Skip to content

Protocols Application#
Group/Version protocols.eda.nokia.com/v2
Supported OS Nokia SR Linux: 24.10.*, 25.3.*, 25.7.*, 25.10.*, 26.3.*
Nokia SR OS: 24.10.r4+, 25.3.r2+, 25.7.*, 25.10.*, 26.3.*
Arista EOS: 4.33.2f:beta
Cisco NX-OS: 10.5.2:alpha
Catalog nokia-eda/catalog/protocols
Source Code coming soon

To facilitate distributed routing and switching services, network elements need to exchange forwarding and routing information. The Protocols application enables users to create and manage various routing protocols and contains resources that are split between the Overlay Routing and Default Routing categories.

Resources from the Default Routing category will have the Default prefix in their name1 and are used in the network element's default VRF2, also known as Global Routing Table (GRT).

On the other hand, the resources listed under the Overlay Routing category3 are designed to be associated with a custom, non-default VRF.

The application provides the following components:

Summary dashboards for the following resource types:

  • Default BGP Peers
  • Default BGP Groups
  • Default Route Reflectors
  • Default Route Reflector Clients

Several routing protocols are available, both for usage in the Default VRF (Global Routing Table) and the Overlay VRF:

  • Static routing
  • Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
  • Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)

Static Routing#

For populating the routing table without a dynamic routing protocol, users can make use of the Static Routes resources, which are available in both the Default and Overlay routing variations.

If it is required to combine multiple routes (from a contiguous subnet) into one single route to advertise to the other elements in the network, use an Aggregate Route resource. An example could be an internet gateway router that has the entire internet routing table, which may not be desirable to distribute in its entirety to the rest of the network. Instead, an aggregated route (for example, 0.0.0.0/0) is advertised to the other network elements.

For Static Routing configuration, the application provides the following resource based on the target deployment scenario:

  • For configuration in the Default VRF:
  • For configuration in the Overlay VRF:

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)#

BGP configuration in the Protocols application supports both the Default VRF and Overlay VRF deployments, with comprehensive features for peer management, route reflection, and policy control. EDA provides configuration options to facilitate both explicit and dynamic peer establishment.

Two routers that exchange routes using the BGP protocol are called BGP Peers, and they inherit settings from the BGP Group they belong to. To avoid a full-mesh BGP topology (where every router peers with every other router), designated Route Reflectors can be configured that all other routers peer with as Route Reflector Clients.

For BGP configuration, the application provides the following resource based on the target deployment scenario:

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)#

OSPF configuration in the Protocols application supports both Default VRF and Overlay VRF deployment models.

An alternative for the exchange of IPv4 and IPv6 routes is OSPF. Just like BGP, two OSPF neighbors establish an OSPF adjacency to advertise and receive the routes into and out of the default routing table or custom IP-VRF. OSPF needs to be enabled on two adjacent OSPF Interfaces, within a particular OSPF Instance, which is in turn created in a particular OSPF area.

The application provides support for OSPF in the two target deployment scenarios:

  1. For example, Default BGP Peer. ↩

  2. The term VRF - Virtual Routing and Forwarding - is often called a network instance. ↩

  3. The overlay resources do not carry any specific prefix, for example, the BGP Peer resource is used to define the BGP peer in the overlay VRF. ↩