Problem

Mon Sep 13 09:38:10 UTC 2004

Hi Nanogers,

A brief introduction before i begin.

I am Abhishek and am doing my masters in Comp Sc. from IT BHU. This is
my first mail to Nanog, which i believe has the most number of network
operators in its list. We have simulated a mini model of the Internet
here in our labs with around 50 dedicated linux machines. We use and
play around with Zebra for routing. I know its a small number to
simulate the 'Internet' but its something that we have just started
off with, and we hope to expand as time flies by. We are now facing a
small problem and i want to know what people, who manage the 'real'
networks do in such cases:

We use a combination of OSPF and ISIS inside the autonomous systems as
the IGPs and BGP4 as the EGP to interconnect the ASes.

I am receiving two BGPv4 routes for a network (some server
announcement) from two of my upstream peers (each of which happens to
be, unfortunately in a different AS). For me both the routes are
similar in preference & hence can install both of them in my
forwarding table to split the traffic across these autonomous systems.
My question is, that is this allowed and is it the right thing to do?
What i mean by this is, that if i install the two routes in my
forwarding table, and i announce just one, then am i not hiding
information about the routes that i am using from my downstream peers?

I take it, that this is a very normal scenario and people on this list
must have seen it many times. How do people deal with this. Do they
install just one route, despite having multiple ways to reach a
network(s).

Thanks,
Abhishek

P.S.
I searched for a group similar to Nanog that caters to South East Asia
and found out about SANOG. Is the group alive? I could see no mail
archives there.

--
Class of 2004
Institute of Technology 
Varanasi -- India