frankonIX IXP Manager

Onboarding – from sign-up to your first route

The process is standard and done in six steps. Three are on your side, three on ours. This page tells you what comes when and from whom – so you always know what is currently being waited on.

Step	What happens	Who
1	Sign-up, allocation of IP addresses and portal access	you → us
2	You report your router MAC address(es) for port security	you
3	We issue the LOA for the data centre	us
4	Turn-up on your side	you
5	Turn-up on our side	us
6	Peering LAN goes live – happy peering!	us

1 · Sign-up and allocation

What you need to bring (see Terms of Service, Section 4):

a valid Autonomous System Number (ASN)
a functioning BGP configuration
valid entries in the RIPE database or an equivalent RIR database
a technical contact reachable within 24 hours
your preferred site and port speed

What you get from us:

your IPv4 and IPv6 address on the peering LAN – these are assigned exclusively by us
access to the IXP Manager, which you use from then on to report and review everything
the site and patch panel position of your port

Do this at the same time: maintain your AS-SET and your prefix limits in PeeringDB. We build your filter lists from them. Without an AS-SET we filter on your ASN alone – anything coming via your downstreams is then dropped. Without prefix limits in PeeringDB the defaults of 250 (IPv4) and 50 (IPv6) apply.

2 · Report your router MAC address

We operate port security. Frames with unregistered MAC addresses are discarded without prior notice – so this step is not a formality, it is what makes your port carry traffic at all later on.

How many addresses you report depends on what you carry over the port:

Your own peering	Exactly one MAC address per physical port, one per group for a LAG. AUP Section 3 paragraphs 1 and 2
As a Reseller or Marketplace participant	Several MAC addresses per port are expressly provided for here – otherwise it would be impossible to carry several End Customers over a single port. The rule is: exactly one router MAC per assigned VLAN, i.e. per End Customer or per service provided. AUP Section 3 paragraph 5 – the deviation from paragraph 1 is expressly deemed agreed there

Report the addresses via the IXP Manager
As a Reseller, report each router MAC before the respective service goes into operation
If an address changes later, tell us in advance – otherwise the affected port or VLAN goes quiet

Basis: AUP Section 3. On VLAN assignment per service see AUP Section 1 paragraph 4 and the Reseller and Marketplace ToS.

3 · LOA for the data centre

We issue you the Letter of Authorization (LOA). It authorises the data centre to build the cross connect to our port. The LOA states our site, the patch panel and the port designation.

You then order the cross connect from the data centre. The data centre bills you for it directly.

4 · Turn-up on your side

You equip your own end of the link only. The optic on our switch is provided by us.

Transceiver	matching the agreed type, single-mode only – supported types
Auto-negotiation	off, set speed and duplex explicitly
Handover	untagged
MTU	`1500`
On the port	IPv4, ARP and IPv6 only. No spanning tree, no discovery protocols, no DHCP server, no router advertisements

5 · Turn-up on our side

We fit our switch port, add your MAC address to port security and check that the link comes up cleanly.

If the link does not come up, in our experience the cause is either a non-matching transceiver on your side or a fibre in the data centre that is not yet complete. We will work through both with you.

6 · Peering LAN goes live

We enable your port on the peering LAN. From that moment you can bring up your BGP sessions.

Please peer with all three route servers – three sessions per address family is the normal state. That is what keeps your connectivity up throughout our maintenance work.

Addresses, filtering rules and communities: Route Servers & RPKI
Ready-to-use snippets for Junos, Arista, Cisco, BIRD, FRR, VyOS and OpenBGPD: Configuration Examples

Happy peering! As a final check, look in the looking glass to see whether your prefixes arrive on all three route servers. If something is missing, the reason is attached as a 214591:1101:* community.

Checklist

Done before turn-up?	Step
ASN, RIR entries and 24/7 contact reported	1
AS-SET and prefix limits maintained in PeeringDB	1
ROAs created for all announced prefixes	1
Router MAC recorded in the IXP Manager – as a Reseller, one per VLAN	2
Cross connect ordered on the basis of the LOA	3
Matching single-mode transceiver fitted	4
Auto-negotiation off, untagged handover	4
Six BGP sessions configured (3× IPv4, 3× IPv6)	6

Questions about any of the steps? Support & Contact