nanog mailing list archives

Re: best practice for advertising peering fabric routes


From: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick () ianai net>
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 10:57:02 -0500

On Jan 15, 2014, at 10:44 , William Herrin <bill () herrin us> wrote:
On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 10:11 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore <patrick () ianai net> wrote:

NEVER EVER EVER put an IX prefix into BGP, IGP, or even
static route. An IXP LAN should not be reachable from any
device not directly attached to that LAN. Period.

Doing so endangers your peers & the IX itself. It is on the order
of not implementing BCP38, except no one has the (lame,
ridiculous, idiotic, and pure cost-shifting BS) excuse that they
"can't" do this.

Hi Patrick,

I have to disagree with you. If it appears in a traceroute to
somewhere else, I'd like to be able to ping and traceroute directly to
it. When I can't, that impairs my ability to troubleshoot the all too
common can't-get-there-from-here problems. The more you hide the
infrastructure, the more intractable problems become for your
customers.

The IXP LAN should be reachable from every device on the ASes which
connect to it, not just the immediate router.

We disagree.

Plus, you really can't type "ping" on the router connected to the IXP?

_If_ you can guarantee your network has zero bots, abusable [DNS|NTP|etc.] servers, all your downstreams are perfectly 
clean, etc., etc., then maybe I could see you carrying it in your IGP.

As I know 100% of ISPs (to at least one decimal place) cannot make such a guarantee, then doing so puts the IXP and all 
other members - whether peers of yours or not - at risk. Putting others at risk because you are lazy or because it 
makes your life easier is .. I believe I called it bad manners before.


But let's take the philosophical out of this. The prefix in question is owned by the IXP. I said in an earlier post 
that if you carry a prefix I own, did not announce to you, and make it very clear I specifically do not want you to 
carry, I will ask you to stop or face possible disconnection. You may claim convergence (a bit of BS), troubleshooting 
(non-issue, IMO), or even "but I waaaaaaaaaaaant to!!1!1!" (whatever). Doesn't matter. That's not your prefix, you were 
not given it and told not to carry it, so Do Not Carry It.

Ask your IXP if they mind whether you carry the prefix. See what they say.

-- 
TTFN,
patrick



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