Re: Strange practices?

[Andy Davidson]

Hi,

On 7 Jun 2010, at 23:02, Joel M Snyder joel.sny...@opus1.com wrote:

 On 6/7/10 11:51 PM:
 Has anyone ever heard of a multi-homed enterprise not running bgp with 
 either of 2 providers, but instead, each provider statically routes a block 
 to their common customer and also each originates this block in BGP?
 Yes, this is common and works fine. [...] Ugly, but given the vast chalice of 
 despair that is the global BGP table, hardly a drop in the bucket.

Ugly, failover might not work depending on just what is actually configured, 
and there is of course no need to take the full table if you want to do it 
right, with BGP.

It does also marry your network to one provider, which might not suit depending 
on how independent you want to be (what will happen to your pricing with the 
address space incumbent at renew time, or what will happen in the event of 
their commercial failure).

Because something will likely work, does not make it a scalable or sensible 
design.

Just do it right from the start :-)

Andy   

Re: Strange practices?

[Jen Linkova]

Hi,

On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 6:50 AM, Dale Cornman bstym...@gmail.com wrote:
 Has anyone ever heard of a multi-homed enterprise not running bgp with
 either of 2 providers, but instead, each provider statically routes a block
 to their common customer and also each originates this block in BGP?   One
 of the ISP's in this case owns the block and has even provided a letter of
 authorization to the other, allowing them to announce it in BGP as well.
  I had personally never heard of this and am curious if this is a common
 practice

I have seen it quite often. It allows an enterprise to be multihomed
w/o getting PI or PA address space so they are usually pretty happy
with it.

as well as if this would potentially create any problems by 2
 Autonomous Systems both originating the same prefix.

AFAIR  prefixes can be originated by more than one AS so there
shouldn't be any issues.

-- 
SY, Jen Linkova aka Furry

Strange practices?

[Dale Cornman]

Has anyone ever heard of a multi-homed enterprise not running bgp with
either of 2 providers, but instead, each provider statically routes a block
to their common customer and also each originates this block in BGP?   One
of the ISP's in this case owns the block and has even provided a letter of
authorization to the other, allowing them to announce it in BGP as well.
  I had personally never heard of this and am curious if this is a common
practice as well as if this would potentially create any problems by 2
Autonomous Systems both originating the same prefix.

Thanks

-Bill

Re: Strange practices?

[deleskie]

Should work fine.
--Original Message--
From: Dale Cornman
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Strange practices?
Sent: Jun 7, 2010 5:50 PM

Has anyone ever heard of a multi-homed enterprise not running bgp with
either of 2 providers, but instead, each provider statically routes a block
to their common customer and also each originates this block in BGP?   One
of the ISP's in this case owns the block and has even provided a letter of
authorization to the other, allowing them to announce it in BGP as well.
  I had personally never heard of this and am curious if this is a common
practice as well as if this would potentially create any problems by 2
Autonomous Systems both originating the same prefix.

Thanks

-Bill


Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

Re: Strange practices?

[Florian Weimer]

* Dale Cornman:

 I had personally never heard of this and am curious if this is a
 common practice as well as if this would potentially create any
 problems by 2 Autonomous Systems both originating the same prefix.

The 6to4 anycast gateway RFC practically mandates this, and it does
work when you're doing anycast.  But with static routes, you cannot
handle some failure scenarious, and that usually a good reason to stay
away from such setups.  Of course, in the world of real routers, there
might be constraints such lack of memory or processing power to handle
BGP. 8-/

Re: Strange practices?

[Joe Provo]

On Mon, Jun 07, 2010 at 03:50:25PM -0500, Dale Cornman wrote:
 Has anyone ever heard of a multi-homed enterprise not running bgp with
 either of 2 providers, but instead, each provider statically routes a block
 to their common customer and also each originates this block in BGP?   

Yes; tends to happen for clueless endpoints or providers who don't
expressly require BGP for multihoming.`

 One
 of the ISP's in this case owns the block and has even provided a letter of
 authorization to the other, allowing them to announce it in BGP as well.
   I had personally never heard of this and am curious if this is a common
 practice as well as if this would potentially create any problems by 2
 Autonomous Systems both originating the same prefix.

MOAS prefixes are common in some content-origination applications, but 
since you never know what the rest of the universe is going to do in 
their routing  forwarding decisions, is really isn't generally applicable.



-- 
 RSUC / GweepNet / Spunk / FnB / Usenix / SAGE

Re: Strange practices?

[sjk]

Hve seen it a few times -- usually with enterprise customers who are
unable to manage their own routers and one ISP which has problems
configuring BGP on their client facing equipment.


Dale Cornman wrote:
 Has anyone ever heard of a multi-homed enterprise not running bgp with
 either of 2 providers, but instead, each provider statically routes a block
 to their common customer and also each originates this block in BGP?   One
 of the ISP's in this case owns the block and has even provided a letter of
 authorization to the other, allowing them to announce it in BGP as well.
   I had personally never heard of this and am curious if this is a common
 practice as well as if this would potentially create any problems by 2
 Autonomous Systems both originating the same prefix.
 
 Thanks
 
 -Bill

Re: Strange practices?

[Brian Feeny]

I would say partitioning into two AS's like this is not a good thing.  I 
wouldn't consider it a valid design myself, and would avoid it if possible.

If one of the AS's that is announcing the block, originates any traffic into 
the other AS for that block, the traffic will drop.  I realize this ideally 
should not happen, but BGP uses arbitrary metrics, and people turn alot of 
knobs, which makes wierd things happen.

If someone were doing this themselves, I would say at least use a GRE tunnel 
with an iBGP link between the sites, but your not going to get that out of 
these providers, so its going to remain partitioned which should be thought 
through well as there may be issues with this.

Brian

On Jun 7, 2010, at 4:59 PM, Florian Weimer wrote:

 * Dale Cornman:
 
 I had personally never heard of this and am curious if this is a
 common practice as well as if this would potentially create any
 problems by 2 Autonomous Systems both originating the same prefix.
 
 The 6to4 anycast gateway RFC practically mandates this, and it does
 work when you're doing anycast.  But with static routes, you cannot
 handle some failure scenarious, and that usually a good reason to stay
 away from such setups.  Of course, in the world of real routers, there
 might be constraints such lack of memory or processing power to handle
 BGP. 8-/
 

Re: Strange practices?

[Brian Feeny]

Let me recant on what I said.  I re-read and had myself confused (apologies).  
I see that the providers are using their own AS's.  I still would not do this 
if it could be avoided, but the traffic won't be dropped like I had said, in 
the way I was thinking.

What I was thinking was a case where the same AS is announcing from two sites, 
which are not connected via iBGP. In that case default behavior is that the AS 
drops traffic from its own AS as this is how eBGP accomplishes loop prevention.

In the case that is being described this won't happen since each provider is 
using its own AS to announce from.  

Brian

On Jun 7, 2010, at 5:05 PM, Brian Feeny wrote:

 
 I would say partitioning into two AS's like this is not a good thing.  I 
 wouldn't consider it a valid design myself, and would avoid it if possible.
 
 If one of the AS's that is announcing the block, originates any traffic into 
 the other AS for that block, the traffic will drop.  I realize this ideally 
 should not happen, but BGP uses arbitrary metrics, and people turn alot of 
 knobs, which makes wierd things happen.
 
 If someone were doing this themselves, I would say at least use a GRE tunnel 
 with an iBGP link between the sites, but your not going to get that out of 
 these providers, so its going to remain partitioned which should be thought 
 through well as there may be issues with this.
 
 Brian
 
 On Jun 7, 2010, at 4:59 PM, Florian Weimer wrote:
 
 * Dale Cornman:
 
 I had personally never heard of this and am curious if this is a
 common practice as well as if this would potentially create any
 problems by 2 Autonomous Systems both originating the same prefix.
 
 The 6to4 anycast gateway RFC practically mandates this, and it does
 work when you're doing anycast.  But with static routes, you cannot
 handle some failure scenarious, and that usually a good reason to stay
 away from such setups.  Of course, in the world of real routers, there
 might be constraints such lack of memory or processing power to handle
 BGP. 8-/
 
 
 

Re: Strange practices?

[joel jaeggli]

It's going to show inconsistent AS which some people may not like, but 
that's just ugly not broken. As the customer, it means your outgoing 
path selection is probably  being made on the basis of some non-global 
attribute, and the return path is entirely at the mercy of your two isps...


I wouldn't do that becuase the alternatives are better and not exactly a 
lot of work, but will it work? yes.


joel

On 2010-06-07 13:50, Dale Cornman wrote:

Has anyone ever heard of a multi-homed enterprise not running bgp with
either of 2 providers, but instead, each provider statically routes a block
to their common customer and also each originates this block in BGP?   One
of the ISP's in this case owns the block and has even provided a letter of
authorization to the other, allowing them to announce it in BGP as well.
   I had personally never heard of this and am curious if this is a common
practice as well as if this would potentially create any problems by 2
Autonomous Systems both originating the same prefix.

Thanks

-Bill

Re: Strange practices?

[Bill Fehring]

On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 13:50, Dale Cornman bstym...@gmail.com wrote:

 Has anyone ever heard of a multi-homed enterprise not running bgp with
 either of 2 providers, but instead, each provider statically routes a block
 to their common customer and also each originates this block in BGP?   One
 of the ISP's in this case owns the block and has even provided a letter of
 authorization to the other, allowing them to announce it in BGP as well.
  I had personally never heard of this and am curious if this is a common
 practice as well as if this would potentially create any problems by 2
 Autonomous Systems both originating the same prefix.

 Thanks

 -Bill

So if the enterprise loses connectivity to one of these two providers,
does the provider without working connectivity to the enterprise have
mechanism in place to cease originating the address space?

-Bill

RE: Strange practices?

[Murphy, Jay, DOH]

Has anyone ever heard of a multi-homed enterprise not running bgp with
either of 2 providers, but instead, each provider statically routes a block
to their common customer and also each originates this block in BGP?”

As stated before...yes this is a common practice.

One of the ISP's in this case owns the block and has even provided a letter of
authorization to the other, allowing them to announce it in BGP as well.”

Yes, one ISP owns the block, both will aggregate the blocks and announce the 
blocks to the global internet. BGP attributes will shape best path for routing; 
i.e., AS-PATH, ORIGIN, LOCAL PREF. MEDS should take care of leaking routes. 

So, is this design scheme viable? Yes, it is.

~Jay Murphy 
IP Network Specialist
NM State Government
 
IT Services Division
PSB – IP Network Management Center
Santa Fé, New México 87505 
 
We move the information that moves your world. 
“Good engineering demands that we understand what we’re doing and why, keep an 
open mind, and learn from experience.”
“Engineering is about finding the sweet spot between what's solvable and what 
isn't.
   Radia Perlman
 Please consider the environment before printing e-mail


-Original Message-
From: Dale Cornman [mailto:bstym...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 2:50 PM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Strange practices?

Has anyone ever heard of a multi-homed enterprise not running bgp with
either of 2 providers, but instead, each provider statically routes a block
to their common customer and also each originates this block in BGP?   One
of the ISP's in this case owns the block and has even provided a letter of
authorization to the other, allowing them to announce it in BGP as well.
  I had personally never heard of this and am curious if this is a common
practice as well as if this would potentially create any problems by 2
Autonomous Systems both originating the same prefix.

Thanks

-Bill


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sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned 
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Re: Strange practices?

[Steve Bertrand]

On 2010.06.07 17:49, Murphy, Jay, DOH wrote:
 Has anyone ever heard of a multi-homed enterprise not running bgp with
 either of 2 providers, but instead, each provider statically routes a block
 to their common customer and also each originates this block in BGP?�
 
 As stated before...yes this is a common practice.
 
 One of the ISP's in this case owns the block and has even provided a letter 
 of
 authorization to the other, allowing them to announce it in BGP as well.�
 
 Yes, one ISP owns the block, both will aggregate the blocks and announce the 
 blocks to the global internet. BGP attributes will shape best path for 
 routing; i.e., AS-PATH, ORIGIN, LOCAL PREF. MEDS should take care of 
 leaking routes. 
 
 So, is this design scheme viable? Yes, it is.

I understood the OP's question as one of concern. It sounds to me like
one of their ISPs can't/won't/doesn't know how to configure a
client-facing BGP session. I've run into this before, and it was due to
a lack of understanding/clue of how to peer with a multi-homed client
when the client didn't have their own ASN.

If that is the case, then I'd be concerned about situations where the
link goes down, but the advertisement is not removed from their
DFZ-facing sessions, possibly causing a black hole for traffic
transiting that ISP.

The work involved in co-ordinating two ISPs to detect and protect
against this type of situation is far more difficult than just
configuring BGP from the client out (imho).

Steve

RE: Strange practices?

[Murphy, Jay, DOH]

  

So if the enterprise loses connectivity to one of these two providers, does 
the provider without working connectivity to the enterprise have mechanism in 
place to cease originating the address space?

 

Yes, BGP updates.

 

 

~Jay Murphy 
IP Network Specialist
NM State Government

  

IT Services Division

PSB - IP Network Management Center

Santa Fé, New México 87505 

Bus. Ph.: 505.827.2851

We move the information that moves your world. 

Good engineering demands that we understand what we're doing and why, keep an 
open mind, and learn from experience.

Engineering is about finding the sweet spot between what's solvable and what 
isn't.

   Radia Perlman

P Please consider the environment before printing e-mail

 



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use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged 
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sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned 
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image001.jpgimage002.png

RE: Strange practices?

[Joel M Snyder]

On 6/7/10 11:51 PM:

Has anyone ever heard of a multi-homed enterprise not running bgp with
either of 2 providers, but instead, each provider statically routes a block
to their common customer and also each originates this block in BGP?


Yes, this is common and works fine.  We do it with a number of customers 
who want a backup provider but don't want to go to the trouble of 
getting portable address space, an ASN, and so on.  As long as both 
providers have a way of shutting down the advertisement (typically 
because they learn it via BGP) and as long as the customer doesn't try 
to load balance (i.e., treats it as active/passive not true 
active/active), then it's not a bad solution.  Ugly, but given the vast 
chalice of despair that is the global BGP table, hardly a drop in the 
bucket.


jms
--
Joel M Snyder, 1404 East Lind Road, Tucson, AZ, 85719
Senior Partner, Opus One   Phone: +1 520 324 0494
j...@opus1.comhttp://www.opus1.com/jms

Re: Strange practices?

[Steve Bertrand]

On 2010.06.07 18:10, Murphy, Jay, DOH wrote:
 Yes, the customer has an AS number, it's just from the private AS number 
 block, e.g. AS 65000..when the block is routed to the AS running BGP, it is 
 tagged with that ISP's public AS number, and announced to the world in this 
 manner. 

...but the OP stated that he doesn't do any BGP with either upstream,
and instead relies on the upstreams to statically route the block to
him. I was getting at the usage of private-AS in my last post. Perhaps
I'm mis-understanding something.

 Clarify, transiting?

The OP has two 'transit' providers, neither of which he has a BGP
session established. Both of his upstream ISPs provide transit for him
to the wider Internet.

 Do you mean one ISP acts as a transit routing domain for another, or for 
 traffic that traverses this particular ISP, which one?

Traverses. ie. my upstream providers provide 'transit' services for
networks that I advertise to them, however, I don't allow any of my
peers to 'transit' my network.

Steve

Re: Strange practices?

[Steve Bertrand]

On 2010.06.07 17:59, Murphy, Jay, DOH wrote:
   
 
 So if the enterprise loses connectivity to one of these two providers, does 
 the provider without working connectivity to the enterprise have mechanism in 
 place to cease originating the address space?
 
  
 
 Yes, BGP updates.

...again, I'm confused.

BGP updates from where to where? From how I understand the OP's original
question, there is no BGP.

Hence, if one of the providers is statically routing the prefix to an
interface or un-numbered as opposed to an IP address, then blackholing
can occur if IP reachability is broken, but the link-layer is not. Is
this not correct?

Steve

Re: Strange practices?

[Bill Fehring]

On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 14:59, Murphy, Jay, DOH jay.mur...@state.nm.us wrote:
 So if the enterprise loses connectivity to one of these two providers, does 
 the provider without working connectivity to the enterprise have mechanism in 
 place to cease originating the address space?
 Yes, BGP updates.

Um, it wasn't a trick question Jay, and as others have stated, since
the providers are statically routing this address space to their
common customer, this would require a coordinated effort to manually
(or preferably automatically) shutdown the advertisement should
connectivity be lost to the customer.  There are a number of ways that
could be achieved, but it's obviously important that it is.

-Bill

RE: Strange practices?

[Murphy, Jay, DOH]

Steve,

We are obviously interpreting this in different slants.
Definition of Transit service:  for example, AS200 is said to receive transit 
service from, let's say AS3356, if through this connection, AS200 receives 
connectivity to the entire Internet and not only AS3356 and its customers.

Yes I understand the customer is using static, however, some providers use BGP, 
and they use BGP to peer with other ISPs, that's it.

~Jay Murphy 
IP Network Specialist
NM State Government
 
IT Services Division
PSB – IP Network Management Center
Santa Fé, New México 87505 
We move the information that moves your world. 
“Good engineering demands that we understand what we’re doing and why, keep an 
open mind, and learn from experience.”
“Engineering is about finding the sweet spot between what's solvable and what 
isn't.
   Radia Perlman
 Please consider the environment before printing e-mail


-Original Message-
From: Steve Bertrand [mailto:st...@ipv6canada.com] 
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 4:38 PM
To: Murphy, Jay, DOH
Cc: Dale Cornman; nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Strange practices?

On 2010.06.07 17:59, Murphy, Jay, DOH wrote:
   
 
 So if the enterprise loses connectivity to one of these two providers, does 
 the provider without working connectivity to the enterprise have mechanism in 
 place to cease originating the address space?
 
  
 
 Yes, BGP updates.

...again, I'm confused.

BGP updates from where to where? From how I understand the OP's original
question, there is no BGP.

Hence, if one of the providers is statically routing the prefix to an
interface or un-numbered as opposed to an IP address, then blackholing
can occur if IP reachability is broken, but the link-layer is not. Is
this not correct?

Steve


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sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned 
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RE: Strange practices?

[Murphy, Jay, DOH]

Right on...

 

~Jay Murphy 
IP Network Specialist
NM State Government

  

IT Services Division

PSB - IP Network Management Center

Santa Fé, New México 87505 

We move the information that moves your world. 

Good engineering demands that we understand what we're doing and why, keep an 
open mind, and learn from experience.

Engineering is about finding the sweet spot between what's solvable and what 
isn't.

   Radia Perlman

P Please consider the environment before printing e-mail

 

From: d...@hetzel.org [mailto:d...@hetzel.org] On Behalf Of Dorn Hetzel
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 4:41 PM
To: Steve Bertrand
Cc: Murphy, Jay, DOH; nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Strange practices?

 

Perhaps the providers BGP is just being fed from interface anchored static 
routes which will, hopefully, drop out if the customer facing interface goes 
down.  Of course, this is realistic if we're talking about actual circuits like 
a T-1, not so much if we're talking metro ethernet or something...

On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Steve Bertrand st...@ipv6canada.com wrote:

On 2010.06.07 17:59, Murphy, Jay, DOH wrote:


 So if the enterprise loses connectivity to one of these two providers, does 
 the provider without working connectivity to the enterprise have mechanism in 
 place to cease originating the address space?



 Yes, BGP updates.

...again, I'm confused.

BGP updates from where to where? From how I understand the OP's original
question, there is no BGP.

Hence, if one of the providers is statically routing the prefix to an
interface or un-numbered as opposed to an IP address, then blackholing
can occur if IP reachability is broken, but the link-layer is not. Is
this not correct?

Steve

 



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use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged 
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prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of 
Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the 
sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned 
by the Sybari - Antigen Email System. 



image001.png

RE: Strange practices?

[Murphy, Jay, DOH]

Yes, I understand this point. So, elaborate on the answer... I am not making 
something simple, complex, homey.

~Jay Murphy 
IP Network Specialist
NM State Government
 
IT Services Division
PSB – IP Network Management Center
Santa Fé, New México 87505 
We move the information that moves your world. 
“Good engineering demands that we understand what we’re doing and why, keep an 
open mind, and learn from experience.”
“Engineering is about finding the sweet spot between what's solvable and what 
isn't.
   Radia Perlman
 Please consider the environment before printing e-mail


-Original Message-
From: Bill Fehring [mailto:li...@billfehring.com] 
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 4:42 PM
To: Murphy, Jay, DOH
Cc: Dale Cornman; nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Strange practices?

On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 14:59, Murphy, Jay, DOH jay.mur...@state.nm.us wrote:
 So if the enterprise loses connectivity to one of these two providers, does 
 the provider without working connectivity to the enterprise have mechanism in 
 place to cease originating the address space?
 Yes, BGP updates.

Um, it wasn't a trick question Jay, and as others have stated, since
the providers are statically routing this address space to their
common customer, this would require a coordinated effort to manually
(or preferably automatically) shutdown the advertisement should
connectivity be lost to the customer.  There are a number of ways that
could be achieved, but it's obviously important that it is.

-Bill


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use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged 
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Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the 
sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned 
by the Sybari - Antigen Email System. 

Re: Strange practices?

[Steve Bertrand]

On 2010.06.07 18:48, Murphy, Jay, DOH wrote:
 Steve,
 
 We are obviously interpreting this in different slants.

Agreed ;)

 Definition of Transit service:  for example, AS200 is said to receive transit 
 service from, let's say AS3356, if through this connection, AS200 receives 
 connectivity to the entire Internet and not only AS3356 and its customers.

Yes. The OP has transit through two separate ISPs. Neither of which
provide him a BGP session, because one of the providers doesn't seem
willing/capable to do so, even though the ISP who is responsible for the
space has provided the other with an LOA to allow the prefix to
originate from their ASN.

Essentially, the OP is transiting through both ISPs, but not providing
any transit services, and the transit path is provided via static routes
as opposed to dynamic ones.

 Yes I understand the customer is using static, however, some providers use 
 BGP, and they use BGP to peer with other ISPs, 

s/some/real

...and not only for peering, but for transit (to the DFZ) as well.

 that's it.

I have had a couple discussions with people off list. Although I don't
know the reasoning for the OP's ISP's decision to not use BGP, in cases
that I've dealt with this, it is usually due to lack of clue on how to
use private ASs, or BGP in general. These ISPs (in my experience) have
their DFZ-facing sessions set up by their upstreams, and don't have the
knowledge to configure BGP toward the clients.

Personally, if this is the case, then I'd be just as concerned with
their ability to ensure that a proper configuration to auto-detect
failure that causes removal of the prefix from their tables to avoid
blackholes. With that said, I'd also be just as concerned with their BGP
troubleshooting and filtering abilities if they were to offer a session.

Some of the smaller ISPs that fit this bill will actually allow you to
work with them and provide them advice along the way, if not even
contract the client as a consultant to ensure that this new-to-them
setup is documented properly so it can be re-used with other clients.

Also, I'm sure that it would be more work to co-ordinate the efforts for
a static setup like this between two providers than it would be to just
set up BGP. More documentation (and unnecessary static routes too).

Steve