Seems I can't get bird to open a bgp listen socket

20 Jan 2013

      Hi Bird users,

I'm setting up a bird test router, using bird 1.3.9 on debian squeeze
(backport of the packages in unstable).

It seems I cannot get bird to listen on tcp port 179. tcpdump shows
outgoing traffic from 10.140.59.20 to 10.140.59.16, but there's just
nothing listening on port 179 when I start bird.

$ netstat -an | grep 179
$

This really feels like I'm missing something small, something stupid.

Here's my test config:

router id 10.140.59.20;
debug protocols all;

protocol kernel {
    persist;
    scan time 60;
    import none;
    # filter!!1~1
    export all;
}

protocol device {
    scan time 60;
}

protocol static {
    import all;
    route 10.0.0.0/8 blackhole;
    route 172.16.0.0/12 blackhole;
    route 192.168.0.0/16 blackhole;
    debug all;
}

protocol ospf ospf1918 {
    area 0.0.0.0 {
        interface "eth2" {
            authentication cryptographic;
            password "xxxx" {
                id 25;
            };
        };
        interface "eth1" {
            stub;
        };
        interface "lo" {
            stub;
        };
    };
}

protocol bgp bgp1918_knud {
    import all;
    local as 64521;
    source address 10.140.59.20;
    keepalive time 20;
    hold time 60;
    neighbor 10.140.59.16 as 64521;
}

protocol bgp bgp1918_oele {
    import all;
    local as 64521;
    source address 10.140.59.20;
    keepalive time 20;
    hold time 60;
    neighbor 10.140.59.18 as 64521;
}

I tried to explicitely add "listen bgp address 0.0.0.0 port 179;" to the
config, but still no listening 179.

Logs do not show any errors or warnings why the listening socket is not
opened...

Jan 20 14:29:12 cabbage bird: bgp1918_knud: Initializing
Jan 20 14:29:12 cabbage bird: bgp1918_oele: Initializing
Jan 20 14:29:12 cabbage bird: bgp1918_knud: Starting
Jan 20 14:29:12 cabbage bird: bgp1918_oele: Starting
Jan 20 14:29:12 cabbage bird: bgp1918_oele: Waiting for 10.140.59.18 to
become my neighbor
Jan 20 14:29:12 cabbage bird: bgp1918_knud: Waiting for 10.140.59.16 to
become my neighbor

Here's some output of show protocols.

bird> show protocols all bgp1918_oele
name     proto    table    state  since       info
bgp1918_oele BGP      master   start  14:19       Idle
  Preference:     100
  Input filter:   ACCEPT
  Output filter:  REJECT
  Routes:         0 imported, 0 exported, 0 preferred
  Route change stats:     received   rejected   filtered    ignored
accepted
    Import updates:              0          0          0          0
     0
    Import withdraws:            0          0        ---          0
     0
    Export updates:              0          0          0        ---
     0
    Export withdraws:            0        ---        ---        ---
     0
  BGP state:          Idle
    Neighbor address: 10.140.59.18
    Neighbor AS:      64521

-- 
Hans van Kranenburg - System / Network Engineer
T +31 (0)10 2760434 | hans.van.kranenburg@mendix.com | www.mendix.com