BGPlay is a Java application which displays animated graphs of the
routing activity of a certain prefix within a specified time interval.
Its graphical nature makes it much easier to understand how BGP updates
affect the routing of a specific prefix than by analyzing the updates
themselves.
The routing data are taken directly from the RIS database (in the
future they will also be obtained from the Oregon Route Views project).
To use BGPlay, you need to have the Java plugin (version 1.4 or later)
installed in your browser. If you don't have it, you can download
it here.
To start BGPlay, press the button above or click here. If the Java plugin is properly
installed, a query window will appear. Enter the prefix you wish
to monitor, enter the time interval and select the data sources
you wish to use, then press OK.
Note: the prefix you enter must be an exact match. More or less
specific prefixes will not display anything. To see which prefix
a specific IP address belongs to, you can use
RISwhois
or use the RIS prefix dashboard:
(enter IP address or prefix)
When you start BGPlay, a query window will appear. Enter the prefix
you wish to monitor and the time interval. All times are UTC.
Then select the data sources you wish to use and press OK. (Note:
RRC08 and RRC09 are not listed as there are no longer in operation.)
The BGPlay server will then query the RIS database for all updates
to that prefix which occurred in the time interval you specified.
When the query is complete, the animation window will
appear.
The left part of the window contains a purple activity graph which
plots the number of events over time on a logarithmic scale. The
bottom of the graph corresponds to the start of the query interval
and the top of the graph to the end; the small blue triangle
indicates the current time.
The main part of the window contains the AS graph. Each number
represents an AS, and the originating AS is highlighted by
a red circle (if there are multiple origin ASes, they are all
highlighted). You may move ASes around by dragging them with the
mouse. For information about an AS, simply click on it: its name
and description will appear at the top of the window.
ASes that peer with the RIS are displayed in blue.
Each line represents an AS path. Each path starts in the
originating AS and stops in the AS of a RIS peer. There is one
path for every RIS peer which has an entry for the queried prefix
in its routing table.
The dashed lines represent paths
that did not change during the query interval, while the solid
lines represent paths that did change. The paths are drawn in
different colours to ensure that each AS-path from a peer to the
source AS can be unambiguously identified; the colour of the
path itself has no special meaning.
You can use the < step and
step > buttons to move to the
previous and next routing events. For each routing event, BGPlay
displays an animation and updates the AS graph. Information on the
current routing event can be found at the top of the window.
Click on the image for more information on the animation window.
IPv6 support
BGPlay supports both IPv4 and IPv6 queries. All the RRCs
except RRC06 provide IPv6 routing information,
although not all have full IPv6 feeds.
Back-insertion of IPv6 data is now complete, so queries are possible
as far back as three months.
Note:
If BGPlay refuses to accept an IPv6 prefix, it may be due
to the Java plugin caching a stale copy of the BGPlay code. Clear
your browser and Java plugin cache and try again.
Credits
BGPlay was designed and written by the
Computer Networks
Research Group at Roma Tre University. Contributors, in
alphabetical order, are Lorenzo Colitti, Giuseppe Di Battista,
Ilaria De Marinis, Federico Mariani, Maurizio Pizzonia, and
Maurizio Patrignani.
An experimental version of BGPlay intended to be used within an ISP is available and is called iBGPlay.
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