GoBFD
Production-grade BFD protocol daemon for Go

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GoBFD is a production-oriented Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) protocol daemon written in Go 1.26. It detects forwarding path failures between adjacent systems in milliseconds, enabling fast convergence for BGP, OSPF, and other routing protocols.

Four binaries: gobfd (daemon), gobfdctl (CLI), gobfd-haproxy-agent (HAProxy bridge), gobfd-exabgp-bridge (ExaBGP bridge).

Why GoBFD

• Standalone daemon, decoupled from any control plane. GoBFD watches BFD state and drives external actuators (GoBGP DisablePeer/EnablePeer, HAProxy agent-check, ExaBGP route announcements) over a typed gRPC API. A daemon restart does not flap the routing control plane.
• Zero-allocation hot path. Packet codec, FSM transitions, timer dispatch, and session demultiplexing run at 0 B/op, 0 allocs/op (28 micro-benchmarks enforce the policy). GC pauses cannot cause BFD session flapping.
• RFC coverage beyond the basics. RFC 5880/5881/5882/5883/7419/9384/9468/9747/9764 implemented; RFC 7130 (Micro-BFD), RFC 8971 (VXLAN), RFC 9521 (Geneve) ship with userspace backends. See RFC Compliance.
• Production-ready surfaces. ConnectRPC/gRPC API, Prometheus metrics, structured slog logging, systemd Type=notify with watchdog and SIGHUP hot reload, Go 1.26 flight recorder for post-mortem.
• Verified interop. 4-peer interop suite (FRR, BIRD3, aiobfd, Thoro/bfd) and BGP+BFD coupling tests against FRR, BIRD3, ExaBGP. Containerlab profiles for Arista cEOS, Nokia SR Linux, SONiC-VS, VyOS.

Background and benchmarks: Competitive Analysis and Performance Analysis.

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/dantte-lp/gobfd.git && cd gobfd
make build                       # builds all 4 binaries with version ldflags
sudo ./gobfd -config configs/example.yml

Local Podman stack with Prometheus + Grafana:

make test
podman-compose -f deployments/compose/compose.yml up -d

Requires Linux with CAP_NET_RAW and CAP_NET_ADMIN capabilities. See Deployment.

Architecture

graph TB
    subgraph "gobfd daemon"
        SRV["ConnectRPC<br/>:50051"]
        BFD["BFD Core<br/>FSM + Sessions"]
        NET["Raw Sockets<br/>UDP 3784/4784"]
        BGP["GoBGP Client"]
        MET["Prometheus<br/>:9100"]
    end

    CLI["gobfdctl<br/>CLI"] --> SRV
    HAP["gobfd-haproxy-agent"] --> SRV
    EXA["gobfd-exabgp-bridge"] --> SRV
    SRV --> BFD
    NET --> BFD
    BGP --> GOBGP["GoBGP :50052"]
    NET --> PEER["BFD Peers"]

    style BFD fill:#1a73e8,color:#fff

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Documentation

Full documentation is available in docs/:

#	Document	Description
01	Architecture	System architecture, package diagram, packet flow
02	BFD Protocol	FSM, timers, jitter, packet format, authentication
03	Configuration	YAML config, env vars, GoBGP integration, hot reload
04	CLI Reference	gobfdctl commands, interactive shell
05	Interop Testing	4-peer testing: FRR, BIRD3, aiobfd, Thoro
06	Deployment	systemd, Podman Compose, packages, production
07	Monitoring	Prometheus metrics, Grafana dashboard, alerting
08	RFC Compliance	RFC compliance matrix, implementation notes
09	Development	Dev workflow, make targets, testing, linting
10	Changelog Guide	How to maintain CHANGELOG.md, semantic versioning
11	Integrations	BGP failover, HAProxy, observability, ExaBGP, Kubernetes
16	Production Runbooks	Kubernetes, BGP, Prometheus, packet verification, failure drills

Documentation is also available in Russian at docs/ru/.

RFC Source Files

Full RFC texts are available in docs/rfc/: RFC 5880 | RFC 5881 | RFC 5882 | RFC 5883 | RFC 5884 | RFC 5885 | RFC 7130 | RFC 7419 | RFC 9384 | RFC 9468 | RFC 9747 | RFC 8971 | RFC 9521 | RFC 9764

RFC Compliance

RFC	Title	Status
RFC 5880	BFD Base Protocol	Implemented
RFC 5881	BFD for IPv4/IPv6 Single-Hop	Implemented
RFC 5882	Generic Application of BFD	Implemented
RFC 5883	BFD for Multihop Paths	Implemented
RFC 7419	Common Interval Support	Implemented
RFC 9468	Unsolicited BFD	Implemented
RFC 9747	Unaffiliated BFD Echo	Implemented
RFC 7130	Micro-BFD for LAG	Protocol implemented; production integration partial
RFC 8971	BFD for VXLAN	Userspace backend implemented; owner backends planned
RFC 9521	BFD for Geneve	Userspace backend implemented; owner backends planned
RFC 9764	BFD Large Packets	Implemented
RFC 5884	BFD for MPLS LSPs	Stub
RFC 5885	BFD for PW VCCV	Stub

Details: RFC Compliance

Performance

GoBFD processes ~16M packets/sec on the full receive path with zero heap allocations. O(1) session demultiplexing via Swiss table maps scales linearly -- demux latency is ~60 ns/op whether managing 1 or 1000 concurrent sessions.

28 micro-benchmarks enforce the zero-allocation policy across all hot paths: packet codec, FSM transitions, timer operations, overlay encapsulation (VXLAN/Geneve), and session management. See BENCHMARKS.md for detailed results.

Key Features

• Table-driven FSM matching RFC 5880 Section 6.8.6 (no if-else chains)
• Five authentication modes (Simple Password, Keyed MD5/SHA1, Meticulous MD5/SHA1)
• RFC 9747 Echo, RFC 7130 Micro-BFD protocol, RFC 8971 VXLAN userspace backend, and RFC 9521 Geneve userspace backend support
• BFD flap dampening for BGP integration (RFC 5882 Section 3.2)
• Zero-allocation packet codec with pre-built cached packets
• ConnectRPC/gRPC API + CLI with interactive shell
• Prometheus metrics + Grafana dashboard
• systemd integration (Type=notify, watchdog, SIGHUP hot reload)
• 4-peer interop testing (FRR, BIRD3, aiobfd, Thoro/bfd) + 5 integration examples
• Go 1.26 flight recorder for post-mortem debugging

Advanced Linux modes are explicit about dataplane ownership: Micro-BFD detects per-member LAG state but needs a bond/team/OVS actuator for enforcement, while VXLAN/Geneve BFD defaults to an explicit userspace-udp backend. Reserved kernel, OVS/OVN, Cilium, Calico, and NSX backend names fail closed until owner-specific integrations are implemented.

Contributing

See Development for the full workflow. Repository participation is governed by CONTRIBUTING.md, CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, SECURITY.md, SUPPORT.md, and GOVERNANCE.md.

make up && make all    # Build + test + lint
make interop           # Interoperability tests

License

Apache License 2.0