Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the routing protocol for the Internet. Its main role is to exchange reachability information with other BGP systems in order to efficiently direct traffic.
The Catchpoint BGP Monitor allows you to monitor the advertised routes to your announced prefixes (eBGP) from hundreds of autonomous system (AS) peers around the world, which share their full BGP tables with Catchpoint monitoring nodes located around the world. You also have the option to set up BGP Private Peers to monitor routing of traffic within your private networks. Once the data is collected, it is visualized through the BGP route visualization—offering the most intuitive way to understand routing behavior and pinpoint issues quickly and effectively.
Catchpoint collects BGP data from a diverse set of peers to ensure comprehensive visibility into global routing behavior. These sources include:
- RIPE NCC's Routing Information Service (RIS) – a public data source provided by the European Internet Registry, offering real-time route data.
- Route Views Project – a long-standing initiative from the University of Oregon that publishes BGP data every 15 minutes.
- Catchpoint – a private data source where Catchpoint establishes its own BGP connections to derive full routing tables in real time.
BGP Test Use Cases
- Route Hijack Detection: Identify and alert on unauthorized announcements of your prefixes to prevent traffic misdirection or blackholing.
- Prefix Reachability Monitoring: Ensure your advertised prefixes are visible and correctly routed across global BGP peers.
- Private Network Routing Validation: Use BGP Private Peers to verify internal route propagation and detect misconfigurations.
- Path Change & Route Flap Detection: Monitor for frequent BGP path changes or unstable routes that may indicate flapping or misconfigurations.
- BGP Route Visualization: Analyze collected BGP data through visual maps to quickly pinpoint anomalies and routing changes.
BGP Test Results
The BGP Test Smartboard makes it easy to analyze BGP routes by showing how paths change over time, with a visual format that helps you quickly spot issues—just like in the screenshot below.
BGP Test Configuration
Below are the various test settings supported by the BGP test.
BGP Test Properties | |
|---|---|
| Name | A name used to identify this test. |
| Description | Optional additional information about the test |
| Prefix | Defines the advertised IP range to be monitored. (IP address with a netmask range from 8 to 24. e.g. 8.8.8.8/10) |
| Location | The Product/Folder location of this test (read only) |
| Status | Determines whether this test is currently Active or Inactive |
For additional information, please refer to the BGP Monitoring Overview.