7

 

  Transition

   The scheme described in this document allows a gradual transition
   from 2-octet AS numbers to 4-octet AS numbers.  One can upgrade one
   Autonomous System or one BGP speaker at a time.

   To simplify transition, this document assumes that an Autonomous
   System could start using a 4-octet AS number only after all the BGP
   speakers within that Autonomous System have been upgraded to support
   4-octet AS numbers.

   An OLD BGP speaker MUST NOT use AS_TRANS as its Autonomous System
   number.

   A non-mappable 4-octet AS number cannot be used as a "Member AS
   Number" of a BGP Confederation until all the BGP speakers within the
   Confederation have transitioned to support 4-octet AS numbers.

   In an environment where an Autonomous System that has OLD BGP
   speakers peers with two or more Autonomous Systems that have NEW BGP
   speakers and use AS_TRANS (rather than having a globally unique AS
   number), use of Multi-Exit Discriminators by the Autonomous System
   with the OLD speakers may result in a situation where Multi-Exit
   Discriminator will influence route selection among the routes that
   were received from different neighboring Autonomous Systems.

   Under certain conditions, it may not be possible to reconstruct the
   entire AS path information from the AS_PATH and the AS4_PATH
   attributes of a route.  This occurs when two or more routes that
   carry the AS4_PATH attribute are aggregated by an OLD BGP speaker,
   and the AS4_PATH attribute of at least one of these routes carries at
   least one 4-octet AS number (as oppose to a 2-octet AS number that is
   encoded in 4 octets).  When such aggregation results in creating a
   route that is less specific than any of the component routes (route
   whose Network Layer Reachability Information (NLRI) covers NLRI of
   all the component routes), loss of the AS path information does not
   create a risk of a routing loop.  In all other cases, loss of the AS
   path information does create a risk of a routing loop.