[Xorp-users] Problem with Xorp passing BSR messages

[Williams, Mark]

I will be deploying Xorp on Linux systems soon to handle multicast routing with PIM-SM. Everything has worked well, but I have had problems with bootstrap router messages. In my testing, I used two Alcatel-Lucent routers and an Xorp system. Each router had two interfaces, and  were in a chain in Alcatel - Xorp - Alcatel order. 

When the Xorp box was configured as the candidate BSR, the Alcatel routers both picked up the Xorp box as the BSR after the election time passed. 

However, if the Alcatel router on the "left" was configured as the CBSR, there was a strange problem. The Xorp box would learn the correct BSR, and so would the Alcatel router on the "right". However, the boostrap messages to the Alcatel router on the "right" did not get passed frequently enough, and the BSR would expire after 130 seconds. Then about 30 seconds later, the Alcatel on the "right" would pick of the BSR again. It seemed that the BSR had to expire before it would get renewed. The BSR never expired on the Xorp box.

I reversed the order and put the BSR on the "right", and got the same results. I could not find any tunable parameters for BSR expiration on the Alcatels or the Xorp system. 

Any help is appreciated. 

-Mark Williams