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Freedom251 › Blog › BGP

How to Monitor BGP Announcements and Routes with BGPalerter on Ubuntu

By Freedom251 Team · · 10 min read

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BGPalerter monitors the public routing system for your autonomous system (AS), prefixes and routing policy. It can alert when a prefix disappears, a hijack or route leak is suspected, an announcement is RPKI-invalid, a ROA changes or expires, a new prefix appears, or an unexpected AS-path is observed. On Ubuntu, the dependable setup is a Linux binary with config.yml, an ASN-generated prefixes.yml, and a dedicated systemd service.

This is public-route monitoring, not a replacement for inspecting a router’s local BGP session. BGPalerter reads public BGP data repositories directly; monitoring occurs in the application and does not use NTT servers. The guide below shows how to install it, generate a prefix list, configure alerts and retention, run it continuously, test the alert path and monitor BGPalerter itself.

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What BGPalerter monitors

BGPalerter is a self-configuring BGP and RPKI monitoring tool. You give it an ASN and the prefixes that matter, and it evaluates observations from public BGP data repositories. It is useful when you need to know what the Internet sees, rather than only what one of your own routers believes it is advertising.

Events it can report

  • Loss of visibility for a monitored prefix.
  • Possible hijacks and announcements that do not match the expected origin.
  • RPKI-invalid announcements.
  • Announcements for prefixes that are not covered by a Route Origin Authorization (ROA).
  • ROAs that are expiring or unreachable.
  • Trust-anchor malfunctions and ROA changes.
  • Newly announced prefixes.
  • Unexpected upstream or downstream autonomous systems.
  • User-defined AS-path conditions.

Reports can be written to files or sent through email, Kafka, Slack, syslog, chat systems, HTTP push and REST consumers. Select a channel that your operations team actually watches, then keep a local log as the forensic record.

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Public visibility versus a local BGP session

A router’s show commands describe its configured neighbors, received routes and selected paths at that device. BGPalerter instead evaluates observations collected from public routing repositories. A route can be established locally yet absent from some public vantage points, or a public observer can see an unexpected origin that your router does not show. Use both views when diagnosing an incident: the router for session and policy state, and BGPalerter for external visibility.

Prepare an Ubuntu host

The official installation guidance calls for at least 4GB of RAM and enabled swap. Treat that as a service requirement, not a performance promise. Small cloud instances often need swap enabled before BGPalerter starts; verify memory and disk capacity before downloading the binary.

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Keep the application files together

A binary installation normally keeps the executable, config.yml, prefixes.yml and the logs/ directory in one working directory. The examples below use ~/bgpalerter for an initial setup. A production service should later use a dedicated account and a stable path such as /home/bgpalerter.

Install the Linux binary and generate prefixes

The following sequence downloads the current Linux x64 asset and the project’s example configuration, makes the binary executable, generates a prefix list from your ASN and starts BGPalerter:

  1. Create and enter a working directory:

    mkdir -p ~/bgpalerter
    cd ~/bgpalerter
  2. Download the binary and example configuration:

    wget https://github.com/nttgin/BGPalerter/releases/latest/download/bgpalerter-linux-x64
    wget -O config.yml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nttgin/BGPalerter/main/config.yml.example
  3. Allow the executable to run:

    chmod +x bgpalerter-linux-x64
  4. Generate a monitored prefix file for your ASN. Replace YOUR_ASN with the ASN whose public announcements you want to watch:

    ./bgpalerter-linux-x64 generate -a YOUR_ASN -o prefixes.yml -i -m

    The command discovers prefixes announced by that ASN and writes them to prefixes.yml. The interactive flags let you complete the auto-configuration. Review the resulting list before treating it as authoritative: an automatically discovered list reflects what was found at generation time.

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  5. Start the normal process:

    ./bgpalerter-linux-x64

    The first normal launch performs auto-configuration when it is still needed. Keep the configuration, prefix list, executable and logs in the same directory unless you intentionally use the volume option described for Docker deployments.

When to edit the generated prefix list

Use a generated list when the ASN’s advertised set is your intended monitoring scope and you want BGPalerter to refresh it periodically. Use a hand-maintained YAML list when the scope must be tightly controlled, for example when only a subset of an ASN’s announcements is in production. The automatic regeneration setting only applies when one generated list is being used and that list has not been manually edited; manual changes therefore need an explicit maintenance process.

Understand the configuration that controls alerts

config.yml is the central control file. Make a backup before editing it, and validate changes by restarting the service and checking its logs.

Monitored files and logging

The monitoredPrefixesFiles setting points to one or more YAML files containing monitored prefixes. Logging settings specify the log directory, rotation pattern, compression behavior, maximum file size and number of retained files. These controls determine whether an incident remains available for later analysis instead of being lost to an unbounded or short-lived log.

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Set logging.useUTC: true when you want log-entry timestamps in UTC. Event and alert data are reported in UTC regardless, so using UTC for log entries avoids confusion when correlating alerts with routers, ticketing systems and teams in other time zones.

Repeat alerts, deduplication and restart persistence

  • notificationIntervalSeconds controls how often a continuing condition may generate another notification.
  • alertOnlyOnce suppresses repeats and caches alert signatures. It is useful for reducing noise, but make sure operators can still find the original event.
  • persistStatus restores previously sent-alert state after a restart when the .cache/ directory is writable. Without writable cache storage, a restart can change how repeat suppression behaves.
  • generatePrefixListEveryDays can regenerate an automatically generated prefix list. It does not overwrite a manually edited generated list, and it is intended for the case where one generated list is in use.

REST and process-monitor interfaces

The optional REST server listens on localhost port 8011 by default. Keeping the host at localhost limits access to the Ubuntu machine. If you change the host to expose the API, apply firewall rules, authentication and network restrictions appropriate to your environment; do not publish an unauthenticated management endpoint to the Internet.

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Process-monitor modules can provide API or heartbeat checks. For an uptime probe, enable the uptime API and test:

http://127.0.0.1:8011/status

A negative result indicates a configuration problem or failure to connect to the data repository and should page the person responsible for the monitor.

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Run BGPalerter as a systemd service

An interactive shell is suitable for a trial but not for production. A dedicated service account, a fixed working directory and restart policy allow BGPalerter to recover after a process failure or host reboot.

Create the service account and install files

Create a non-login user named bgpalerter, place the executable and configuration under /home/bgpalerter, and ensure that account owns the files and can write the logs and, when enabled, .cache/. Verify the binary is executable before creating the unit.

Use the documented unit

[Unit]
Description=BGPalerter
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=30s
User=bgpalerter
WorkingDirectory=/home/bgpalerter
ExecStart=/home/bgpalerter/bgpalerter-linux-x64

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save the unit as a systemd service file, then reload systemd, enable the service for boot and start it:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable bgpalerter
sudo systemctl start bgpalerter
sudo systemctl status bgpalerter

Restart=on-failure with a 30-second delay is deliberate: it avoids a rapid restart loop while allowing recovery from transient failures. A successful systemctl start is not proof that BGP data is being consumed, so inspect the application logs and, if configured, the status endpoint.

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Choose a deployment pattern

Deployment choice Best fit Operational points
Linux binary Most direct Ubuntu installation Keep the executable, configuration, prefix list and logs together; run under systemd for recovery.
Docker Container-oriented hosts Mount persistent storage at /opt/bgpalerter/volume; use detached mode after configuration is generated.
Source with Node.js and npm Teams that need a source-based build Requires maintaining the Node.js toolchain and following the project’s current release requirements.
Debian package Package-managed environments Build and install the package, then apply the same persistence, logging and health-check practices.

The binary is usually the shortest path on a single Ubuntu host. Docker is reasonable when your organization already standardizes container volumes and restart policies. Source and Debian-package workflows add build or packaging steps that should be documented before an on-call engineer has to recover the service.

Docker-specific details

The stable container pattern mounts a persistent volume at /opt/bgpalerter/volume. Generate configuration interactively first; once the files exist in the volume, run the container detached rather than with interactive mode. If you need an uptime check, expose port 8011, enable the uptime API and probe http://127.0.0.1:8011/status from the host or an authorized monitoring network.

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Test alerts without waiting for an incident

BGPalerter includes a test option that generates fake BGP updates:

./bgpalerter-linux-x64 -t

Use it to exercise reports listening on the hijack channel and confirm that formatting, routing and notifications work. The test validates wiring; it does not prove that a real upstream event will have the same timing or content.

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Test each enabled destination separately where possible. Confirm that a file is created and rotated, email arrives, an HTTP consumer accepts the request and the external incident system displays the expected severity. Stop the test process cleanly and verify that the production service is the process still running afterward.

Monitor the monitor

A running container or process does not demonstrate that BGPalerter is receiving current data. Build health checks around three independent signals:

  • Process state: systemd status or your container supervisor must show the process as running.
  • Application health: query the REST /status endpoint when enabled and alert on a negative result.
  • Fresh evidence: review recent logs and alert delivery, not only a green process state.

The installation documentation specifically warns that a container restart alone does not prove monitoring has recovered. An independent checker should therefore test the application endpoint or heartbeat and notify through a path that does not depend on the BGPalerter process being healthy.

Upgrade safely and account for version changes

The releases page currently shows v2.0.1 as the latest release. The v2.0.0 notes describe breaking changes that matter when upgrading an existing installation: Node.js moved to 22, online RPKI validation and proxy support were removed, configuration version 3 became mandatory, the web server changed from Restify to Express, packaging moved to yao-pkg/pkg, and security patches were applied.

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Download the current release asset rather than assuming an old binary remains compatible. Before replacing a working installation:

  1. Read the release notes for the target version.
  2. Back up config.yml, prefixes.yml, logs and the .cache/ directory when alert persistence matters.
  3. Check configuration-version requirements and update the file before starting the new binary.
  4. Stop the service, replace the executable, preserve ownership and executable permissions, then start it again.
  5. Run systemctl status bgpalerter, inspect startup logs and perform the fake-update test.
  6. Verify the uptime endpoint and at least one real notification destination.

The project documents a weekly upgrade script that downloads the latest binary, compares its -v output, replaces the binary when versions differ and restarts the process. Treat that as an operational pattern to review and adapt, not as an unattended guarantee: pin an approved version, retain a rollback binary and require configuration validation before an automatic restart.

Troubleshoot common failures

The service exits immediately

  • Check that ExecStart points to the actual binary path and that the file has execute permission.
  • Confirm WorkingDirectory contains config.yml and the monitored prefix file.
  • Run sudo systemctl status bgpalerter and inspect the service logs for configuration-version or YAML errors.
  • Verify the bgpalerter user can read configuration files and write logs/ and .cache/ when persistence is enabled.

No prefixes are being watched

Check that monitoredPrefixesFiles points to the generated or hand-maintained YAML file and that the file was created for the intended ASN. If the generated list was edited, automatic regeneration will not treat it as an untouched generated list.

Alerts repeat too often or stop after a restart

Review notificationIntervalSeconds, alertOnlyOnce and persistStatus together. Repeat suppression depends on cached alert signatures; ensure .cache/ is writable and persistent across restarts if you expect prior alert state to survive.

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The status endpoint is negative

Check whether the REST server is enabled and listening on the expected host and port, then inspect logs for inability to connect to the public data repository. A successful TCP connection to port 8011 alone is not sufficient; the endpoint’s negative result is the signal to investigate configuration or repository connectivity.

The host runs out of memory

Recheck the 4GB RAM requirement and enable swap, particularly on a small cloud instance. Do not compensate by silently reducing monitoring scope until you have confirmed whether the host is undersized or another process is consuming memory.

Production checklist

  • Ubuntu host has at least 4GB RAM and swap enabled.
  • Current release and its breaking changes have been reviewed.
  • ASN-generated or deliberately maintained prefix files cover the intended scope.
  • Logs rotate, compress and retain enough history for incident review.
  • Alert intervals and one-time suppression match the response team’s expectations.
  • Cache storage is writable and persistent when alert state must survive restarts.
  • Service runs as the dedicated bgpalerter user under systemd with a 30-second failure restart delay.
  • REST remains localhost-only unless external access is explicitly secured.
  • Fake hijack updates have reached every configured notification channel.
  • An independent check tests process state, application health and fresh monitoring evidence.

With those controls in place, BGPalerter provides a practical external view of your announcements and routes while your router telemetry continues to explain the local BGP session.

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