Concepts / Forwarding

Forwarding

VRF

Also called virtual routing and forwarding, VRF-lite, virtual router, routing instance, policy routing, network virtualization, route leaking

One router split into several virtual routers, each with its own routing table and its own interfaces.

Each VRF holds only its own networks, so customers or departments on one router never reach each other and can use the same addresses. An interface belongs to one VRF, and a packet is routed with the table of the VRF it came in on. Sharing something between VRFs means copying its routes into each of them (route leaking). VRF-lite is VRF on single routers; providers carry VRFs across their core with MPLS (L3VPN). Linux: ip link add NAME type vrf table N, or numbered tables and ip rule; Cisco: vrf definition, vrf forwarding, show ip route vrf.

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