Currently Used Terminology in Global Routing Operations

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction

The practical operation of the global routing ecosystem entails a divers set of interacting components, while operational practice evolved over time. In that time, terms emerged, disappeared, and sometimes changed their meaning.¶

To aid operators and implementers in reading contemporary drafts, this document provides an overview of terms and abbreviations used in the global routing operations community.¶

2. Scope of the Document

This document is explicitly descriptive, i.e., provides a collection of terms that are currently being used along with the context and definitions with which their use was observed. It is not an authoritative source of terminology, and only provides a snapshot of how certain terms have been used at the time of publication. As such, any terms and summaries in this document are subject to change.¶

3. Definitions and Acronyms

The following terms are used in this document:¶

ACL:

Access Control List¶

ASN:

Autonomous System Number¶

DFZ:

Default Free Zone¶

GRT:

Global Routing Table¶

IRR:

Internet Routing Registry¶

IXP:

Internet Exchange Point¶

LIR:

Local Internet Registry¶

NLRI:

Network Layer Reachability Information¶

OTC:

Only To Customer BGP Attribute¶

PMTUD:

Path MTU Discovery¶

uRPF:

Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding¶

In addition to the list above, the following terms are used with a specific meaning.¶

BGP Speaker:

A device exchanging routes with other BGP speakers using the BGP protocol¶

BGP Neighbor:

Also just 'Neighbor'. Two BGP speakers that communicate using the BGP protocols are neighbors.¶

Cone:

The set of ASes who are either direct downstreams of an AS, or in the cone of any of those ASes; Depending on the context this also includes the joint set of prefixes that may be originated by ASes in a cone.¶

Downstream:

In a direct relationship between two ASes the one receiving upstream from the other. (See: [RFC9234], also known as the customer in a customer-provider relationship.)¶

Exporting a Prefix:

Advertising a prefix to a neighbor.¶

Full Table:

A routing table containing a route to all prefixes in the GRT but not the default route.¶

Importing a Prefix:

Accepting a prefix advertised by a neighbor and considering it for route selection and import into the local AS' routing table.¶

Network edge:

Last routers under the control of an operator.¶

Mutual Transit:

When two directly connected ASes both advertise a BGP fulltable to each other. (See: [I-D.ietf-sidrops-aspa-verification])¶

Upstream:

In a direct relationship between two ASes the one providing upstream to the other. (See: [RFC9234], also known as the provider in a customer-provider relationship.)¶

Operator:

Individual, group of people, or organizational unit responsible for operating BGP speakers, i.e., making administrative changes, as well as defining and setting policies for all BGP speakers within an organization.¶

Originating a Prefix:

Advertising a prefix with an empty AS-Path.¶

Peer:

Two directly connected ASes who only advertise routes they originate or learned from their downstreams to each other. (See: [RFC9234])¶

Providing Transit:

Forwarding packets destined for addresses in an advertised prefix, while advertising a full BGP table or default route to the neighbor.¶

Providing Upstream:

See: Providing Transit¶

Router:

In this document, router always refers to a BGP speaker.¶

4. IANA Considerations

This document does not require any IANA actions.¶

5. Security Considerations

This document describes currently used terminology and does not make recommendations. As such, it does not have security considerations.¶

Acknowledgements

This document is based on [RFC7454] and we thank the original authors for their work.¶

We thank the following people for reviewing this draft and suggesting changes:¶

• Gert Doerring¶
• Jeff Haas¶
• Nick Hilliard¶
• Geng Nan¶
• Martin Pels¶
• Job Snijders¶
• Berislav Todorovic¶

Author's Address