6.8 Connection collision detection.

If a pair of BGP speakers try simultaneously to establish a TCP connection to each other, then two parallel connections between this pair of speakers might well be formed. We refer to this situation as connection collision. Clearly, one of these connections must be closed.

Based on the value of the BGP Identifier a convention is established for detecting which BGP connection is to be preserved when a collision does occur. The convention is to compare the BGP Identifiers of the peers involved in the collision and to retain only the connection initiated by the BGP speaker with the higher-valued BGP Identifier.

Upon receipt of an OPEN message, the local system must examine all of its connections that are in the OpenConfirm state. A BGP speaker may also examine connections in an OpenSent state if it knows the BGP Identifier of the peer by means outside of the protocol. If among these connections there is a connection to a remote BGP speaker whose BGP Identifier equals the one in the OPEN message, then the local system performs the following collision resolution procedure:

1. The BGP Identifier of the local system is compared to the BGP Identifier of the remote system (as specified in the OPEN message).

2. If the value of the local BGP Identifier is less than the remote one, the local system closes BGP connection that already exists (the one that is already in the OpenConfirm state), and accepts BGP connection initiated by the remote system.

3. Otherwise, the local system closes newly created BGP connection (the one associated with the newly received OPEN message), and continues to use the existing one (the one that is already in the OpenConfirm state).

Comparing BGP Identifiers is done by treating them as (4-octet long) unsigned integers.

A connection collision with an existing BGP connection that is in Established states causes unconditional closing of the newly created connection. Note that a connection collision cannot be detected with connections that are in Idle, or Connect, or Active states.

Closing the BGP connection (that results from the collision resolution procedure) is accomplished by sending the NOTIFICATION message with the Error Code Cease.