Route Leaking within an MPLS Network

Introduction

First of all, what is a route leak?

A route leak is the propagation of routing announcement(s) beyond their intended scope – RFC7908

Within this article we will look at 2 methods of route leaking within an MPLS environment – static routes and route maps. To demonstrate both methods we will look at 2 different scenarios.

NOTE Our scenarios will be based upon Figure 1. Also please be aware that within Figure 1 OSPF has been configured as the IGP across the entire topology.

Figure 1 – Example Topology.

MPLS environment - static routes and route maps

Static Routes

The first method that we will look at are static routes. Static routes are created and then redistributed into the necessary IGP instance(s), in our case OSPF.

Example

Within our example we will configure route leaking in order for our Provider 1 router to access a resource from within our customer site – CE COSTA1.

Figure 2. CE from Provider router.

Static Routes

Configuration

PE2 – Redistribute Route to CE

The first part of the configuration that isrequired, will be to create a static route on the PE2 router. We then redistribute the route into OSPF so that P1 is aware.

ip route 100.1.1.0 255.255.255.0 GigabitEthernet0/2 10.0.0.17  router ospf 1  redistribute static subnets

PE2 – Redistribute Route Back to Provider

Next we create a route to point back to P1. We then redistribute this route into the OSPF VRF instance, to ensure the route is propagated back to our CE.

ip route vrf 100:COSTA 10.0.0.28 255.255.255.252 GigabitEthernet0/3 10.0.0.26

router ospf 100 vrf 100:COSTA
 redistribute static subnets

Route Maps

Next let us look at route maps.

A route map defines which of the routes from the specified routing protocol are allowed to be redistributed into the target routing process.

Now, to demonstrate route maps lets look at an example.

Example

Within this example a customer will create a new network. This network will be leaked to another customer. The interesting part to this is as both customers reside within separate VRFs on the Provider Edge routers we will need to route leak between VRFs.

Figure 3. CE to CE between customer VRFs.

Route Maps

Before we look at the configuration. Lets break it down.

  1. A route map is created. This defines, a) a prefix list that defines the route set for redistribution b) a route target.
  2. We then assign the export map to our VRF.
  3. This configuration now reads – if the prefix-list matches a route within the routing table for the given VRF, then redistribute the route into BGP, affixing the route target to the route.
  4. We then configure the other VRF (on PE1) to import routes that contain the route target.

Configuration

PE2 – Export

ip prefix-list EXPORT_LIST_VRF200 seq 5 permit 100.1.1.0/24

route-map EXPORT_MAP_VRF200_TO_BGP permit 10
 match ip address prefix-list EXPORT_LIST_VRF200
 set extcommunity rt 3:3 additive

ip vrf 200:STARBUCKS
  export map EXPORT_MAP_VRF200_TO_BGP

PE1 – Import

ip vrf 100:COSTA
 route-target import 3:3
Rick Donato
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