Re: [PATCH net-next] neighbour: support for NTF_EXT_LEARNED flag

[Roopa Prabhu <roopa@cumulusnetworks.com>]

On Wed, Apr 25, 2018 at 10:20 AM, David Miller <davem@davemloft.net> wrote:
> From: Roopa Prabhu <roopa@cumulusnetworks.com>
> Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2018 13:49:34 -0700
>
>> From: Roopa Prabhu <roopa@cumulusnetworks.com>
>>
>> This patch extends NTF_EXT_LEARNED support to the neighbour system.
>> Example use-case: An Ethernet VPN implementation (eg in FRR routing suite)
>> can use this flag to add dynamic reachable external neigh entires
>> learned via control plane. The use of neigh NTF_EXT_LEARNED in this
>> patch is consistent with its use with bridge and vxlan fdb entries.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Roopa Prabhu <roopa@cumulusnetworks.com>
>
> No objection to the patch or the facility, so applied, thanks.


Thanks!

>
> What exactly is the name of this VPN technology in the FRR routing
> suite?

Its "Ethernet VPN" with BGP based control plane.

https://github.com/FRRouting/frr/wiki/Frr-3.0-%E2%86%92-4.0

reference RFC's:
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7432  : BGP MPLS-Based Ethernet VPN
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-bess-evpn-overlay-07
(describes how rfc7432 can be used as an Network Virtualization
Overlay (NVO) solution: eg with vxlan).

I also talked about it in my netdev2.2 tutorial:
https://www.netdevconf.org/2.2/slides/prabhu-linuxbridge-tutorial.pdf
(slide 60)

Found this blog by Vincent which describes it well:
https://vincent.bernat.im/en/blog/2017-vxlan-bgp-evpn

For the context of this patch:
Neighbor reachability information is exchanged via BGP. Remote
neighbors learnt via
BGP are installed in the kernel with NTF_EXT_LEARNED to indicate that
they are external neighbor entries.
FRR BGP also installs vxlan and bridge remote fdb entries with the
same flag. Basically replaces flood and learn
with control plane learning via BGP. Remote neighbor entries are also
used for arp/nd proxy.