zebra/gated question

Greetings, I have a somewhat unique requirement. I have already googled,
RTFMed and guessed to the best of my ability for the answer. What I am
needing to do is run a linux or unix box with zebra (1st choice) or gated
forwarding bgp information to a router upstream, but without being in the
routing path itself. I'm trying to build an intelligent routing service
that will forward bgp info only while a service is up and responding. The
box in question can't be part of the routing path though because the data
rate we are dealing with is not something I can trust to a PC (all
political, not because I have doubts about linux ability to route, the
suits just wont go for it). Anyone ever tried something like this, or
any idea if it's even possible?

_______________ ________________
Net Router Net Traffic ISP sending BGP
accepts default >=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>Information
route | ________________
_______________ | v
^ |
| v
^ ____________ |
|_<___<___<___ Linux Box ___<_____<___<_|
Acts as BGP bgp traffic
neighbor
____________



So if the ASCII art makes sense, the linux box acts as a BGP neighbor
without being in the routing path. Is this possible?

Jason Clark wrote:
> Greetings, I have a somewhat unique requirement. I have already googled,
> RTFMed and guessed to the best of my ability for the answer. What I am
> needing to do is run a linux or unix box with zebra (1st choice) or gated
> forwarding bgp information to a router upstream, but without being in the
> routing path itself. I'm trying to build an intelligent routing service
> that will forward bgp info only while a service is up and responding. The
> box in question can't be part of the routing path though because the data
> rate we are dealing with is not something I can trust to a PC (all
> political, not because I have doubts about linux ability to route, the
> suits just wont go for it). Anyone ever tried something like this, or
> any idea if it's even possible?
>
> _______________ ________________
> Net Router Net Traffic ISP sending BGP
> accepts default >=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>=>Information
> route | ________________
> _______________ | v
> ^ |
> | v
> ^ ____________ |
> |_<___<___<___ Linux Box ___<_____<___<_|
> Acts as BGP bgp traffic
> neighbor
> ____________
>
>
>
> So if the ASCII art makes sense, the linux box acts as a BGP neighbor
> without being in the routing path. Is this possible?

Hi Jason,

Not sure what you want to accomplish. With regard to BGP, it
intrinsically is a pure signaling protocol and does not forward by
design, a perfect example would be a route server. On UNIX systems
forwarding is carried out by the underlying stack (kernel) only. The
conceptual misunderstanding stems from tightly integrated architectures
such as Cisco IOS, this works completely different. Please do yourself a
favor and don't mess with your announcements until you understand what
IGP synchronisation is for within BGP concepts and how BGP, IGP and
forwarding are related on UNIX and other architectures.

Regards,
Gernot