state of the art in router configuration

Tue Jan 22 02:09:37 UTC 2002

Ratul,

> 1. how do most operators configure their bgp (text editor or some
> high-level configuration tool)?

I think this varies a lot depending on the network and the type of
configuration change being made.  Some folks work directly at the
command-line interface (perhaps with some cut-and-paste from previous
configs, especially for boiler-plate stuff), some use GUIs provided by
router vendors for some types of config changes, others use their own
scripts, and still others might use third-party commercial products
like Orchestream or Goldwiretech.

> 2. are there "configuration checkers" out there that would check whether
> an operator has not made a common error while modifying configuration?

For this, you might be interested in the paper

  http://www.research.att.com/~jrex/papers/ieeenet01.ps

that appeared in IEEE Network Magazine in Sept/Oct 2001.  The paper
describes a checker that looks for inconsistencies within and across
routers in an AS, by parsing and analyzing router configuration files.

-- Jen