[ixpmanager] IXP Manager v5 and BIRD2 configuration questions

[Enes Halilović]

Hi Barry, 

Thank you for your prompt response. Everything is more clear now.Running two separate v4 and v6 daemons is the answer that I expected and this actually explain everything.

Cheers,

Enes

> On 29 Aug 2019, at 09:02, Barry O'Donovan <barry.odonovan at inex.ie> wrote:
> 
> Hi Enes,
> 
> Enes Halilović wrote on 29/08/2019 07:35:
>> I have some questions about IXP Manager v5 and BIRD2 route server configuration. For example, in IXP Manager we can add 2 separate
>> route servers and we actually define four “handles” (rs1-lan1-ipv4,rs1-lan1-ipv6, rs2-lan1-ipv4, rs2-lan1-ipv6).
> 
> Correct. This is the intended way to set up resilient v4 and v6 route
> servers at an exchange.
> 
>> As a result, We have 4 route server configuration files. BIRD2
>> integrates IPv4 and IPv6 into a single daemon and they read single
>> config file.
> 
> It does but we don't use that feature - more below:
> 
>> 1. Could you please verify explained setup?
> 
> 4 route server definitions is correct for resilient v4 and v6.
> 
>> 2. Do we need to merge two config files from IXP Manager (for
>> one server) to create one  BIRD2 route server config file?
> 
> No. We still run separate v4 and v6 daemons for a number of reasons:
> 
> 1. IXP Manager is designed to generate config on a per-protocol basis.
> 
> 2. The internal and external tooling around IXP Manager such as the looking glass, route server prefix analysis, IRRDB, Nagios and monitoring, etc are all designed on a per-protocol basis.
> 
> 3. The Bird developers recommend running a per-protocol daemon for route server purposes rather than trying to merge then. Bird2 does of course support merged configurations but stability and scalability is greater on a per-protocol basis.
> 
> 4. The per-protocol decision was not because of Bird v1 - in fact it dates from our earliest route server implementations ~13 years ago on Quagga. Splitting the protocols allows for development and operational flexibility, provides greater resiliency and reduces complexity.
> 
> 
>> 3. Is there anyone who can share bird2 configuration templates?
> 
> Just click the configuration button (document icon) in the route list. E.g. if your IXP Manager install was at https://ixp.example.com/ then this URL would generate a configuration:
> 
> https://ixp.example.com/api/v4/router/gen-config/rs1-lan1-ipv6
> 
> For TravisCI, we have known good configurations that are used for our unit testing. See the ci-apiv4-bs-rs1-lan1-ipv4/6.conf files in:
> 
> https://github.com/inex/IXP-Manager/tree/master/data/travis-ci/known-good
> 
> 
>> 4. What will be your suggestions for automating > configurations/reconfigurations of route servers?
> 
> This is all pretty well documented including sample scripts to run on your route servers here:
> 
> https://docs.ixpmanager.org/features/routers/#configuration-generation-overview
> 
> If you think the documentation is lacking, please provide suggestions and we'll try and make it clearer.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> - Barry
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Kind regards,
> Barry O'Donovan
> INEX Operations
> 
> https://www.inex.ie/support/
> +353 1 531 3339
>