4 ms·

Whats BGP?

by 0xADADA 9y ago

Whats BGP?

na85 9y ago
A cursory Google search would have revealed that BGP is Border Gateway Protocol.
- okreallywtf 9y ago
  Why did people downvote a pretty appropriate snark while not downvoting a question that took longer to ask than the google search would have taken?
  - falsedan 9y ago
    Trying to encourage kind behaviour and inclusiveness?
    - brainfire 9y ago
      Including people who waste your time is not a productive activity.
  - stestagg 9y ago
    Post gave off bad vibes. Bad vibes make people unhappy. Unhappy people make the internet have more bad vibes ..
    - AckSyn 9y ago
      Feels before reals. Got it. In a somewhat related "vibe", it's only the less "polite" way of pointing out the obvious: typing that question out in the address/search bar will get the question answered significantly quicker than a forum.
  - martin-adams 9y ago
    I for one appreciated the question "what is BGP?" for the following reasons... 1. It allows me to understand that I am not the only one who doesn't understand the terminology involved, allowing the discussion to be more educational and inclusive. 2. Sometimes searching for terminology is ambiguous and without prior knowledge of the subject domain, can result in lack of confirmation as to whether the definition is the same as the one in the article. 3. For one person to ask here and have it answered, can save 100 people having to search for themselves when reading the comments.
    - okreallywtf 9y ago
      On a technical newsfeed almost every story is littered with jargon and a ton of them I don't know what an acronym means. Not only is the correct wikipedia article the 1st result, Google actually includes the start of the definition right into the search. Its fine to ask, especially when its a generic acronym but that was not the case. Its a bad habit to get into and I speak from experience, spend a couple minutes on your own and come up with a question that shows you were willing to put in some effort. Better yet, as I see people do around here from time to time, go read a brief synopsis and then post a "For other people who didn't know what BGP was: BGP is ....". I'm not for creating a hostile stuck up community but rewarding pure laziness seems pointless to me.
      - hueving 9y ago
        It takes less effort to Google it than to ask it here, so it's not laziness.
  - corysama 9y ago
    Hacker News discourages snark in general.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity." There are things people don't know. I find xkcd's attitude a useful one to keep in mind: https://www.xkcd.com/1053/ https://www.xkcd.com/1053/
__david__ 9y ago
Border Gateway Protocol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bgp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bgp
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
nvarsj 9y ago
BGP is basically what routes the internet. It handles the routing of traffic between ASs (autonomous systems - independent networks owned by companies, with their own sets of public IP ranges). BGP is super complex, and it takes a lot of experience to understand the intricacies involved. Also BGP peering configurations are generally confidential, so much of BGP (which again, is literally the core of the internet) happens in the dark. There have been academic studies to try mapping out BGP routes, and you can see the routes when you do a traceroute. Somehow it all manages to work, mostly :). If you want to play with BGP, download Quagga - its interface emulates the Cisco router interface. Documentation is poor but you can just reference Cisco docs.

Whats BGP?

na85 9y ago

A cursory Google search would have revealed that BGP is Border Gateway Protocol.

okreallywtf 9y ago
Why did people downvote a pretty appropriate snark while not downvoting a question that took longer to ask than the google search would have taken?
- falsedan 9y ago
  Trying to encourage kind behaviour and inclusiveness?
  - brainfire 9y ago
    Including people who waste your time is not a productive activity.
- stestagg 9y ago
  Post gave off bad vibes. Bad vibes make people unhappy. Unhappy people make the internet have more bad vibes ..
  - AckSyn 9y ago
    Feels before reals. Got it. In a somewhat related "vibe", it's only the less "polite" way of pointing out the obvious: typing that question out in the address/search bar will get the question answered significantly quicker than a forum.
- martin-adams 9y ago
  I for one appreciated the question "what is BGP?" for the following reasons... 1. It allows me to understand that I am not the only one who doesn't understand the terminology involved, allowing the discussion to be more educational and inclusive. 2. Sometimes searching for terminology is ambiguous and without prior knowledge of the subject domain, can result in lack of confirmation as to whether the definition is the same as the one in the article. 3. For one person to ask here and have it answered, can save 100 people having to search for themselves when reading the comments.
  - okreallywtf 9y ago
    On a technical newsfeed almost every story is littered with jargon and a ton of them I don't know what an acronym means. Not only is the correct wikipedia article the 1st result, Google actually includes the start of the definition right into the search. Its fine to ask, especially when its a generic acronym but that was not the case. Its a bad habit to get into and I speak from experience, spend a couple minutes on your own and come up with a question that shows you were willing to put in some effort. Better yet, as I see people do around here from time to time, go read a brief synopsis and then post a "For other people who didn't know what BGP was: BGP is ....". I'm not for creating a hostile stuck up community but rewarding pure laziness seems pointless to me.
    - hueving 9y ago
      It takes less effort to Google it than to ask it here, so it's not laziness.
- corysama 9y ago
  Hacker News discourages snark in general.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity." There are things people don't know. I find xkcd's attitude a useful one to keep in mind: https://www.xkcd.com/1053/ https://www.xkcd.com/1053/

__david__ 9y ago

Border Gateway Protocol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bgp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bgp

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

nvarsj 9y ago

BGP is basically what routes the internet. It handles the routing of traffic between ASs (autonomous systems - independent networks owned by companies, with their own sets of public IP ranges). BGP is super complex, and it takes a lot of experience to understand the intricacies involved. Also BGP peering configurations are generally confidential, so much of BGP (which again, is literally the core of the internet) happens in the dark. There have been academic studies to try mapping out BGP routes, and you can see the routes when you do a traceroute. Somehow it all manages to work, mostly :). If you want to play with BGP, download Quagga - its interface emulates the Cisco router interface. Documentation is poor but you can just reference Cisco docs.