RIPE Routing-WG Recommendations for Coordinated Route-flap Damping 
        Parameters


        Christian Panigl 
        Joachim Schmitz 
        Philip Smith 
        Cristina Vistoli 
        Version 2.0
        Document ID: ripe-229
        Date Published: 22 October 2001
        Obsoletes: ripe-210, ripe-178
        Abstract 


        This document recommends a set of route-flap damping
        parameters that should be applied by all ISPs in the Internet
        and should be deployed as default

        values by BGP router vendors. 




        Table of Contents 


             1. Introduction 
             1.1 Motivation for route-flap damping 
             1.2 What is route-flap damping? 
             1.3 "Progressive" versus "flat&gentle" approach 
             1.4 Motivation for coordinated parameters 
             1.5 Aggregation versus damping 
             1.6 "Golden Networks" 
             2. Recommended damping parameters 
             2.1 Motivation for recommendation 
             2.2 Description of recommended damping parameters 
             3. Other Features contributing to Internet Stability 
             3.1 BGP Route Refresh 
             3.2 Soft Reconfiguration 
             3.3 Tuning External BGP Failover 
             4. Potential problems 
             4.1 Multiplication of flaps between ASes with multiple 
	      interconnections 
             4.2 Non-recommended flap damping parameters 
             5. References 
             6. Acknowledgements 
             7. Changes over Previous Versions 
             8. Authors 
             Appendices 
             A.1 "Golden Networks" Reference 
             A.2 Sample Configurations Reference 
             A.3 Study of Flap Damping Operation 


        1. Introduction 


        Route-flap damping is a mechanism for (BGP) routers that is
        aimed at improving the overall stability of the Internet
        routing table and reducing the load on the CPUs of the core
        routers.


        1.1 Motivation for route-flap damping 


        In the early 1990s the accelerating growth in the number of
        prefixes being announced to the Internet (often due to
        inadequate prefix-aggregation), the denser meshing through
        multiple inter-provider paths, and increased instabilities
        started to cause significant impact on the performance and
        efficiency of the Internet backbone routers. Every time a
        routing prefix becomes unreachable because of a single
        line-flap, the withdrawal has to be advertised to the whole
        core Internet and dealt with by every single router that is
        carrying the full Internet routing table.


        To overcome this situation a route-flap damping mechanism was
        invented in 1993 and has been integrated into several router
        software implementations since 1995 (for example, Cisco,
        Merit/RSd, GateD Consortium). The implementation is described
        in detail in RFC 2439. The flap damping mechanism is now
        widely used to help keep severe instabilities under control
        and more localised in the Internet.


        And there is a second benefit: it is raising the awareness of
        the existence of instabilities because severe
        route/line-flapping problems lead to permanent suppression of
        the unstable area by means of holding down the flapping
        prefixes.


        Route-flap damping has its greatest and most consistent value
        if it is applied as near to the source of the problem as
        possible. Therefore flap-damping should be applied both at
        peering and upstream boundaries, as well as at customer
        boundaries (see 1.4 and 1.5 for details).


        1.2 What is route-flap damping? 


        When BGP route-flap damping is enabled in a router, the router
        starts to collect statistics about the announcement and
        withdrawal of prefixes. Route-flap damping is governed by a
        set of parameters with vendor-supplied default values which
        may be modified by the router manager. The names, semantic and
        syntax of these parameters differ between the various
        implementations; however, the behaviour of the damping
        mechanism is basically the same.


          Each time a prefix is withdrawn, the router will increment
          the damping penalty by a fixed amount. When the number of
          withdrawals/announcements (=flap) is exceeded in a given
          time frame (cutoff threshold) the path is no longer used and
          not advertised to any BGP neighbour for a predetermined
          period starting from when the prefix stops flapping. Any
          more flaps happening after the prefix enters suppressed
          state will attract additional penalty. Once the prefix stops
          flapping, the penalty is decremented over time using a
          half-life parameter until the penalty is below a reuse
          threshold. Once below this reuse threshold the suppressed
          path is then re-used and re-advertised to BGP neighbours.


        Pointers to some more detailed and vendor specific documents
        are listed in "5. References".


        1.3 "Progressive" versus "flat&gentle" approach 


        One easy approach would be to just apply the current
        default-parameters which are treating all prefixes equally
        ("flat&gentle") everywhere.  However, there is a major concern
        to penalise longer prefixes (=smaller aggregates) more than
        well aggregated short prefixes ("progressive"), because the
        number of short prefixes in the routing table is significantly
        lower and it seems in general that those are tending to be
        more stable and also are tending to affect more users.


        Another aspect is that progressive damping might increase the
        awareness of aggregation needs. However, it has to be
        accompanied by a careful design which doesn't force a rush to
        request and assign more address space than needed.


        A significant number of important services are sitting in long
        prefixes (e.g. root name servers), so the progressive approach
        has to exclude the strong penalisation for these so-called
        "golden" prefixes.


        With this recommendation we are trying to make a compromise
        and it is therefore called "graded damping".


        1.4 Motivation for coordinated parameters 


        There is a strong need for the coordinated use of damping
        parameters for

        several reasons: 


        Coordination of "progressiveness": 


        If penalties are not coordinated throughout the Internet,
        route-flap damping could lead to additional flapping or
        inconsistent routing because longer prefixes might already be
        re-announced through some parts of the Internet where shorter
        prefixes are still held down through other paths.


        Coordination of hold-down and reuse-threshold parameters
        between ISPs:


        If an upstream or peering provider would be damping more
        aggressively (e.g. triggered by less flaps or applying longer
        hold-down timers) than an access-provider towards his
        customers, it will lead to a very inconsistent situation,
        where a flapping network might still be able to reach
        "near-line" parts of the Internet. Debugging of such
        instabilities is then much harder because the effect for the
        customer leads to the assumption that there is a problem
        "somewhere" in the "upstream" Internet instead of making him
        just call his ISP's hot line and complain that he can't get
        out any longer.


        Further, after successful repair of the problem the
        access-provider can easily clear the flap-damping for his
        customer on his local router instead of needing to contact
        upstream Network Operation Centres (NOCs) all over the
        Internet to get the damping cleared.


        Vendor Defaults: 


        As with most software implementations, there need to be some
        default values set when route-flap damping is enabled on
        routers. Vendors choosing different default values will result
        in a similar situation to that described above, where the more
        aggressive values will result in "black spots" in the
        Internet. Coordinated values will ensure consistency in
        dealing with instabilities.


        1.5 Aggregation versus damping 


        If a customer of an ISP is only using Provider Aggregated
        addresses, the aggregating upstream provider doesn't need to
        apply damping on these prefixes towards his customer because
        instabilities of such prefixes will not propagate into the
        Internet. However, if a customer insists on announcing
        prefixes which can't be aggregated by its provider, damping
        should be applied. Reasons for leaking prefixes might include
        dual-homing (to different providers) of a customer, or
        customer's reluctance to renumber into the provider's
        aggregated address range.


        1.6 "Golden Networks" 


        Even though damping is strongly recommended, in some cases it
        may make sense to exclude certain networks or even individual
        hosts from damping.  This is especially true if damping would
        cut off the access to vital infrastructure elements of the
        Internet. A most prominent example are the root name servers.


        At least in principle, there should be enough redundancy for
        root name servers. However we are still facing a situation
        where, at least outside the USA, large parts of the Internet
        are seeing all of them through the same one or two
        backbone/upstream links (undersea cable) and any instability
        of those links which is triggering damping would unnecessarily
        prolong the inaccessibility of the root name servers for an
        hour (at least those sitting in a /24 or longer prefix).


        Other examples of inclusions in the "Golden Networks" might be
        the Global Top Level Domain (gTLD) name servers, and possibly
        overseas or "special" networks the local ISP wishes to have
        continued connectivity to regardless of the instability of the
        infrastructure in between.


        Appendix A.1 references a website which the authors believe
        represent an example of suitable Golden Networks. While the
        authors will endeavour to keep the website current, network
        managers are strongly encouraged to check that the networks
        listed are indeed still being announced and the hosts therein
        are still being used before implementation of route flap
        damping using the quoted Golden Networks. This can be done by
        matching BGP table announcements with the published addresses
        for the listed servers.


        These exceptions must only be made if there are strong and
        identifiable needs for them - the rule should be to apply
        coordinated route flap damping throughout.


        2. Recommended damping parameters 


        2.1 Motivation for recommendation 


        At RIPE 26 and 27 Christian Panigl presented the following
        network backbone maintenance example from his own experience,
        which was triggering flap damping in some upstream and peering
        ISPs routers for all his and his customers /24 prefixes for
        more than 3 hours because of too "aggressive" parameters:


        scheduled SW upgrade of backbone router failed: 


    - reload after SW upgrade       1 flap
    - new SW crashed                1 flap
    - reload with old SW            1 flap
                                    ------
                                    3 flaps within 10 minutes

        which resulted in the following damping scenario at some
        boundaries with progressive route-flap damping enabled:


	Prefix length:      /24     /19     /16
	suppress time:      ~3h     45-60'  <30'



        Therefore, in the Routing-WG session at RIPE 27, it was agreed
        that suppression should not start until the 4th flap in a row
        and that the maximum suppression should in no case last longer
        than 1 hour from the last flap.


        It was agreed that a recommendation from RIPE would be
        desirable. Given that the current allocation policies are
        expected to hold for the foreseeable future, it was suggested
        that all /19's or shorter prefixes are not penalised harder
        (longer) than current Cisco default damping does. More
        recently, this recommendation has been altered so that only
        prefixes longer than a /21 are now damped more
        aggressively. The Local Internet Registries' minimum
        allocation is currently a /20, and a /21 announcement is quite
        feasible for a multihoming situation.


        With these suggestions in mind, Tony Barber (UUNET) designed
        the following set of route-flap damping parameters which have
        proved to work smoothly in his environment for a couple of
        months prior to the publication of ripe-178 (the original
        version of this document).


        2.2 Description of recommended damping parameters 


        Basically the recommended values do the following with harsher
        treatment for /24 and longer prefixes:


            * don't start damping until the 4th flap
	    * /24 and longer prefixes: max=min outage 60 minutes 
	    * /22 and /23 prefixes: max outage 45 minutes; min 
	      outage of 30 minutes 
	    * all other prefix lengths: max outage 30 minutes; min 
	      outage 10 minutes


        If a specific damping implementation does not allow
        configuration of prefix-dependent parameters the least
        aggressive set should be used:


            * don't start damping before the 4th flap in a row 
            * max outage 30 minutes; min outage 10 minutes 


        Sample configurations for different vendors are referenced in
        Appendix A.2.  These samples can be used as a basis for a
        configuration on other router platforms not listed there. 


        3. Other Features contributing to Internet Stability 


        3.1 BGP Route refresh 


        RFC 2918 describes a Route Refresh Capability for BGP-4. Prior
        to this, there was no mechanism to reset or refresh a BGP
        peering session without tearing it down and waiting for it to
        re-establish. This process is destructive - prefixes being
        exchanged between the two peering routers are withdrawn from
        their respective ASes, and this withdrawal can potentially
        pass through the whole Internet causing the burden and
        increased instability discussed earlier. Usually all that an
        ISP wishes when resetting a BGP session is to implement new or
        revised policy - destroying a BGP session carrying a large or
        the full routing table has severe impact on the ISP and his
        neighbours on the Internet. Furthermore, reset of a BGP
        session means the withdrawal of reachability information from
        the ISP's customers, and they have the perception that the
        Internet has "vanished" -- the impression left with the end
        user is that of an unreliable network.


        Route Refresh implements a messaging system whereby a router
        wishing to refresh or reset its BGP peering with its neighbour
        simply has to send the notification. When the neighbour
        receives the notification, it will send  its entire
        announcement to its peer (obtained from BGP best path table
        and applicable outbound policy).


        To find out if your neighbour supports Route Refresh, using
        Cisco IOS as an example, enter:


        Router# sho ip bgp neigh w.x.y.c | include refresh 
           Received route refresh capability(new) from peer 
           Route refresh request: received 0, sent 0 


        If your router and your peer router support Route Refresh, you
        can use:


        Router# clear ip bgp w.x.y.c in 


        for requesting a route refresh without clearing the BGP session. 


        For an outbound route refresh without clearing the BGP session
        use


        Router# clear ip bgp w.x.y.c out 


        It is recommended that all users of BGP use the route refresh
        capability

        when implementing new BGP policy. 


        3.2 Soft-Reconfiguration 


        Where the neighbour does not support RFC 2918 Route Refresh,
        router vendors have implemented functionality to allow the
        alteration of BGP policy without resetting the BGP session.


        In Cisco IOS this functionality is called "Soft
        Reconfiguration". This reserves additional memory in the
        router to store the BGP table exactly as it was received from
        the peer, prior to any inbound policy being applied. The
        advantage of this is that the ISP can then change any inbound
        policy on the router without resetting the BGP session -- the
        router simply uses the "raw" BGP table it has received from
        its peer.  Disadvantage is that this functionality could
        potentially consume almost twice the amount of memory required
        for the BGP table heard from the peer.


        To configure soft-reconfiguration in IOS, simply add the extra
        line to the BGP peer configuration as below.
        Soft-reconfiguration is configured on a per-neighbour basis.


        ! 
        router bgp 65501 
          neighbor 10.0.0.2 remote-as 65502 
          neighbor 10.0.0.2 soft-reconfiguration inbound 
        ! 


        Without the keyword "soft" a "clear ip bgp x.x.x.x" will
        completely reset the BGP session and therefore always withdraw
        all announced prefixes from/to neighbour x.x.x.x and
        re-advertise them (=route-flap for all prefixes which are
        available before and after the clear). With "clear ip bgp
        x.x.x.x soft out" the router doesn't reset the BGP session
        itself but sends an update for all its advertised
        prefixes. With "clear ip bgp x.x.x.x soft in" the router just
        compares the already received routes (stored in the "received"
        data structures) from the neighbour against locally configured
        inbound policy statements.


        In Juniper's JunOS software, all the prefixes advertised by a
        peer are stored on the router, allowing the router to
        re-evaluate new policies on the set of routes advertised by
        the peer. So in the event of a peer not supporting the
        route-refresh capability, JunOS default configuration will
        compensate for this in the same way the optional
        "soft-reconfiguration" support in IOS.


        It is recommended to use soft-reconfiguration with all peers
        that do not support RFC 2918 Route Refresh Capability to avoid
        tearing down and restarting BGP peerings when new BGP policies
        need to be implemented.



        3.3 Tuning External BGP Failover 


        Cisco IOS by default implements a feature known as
        "fast-external-fallover".  This feature immediately clears the
        BGP session whenever the line-protocol to the external
        neighbour goes down. This feature is desirable so that there
        is fast failover in case of link failures - the router can
        withdraw paths as soon as the line goes down, rather than
        waiting for BGP keepalive timers.  The drawback of this,
        however, is that circuits which are prone to unreliability
        will cause BGP sessions to drop and return (i.e. flap),
        resulting in instability within the ISP's network, and the
        potential for flap damping by upstreams or peers.


        If fast-external-fallover is turned off, the BGP sessions will
        survive these short line-flaps as it will use the longer BGP
        keepalive/hold timers (default 60/180 seconds). The drawback
        of turning it off - and currently it has to be done for a
        whole router and can not be selected peer-by-peer - is that
        the switch-over to an alternative path will take longer.


        We recommend turning off fast-external-fallover whenever
        possible:


        ! 
        router bgp 65501 
          no bgp fast-external-fallover 
        ! 


        Alternatively it might be considered acceptable to retain
        "fast-external-fallover" and to turn off "interface
        keepalives" on unreliable circuits to overcome the immediate
        BGP resets on any significant CRC error period.


        Another potentially more satisfactory alternative would be to
        use a shorter per-neighbour BGP keepalive timer that has to be
        applied on both routers

        (e.g. 10 seconds that gives a hold-timer of 30 seconds): 


        ! 
        router bgp 65501 
          neighbor w.x.y.z timers 10 
        ! 


        In JunOS, this instability can be avoided by using the
        following commands:


          - out-delay <second>; applicable to all BGP peers, all peers
            in a group, or an individual peer. This implements a delay
            between when the routing table receives the routing
            information and when the information is exported to BGP
            peers.


          - hold-time sec; applicable to all BGP peers, all peers in a
	    group or an individual peer. This allows a shorter per
	    neighbor holdtimer to be applied on both routers (30 sec will
	    gives keepalives of 10 sec).


          - hold-time msec; to be configured in the router interfaces
	    where the BGP peering will be established. This delays the
	    propagation of the interfaces-down events to the routing
	     protocol.


        4. Potential problems 


        4.1 Multiplication of flaps between ASes with multiple
          interconnections


        Christian Panigl experienced the following during a circuit
        upgrade of an Ebone customer:


          - Only ONE flap was generated as a result of the upgrade
	    process (disconnect router-port from modem A, reconnect to
	    modem B). Nevertheless the customer's prefix was damped in all
	    ICM routers.


          - The flap statistics in the ICM routers stated *4* flaps !!! 


          - The only explanation would be that the multiple
            interconnections between Ebone/AS1755 and ICM/AS1800 did
            multiply the flaps (advertisements/withdrawals arrived
            time-shifted at ICM routers through the multiple
            circuits).


          - This would then potentially hold true for any meshed
	    topology because of the propagation delays of
	    advertisements/withdrawals.


        There are two potential solutions to work around this
        problem. The first one is operational, the second one is a
        software configuration feature (for Cisco IOS and possibly
        other implementations as well).


          * Schedule a downtime for at least 3-5 minutes which should
            be enough time for the prefix withdrawals to have
            propagated through all paths before reconnection and
            re-advertisement of the prefix.  Avoid clearing BGP
            sessions as this also could generate a 30 minute outage
            through flap damping!


          * Configure a permanent static route pointing to the
	    customer interface.  Even if the interface goes down, there is
	    still an entry in the routing table for the customer network,
	    and BGP will therefore still announce the prefix. Example,
	    using Cisco IOS:


            ! 
            router bgp 65500 
             network 169.254.0.0 mask 255.255.0.0 
            ip route 169.254.0.0 255.255.0.0 serial 5/0 permanent 
            ! 


        If migrating the customer from one router port to another,
        simply enter the second static route pointing to the new
        interface. Move the cable between ports - BGP continues to
        announce the prefix as the entry is

            still in the routing table. 


            Note: this solution only applies to customers who connect
            using static routes. If the customer connects using BGP,
            first disable fast-external-fallover on both the customer
            and ISP router, and then

            move the cable in a time period less than the BGP hold-timer. 


        4.2 Non-recommended flap damping parameters 


        There are situations where service providers would like to
        design their own route flap damping parameters for local needs
        or conditions. If this is really desired, then it is important
        to pay attention to how flap damping parameters are
        configured, whether the values are feasible or not, etc.


        For example, in Cisco IOS, it is perfectly possible to
        configure flap damping parameters which do nothing, with IOS
        not giving any warning about them being "unfeasible"
        parameters.


          * One example might be the configuration "set dampening 15
            500 3000 30". Here the reuse limit is 500, maximum
            suppress time is 30 minutes and the half-life is 15
            minutes. Using these three parameters gives a maximum
            possible penalty value of 2000, well below the suppress
            limit of 3000. So even though this can be successfully
            configured on the router, no damping will take place.


          * Another example might be the configuration "set dampening
        15 750 3000 30".  Here the reuse limit is 750, maximum
        suppress time is 30 minutes and the half-life is 15
        minutes. Using these three parameters gives a maximum possible
        penalty of 3000, exactly the same as the suppress-limit. In
        Cisco IOS, the penalty is decayed every 5 seconds, so flap
        damping will only take place if the update follows the
        withdrawal within that 5 second time frame. 99% of the time no
        flap damping will take place.


        5. References 


        RIPE/Routing-WG Minutes dealing with Route Flap Damping: 


        http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/archive/ripe-24/ripe-m-24.txt 
        http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/archive/ripe-25/ripe-m-25.txt 
        http://www.ripe.net/wg/routing/r25-routing.html 
        http://www.ripe.net/wg/routing/r26-routing.html 
        http://www.ripe.net/wg/routing/r27-routing.html 


        Curtis Villamizar, Ravi Chandra, Ramesh Govindan 
        RFC2439: BGP Route Flap Damping (Proposed Standard) 
        ftp://ftp.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2439.txt 


        Enke Chen 
        RFC 2918: Route Refresh Capability for BGP-4 (Proposed Standard) 
        ftp://ftp.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2918.txt 


        Merit/IPMA: Internet Routing Recommendations 
        http://www.merit.edu/ipma/docs/help.html 


        Cisco BGP Case Studies: Route Flap Damping 
        http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/459/16.html 


        Cisco Documentation: Configuring BGP / Route Damping / Soft Reset 
        http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/software/ios122/ 
        122cgcr/fipr_c/ipcprt2/1cfbgp.htm 


        ISI/RSd Configuration: Route Flap Damping 
        http://www.isi.edu/div7/ra/RSd/doc/dampen.html 


        GateD Configuration: Weighted Route Damping Statement 
        http://www.nexthop.com/techinfo/manuals/o_config_guide/bgp/ 
        weighted_route_dampening.shtml 


        Juniper Configuration: Configuring Dumping parameters 
        http://www.juniper.net/techpubs/software/junos44/swconfig44- 
        routing/html/policy-damping-config.html 


        6. Acknowledgements 


        Thanks go to all the contributors to this updated version and
        to the RIPE NCC for hosting the "Golden Networks" website.


        7. Changes over previous versions 


        This document is a significant rewrite and update of
        ripe-210. The "Golden Networks" have now been moved from this
        document on to a website dedicated to listing them as they are
        frequently changing. The authors have come across several
        instances of providers implementing the recommendations
        without actually checking that the Root Nameserver networks
        were still as listed in the document.


        Updates to the Cisco IOS configuration have been made, and the
        parameters chosen for /24 networks have been corrected to make
        them feasible.  Juniper JunOS configuration samples have been
        added to this document.


        Examples of flap damping in operation have been added to
        Appendix 3.

        Router configurations for the recommended route flap damping
        parameters have been moved out of this document to the
        website.


        8. Authors 


        The authors can be contacted as follows: 


        Philip Smith      <pfs@cisco.com> 
        Cristina Vistoli  <cvistoli@juniper.net> 
        Christian Panigl  <panigl@cc.univie.ac.at> 
        Joachim Schmitz   <schmitzjo@aol.com> 


        Appendices 


        A.1 "Golden Networks" 


        Examples of Golden Networks can be found on a website which
        has been set up specifically for them. Please consult
        http://www.golden-networks.net/ for a sample list of current
        golden networks and the equivalent router configuration for
        these networks.


        A.2 Sample Configurations 


        Sample Router configurations which have been contributed to
        this project can be found at the
        http://www.golden-networks.net/ website.  Contributions of
        working configurations from other routing software should be
        sent to the authors for inclusion in the website.


        A.3 Study of Flap Damping Operation 


        It is instructive to observe how route flap damping actually
        works on a router - doing so will help the reader understand
        how the particular values described in Section 2.2 were
        chosen. The tests were carried out using both Cisco IOS and
        JunOS.


        A.3.1 Cisco IOS 


        The test bed had two Cisco routers connected to each
        other. One router originated prefixes, the other one had the
        flap damping parameters described above in the text. The
        router originating the prefixes would withdraw a prefix, then
        reannounce, then withdraw, reannounce, etc. The BGP process in
        IOS checks every 60 seconds for any new or withdrawn prefixes
        in the local configuration - so on the source router, the
        withdraw and announce was done by removing and adding the BGP
        network statement for the prefix in question. The router
        monitoring the flaps would see the prefix being withdrawn and
        then announced 60 seconds later.


        A.3.1.1 For /24s 


        Parameters used are "set dampening 15 820 3000 30" 
           1st flap   1000   decay to 966, 982 at update 
           2nd flap   1966   decay to 1894, 1926 at update 
           3rd flap   2894   decay to 2787, 2846 at update 
           4th flap   3280   decay to 3165, 3226 at update 


        Maximum possible penalty is 3280 as defined by the flap
        parameters, so the penalty at the 4th flap was only
        incremented from 2787 to 3280, not 3787 as might have been
        expected. At the 4th flap the prefix was marked as being
        suppressed for 59 minutes when the update message was
        received. If the update after the 4th flap was not received
        within 4 minutes and 20 seconds, the penalty dropped below
        3000, and the prefix was not suppressed.


        A.3.1.2 For /22s, /23s 


        Parameters used are "set dampening 15 750 3000 45" 
           1st flap   1000   decay to 921, 960 at update 
           2nd flap   1921   decay to 1777, 1850 at update 
           3rd flap   2777   decay to 2583, 2671 at update 
           4th flap   3583   decay to 3311, 3451 at update 


        Maximum possible penalty is 6000. At the 4th flap the prefix
        was marked as being suppressed for 33 minutes when the update
        message was received. If the update after the 4th flap was not
        received within 4 minutes and 40 seconds, the penalty dropped
        below 3000, and the prefix was not suppressed.


        A.3.1.3 For remaining prefixes 


        Parameters used are "set dampening 10 1500 3000 30" 
           1st flap   1000   decay to 889, 946 at update 
           2nd flap   1889   decay to 1679, 1781 at update 
           3rd flap   2679   decay to 2367, 2526 at update 
           4th flap   3367   decay to 3019, 3176 at update 


        Maximum possible penalty is 12000. At the 4th flap the prefix
        was marked as being suppressed for 10 minutes when the update
        message was received. If the update after the 4th flap was not
        received within 2 minutes and 5 seconds, the penalty dropped
        below 3000, and the prefix was not suppressed.


        A.3.2 JunOS 


        A similar test bed with two Juniper routers was set up using
        the damping parameters described in Appendix A.2.2 above. One
        router originated prefixes, the other router implemented the
        flap damping parameters. The router originating the prefixes
        would withdraw a prefix, then reannounce, then withdraw,
        reannounce, etc, with the effects being monitored on the
        second router.


        A.3.2.1 For /24s 


        Parameters used are "set-high policy" 
                 half-life 30; 
                 reuse 1640; 
                 suppress 6000; 
                 max-suppress 60; 


           1 up/down:  decay to 1946 
           2 up/down:  decay to 3723 
           3 up/down:  decay to 5575 
           4 up/down:  decay to 6577 


        At the 4th flap the prefix was marked as being suppressed for
        1 hour when the update message was received.


        A.3.2.2 For /22s, /23s 


        Parameters used are "set-medium policy" 
                 half-life 15; 
                 reuse 1500; 
                 suppress 6000; 
                 max-suppress 45; 


           1 up/down:  decay to 1939 
           2 up/down:  decay to 3269 
           3 up/down:  decay to 3733 
           4 up/down:  decay to 4944 
           5 up/down:  decay to 6032 


        At the 5th flap the prefix was marked as being suppressed for
        30 min when the update message was received


        A.3.2.3 For remaining prefixes 
        Parameters used are "set-normal policy" 
                 half-life 10; 
                 reuse 3000; 
                 suppress 6000; 
                 max-suppress 30; 


           1 up/down:  decay to 1909 
           2 up/down:  decay to 3503 
           3 up/down:  decay to 5065 
           4 up/down:  decay to 6556 


        At the 4th flap the prefix was marked as being suppressed for
        10 min when the update message was received


        A.3.3 Summary 


        When analysing flap damping performance on the router or
        across the network, network managers should compare with the
        above lab tests. Note especially that slowly flapping prefixes
        are unlikely to be suppressed even though they show
        significant flapping history. A future version of this
        document may consider what to do in this instance.