Internet Society and Oracle release free route filtering checking tool

Oracle's Internet Intelligence division in conjunction with the Internet Society has released the IXP Filter Check tool, designed to avoid data traffic routing horrors such as last year's redirection flub that saw traffic destined for Google go via China Telecom's router in a remote Russian region.

Filtering out invalid and wrong routes between internet-connected networks is a notoriously difficult and error prone process.

To date there has been no way to independently and programmatically verify if internet exchanges correctly filter the routes traffic takes when passing them, Oracle IS's director of internet analysis Doug Madory said.

The Internet Exchange Point (IXP) Filter Check tool uses data provided by backbone operator Packet Clearinghouse. 

It checks on route filtering at nearly 200 internet exchanges around the world, and is a table of metrics as observed in Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) messages collected by Packet Clearinghouse at the IXPs the previous day.

In the table, administrators can see the unique number of network prefix and origin pairs, messages that arrived with invalid Resource Public Key Infrastructure signatures, those without route object registration as well as bogons and those listed on anti-spam organisation Spamhaus's drop lists.

With a single click on individual network prefixes, it's possible to see if they're potentially problematic.

IXP Filter Check aims to prevent the almost monthly internet disruptions in recent times, caused by adverse routing incidents as networks get wrong information as to what direction data should take.

The security iniative is the result of Oracle IS partnering with the Internet Society, and forms part of the latter's Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) project.

It joins other tools designed to avert routing disasters such as the open source BGPAlerter.