Recreating a Large-Scale BGP Incident in a Realistic Environment

Abstract

The Internet has become a critical asset for both the economy and the society. Realistic experimentation environments are needed to study and improve the resilience and the stability of the Internet. In this paper, we propose a methodology that allows to: (1) model an Internet-like topology, (2) recreate the model with realistic parameters and conditions, (3) reproduce large-scale incidents, and (4) test various what-if scenarios. As a prood of concept, a valid abstraction of the Europe Internet backbone is created where Network Service Providers (NSP) are connected to each other in various Internet Exchange Points (IXP). This topology is emulated on a Emulab-based testbed. A well-known BGP-route hijacking incident is replayed and studied under hypothetical scenarios of network operators reactions and collaboration. The results of the experiments are then analysed showing the potential value of the proposed methodology.