8 mins read

SR-MPLS – S-BFD

1. Intro

In the previous post we configured a static LSP. That configuration is easy to configure but, like all static paths, cannot react to topology changes. If one of the links or nodes represented by your segments fail, then the entire path fails. Another disadvantage of this option is that it cannot inherently identify failures along the path.

However, you can enable a new version of Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) called Seamless BFD (S-BFD) that actively monitors the path. This shuts the path down when a failure is detected enabling you to move over to another backup or secondary path.

The test topology:

SR-MPLS S-BFD

And the LSP config:

2. Config

First thing, let’s see what happens when R7 has a failure.

Note: Remember that in SR the path is computed on the ingress router, but there is no end to end signaling of the path at every router in the network line in RSVP. So a failure along the path is not signaled to the ingress router, so it will not mark the LSP as down.

We can clearly see the benefit of using S-BFD. At least the LSP would be down, another backup or secondary path could be used:


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