bgproutes.io: A Next-Generation BGP Data Collection Platform#

Thomas Holterbach, University of Strasbourg (with Thomas Alfroy, Cristel Pelsser)

• Why: RIPE RIS and RouteViews only collect best-path announcements; monitoring hijacks, leaks, and policy behavior needs more, and this platform — running for a year — shows how to get it.
• What: A next-gen BGP collection platform prioritizing accurate real-time/short-term monitoring and perpetual retention (where RIS/RouteViews historically prioritized coverage). After one year it receives data from ~70 contributing networks and, critically, aggregates everything already collected by RIPE RIS, RouteViews, PCH, and CGTF into a single database, then exposes it via API and dashboards.
• How: Three coverage ingredients: (1) automated peering establishment — operators authenticate via PeeringDB and fill in a form to start a session; (2) aggregation of existing collectors; (3) BGP Monitoring Protocol to collect beyond best-path (routes from multiple peers at multiple decision-process stages) — operationally, a small number of BMP sessions already yields a large number of additional vantage points. Every collected route gets RPKI and ASPA validation, with results exposed to users, which makes the platform a live testbed for assessing whether those mechanisms actually work at scale.
• Where applicable: Community infrastructure, partially APNIC Foundation funded; usable by any operator or researcher today (contribute a session, or just consume). Complements rather than replaces RIS/RouteViews.