SAIX BGP Policy

Basic requirements

Customer must have a BGP ASN(Autonomous System Number) number allocated by ARIN, RIPE, APNIC or Afrinic.
Customer's router must be BGP capable.
Customer must have IP blocks allocated by ARIN, RIPE, APNIC or Afrinic.
Customer must aggregate their IP blocks as much as possible.

SAIX Default BGP Configuration

The SAIX default BGP configuration will be configured as follows:

BGP peer will be established to the customers ASN.
An IP address filter will be setup to only allow the customer to send IP addresses belonging to the customer. If a customer obtains another range of IP addresses the customer will have to inform SAIX to update this IP address filter before they are accepted.
SAIX will updated its relevant peers filters to ensure that the clients IP addresses are propagated to all local and international peers*. This process may take up to 72 working hours.
SAIX will accept a block no smaller that a /24. If a customer has a /16 address block and wishes to split the block up if the IP address filter was setup to accept a /16 the smaller blocks will also be accepted as long as they are not smaller that a /24.
A customer may request the BGP session to be password protected. If no such request is received the BGP session will not be password protected.
* This may differ in customers who have only purchased a national only service.

BGP MED (Multi Exit Discriminator)/AS Path Prepend

SAIX accept MED for path selection.
SAIX accept AS path prepend for path selection.

Input Community (Sent by customer to SAIX)

To use this feature a client must request that SAIX implement this on the BGP session as by default this feature is not enabled.

SAIX accept multiple communities for IP blocks. Communities are categorized into 2 levels. Level 1 and Level 2 communities.

Level 1 Community

The Level 1 community is used to determine how the IP Block is advertised to other SAIX Peers, like other customers, local peering and international peering.

This community is MANDATORY and should always be present on any IP block that is advertised to SAIX. If the Level 1 community is NOT set the default behavior on the SAIX router will be to advertise this IP block to every client and peer SAIX have which is the same as setting community 5713:100*. The table below indicates which Level 1 communities can be sent by the client and what they are used for.

* This may differ in customers who have only purchased a national only service.

Community	Purpose
5713:100	Advertise IP Block to everyone (International Peers, Local Peers and SAIX customers).
5713:200	Advertise IP Block to Local Peers and SAIX customers.
5713:300	Not exported out of the SAIX ASN.

NOTE: Only ONE Level 1 community should be set on an IP block however if TWO or MORE Level 1 communities are set the top most community setting will be set. Example if you set TWO Level 1 communities like 5713:100 and 5713:200 on an IP block the 5713:100 setting will be applied on the SAIX router.

Level 2 Community

The Level 2 community is used to determine if an IP block should NOT be advertised to a certain SAIX BGP Peer. The setting of the Level 2 community is NOT MANDATORY. The table below indicates which Level 2 communities can be sent by the client and what they are used for.

Community	Purpose
5713:1001	Will not advertise IP block to SAIX Google Cache (see table "5713:1001 Usage" below for explanation)

NOTE: A Level 2 community has no relevance with a Level 1 community set to 5713:300.

5713:1001 Usage
For users on the SAIX network to be served by the SAIX Google Cache segment the following is required: 1.The Internet IP address of the end user must be advertised via BGP to the SAIX Google Cache. (By default SAIX will advertise all clients routes to the SAIX Google Cache) 2.The Internet IP address of the DNS resolver the client is using must be advertised via BGP to the SAIX Google Cache. (By default SAIX will advertise all clients routes to the SAIX Google Cache) If either of these Internet IP addresses are not advertised via BGP to the SAIX Google Cache the request will be served outside of the SAIX Google Cache. The SAIX Google Cache uses the routes it learns via the BGP session only as a mechanism to communicate the list of users that should be served from a node and not for routing purposes. If you require that the SAIX Google Cache not serve you or your users, you will need to set the 5713:1001 community on either your "end user" or your "DNS resolver's" IP addresses that your users are using. You can also set the 5713:1001 community for both of these IP addresses to achieve the not serving of your users from the SAIX Google Cache. Once the community is set SAIX will no longer advertise these IP addresses to the SAIX Google Cache which will result in the users not been served from the SAIX Google Cache. Note this process from setting the community on an IP address to not been served by the SAIX Google Cache is not immediate and may take some time to take effect.

5713:1001 Usage

For users on the SAIX network to be served by the SAIX Google Cache segment the following is required:

1.The Internet IP address of the end user must be advertised via BGP to the SAIX Google Cache. (By default SAIX will advertise all clients routes to the SAIX Google Cache)

2.The Internet IP address of the DNS resolver the client is using must be advertised via BGP to the SAIX Google Cache. (By default SAIX will advertise all clients routes to the SAIX Google Cache) If either of these Internet IP addresses are not advertised via BGP to the SAIX Google Cache the request will be served outside of the SAIX Google Cache. The SAIX Google Cache uses the routes it learns via the BGP session only as a mechanism to communicate the list of users that should be served from a node and not for routing purposes.

If you require that the SAIX Google Cache not serve you or your users, you will need to set the 5713:1001 community on either your "end user" or your "DNS resolver's" IP addresses that your users are using. You can also set the 5713:1001 community for both of these IP addresses to achieve the not serving of your users from the SAIX Google Cache. Once the community is set SAIX will no longer advertise these IP addresses to the SAIX Google Cache which will result in the users not been served from the SAIX Google Cache. Note this process from setting the community on an IP address to not been served by the SAIX Google Cache is not immediate and may take some time to take effect.

Output Community (Sent by SAIX to customer)

To use this feature a client must request that SAIX implement this on the BGP session as by default this feature is not enabled. This feature is only supported on BGP sessions that take a full internet routing table feed from SAIX**.

SAIX can mark IP blocks to help a customer determine if a route is a local or international route. The table below indicates the communities that SAIX will mark IP blocks sent to a client.

** Not available to clients who have a national only service.

Community	Purpose
5713:777	Routes received from an International Peer.
	IP blocks with no community set indicates a route was not received by an International Peer.

Route Server

SAIX has a route server which allows clients to view relevant routing/BGP information from a SAIX router perspective. To access the route server a telnet session needs to be opened to tpr-route-server.saix.net the login information is located in the banner.

[Home] [Business] [Support] [Network] [Entertainment]