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BGP from Scratch in English | 22 Hours with EVE-NG Labs | BridgeWhy

  • Master the art of OSPF, BGP, and MPLS: Building from the basics to designing robust networks for seamless connectivity!

Created by Vishnu Dutt

  • English

About the course

This page lists every lesson inside the English version of BGP from Scratch.

 The curriculum is 22 hours long and is split across 17 lessons. It starts with the reason BGP was invented and finishes with route reflectors, communities, and regular expressions. Every concept is explained why first, and every lab runs on EVE-NG.


If you are looking for both Hindi and English access at one price,

 the BGP from Scratch Package is the recommended purchase. The Package includes both versions and is the option most learners choose.


The English version is built for an audience that wants the entire BGP story in English,

 with full vocabulary that matches industry documentation and Cisco material. Every term in the course is the same term you will see in RFCs, Cisco design guides, and CCNP study books. This makes the transition from this course to formal study material almost seamless.


The first four lessons set up the foundation. 

You learn why a single interior protocol is not enough for the internet, how autonomous systems came into existence, why BGP exchanges routes only with explicitly configured neighbors, and why the protocol moves through six states before becoming operational. The course also covers Multi-Hop, which is a setting you will use almost every day in real networks where BGP neighbors are not directly attached.


Lessons 5 through 9 are the iBGP block.

 iBGP is where most BGP learners get stuck because the rules look arbitrary until you see the failure modes they prevent. The English version walks through the split horizon rule, the full mesh requirement, the synchronization rule, and the next hop rule. Each rule is presented as a problem first, then a solution, then a configuration, then a lab. By lesson 9, you will be able to set up a working iBGP network from a blank slate.


Lessons 10 through 14 are the policy and attribute block.

 This is where BGP becomes powerful. You learn the full attribute set, the best path selection algorithm, prefix lists, and route maps. The algorithm has 13 steps, and instead of asking you to remember the order, the course explains why each step exists. Once you see the reasoning, the order becomes obvious.


The final lessons cover the techniques used at scale: route reflectors, 

communities, and regular expressions. These are the tools that make BGP work in networks with hundreds or thousands of routers. The English version covers them with the same depth you would see in a senior engineer training.

This course is taught by Vishnu Dutt, who brings 19+ years of experience at Cisco and has taught networking to 15000+ learners across 100+ countries. To prepare before this course, see Routing Fundamentals and CCNA for Know Nothing Learner. After this course, continue with MPLS from Scratch , SD-WAN from Scratch, and VXLAN with BGP-EVPN . For interview practice, see the Interview Preparation Series. For long term value, look at the Lifetime Access Plan.

What you will learn


Lesson 1: BGP Introduction and AS Number
The lesson starts with the question that every interior gateway protocol fails to answer: how do you route between networks that are owned by different organizations with different policies. Interior protocols like OSPF and EIGRP assume a single administrative domain. BGP was created for the opposite situation, where each network owner makes independent decisions. The lesson explains autonomous system numbers, the 16 bit and 32 bit formats, public and private ranges, and the role of the AS number as the identity of an independent network. You will also see how BGP differs from interior protocols in fundamental ways: it is policy driven, it runs on TCP port 179, and it carries vector style information instead of link state information.

Lesson 2: Route propagation in BGP
Interior protocols flood routes. BGP does not, and the reason is twofold: scale and policy. Flooding at internet scale would create an impossible amount of state on every router. At a policy level, you want to control exactly which neighbors hear about which routes. This lesson walks through the path a route takes from its origin AS to a remote AS, showing how each AS along the way modifies attributes, applies policy, and decides whether to advertise the route further. You will also see how the AS PATH attribute prevents routing loops between AS, a problem that interior protocols solve differently.

Lesson 3: BGP Neighborship and Messages
BGP neighbors are configured manually because trust matters. In contrast to OSPF and EIGRP, which find neighbors using multicast hello messages, BGP requires you to specify the neighbor IP and AS number. This lesson covers the four BGP message types: Open is the handshake message that exchanges AS numbers and capabilities, Keepalive maintains the session in the absence of route updates, Update carries route information and withdrawn routes, and Notification reports errors and tears down the session. Each message type has a specific structure, and you will learn what to look for when you debug a BGP problem.

Lesson 4: BGP states and Multi-Hop
A BGP session moves through six states: Idle, Connect, Active, OpenSent, OpenConfirm, and Established. Each state corresponds to a phase of the TCP handshake and the BGP negotiation. Knowing the state that your session is stuck in tells you exactly where to look for the problem. This lesson also covers Multi-Hop, which is the setting that allows BGP neighbors to be more than one IP hop apart. Multi-Hop is common in eBGP setups that use loopback addresses for resilience and in scenarios where you need redundant connectivity through different physical paths.

Lesson 5: Multihoming with BGP
A business that depends on internet connectivity cannot trust a single ISP. Multihoming, which is connecting to two or more ISPs, is the way large enterprises and content providers gain redundancy and traffic engineering control. BGP is the protocol that makes this work, because BGP can compare paths from different sources and pick the best one based on policy. This lesson covers single homed, dual homed to one ISP, dual homed to two ISPs, and multihomed with multiple ISPs at multiple sites. It also covers the trade offs of each design: cost, complexity, and the kind of failure scenarios each design handles.

Lesson 6: Why behind iBGP?
This is the lesson that most other BGP courses skip. iBGP exists for a very specific reason: once a route enters one router of your AS, every other router in your AS must know how to forward traffic for it. If only the border routers know the route, the interior routers will black hole the traffic. iBGP carries this information between routers inside the AS without modifying the AS PATH. The lesson explains the failure mode in detail with a whiteboard topology, so the rules in the next lesson make sense from the start.

Lesson 7: iBGP Issues and Resolutions
iBGP comes with three rules that frustrate beginners. The split horizon rule says a router will not forward a route learned from an iBGP peer to another iBGP peer. The full mesh requirement says every iBGP speaker must peer with every other iBGP speaker. The synchronization rule, in classic BGP, says you should not use an iBGP route until the IGP also knows about it. Each rule exists because of a real failure mode. This lesson explains the failure mode, then the rule, then the resolution used in production networks. By the end, you will know exactly when each rule helps you and when you should override it.

Lesson 8: iBGP synchronization and Our BGP Lab
Synchronization was the answer to a problem from the early internet, when not every router in a transit AS spoke BGP. If iBGP knew about a route but the IGP did not, traffic could be black holed. The fix was to require BGP to wait until the IGP caught up. In modern networks, every router speaks BGP and synchronization is disabled by default. This lesson explains the original problem, why synchronization solved it, and why we turn it off today. The lesson also sets up the EVE-NG lab topology that the rest of the course will use.

Lesson 9: BGP Route Propagation in LAB
A route in a slide deck is not the same as a route on a real router. In this lab you watch a route originate in one AS, cross an eBGP boundary, propagate through iBGP, and reach a far AS. You see the AS PATH grow, the next hop change, and the attributes accumulate. You also see the show commands that every network engineer uses every day: show ip bgp, show ip bgp summary, show ip bgp neighbors, and the variants that filter on a specific prefix. The lab makes the previous eight lessons concrete.

Lesson 10: BGP Attributes
BGP has more attributes than any other routing protocol because the internet is made of networks with different policies. Attributes are the language of BGP policy. This lesson introduces the four categories of attributes (well known mandatory, well known discretionary, optional transitive, and optional non transitive) and covers the most important attributes in each category: ORIGIN, AS PATH, NEXT HOP, LOCAL PREF, MED, ATOMIC AGGREGATE, AGGREGATOR, COMMUNITY, and ORIGINATOR ID. For each attribute, you learn why it exists, when it is set, and how it affects the best path decision.

Lesson 11: BGP Attributes Continued
Some attributes never leave the AS, while others travel across AS boundaries. Knowing which is which is the difference between policy that works and policy that surprises you. This lesson covers the remaining attributes in depth, including WEIGHT (a Cisco only attribute that is local to a single router), AS PATH manipulation techniques, and how MED is used between AS that share multiple links. The lesson uses whiteboard examples to show how an attribute set at one router travels (or does not travel) to another.

Lesson 12: BGP Best Path Selection Algorithm
When a router receives several paths to the same destination, it must pick exactly one to install in the routing table. The BGP best path selection algorithm has 13 steps, evaluated in order. The order matters because if step 1 decides a winner, the remaining steps never run. This lesson walks through every step: highest WEIGHT, highest LOCAL PREF, locally originated, shortest AS PATH, lowest ORIGIN type, lowest MED, eBGP over iBGP, lowest IGP cost to NEXT HOP, oldest path, lowest router ID, shortest cluster list, and lowest neighbor address. You will not memorize the list. You will understand why each step exists and what design decision it captures.

Lesson 13: Prefix-List and Route-Map Part -1
A prefix list is a tool to filter routes by their IP prefix and prefix length. A route map is a more powerful tool that can match on prefix, AS PATH, community, and many other attributes, and can also modify attributes. Together, prefix lists and route maps are how you implement BGP policy. Part one of this two part lesson covers the syntax of prefix lists, the le and ge keywords, the syntax of route maps, the match and set statements, and how route maps are applied inbound or outbound on a neighbor. You will see common use cases such as accepting only a customer prefix list and setting local preference for inbound routes from a primary ISP.

Lesson 14: Prefix-List and Route-Map Part -2
Part two applies the foundation to scenarios you will face on the job. You filter customer routes to prevent them from being advertised to other customers. You set local preference to control outbound traffic. You set MED to influence how a neighbor AS sends traffic back to you. You manipulate the AS PATH using prepending to make a path less attractive. You chain route maps together to build complex policies. Every example is shown in an EVE-NG lab so you can see the route maps take effect on real routers.

Lesson 15: Concept of Route Reflector
The iBGP full mesh requirement scales poorly. With 100 iBGP speakers, you need 4950 sessions. Route reflectors solve this by allowing one router (the reflector) to forward iBGP updates to its clients. The design has rules that keep it loop free: the originator ID and cluster list attributes ensure that a route does not loop back to its source. This lesson covers the reflector role, the client role, the non client role, and the rules for forwarding between them. It also covers redundant reflector designs and confederations as an alternative scaling technique.

Lesson 16: Communities and Regular Expression Part-1
A community is a 32 bit tag attached to a route. Tags allow many routers to act consistently on a route without per route configuration. Communities are widely used by service providers to signal customer type, geographic region, or policy intent. Regular expressions are the tool used to match patterns in the AS PATH attribute. Together, communities and regular expressions are the building blocks of large scale BGP policy. Part one introduces the standard community format, the well known communities (such as no advertise and no export), the syntax for setting and matching communities, and the basic regex operators used in BGP.

Lesson 17: Communities and Regular Expression Part-2
Part two applies communities and regular expressions in the designs used by real service providers. You see customer tagging, where a community is added to every route from a specific customer so that downstream routers can filter or prefer the customer traffic. You see route filtering at scale, where communities replace long prefix lists. You see transit policy, where communities are used to control which customers can advertise routes through your network. You also see extended communities and how they are used in MPLS L3VPN, preparing you directly for the MPLS course. The lesson finishes with traffic engineering patterns that use communities to signal local preference back to a route reflector.


Course Curriculum

Know your instructor


Frequently asked Questions


What does the English version of BGP from Scratch include?

The English version includes 22 hours of video across 17 lessons. It covers BGP from the very basics of AS numbers all the way to route reflectors, communities, and regular expressions. All labs are demonstrated on EVE-NG. The teaching is in English throughout.

Is the English version different from the Hindi version in content?

The curriculum is identical. The only difference is the language of instruction. The same lessons, the same whiteboarding, and the same EVE-NG labs are present in both versions. If you want access to both languages at one price, choose the BGP from Scratch Package instead.

Will I be able to follow if English is not my first language?

Yes. The English used in the course is clear and free of slang. Technical terms are repeated, defined, and used in context. Many learners from non English first language backgrounds have completed this course successfully.

Does this course cover BGP neighborship in detail?

Yes. Lesson 3 covers neighborship configuration, the four message types, and the role of TCP in BGP sessions. Lesson 4 walks through the six states a BGP session moves through and how to troubleshoot a session that is stuck in any state.

How does the course explain BGP attributes?

Two full lessons (10 and 11) are dedicated to BGP attributes. Each attribute is introduced with its design intent first, then its category (well known mandatory, well known discretionary, optional transitive, optional non transitive), then how it affects route selection, and finally a whiteboard example.

Is the best path selection algorithm covered with examples?

Yes. Lesson 12 covers all 13 steps of the algorithm in order. Each step is explained with the design decision it captures, and every step is shown in an EVE-NG lab so you see the outcome match the theory.

Does the course teach route reflectors in real designs?

Yes. Lesson 15 covers route reflectors with full whiteboard diagrams. The originator ID, cluster list, and the rules that prevent loops are all explained from the why side first.

Are communities and regular expressions covered?

Yes. Lessons 16 and 17 are dedicated to communities and regular expressions. You learn standard communities, well known communities, extended communities, the syntax for setting and matching, and the regex operators used in BGP.

What labs are included in the English version?

Every lesson that introduces a concept also includes a lab on EVE-NG. The labs include iBGP and eBGP topologies, multihoming designs, attribute manipulation labs, prefix list and route map labs, route reflector labs, and community labs.

Do I need to buy the Hindi version separately?

If you want only English, this page is enough. If you want both Hindi and English access at one price, choose the BGP from Scratch Package.

Is this course aligned with Cisco certifications?

Yes. The syllabus covers the BGP content of CCNP Enterprise and reaches into CCIE Enterprise depth in several lessons. The course uses Cisco IOS in the labs, so the configurations match what you will see in Cisco exams.

How long does the English course take to complete?

The total video is 22 hours. Most learners complete the course in three to six weeks at a comfortable pace of one to two lessons per evening. Faster learners finish in two weeks.

Will I be able to attempt CCNP after this course?

Yes. The BGP from Scratch English version covers all the BGP topics in the CCNP Enterprise blueprint and goes deeper than the official material in many places. Pair it with  Routing Fundamentals and OSPF Package  for a complete routing foundation.

What is the recommended next course after BGP?

MPLS from Scratch is the natural next course because MPLS uses BGP as the control plane. After MPLS,  SD-WAN from Scratch and  VXLAN with BGP-EVPN extend BGP into modern designs. For interview practice, the Interview Preparation Series is a perfect companion.

Who teaches this course?

The instructor is Vishnu Dutt, who has 19+ years of experience at Cisco and has taught networking to 15000+ learners across 100+ countries. His teaching method is the why first method, where every BGP concept is introduced as a solution to a problem. Read more on the About Us page.

How long do I get to access the course?

Access depends on the plan you choose. Most learners go for the Lifetime Access Plan because BGP is a topic you revisit many times in your career. A 1 Year Plan is also available if you only need short term access.

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