Routing flaps, was Re: Ping flooding

Fri Jul 12 14:37:50 UTC 1996

At 07:40 AM 7/12/96 -0600, Forrest W. Christian wrote:

>
>However, the world never needs to see this - it's an internal routing 
>issue and when the internal route flaps it shouldn't affect the external 
>routes.
>
>So in summary:
>
>1) Never flap your routes in public.  What you do in your own home is 
>your own business.
>

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that you're missing the point here.

In most larger ISP backbones, the behavior of their IGP is indeed
visible to the public, since in most instances, most of the Internet
traffic relies on the stability of these interior (an esoteric term)
networks. Therefore, whether interior or exterior flap is really of
no relevance in this context.

In smaller ISPs, where not a great deal of public traffic is transiting
their (interior) backbone, granted, it is of lesser importance and
visibility.

- paul