Arista Networks, Inc.

Sharad Birmiwal

Akshay K Gattani

Sandeep Betha

David Cronin

Matthieu Loriol

Keon Vafai

Saurav Arora

Joanne Mikkelson

Jesper Skriver

Asang Kamalakar Dani

Peter Rufer

Isidoros Kouvelas

Zeqing Xia

Salam Noureddine

Rakesh Guttikonda

Rutger Antal Beltman

Trevor D Mendez

Thanh Lam Thai

Oscar Harry Frasier

Paraic Gallagher

A networking system may facilitate Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) switchover between an active BGP process and a standby BGP process. A method is provided that includes using the active BGP process to establish a first communication session with a peer and a second communication session with the standby BGP process and using an active kernel associated with the active BGP process to receive a packet from the peer, to transmit the packet to the standby BGP process, and to receive the packet returning from the standby BGP process. The active kernel can optionally be used to determine whether any packets are in-flight to and from the standby BGP process.

Input state synchronization for Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) processes

A networking system may perform a border gateway protocol (BGP) switchover from an active BGP process to a standby BGP process. The standby BGP process may obtain transport layer protocol state information, for a given time, of a transport layer session for the active BGP process. The standby BGP process may update the transport layer protocol state information based on BGP messages conveyed, after the given time, over the transport layer session and forwarded to the standby BGP process. Based on a BGP switchover criterion being met, a replacement transport layer session may be set up using the updated transport layer protocol state information. The replacement transport layer session continues the transport layer session after the BGP switchover.

Transport layer protocol state handling for border gateway protocol (BGP) processes

The present disclosure defines an 'unset' data state for attributes used in RCF functions. An attribute is deemed to be unset when it has not been set via an assignment statement in an RCF function or in an execution environment outside of the RCF execution environment. The present disclosure describes mechanisms for processing expressions in an RCF function that include one or more unset attributes in a predictable manner.

Default data state in routing control functions

A routing policy includes policy directives and policy functions. Execution of the routing policy includes invoking a policy function at a point of application in a policy directive. Execution of the invoked policy function can include making any number of nested function calls. When an EXIT statement is encountered in a nested policy function, execution of the policy function terminates and execution of the routing policy continues immediately with the policy directive following the point of application, irrespective of how deeply nested in the invocation hierarchy the policy function is.

Immediate termination of policy functions

Techniques disclosed herein provide a method and systems for installing routes by a route reflect (RR) device when the tunnel RIB of the RR device does not include any tunnel labels definitions. The unicast routing information base (RIB) of route reflector (RR) device is configured to include a next hop associated with a first network device. When the RR device receives a route from the first network device that comprises a tunnel label for reaching the second network device, the RR device resolves the next hop of the received route using the unicast RIB of the RR device. In response to the resolving, the RR device forwards the route to a third network device (e.g., identified by an export route target of the RR device).

Systems and method for propagating route information

Systems, methods, and computer-readable media are disclosed for annotating configuration language function evaluation. One or more configuration language expressions may be received by a configuration language development environment. The one or more configuration language expressions may be parsed into one or more atomic configuration language expressions. Based on a particular route at the specified point of execution in an application, the one or more configuration language expressions may be evaluated. The annotations may be rendered to provide an explanation of an underlying control flow.

Explanatory configuration function annotation

Embodiments described herein relate to techniques for route control. The techniques may include obtaining, by a routing information base (RIB) agent, a route policy for performing a route action; receiving, by the RIB agent, a route from a routing protocol; analyzing, by the RIB agent, the route using to make a determination about whether to perform the route action; and performing, by the RIB agent, the route action based on the determination. Route actions may include actions relating to route modification, route redistribution, modifications of various attributes of a route, etc.

Route control techniques

Some embodiments provide a method, executable by a first network device, that receives a set of commands to create a custom routing table. The set of commands specifies that the custom routing table be configured to resolve next hops for routing protocol paths using routes determined by a subset of a set of protocols used by a predefined routing table of the first network device to determine next hops for routing protocol paths. Based on the set of commands, the method further generates the custom routing table. The method also receives a routing protocol path from a second network device. The method further uses one of the custom routing table and the predefined routing table to resolve a next hop for the routing protocol path.

Custom routing information bases for network devices

A network device that provides packet forwarding services includes: a command line interface and a route manager. The command line interface is programmed to: obtain a command, for updating a routing control function, that specifies positional information; identify a portion of the routing control function based on the positional information; identify a syntactic style associated with the portion of the routing control function; make a modification to the routing control function to obtain a modified routing control function; and update operation of the network device based on the modified routing control function. The route manager is programmed to process a route for forwarding packets of the network device based on the modified routing control function, after the operation of the network device is updated, to obtain a processed route for forwarding the packets.

Fragment modification of routing control functions

A method and system for efficiently processing command line interface (CLI) instructions on a network element. Specifically, the disclosed method and system analyze CLI statements to determine whether a given CLI statement should be processed by a command specific sub-agent or a non-specific sub-agent. The presence of a bypass statement included in the CLI statement may indicate that the CLI statement should be processed by a command specific sub-agent to reduce the computational load of executing the command specified by the CLI statement. The presence of a regular statement, rather than a bypass statement, in the CLI statement may indicate that the CLI statement should be processed by a nonspecific sub-agent. Processing of a CLI statement that includes a bypass statement may be expedited by bypassing generic runtime processes performed by a nonspecific sub-agent.

Method and system for efficiently processing command line interface (CLI) instructions on a network element

A method for selective route download (SRD) in network devices. The method includes obtaining, by a network device, a first SRD route selection list. The method further includes identifying a first route to be installed in the FIB, based on the first SRD route selection list, including making a first determination that a route map, based on the SRD route selection list, includes route map changes that are exclusively attributed to the SRD route selection list. Identifying the first route further includes making a second determination that the route map changes are exclusively expressed using a prefix list, and based on the first and the second determinations, selecting the first route from a border gateway protocol (BGP) routing information base (RIB), by processing only routes in the BGP RIB that have prefixes matching changed prefixes in the prefix list. The method also includes updating the FIB with the first route.

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Surrey, Canada

Sharad Birmiwal