Sebastopol, CA--Every second, millions of hosts send billions of
packets across the Internet to other hosts, with nothing more than the
destination IP address to guide them along the way. The present
protocol of choice for interdomain routing in the Internet is the
Border Gateway Protocol, or BGP. Internet service providers use BGP to
inform each other which IP address goes where. BGP is also useful for
end-user organizations that want reliable connections to the Internet
through two or more ISPs. It's the only protocol that can deal with a
network of the Internet's size. It's also the only protocol that can
deal well with multiple connections to unrelated routing domains. In
the event of a network outage, BGP recomputes the path so packets can
avoid the problem area and keep flowing. O'Reilly's latest release,
BGP by
Iljitsch van Beijnum (US $39.95), contains everything network
administrators need to know to run BGP for regular IPv4 routing in all
but the very largest networks.
"BGP" is a guide to all aspects of BGP: the protocol, its configuration
and operation in an Internet environment, and how to troubleshoot it.
The book also describes how to secure BGP and how BGP can be used to
combat Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. The examples
throughout the book are for Cisco routers, but the techniques discussed
can be applied to any BGP-capable router.
"This book is for anyone interested in running BGP to create reliable
connectivity to the Internet," says van Beijnum. "It caters
specifically to the needs of those who have to determine whether BGP is
the right solution for them, and if so, how to go about preparing for
and then implementing the protocol." Much of the information in the
book applies to everyone who needs reliable internet connectivity:
end-user organizations, application service providers, web hosters, and
ISPs. "Later in the book," van Beijnum explains, "the focus shifts to
topics that are mainly of interest to ISPs: interconnecting (peering)
with other networks and providing BGP transit services."
Some of the topics covered in the book are:
- Requesting an AS number and IP addresses
- Route filtering by remote ISPs and how to deal with it
- Configuring the initial BGP setup
- Balancing incoming or outgoing traffic over available connections
- Securing and troubleshooting BGP
- BGP in larger networks: interaction with internal routing protocols,
scalability issues
- BGP in ISP networks
"BGP" is for anyone interested in creating reliable connectivity to the
Internet and running BGP to accomplish it.
Additional resources:
BGP
Iljitsch van Beijnum
ISBN 0-596-00254-8, 288 pages, $39.95 (US), $61.95 (CAN)
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938; 1-707-827-7000
