd

 ! configure a peer on an specific interface
 peer 192.168.0.1 interface eth0
  no shutdown
 !

 ! configure a multihop peer
 peer 192.168.0.2 multihop local-address 192.168.0.3
   shutdown
 !

 ! configure a peer in a different vrf
 peer 192.168.0.3 vrf foo
  shutdown
 !

 ! configure a peer with every option possible
 peer 192.168.0.4
  label peer-label
  detect-multiplier 50
  receive-interval 60000
  transmit-interval 3000
  shutdown
 !

 ! remove a peer
 no peer 192.168.0.3 vrf foo

Status

You can inspect the current BFD peer status with the following commands:

frr# show bfd peers
BFD Peers:
        peer 192.168.0.1
                ID: 1
                Remote ID: 1
                Status: up
                Uptime: 1 minute(s), 51 second(s)
                Diagnostics: ok
                Remote diagnostics: ok
                Local timers:
                        Receive interval: 300ms
                        Transmission interval: 300ms
                        Echo transmission interval: disabled
                Remote timers:
                        Receive interval: 300ms
                        Transmission interval: 300ms
                        Echo transmission interval: 50ms

        peer 192.168.1.1
                label: router3-peer
                ID: 2
                Remote ID: 2
                Status: up
                Uptime: 1 minute(s), 53 second(s)
                Diagnostics: ok
                Remote diagnostics: ok
                Local timers:
                        Receive interval: 300ms
                        Transmission interval: 300ms
                        Echo transmission interval: disabled
                Remote timers:
                        Receive interval: 300ms
                        Transmission interval: 300ms
                        Echo transmission interval: 50ms

frr# show bfd peer 192.168.1.1
BFD Peer:
            peer 192.168.1.1
                label: router3-peer
                ID: 2
                Remote ID: 2
                Status: up
                Uptime: 3 minute(s), 4 second(s)
                Diagnostics: ok
                Remote diagnostics: ok
                Local timers:
                        Receive interval: 300ms
                        Transmission interval: 300ms
                        Echo transmission interval: disabled
                Remote timers:
                        Receive interval: 300ms
                        Transmission interval: 300ms
                        Echo transmission interval: 50ms

frr# show bfd peer 192.168.0.1 json
{"multihop":false,"peer":"192.168.0.1","id":1,"remote-id":1,"status":"up","uptime":161,"diagnostic":"ok","remote-diagnostic":"ok","receive-interval":300,"transmit-interval":300,"echo-interval":50,"remote-receive-interval":300,"remote-transmit-interval":300,"remote-echo-interval":50}

You can also inspect peer session counters with the following commands:

frr# show bfd peers counters
BFD Peers:
     peer 192.168.2.1 interface r2-eth2
             Control packet input: 28 packets
             Control packet output: 28 packets
             Echo packet input: 0 packets
             Echo packet output: 0 packets
             Session up events: 1
             Session down events: 0
             Zebra notifications: 2

     peer 192.168.0.1
             Control packet input: 54 packets
             Control packet output: 103 packets
             Echo packet input: 965 packets
             Echo packet output: 966 packets
             Session up events: 1
             Session down events: 0
             Zebra notifications: 4

frr# show bfd peer 192.168.0.1 counters
     peer 192.168.0.1
             Control packet input: 126 packets
             Control packet output: 247 packets
             Echo packet input: 2409 packets
             Echo packet output: 2410 packets
             Session up events: 1
             Session down events: 0
             Zebra notifications: 4

frr# show bfd peer 192.168.0.1 counters json
{"multihop":false,"peer":"192.168.0.1","control-packet-input":348,"control-packet-output":685,"echo-packet-input":6815,"echo-packet-output":6816,"session-up":1,"session-down":0,"zebra-notifications":4}