A little context…
The Internet works by IP addresses. No
It doesn’t understand names, only numbers. That’s why it needs a translator that
translator that converts domain names into IP addresses. That translator is called
DNS.
When you type facebook.com and press ENTER,
our computer asks a DNS server which IP address corresponds to the text entered.
corresponds to the text entered. Once your IP address is recognized, an exciting journey through the Internet begins.
exciting journey through the Internet.
Internet is composed of many networks.
An Autonomous System (hereafter AS) is the one in charge of
governing a group of networks that it is in charge of. Packets traveling
between its networks are pushed to their destination by a system that knows at all times what to do with them.
what to do with them at all times.
What happens when a packet wants to travel outside of its autonomous system?
The AS’s exchange
information with which they try to figure out which are the paths to be able to
reach a network that is beyond their control. It’s like getting to know a person through
person through mutual friends. Let’s address the packet to the
AS that has the fewest hops to reach its destination.
The protocol by which these systems communicate is called.
Border Gateway Protocol (hereinafter BGP).
For an AS to make itself known,
must advertise the prefixes of the routes it controls through the BGP protocol.
BGP protocol. If it fails to do so, the rest of
AS’s would not know who to contact to reach those routes.
In addition, BGP allows you to perform
updates to indicate route changes or even the withdrawal of routes that had already been announced.
that had already been announced.
BGP.
### What has happened to Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram?
Last October 14, the AS of Facebook.
in charge of controlling DNS server networks,
the translators that convert domain names into IP addresses,
stopped informing the rest of the systems about the networks it routed.
Then it mistakenly informed the rest of AS that it no longer
AS then mistakenly informed the rest of AS that it no longer had those
networks via a BGP update.
The rest of the AS’s no longer knew to which system to send the BGP queries of the BGP related domains.
Facebook related domain queries,
Whatsapp and Instagram.
That is, when users typed facebook.com in their browser, it tried to ask for the address of facebook.com.
browser it tried to ask for the IP address to which it had to connect to
but their query got nowhere because the routes to the facebook.com had been deleted.
DNS routes to the DNS in charge of resolving it had been deleted.
> Our engineering team discovered that changes in the configuration of the routers that coordinated the
configuration of the routers coordinating the traffic between our data centers has caused the
data centers has caused the incidents that have interrupted communications.
communications. Source
Monitor and prevent with WOCU-Monitoring
It is vitally important to properly monitor both the DNS servers
both DNS servers and the status of BGP connections.
BGP connections. Thanks to this, we can act quickly in situations as critical for a company like this.
critical situations for a company such as this one.
Facebook took hours to
regain global access to its platforms. It was hours thanks to the fact that
they were able to detect in a short time the error that had made them disappear from the
from the Internet. It is crucial for a company to properly monitor its
infrastructure and to have control of DNS resolutions and BGP connections.
BGP connections.
WOCU-Monitoring features
several Monitoring Packs specifically designed to be able to detect at minute zero these errors and act
and act accordingly before it is too late.
Consult the technical data sheet of each one of them:
Why take this risk when you can have everything under control from a single tool?
- Why take this risk when you can have everything under control from a single tool?
- Why take this risk?
Request your demo today and discover how to take control of your infrastructure.
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