EVPN support in BIRD

[Tim Weippert]

Hi Ondrej, 

On Mon, May 06, 2024 at 03:10:14PM +0200, Ondrej Zajicek wrote:
> On Mon, May 06, 2024 at 12:24:07PM +0200, Tim Weippert via Bird-users wrote:
> > Hi Ondrej, 
> > 
> > just a quick question, should bird2 announce type 2 prefixes 
> > in this state?
> > 
> > i do some tests with an FRR EVPN network and add one bird2 evpn node. I
> > receive evpn routes and see them in the appropriate tables (evpntab and
> > etab), but while on the FRR side i get only the l2 parts of a type 2
> > route if i interpret the output form FRR correctly:
> >
> > Also i'm wondering should bird2 also add the corresponding arp entries
> > to the neigh table in kernel? 
> > 
> > Some hints for me where to look further on the issue?
> 
> 
> Hi
> 
> First, thanks for testing EVPN in BIRD. We do not set IP part of type 2 and
> do not use it to configure neigh table. That is optional part of EVPN not
> yet supported in BIRD (while setting MAC part and configuring bridge table
> is mandatory). Do you need this feature?

Well, yes, as i build a EVPN/VXLAN environment where bird (also if he is
only a RR) needs to be within the Fabric, therefore learn and configure
the neigh tables with IP/MAC.

And i also want bird as a "edge" replacement, therefore it needs to
handle the connnectivity to the other evpn neighbors.

> Anyway, what was your experience with EVPN in BIRD? Was it understandable
> and accessible from user point? Is there anything you missed?

>From my point of view, it was very straight forward to configure the BGP
peerings. Also if you are familiar with bird and tables, it is quite
nice to have the eth table divided for the evpn table.

Currently i hadn't looked deeply on the filtering part, maybe will try
this the next days.

I think as a EVPN RR on a "routed" underlay without evpn, it would fit
perfectly ... therefore the kernel programming part isn't really
necessary. But in my use case this is the really missing point.

i like the view of the MAC addresses in a ethtab for overview!

Hopefully finde some more time to play a little more with the evpn part.
Will report any outcomes :)

regards, 
tim

-- 
Tim Weippert
http://weiti.org - weiti at weiti.org
GPG Fingerprint - E704 7303 6FF0 8393 ADB1  398E 67F2 94AE 5995 7DD8