Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

This document describes installation from source. If you want to build a deb, see Packaging Debian.

Installing Dependencies

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install \
   git autoconf automake libtool make libreadline-dev texinfo \
   pkg-config libpam0g-dev libjson-c-dev bison flex \
   libc-ares-dev python3-dev python3-sphinx \
   install-info build-essential libsnmp-dev perl libcap-dev \
   protobuf-c-compiler libprotobuf-c-dev \
   libelf-dev libunwind-dev

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 libyang library to provide YANG/NETCONF support. Some distributions do not offer a libyang package or offer old versions. Therefore we provide two options below to install this library.

Note

libyang version 2.1.128 or newer is required to build FRR.

libyang version 3 is recommended, with support added in FRR 10.2.

libyang version 4 is not preferred to version 3. V4 has placed restrictions on the use of the internal binary encoding format (LYD_LYB). As a result internal FRR messages have to fall back to using either JSON or XML encoding.

libyang version 5 restores support for using the binary encoding that was removed in version 4, however, a few minor changes in FRR are required before it will again be taken advantage of.

Option 1: Binary Install

The FRR project builds some binary libyang packages.

RPM packages are available in our RPM repository.

DEB packages are available in our DEB repository.

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 v3.13.6
mkdir build; cd build
cmake --install-prefix /usr \
      -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:String="Release" ..
make
sudo make install

Note

The git tag used above is just a suggestion, not a requirement. Feel free to change it to newer or older version 3 release tags if you wish.

ZeroMQ

sudo apt-get install libzmq5 libzmq3-dev

Building & Installing FRR

Add FRR user and groups

sudo groupadd -r -g 92 frr
sudo groupadd -r -g 85 frrvty
sudo adduser --system --ingroup frr --home /var/run/frr/ \
   --gecos "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.

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 \
    --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
sudo install -m 640 -o frr -g frr tools/etc/frr/support_bundle_commands.conf /etc/frr/support_bundle_commands.conf

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 and uncomment the following values (ignore the other settings):

# Uncomment the next line to enable packet forwarding for IPv4
net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

# Uncomment the next line to enable packet forwarding for IPv6
#  Enabling this option disables Stateless Address Autoconfiguration
#  based on Router Advertisements for this host
net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1

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

Add MPLS kernel modules

Ubuntu 18.04 ships with kernel 4.15. MPLS modules are present by default. 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

If the above command returns an error, you may need to install the appropriate or latest linux-modules-extra-<kernel-version>-generic package. For example apt-get install linux-modules-extra-`uname -r`-generic

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

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

systemctl start frr