How to Run Your Own Autonomous System: BGP Routing with FreeBSD and FRR
By
todsacerdoti
An everything bagel for the brain. Substantive, layered, well-seasoned.
Summary
This technical guide explains how individuals can run their own Autonomous System (AS) on the public internet using FreeBSD. It covers obtaining an AS number and IPv6 prefix through sponsoring LIRs like RIPE, configuring BGP routing with FRR on FreeBSD, setting up GRE/GIF tunnels to distribute prefixes to remote servers, and implementing policy routing to bring globally routable addresses to existing servers with provider-assigned addresses.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledRunning your own Autonomous System on the public internet sounds like something reserved for ISPs and large enterprises. It's not.
With sponsoring LIRs making AS numbers and IPv6 prefixes accessible to individuals, and FreeBSD providing the routing tools to make it work, you can announce your own address space to the Default-Free Zone from a single virtual machine.
This article walks through the complete setup: obtaining resources from RIPE via a sponsoring LIR, configuring a FreeBSD BGP router with FRR, building GRE/GIF tunnels to distribute prefixes to remote servers, and solving the challenge of bringing globally routable addresses to servers that already have provider-assigned addresses.
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