Netviews: Realtime Visualization of Internet Topology Through Peered Vantage Points

1
Netviews Real-time Visualization of Internet
Topology Through Peered Vantage Points

• Ernest McCracken, Dr. Lan Wang
• Networking Research Lab
• http//netlab.cs.memphis.edu
• Computer Science Department
• University of Memphis

2
Routing Introduction
How Internet Routing Works
Bell South (AS6383)?
U. Memphis (AS14048)?
CENIC (AS11422)?
11422, 6383, 14048
6383, 14048
11707, 14048
Road Runner (AS11707)?
UCLA (AS52)?
Level3 (AS3356)?
3356, 11707, 14048
11707, 14048

• Networks run their own routing protocols within
  their organization.
• Boarder Gateway Protocol is used between networks
  to advertise reachable addresses within a network.

3
Visualization Motivation

• Internet Topology mapping and visualization
  attempts to graphically represent Internet
  Architecture.
• Why visualize Internet topology in real-time?
• Monitor reachability of a network.
• Identify anomalous de-peerings.
• Identify route hijacking misconfigurations
  quickly.

4
Case Study Route Hijacking

• Feb. 24 08 Pakistan Telecom hijacks Youtube by
  government order

5
Previous Solutions

• BGPlay
• Track Single prefix dynamics
• Cyclops
• Tracks link life times and birth/deaths by AS.
• Both replay a time period of data that has been
  preprocessed.

6
Route Update Anatomy
Basic unit exchanged by networks to determine how
to route information
7
NetViews Solution

• Overall structure of the NetViews framework.

8
How to Scale?

• Overlay Networking distributes load across the
  client network.
• All clients participate in forwarding data to
  others while keeping data that they are
  interested in.
• Provided by HyperCast API

9
How to display Network locations
Networks are displayed on our map based on
information obtained from WHOIS servers. This
information is then processed by Google Maps to
obtain a latitude and longitude.
10
Client Methodology
Peer's Path Tree
Prefix Look up
ASN Look Up
Tiscali
Topology Map
Sprint
ATT
UWLC
ATT

• Client uses two hash tables for quick lookup of
  paths by IP address and AS number.
• AS Path is stored in a tree structure to save
  space.

11
Customizable Viewing
Size and color based on number of links of each
neighbor.
Size and color based on number of originating
prefixes of each neighbor.
3257 and single hop neighbors
12
Browsing and Searching
Prefixes can be browsed from AS also.
Prefixes and ASN's can be quickly searched.
Path of 66.216.10/24 for each peer vantage point.
13
Internet Backbone
Internet backbone with associated links between
backbone networks are viewable. Visualization is
based on degree of neighbors of each AS.
14
Easy and Intuitive Interface
Wizard style interface provides quick and easy
session creation.
15
Live View
16
Conclusion

• Features
• Real time Visualizing
• Overview of entire AS-Level Internet Topology
• Ability to visualize connectivity of an AS and
  specific prefixes
• Future Work
• Use active traceroute probing to determine Router
  Level topology to visualize physical locations of
  routers and infer internal AS topology.
• Trigger alerts for network operators when
  suspicious activity is detected.
• Give client users the ability to communicate with
  each other.

17
Acknowledgements