FRR-FABRICD(8)

📦
version 10.7.1 · 11 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

ok bestie, buckle up 💖 you're reading the frr-fabricd(8) manual — yes, the fabricd one, the OpenFabric routing engine bestie that hangs out with FRRouting. this is a terminal-rendered glow-up of that page, same facts, way more ✨ energy ✨.

🌸 NAME 🌸

frr-fabricd — an OpenFabric routing engine for use with FRRouting. that's the whole vibe. it routes. it fabricks. it's giving network backbone realness 👑

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

fabricd [-h] [-v]

fabricd [-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]

she's got two modes, and honestly? both ate. 🫶

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

fabricd is a routing component that works with the FRRouting routing engine. that's it, that's the whole job description, and she does it flawlessly no cap.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

OPTIONS available for the fabricd command — like, the actual menu, let's go:

💖 HELP AND VERSION 💖

  • -h, --help — prints a short description of the daemon's command line options. your little "what does this do again" bestie.
  • -v, --version — prints version and build information for the daemon. the receipt, basically 🧾
⚠️ Both of these options inhibit normal operation and will immediately exit. like, she will not do the thing, she will just tell you about the thing. iconic behaviour, honestly.

🌈 PROCESS CONTROL 🌈

these options control background operation, iykyk:

  • -d, --daemon — launches the process in background/daemon mode, forking and detaching from the terminal. she's leaving the group chat to go be mysterious ✨

the parent process will delay its exit until the daemon/child has finished its initialization and has entered its main loop. this matters a LOT for zebra startup, because the other daemons are gonna come knocking trying to connect to zebra. a return from zebra -d is basically zebra saying "i'm up, come thru."

  • -t, --terminal — opens an interactive VTY session right on the terminal, so you can do both state and configuration operations. note that the terminal starts operating after startup has completed and the configuration file has been loaded — she's not gonna take your order before the kitchen's open 🍓

the process will exit when end of file is detected on the terminal. and yes, it IS possible to daemonize a process started with -t (but without -d) by sending SIGQUIT to the process — which is 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). so like, she waits for you to finish talking before she dips 💀

if the process receives SIGINT (e.g. a ^C keypress) in this mode, it will exit instead of daemonizing. so yeah, Ctrl+C is a real exit, not a "pretend to sleep."

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.) so the terminal takes a lil nap and the daemon keeps grinding, main character energy fr fr 😤

🦋 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. so like, she can write back. mutual follow, bestie.

  • -C, --dryrun — load the configuration file and check its validity, then exit. a vibe check, but for configs 👀
  • -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. all of them. same value. no freelancing 🚨
  • -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. (yes, empty string is valid, she contains multitudes.)

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. parallel universes, basically 🌌

this option does not do any system setup (like network namespaces.) that part is on you, bestie. 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. she is who she is, no changing for anybody 💅

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. mandatory membership, no exceptions, it's the group chat rules.

🌸 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. two ways in, both valid 🚪

  • -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. (she's an extrovert by default, lowkey risky, but okay.)
  • -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. read it twice, bestie.

this option is primarily used by the SNAP packaging system, its semantics may change. it should not be necessary in most other scenarios. niche but valid 🧚

⭐ 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. cute, right? the right one gets picked automatically 🎯

the meaning of options is specific to the module being loaded. most modules currently ignore it. (they're not being rude, they just don't read.)

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.

  • --dummy_as_loopback — treat dummy interfaces as loopback interfaces. short, sweet, does exactly what it says 🫶

🍓 FILES 🍓

  • /usr/lib/frr/fabricd — the default location of the fabricd binary.
  • /etc/frr/fabricd.conf — the default location of the fabricd config file.
  • $(PWD)/fabricd.log — if the fabricd process is configured to output logs to a file, then you will find this file in the directory where you started fabricd. she logs where you left her, basically 💀

🚨 WARNING 🚨

this man page is intended to be a quick reference for command line options. the definitive document is the info file frr latest or the documentation available on the project website at https://frrouting.org/. so like, don't come for me if you need the deep lore, go to the source, bestie 🙈

🔍 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. she's chatty in like four different languages, pick your fave 🌈

👀 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/

the whole friend group, fr fr 💜

💀 BUGS 💀

FRR eats bugs for breakfast. if you have food for the maintainers, please email dev@lists.frrouting.org. she's hungry, feed her 🍽️

2017, FRR

and that's the page, bestie ✨ this one came from the latest source, dated Sep 22, 2026, filed under FRR-FABRICD(8). go configure something iconic 👑💖

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