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I think you need to manage a real (and large) network that's connected to global internet traffic in order to "play" with BGP. Well, you can tinker with it at h
by altilunium 1y ago
I think you need to manage a real (and large) network that's connected to global internet traffic in order to "play" with BGP. Well, you can tinker with it at home, but only by using a network simulator.
- bc569a80a344f9c 1y agoYou can set up local BGP routers and peer them and play with it. Another fun thing is to log into publicly available looking glass servers. Most ISPs (including very, very, very large ones) operate routers that have their full view of the BGP routing tables. They either run web interfaces that let you query those tables (more common) or make public ssh or telnet credentials to log in with roles that have very limited access to the available commands, but have read rights to those tables.
- _gmax0 1y agoInternet researchers commonly use RIPE and RouteViews. https://www.routeviews.org/routeviews/about/ https://www.routeviews.org/routeviews/about/ https://stat.ripe.net/docs/02.data-api/ https://stat.ripe.net/docs/02.data-api/
- ta1243 1y agoI've used BGP internally at my company for a decade, using AS65xxx range. At home I use BGP between the house, garage and shed, I much prefer it to OSPF.
- normie3000 1y agoShould we know what OSPF is too?
- icedchai 1y agoUnless you're heavily into networking and the ISP space, there's basically no need for you to know about routing protocols.
- pixl97 1y agoDepends if you do any routing on multipath networks. Most people don't so there's that.
- Hikikomori 1y agoECMP? Can do that with static routes. As long as you have more than 1 router you could set up a routing protocol. Or did you mean multipoint?
- unethical_ban 1y agoOpen Shortest Path First (OSPF) is an "internal" routing protocol. Basically, it is a protocol for routers to share routes when all routers are managed by the same organization. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) has the primary purpose of sharing routes between routers managed by different organizations. It can be used within an organization too. It has a lot more control over how and which routes it sends and receives.
- ta1243 1y agoDepends how much you want to know about how networks work. Never ceases to amaze me how ignorant modern software developers are of the underlying technology, I guess that's because I'm from the pre-2010s when "Information Technology" was a general field.
- unethical_ban 1y agoI took some comp-sci and majored in "IT" in the 2000s. Lower level CS did not go over routing protocols, and the IT side never got into compilation, linking, state machines, or pointers.
- edoceo 1y agoMissed pointers!? Surprised me. (Am old)
- ta1243 1y agoIn the 2000 my team had to deal with everything from compilation problems to hardware answering arp answers with fake mac addresses. The team consisted of a wide range of skills and abilities and information obviously leaks. While the DBA didn't need to know anything about OSPF, just by being in the same team as the network person they pick up how things work. Now it seems that teams seem to be far more specialised and there's less cross-specialist learning.
- normie3000 1y ago> Never ceases to amaze me how ignorant modern software developers are of the underlying technology, I guess that's because I'm from the pre-2010s Don't let my ignorance color your opinion of the youth of today.
- goku12 1y agoI have trained people on network technologies, including the younger generation. It never ceases to amaze me how much they can get done without a clue about the underlying technologies. Sometimes it feels like they have some super power, because I can't operate without that knowledge.
- heraldgeezer 1y agoCCNA had OSPF and that was part of my college curriculum in 2012. It depends on what you study. I did more of a sysadmin track, you (probably?) did pure comp sci/dev and would not encounter OSPF in a dev job (probably).
- Bluecobra 1y agoSame! At previous company I worked at we used BGP for all internal/external routing about 15 years ago despite all the poo-pooing by using BGP as an IGP. It was nice having no route redistribution and one command to monitor sessions.
- l_vorenus 1y agoBGP is chill and robust, OSPF is correct and fast. Both have their own place in a network.
- buzer 1y agoOn top of the already suggested local BGP routers you can also use https://dn42.us/ https://dn42.us/ to test a bit more real-world like scenarios.
- icedchai 1y agoIt doesn't have to be that large. Many people have "personal" ASNs. Check out this blog (not me, I just remember it from years back): https://blog.thelifeofkenneth.com/2017/11/creating-autonomous-system-for-fun-and.html https://blog.thelifeofkenneth.com/2017/11/creating-autonomou...
- azinman2 1y agoReally interesting post! Thanks for sharing
- Orochikaku 1y agoThe author spoke about this story on my favourite podcast, On The Metal (of Oxide Computer Company) https://onthemetal.transistor.fm/episodes/kenneth-finnegan https://onthemetal.transistor.fm/episodes/kenneth-finnegan
- wildzzz 1y agoI worked an internship where I spent the summer setting up new equipment for a large corp that was replacing everything that AT&T had installed and managed with their own stuff. Nearly every office had their own ASN, everyone else got regular broadband or just a box of aircards depending on the number of users. I knew nothing about networks other than setting up my own consumer router at home so it was a pretty fun learning experience. I always got a smile on my face when I finally got vRouter to peer with our dummy AS in the office then we'd pack it all up and bring it out for installation over the weekend. I got offered a job to come back after I graduated but turned it down for something that paid better and was a lot more interesting. Honestly, I probably would be making more money as a network engineer now if I stuck with it.
- heraldgeezer 1y agoThe world is kinda screaming for experienced networking engineers ye
- Bluecobra 1y agoYou don’t need a large network to participate to BGP. You just need a /24 (IPv4) or /48 (IPv6) allocation, AS number, and a business class Internet connection that can do BGP. Might be out of reach for most hobbyists but not impossible.
- icedchai 1y agoYou don't even need a business class connection. You can do BGP over a tunnel to a VPS or colo.
- Hikikomori 1y agoNot really, you can learn it just fine with simulators and a few routers. Designing and operating BGP in a large network is another thing though.