Global Routing Operations Working Group T. Manderson
Internet-Draft ICANN
Intended status: Standards Track August 12, 2011
Expires: February 13, 2012
Multi-threaded Routing Toolkit (MRT) Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
routing information export format with geo-location extensions
draft-ietf-grow-geomrt-03.txt
Abstract
This document updates the Multi-threaded Routing Toolkit (MRT) export
format for Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing information by
extending it to include optional terrestrial coordinates of a BGP
Collector and its BGP Peers.
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on February 13, 2012.
Copyright Notice
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Table of Contents
1. Requirements notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Geo-location aware MRT Routing Information Subtype . . . . . . 6
4.1. GEO_PEER_TABLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. GEO_PEER_TABLE and peer entry values. . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. BGP Collector Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
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1. Requirements notation
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
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2. Introduction
Researchers and engineers often wish to analyze network behavior by
studying routing protocol transactions and routing information base
snapshots in relation to geographical topologies. Usually the Border
Gateway Protocol [RFC4271] is the subject of study and the analysis
can be significantly aided by the availability and extension of the
"Multi-threaded Routing Toolkit (MRT) format" [I-D.ietf-grow-mrt].
The MRT format was originally defined in the Multi-threaded Routing
Toolkit Programmer's Guide [MRT-GUIDE].
The addition of geo-location coordinates (longitude and latitude)
pertaining to the geographical location of both the BGP collector and
its BGP peers to BGP export data enables a researcher or enquiring
individual to gain a tererestrial insight to the routes seen by a BGP
speaker. Such data may ultimately aide reserachers in understanding
any disparity between the geographical location of networks and the
topological location of networks in addition to the relationships
between geographical position and routing anomolies. Such insight
could provide future input into network design or network security.
This memo documents an optional extension to the "MRT format"
[I-D.ietf-grow-mrt] and introduces an additional definition of a MRT
subtype field that includes the terestrial coordinates of a BGP
Collector and its BGP Peers. A compliant MRT implementation does not
necessarily need to implement these optional geo-location extensions.
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3. Definitions
Coordinates: A set of geographic latitude and longitude specifying a
location on the Earth.
BGP Speaker: A network device which exchanges network routing
information using BGP.
Geo-location: Assigning a set of coordinates to a specific artifact,
in this case a BGP speaker.
BGP Collector: A BGP speaker (usually passive) that stores and
archives BGP routing data from active BGP peers for analysis.
BGP Peer: Either an internal or external BGP peer [RFC4271].
Not A Number (NAN): numeric data type representing an undefined or
unrepresentable value. As defined in IEEE Standard for Floating-
Point Arithmetic [IEEE754].
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4. Geo-location aware MRT Routing Information Subtype
An additional subtype (GEO_PEER_TABLE) is defined for the
TABLE_DUMP_v2 format, extending TABLE_DUMP_V2 Type.
4.1. GEO_PEER_TABLE
The GEO_PEER_TABLE Subtype updates the TABLE_DUMP_v2 Types to include
Geo-location information in the form of WGS84 [WGS-84] formatted
coordinates.
The document adds the 7th subtype number and name below. The first 6
subtypes are defined by the "MRT format" [I-D.ietf-grow-mrt].
Subtype Number Subtype Name
----------------------------------
7 GEO_PEER_TABLE
The GEO_PEER_TABLE MRT record provides the BGP ID of the collector,
its latitude and longitude in WGS84 [WGS-84] format, and a list of
indexed peers and their respective latitudes and longitudes in WGS84
[WGS-84] format.
The format and function of the Collector BGP ID, Peer Count are as
defined by the TABLE_DUMP_V2 PEER_INDEX_TABLE format.
[I-D.ietf-grow-mrt].
The Collector Latitude and Collector Longitude are the geographical
coordinates of the collector in WGS84 [WGS-84] datum decimal degrees
format stored as a single precision float in the 32 bits allocated to
the Collector Latitude and Collector Longitude. The latitude and
longitude MAY be a Not A Number (NAN) [IEEE754] for situations where
the geo-location of the collector is considered private. The
Collector Latitude and Collector Longitude MUST NOT be a mix of WGS84
[WGS-84] datum coordinate and NAN values.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Collector BGP ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Collector Latitude |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Collector Longitude |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Peer Count | Peer entries (variable)
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
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Format of the GEO_PEER_TABLE
The format of the peer entries is shown below. The Peer Type and the
Peer BGP ID is as defined in the TABLE_DUMP_V2 MRT
[I-D.ietf-grow-mrt] PEER_INDEX_TABLE format. The order of the Peer
entries in GEO_PEER_TABLE MUST match the order and number as existing
in the PEER_INDEX_TABLE.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Peer Type |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Peer BGP ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Peer Latitude |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Peer Longitude |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Format of peer entries
The Peer Latitude and Peer Longitude are the geographical coordinates
of the peer in WGS84 [WGS-84] datum decimal degrees format stored as
a single precision float in the 32 bits allocated to the Peer
Latitude and Peer Longitude. The latitude and longitude MAY be a Not
A Number (NAN) [IEEE754] for situations where the geo-location of the
peer is considered private. The Peer Latitude and Peer Longitude
MUST NOT be a mix of WGS84 [WGS-84] datum coordinate and NAN values
for a single Peer.
4.2. GEO_PEER_TABLE and peer entry values.
Collector BGP ID: Defined in the MRT format [I-D.ietf-grow-mrt]
Collector Latitude: Geographic latitude of the BGP collector in WGS84
[WGS-84] datum decimal degrees format stored as a single precision
float.
Collector Longitude: Geographic Longitude of the BGP collector in
WGS84 [WGS-84] datum decimal degrees format stored as a single
precision float.
Peer Count: Defined in the MRT format [I-D.ietf-grow-mrt]
Peer entries: Defined in the MRT format [I-D.ietf-grow-mrt]
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Peer Type: Defined in the MRT format [I-D.ietf-grow-mrt]
Peer BGP ID: Defined in the MRT format [I-D.ietf-grow-mrt]
Peer Latitude: Geographic latitude of the BGP peer in WGS84 [WGS-84]
datum decimal degrees format stored as a single precision float.
Peer Longitude: Geographic Longitude of the BGP peer in WGS84
[WGS-84] datum decimal degrees format stored as a single precision
float.
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5. BGP Collector Construction
This section is to aide the reader in understanding the function of a
BGP collector.
The BGP Collector is a device (hardware or software based) which
speaks the Border Gateway Protocol and its intended function is to
store (and archive) the BGP routing data it receives from other BGP
speakers it has peering relationships with, providing data for later
analysis. The general nature of a BGP Collector is that it is a
passive device in that it listens to route updates, and does not
announce nor propagate any information it knows or receives. It
should be noted that this is not always the case, network operators
sometimes enable the collection of BGP routing data on active BGP
speakers to obtain a situational view of the routing system as they
see it at a particular point in time.
As a fully fledged BGP speaker the BGP Collector can fit into any BGP
topology including iBGP, eBGP, and so on. The implementation of a
BGP collector in a network topology is therefore limited by that
network's use of BGP.
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6. Acknowledgements
Thanks to Andrew Clark, Ernest Foo, Dave Meyer, Larry Bluck, Richard
Barnes, and Jeffrey Haas for reviewing this document.
This document describes a small portion of the research towards the
author's Ph.D.
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7. IANA Considerations
This section requests the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
register the additional Subtype code value as:
7 GEO_PEER_TABLE
in the "MRT format" [I-D.ietf-grow-mrt] and Subtype code values
related to the TABLE_DUMP_v2 type in the MRT namespace.
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8. Security Considerations
This extension to the "MRT format" [I-D.ietf-grow-mrt] defines fields
that are of a descriptive nature and provide information that is
useful in the analysis of routing systems. As such, the author
believes that they do not constitute an additional network based
security risk. It is recommended that the operators of the BGP
collector and BGP peers consider their own privacy and security
concerns before supplying geographical coordinates to BGP data
collection systems. Special attention should be given to the
physical security of an organisation before supplying geographical
coordinates, especially if the resulting BGP data with geo-location
extensions is made public.
Entities that operate BGP Collectors, and users of data provided by
BGP Collectors, should be aware that the geolocation data supplied by
a peer can only be taken at face value. It is possible that a BGP
peer may supply coordinates that is purposefully misleading or
inaccurate. It is therefore up to the BGP Collector to include this
information or not, or use its own methods to either trust or
validate the data provided. It is not recommended that a BGP
Collector use geographical coordinates not supplied by a BGP peer.
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9. References
9.1. Normative References
[I-D.ietf-grow-mrt]
Blunk, L., Karir, M., and C. Labovitz, "MRT routing
information export format", draft-ietf-grow-mrt-15 (work
in progress), July 2011.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC4271] Rekhter, Y., Li, T., and S. Hares, "A Border Gateway
Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271, January 2006.
9.2. Informative References
[IEEE754] IEEE, "IEEE Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic",
August 2008,
<http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/servlet/
opac?punumber=4610933>.
[MRT-GUIDE]
Labovitz, C., "MRT Programmer's Guide", November 1999,
<http://www.merit.edu/networkresearch/mrtprogrammer.pdf>.
[WGS-84] Geodesy and Geophysics Department, DoD., "World Geodetic
System 1984", January 2000, <http://earth-info.nga.mil/
GandG/publications/tr8350.2/wgs84fin.pdf>.
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Author's Address
Terry Manderson
ICANN
Email: terry.manderson@icann.org
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