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operate BGP, OSPF, RIP, Babel and route filtering in one routing daemon

OSS scale score 170.2OSS health 76Update pace 12 commits/30d
About these scores

OSS scale score is an unbounded metric that log-compresses and weights Stars, Watchers, Forks, and Contributors. Discovery score is the current OSS scale score minus the score at discovery. Update pace is commits in the last 30 days, growth momentum is the OSS scale score difference within the recent observation window, and OSS health is a 0–100 rating based on available recency, Community Health, and release data.

Stars
221
Primary language
C
License
GPL-2.0-or-later
Repository last updated
Oct 3, 2026
On this page

Overview

BIRD is a dynamic IP routing daemon for Linux and BSD-like systems. It supports IPv4 and IPv6, multiple routing tables, BGP, OSPF, RIP, Babel, BFD, RPKI-related functions, a route-filtering language, and soft reconfiguration.

Features and best fit

Based on official documentation; not hands-on tested · Content checked:

Key features

Run major routing protocols for IPv4 and IPv6

BIRD 2 supports BGPv4, OSPFv2/v3, RIPv2/RIPng, Babel, BFD, IPv4/IPv6, and multiple routing tables in one daemon.

Sources: [1]

Apply routing policy with filters and soft reconfiguration

Configuration files and the filtering language define routing policy, while soft reconfiguration can reload changes without unnecessarily restarting unaffected protocols.

Sources: [1][2]

Best fit

Fits route servers and network appliances centralizing routing policy

It is suited to infrastructure that receives routes from multiple peers or protocols, applies policy, and propagates selected routes toward kernel tables or other protocols.

Sources: [1][2]

Before adoption

Parse configuration and restrict privileges before production startup

BIRD uses privileged operations such as routing-table changes and raw sockets. The User's Guide documents -p for parse-only validation and recommends dropping to a dedicated user/group while retaining only required CAP_NET_* capabilities.

Sources: [2]

Use the patched 2.19.2 release within the 2.19 series

Version 2.19.2 fixes a stack buffer overflow in the BGP Flowspec NLRI decoder and null-byte handling in authentication keys, among other issues. Pin the patch release when deploying the 2.19 line.

Sources: [4][5]

Official sources

  1. [1]BIRD v2.19.2 README(2026-10-03)
  2. [2]BIRD v2.19.2 User's Guide source(2026-10-03)
  3. [3]BIRD v2.19.2 INSTALL(2026-10-03)
  4. [4]BIRD v2.19.2 NEWS(2026-10-03)
  5. [5]BIRD 2.19.2 official download(2026-10-03)
Supplemental curator note

BIRD is useful for route servers and network appliances that need multiple routing protocols in one daemon. Because it can modify routing state and use privileged networking operations, validate configuration first and run with a dedicated user and minimal required capabilities.

Try it in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Download the official BIRD 2.19.2 source

    Pin the official release archive. Building requires a C compiler, GNU Make, Bison, M4, Flex, ncurses, Readline, and related dependencies.

    curl -fLO https://bird.nic.cz/download/bird-2.19.2.tar.gz && tar -xzf bird-2.19.2.tar.gz && cd bird-2.19.2
  2. 2

    Build locally without changing system paths

    Configure installation paths under the evaluation directory and build from source. This step does not start the routing daemon.

    ./configure --prefix="$PWD/.local" --sysconfdir="$PWD/.local/etc" --runstatedir="$PWD/.local/run" && make -j2
  3. 3

    Check the version and parse the sample configuration only

    The -p option parses configuration and exits, allowing syntax and some semantic validation without modifying the kernel routing table.

    ./bird --version && ./bird -p -c doc/bird.conf.example
Check the official README

Growth

Growth trends · Last 30 days

221 Stars

Trend data is still being collected.

Development activity

Last 90 days · weekly

Commits (last 30 days)
12
Open PRs
0

Development activity is still being collected.

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GitHub data

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GitHub Topics

  • babel
  • bgp
  • netlink
  • ospf
  • rip
  • routing
  • rpki
Stars
221
Forks
58
Watchers
18
Open issues
0
Contributors
44
Owner type
Organization
Primary language
C
Repository last updated
Oct 3, 2026
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