If you are using IP spaces on a provider gateway, you can configure a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) connection on the provider gateway.

The set of capabilities that you can configure includes BGP route maps and BGP communities, which means that you can specify additional configuration for route redistribution. You can configure route maps with IP prefixes and community lists that are defined on the provider gateway.

In a provider gateway that is backed by a VRF gateway, graceful restart settings are read-only. You can edit these settings on the parent tier-0 in NSX.

If you are using NSX 4.1 or a newer version, you can edit the the local AS number on an provider gateway that is backed by a VRF gateway. In earlier versions, the local AS number setting is read-only and can be configured by a system administrator on the parent tier-0 in NSX.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that your provider gateway uses IP spaces.
  • Verify that you have the Provider Gateway Routing: View and Provider Gateway Routing: Manage rights assigned to you.

Procedure

  1. From the top navigation bar, select Resources and click Cloud Resources.
  2. In the left pane, click Provider Gateways.
  3. Click BGP and, under Configuration, click Edit.
  4. Toggle on the Status option to enable BGP.
  5. Enter an autonomous system (AS) ID number to use for the local AS feature of the protocol.
    VMware Cloud Director assigns the local AS number to the provider gateway. The provider gateway advertises this ID when it connects with its BGP neighbors in other autonomous systems.
  6. From the drop-down menu, select a Graceful Restart Mode option.
    Option Description
    Helper and graceful restart It is not a best practice to enable the graceful restart capability on the provider gateway because the BGP peerings from all gateways are always active.

    In case of a failover, the graceful restart capability increases the time a remote neighbor takes to select an alternate tier-0 gateway. This delays BFD-based convergence.

    Note: The provider gateway configuration applies to all BGP neighbors unless the neighbor-specific configuration overrides it.
    Helper only Useful for reducing or eliminating the disruption of traffic associated with routes learned from a neighbor that is capable of graceful restart. The neighbor must be able to preserve its forwarding table while it undergoes a restart.
    Disable Deactivate graceful restart mode on the edge gateway.
  7. (Optional) Change the default value for the graceful restart timer.
  8. (Optional) Change the default value for the stale route timer.
  9. Toggle on the ECMP option to enable ECMP.
  10. Click Save.