Network Working Group                                            R. Bush
Internet-Draft                                 Internet Initiative Japan
Obsoletes: 4384 (if approved)                                    E. Aben
Intended status: Best Current Practice                          RIPE NCC
Expires: March 7, 2016                                 September 4, 2015


                Marking Announcements to BGP Collectors
              draft-ymbk-grow-bgp-collector-communities-00

Abstract

   When BGP route collectors such as RIPE RIS and Route Views are used
   by operators and researchers, currently one can not tell if a path
   announced to a collector is from the ISP's customer cone, an internal
   route, or one learned from peering or transit.  This greatly reduces
   the utility of the collected data.  This document specifies the use
   of BGP communities to differentiate the kinds of views being
   presented to the collectors.

Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" are to
   be interpreted as described in [RFC2119] only when they appear in all
   upper case.  They may also appear in lower or mixed case as English
   words, without normative meaning.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on March 7, 2016.







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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

   This document may not be modified, and derivative works of it may not
   be created, and it may not be published except as an Internet-Draft.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Categories  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Signaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     6.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     6.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4

1.  Introduction

   BGP route collectors such as RIPE RIS [ris] and Route Views [rviews]
   are used by both operators and researchers.  Unfortunately, one can
   not tell if a path announced to a collector is from the ISP's
   customer cone (one's own prefixes and the closure of those to whom
   transit is provided; i.e. what one would announce to a peer), an
   internal route, or an external route learned via peering or transit.
   This greatly reduces the utility of the collected data, and has been
   a cause of much pain over the years.  This document specifies the use
   of BGP communities to differentiate between these categories.

   In 2006, [RFC4384] attempted a similar goal but failed to gain
   traction in the operational community.  We believe this was due to
   its unnecessary complexity.  This document proposes a much simpler
   marking scheme and, if published, will obsolete [RFC4384].





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2.  Rationale

   When an operator uses a collector to look at an ISP's announcement of
   a prefix, it is very useful to know if the ISP also announced it to
   their customers and/or peers/transits.  Researchers want to
   differentiate similarly in order to understand expected route
   propagation.

   One usually wishes to ignore any internal-only routes an ISP may
   announce to the collector, as they would not be announcing them to
   peers, transits, or customers.

   An ISP is expected to announce customer routes to their customers,
   and announce customer routes to their external peers and transits.

   In general, one does not need to differentiate whether the ISP will
   announce to peers or transits; and the ISP may not wish to expose the
   business relationships with external providers.  So we do not propose
   to differentiate peers from transit providers.

3.  Categories

   We define only three categories of announcements:

   Customer Cone:  One's own prefixes and the closure of those to whom
      transit is provided including routes announced by BGP customers,
      static prefixes used for non-BGP customers, datacenter routes,
      etc.
   External Routes:  Routes learned from peers and transit providers
      which the ISP would normally announce to customers but not to
      peers.  Often, ISPs do not announce such routes to collectors.
      But, as there is no general practice, this category is important
      to mark.
   Internal Routes:  ISPs occasionally announce to the collector
      Internal point to point and other routes they would not normally
      announce to customers, peers, or transit providers.

4.  Signaling

   BGP announcements to route collectors SHOULD be marked with
   communities indicating into which category the announcement falls.
   As most collector peers already use community markings similar to
   these, but ad hoc, the additional effort should be trivial.








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                      +----------------+-----------+
                      | Category       | Community |
                      +----------------+-----------+
                      | Customer Cone  | ASN:42    |
                      | External Route | ASN:43    |
                      | Internal Route | ASN:44    |
                      +----------------+-----------+

           Community Markings (intentionally silly communities)

                                  Table 1

5.  IANA Considerations

   As the number of categories is intentionally minimal, an IANA
   registry should not be needed.

6.  References

6.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [ris]      "RIPE Routing Information Service (RIS)",
              <https://www.ripe.net/analyse/internet-measurements/
              routing-information-service-ris/routing-information-
              service-ris>.

   [rviews]   "University of Oregon Route Views Project",
              <http://www.routeviews.org/>.

6.2.  Informative References

   [RFC4384]  Meyer, D., "BGP Communities for Data Collection", BCP 114,
              RFC 4384, February 2006.

Authors' Addresses

   Randy Bush
   Internet Initiative Japan
   5147 Crystal Springs
   Bainbridge Island, Washington  98110
   US

   Email: randy@psg.com





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   Emile Aben
   RIPE NCC
   Singel 258
   Amsterdam, NL.NH  1016 AB
   NL

   Email: emile.aben@ripe.net












































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