ANNOUNCE: bgptables.merit.edu - understanding visibility of your prefix/AS

All,

We would like to announce the availability of the bgpTables Project at Merit at: http://bgptables.merit.edu
bgpTables allows users to easily navigate global routing table data collected via routviews.org. bgptables
essentially processes the data collected at routeviews and makes is available in a somewhat easier
to use interface. The goal of bgpTables is to represent global prefix and AS visibility information from the
vantage point of the various bgp table views as seen at routeviews.
The data is currently updated nightly (EST) but we hope to improve this over time.
Please see the FAQ (http://bgptables.merit.edu/faq.php) for some simple examples of how you can use bgpTables.

Some examples:
- You can query for a specific ASN by entering the text 'as' followed by the AS number into the search box. For example to query for information about AS 237 you would enter 'as237' [without quotation marks] into the search box and then click 'search'. You can then use the view navigator map to switch to different routing table views for this ASN

- You can query for a specific prefix by directly entering the prefix into the search box. For example to query for information about prefix 12.0.0.0/8 you would simply enter '12.0.0.0/8' [without quotation marks] into the search box and then click 'search'. You can then use the view navigator map to switch to different routing table views for the prefix.

- You can find a particular prefix that you might be interested in by running a 'contained within' query via the search box. For example to quickly browse a list of prefixes contained within 1.0.0.0/8 to find the particular prefix you might be interested in, you can enter the text 'cw1.0.0.0/8' [without quotation marks] into the search box and click 'search'. You can then browse the resulting table to select the particular prefix you might be interested in.

- You can simply enter the text 'as' followed by the company name into the search box then click search to view a list of possible matches for that text. For example, to view all matching google ASNs you can simply enter 'asgoogle' into the search box and click search. A list of possible matching ASNs that reference Google by name will be returned from which you an then select the particular ASN that is of interest to you.

Comments, corrections, and suggestions are very welcome. Please send them to mkarir@merit.edu. Hopefully folks will find this useful.

Thanks.
-The Merit Network Research and Development Team

Hello Manish

Nice work on bgptables.merit.edu

Couple of things:

   1. It doesn't recognizes individual IP directly but needs complete block
   in CIDR to get info about it like e.g search for 8.8.8.8 gives nothing but
   8.8.8.0/24 gives information about Google. It would be worth it to have
   it looking at block to which an IP belongs to.

   2. You might consider adding graphs on AS connections - those are best
   for easy & quick reading. Something like for Google (AS15169) -
   http://bgp.he.net/AS15169#_graph4

Nice work, keep it going!

Manish,

  Nice tool.

  Is it possible to see the "history" of a prefix?

Regards,
.as

I'm getting a database error when I search for an AS....

Please remember to add the "as" before the number for your query.
so for AS 65000 your search term should be "as65000"

Thanks.
-manish

Thanks everyone, yes adding AS works...

Will it be updated to just accept 65000 without the "AS" in the near future?

Hi Arturo,

We could easily archive older copies of the database when we update the data, but I think our issue right now
is that we dont fully understand how to add the notion of time to the user interface and we dont understand how
folks might want to use it. Do you have a simple use case description of an example which might help us
figure out how the notion of time can help answer a question.? What would be an example of a query
that uses time?

Thanks.
-manish

Well - for starters, if you get a prefix that was announced by ASN
xxxx from [timestamp] to [timestamp], went to ASN yyyy on [timestamp]
etc.

Quite useful if you want to tie this into route leak, prefix hijack,
malicious ASN etc tracking tools.

--srs

For example for any given prefix to get which ASNs have originated that prefix over time and when.

  I think that could be interesting for discovering if a prefix has been hijacked in the past.

  RIS from RIPE NCC provides something like this:

http://www.ripe.net/data-tools/stats/ris/routing-information-service

  We have used it to verify some "suspicious" announcements of prefixes.

Regards,
as

One can also try RIPEstat for this: http://stat.ripe.net/

Amongst other modules it gives full (~10 year) BGP history for prefixes.

(Disclaimer: our team is working on this tool.)

Robert

One can also try RIPEstat for this: http://stat.ripe.net/

wfm

(Disclaimer: our team is working on this tool.)

and you used your work email address. thank you.

randy

Does it also give a similar history for ASN announcements? I see a
lot many shady ASNs that simply move from one prefix to another, in
batches

Yes. See for example (only the routing module):

http://stat.ripe.net/query/routing-history/AS3333?params={'value':+'AS3333'}

You can turn on the "first transit AS" with the checkbox on the top right.

Robert

Superb. Thank you.

All,

Just a quick update on various feedback we have received from folks on the bgpTables Project (http://bgptables.merit.edu)

1: You can now simply enter an AS number in the search/query box without the need to prepend the letters "as" before the number

2: You can now lookup an IP address and the result will be the best matching prefix e.g. a query for "8.8.8.8" will now work.

3: We have made a few css fixes for opera

4: On the issue of history: We have a parallel effort that tracks historical BGP origin information over time which we will work on merging
    into the bgptable.merit.edu web site.

5: On the issue of graphics to show AS adjacency relationships. Yes we do plan on doing some nicer graphics but the hard part is always
     in making the layout presentation consistent but we do have some good ideas on how to do this.

6: Additional information: RPKI status, RTT measurements, etc. We are hoping to work with other folks in integrating their datasets
    into our website as suitable. Anything that is organized by prefix/AS can be pulled into our existing system.

Thanks for all the feedback! Hopefully we can continue to evolve this over time.

-manish