Cisco IOS Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Using Peer Groups

Problem

You want to apply the same options to several peers.

Solution

Peer groups allow you to apply the same BGP configuration to a number of neighbors at the same time:

Router1#configure terminal
Enter configuration commands, one per line.  End with CNTL/Z.
Router1(config)#router bgp 65500
Router1(config-router)#neighbor EBGP-PEERS peer-group
Router1(config-router)#neighbor EBGP-PEERS prefix-list PRE-RTFILTER in
Router1(config-router)#neighbor EBGP-PEERS filter-list 15 out
Router1(config-router)#neighbor 192.168.1.5 remote-as 65520
Router1(config-router)#neighbor 192.168.1.5 peer-group EBGP-PEERS
Router1(config-router)#neighbor 192.168.1.9 remote-as 65521
Router1(config-router)#neighbor 192.168.1.9 peer-group EBGP-PEERS
Router1(config-router)#neighbor 192.168.1.13 remote-as 65522
Router1(config-router)#neighbor 192.168.1.13 peer-group EBGP-PEERS
Router1(config-router)#neighbor 192.168.1.17 remote-as 65523
Router1(config-router)#neighbor 192.168.1.17 peer-group EBGP-PEERS
Router1(config-router)#exit
Router1(config)#end
Router1#

Discussion

Peer groups have been around since IOS Version 11.0, but they had several unfortunate restrictions that were eliminated in Version 12.0. The most important of these were that all eBGP members of the same peer group had to be members of the same IP subnet, and you couldn’t act as a transit router to eBGP neighbors that were members of the same peer group. These restrictions have been removed now, but you will still sometimes see these ...