Best practices for BGP failover between Hetzner & OVH
Hey folks, I'm setting up dual-provider failover using BGP and need some guidance. Currently running a /24 allocation across Hetzner (AS24940) and OVH (AS16276) with prepending on the backup link.
My questions:
- Should I use AS-PATH filtering or just rely on prepending?
- What's the recommended LOCAL-PREF value for active/standby?
- Anyone have experience with convergence times during provider outages?
Target is <2min failover. Any gotchas I should know about before going live?
Edited at 25 Mar 2026, 21:02
Prepending alone won't cut it reliably—you need both AS-PATH filtering and LOCAL-PREF. Set active to 200, standby to 100. Real talk: your <2min target is optimistic without BFD. Hetzner & OVH both support it, configure timers to 3s detect/9s down. Also watch your ROA validation if you're RPKI-enabled, misconfigs kill failover silently. Test with actual BGP flaps, not just config reviews.
Good point about BFD—I was wondering if prepending alone would actually work in practice. So LOCAL-PREF 200/100 for active/standby, got it. Quick follow-up: do you enable BFD on both providers, or just the primary link? Also, what timers are you using for sub-2min convergence?