6. BGP Error Handling.

This section describes actions to be taken when errors are detected while processing BGP messages.

When any of the conditions described here are detected, a NOTIFICATION message with the indicated Error Code, Error Subcode, and Data fields is sent, and the BGP connection is closed. If no Error Subcode is specified, then a zero must be used.

The phrase "the BGP connection is closed" means that the transport protocol connection has been closed and that all resources for that BGP connection have been deallocated. Routing table entries associated with the remote peer are marked as invalid. The fact that the routes have become invalid is passed to other BGP peers before the routes are deleted from the system.

Unless specified explicitly, the Data field of the NOTIFICATION message that is sent to indicate an error is empty.

• 6.1 Message Header error handling.
• 6.2 OPEN message error handling.
• 6.3 UPDATE message error handling.
• 6.4 NOTIFICATION message error handling.
• 6.5 Hold Timer Expired error handling.
• 6.6 Finite State Machine error handling.
• 6.7 Cease.
• 6.8 Connection collision detection.