My house number on the internet
I run my own little corner of the internet: a network called BERIFFANET, with its own number, AS219271. If you've never heard of BGP, the cat who lives in my router box explains it in four pictures. If you run a network yourself, the real numbers are further down, so you can check them.
The internet in four pictures
As told by the cat in my router box, who has heard it all.
Lots of networks
The cat says: The internet isn't one big thing, you know. It's tens of thousands of networks that have agreed where to send things.
Each of those networks is an autonomous system, or AS, with its own number, like a house number on a very long street. Mine is AS219271.
BGP is the gossip
The cat says: Psst. 2a06:9801:f12::/48 lives at AS219271. Pass it on!
Every network tells its neighbours which addresses live with it, and they pass it on to theirs. That's BGP, the internet's gossip, and it's how your packets find their way to my door.
RPKI is the signed note
The cat says: But gossip can be wrong, or made up. So I keep a signed note.
With RPKI, whoever holds some addresses signs a note (a ROA), with a key the registry vouches for, saying which network may announce them. Networks that check it bin the fibs.
An exchange is one big switch
The cat says: And the quickest way to talk is to meet in the middle.
At an internet exchange, lots of networks plug into one big switch and shake hands directly. That's peering: no long way round.
My corner
AS219271 as the rest of the internet sees it, according to RIPEstat and PeeringDB.
AS219271
BERIFFANET
on the internet since 8 July 2026
checked 24 October 2026
The addresses that live here
Four blocks of addresses, IPv6 only, and every one is signed: an RPKI note says they're mine.
How widely it's seen
seen by 152 of 152 RIPE RIS peers: every one of them.
RIPE's route collectors listen to 152 routers around the world that share their whole map of the internet. Each tally mark is one of them that can see my addresses.
Who carries my post
My upstream passes my gossip on to everyone else, and two more neighbours pass it on too. Each card says how many of the 147 paths RIPE heard run through it.
- AS34872 Servperso Systems my upstream, 144 paths
- AS25091 IP-Max passes it on, 2 paths
- AS401753 BIXCE passes it on, 1 path
Four more turn up next to me only where they talk to RIPE's collectors directly, so RIPE can't be sure of them: AS34927, AS37989, AS58057 and AS199854.
Where I shake hands
Six internet exchanges, on the route servers at all six, and in data centres in Amsterdam and Düsseldorf.
BERIFFA-IX, the jetty
BERIFFA-IX Copenhagen is my IPv6 internet exchange. Picture a jetty: one long, shared deck (a Layer-2 network) where networks moor side by side and peer, through the route servers or one to one. Boats tie up by cross-connect, VLAN or tunnel.
How to peer
- On the route servers at one of the six exchanges I'm on? Then you have my routes already.
- Want a session of your own? Ask through PeeringDB or the peering page. The policy is open.
- Filter on AS219271:AS-MAIN and set a max-prefix of 30 for IPv6.
- To moor at BERIFFA-IX itself, ask my NOC: the address is on the peering page.
Check my homework
For network people: the facts above as plain data, and where each one comes from. Asked on 24 October 2026.
- Network
- AS219271, BERIFFANET
- Prefixes
2a0f:6280:b000::/36RPKI valid, ROA max length /482a06:9801:f20::/44RPKI valid, ROA max length /482a0c:b641:910::/44RPKI valid, ROA max length /1282a06:9801:f12::/48RPKI valid, ROA max length /48- Seen by RIS
- IPv6: 152 of 152 full-table peersIPv4: 0 of 163 full-table peers (it announces no IPv4)
- First seen
- 8 July 2026, by RIPE RIS
- Neighbours
- Upstream: AS34872 Servperso Systems, in 144 of 147 pathsOther left neighbours: AS25091 IP-Max (2 paths) and AS401753 BIXCE (1 path)Uncertain, seen only as direct RIS peers: AS34927 iFog-GmbH, AS37989 DCS1PTELTD-AS-AP, AS58057 SECUREBIT and AS199854 ITBYPASSION
- Exchanges
- 4b42 Internet Exchange Point, Zurich, Switzerland: 1 Gbit/s, route serversEVIX, Fremont, United States: 1 Gbit/s, route serversFogIXP, Avers, Switzerland: 1 Gbit/s, route serversKent Internet Exchange Point, Kent, United Kingdom: 10 Gbit/s, route serversLOCIX DUSSELDORF, Dusseldorf, Germany: 1 Gbit/s, route serversProtocol 7 IX - Hong Kong, Hong Kong: 1 Gbit/s, route servers
- Facilities
- Digital Realty AMS17 - AmsterdamWIIT Datacenter DUS1, DUS2, DUS3, DUS4, DUS6, DUS7
- Peering
- Policy open, AS-SET
AS219271:AS-MAIN, max-prefix 30 (IPv6) - Runs on
- BIRD 2 and WireGuard, watched over by BERIFFA-BGP-DASH
Look it up yourself
RIPEstatbgp.toolsbgp.he.netPeeringDB
The calls this page makes when it's built
- announced-prefixes, routing-status, as-overview and asn-neighbours on RIPEstat
- rpki-validation for each of the four prefixes, and as-overview for each neighbour's name
- net, then its netixlan, netfac and ix records, on PeeringDB
If any of them doesn't answer in time, the page keeps the last numbers it had, and their date. It never guesses.
One thing is my reading rather than RIPE's: which neighbour is an upstream. RIPEstat counts the paths each one turns up in, next to me; I call it an upstream when it's in at least a quarter of them. bgp.tools works it out its own way, so it's a good second opinion.