Take a look at http://moo.cmcl.cs.cmu.edu/~dwendlan/routing/ http://moo.cmcl.cs.cmu.edu/~dwendlan/routing/ (slow to load, but it does load) - he covers a good n

Take a look at http://moo.cmcl.cs.cmu.edu/~dwendlan/routing/ http://moo.cmcl.cs.cmu.edu/~dwendlan/routing/ (slow to load, but it does load) - he covers a good number of the security aspects around a distributed routing protocol like BGP. Network engineers tend to be big fans of simplicity - enabling security options like md5 passwords was like pulling teeth until a few years ago . This is partially because it quickly becomes difficult to keep track of what password is used where, and the netengs like their excel files to be clean and simple. Not sure what my thoughts are on this RPKI thing - taking days to sync the local cache doesn't sound right, altho I'm not fully through the paper, yet. Needing a full copy of the cache to guarantee security in a distributed routing protocol doesn't sound right. And if it is, Cisco's gonna make a small fortune selling memory upgrades... A linux box and a BGP peer won't teach you BGP...it'll provide you with a nice start. This is one of those things that requires battle scars, like solid UNIX admin skills. You have to be running one or more BGP peers for a good period of time to get exposure to what can break and how it should be fixed. Going through CCIE labs will get you closer, but this is definitely one of those things where there's nothing like experience.