On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 7:02 AM Jon Lewis <jlewis@lewis.org> wrote:
In one of his messages, William complained that the big bad networks are breaking the BGP rules by ignoring as-path length.
To be clear, I don't really care whether you're "breaking the rules." Moreover, if my words suggested that I thought using BGP's local pref capability was "breaking the rules," then either you misunderstood me or I chose my words poorly. What I did say, and stand behind, was that applying local prefs moves BGP's route selection off the _defaults_, and if Centurylink was routing to me based instead on the defaults they'd have made a _good_ route selection instead of a _bad_ one. I do care whether you're routing packets in a reasonable way. When you pick the 10-AS path over the 3-AS path because the 10-AS path arrives from a customer, the odds that you're routing those packets in a _good_ way are very low. I get that a lot of you do that. I'm telling you that when you do, you're doing a _bad_ job. If you think you're justified, well, it's your business. But don't doubt for a second that you've served your customers poorly. And before you suggest that I'm not your customer, let me point out what should be obvious: if none of your paying customers were trying to reach my network, I wouldn't notice which direction you routed my packets, let alone care. It's not about serving me, it's about serving your paying customers. My packets are their packets, and when you send _their_ packets along the scenic route, you have done a bad job. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William Herrin bill@herrin.us https://bill.herrin.us/