Net Problem

Tonight (between 3:24 and 4:00 am) been part of the world Google can not be reached. All Google servers were inaccessible in Indonesia, difficulties of access they had in California. For us we mainly slept Meanwhile, on other continents do not. It turns out that the reason for the unavailability had nothing to do with Google, but the problems are involuntarily committed 15,000 kilometers away in Indonesia. The guys at CloudFare were investigated the cause and have written an excellent article that explains for the uninitiated.



Internet consists of a cluster of networks called Autonomous Systems (AS). It is a group of IP addresses that have in common a single administrator and policy routing spoofing. Each has its own AS number and a list of IP addresses that belong to him, while the link between the different AS a BGP (Border Gateway Protocol). The system is based on trust, because each network advertised which IP addresses are in their work. Routing then there is nothing but searching for the shortest connection between two autonomous systems, which contain Virna and destination IP.

This morning it was part of the traffic on Google's servers try to shift through the Indonesian ISP you need. This happened because their advertised network IP addresses that were not really part of it. The so-called bad routing has spread, it is also believed that advertising PCCW, which provides connection to the Internet you need (ie the occurrence of leakage route). CloudFlare which is puzzling noticed quickly contacted you need to repair the wrong publication. In a few minutes he was again correct routing and accessible to Google's servers. Affected was between 3-5 percent of Internet users.

The described problem is not an isolated incident, but these problems occur due to the structure of the Internet several times. Recall the problem in 2008, when Pakistan tried to block YouTube in their country and with a corrupt routingom which blocked around the world (in fact, all internet traffic should go on YouTube, diverted to a dead end in Pakistan). Similarly, China predlani for 18 minutes for 15 percent of all Internet traffic sent over their routers - supposedly by mistake. With the current implementation of the Internet will also be repeated and that is the problem. Inaccessibility to services is not enough that someone on the other end of the world in their table entered some numbers wrong, but in doing so can not help anything.