Signaling of attachment circuit status and automatic discovery of inter-chassis communication peers

A machine-readable medium that stores instructions, which, when performed by a routing device, cause the routing device to perform operations comprising:

• establishing an inter-chassis control plane channel session with a remote routing device, the routing device and the remote routing device being linked to a multi-homed routing device;
• synchronizing with the remote routing device by way of the inter-chassis control plane channel session to identify a state of a link from the routing device to the multi-homed routing device;
• and
• advertising the state of the link by way of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).

An apparatus comprising:

• a status signaling module configured to:
• establish an inter-chassis control plane channel session with a routing device, the apparatus and the routing device being linked to a multi-homed routing device;
• synchronize with the routing device by way of the inter-chassis control plane channel session to identify a state of a link from the apparatus to the multi-homed routing device;
• and
• advertise the state of the link by way of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).

A method at a routing device, the method comprising:

• identifying a first system identifier associated with a multi-homed routing device linked to the routing device;
• receiving a second system identifier from a remote routing device by way of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP);
• comparing the first system identifier with the second system identifier;
• and
• establishing an inter-chassis control plane channel session with the remote routing device based on a match of the first system identifier with the second system identifier.