BGP Graceful Restart

[j_a_m_e_s]

Dear All,

I would like to enable BGP graceful restart on my FGCP cluster like this:

neighbor x.x.x.x
  set capability-graceful-restart enable
 [...]
next

What needs to be configured on the Cisco peer? As far as I can tell, the upstream peers need to be "helpers". I believe nx-os supports this by default:

router bgp X
graceful-restart <- Enables Graceful-restart and Helper
graceful-restart-helper <- Enables only the helper in the event that the above comand is disabled

Does anyone know about how to configure a helper in IOS-XE? 

Also, would there be any harm in enabling graceful-restart on all the neighbors, even if only the FGT is the only peer to implement clustering?

Many thanks

James.

[emnoc]

I don't know about helpers, i believe that is for OSPF and has nothing to do with BGP fwiw, but you can contact tac for that question.

For your neighbors just enable it per neighbor

router bgp 6543333

    neigbor  x.x.x.x. ha-mode graceful 

And reset that bgp peer and confirm "show bgp neighbor x.x.x.x" . If you do want to enable it globally do it under your  router bgp proc

e.g

router bgp 65000

  bgp gracefull-restart

Ken Felix

[j_a_m_e_s]

Hi Ken,

Incidentally, if I enable it globally on the switch will there be any adverse impact for peers where Graceful Restart doesn't apply? What I mean is that the switch has lots of upstream peers which are single sup routers/switches and not clustered. Although they 'support' graceful restart in their BGP capabilities, this wouldn't actually make any practical sense.

I realise this is more of a switch question, but clearly to get GR working it has to be enabled on the peers surrounding the FGT as well.

Thanks again for any insight.

James.