Sebastopol, CA--Every second, millions of hosts send billions of packets across the Internet to other hosts, with nothing more than the destination IP address to guide them along the way. The present protocol of choice for interdomain routing in the Internet is the Border Gateway Protocol, or BGP. Internet service providers use BGP to inform each other which IP address goes where. BGP is also useful for end-user organizations that want reliable connections to the Internet through two or more ISPs. It's the only protocol that can deal with a network of the Internet's size. It's also the only protocol that can deal well with multiple connections to unrelated routing domains. In the event of a network outage, BGP recomputes the path so packets can avoid the problem area and keep flowing. O'Reilly's latest release, BGP by Iljitsch van Beijnum (US $39.95), contains everything network administrators need to know to run BGP for regular IPv4 routing in all but the very largest networks.
"BGP" is a guide to all aspects of BGP: the protocol, its configuration and operation in an Internet environment, and how to troubleshoot it. The book also describes how to secure BGP and how BGP can be used to combat Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. The examples throughout the book are for Cisco routers, but the techniques discussed can be applied to any BGP-capable router.
"This book is for anyone interested in running BGP to create reliable connectivity to the Internet," says van Beijnum. "It caters specifically to the needs of those who have to determine whether BGP is the right solution for them, and if so, how to go about preparing for and then implementing the protocol." Much of the information in the book applies to everyone who needs reliable internet connectivity: end-user organizations, application service providers, web hosters, and ISPs. "Later in the book," van Beijnum explains, "the focus shifts to topics that are mainly of interest to ISPs: interconnecting (peering) with other networks and providing BGP transit services."
Some of the topics covered in the book are:
- Requesting an AS number and IP addresses
- Route filtering by remote ISPs and how to deal with it
- Configuring the initial BGP setup
- Balancing incoming or outgoing traffic over available connections
- Securing and troubleshooting BGP
- BGP in larger networks: interaction with internal routing protocols, scalability issues
- BGP in ISP networks
"BGP" is for anyone interested in creating reliable connectivity to the Internet and running BGP to accomplish it.
Additional resources:
Chapter 6, Traffic Engineering is available free online
More information about the book, including Table of Contents, index, author bio, and samples
BGP
Iljitsch van Beijnum
ISBN 0-596-00254-8, 288 pages, $39.95 (US), $61.95 (CAN)
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938; 1-707-827-7000
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