No eBGP neighbour relationship

Hello Rene,
I just installed a router at one of our new branch offices. The router was able to form a bgp neighbour relationship with 7 other sites except one. This is the only error message that i am seeing:

RTR-OPP#
*Oct  2 17:01:06.635: BGP: 192.168.211.110 active went from Idle to Active
*Oct  2 17:01:06.635: BGP: 192.168.211.110 open active, local address 192.168.211.44
*Oct  2 17:01:06.636: BGP: 192.168.211.110 open failed: Connection refused by remote host
*Oct  2 17:01:06.636: BGP: 192.168.211.110 Active open failed - tcb is not available, open active delayed 7168ms (35000ms max, 60% jitter)
*Oct  2 17:01:06.636: BGP: ses global 192.168.211.110 (0x7F6198760CA0:0) act Reset (Active open failed).
*Oct  2 17
RTR-OPP#:01:06.636: BGP: 192.168.211.110 active went from Active to Idle
*Oct  2 17:01:06.636: BGP: nbr global 192.168.211.110 Active open failed - open timer running
*Oct  2 17:01:06.636: BGP: nbr global 192.168.211.110 Active open failed - open timer running

I have searched online, but i cannot find a clear explanation of this error. Can you explain what this means? I can ping the location ok.

Thanks,
Doogle1b1

Hello Cecil

There may be various reasons for this to occur. Some include the following:

  1. One end may be configured for MD5 while the other is not. You can check this with the following command: debug ip tcp transactions address 192.168.211.110 and see if you get any “MD5 received” syslog messages.
  2. A router ID may be missing on the router on the other end. Make sure you’re using a looback or an active interface for the router ID. Also, ifyou have the interfaces under another VRF, BGP will not be able to use the router ID.
  3. Check that nothing is blocking port 179
  4. ASN may be incorrect on either end

A debug of BGP would also be very useful for seeing what kinds of messages are being sent: debug ip bgp 192.168.211.110.

Hopefully this will give you a starting point to continue your troubleshooting from. Keep us informed of your progress!

I hope this has been helpful!

Laz

Hello Laz,
Thanks for answering my question. I was running debug on the router and it only gave me the error listed above. I was able to form a neighbour relationship with the other 7 location except one. Not sure why that one location was refusing to come up. I resolved this issue by removing the neighbour command for the location, did a clear ip bgp *, waited for about 30 and readded the command and the neighbour came up.

Thanks for the input.
Cecil