Dynamic Routing (FRR)

Dynamic Routing (using routing protocols) is supported via an external plugin. Routing protocols support your network equipment in finding the best available path for your packets. We use Free Range Routing (FRR) to implement the various available protocols for dynamic routing.

These routing protocols are used to:

  • Improve fault tolerance (if a connection breaks, a new route will be found if possible)

  • Simplify administration (you have to add fewer routes manually)

It is not adviseable to use dynamic routing in the following scenario’s:

  • When your network is small (so it would be better to use static routes)

  • If you are working in a highly isolated environment, where you have to be in control of everything happening in your network

Routing Protocols supported by the plugin include:

  • RIPv1 and RIPv2

  • OSPFv2 and v3

  • BGPv4

Warning

Not all routing protocols will work in any setup because they may have to be direct neighbors. Consider the limitations of a routing protocol before using it.

Warning

It’s strongly advised to increase the kern.ipc.maxsockbuf value via Tunables. Go to System ‣ Settings ‣ Tunables and check if there is already a tunable for maxsockbuf and set it to 16777216 if it’s lower. Otherwise add a new one with name above and the specified value.

Warning

Disabling a running routing daemon can be dangerous as it can lead to an inaccessible machine. If you want to disable a running routing daemon, make sure, you don’t lose routes which are required by your connection to this machine (for example when using SSH).

Installation

First of all, select Plugins in the menu:

../_images/menu_plugins.png

On this page, you can install the FRR plugin by clicking the + icon:

../_images/plugins_frr.png

General setup

In order to use one or more of the protocols included, one has to enable the plugin in Routing ‣ General. Without any other service enabled this makes sure the zebra service is being configured, which is the coordinating master service which handles generic features such as logging and acccess to kernel routing.

Tip

By default logging should be enabled, which sends messages to the local logging and offers remote logging over syslog. Always make sure to choose a sensible log level (default is Notifications) and check the log in Routing ‣ Diagnostics -> Log

Note

Since OPNsense doesn’t support a form of configuration reloading at the moment, there might be a temporary loss of service when saving settings. Normally this is only a small glitch, but in high traffic areas it might something to take under consideration when performing maintenance.

Dynamic routing and high availability

In enterprise networks there’s often a need to make sure services are protected for all sorts of failures, dynamic routing helps a lot in this case to provide a proper path for packets to travel, but these nodes themselved might need to be configured more resilient to prevent single points of failures on the edges of your network.

In OPNsense high availability and failover is organised around carp, which makes it a logical choice to combine both technologies here as well.

A couple of different strategies are supported to combine both technologies, ranging from disable the daemon when in carp mode to more fine grained control of how routes are propogated when a machine is in backup mode.

CARP failover mode

The most simple mode available, when a mode reaches backup state, it will shutdown the services, when it’s going to master it will start them all.

Note

Due to the nature of this option, it can’t be combined with other carp options available.

OSPF[6]: CARP demote

This option registers a status monitor on top of the FRR logging feed to detect changes in link status, when OSPF can’t find its neighbors it will make this machine less attractive by increasing the demotion factor.

The feature is inspired by OpenBSD’s handling of carp demotion in ospfd (https://man.openbsd.org/ospfd.conf.5) and can be enabled using the CARP demote checkbox in Routing: OSPF[v3].

Note

Since the relevant neighbor negotiation messages are only being logged when the log level (in Routing ‣ General) is configured to debug, the log will be more loud when using this feature. When using a lower log level the status monitor is not expected to catch any relevant events.

OSPF[6]: Influence interface cost based on CARP status

FRR natively does not support interaction with carp status as the variant in openbsd does (carp note in “depend on” keyword https://man.openbsd.org/ospfd.conf.5), this is where our next option comes into play.

Using the interface settings of an OSPF interface you can choose to adjust costs for that interface based on the carp status of the selected virtual address. Go to Routing ‣ OSPF[v3] -> Interface and choose an interface, here you will find the following options that influence behaviour:

  • Depend on (carp)

    • Select a virtual address that this interface relies on. When this target is not in MASTER mode, the selected interface is considered demoted

  • Cost (when demoted)

    • Adjust the cost to this value when going to demoted state, usually one would use a high value here to prefer other routes first

  • Cost

    • The standard cost, when provided will be used when in normal conditions. If it’s left blank FRR defaults will be used, which it will also rollback to when going back to master mode.