How Does BGP Work ?
BGP uses TCP as its transport protocol (port 179). Two BGP routers form a TCP connection between one another (peer routers) and exchange messages to open and confirm the connection parameters.
BGP routers exchange network reachability information. This information is mainly an indication of the full paths (BGP AS numbers) that a route should take in order to reach the destination network. This information helps in constructing a graph of ASs that are loop−free and where routing policies can be applied in order to enforce some restrictions on the routing behavior.
Any two routers that have formed a TCP connection in order to exchange BGP routing information are called peers, or neighbors. BGP peers initially exchange their full BGP routing tables. After this exchange, incremental updates are sent as the routing table changes. BGP keeps a version number of the BGP table, which should be the same for all of its BGP peers. The version number changes whenever BGP updates the table due to routing information changes. Keepalive packets are sent to ensure that the connection is alive between the BGP peers and notification packets are sent in response to errors or special conditions.
