Why Do We Need IBGP Full Mesh?
Here’s another question from the excellent list posted by Daniel Dib on Twitter:
BGP Split Horizon rule says “Don’t advertise IBGP-learned routes to another IBGP peer.” The purpose is to avoid loops because it’s assumed that all of IBGP peers will be on full mesh connectivity. What is the reason the BGP protocol designers made this assumption?
Time for another history lesson. BGP was designed in late 1980s (RFC 1105 was published in 1989) as a replacement for the original Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP). In those days, the original hub-and-spoke Internet topology with NSFNET core was gradually replaced with a mesh of interconnections, and EGP couldn’t cope with that.


