[ixpmanager] Automating the boring technical emails found on many IXP mailing lists ...

[Martin J. Levy]

I don't know if I should class this a feature request or just a subject for discussion. (Maybe we can talk about this in Helsinki).

I get (as an end-user of many IXPs) lots of emails from members with the style I've included at the end. We can discuss many aspects of the value of these messages; but they exist. Add to that the classic "We will be taking down our router for maintenance at 23:00 ..." messages and we have useful data; but sometimes its just classed as noise.

I'd like to discuss how a central piece of s/w like IXP Manager could handle these in a more automated manner.

For example:

 1) Use route server filtering to trigger these email's. Does one have to assume IRR updates are always valid?
 2) Use a route announce page (via member login) to list new routes aka the email below.
 3) Use a maintenance page (via member login) to "schedule" a peering connection downtime. Use the route server BGP sessions (and/or ping and/or SNMP) to measure the up/down times.
 4) Use route server BGP session review script to handle max-prefix settings for member sessions. Allow the member to specific their expect max prefixes.

Each of these would generate an email; however ... two optimization can be thought of. A) A digest of events. B) Different levels of information to different per member email addresses.

I'm thinking this could well be useful if there's a way to consolidate IXPs or at least provide some consistently. For example some IXPs mailing lists are full of emails like the one below; but others are not even if the same ISP is connected to various IXPs.

Thoughts?

Martin

> From: John Smith <person at some-backbone-somewhere.net>
> Subject: [Some IXP Somewhere] - new prefixes
> Date: January 1, 1970 00:00:00 AM UTC
> To: mailing-list at some-ixp-somewhere.net
> 
> Dear friends and peers
> 
> We will advertise new customer:
> 
> ASpath 65001 65002
> Prefixes:
> 1.1.1.0/24
> 1.2.3.0/24
> 
> Our AS 65000
> ASset: AS-SOME-BACKBONE-SOMEWHERE
> Our peers 10.0.0.99, 2001:db8:::99
> 
> Please update you filter if necessary.
> 
> Thanks
> John Smith @ Some Backbone Somewhere