Upstream BGP community support

Sun Nov 1 02:03:26 UTC 2009

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 8:25 PM, Randy Bush <randy at psg.com> wrote:
> while i can understand folk's wanting to signal upstream using
> communities, and i know it's all the rage.  one issue needs to be
> raised.

BGP communities are all the rage? I don't think this is new concept or
fad. Signaling behaviors as well as informing users of types of routes
have been around for awhile. For example, RFC1998 (Aug 1996) outlines
some of these behaviors with modifying local preference. Even Sprint
was advertising the ability to not advertise or prepend to individual
peers back in 2002
(http://web.archive.org/web/20020607092619/www.sprintlink.net/policy/bgp.html).

> so i ain't sayin' don't do it.  after all, who would deny you the
> ability to show off your bgp macho?

How is providing better capabilities for your customers macho? People
have been using these knobs 10 years ago and it worked then (just as
well as it works now).

Drive Slow (as there are trick-or-treaters out tonight)