ACI BFD Support
Overview
- Supported Protocols: BFD is supported for BGP external
routed networks. - Purpose: BFD provides sub-second failure detection between
ACI leaf switches and external routers, improving convergence and
reliability. - Multihop BFD: Supported from APIC Release
5.0(1) onward. - C-bit-aware BFD: ACI supports control-plane-aware
BFD, allowing you to configure whether BFD sessions are dependent or
independent of the control plane
🔧 Configuration Guidelines
To configure BFD in
ACI:
- Create or Edit a BGP Peer Connectivity
Profile: - Navigate to L3Out > Node
Profile > BGP Peer Connectivity Profile - Enable BFD under the
peer settings. - Ensure Loopback Interfaces:
- For multihop BFD, loopback
interfaces are required. - Each L3Out should have a unique
loopback IP for BGP peering. - MTU Considerations:
- ACI does not support IP
fragmentation, so ensure MTU is properly configured on both ends. - Recommended: Test MTU using CLI tools
like ping df-bit packet-size. - Platform Compatibility:
- BFD support may vary slightly depending
on the ACI hardware model (e.g., N9K-C9336PQ,
N9K-C93180YC-EX). - Always verify compatibility in the
release notes or hardware documentation.
⚠️ Limitations
- BFD is not supported for OSPF or
EIGRP in ACI. - BFD configuration is only applicable
to external routed networks (L3Out), not internal fabric
routing.