4 ms·

The Babel Routing Protocol

45 points by simonpure 6y ago

machello13 6y ago
Can someone explain what an application of this might be?
- _nhynes 6y ago
  The intro suggests that it’s for “unstable networks.” The protocol is required by the HomeNet project [0, 1], so residential networking (possibly including IoT) seems to be one application. [0]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/homenet/about/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/homenet/about/ [1]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-homenet-babel-profile/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-homenet-babel-pr...
- detaro 6y ago
  AFAIK a main goal is a routing protocol that handles mesh networks well.
- nisa 6y ago
  it's used for mesh networks (but can also be used for other applications) - some freifunk communities in germany use it and there is ongoing development to port the most popular mesh firmware called gluon to use babel as it's a layer3 mesh and gluon is using a layer2 mesh (using B.A.T.M.A.N) - layer3 scales better because with more nodes you have a noisy switch on layer2. Fascinating stuff - if you want to learn more about babel here is a technical talk from the developer: https://www.battlemesh.org/BattleMeshV8/Agenda?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=babel-20150804.pdf https://www.battlemesh.org/BattleMeshV8/Agenda?action=Attach...
  - rucikir 6y ago
    A more recent one here: https://media.freifunk.net/v/evolution-of-the-babel-routing-protocol https://media.freifunk.net/v/evolution-of-the-babel-routing-...
- rucikir 6y ago
  Take a look at the document "Applicability of the Babel routing protocol": https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-babel-applicability-10 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-babel-applicability-1...
motohagiography 6y ago
In the security considerations, it appears to recommend using external application security controls for it: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-babel-rfc6126bis-20#section-6 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-babel-rfc6126bis-20#s... To me, that seems like an attractive nuisance, where it's likely something that's really easy to implement and operate, and then build things that rely on it that are more valuable to where the idea it's strung together with something as lightweight as Babel becomes insanely irresponsible. Kind of like its predecessor RIPv1. The idea of publishing or implementing a new routing protocol that doesn't have cryptographic verification designed into it as a feature seems like sabotage. My day to day is dealing with the consequences of devops teams launching low-security infrastructure and then clients wanting to migrate their high-sensitivity data to it, and this Babel spec is precisely the kind of thing that causes that conflict. Sure, build something untrusted that forces people to implement their own security that is at a level sufficient for themselves. I understand that as a reasonable design principle, but perhaps I have been out of the game too long, as seeing how these things play out, it's not clear how a routing protocol without at least signed updates is a good idea.

45 points by simonpure 6y ago

machello13 6y ago

Can someone explain what an application of this might be?

_nhynes 6y ago
The intro suggests that it’s for “unstable networks.” The protocol is required by the HomeNet project [0, 1], so residential networking (possibly including IoT) seems to be one application. [0]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/homenet/about/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/homenet/about/ [1]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-homenet-babel-profile/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-homenet-babel-pr...
detaro 6y ago
AFAIK a main goal is a routing protocol that handles mesh networks well.
nisa 6y ago
it's used for mesh networks (but can also be used for other applications) - some freifunk communities in germany use it and there is ongoing development to port the most popular mesh firmware called gluon to use babel as it's a layer3 mesh and gluon is using a layer2 mesh (using B.A.T.M.A.N) - layer3 scales better because with more nodes you have a noisy switch on layer2. Fascinating stuff - if you want to learn more about babel here is a technical talk from the developer: https://www.battlemesh.org/BattleMeshV8/Agenda?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=babel-20150804.pdf https://www.battlemesh.org/BattleMeshV8/Agenda?action=Attach...
- rucikir 6y ago
  A more recent one here: https://media.freifunk.net/v/evolution-of-the-babel-routing-protocol https://media.freifunk.net/v/evolution-of-the-babel-routing-...
rucikir 6y ago
Take a look at the document "Applicability of the Babel routing protocol": https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-babel-applicability-10 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-babel-applicability-1...

motohagiography 6y ago

In the security considerations, it appears to recommend using external application security controls for it: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-babel-rfc6126bis-20#section-6 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-babel-rfc6126bis-20#s... To me, that seems like an attractive nuisance, where it's likely something that's really easy to implement and operate, and then build things that rely on it that are more valuable to where the idea it's strung together with something as lightweight as Babel becomes insanely irresponsible. Kind of like its predecessor RIPv1. The idea of publishing or implementing a new routing protocol that doesn't have cryptographic verification designed into it as a feature seems like sabotage. My day to day is dealing with the consequences of devops teams launching low-security infrastructure and then clients wanting to migrate their high-sensitivity data to it, and this Babel spec is precisely the kind of thing that causes that conflict. Sure, build something untrusted that forces people to implement their own security that is at a level sufficient for themselves. I understand that as a reasonable design principle, but perhaps I have been out of the game too long, as seeing how these things play out, it's not clear how a routing protocol without at least signed updates is a good idea.