MRT RTDUMP

Synopsis

rtdump [-i input_binary_file] [-o output_ascii_dump_file]

Options

-i binary_data_in_file
Read routes from this binary MRT file, or binray MRT message stream. Using a file name of 'stdin' will read input from standard in.

-o output_ascii_dump_file
Dump ASCII description of MRT routing table to the named file. By default, rtdump writes to standard out.

Description

The rtdump program provides a convenient mechanism for collecing and storing information on routing updates. RTDUMP dumps an ASCII description of its routing table upon reaching an EOF while reading from an input file or stream, or after receing a HUP signal.

The format of the ASCII routing table dumps is:

prefix/mask T:total A:announces W:withdraws; Attributes ; [Attributes ;]*
where total is the total number of time this prefix has been anounced and withdrawn, announces is the total number of times this prefix has been announced, and withdraws is the total number of times the route has been withdrawn. At least one set of Attributes exists for every announced route. Some prefixes may have been announced with several different attributes. The format of Attributes is:
AS_path | Origin | Next_Hop | Local_Pref | Multi_Exit

Click here to see an example of an MRT routing table dump.

RTDUMP is extremely useful for such tasks as collecting HOMEAS information and anyalyzing route flapping. For example, Merit has been monitoring route flapping on the NSFnet by piping the output from the sbgp program into rtdump. Once a week, a cron job runs a perl script that gives the rtdump process a HUP signal and then collects the output.

sbgp -bo stdout | rtdump -i stdin -o /tmp/rt_data

Please see the manual page rtdump(1) for a complete description of the use and features of this program.