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BGP Default Limits
Cisco IOS XR BGP imposes maximum limits on the number of neighbors that can be configured on the router
and on the maximum number of prefixes that are accepted from a peer for a given address family. This
limitation safeguards the router from resource depletion caused by misconfiguration, either locally or on the
remote neighbor. The following limits apply to BGP configurations:
• The default maximum number of peers that can be configured is 4000. The default can be changed using
the
bgp maximum neighbor
command. The
limit
range is 1 to 15000. Any attempt to configure
additional peers beyond the maximum limit or set the maximum limit to a number that is less than the
number of peers currently configured will fail.
• To prevent a peer from flooding BGP with advertisements, a limit is placed on the number of prefixes
that are accepted from a peer for each supported address family. The default limits can be overridden
through configuration of the maximum-prefix
limit
command for the peer for the appropriate address
family. The following default limits are used if the user does not configure the maximum number of
prefixes for the address family:
• IPv4 Unicast: 1048576
• IPv4 Labeled-unicast: 131072
• IPv6 Unicast: 524288
• IPv6 Labeled-unicast: 131072
A cease notification message is sent to the neighbor and the peering with the neighbor is terminated when
the number of prefixes received from the peer for a given address family exceeds the maximum limit
(either set by default or configured by the user) for that address family.
It is possible that the maximum number of prefixes for a neighbor for a given address family has been
configured after the peering with the neighbor has been established and a certain number of prefixes
have already been received from the neighbor for that address family. A cease notification message is
sent to the neighbor and peering with the neighbor is terminated immediately after the configuration if
the configured maximum number of prefixes is fewer than the number of prefixes that have already been
received from the neighbor for the address family.
BGP Next Hop Tracking
BGP receives notifications from the Routing Information Base (RIB) when next-hop information changes
(event-driven notifications). BGP obtains next-hop information from the RIB to:
• Determine whether a next hop is reachable.
• Find the fully recursed IGP metric to the next hop (used in the best-path calculation).
• Validate the received next hops.
• Calculate the outgoing next hops.
• Verify the reachability and connectedness of neighbors.
BGP is notified when any of the following events occurs:
• Next hop becomes unreachable
Routing Configuration Guide for Cisco NCS 6000 Series Routers, IOS XR Release 6.4.x
5
Implementing BGP
BGP Default Limits