🛣️ BGP Route Lookup

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The selected healthy worker peer will originate this network request.
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Examples: 8.8.8.8, 1.1.1.0/24, 2001:4860::/32, 2.16.0.0/13
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🎮
📊
Enter an IP address or network prefix and click "BGP Lookup" to analyze routing paths...
🛣️ Analyzing BGP routing paths...
⚠️ {{ error }}
BGP Routes for: {{ result.target }}
Source: {{ result.routeServer }} | {{ result.routeCount }} route(s) found
🏆 Best Path
AS-PATH:
{{ asn }} →
{{ asn }}: {{ name }}
Next Hop: {{ result.primaryRoute.nextHop }}
Origin: {{ result.primaryRoute.origin }}
Local Preference: {{ result.primaryRoute.localPref }}
MED: {{ result.primaryRoute.med }}
AS-PATH Length: {{ result.primaryRoute.pathLength }}
Route Age: {{ result.primaryRoute.routeAge }}
Communities:
{{ community }}
🛤️ Alternative Paths
Path {{ index + 2 }}
{{ asn }} →
Next Hop: {{ altPath.nextHop }}
Local Pref: {{ altPath.localPref }}
📈 Path Analysis
Total AS Hops: {{ result.pathAnalysis.totalHops }}
Estimated Latency: {{ result.pathAnalysis.estimatedLatency }}ms
Geographic Path: {{ result.pathAnalysis.geographicPath }}
Path Diversity: {{ result.pathAnalysis.pathDiversity }}
⚠️ Potential Issues:
  • {{ issue }}
❌ No BGP routes found for {{ result.target }}
This prefix may not be announced in BGP or may not be visible from the selected route server.
Query Time: {{ result.queryTime }}ms
Route Server: {{ result.routeServer }}
Timestamp: {{ new Date(result.timestamp).toLocaleString() }}
Cache Age: {{ result.cacheAge }}
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ℹ️ About BGP Route Lookup Tool

What BGP Route Lookup Shows

BGP Route Lookup checks how an IP address or CIDR prefix is visible in the global Border Gateway Protocol routing system. BGP is the inter-domain routing protocol used by autonomous systems to exchange reachability information for IP prefixes, including the AS path that reachability information has traversed.

Use this tool when you need to understand which network originates a route, which autonomous systems appear in the path, whether a more-specific prefix is being advertised, or how a selected route collector sees reachability for a destination. It is useful for network operations, incident response, peering validation, and internet routing research.

Primary references: RFC 4271 defines BGP-4, RFC 6793 defines four-octet AS number support, RFC 4632 explains CIDR prefix assignment and aggregation, IANA's AS Numbers registry tracks AS number allocation ranges, and the NRO RIR overview explains how Regional Internet Registries manage IP address space and ASNs.

BGP Routing Use Cases

A BGP route lookup gives a routing-plane view of a target, which is different from DNS, WHOIS, or geolocation data. Common operational uses include:

  • Reachability checks: confirm that a prefix is visible from a public route collector before investigating application-layer failures.
  • Origin validation triage: compare the expected origin ASN with the ASN currently announcing a prefix when investigating possible hijacks or route leaks.
  • Peering and transit troubleshooting: inspect AS_PATH changes after provider migrations, traffic engineering changes, or new BGP sessions.
  • Anycast and CDN analysis: see how a shared service prefix is announced and which upstream networks appear from a selected vantage point.
  • Prefix planning: verify that aggregates and more-specific routes appear as intended during network renumbering or failover drills.

AS Path and Prefix Details

BGP advertises reachability for Network Layer Reachability Information (NLRI), usually shown as IPv4 or IPv6 prefixes such as 203.0.113.0/24 or 2001:db8::/32. Routers choose forwarding entries with longest-prefix match, so a more-specific route can override a broader aggregate in the forwarding table.

  • Origin AS: the rightmost ASN in a normal AS_PATH, representing the autonomous system that originated the route.
  • AS_PATH: the sequence of ASNs a route advertisement has crossed; repeated or unexpected ASNs can indicate prepending, policy, leaks, or unusual transit.
  • NEXT_HOP: the next BGP hop announced for the route from the route collector's perspective, not always the exact packet-level next hop from your network.
  • LOCAL_PREF and MED: policy attributes that can affect route selection inside or between networks, when visible in the selected data source.
  • Communities: operator-defined tags that may describe routing policy, traffic engineering, blackholing, region, or peering behavior.
  • Alternative paths: other visible paths for the same prefix, useful for redundancy checks and route-selection comparisons.

Example Lookups

  • 8.8.8.8: resolves to the covering public DNS service prefix and shows the visible origin and upstream AS path from the selected collector.
  • 1.1.1.0/24: checks a well-known Anycast resolver prefix where paths can differ by collector location and peering policy.
  • 2001:4860::/32: inspects an IPv6 aggregate and verifies that the selected source has IPv6 BGP visibility.
  • 2.16.0.0/13: illustrates a larger routed prefix where more-specific announcements may also exist for traffic engineering.

How to Interpret Results

BGP data is policy-driven. A short AS path is not always the route your traffic uses, and a route visible from one collector may be filtered, preferred, or hidden somewhere else. Treat results as evidence from a specific routing vantage point.

  • Expected origin: compare the origin ASN with RIR, IRR, RPKI, or operator documentation before declaring a route suspicious.
  • More-specific route: if a /24 and a /16 both cover an IPv4 address, the /24 normally wins for forwarding.
  • AS path prepending: repeated ASNs are often intentional traffic engineering rather than a loop.
  • Communities: community values are operator-specific; interpret them with the network's published community guide when available.
  • Route age: a recent update may reflect a real change, a flap, a collector reconnection, or delayed visibility from the source.

Limitations, Security, and Privacy

  • Partial visibility: no public route collector sees every route, every peer, or every policy decision on the internet.
  • Collector perspective: results show what the selected route server or route collector sees, not a guaranteed path from your own ISP.
  • Dynamic routing: routes can be announced, withdrawn, aggregated, filtered, or changed during BGP convergence.
  • Not packet tracing: BGP paths are control-plane data; use traceroute or packet captures when you need hop-by-hop forwarding evidence.
  • Security note: use BGP data to investigate routing anomalies, but confirm hijack or leak claims with multiple sources and authorization.
  • Privacy note: submitted IP addresses and prefixes are sent to the server-side lookup service and may be queried against public routing data sources. Avoid submitting confidential internal ranges, unreleased customer prefixes, or sensitive investigation targets unless that is acceptable for your workflow.

API Usage Example:

POST /api/tools/network/bgp-route-lookup
Content-Type: application/json

{
    "target": "8.8.8.0/24",
    "routeServer": "bgpview",
    "showAlternativePaths": true,
    "showRouteAttributes": true,
    "resolveASNNames": true,
    "showPathLatency": false
}
Ready