[c-nsp] Non-default BGP hold / keepalive timers

[David J. Hughes]

This is just a follow-up on an earlier thread.  When I first asked this 
question nobody could provide me with any data on tested values etc.  I 
thought I'd punt this to the list for the sake of general interest (and 
the archives :) just so the next person might have a point of 
reference.

To overcome the problem of silent failure of eBGP peers that are not 
directly attached (eg via an ethernet switch) we are running much 
reduced timers.  Default Cisco is 3 * 60 seconds.  Default Juniper is 3 
* 30 seconds.  We are running 3 * 5 seconds without a single flap.  No 
problems experienced in over a month with several different upstream 
providers.

And, as Bruce Pinsky has said before, this is no substitute for BFD or 
some other layer 2 fault detection mechanism.  But, hey, it may help 
out of BFD et al aren't an available option.


David
...