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    Configure BGP
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    Next-Generation Firewall

    Configure BGP

    Table of Contents

    Configure BGP

    Configure BGP for a virtual or logical router.
    Where Can I Use This?What Do I Need?
    • NGFW
    For Strata Cloud Manager managed NGFWs:
    • Strata Cloud Manager Pro
    • Strata Cloud Manager Essentials
    Configuring BGP on your firewall enables it to participate in inter-domain routing, whether connecting to internet service providers, establishing connections between branch offices and data centers, or implementing complex multi-homed network architectures that require sophisticated routing control and redundancy.
    Perform the following task to configure BGP.
    If you use NAT with BGP, configure BGP to advertise a contiguous address block rather than individual host routes to prevent routing loops. Add a discard (null) route for the summarized prefix on the firewall so that traffic destined for unallocated addresses within the block is dropped locally instead of being forwarded and potentially looped.

    Configure BGP (PAN-OS)

    Configure BGP for a virtual router in PAN-OS.
    1. Configure general virtual router settings.
    2. Enable BGP for the virtual router, assign a router ID, and assign the virtual router to an AS.
      1. Select NetworkVirtual Routers and select a virtual router.
      2. Select BGP.
      3. Enable BGP for this virtual router.
      4. Assign a Router ID to BGP for the virtual router, which is typically an IPv4 address to ensure the Router ID is unique.
      5. Assign the AS Number—the number of the AS to which the virtual router belongs based on the router ID (range is 1 to 4,294,967,295).
        Each virtual router supports only one Local AS number. If you need to configure multiple BGP AS numbers, create separate virtual routers (one per AS number). Use inter-VR routing (static routes with next hop set to another virtual router) to enable communication between virtual routers if needed.
      6. Click OK.
    3. Configure general BGP configuration settings.
      1. Select NetworkVirtual Routers and select a virtual router.
      2. Select BGPGeneral.
      3. Select Reject Default Route to ignore any default routes that are advertised by BGP peers.
      4. Select Install Route to install BGP routes in the global routing table.
      5. Select Aggregate MED to enable route aggregation even when routes have different Multi-Exit Discriminator (MED) values.
      6. Specify the Default Local Preference that can be used to determine preferences among different paths.
      7. Select the AS Format for interoperability purposes:
        • 2 Byte (default)
        • 4 Byte
        Runtime stats display BGP 4-byte AS numbers using asplain notation according to RFC 5396.
      8. Enable or disable each of the following settings for Path Selection:
        • Always Compare MED—Enable this comparison to choose paths from neighbors in different autonomous systems.
        • Deterministic MED Comparison—Enable this comparison to choose between routes that are advertised by IBGP peers (BGP peers in the same autonomous system).
      9. For Auth Profiles, Add an authentication profile:
        • Profile Name—Enter a name to identify the profile.
        • Secret/Confirm Secret—Enter and confirm a passphrase for BGP peer communications. The Secret is used as a key in MD5 authentication.
      10. Click OK twice.
    4. (Optional) Configure BGP settings.
      1. Select NetworkVirtual Routers and select a virtual router.
      2. Select BGPAdvanced.
      3. Select ECMP Multiple AS Support if you configured ECMP and you want to run ECMP over multiple BGP autonomous systems.
      4. Enforce First AS for EBGP (enabled by default) to cause the firewall to drop an incoming Update packet from an eBGP peer that does not list the eBGP peer’s own AS number as the first AS number in the AS_PATH attribute.
      5. Select Graceful Restart and configure the following timers:
        • Stale Route Time (sec)—Specifies the length of time, in seconds, that a route can stay in the stale state (range is 1 to 3,600; default is 120).
        • Local Restart Time (sec)—Specifies the length of time, in seconds, that the local device waits to restart. This value is advertised to peers (range is 1 to 3,600; default is 120).
        • Max Peer Restart Time (sec)—Specifies the maximum length of time, in seconds, that the local device accepts as a grace period restart time for peer devices (range is 1 to 3,600; default is 120).
      6. For Reflector Cluster ID, specify an IPv4 identifier to represent the reflector cluster.
      7. For Confederation Member AS, specify the autonomous system number identifier (also called a sub-AS number), which is visible only within the BGP confederation. For more information, see BGP Confederations.
      8. Add the following information for each Dampening Profile that you want to configure, select Enable, and click OK:
        • Profile Name—Enter a name to identify the profile.
        • Cutoff—Specify a route withdrawal threshold above which a route advertisement is suppressed (range is 0.0 to 1,000.0; default is 1.25).
        • Reuse—Specify a route withdrawal threshold below which a suppressed route is used again (range is 0.0 to 1,000.0; default is 5).
        • Max Hold Time (sec)—Specify the maximum length of time, in seconds, that a route can be suppressed, regardless of how unstable it has been (range is 0 to 3,600; default is 900).
        • Decay Half Life Reachable (sec)—Specify the length of time, in seconds, after which a route’s stability metric is halved if the route is considered reachable (range is 0 to 3,600; default is 300).
        • Decay Half Life Unreachable (sec)—Specify the length of time, in seconds, after which a route’s stability metric is halved if the route is considered unreachable (range is 0 to 3,600; default is 300).
      9. Click OK twice.
    5. Configure a BGP peer group.
      1. Select NetworkVirtual Routers and select a virtual router.
      2. Select BGPPeer Group, Add a Name for the peer group, and Enable it.
      3. Select Aggregated Confed AS Path to include a path to the configured aggregated confederation AS.
      4. Select Soft Reset with Stored Info to perform a soft reset of the firewall after updating the peer settings.
      5. Select the Type of peer group:
        • IBGP—Export Next Hop: Select Original or Use self.
        • EBGP Confed—Export Next Hop: Select Original or Use self.
        • EBGP Confed—Export Next Hop: Select Original or Use self.
        • EBGP—Import Next Hop: Select Original or Use self; and Export Next Hop: Specify Resolve or Use self. Select Remove Private AS if you want to force BGP to remove private AS numbers from the AS_PATH attribute in Updates that the firewall sends to a peer in another AS.
      6. Click OK.
    6. Configure a BGP peer that belongs to the peer group and specify its addressing.
      1. Select NetworkVirtual Routers and select a virtual router.
      2. Select BGPPeer Group and select the peer group you created.
      3. For Peer, Add a peer by Name.
      4. Enable the peer.
      5. Enter the Peer AS to which the peer belongs.
      6. Select Addressing.
      7. For Local Address, select the Interface for which you are configuring BGP. If the interface has more than one IP address, enter the IP address for that interface to be the BGP peer.
      8. For Peer Address, select either IP and enter the IP address or select or create an address object, or select FQDN and enter the FQDN or address object that is type FQDN.
        The firewall uses only one IP address (from each IPv4 or IPv6 family type) from the DNS resolution of the FQDN. If the DNS resolution returns more than one address, the firewall uses the preferred IP address that matches the IP family type (IPv4 or IPv6) configured for the BGP peer. The preferred IP address is the first address the DNS server returns in its initial response. The firewall retains this address as preferred as long as the address appears in subsequent responses regardless of its order.
      9. Click OK.
    7. Configure connection settings for the BGP peer.
      1. Select NetworkVirtual Routers and select a virtual router.
      2. Select BGPPeer Group and select the peer group you created.
      3. Select the Peer you configured.
      4. Select Connection Options.
      5. Select an Auth Profile for the peer.
      6. Set a Keep Alive Interval (sec)—The interval, in seconds, after which routes from the peer are suppressed according to the Hold Time setting (range is 0 to 1,200; default is 30).
      7. Set Multi Hop—The time-to-live (TTL) value in the IP header (range is 0 to 255; default is 0). The default value of 0 means 1 for eBGP. The default value of 0 means 255 for iBGP.
      8. Set Open Delay Time (sec)—The delay, in seconds, between a TCP handshake and the firewall sending the first BGP Open message to establish a BGP connection (range is 0 to 240; default is 0).
      9. Set Hold Time (sec)—The length of time, in seconds, that may elapse between successive Keepalive or Update messages from the peer before the peer connection is closed (range is 3 to 3,600; default is 90).
      10. Set Idle Hold Time (sec)—The length of time to wait, in seconds, before retrying to connect to the peer (range is 1 to 3,600; default is 15).
      11. Set Min Route Advertisement Interval (sec)—The minimum amount of time, in seconds, between two successive Update messages that a BGP speaker (the firewall) sends to a BGP peer that advertise routes or withdrawal of routes (range is 1 to 600; default is 30).
      12. For Incoming Connections, enter a Remote Port and select Allow to allow incoming traffic to this port.
      13. For Outgoing Connections, enter a Local Port and select Allow to allow outgoing traffic from this port.
      14. Click OK.
    8. Configure the BGP peer with settings for route reflector client, peering type, maximum prefixes, and Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD).
      1. Select NetworkVirtual Routers and select a virtual router.
      2. Select BGPPeer Group and select the peer group you created.
      3. Select the Peer you configured.
      4. Select Advanced.
      5. For Reflector Client, select one of the following:
        • non-client (default)—Peer is not a route reflector client.
        • client—Peer is a route reflector client.
        • meshed-client
      6. For Peering Type, select one of the following:
        • Bilateral—The two BGP peers establish a peer connection.
        • Unspecified (default).
      7. For Max Prefixes, enter the maximum number of IP prefixes to import from the peer (range is 1 to 100,000) or select unlimited.
      8. To enable BFD for the peer (and thereby override the BFD setting for BGP, as long as BFD is not disabled for BGP at the virtual router level), select one of the following:
        • default—Peer uses only default BFD settings.
        • Inherit-vr-global-setting (default)—Peer inherits the BFD profile that you selected globally for BGP for the virtual router.
        • A BFD profile you configured—See Create a BFD Profile.
          Select Disable BFD to disable BFD for the BGP peer.
      9. Click OK.
    9. Configure Import and Export rules.
      The import and export rules are used to import and export routes from and to other routers (for example, importing the default route from your Internet Service Provider).
      1. Select Import, Add a name (maximum of 63 characters) in the Rules field. The name must start with an alphanumeric character and can contain a combination of alphanumeric characters, underscore (_), hyphen (-), dot (.), and space.
      2. Enable the rule.
      3. Add the Peer Group from which the routes will be imported.
      4. Select Match and define the options used to filter routing information. You can also define the Multi-Exit Discriminator (MED) value and a next hop value to routers or subnets for route filtering. The MED option is an external metric that lets neighbors know about the preferred path into an AS. A lower value is preferred over a higher value.
      5. Select Action and define the action that should occur (allow or deny) based on the filtering options defined in the Match tab. If you select Deny, you don’t need to define any additional options. If you select Allow, then define the other attributes.
      6. Click OK.
      7. Select Export and define export attributes, which are similar to the Import settings but are used to control route information that is exported from the firewall to neighbors. The name of the Export rule can be a maximum of 31 characters.
        When exporting locally-originated routes (static routes, connected routes, or routes redistributed from other protocols), do not use the From Peer match option. The From Peer option filters routes based on which BGP peer originally advertised them. Locally-originated routes have no originating BGP peer and will never match this filter, which prevents them from being advertised. Use From Peer only when controlling re-advertisement of routes learned from specific BGP peers.
    10. Configure conditional advertising, which allows you to control what route to advertise in the event that a different route is not available in the local BGP routing table (LocRIB), indicating a peering or reachability failure.
      This is useful in cases where you want to try to force routes to one AS over another, such as when you have links to the internet through multiple ISPs and you want traffic to be routed to one provider instead of the other except when there is a loss of connectivity to the preferred provider.
      1. Select Conditional Adv and Add a Policy name.
      2. Enable the conditional advertisement.
      3. In the Used By section, Add the peer groups that will use the conditional advertisement policy.
      4. Select Non Exist Filter and define the network prefixes of the preferred route. This specifies the route that you want to advertise when it is available in the local BGP routing table. If a prefix is going to be advertised and matches a Non Exist filter, the advertisement will be suppressed.
      5. Select Advertise Filters and define the prefixes of the route in the Local-RIB routing table that should be advertised in the event that the route in the non-exist filter is unavailable in the local routing table. If a prefix is going to be advertised and does not match a Non Exist filter, the advertisement will occur.
      6. Click OK.
    11. Configure aggregate options to summarize routes in the BGP configuration.
      BGP route aggregation is used to control how BGP aggregates addresses. Each entry in the table results in the creation of one aggregate address. This will result in an aggregate entry in the routing table when at least one specific route matching the address specified is learned.
      1. Select Aggregate and Add a name for the aggregate address.
      2. Enter the network Prefix that will be the primary prefix for the aggregated prefixes.
      3. Select Suppress Filters and define the attributes that will cause the matched routes to be suppressed.
      4. Select Advertise Filters and define the attributes that will cause the matched routes to always be advertised to peers.
      5. Click OK.
    12. Configure redistribution rules.
      This rule is used to redistribute host routes and unknown routes that are not on the local RIB to the peer routers.
      1. Select Redist Rules and Add a new redistribution rule.
      2. Enter the Name of an IP subnet or select a redistribution profile. You can also configure a new redistribution profile if needed.
      3. Enable the rule.
      4. Enter the route Metric that will be used for the rule.
      5. In the Set Origin list, select incomplete, igp, or egp.
      6. (Optional) Set MED, local preference, AS path limit, and community values.
      7. Click OK.
    13. Commit your changes.

    Configure BGP (SCM)

    Configure BGP for a logical router in Strata Cloud Manager.
    Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the primary internet routing protocol. BGP determines network reachability based on IP prefixes that are available within autonomous systems (AS), where an AS is a set of IP prefixes that a network provides has designated to be a part of a single routing policy rule.
    1. Log in to Strata Cloud Manager.
    2. Select ManageConfigurationNGFW and Prisma AccessDevice SettingsRoutingLogical RoutersConfigurationNGFW and Prisma AccessDevice SettingsRoutingRouters and select the Configuration Scope where you want to configure BGP for a logical router.
      You can select a folder or firewall from your Folders or select Snippets to configure BGP for a logical router in a snippet.
      The number of logical routers supported varies based on the firewall model. If you create multiple logical routers for a folder or snippet, verify that the firewalls associated with the folder or snippet support the number of logical routers you configure.
    3. Configure a Logical Router.
    4. Edit BGP.
    5. Enable BGP.
    6. Assign a Router ID to the BGP for the logical router.
      The Router ID is typically an IPv4 address to ensure the Router ID is unique.
    7. Assign the AS Number.
      The Autonomous System (AS) number is the number of the AS to which the logical router belongs to based on the router ID (range is 1-4,294,967,295).
    8. Select a predefined BFD Profile.
      Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) profiles allow you to apply BFD settings to a static route or routing protocol.
    9. Configure a BGP peer group.
      1. Add Peer Group.
      2. Enter the peer group Name and Enable.
      3. Select the peer group Type (IBGP or EBGP).
      4. Select an IPv4 Address Family profile to enable IPv4 route exchange.
        You can configure a New AFI Profile if not already created.
      5. Select an IPv4 Filtering Profile.
        Configure a BGP Filtering Profile if one doesn’t already exist.
    10. Add a peer to the BGP peer group.
      1. For the Peers in the BGP Peer Group, Add Peer and enter the peer Name.
      2. Enable the peer.
      3. Enter the Peer AS to which the peer belongs.
      4. Select Addressing.
      5. For Local Address, select the Interface for which you’re configuring BGP.
        If the interface has more than one IP address, enter the IP address for that interface to be the BGP peer.
      6. For the Peer Address, enter the peer IP address.
        The firewall uses only one IPv4 address from the DNS resolution of the FQDN. If the DNS resolution returns more than one address, the firewall uses the preferred IP address that matches the IPv4 family type configured for the BGP peer. The preferred IP address is the first address the DNS server returns in its initial response. The firewall retains this address as preferred as long as the address appears in subsequent responses regardless of its order.
    11. (Optional) Configure connection settings for the BGP peer.
      1. Select Connection Options.
      2. Select an Auth Profile for the peer or Inherit an Auth Profile from the BGP Peer Group.
        You can configure a New Auth Profile if one doesn’t already exist.
      3. Select the Timer Profile or Inherit the time profile from the BGP Peer group.
      4. Set the Multi Hop time-to-live (TTL) value in the IP header (range is 0-255; default is 0).
        The default value of zero means 1 for eBGP. The default value of zero means 255 for iBGP.
      5. For the Dampening Profile, select the Default or inherit the dampening profile from the BGP Peer group.
        The default dampening profile values are:
        • Cutoff—1.25
        • Reuse—5
        • Max Hold Time (sec)—900
        • Decay Half Life Reachable (sec)—300
        • Decay Half Life Unreachable—300
    12. (Optional) Configure the BGP peer with settings for Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD).
      Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) profiles allow you to apply BFD settings to a static route or routing protocol.
      1. Select Advanced.
      2. Select the BFD Profile.
    13. Save the peer you added to the BGP peer group.
    14. Save the BGP Peer Group configuration.
    15. Save the logical router configuration.
    16. Push Config to push your configuration changes.

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