My own piece of the Internet: Part 1
blog.escarra.org
I’ve wanted my own Internet address space for a long time. Not “my ISP gave me some statics” space which I’ve had for well over a decade now, but a block that belongs to me, announced into the global routing table by equipment I own, and ideally sitting in the rack in my house. Type the prefix into bgp.tools and see my own ASN sitting there as the origin. How cool! (ok, cool for some, but not most)

From the blog post

obtaining an ARIN ASN and a portable /24 IPv4 block for a home networkI’ve wanted my own Internet address space for a long time. Not “my ISP gave me some statics” space which I’ve had for well over a decade now, but a block that belongs to me, announced into the global routing table by equipment I own, and ideally sitting in the rack in my house. Type the prefix into bgp.tools and see my own ASN sitting there as the origin. How cool! (ok, cool for some, but not most)

  • miaowoo_lw@lemmy.worldEnglish
    57·
    6 hours ago

    Fun writeup. For anyone considering the same route, the ongoing realities after you get the ASN + /24:

    • Recurring costs don’t stop at the block: ARIN annual fee (~$250+/yr for this resource class), transit (a 1Gbps BGP session with a real provider runs $50-300/mo depending on who you know), and either your own router that can carry a full table or a manageable VPS as a looking-glass/export point.
    • Do the RPKI ROA for your prefix the same day it’s assigned, and set up a bgp.tools/PeeringDB presence early — it’s how network ops will decide whether to accept your announcements, and an unfiltered new origin gets caught in route filters fast.
    • Start announcing with conservative communities so you can back out cleanly; and keep the static fallback mentioned in the post because BGP origination outages are silent — the failure mode is “the internet can’t see you,” not an alarm.
    • Also worth noting for most readers: you get 95% of the fun (your own ASN visible in bgp.tools, learning BGP hands-on) by renting a cheap VPS from providers that offer BGP sessions on a /48 or even a /24 you lease monthly. Owning the /24 outright is mainly for the permanence.
    • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      3 hours ago

      Also worth noting for most readers: you get 95% of the fun (your own ASN visible in bgp.tools, learning BGP hands-on) by renting a cheap VPS from providers that offer BGP sessions on a /48 or even a /24 you lease monthly. Owning the /24 outright is mainly for the permanence.

      Isn’t permanence one of the major goals if you start that road at all?

      Cheap fun never lasts.