Re: peering tools

[Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>]

On Fri, 07 April 2000, Scott Call wrote:
> As we (ATG) are about to move into PAIX, SIX, and MAE-East ATM, I wanted
> to ask what the members of Nanog used to manage their peering with
> others (software wise).   Currently we are all Cisco based, but Juniper
> and others are also eventualities.
>
>     I've looked at the RtConfig program and it seems like a place to
> start, but I get the feeling that this is not the method most use.

Most folks configure provider-to-provider BGP peering sessions manually.

Fortunately they change fairly infrequently.  A few use some automated
tools to push and collect router configurations, and macro or script
tools like M4 and Perl.  Even fewer use RtConfig or other database driven
configuration tools.  ANS had the closest to fully automated their peering
configurations, but they're gone now.

The basic problem is most providers have homegrown systems which can't
share data with other providers.  RPSL/IRRDB are attempts to communicate
the information between providers, but generally different providers use
very different forms and procedures.  Sprint used a completely different
method of exchanging information about BGP configutions than Cable&Wireless
does.  So if you peer with 50 different people, you may have 55 different
processes (yes, some providers have more than one process even within their
own company).

I suspect Randy will explain its not a problem with Verio, but Verio is
a exception.