Route Injection

Injecting into the Local RIB

request bgp rib inject inserts a synthetic candidate into Ze's BGP RIB without requiring a live BGP session. If the route wins best-path selection, it continues through the system RIB and configured FIB backends.

ze cli -c "request bgp rib inject 192.0.2.10 ipv4/unicast 198.51.100.0/24 origin igp nexthop 127.0.0.1 med 42"
ze cli -c "show bgp rib best prefix 198.51.100.0/24"
ze cli -c "show rib"

Withdraw the same candidate with the matching synthetic peer, family, and prefix:

ze cli -c "request bgp rib withdraw 192.0.2.10 ipv4/unicast 198.51.100.0/24"

The bgp-rib and rib plugins provide best-path and system-RIB selection. On Linux, the fib-kernel plugin programs selected routes through netlink.

IPv6 next hops and extended next hop

An injected IPv6 route carries its IPv6 next hop in MP_REACH_NLRI. An injected IPv4 unicast route can also use an IPv6 next hop when the destination peer negotiated Extended Next Hop, the RFC 8950 capability historically defined by RFC 5549.

ze cli -c "request bgp rib inject 192.0.2.10 ipv4/unicast 198.51.100.0/24 origin igp nexthop 2001:db8::1"
ze cli -c "show bgp rib best prefix 198.51.100.0/24"

Ze stores the MP_REACH attribute with the synthetic candidate and recovers the next hop when selecting and forwarding it. show bgp rib best displays the recovered next hop. show bgp rib received currently renders only the legacy IPv4 NEXT_HOP attribute, so it omits MP next hops.

$ ze cli -c 'request bgp rib inject 192.0.2.10 ipv4/unicast 198.51.100.0/24 origin igp nexthop 127.0.0.1 med 42'
$ ze cli -c 'show bgp rib best prefix 198.51.100.0/24 | no-more'
198.51.100.0/24
$ ip -details route show exact 198.51.100.0/24
198.51.100.0/24 ... proto 250

The route enters Ze's BGP RIB, wins best-path selection, reaches the protocol-independent system RIB, and is programmed into Linux with Ze's route protocol ID. The validator withdraws it and confirms kernel removal.

Text Format

Human-readable format with flat attribute declarations:

ze cli -c "peer upstream1 update text \
    origin igp \
    nhop 192.168.1.1 \
    local-preference 200 \
    as-path [ 65001 65002 ] \
    community [ 65000:100 no-export ] \
    nlri ipv4/unicast add 10.0.0.0/24 10.0.1.0/24"

Attribute Keywords

Attributes are flat: keyword followed by value. No set/add/del on attributes. add and del are NLRI-only operations (announce vs. withdraw).

Well-Known Communities

All IANA-registered well-known communities are accepted by name:

Underscore variants (e.g., no_export, graceful_shutdown) and the shorthand gshut are also accepted. Tab completion in the config editor suggests all names.

Next-Hop Self

nhop self resolves to the local address of each destination peer at wire time.

NLRI Operations

add and del are NLRI operations (MP_REACH and MP_UNREACH):

nlri ipv4/unicast add 10.0.0.0/24 10.0.1.0/24    # Announce prefixes
nlri ipv4/unicast del 10.0.2.0/24                  # Withdraw prefix
nlri ipv4/unicast eor                               # End-of-RIB marker

Multiple families in one command:

nlri ipv4/unicast add 10.0.0.0/24 \
nlri ipv6/unicast add 2001:db8::/32

Hex Format

Wire-encoded bytes for debugging or replay:

ze cli -c "peer upstream1 update hex \
    attr set 40010100400200400304c0a80101 \
    nhop set c0a80101 \
    nlri ipv4/unicast add 180a0000"

Base64 Format

Compact encoding for scripts:

ze cli -c "peer upstream1 update b64 \
    attr set QAEBAAQDAsCoBQE= \
    nlri ipv4/unicast add GAoAAA=="

Peer Selector

Routes are sent to peers matching the selector:

Commit Workflow

For atomic multi-route updates:

ze cli -c "request commit start my-batch"
ze cli -c "peer * update text nhop 10.0.0.1 nlri ipv4/unicast add 10.0.0.0/24"
ze cli -c "peer * update text nhop 10.0.0.1 nlri ipv4/unicast add 10.0.1.0/24"
ze cli -c "request commit end my-batch"    # All routes sent together

From Plugins

External plugins send routes through the SDK:

from ze_api import API

api = API()
# ... 5-stage startup ...
api.send("peer * update text nhop 10.0.0.1 nlri ipv4/unicast add 10.0.0.0/24")

Go plugins use the SDK method:

p.UpdateRoute(ctx, "*", "update text nhop 10.0.0.1 nlri ipv4/unicast add 10.0.0.0/24")