Which BGP state indicates an active session without a successful peering?

The active state in BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) indicates that an active session is underway but that a successful peering has not yet occurred. In this state, the BGP process is attempting to establish a connection to the remote BGP peer. Specifically, the local BGP process is in the process of resolving the addresses of its peers, which includes attempting to establish a TCP connection to the peer’s IP address. If successful, the state will transition to the established state, where BGP can then exchange routing information.

In contrast, the connect state represents the initial stage of trying to establish a connection, where it is waiting for the TCP handshake to complete. The established state confirms that the BGP session is fully operational and routing updates can be exchanged. The idle state signifies that the BGP process is not actively trying to connect to anything at that moment.

Thus, the active state uniquely denotes that a session is actively being attempted but has not yet reached the successful peering necessary for full communication and routing information exchange.