state of the art in router configuration

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1

Ratul,
   

1. how do most operators configure their bgp (text editor or some
high-level configuration tool)?

I think this varies a lot depending on the network and the type of
configuration change being made. Some folks work directly at the
command-line interface (perhaps with some cut-and-paste from previous
configs, especially for boiler-plate stuff), some use GUIs provided by
router vendors for some types of config changes, others use their own
scripts, and still others might use third-party commercial products
like Orchestream or Goldwiretech.
   

2. are there "configuration checkers" out there that would check whether
an operator has not made a common error while modifying configuration?

For this, you might be interested in the paper

  http://www.research.att.com/~jrex/papers/ieeenet01.ps

that appeared in IEEE Network Magazine in Sept/Oct 2001. The paper
describes a checker that looks for inconsistencies within and across
routers in an AS, by parsing and analyzing router configuration files.

-- Jen

2

1. how do most operators configure their bgp (text editor or some
high-level configuration tool)?

I think this varies a lot depending on the network and the type of
configuration change being made. Some folks work directly at the
command-line interface (perhaps with some cut-and-paste from previous
configs, especially for boiler-plate stuff), some use GUIs provided by
router vendors for some types of config changes, others use their own
scripts, and still others might use third-party commercial products
like Orchestream or Goldwiretech.

and some completely generate them from an enterprise database

randy

3

I wonder what the biggest backbones use? 2 out of our 3 T3 providers have
broken our connections by assigning our T3 serial interface IP to another
customer connection...one of them has done it twice. The two that have
done this are, AFAIK, the biggest providers in the continent.

Whatever they're using, it's obviously not working well and not checking
to make sure IP's about to be configured for an interface aren't already
in their IGP.