HE.net BGP origin attribute rewriting

Thu May 31 17:06:46 UTC 2012

On (2012-05-31 08:46 -0700), David Barak wrote:

> On what precisely do you base the idea that a mandatory transitive attribute of a BGP prefix is a "purely advisory flag which has no real meaning"?  I encourage you to reconsider that opinion - it's actually a useful attribute, much the way that MED is a useful attribute.  Many providers re-write MED, and apparently some re-write ORIGIN.  Neither of those is "network abuse" - it's more accurately described as "network routing policy."  As has been stated here before: your network, your rules.

When provider rewrites MED, they do it, because they don't want peer to
cause them to cold-potato, to which they may have compelling reason.
Then some clever people realise they forgot to rewrite origin, working
around the implicit agreement you had with them.

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