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Networking Advanced

What is BGP (Border Gateway Protocol)?

The routing protocol that makes the internet work by exchanging routing information between autonomous systems.

BGP is the protocol that connects different networks (ISPs, cloud providers, enterprises) on the internet. Each network (Autonomous System) announces its IP prefixes to neighbors, building a global routing table. BGP chooses paths based on policies, not just shortest distance.

BGP is a path-vector protocol that prevents loops by tracking the full AS path. Misconfigurations can cause route leaks (redirecting traffic) or route hijacks (advertising someone else's IPs). BGP is critical infrastructure — incidents can affect internet connectivity globally.

Related Terms

MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit)
The maximum size of a data packet that can be transmitted over a network without fragmentation.
Subnet
A logical division of an IP network into smaller segments to improve performance, security, and management.
TCP vs UDP
Two transport layer protocols: TCP provides reliable, ordered delivery while UDP provides fast, connectionless delivery without guarantees.
Reverse Proxy
A server that sits between clients and backend servers, forwarding client requests and returning server responses on their behalf.
Port
A numbered endpoint (0-65535) that identifies specific processes or services on a networked computer for communication.
VLAN (Virtual LAN)
A logical grouping of network devices that creates separate broadcast domains on the same physical network infrastructure.
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