Re: Routing protocols, Internet vs Enterprises

I used to be able to go one better. I had a fluke optiview just sitting on the network attached to a gig port with all the snmp community strings for the switches and routers in it. If someone did something stupid I could trace down to what port of what switch they were sitting on and just shut it off.

Geoff

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Mellander <jmellander@xxxxxxx>

Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:38:26
To:gjgowey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc:Petter Bruland <pbruland@xxxxxxxxx>, listbounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "itsec.info" <itsec.info@xxxxxxxxx>, security-basics@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Routing protocols, Internet vs Enterprises


gjgowey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
With companies one of the first questions that I think some people forget to ask is if a routing protocol is really necessary for the network topology that they have. Routing protocols are only really useful for when you have multiple paths out of your particular subnet. If you only have one path out then using any routing protocol is needless.

That may seem like common sense, but I used to work for one large employer who, because the network admins weren't too bright about routing, used ospf on every router they had to link all their buildings. Even though each router only had a single T1 connecting it directly to the core router at the noc and that router had a direct 10/100 link to the upstream providers router. I'd tell more, but I think some people here would think I was bullshitting.

Geoff


Even in a situation as you describe, using a routing protocol is not
entirely without benefit. For instance, suppose a miscreant host is
spewing spam to the internal network, and the internet. We could log
into the router closest to the host and put a host-level null route in
place, thus confining the hosts miscreant activity to its broadcast
domain. If a routing protocol (OSPF, even RIP) is in place, the routing
update can be made to a central router, which will then propagate it -
which would likely make such activities easier to script, and manage.


--
Jim Mellander
Incident Response Manager
Computer Protection Program
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
(510) 486-7204

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