redistribute bgp considered harmful

Fri Oct 4 22:29:09 UTC 2002

On Fri, 4 Oct 2002, Sean Donelan wrote:

> Should the Service Provider version of routing software include the
> redistribute bgp command?  Other than CCIE labs, I haven't seen a
> real-world use for redistributing the BGP route table into any IGP.

I don't think it's the business of anyone outside an AS whether this AS
redistributes BGP into an IGP. This can sometimes be useful.

I'd be much happier to see redistributing IGPs into BGP being removed. But
I guess the people that use this for legitimate reasons won't like this so
much.

But not allowing BGP -> IGP -> BGP might be a good one. On the other hand,
someone who is determined to screw up could do BGP -> IGP on one router
and IGP -> BGP on another.

> If the command was removed (or included a Are your sure? question) what
> would the affect be on ISPs, other than improving reliability by
> stopping network engineers from fubaring a backbone?

One customer I have would need to invest to upgrade their layer 3 switch
to support BGP in addition to OSPF.