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Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) is a lightweight, low-overhead protocol that provides rapid detection of failures in the bidirectional path between two forwarding engines. On FortiGates, BFD integrates seamlessly with dynamic routing protocols like Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to accelerate neighbor failure detection and routing convergence.
This integration is particularly valuable in:
- High-availability setups with redundant links.
- Multi-homed eBGP connections to ISPs.
- Large-scale ADVPN or SD-WAN overlays using BGP.
Configuration Steps:
Enable BFD Globally (Recommended):
config system settings
set bfd enable
set bfd-desired-min-tx 250 # ms (default)
set bfd-required-min-rx 250 # ms
set bfd-detect-mult 3 # Detection time ≈ 750 ms
end
Enable BFD on Interfaces:
config system interface
edit "port1"
set bfd enable # Or 'global' to inherit
set bfd-desired-min-tx 300
set bfd-required-min-rx 300
set bfd-detect-mult 3
next
end
Single-Hop eBGP with BFD:
On FortiGate A:
config router bgp
set as 65001
set router-id 1.1.1.1
config neighbor
edit "10.1.1.2"
set remote-as 65002
set bfd enable
next
end
Advertise networks as needed:
config network
edit 1
set prefix 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0
next
end
end
Repeat symmetrically on FortiGate B.
Multihop eBGP with BFD:
Additional steps for non-direct peers:
On FortiGate A:
config system settings
set bfd enable
end
config system interface
edit "port1"
set bfd enable
next
end
config router bgp
set as 65001
set router-id 1.1.1.1
config neighbor
edit "172.16.201.2" <----- IPv4 multihop peer.
set remote-as 65002
set bfd enable
set ebgp-enforce-multihop enable
set soft-reconfiguration enable
next
edit "2000:172:16:201::2" # IPv6
set remote-as 65002
set bfd enable
set ebgp-enforce-multihop enable
set soft-reconfiguration enable
next
end
end
Multihop templates (optional for custom timers/auth).
config router bfd
config multihop-template
edit 1
set src 172.16.200.0 255.255.255.0
set dst 172.16.201.0 255.255.255.0
next
end
end
Verification Commands:
- BFD Sessions: get router info bfd neighbor (IPv4) / get router info6 bfd neighbor (IPv6)
- BGP Summary: get router info bgp summary
- BGP Neighbors: get router info bgp neighbors <ip>
- Routes: get router info routing-table bgp
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