Hi, Is Free Range Routing (FRR) a viable choice for a pure BGP route reflector for a regional ISP with ~ 35 routers? A mix of L3VPN-MPLS and BGP-EVPN services. Full transit, plus some peering. About 5 x L3VPN instances, and maybe 500 x EVPN-MPLS instances. I don’t see a lot of posts of people using FRR for RR. And not a lot of people reporting issues, so maybe it is just the perfect RR solution? Tom
We run FRR for RR’s with full tables in the default vrf and a L3VPN plus multiple additional L3VPN’s. 6PE, 6VPE both work. No complaints. [cid:ignored-in-diff-30BE7347-88C8-456D-95A2-E75A56BBF1DB] Evan S. Weiner Managing Member , Hosted Backbone, LLC d: (804) 549-4899<tel:(804)%20549-4899> | m: (804) 677-9544<tel:(804)%20677-9544> e: eweiner@hostedbackbone.net<mailto:eweiner@hostedbackbone.net> | w: <https://www.hostedbackbone.net/> www.hostedbackbone.net<https://www.hostedbackbone.net/> ________________________________ From: Tom Samplonius via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Sent: Tuesday, June 2, 2026 2:22:14 AM To: North American Network Operators Group <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: Tom Samplonius <tom@samplonius.org> Subject: FRR for BGP route reflectors? Hi, Is Free Range Routing (FRR) a viable choice for a pure BGP route reflector for a regional ISP with ~ 35 routers? A mix of L3VPN-MPLS and BGP-EVPN services. Full transit, plus some peering. About 5 x L3VPN instances, and maybe 500 x EVPN-MPLS instances. I don’t see a lot of posts of people using FRR for RR. And not a lot of people reporting issues, so maybe it is just the perfect RR solution? Tom _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/STLGD7H4...
Hi Tom! We are using FRRouting on Linux VMs as dedicated BGP route reflectors for AFs vpnv4, vpnv6 and evpn. Having around 1000 RR clients connected with a handful of L3VPN and a few dozen EVPN instances. We don't keep the full routing table on them, but that should cause no problem, just throw a bit more memory onto the VMs. BGP works like a charm on FRRouting and is also pretty good on supporting recent BGP features. We can absolutely recommend it. As a sidenote: IGPs at FRRouting seem to get a bit less love, so don't be too sophisticated there... BR, Thomas Senior Network Engineer Init7 (AS13030)
I have had this question also before. Also importantly, if you would, what kind of hardware specs do your RR's have and are they physical or virtual? --- Richard Owens Network Automation and Wireless Engineer | Information Technology Services Old Dominion University 4300 Engineering and Computational Sciences Building https://www.odu.edu/its ________________________________ From: fritz--- via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Sent: Tuesday, June 2, 2026 10:09 To: nanog@lists.nanog.org <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: fritz@init7.net <fritz@init7.net> Subject: Re: FRR for BGP route reflectors? EXTERNAL to ODU: This email is not from an ODU account. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Hi Tom! We are using FRRouting on Linux VMs as dedicated BGP route reflectors for AFs vpnv4, vpnv6 and evpn. Having around 1000 RR clients connected with a handful of L3VPN and a few dozen EVPN instances. We don't keep the full routing table on them, but that should cause no problem, just throw a bit more memory onto the VMs. BGP works like a charm on FRRouting and is also pretty good on supporting recent BGP features. We can absolutely recommend it. As a sidenote: IGPs at FRRouting seem to get a bit less love, so don't be too sophisticated there... BR, Thomas Senior Network Engineer Init7 (AS13030) _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.nanog.org%2Farchives%2Flist%2Fnanog%40lists.nanog.org%2Fmessage%2F5YPBTLAZTZ2PLG3THWK3R4J45NLLQLER%2F&data=05%7C02%7Crowens%40odu.edu%7C760b744b40b24195c83608dec0b11127%7C48bf86e811a24b8a8cb368d8be2227f3%7C0%7C0%7C639160063895453802%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=se8967J3xTPB4T0YC76aG2J8vFWkPJdiyXudE%2FJ%2FoAI%3D&reserved=0<https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/5YPBTLAZTZ2PLG3THWK3R4J45NLLQLER/>
Sent from my iPad
On Jun 2, 2026, at 7:31 AM, Owens, Richard A. via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
I have had this question also before. Also importantly, if you would, what kind of hardware specs do your RR's have and are they physical or virtual?
---
Richard Owens
Network Automation and Wireless Engineer | Information Technology Services
Old Dominion University
4300 Engineering and Computational Sciences Building
________________________________ From: fritz--- via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Sent: Tuesday, June 2, 2026 10:09 To: nanog@lists.nanog.org <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: fritz@init7.net <fritz@init7.net> Subject: Re: FRR for BGP route reflectors?
EXTERNAL to ODU: This email is not from an ODU account. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Hi Tom!
We are using FRRouting on Linux VMs as dedicated BGP route reflectors for AFs vpnv4, vpnv6 and evpn. Having around 1000 RR clients connected with a handful of L3VPN and a few dozen EVPN instances. We don't keep the full routing table on them, but that should cause no problem, just throw a bit more memory onto the VMs. BGP works like a charm on FRRouting and is also pretty good on supporting recent BGP features. We can absolutely recommend it.
As a sidenote: IGPs at FRRouting seem to get a bit less love, so don't be too sophisticated there...
BR, Thomas Senior Network Engineer Init7 (AS13030) _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/5YPBTLAZTZ2PLG3THWK3R4J45NLLQLER/<https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/5YPBTLAZTZ2PLG3THWK3R4J45NLLQLER/> _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/G3JYH7XV...
Well, while I’m curious about FRR specific characteristics, I think the typical BGP CPU advice still applies: 1. Fastest possible cores. While there are techniques to process BGP in parallel (ex. sharding), BGP often tends to serialize updates. Faster cores are always better for BGP. 2. Virtualization is just a tax. Assume it takes 10% of your performance, which is probably on the high-end for a RR. RRs don’t forward packets, so XDP and DPDK and all that stuff, do not apply. Juniper says their container routing protocol daemon (cRPD): Junos cRPD is designed to maximize routing performance. For example, it is capable of reflecting 10 copies of Internet routes to 1000 BGP peers in less than 60 seconds. I’m curious if FRR can do that, and what hardware that would be. Tom
On Jun 2, 2026, at 7:30 AM, Owens, Richard A. via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
I have had this question also before. Also importantly, if you would, what kind of hardware specs do your RR's have and are they physical or virtual?
---
Richard Owens
Network Automation and Wireless Engineer | Information Technology Services
Old Dominion University
4300 Engineering and Computational Sciences Building
________________________________ From: fritz--- via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Sent: Tuesday, June 2, 2026 10:09 To: nanog@lists.nanog.org <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: fritz@init7.net <fritz@init7.net> Subject: Re: FRR for BGP route reflectors?
EXTERNAL to ODU: This email is not from an ODU account. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Hi Tom!
We are using FRRouting on Linux VMs as dedicated BGP route reflectors for AFs vpnv4, vpnv6 and evpn. Having around 1000 RR clients connected with a handful of L3VPN and a few dozen EVPN instances. We don't keep the full routing table on them, but that should cause no problem, just throw a bit more memory onto the VMs. BGP works like a charm on FRRouting and is also pretty good on supporting recent BGP features. We can absolutely recommend it.
As a sidenote: IGPs at FRRouting seem to get a bit less love, so don't be too sophisticated there...
BR, Thomas Senior Network Engineer Init7 (AS13030) _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.nanog.org%2Farchives%2Flist%2Fnanog%40lists.nanog.org%2Fmessage%2F5YPBTLAZTZ2PLG3THWK3R4J45NLLQLER%2F&data=05%7C02%7Crowens%40odu.edu%7C760b744b40b24195c83608dec0b11127%7C48bf86e811a24b8a8cb368d8be2227f3%7C0%7C0%7C639160063895453802%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=se8967J3xTPB4T0YC76aG2J8vFWkPJdiyXudE%2FJ%2FoAI%3D&reserved=0<https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/5YPBTLAZTZ2PLG3THWK3R4J45NLLQLER/> _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/G3JYH7XV...
Perhaps these excellent publications by Justin Pietsch can help you decide: https://medium.com/the-elegant-network/performance-testing-of-commercial-bgp... I suggest reading the entire set of posts. I don't know if anyone has done analyses of this same type recently. If so, I'd like to read them. Em ter., 2 de jun. de 2026 às 18:14, Tom Samplonius via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> escreveu:
Well, while I’m curious about FRR specific characteristics, I think the typical BGP CPU advice still applies:
1. Fastest possible cores. While there are techniques to process BGP in parallel (ex. sharding), BGP often tends to serialize updates. Faster cores are always better for BGP.
2. Virtualization is just a tax. Assume it takes 10% of your performance, which is probably on the high-end for a RR. RRs don’t forward packets, so XDP and DPDK and all that stuff, do not apply.
Juniper says their container routing protocol daemon (cRPD):
Junos cRPD is designed to maximize routing performance. For example, it is capable of reflecting 10 copies of Internet routes to 1000 BGP peers in less than 60 seconds.
I’m curious if FRR can do that, and what hardware that would be.
Tom
On Jun 2, 2026, at 7:30 AM, Owens, Richard A. via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
I have had this question also before. Also importantly, if you would, what kind of hardware specs do your RR's have and are they physical or virtual?
---
Richard Owens
Network Automation and Wireless Engineer | Information Technology Services
Old Dominion University
4300 Engineering and Computational Sciences Building
________________________________ From: fritz--- via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Sent: Tuesday, June 2, 2026 10:09 To: nanog@lists.nanog.org <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: fritz@init7.net <fritz@init7.net> Subject: Re: FRR for BGP route reflectors?
EXTERNAL to ODU: This email is not from an ODU account. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Hi Tom!
We are using FRRouting on Linux VMs as dedicated BGP route reflectors for AFs vpnv4, vpnv6 and evpn. Having around 1000 RR clients connected with a handful of L3VPN and a few dozen EVPN instances. We don't keep the full routing table on them, but that should cause no problem, just throw a bit more memory onto the VMs. BGP works like a charm on FRRouting and is also pretty good on supporting recent BGP features. We can absolutely recommend it.
As a sidenote: IGPs at FRRouting seem to get a bit less love, so don't be too sophisticated there...
BR, Thomas Senior Network Engineer Init7 (AS13030) _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.nanog.org%2Farchives%2Flist%2Fnanog%40lists.nanog.org%2Fmessage%2F5YPBTLAZTZ2PLG3THWK3R4J45NLLQLER%2F&data=05%7C02%7Crowens%40odu.edu%7C760b744b40b24195c83608dec0b11127%7C48bf86e811a24b8a8cb368d8be2227f3%7C0%7C0%7C639160063895453802%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=se8967J3xTPB4T0YC76aG2J8vFWkPJdiyXudE%2FJ%2FoAI%3D&reserved=0 < https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/5YPBTLAZ...
_______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/G3JYH7XV...
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https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/BMWHVTDO...
-- Douglas Fernando Fischer Engº de Controle e Automação
Hello, I use FRR a lot in ISPs that I work for, but in cases of RR I prefer to use GoBGP or BIRD. I prefer GoBGP or Bird instead FRR because they are easier to automate. But yes, you can use FRR to do so. [cid:88dbfea2-6417-4e39-ac74-41fdd65216d3@BRAP284.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM]
On 3 Jun 2026, at 10:02, Douglas Fischer via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
Perhaps these excellent publications by Justin Pietsch can help you decide: https://medium.com/the-elegant-network/performance-testing-of-commercial-bgp... I suggest reading the entire set of posts.
I don't know if anyone has done analyses of this same type recently. If so, I'd like to read them.
Em ter., 2 de jun. de 2026 às 18:14, Tom Samplonius via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> escreveu:
Well, while I’m curious about FRR specific characteristics, I think the typical BGP CPU advice still applies:
1. Fastest possible cores. While there are techniques to process BGP in parallel (ex. sharding), BGP often tends to serialize updates. Faster cores are always better for BGP.
2. Virtualization is just a tax. Assume it takes 10% of your performance, which is probably on the high-end for a RR. RRs don’t forward packets, so XDP and DPDK and all that stuff, do not apply.
Juniper says their container routing protocol daemon (cRPD):
Junos cRPD is designed to maximize routing performance. For example, it is capable of reflecting 10 copies of Internet routes to 1000 BGP peers in less than 60 seconds.
I’m curious if FRR can do that, and what hardware that would be.
Tom
On Jun 2, 2026, at 7:30 AM, Owens, Richard A. via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
I have had this question also before. Also importantly, if you would, what kind of hardware specs do your RR's have and are they physical or virtual?
---
Richard Owens
Network Automation and Wireless Engineer | Information Technology Services
Old Dominion University
4300 Engineering and Computational Sciences Building
________________________________ From: fritz--- via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Sent: Tuesday, June 2, 2026 10:09 To: nanog@lists.nanog.org <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: fritz@init7.net <fritz@init7.net> Subject: Re: FRR for BGP route reflectors?
EXTERNAL to ODU: This email is not from an ODU account. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Hi Tom!
We are using FRRouting on Linux VMs as dedicated BGP route reflectors for AFs vpnv4, vpnv6 and evpn. Having around 1000 RR clients connected with a handful of L3VPN and a few dozen EVPN instances. We don't keep the full routing table on them, but that should cause no problem, just throw a bit more memory onto the VMs. BGP works like a charm on FRRouting and is also pretty good on supporting recent BGP features. We can absolutely recommend it.
As a sidenote: IGPs at FRRouting seem to get a bit less love, so don't be too sophisticated there...
BR, Thomas Senior Network Engineer Init7 (AS13030) _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/5YPBTLAZ... < https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/5YPBTLAZ...
_______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/G3JYH7XV...
_______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/BMWHVTDO...
-- Douglas Fernando Fischer Engº de Controle e Automação _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog@lists.nanog.org/message/6JZ6ABP2...
participants (7)
-
André Dias -
Bradley Gillette -
Douglas Fischer -
Evan S. Weiner -
fritz＠init7.net -
Owens, Richard A. -
Tom Samplonius