2. BGP Topological Model

When we say that a connection exists between two AS's, we mean two things:

Physical connection:

There is a shared Data Link subnetwork between the two AS's, and on this shared subnetwork each AS has at least one border gateway belonging to that AS. Thus the border gateway of each AS can forward packets to the border gateway of the other AS without resorting to Inter-AS or Intra-AS routing.

BGP connection:

There is a BGP session between BGP speakers in each of the AS's, and this session communicates those routes that can be used for specific destinations via the advertising AS. Throughout this document we place an additional restriction on the BGP speakers that form the BGP connection: they must themselves share the same Data Link subnetwork that their border gateways share. Thus, a BGP session between adjacent AS's requires no support from either Inter-AS or Intra-AS routing. Cases that do not conform to this restriction fall outside the scope of this document.

Thus, at each connection, each AS has one or more BGP speakers and one or more border gateways, and these BGP speakers and border gateways are all located on a shared Data Link subnetwork. Note that BGP speakers do not need to be a border gateway, and vice versa. Paths announced by a BGP speaker of one AS on a given connection are taken to be feasible for each of the border gateways of the other AS on the same shared subnetwork, i.e. indirect neighbors are allowed.

Much of the traffic carried within an AS either originates or terminates at that AS (i.e., either the source IP address or the destination IP address of the IP packet identifies a host internal to that AS). Traffic that fits this description is called "local traffic". Traffic that does not fit this description is called "transit traffic". A major goal of BGP usage is to control the flow of transit traffic.

Based on how a particular AS deals with transit traffic, the AS may now be placed into one of the following categories:

stub AS:

an AS that has only a single connection to one other AS. Naturally, a stub AS only carries local traffic.

multihomed AS:

an AS that has connections to more than one other AS, but refuses to carry transit traffic.

transit AS:

an AS that has connections to more than one other AS, and is designed (under certain policy restrictions) to carry both transit and local traffic.

Since a full AS path provides an efficient and straightforward way of suppressing routing loops and eliminates the "count-to-infinity" problem associated with some distance vector algorithms, BGP imposes no topological restrictions on the interconnection of AS's.