{"id":2433,"date":"2025-03-28T20:31:13","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T15:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ipwithease.com\/?p=2433"},"modified":"2025-03-28T20:32:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T15:02:22","slug":"ebgp-vs-ibgp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/ebgp-vs-ibgp\/","title":{"rendered":"eBGP vs iBGP: Know the difference"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ipwit-2910031348\" class=\"ipwit-before-content ipwit-entity-placement\" style=\"width: 728px;\"><div class=\"ipwit-adlabel\">Google ADs<\/div><div style=\"height: 90px;\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1375203873676133\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:inline-block;width:728px;height:90px;\" \ndata-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1375203873676133\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"9359532231\"><\/ins> \n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-block-rank-math-toc-block has-background\" style=\"background-color:#defefc\" id=\"rank-math-toc\"><h2>Table of Contents<\/h2><nav><ul><li><a href=\"#e-bgp-vs-i-bgp\">eBGP vs iBGP<\/a><ul><li><a href=\"#external-border-gateway-protocol-or-e-bgp\">External Border Gateway Protocol or eBGP\u00a0<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#internal-border-gateway-protocol-or-i-bgp\">Internal Border Gateway Protocol or \u00a0iBGP<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=\"#you-can-watch-this-video-for-better-understanding\">You can watch this video for better understanding:<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#difference-between-e-bgp-i-bgp\">Difference between eBGP &amp; iBGP<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"#comparison-table-e-bgp-vs-i-bgp\">Comparison Table: eBGP vs iBGP<\/a><ul><li><a href=\"#download-the-comparison-table-e-bgp-vs-i-bgp\">Download the comparison table: eBGP vs iBGP .<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><a href=\"#are-you-preparing-for-your-next-interview\">Are you Preparing for your next Interview?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"e-bgp-vs-i-bgp\">eBGP vs iBGP<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>eBGP<\/strong> <strong>and iBGP <\/strong>are both flavours of the <strong>BGP<\/strong> protocol. Let\u2019s understand a short on what both terms mean before comparing (eBGP vs iBGP) the functionalities of both \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"external-border-gateway-protocol-or-e-bgp\"><strong>External Border Gateway Protocol<\/strong> or <strong>eBGP&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a flavour of <strong>Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)<\/strong>&nbsp;used for communication between different&nbsp;<strong>autonomous systems (AS)<\/strong>.&nbsp;<strong>eBGP<\/strong> functions as the protocol responsible for interconnection of networks from different organizations or the Internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>eBGP<\/strong> is used and implemented at the edge or border router that provides interconnectivity for two or more autonomous system.<\/p><div id=\"ipwit-4171234671\" class=\"ipwit-content ipwit-entity-placement\"><div class=\"ipwit-adlabel\">Google ADs<\/div><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1375203873676133\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1375203873676133\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"2483378328\" \ndata-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div><br style=\"clear: both; display: block; float: none;\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"internal-border-gateway-protocol-or-i-bgp\"><strong>Internal Border Gateway Protocol or <\/strong>&nbsp;<strong>iBGP<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>It is the protocol used between the routers in the same <strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Autonomous_system_(Internet)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-ast-global-color-1-color\">autonomous system<\/mark><\/a><\/span> (AS)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>iBGP<\/strong>&nbsp;is used to provide information to your internal routers.&nbsp;<strong>iBGP<\/strong>&nbsp;requires all the devices in same AS to form full&nbsp;<strong>mesh<\/strong>&nbsp;<strong>neighborship&nbsp;<\/strong>or either of&nbsp;<strong>Route reflectors<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>Confederation<\/strong>&nbsp;for prefix learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>Related &#8211;<\/strong> <\/span><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/bgp-local-preference-attribute\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-ast-global-color-1-color\">BGP Local Preference Attribute<\/mark><\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"you-can-watch-this-video-for-better-understanding\"><span style=\"color: #00ff00;\">You can watch this video for better understanding:<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>(or continue reading)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"eBGP vs iBGP #networkengineer #cisconetworking #ccna #routing #comparison #ibgp\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tAMOaKkQDQU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"difference-between-e-bgp-i-bgp\">Difference between eBGP &amp; iBGP<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that we have brief of both the&nbsp;<strong>eBGP<\/strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>iBGP<\/strong> protocols, let&#8217;s compare them (eBGP vs iBGP) on various parameters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Neighborship:<\/strong> Exterior Border Gateway Protocol (EBGP) is utilized to establish a connection between two distinct Autonomous Systems (AS), while Interior Border Gateway Protocol (IBGP) is employed to set up a link between the same Autonomous Systems.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Route <\/b><b>Advertisement: <\/b>Any routes received from an external BGP (eBGP) peer will be distributed to other peers (BGP or iBGP). However, routes received from an iBGP peer will not be advertised to other iBGP peers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>As Path addition: <\/b>AS path is prepended to route when advertised to eBGP peer. However, that is not the case with internal BGP.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Attributes: <\/b>In case of eBGP, attributes like local preference are are sent to iBGP peer and not sent to the eBGP peers. On the other hand in case of iBGP, attributes like local preference are sent to the iBGP peers but not to an EBGP peer.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Scope: <\/b>The eBGP scope is between organizations or between organization and Internet Service provider. However, iBGP is used within the same organization.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>TTL: <\/b>By default, EBGP peers are set with a Time To Live (TTL) value of 1, indicating that the neighbors are assumed to be directly connected. However, this is not the case with IBGP. To modify the TTL setting for EBGP, the command &#8220;neighbor x.x.x.x ebgp-multihop TTL&gt;&#8221; should be used. The term &#8220;multihop&#8221; is only associated with EBGP.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>AD (Administrative Distance<\/b><b>): <\/b>The administrative distance of exterior border gateway protocol (EBGP) routes is 20, whereas the administrative distance for interior border gateway protocol (IBGP) is 200.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Next Hop attribute: <\/b>The next hop of a route remains the same when it is advertised to an Internal BGP peer, but it is modified when it is propagated to an External BGP peer by default. It is possible to alter the default behavior of IBGP through the command &#8220;neighbor x.x.x.x next-hop-self&#8221;, which modifies the next hop value to the router&#8217;s own local route when it sends out an advertisement.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Topology: <\/b>iBGP requires full mesh topology or else either of Route reflectors or Confederation. eBGP doesn\u2019t require full mesh topology.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Loop prevention <\/b><b>mechanism: <\/b>External BGP utilizes AS Path for loop prevention. However, iBGP uses BGP Split horizon i.e. non advertisement from iBGP to iBGP neighbor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading googlepublisherpluginad\" id=\"comparison-table-e-bgp-vs-i-bgp\">Comparison Table: eBGP vs iBGP<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Below table summarizes the differences between the two types of BGP protocols:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-fixed-layout\"><tbody><tr><td><strong>PARAMETER<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>eBGP<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>iBGP<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Abbreviation for<\/strong><\/td><td>External BGP<\/td><td>Internal BGP<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Neighborship<\/strong><\/td><td>Both the Routers forming eBGP neighborship need to be in separate AS (Autonomous Systems)<\/td><td>Both the Routers forming iBGP neighborship need to be in same AS (Autonomous Systems)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Route advertisement<\/strong><\/td><td>A route learnt from an eBGP peer will be advertised back to another iBGP or eBGP neighbor by default.<\/td><td>A route learnt from an IBGP peer will not be advertised back to another iBGP neighbor by default.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>As Path addition<\/strong><\/td><td>AS path is prepended to route when advertised to eBGP peer<\/td><td>AS path is not prepended to the route when advertised to an IBGP peer.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Attributes<\/strong><\/td><td>Attributes like local preference are not sent to the eBGP peers but are sent to iBGP peer.<\/td><td>Attributes like local preference are sent to the IBGP peers but not to an EBGP peer.<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Scope<\/strong><\/td><td>Used Between organization or between organization and Internet Service provider<\/td><td>Used within the same organization<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>TTL<\/strong><\/td><td>By default, eBGP peers are set with TTL = 1, which means neighbors are assumed to be directly connected<\/td><td>By default, iBGP peers are set with TTL = 255<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>AD (Administrative Distance)<\/strong><\/td><td>EBGP routes have administrative distance of 20<\/td><td>IBGP routes have administrative distance of 200<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Next Hop attribute<\/strong><\/td><td>Next hop is changed to local router when it is advertised to EBGP peer by default<\/td><td>Next hop remains unchanged when route is advertised to iBGP peer<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Topology<\/strong><\/td><td>Doesn\u2019t require full mesh neighborship<\/td><td>Requires full mesh or else either of Route reflectors or Confederation<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><strong>Loop prevention mechanism<\/strong><\/td><td>Utilizes As Path for loop prevention<\/td><td>Uses BGP Split horizon i.e. non advertisement from iBGP to iBGP neighbor.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"download-the-comparison-table-e-bgp-vs-i-bgp\">Download the comparison table: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/iBGP-VS-eBGP-table.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-ast-global-color-1-color\">eBGP vs iBGP<\/mark><\/a><\/span> .<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><strong>Related-<\/strong><\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/dynamic-bgp-peering\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-ast-global-color-1-color\">Dynamic BGP Peering<\/mark><\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you want to learn more about BGP, then check our easy to understand <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/bgp-cheatsheet\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-ast-global-color-1-color\">Free BGP Cheatsheet<\/mark><\/a><\/strong><\/span> in downloadable PDF Format explained with relevant Diagrams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"are-you-preparing-for-your-next-interview\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Are you Preparing for your next Interview?<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If you ware preparing for your nest job interview, then check our ebook on <strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/product\/bgp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-ast-global-color-1-color\">BGP Interview Q&amp;A<\/mark><\/a><\/span> <\/strong>in downloadable PDF Format explained with relevant Diagrams.<\/p>\n<h3>ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/h3><div id=\"ipwit-3996481680\" class=\"ipwit-post-end-ad ipwit-entity-placement\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1375203873676133\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1375203873676133\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"2483378328\" \ndata-ad-format=\"auto\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div><br style=\"clear: both; display: block; float: none;\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>eBGP vs iBGP eBGP and iBGP are both flavours of the BGP protocol. Let\u2019s understand a short on what both [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":782,"featured_media":11243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[41,75,22],"class_list":["post-2433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-routing-switching","tag-bgp","tag-comparison","tag-ip-routing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/782"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipwithease.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}