Install BIRD2 and Pathvector on Ubuntu/Debian

Install BIRD2

On recent Debian/Ubuntu releases you can install BIRD2 from the distribution or from source.

# Debian / Ubuntu (packages)
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y bird2

# From source (generic Unix)
tar xf bird-*.tar.gz
cd bird-*
./configure
make
sudo make install
vi /usr/local/etc/bird.conf
bird

Install Pathvector (Debian/Ubuntu)

Pathvector provides a declarative configuration model and generates BIRD2 configs with support for RPKI, IRR, and route optimization.

# Add Pathvector APT repo
curl https://repo.pathvector.io/pgp.asc > /usr/share/keyrings/pathvector.asc
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/pathvector.asc] https://repo.pathvector.io/apt/ stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pathvector.list
apt update && apt install -y pathvector

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y pathvector bgpq4 bird2

This installs Pathvector, BIRD2, and bgpq4 for IRR prefix generation.

First run

# Test Pathvector config generation
sudo pathvector 

# Start / reload bird2
sudo systemctl enable bird
sudo systemctl restart bird

Once BIRD2 is running with a valid configuration you can bring up the tunnel to V6Direct and establish BGP.