Provided by: frr_8.1-1ubuntu3_amd64 
NAME
frr-zebra - a routing manager for use with associated FRRouting components.
SYNOPSIS
zebra [-h] [-v]
zebra [-d|-t|-dt] [-C] [-f config-file] [-i pid-file] [-z zclient-path] [-u user] [-g
group] [-A vty-addr] [-P vty-port] [-M module[:options]] [-N pathspace] [--vty_socket
vty-path] [--moduledir module-path]
DESCRIPTION
zebra is a routing manager that implements the zebra route engine. zebra supports all
protocol daemons in the FRRouting suite.
OPTIONS
OPTIONS available for the zebra command:
HELP AND VERSION
-h, --help
Print a short description of the daemon's command line options.
-v, --version
Print version and build information for the daemon.
Both of these options inhibit normal operation and will immediately exit.
PROCESS CONTROL
These options control background operation:
-d, --daemon
Launches the process in background/daemon mode, forking and detaching from the
terminal.
The parent process will delay its exit until the daemon/child has finished its
initialization and has entered its main loop. This is important for zebra startup
because the other daemons will attempt to connect to zebra. A return from zebra -d
guarantees its readiness to accept these connections.
-t, --terminal
Opens an interactive VTY session on the terminal, allowing for both state and
configuration operations. Note that the terminal starts operating after startup
has completed and the configuration file has been loaded.
The process will exit when end of file is detected on the terminal. It is possible
to daemonize a process started with -t (but without -d) by sending SIGQUIT to the
process (normally mapped to a ^keypress.)
The combination of --daemon and --terminal will delay the daemon from going into
background until the terminal session ends (by end of file.)
If the process receives SIGINT (e.g. a ^C keypress) in this mode, it will exit instead of
daemonizing.
It is safe to suspend (SIGTSTP / ^Z) the terminal session opened by the previous two
options; this will only stop the terminal but not the protocol daemon itself (which runs
in a separate second process.)
CONFIGURATION AND PATHS
The following options control configuration and file system locations for frr processes:
-f, --config_file config-file
Specify a configuration file to be used instead of the default
/etc/frr/<daemon>.conf file.
Note that the daemon will attempt to write to this file if the write file command
is issued on its VTY interface or through vtysh.
-C, --dryrun
Load the configuration file and check its validity, then exit.
-i, --pid_file pid-file
Output a pid file to a location other than the default /var/run/frr/<daemon>.pid.
-z, --socket zclient-path
Override the path of the ZAPI socket used to communicate between zebra and the
various protocol daemons. The default is /var/run/frr/zserv.api. The value of this
option must be the same across all daemons.
-N, --pathspace pathspace
Insert pathspace into all default paths, changing the defaults to:
/etc/frr/pathspace/<daemon>.conf /var/run/frr/pathspace/<daemon>.pid
/var/run/frr/pathspace/<daemon>.vty /var/run/frr/pathspace/zserv.api
´.´ and ´/´ characters will not be accepted in pathspace, but the empty string will
be accepted.
Note that this only changes the respective defaults, it has no effect on the
respective path if the -f, -i, -z or --vty_socket options are used.
The purpose of this option is to easily group all file system related bits together
for running multiple fully-separate "logical routers" on a system, particularly
with Linux network namespaces. Groups of daemons running with distinct pathspace
values will be completely unaware of each other and not interact in any way.
This option does not do any system setup (like network namespaces.) This must be
done by the user, for example by running:
ip netns exec namespace <daemon> -N namespace
PROCESS CREDENTIALS
-u, --user user
(default: frr)
-g, --group group
(default: frr)
Change the user/group which the daemon will switch to.
-S, --skip_runas
Skip setting the process effective user and group.
Note that there is an additional group, frrvty, which controls group ownership of the VTY
sockets. The name of this group cannot currently be changed, and user must be a member of
this group.
VTY SETUP
These following options control the daemon's VTY (interactive command line) interface.
The interface is available over TCP, using the telnet protocol, as well as through the
vtysh frontend.
-A, --vty_addr vty-addr
Specify an IP/IPv6 address to bind the TCP VTY interface to. It is generally
recommended to specify ::1 or 127.0.0.1. For reasons of backwards compatibility,
the default is to listen on all interfaces.
-P, --vty_port vty-port
Override the daemon's default TCP VTY port (each daemon has a different default
value upwards of 2600, listed below.) Specifying 0 disables the TCP VTY interface.
Default ports are::
zebra 2601
ripd 2602
ripngd 2603
ospfd 2604
bgpd 2605
ospf6d 2606
isisd 2608
babeld 2609
nhrpd 2610
pimd 2611
ldpd 2612
eigrpd 2613
pbrd 2615
staticd 2616
bfdd 2617
fabricd 2618
vrrpd 2619
Port 2607 is used for ospfd's Opaque LSA API.
--vty_socket vty-path
Overrides the directory used for the <daemon>.vty sockets. vtysh connects to these
sockets in order to access each daemon's VTY. Default: /var/run/frr[/<pathspace>]
NB: Unlike the other options, this option specifies a directory, not a full path.
This option is primarily used by the SNAP packaging system, its semantics may
change. It should not be necessary in most other scenarios.
MODULE LOADING
frr supports optional dynamically loadable modules, although these can only be loaded at
startup. The set of available modules may vary across distributions and packages, and
modules may be available for installation as separate packages.
-M, --module module[:options]
Load a module named module, optionally passing options to it.
If there is a ´/´ character in module, the value is assumed to be a pathname to a
module.
If there is no ´/´ character, the module directory (see next option) is searched
first for a module named "<daemon>_<module>.so", then for "<module>.so". This
allows for a module to exist in variations appropriate for particular daemons, e.g.
zebra_snmp and bgp_snmp, with the correct one selected by -M snmp.
The meaning of options is specific to the module being loaded. Most modules
currently ignore it.
Modules are loaded in the order as listed on the command line. This is not
generally relevant.
--moduledir module-path
Look for modules in the module-path directory instead of the default
/usr/lib/frr/modules. (This path is not affected by the -N option.)
The list of loaded modules can be inspected at runtime with the show modules VTY command.
-b, --batch
Runs in batch mode, zebra parses its config and exits.
-s, --nl-bufsize <netlink-buffer-size>
Set netlink receive buffer size. There are cases where zebra daemon can't handle
flood of netlink messages from kernel. If you ever see "recvmsg overrun" messages
in zebra log, you are in trouble.
Solution is to increase receive buffer of netlink socket. Note that kernel < 2.6.14
doesn't allow increasing it over maximum value defined in
/proc/sys/net/core/rmem_max. If you want to do it, you have to increase maximum
before starting zebra.
Note that this affects Linux only.
-n, --vrfwnetns
Enable namespace VRF backend. By default, the VRF backend relies on VRF-lite
support from the Linux kernel. This option permits discovering Linux named network
namespaces and mapping it to FRR VRF contexts.
ROUTES
-r, --retain
When the program terminates, do not flush routes installed by zebra from the
kernel.
FILES
/usr/lib/frr/zebra
The default location of the zebra binary.
/etc/frr/zebra.conf
The default location of the zebra config file.
$(PWD)/zebra.log
If the zebra process is configured to output logs to a file, then you will find
this file in the directory where you started zebra.
WARNING
This man page is intended to be a quick reference for command line options. The definitive
document is the info file frr 8.1 or the documentation available on the project website at
https://frrouting.org/.
DIAGNOSTICS
The daemon may log to standard output, to a VTY, to a log file, or through syslog to the
system logs. FRR supports many debugging options, see the Info file, web docs or source
for details.
SEE ALSO
frr-zebra(8), vtysh(1), frr-ripd(8), frr-ripngd(8), frr-ospfd(8), frr-ospf6d(8),
frr-bgpd(8), frr-isisd(8), frr-babeld(8), frr-nhrpd(8), frr-pimd(8), frr-pbrd(8),
frr-ldpd(8), frr-eigrpd(8), frr-staticd(8), frr-fabricd(8), frr-vrrpd(8), mtracebis(8)
https://frrouting.org/
BUGS
FRR eats bugs for breakfast. If you have food for the maintainers, please email <‐
dev@lists.frrouting.org>.
COPYRIGHT
2022, FRR