Route Origin

The route server will mark all routes with certain BGP Communities to indicate their origin. You can use this information to determine where a certain route has been injected into the SwissIX switching platform. This gives you the option to filter routes learned from the route servers based on geographical location.

Currently we tag the following information:

  • Switch: Indicates at which switch a prefix has been injected into the SwissIX platform. We tag the corresponding edge switch of the port.
    • Example: edge01.zrh1
  • Metro: The metropolitan region corresponding to the switch
    • Example: Zurich
  • Country: The country corresponding to the above (in M49 format)
    • Example: Switzerland
  • Continent: The continent corresponding to the above (in M49 format)
    • Example: Europe

This means that every route you will learn from the route servers will have four (additional) BGP Communities (per community class, e.g. each Standard and Large respectively) attached which will indicate location information.

To avoid ambiguity about the semantics of a certain BGP Community, especially when being present multiple times, we strip all BGP Communities from the range that we use for route origin tagging on import. This is:

  • Standard Communities
    • 65101:*
    • 65102:*
    • 65103:*
    • 65104:*
  • Large Communities
    • 42476:1911:*
    • 42476:1912:*
    • 42476:1913:*
    • 42476:1914:*

Overview

ContinentContinent BGP CommunityCountryCountry BGP CommunityMetroMetro BGP CommunitySwitchSwitch BGP Community



Europe



65104:150
42476:1914:150



Switzerland 🇨🇭



65103:756
42476:1913:756



ZRH (Zurich)



65102:33000
42476:1912:28
edge01.
zrh1
65101:33150
42476:1911:150
edge01.
zrh2
65101:33151
42476:1911:151
edge01.
zrh3
65101:33152
42476:1911:152
edge01.
zrh4
65101:33153
42476:1911:153
edge01.
zrh5
65101:33154
42476:1911:154
edge01.
zrh6
65101:33155
42476:1911:155
edge01.
zrh7
65101:33156
42476:1911:156
Unknown Continent65104:65535
42476:1914:65535
Unknown Country65104:65535
42476:1913:65535
Unknown Metro65102:65535
42476:1912:65535
Unknown Switch65101:65535
42476:1911:65535

Example

A prefix has the following BGP Communities attached to it:

  • 65104:2
  • 42476:1914:150
  • 65103:556
  • 42476:1913:756
  • 65102:33000
  • 42476:1912:28
  • 65101:33150
  • 42476:1911:150

From these BGP Communities you can deduce that this particular prefix has been injected in Europe (65104:150, 42476:1914:150), Switzerland (65103:756, 42476:1913:756) in metro region Zurich (65102:33000, 42476:1912:28) at edge01.zrh1 (65101:33150, 42476:1911:150).