Quantum's bird Filter Library

This is meant to be a starter repository containing sample bird 2.x config files that you can use to build your own BGP filters. Filters are provided as composable bird functions and enables you to harness the full power of the bird filter mini-programming language, as an alternative to a more declarative solution like PathVector.

Quick start

1. Make sure bird 2.x is installed, e.g. on Debian or Ubuntu, through sudo apt install bird2. This library has not been tested on versions older than 2.0.13, so you may run into syntax errors on earlier versions. In these cases, you'll need to look into backports or PPAs for a newer version.
2. Clone this repository:

   git clone https://github.com/quantum5/bird-filter.git
   cd bird-filter
   

3. Customize filter_bgp.conf by editing it. Pay special attention to anything tagged FIXME.
4. Install filter_bgp.conf into your bird configuration directory (/etc/bird by default):

   sudo cp filter_bgp.conf /etc/bird
   

Defining BGP sessions

You can use skeleton.conf as a basic bird starting config. Remember to read the NOTEs and change the things marked FIXME.

Also note that in this config, static protocol routes are internal to bird and will not be exported to the kernel routing table. You can change this by changing the export rules for protocol kernel.

This filter library makes use of two basic static protocols:

• node_v4: IPv4 routes to be exported by the export_cone helper.
• node_v6: IPv6 routes to be exported by the export_cone helper.

For example, to advertise 198.51.100.0/24 and 2001:db8:1000::/36:

protocol static node_v4 {
    ipv4 {};
    route 198.51.100.0/24 reject;
}

protocol static node_v6 {
    ipv6 {};
    route 2001:db8:1000::/36 reject;
}

Two additional static protocols are used to aid with traffic engineering for anycast prefixes:

• node_v4_anycast: IPv4 routes to be exported by the export_anycast helper.
• node_v6_anycast: IPv6 routes to be exported by the export_anycast helper.

You can add protocol blocks to this config for each BGP neighbour. This is dependent on the neighbour type.

In the follow examples, we assume the following local preferences:

• 50 for upstreams;
• 90 for IXPs;
• 100 for direct peers; and
• 120 for downstreams.

Upstreams

protocol bgp example_upstream_v4 {
    description "Example Upstream (IPv4)";
    local 192.0.2.25 as 64500;
    neighbor 192.0.2.24 as 64501;
    default bgp_local_pref 50;

    ipv4 {
        import keep filtered;
        import where import_transit(64501, false);
        export where export_cone(64501);
    };
}

protocol bgp example_upstream_v6 {
    description "Example Upstream (IPv6)";
    local 2001:db8:2000::2 as 64500;
    neighbor 2001:db8:2000::1 as 64501;
    default bgp_local_pref 50;

    ipv6 {
        import keep filtered;
        import where import_transit(64501, false);
        export where export_cone(64501);
    };
}

The example above assumes you are AS64500 and establishes BGP sessions over both IPv4 and IPv6 with an upstream AS64501 and exports your entire cone. It also assumes your upstream is sending you a full table and filters out the default route. If you expect a default route instead, use import where import_transit(64501, true).

To export your anycast as well, you can simply do export where export_cone(64501) || export_anycast().

Peers

protocol bgp example_peer_v4 {
    description "Example Peer (IPv4)";
    local 192.0.2.25 as 64500;
    neighbor 192.0.2.28 as 64502;
    default bgp_local_pref 100;

    ipv4 {
        import keep filtered;
        import where import_peer_trusted(64502);
        export where export_cone(64502);
    };
}

protocol bgp example_peer_v6 {
    description "Example Peer (IPv6)";
    local 2001:db8:2000::2 as 64500;
    neighbor 2001:db8:2000::10 as 64502;
    default bgp_local_pref 100;

    ipv6 {
        import keep filtered;
        import where import_peer_trusted(64502);
        export where export_cone(64502);
    };
}

The example above assumes you are AS64500 and establishes BGP sessions over both IPv4 and IPv6 with a peer AS64502 and exports your entire cone. It assumes your peer is trusted and doesn't provide any IRR filtering. If you don't trust your peer, see the IRR filtering section below.

IXP route servers

protocol bgp example_ixp_v4 {
    description "Example IXP Route Servers (IPv4)";
    local 203.0.113.3 as 64500;
    neighbor 203.0.113.1 as 64503;
    default bgp_local_pref 90;

    ipv4 {
        import keep filtered;
        import where import_ixp_trusted(64503);
        export where export_cone(64503);
    };
}

protocol bgp example_ixp_v6 {
    description "Example IXP Route Servers (IPv6)";
    local 2001:db8:3000::3 as 64500;
    neighbor 2001:db8:3000::1 as 64503;
    default bgp_local_pref 90;

    ipv6 {
        import keep filtered;
        import where import_ixp_trusted(64503);
        export where export_cone(64503);
    };
}

The example above assumes you are AS64500 and establishes BGP sessions over both IPv4 and IPv6 with the IXP route server whose ASN is 64503 and exports your entire cone. It assumes your IXP is trusted and doesn't provide any IRR filtering. If you don't trust your IXP, see the IRR filtering section below.

Downstreams

protocol bgp example_downstream_v4 {
    description "Example Downstream (IPv4)";
    local 203.0.113.3 as 64500;
    neighbor 203.0.113.7 as 64504;
    default bgp_local_pref 120;

    ipv4 {
        import keep filtered;
        import where import_downstream(64504, IRR_DOWNSTREAM_V4, IRR_DOWNSTREAM_ASN);
        export where export_to_downstream();
    };
}

protocol bgp example_downstream_v6 {
    description "Example Downstream (IPv6)";
    local 2001:db8:3000::3 as 64500;
    neighbor 2001:db8:3000::7 as 64504;
    default bgp_local_pref 120;

    ipv6 {
        import keep filtered;
        import where import_downstream(64504, IRR_DOWNSTREAM_V6, IRR_DOWNSTREAM_ASN);
        export where export_to_downstream();
    };
}

The example above assumes you are AS64500 and establishes BGP sessions over both IPv4 and IPv6 with a downstream whose ASN is 64504 and exports all your routes. For your protection, downstream imports without IRR is not supported. For details about setting up IRR, see the IRR filtering section below.

Route collectors

protocol bgp route_collector {
    description "Example Route Collector";
    local 2001:db8:2000::2 as 64500;
    neighbor 2001:db8:9000::1 as 64505;
    multihop;

    ipv4 {
        add paths on;
        import none;
        export where export_monitoring();
    };

    ipv6 {
        add paths on;
        import none;
        export where export_monitoring();
    };
}

The example above assumes you are AS64500 and establishes a multihop BGP session with your route collector over IPv6, using multiprotocol BGP to export routes for both IPv4 and IPv6 in a single session, using add paths to also all routes instead of the best routes available.

BGP communities

The following large informational communities are implemented by default:

• YOUR_ASN:1:x: route received from IXP with ID x;
• YOUR_ASN:2:x: route received from neighbour with ASN x;
• YOUR_ASN:3:100: route received from peer;
• YOUR_ASN:3:101: route received from IXP route server;
• YOUR_ASN:3:102: route received from upstream; and
• YOUR_ASN:3:103: route received from downstream.

The following large control communities are implemented by default and can be used by downstreams:

• YOUR_ASN:10:x: do not export route to ASx;
• YOUR_ASN:11:x: prepend YOUR_ASN once upon export to ASx;
• YOUR_ASN:12:x: prepend YOUR_ASN twice upon export to ASx; and
• YOUR_ASN:12:x: prepend YOUR_ASN thrice upon export to ASx.

IRR filtering

1. Follow irr-filters.example and create /etc/bird/irr-filters for the peers you would like to filter. (To use alternative locations, edit make-irr-filter accordingly.)
2. Run make-irr-filter to re-generate IRR filters.
3. Add include "filter_irr.conf"; into your bird.conf.
4. Instead of import_peer_trusted(asn) or import_ixp_trusted(ixp_id), use import_peer(asn, IRR_PEER_V4, IRR_PEER_ASN) or import_peer(asn, IRR_PEER_V6, IRR_PEER_ASN), and similarly for IXPs.
5. Create a cron job that runs make-irr-filter followed by birdc configure. Daily is a reasonable cadence.

PeeringDB prefix limits

1. Follow prefix-limits.example and create /etc/bird/prefix-limits for peers for whom you'd like to enforce a prefix limit.
2. Adjust make-prefix-limits to use your own PeeringDB mirror if you risk getting rate limited.
3. Run make-prefix-limits to re-generate the prefix limits file.
4. Add include "prefix_limit.conf"; into your bird.conf.
5. You can use constants like LIMIT_AS200351_V4 or LIMIT_AS200351_V6 in your bird.conf, for example:

   protocol bgp peer_v6 {
       ...
   
       ipv6 {
           import limit LIMIT_AS23456_V6 action disable;
           ...
       };
   }
   

6. Create a cron job that runs make-prefix-limits followed by birdc configure. Daily is a reasonable cadence.

RPKI filtering

While this filter library implements RPKI, you still need to populate the rpki4 and rpki6 routing tables via an rpki protocol in bird. Otherwise, all routes will be treated as RPKI unknown. This can be configured as follows:

protocol rpki {
    roa4 { table rpki4; };
    roa6 { table rpki6; };
    transport tcp;
    remote "127.0.0.1" port 9001;
    retry keep 90;
    refresh keep 900;
    expire keep 172800;
}

The example above assumes you are running the RTR protocol on 127.0.0.1:9001. This may be provided by something like Routinator, rtrtr, gortr, or something similar. I recommend using rtrtr to pull a JSON feed from someone's Routinator instance over HTTPS.