How to make FRRouting fetch all RTR data before accepting routes from the BGP neighbors?

[GamePlayer-8]

Hello,

Whenever I start the FRRouting with bgpd daemon & RPKI module enabled, the router starts fetching the RTR data and simultaneously starts fetching all the routes from the BGP neighbors.

Is there a way to first synchronize the RTR data and then start establishing the BGP connections?

[donaldsharp]

add a connection delay of like 1 minute or somesuch. I would imagine that would do it.

[donaldsharp]

I don't know how long it takes to dump the RPKI but the connection delay timer is real and could just be given a larger value than how long it takes rpki to start up.

[ton31337]

There is a configuration knob that prevents establishing a BGP connection before the RPKI cache server is established.

https://docs.frrouting.org/en/stable-10.5/bgp.html#clicmd-neighbor-PEER-rpki-strict

[GamePlayer-8]

Adding the rpki strict has fixed the issue. Thank you!

[donaldsharp]

@ton31337 -> One thing I think we need to think about here is to have the bgp state machine not start bgp connections until rpki has finished starting up if it is configured after startup. Thoughts here? I think this would make the whole experience more natural

[ton31337]

Hm, not sure I correctly understood. Current code (in bgp_start()) returns FSM "failure" if RPKI strict mode is enabled and none of the RPKI cache servers are UP.

[donaldsharp]

what I meant was, could we extend it to wait until we get the entire dump of rpki data from the rpki server before we start the peering?

[ton31337]

I see only such RPKI connection states:

enum rtr_socket_state {
	/** Socket is establishing the transport connection. */
	RTR_CONNECTING,

	/** Connection is established,
	 * socket is waiting for a Serial Notify or expiration of the refresh_interval timer
	 */
	RTR_ESTABLISHED,

	/** Resetting RTR connection. */
	RTR_RESET,

	/** Receiving validation records from the RTR server.  */
	RTR_SYNC,

	/** Reconnect without any waiting period */
	RTR_FAST_RECONNECT,

	/** No validation records are available on the RTR server. */
	RTR_ERROR_NO_DATA_AVAIL,

	/** Server was unable to answer the last serial or reset query. */
	RTR_ERROR_NO_INCR_UPDATE_AVAIL,

	/** Fatal protocol error occurred. */
	RTR_ERROR_FATAL,

	/** Error on the transport socket occurred. */
	RTR_ERROR_TRANSPORT,

	/** RTR Socket was started, but now has shut down. */
	RTR_SHUTDOWN,

	/** RTR Socket has not been started yet. Initial state after rtr_init */
	RTR_CLOSED,
};

For now we check for RTR_ESTABLISHED.