As to "there must be better knobs" I think it may be a little late
for that; by design (or as a consequence of it) the set of IPv6 knobs is the same as the set of IPv4 knobs.
> The trouble is that BGP doesn't have a meaningful inter-AS metric. (Although there is something that is called that.) If I want to increase my path length by 10% through a certain neighboring AS, I don't get to do that. I only get to double or triple it. (Unless I was doing very heavy prepending to begin with.)
Actually, while it isn't a true metric as such, there *is* just such a knob.
The "origin" attribute, can act as a fractional AS-path-length. It's mandatory and transitive.
It gets evaluated after as path length, but before other attributes.
It has three possible values (internal, external, unknown), and as such, gives the limited ability to influence path choice at third-party locations quite distant.
The only caveat is, that some parties may mess with it on prefixes they receive.
I've used it in the past, with considerable success.
The only caveat is, that some parties may mess with it on prefixes they receive.
Which is true for all TE items.
Just like a provider may local pref their own customers paths over external paths to get there even given the existence of TE. Some providers are quite rabid about this.
Perhaps we should also define TE at a high level as whether we are talking about default behavior in most cases, or some case where need absolute deterministic precision. I think we can agree on the Internet that the latter is not possible.
TE examples like the example Brian gives (which I am sure many of us are aware of) nicely fit into the first category.
Here's a suggestion - perhaps it should go to nanog-futures, not sure...
Since newbies have to first subscribe before they can post...
Why not have the subscription procedure include sending the newbie
a link to a page with newbie-related material,
much like the nanog page on tools and resources,
or perhaps a wiki (so that other list members can update it,
to minimize the impact to their mailing-list joy that newbies
appear to cause)?
I am not sure why this is an issue. Someone asked a question about multihoming and the way I see it if you don't want to respond to it or don't want to read it than don't. Why does this have to be a major issue. I read what I want and respond to what I want. I think the rest of the community can do the same.
I like the idea of a wiki is a great idea but who really wants to maintain it or update it? Anyways I see nothing wrong in someone asking for help in NANOG. I would think that anyone who wanted to help would just respond offline or on the list and give it, if you are not someone that wants to help then just ignore it, not really that hard.
I see more BS conversations about nothing than the one about someone asking for multihoming.
On a side note, cause someone does not multihome does not make them a newbie.
I completely agree. As mostly a reader of NANOG, I would rather read
70+ responses to multihoming best practices based on decades of
experience from some of the most respected senior network engineers to
date. Sadly what we get is 70+ responses, from some of the most
respected senior network engineers to date, debating what is and
isn't a good question or what isn't or isn't a good place to ask a
question.
Being a "newbie" several years back, I feel I've learned more from
this list
just reading the various threads on different topics that come up. If
anything
someone thats new to the list can search on the archives for help, but the
occassional
"has anyone seen/heard of this before" is neither a bother nor burden, and
often
provides a nice historical response on the subject, if not a debate on the
best
practices. It certainly beats MS Technet.... (;
I think Brian was just thinking about a list of networking resources.
FAQs. Maybe Brian can put something together (with our help) and
maintain it on a quarterly basis. A Meta-FAQ for Networking....
It would be nice if this Meta-FAQ was included in the subscriptions
greeting, as Brian said, but even if not--we could answer simpler q's
and regular q's with a "please read the faq" instead of guarded
hostility (let's face it, we've all worked hard to achieve our level
of knowledge, and to have a paid consultant/network expert ask us
such fundamental q's can certainly stick in the craw (i.e. they
are being paid for this level of knowledge? for our answers?)).
