Fedora 24+

This document describes installation from source. If you want to build an RPM, see Packaging Red Hat.

These instructions have been tested on Fedora 24+.

Installing Dependencies

sudo dnf install git autoconf automake libtool make \
  readline-devel texinfo net-snmp-devel groff pkgconfig json-c-devel \
  pam-devel python3-pytest bison flex c-ares-devel python3-devel \
  python3-sphinx perl-core patch libcap-devel \
  elfutils-libelf-devel libunwind-devel protobuf-c-devel

Note

The libunwind library is optional but highly recommended, as it improves backtraces printed for crashes and debugging. However, if it is not available for some reason, it can simply be left out without any loss of functionality.

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 some binary libyang packages.

RPM packages are at our RPM repository.

DEB packages are available as CI artifacts here.

Warning

libyang version 2.1.128 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 libpcre2-dev or pcre2-devel.

Option 2: Source Install

Note

Ensure that the libyang build requirements are met before continuing. Usually this entails installing cmake and libpcre2-dev or pcre2-devel.

git clone https://github.com/CESNET/libyang.git
cd libyang
git checkout v2.1.128
mkdir build; cd build
cmake --install-prefix /usr \
      -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:String="Release" ..
make
sudo make install

Building & Installing FRR

Add FRR user and groups

sudo groupadd -g 92 frr
sudo groupadd -r -g 85 frrvty
sudo useradd -u 92 -g 92 -M -r -G frrvty -s /sbin/nologin \
  -c "FRR FRRouting suite" -d /var/run/frr 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.

git clone https://github.com/frrouting/frr.git frr
cd frr
./bootstrap.sh
./configure \
    --prefix=/usr \
    --includedir=\${prefix}/include \
    --bindir=\${prefix}/bin \
    --sbindir=\${prefix}/lib/frr \
    --libdir=\${prefix}/lib/frr \
    --libexecdir=\${prefix}/lib/frr \
    --sysconfdir=/etc \
    --localstatedir=/var \
    --with-moduledir=\${prefix}/lib/frr/modules \
    --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.

Create a new file /etc/sysctl.d/90-routing-sysctl.conf with the following content:

#
# Enable packet forwarding
#
net.ipv4.conf.all.forwarding=1
net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1
#
# 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

Note

MPLS must be invidividually enabled on each interface that requires it. See the example in the config block above.

Load the modified sysctls on the system:

sudo sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/90-routing-sysctl.conf

Create a new file /etc/modules-load.d/mpls.conf with the following content:

# Load MPLS Kernel Modules
mpls-router
mpls-iptunnel

And load the kernel modules on the running system:

sudo modprobe mpls-router mpls-iptunnel

Note

Fedora ships with the firewalld service enabled. You may run into some issues with the iptables rules it installs by default. If you wish to just stop the service and clear ALL rules do these commands:

sudo systemctl disable firewalld.service
sudo systemctl stop firewalld.service
sudo iptables -F

Install frr Service

sudo install -p -m 644 tools/frr.service /usr/lib/systemd/system/frr.service
sudo systemctl enable frr

Enable daemons

Open /etc/frr/daemons with your text editor of choice. Look for the section with watchfrr_enable=... and zebra=... etc. Enable the daemons as required by changing the value to yes.

Start FRR

sudo systemctl start frr