When troubleshooting an EBGP peer relationship, what condition must be met regarding the hop count for loopback interfaces?

In the context of troubleshooting an External Border Gateway Protocol (EBGP) peer relationship, the requirement concerning the hop count for loopback interfaces is that it must be greater than 1. This condition is crucial for establishing a successful EBGP session when the peers are not directly connected but instead communicate over one or more intermediary devices or networks.

When EBGP is configured, it is important to ensure that the routing is appropriately set up so that the routers can reach each other over the network. A hop count greater than 1 indicates that there is at least one intermediate router between the two peers, which allows for proper communication and route advertisement between them. In practice, the requirement ensures that there is connectivity through the network for the BGP sessions to be established successfully using loopback interfaces as the source IP.

Therefore, while the other answers suggest higher hop counts, they are not relevant to the minimum requirement for establishing an EBGP relationship. If the hop count is not greater than 1, it means that the two routers may either be directly connected or unable to communicate through a properly established route, which would hinder the EBGP session from functioning correctly. Hence, the focus on a hop count greater than 1 is foundational for EBGP peerings in scenarios