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BGP Policy Jennifer Rexford
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Large distributed system
Challenges of BGP Large distributed system More than 20,000 nodes Autonomous nodes Diverse policy goals Trade-off of goals Flexible policy Convergence speed Large scale Policies in practice Business relationships, traffic engineering, scalability, security, …
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BGP policies in practice
Outline BGP policy mechanics Import and export policies Route attributes Decision process BGP policies in practice Business relationships Distributing routes inside the AS Traffic engineering BGP security
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Components of BGP BGP protocol Policy specification
Definition of how two BGP neighbors communicate Message formats, state machine, route attributes, etc. Standardized by the IETF Policy specification Flexible language for filtering and manipulating routes Indirectly affects the selection of the best route Varies across vendors, though constructs are similar BGP decision process Complex sequence of rules for selecting the best route De facto standard applied by router vendors Being codified in a new RFC for BGP coming soon
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Border Gateway Protocol
ASes exchange reachability information IP prefix: block of destination addresses AS path: sequence of ASes along the path Policies configured by the network operator Path selection: which of the paths to use? Path export: which neighbors to tell? “I can reach /24 via AS 1” “I can reach /24” 1 2 3 data traffic data traffic
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BGP Protocol: Update Messages
Advertisement New route for the prefix (e.g., /24) Attributes such as the AS path (e.g., “2 1”) Withdrawal Announcing that the route is no longer available Numerous BGP attributes AS path Next-hop IP address Local preference Multiple-Exit Discriminator …
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BGP Policy: Influencing Decisions
Open ended programming. Constrained only by vendor configuration language Apply Policy = filter routes & tweak attributes Apply Policy = filter routes & tweak attributes Receive BGP Updates Based on Attribute Values Best Routes Transmit BGP Updates Apply Import Policies Best Route Selection Best Route Table Apply Export Policies Install forwarding Entries for best Routes. IP Forwarding Table
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BGP Decision Process: Path Selection on a Router
Routing Information Base Store all BGP routes for each destination prefix Withdrawal message: remove the route entry Announcement message: update the route entry Selecting the best route Consider all BGP routes for the prefix Apply rules for comparing the routes Select the one best route Use this route in the forwarding table Send this route to neighbors
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BGP Decision Process: Multiple Steps
Highest local preference Set by import policies upon receiving advertisement Shortest AS path Included in the route advertisement Lowest origin type Included in advertisement or reset by import policy Smallest multiple exit discriminator Included in the advertisement or reset by import policy Smallest internal path cost to the next hop Based on intradomain routing protocol (e.g., OSPF) Smallest next-hop router id Final tie-break
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Import Policy: Local Preference
Favor one path over another Override the influence of AS path length Apply local policies to prefer a path Example: prefer customer over peer Local-pref = 90 Sprint AT&T Local-pref = 100 Tier-2 Tier-3 Yale
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Import Policy: Filtering
Discard some route announcements Detect configuration mistakes and attacks Examples on session to a customer Discard route if prefix not owned by the customer Discard route with other large ISP in the AS path AT&T USLEC Princeton /16
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Export Policy: Filtering
Discard some route announcements Limit propagation of routing information Examples Don’t announce routes from one peer to another Don’t announce routes for management hosts Sprint UUNET AT&T network operator Princeton /16
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Export Policy: Attribute Manipulation
Modify attributes of the active route To influence the way other ASes behave Example: AS prepending Artificially inflate AS path length seen by others Convince some ASes to send traffic another way AT&T Sprint USLEC 88 88 88 Princeton /16
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BGP Policy Configuration
Routing policy languages are vendor-specific Not part of the BGP protocol specification Different languages for Cisco, Juniper, etc. Still, all languages have some key features Policy as a list of clauses Each clause matches on route attributes … and discards or modifies the matching routes Configuration done by human operators Implementing the policies of their AS Business relationships, traffic engineering, security
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BGP Policies in Practice
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Business Relationships
Common relationships Customer-provider Peer-peer Backup, sibling, … Implementing in BGP Import policy Ranking customer routes over peer routes Export policy Export only customer routes to peers and providers
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Customer-Provider Relationship
Customer pays provider for access to Internet Provider exports customer’s routes to everybody Customer exports provider’s routes to customers Traffic to the customer Traffic from the customer advertisements d AT&T traffic AT&T Princeton d Princeton
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Peer-Peer Relationship
Peers exchange traffic between customers AS exports only customer routes to a peer AS exports a peer’s routes only to its customers Traffic to/from the peer and its customers advertisements AT&T Sprint traffic Princeton d UBC
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How Peering Decisions are Made?
Don’t Peer Reduces upstream transit costs Can increase end-to-end performance May be the only way to connect your customers to some part of the Internet (“Tier 1”) You would rather have customers Peers are usually your competition Peering relationships may require periodic renegotiation
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Backup Relationship Backup provider
Only used if the primary link fails Routes through other paths USLEC AT&T Princeton /16
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Two ASes owned by the same institution
Sibling Relationship Two ASes owned by the same institution E.g., two ASes that have merged E.g., two ASes simply for scaling reasons Essentially act as a single AS CerfNet AT&T
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Internal BGP
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An AS is Not a Single Node
Multiple routers in an AS Need to distribute BGP information within the AS Internal BGP (iBGP) sessions between routers eBGP AS1 iBGP AS2
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Internal BGP and Local Preference
Example Both routers prefer the path through AS 100 on the left … even though the right router learns an external path AS 200 AS 100 AS 300 Local Pref = 100 Local Pref = 90 AS 256 I-BGP
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Example: Customer to Provider
router import policies route selection export policies A local pref = 100 select UPMC route send to other iBGP neighbors select A’s route send to other eBGP neighbors B FT B DT Wanadoo A /24 UPMC FT
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Example: Peers router import policies route selection export policies
local pref = 90 select DT route send to other iBGP routers A select A’s route don’t send B select A’s route send to customers C /16 C FT A DT B Wanadoo UPMC BT Suppose DT, FT, and BT are peers
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Example: Customers vs. Peers
router import policies route selection export policies A local pref (D)= 100 local pref (B)= 80 select DT route send to other iBGP and eBGP neighbors B /16 FT DT A Suppose: DT is a customer of FT and BT FT and BT are peers Wanadoo UPMC BT
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Example: Multiple Egress Points
router import policies route selection export policies select FT route send to other iBGP A local pref = 80 B select BT route C route to UPMC FT DT A What will router D choose? B Wanadoo D UPMC BT C
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Hot-Potato (Early-Exit) Routing
route to UPMC FT A 7 D-A : 10 D-B: 8 D-C: 7 IGP distances B 1 2 2 2 D traffic to UPMC 1 5 C 1 BT Hot-potato routing = route to closest egress point when there is more than one route to destination
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Traffic Engineering
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Traffic Engineering Goals
Load balancing Making good use of network resources Alleviating network congestion End-to-end performance Avoiding paths with downstream congestion By moving traffic to alternate paths Mechanisms Preferring some paths over other paths E.g., by setting local-preference attribute Among routes within the same business class
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BGP Decision Process in Action
“(2, 1)” “(3, 4, 1)” But, what if the path “(3,4,1)” would be better?
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Manipulating Policy to Move the Traffic
Assign local preference to… Prefer one neighbor over another for a prefix Prefer certain AS paths over others Router configuration languages Specifying rules for setting local-pref attribute “if path(3, *, 1), then local-pref=110” “else, local-pref=100” Allow policy to over-ride shortest AS path Indirect way of making one path look better or worse than another Main way to do BGP traffic engineering today
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BGP Security
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Secure message exchange between neighbors
Security Goals for BGP Secure message exchange between neighbors Confidential BGP message exchange Can ASes exchange messages w/o someone watching? No denial of service Prevent overload, session reset, tampered messages? Validity of the routing information Origin authentication Is the prefix owned by the AS announcing it? AS path authentication Is AS path the sequence of ASes the update traversed? AS path policy Does AS path adhere to the routing policies of each AS?
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IP address block assignment
IP Address Ownership IP address block assignment Regional Internet Registries (ARIN, RIPE, APNIC) Internet Service Providers Proper origination of a prefix into BGP By the AS who owns the prefix … or, by its upstream provider(s) in its behalf However, what’s to stop someone else? Prefix hijacking: another AS originates the prefix BGP does not verify that the AS is authorized Registries of prefix ownership are inaccurate
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Address Ownership: Prefix Hijacking
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 /16 /16 Consequences for the affected ASes Blackhole: data traffic is discarded Snooping: data traffic is inspected, and then redirected Impersonation: data traffic is sent to bogus destinations
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Address Ownership: Subprefix Hijacking
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 /16 /24 Originating a more-specific prefix Every AS picks the bogus route for that prefix Traffic follows the longest matching prefix
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Preventing (Sub)Prefix Hijacking
Best common practice for route filtering Each AS filters routes announced by customers E.g., based on the prefixes the customer owns However, not everyone applies these practices Hard to filter routes initiated from far away So, BGP remains very vulnerable to hijacks Other techniques Secure extensions to BGP (e.g., S-BGP, soBGP) Anomaly detection of suspected hijacks
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BGP Attributes: Bogus Paths
AS tampers with AS path Deletes ASes from the AS path Prepends with a bogus AS number Goal: influence the path-selection process Attract data traffic to the route E.g., by making AS path look shorter E.g., delete AS that might trigger route filtering Create blackholes for parts of the Internet E.g., prepend bogus AS to trigger loop detection Very hard to defend against these attacks How can you tell that the route is bogus?
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BGP Attributes: Invalid Paths
AS exports a route it shouldn’t AS path is a valid sequence, but violated policy Example: customer misconfiguration Exports routes from one provider to another … interacts with provider policy Provider prefers routes learned from customers … so provider picks these as the best route … leading the dire consequences E.g., directing all Internet traffic through customer Main defense Filtering routes based on prefixes and AS path
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BGP Attributes: Missing/Inconsistent Routes
Peering agreements require consistent export Prefix advertised at all peering points Prefix advertised with same AS path length Reasons for violating the policy Trick neighbor into “cold potato” Configuration mistake Main defense Analyzing BGP updates … or data traffic … for signs of inconsistency dest Bad AS BGP data src
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Applying best common practices (BCPs)
BGP Security Today Applying best common practices (BCPs) Securing the session (authentication, encryption) Filtering routes by prefix and AS path Resetting attributes to default values Packet filters to block unexpected control traffic This is not good enough Depends on vigilant application of BCPs … and not making configuration mistakes! Doesn’t address fundamental problems Can’t tell who owns the IP address block Can’t tell if the AS path is bogus or invalid Can’t be sure the data packets follow the chosen route
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BGP policy is a black art
Conclusion BGP protocol vs. policy Protocol is simple Policy is complicated BGP policy is a black art Indirect way of specifying policy Manipulating attributes to influence decisions Filtering routes to scope the routing information Common examples of policy today Business relationships Traffic engineering Security
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Is BGP trying to do too many things?
Discussion Is BGP trying to do too many things? Policy Scalability Convergence Is BGP too indirect for its own good? AS only learns some routes from its neighbors And applies policies to indirectly pick the routes Too many protocols involved? External BGP Internal BGP Intradomain protocol
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Inferring AS relationships
Gao Paper Inferring AS relationships Customer-provider Peer-peer Every path tells a story E.g., a path “ ” Implies edges (701, 7018) and (7018, 46) Implies that 7018 (AT&T) allows AS 701 (UUNet) to transit to AS 46 (Rutgers) Can limit certain possibilities E.g., and can’t both be peers E.g., 7018 cannot be the customer of both ASes
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Valid and Invalid Paths
AS relationships limit the kinds of valid paths Uphill portion: customer-provider relationships Plateau: zero or one peer-peer edge Downhill portion: provider-customer relationships Valid Invalid Invalid
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Characterizations of AS Topology
Tier-1: small number of tier-1 ASes A near-clique of ~15 ASes with no providers AT&T, Sprint, UUNET, … Transit core: peer with tier-1s and each other Around large ASes UUNET Europe, KDDI, and Singapore Telecom Regional ISPs: non-stubs near the edge Around 2000 medium-sized ASes Minnesota Regional Network, US West Stub ASes: no peer or customer neighbors Princeton, Rutgers, MIT, AT&T Research, …
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